Hej alle! Hvordan har du?
This week has been amazing! I have been blessed in so many amazing ways. My testimony has sky rocketed! I just cant believe all of the wonderful miracles i have witnessed, heard about or been a part of. It is so humbling and awe inspiring. I really have been blessed more than i could ever deserve.
This week i'll start out with the funny stories i want to tell then i'll tell about the spiritual experiences i've had. That way you can hear about how much fun i'm having too :)
So this week we taugh Søren about the Plan of Salvation and the Atonement. We planned our lesson out and executed it really well. We planned out a million scriptures and they all lead to each other and everything fit together perfectly. We were able to answer all of his questions, even when he tried to throw us off track. It went really well. Towards the end when we were teaching about the atonement Søster Rogers had Søren read a scripture. She was trying to say "Hvad synes du?" which means "what is your opinion". Instead, she said "Hvad syndes du?" or "What sin you?" So, she asked him to confess his sins! haha He sat there and looked at her for a minute then asked her to repeat herself. We all realized what she had said and busted up laughing. I dont think we`ll ever mix those two things up again! haha
One day this week we went to the post office to wait for our district leader to get the mail. While we were walking in, an elder held the door open for us. We all said "Tak!" and Søster Rogers told him "Du er super mega fet!" which means super mega cool. The poor elder thought we were calling him super mega fat! haha i guess we'd better be more careful about when we use our Danish in public... haha
Sunday was Cinco De Mayo. Søster Bishop's mom sent her a pinata to celebrate with. It was a cute little lama with creepy eyes. We hung it from a random pipe in the ceiling and got a broom to hit it with. The floss that we used to hang it broke so we played baseball with it to break it. It took about 10 hits to break it open! haha I don't know why we Scandonavian missions had to celebrate Cinco De Mayo, but we had a blast playing baseball with a lama pinata :)
The very first day we got here we got swipe cards that let us get into buildings and that we can buy stuff with. We also got our room keys with them and we all attached them to our swipe cards. If we forget to lock our doors in the morning the MTC workers will come and lock our doors, but once we get back to the residence hall each night we unlock our door and keep it unlocked for the rest of the night. Well, last night we got back from our day and we all wanted to hurry and shower so we wouldn't have to worry about it on P-day. We ran to the showers to make sure we were the first ones in so we didnt have to wait in line. We were all done about the same time and we walked back to our door, but it wouldn't open. We figured that it was all ok since Søster Bishop, the most responsible in our group by far, always had her keys on her. Well, she didnt. Here we all were fresh out of the shower, hair dripping wet in our bathrobes, locked out of our room. We didn't know whether to laugh or to cry! Finally, Søster Hall remembered that we have a phone in the building to call the main office, so she ran and called for us. They had an extra key for us. We were saved! Just kidding. We had to go to them to get the key. Our building is the furthest from the main office on campus. Søster Hall was the only one who brought a real change of clothes with her. The rest of us were in our robes. She couldn't go alone, so we had no idea what we were going to to. Out of the blue our branch president's wife turns the corner to come say hi to us all. She just laughed at all of us then went with Søster Hall to get the key. Never EVER will i leave the room without my key again! haha
Sometimes we'll teach a lesson to one of our teachers as a class. This helps us all with our Danish and our teaching skills and opens our minds to new styles of teaching. We did this a lot this last week, which was very helpful. ONe of the times we did it we were teaching Brother Pullan. We were teaching him about how marriage was essential in our Heavenly Father's plan. Well, during this lesson we learned an interesting fact: the word "gifter" in Danish means two things: Marriage, and poison. There is a slight difference at the end of the word to differenciate. I guess we gave Pullan a whole lesson on how being poisoned was essential to our Heavenly Father's plan of happiness... woops haha
On Saturday we had our very first SYL day (Speak Your Language). We spoke all Danish all day. It lasted until dinner around 7. As a district we did really good! It was really good for us to force ourselves to use what we've learned like that. It makes me feel like i'm almost somewhat fluent, which i know will change once i get to Denmark.
Sunday was fast Sunday so we all fasted for our visas to come and for help learning Danish. We realized that we really only have a week and a half-ish left her at the MTC. Crazy! So we all fasted to learn the language. From Sunday to Monday there was a huge difference in our Danish. It was amazing! We are all doing so much better! Brother Pullan said that he came back on Monday and was surprised at how much better our pronunciation and grammar had gotten. It's especially amazing since we are not allowed to use or study our mission language on Sunday. Miracle right there.
Yesterday my companionship taught Mads (pronounced mass) another lesson. We thought that maybe we finally helped him have faith that God is there and that he answers prayers. The lesson before we got him to pray and he committed to pray and read a few chapters from the Book of Mormon. We felt like maybe it was time to move on. We put together this amazing lesson about the Plan of Salvation with amazing scriptures. For this lesson we were not allowed to bring any of our Danish books with us so we had to write all of our vocabulary by hand. We got it all written out and had everything ready for our lesson on the plan of salvation. We started our lesson with Mads giving a great prayer and we asked him a few questions that were meant to lead him to our lesson. As he was talking, however, we realized that he still didn't quite know that God was there. He felt that prayer was pointless and unecessary if God wasn't even going to listen. That was not where this lesson was supposed to go. At all. Now we were completely unprepared scripturally, mentally and vocabularly(I don't even know if that's a word). We started asking him what he may be confused about and what concerns he had about it all. For the first time as a companionship we worked flawlessly through the lesson. While Søster Hall was talking to Mads about the Holy Ghost, Søster Rogers and i were finding scriptures. Luckily Søster Rogers had brought her English set with her so we could find a few. We all took turns telling Mads how we felt the Holy Ghost. His next concern was about faith. He didnt quite understand the concept. Now, i know there are many scriptures all over the place that explain faith and how to recieve it, but i was never good at remembering them. All of a sudden in my mind a scripture and it's reference came to mind. I found it in my Danish scriptures and had Søster Rogers pull it up in her English scriptures to verify which scripture it was. It was Ether 12:6 talking about how faith is things which are hoped for and how one can not have faith until after the trial of their faith. Verse 4 above it talks about how you first have to have hope to be able to gain faith. It was perfect! We had him read it. As he read it, the spirit was so strong. It hit all of us like a tidal wave. He looked up and asked another question and i was able to explain it, in Danish. Words that i had only ever heard or maybe had defined for me once were flowing into my head. It was a simple testimony, but it was in Danish and i answered his questions. In the moment i didn't realize what was happening, but when i was done they were all watching me. Then it hit. You see, i have had a very hard time speaking the language. I can understand, for the most part, what people say and i can write it very well, but for some reason i can not speak it. I could see it in Bro Pullan's eyes that he was proud. It really was a miracle in every sense of the word and I did not do it alone. After we closed and left, brother Pullan pulled us aside and told us that that was our best lesson ever. His voice cracked as he talked to us.
After that lesson it is not so intimidating for me to go to Denmark and speak Danish. I know i have the Lord on my side and he will help me say exactly what i need to say. My Danish is improving so much each day, especially after yesterday. I am so SO grateful for this gospel and for the gift of tongues. I can not do this alone and i know i will never ever have to. I am so humbled to have had the many wonderful experiences i have had. There are not words, in English or Danish, that can describe how i feel and how amazing this gospel is. Thank you, everyone, for your prayers and your support. I can feel them helping me along every day. I love you all and i think of you often.
Jeg elsker jer!
kærlighed,
Søster Erin Handley :)
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