8/12/2013

Hej Alle!

I hope that this email finds you all well and happy. :)

We got transfer calls this week. We all know where we will be for the next 6 or so weeks of our lives :) That's happy! Søster Bishop is staying in Aalborg and Søster Hadley from our MTC group will be moving up from Vejle to be her companion. I will be moving down to Vejle to be companions with Søster Orgill and Søster Ripplinger. So, Søster Hadley and I will be switching places! haha The ward members are going to have so much fun with that! I will be in another tri because president says i'm good with working with people. This will be 8 companions in just over 4 months. Crazy! I don't know if i'll ever be in a normal companionship! haha I go down to Vejle Tuesday night.

This week was crazy busy! We had apointments every day this week, multiple a day. We haven't been busy like this for my whole mission! It's great! We haven't had any time to even think! IT has been fantastic. I hope it will be like this in Vejle! We met with Dorte again this week. She is such a strong person with such a great faith in Christ. The problem is that she doesn't think that she could be important as an individual to someone so important and so powerful. She's scared that it's too good to be true. But, i know in our lesson with her she felt God's love for her. Now it's up to her to recognize and accept. We also had lessons with Viktoria and a new investigator named Søren. Our lesson with Viktoria went really well. Søren is a new investigator we got off of a potential sheet. He is perfect! He was so open and so willing to read and to try out Moroni's promise in the last chapter of the Book of Mormon. Sadly, i will no longer be a part of teaching any of these wonderful people. But, there will be more wonderful people waiting for me in Vejle.

On thursday we had our zone training. Amazing, like always. It was all about listening and letting the Holy Ghost be the teacher. It reminded me of a quote given in a talk in the MTC (i can't remember who the original author of the quote was). "The problem with most teachers is that they think they are the teachers". So true! We can talk and talk all we want, but it doesn't do anyone any good unless the spirit is there and we let the spirit have silence so he can talk. It was an amazing conference. 

After conference we went bowling. It was a blast! Although, i did think it was kind of funny that we are all the way in Denmark with so many cool things to see all over the place, and we went bowling. haha But it was good fun. It was kind of strange, though, since we wore jeans to go bowling and we looked and felt like normal people... so strange... haha It was a blast! 

And thus was my week. I hope everyone has a great week this week! Work hard and be happy! Love you all!

Kærlighed,

8/5/2013

Oh boy, what a week! Lots of cool things happened this week and now everyone is coming home from summer vacation so now our schedule is going from empty to full! Yay! Every missionary's dream!

First little miracle of the week: We found gifflars for 2 kroner this week. 2 KRONER! That's unheard of! Usually one bag of gifflars, on sale, is 10 Kroner! I was so excited! Gifflars are a Swedish snack. They are like mini cinamon rolls, except a million times better. They have them in cinamon, chocolate, blueberry and, my favorite, vanilla. I was ecstatic that i could buy 5 bags of gifflars for the price of one. :D

This week we had an appointment with a girl named maria.She is so ready! Last sunday she paid fast offerings because she is not a member yet and wanted to pay tithing in some way. Crazy! She went to Festinord this year(an efy for young adults in the scandanavian countries). She was telling us at this eating appointment that she didn't want to leave because she wanted to feel like that all the time. We told her "you can when you have the gift of the holy ghost!" She really liked the sound of that! And, it gets better. She asked us to bring a Norwegian Book of Mormon. We found out that she wants to give it to a non-member cousin! She's not even a member and she's doing missionary work! The only problem now is that her mother doesn't want us to push her too hard so we can't invite her to baptism yet. Her mother is a member. Gah! But, her mom is a great member missionary. SHe's given us many refferals, so i can't complain. I can see that she just wants her daughter to be ready to accept because she wants her to have it in her life so bad. 

Another cool story is that we found a new investigator totally by accident! We were trying to find a less active's house, but i accidentally read the address wrong. We went to number 10 instead of 27. Kind of a dumb mistake, but totally inspired! They want us to come back and teach them about how we can be with our families forever! It's amazing how guidance comes and we don't even realize it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Thanks for all the letters and emails of support from everyone! 

Kærlighed,

Søster Erin Handley 

7/29/2013

Hej alle!

This week was a pretty crazy week! Sister Christensen was on splits with all the sisters on Jylland and Fyn this week on splits because she is sister training leader.(Jylland is the big part of Denmark that attaches to Germany and Fyn is the island between Jylland and Sjealland, where Copenhagen is) So, that meant that Sister Bishop and i were all alone for a whole week. Agh! On top of that, we had all of two pappointments planned for the whole week. Two! Sister Bishop and i had to start with literally nothing and build up from that. Oh boy was it hard work, but we did it! We had lots of neat experiences too, like when we contacted people in the park and were able to communicate with them. We got turned down every time, but we never gave up :)

One neat experience we had was with a new investigator. The Elders found her and got her as a new investigator, but she is in our area and she is a single woman so it's easier and more practical for us to teach her. I am so glad that we have the oppurtunity to teach her! She is an inspiration to me! This lady has slowly been losing use of her legs over the past year or so because of a surgery gone bad. Now she is in a wheelchair and can't walk more than a couple of steps. You'd think that someone who went from 100% mobility to almost none in such a short amount of time would have a really hard time with it and would be bitter about it, but she is the happiest person i have ever met! Her attitude is that she can't control what's going on, so why worry? And God trusts her to have this trial in her life, so she feels honored that He can use her in her position. All she wants is to be able to help the people around her and she doesn't expect anything back. Amazing! As we sat and talked to her, she basically taught us a lesson instead of the other way around. Her knowledge of the scriptures was amazing and her understanding blew my mind! She was the sweetest lady with the biggest heart. I am so excited because we get to meet with her again tonight. I want to be like her one day and have the amazing attitude that she has.

This week we helped with a wedding. A couple in the ward was divorced a couple of years ago and got re-married on Saturday. We helped get everything ready for the wedding and reception. They had it outside the church under a few pretty white tents. It wasn't a big wedding, but it was absolutely gorgeous! And the ceremony was amazing. It was so cool to see two people who have had such a hard marriage re-commit to each other and to start fresh. They have three beautiful young daughters and now they are all one family together. I don't think i've ever seen a more beautiful sight than seeing them all standing together after the wedding. They got some really cute pictures of all of them after when it had started to rain. They were all under one big umbrella laughing at the rain. It was super smbolic because in Denmark, it is lucky for it to rain on your wedding day because weddings are joyful and if you can laugh and have joy in the rain, you can get through the hard times together. IT was perfect! I wish them the best of luck.

Well, that was my week. I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Kærlighed,

Søster Erin Handley

 To answer your quetsions...

What kinds of food are you eating?

I am eating lots of Danish foods, like pork patties wish gravy, kartofler (potatoes, but they have mini potatoes here. Love them!), amazing hamburgers (they make their buns and pickles fresh, and all of the greens are fresh out of the garden), hotdogs (not like american hot dogs), and yesterday we ate some vietnamese food. So good! The only problem is my skirts that used to be big on me are becoming smaller and smaller... haha Hopefully we can bike in my next area so i can fit into my clothes!

Have you eaten anything you don’t like, like Mexican or sea food?

I've liked most of the stuff we've eaten, actually. Haven't really had any sea food, and the mexican food here is not mexican at all, so i don't think i can really count it haha

Do you have any good stories?

This week while i was helping get the yard for the reception ready, they gave me a flame thrower-like-thing to burn all the weeds inbetween the cracks of the sidewalk. So much fun! They don't worry about fires here because it's so wet, so i went burn crazy! It was great! I can't really think of any other stories right now. We've kind of had to take it a little easy this week because of sister Bishop's back. I'll let you know if i have any crazy stories for you :)

I'm glad the house didn't flood and i hope you don't have any more problems with it! I kind of liked our basement... Good thing we've got great neighbors!

It's been pretty warm here these past couple of weeks. It wouldn't be too bad, but they don't have air conditioners for their houses... so it's miserable. It's in the 80's i would say (it's hard to tell because we don't have a thermometer, and nobody measures in farenheit here). Plus, the humidity is KILLING me! So it's a good thing i bought some summer shirts in missouri!

Thanks for keeping me updated on all that Tooele news! Sounds like everyone's all ready for stock show. Fun! And the Boekwegs really do have a full farm going on! haha I bet Courtney is loving it!

Thanks for all of your support! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Let me know how everything goes with stock show and all of that fun! 

7/22/2013

Hej Alle!

This week has been full of ups and downs with all of us being somewhat sick at some point this week, and my one companion having issues with her back that landed us in the ER so that she can get into the doctor within the next month... got to love socialized medicine haha She's fine, just in pain all the time. We're doing everything we can to help her out and we'll be returning to the doctor soon, hopefully.

Yesterday was quite the miracle day for me. It started out pretty hectic with us trying to help one of the Ædlstre get ready to move on to another area. It's still three weeks from transfer day, but Ælsdte Ludlow from my MTC group got his visa, so the third Ældste from Aalborg is moving to open a new area with him. Yay! Miracle number 1 :) So that took up most of our morning. Then, we got a text that was sent the night before but we didn't receive until that morning that told us that we were supposed to teach gæsteklasse during sunday school. Agh! We had no time to prepare anything at all before church. After sacrament meeting, I went to gæsteklasse with the Ældstre's investigators while Søster Bishop and Christensen went and set up appointments real fast before we taught. I waited and waited for them to come to gæsteklasse, but i realized that they would not be coming when they were 15 minutes late. I had to teach it all by myself, in Danish. AGH! I was terrified out of my mind! So, I asked one of the Ælsdtre to pray that i knew would say a really long prayer. While he prayed out loud i prayed in my heart that Heavenly Father would help me teach this lesson. I told him that i was just going to open my mouth and talk and he would put the words i needed to say in my mouth.  I told him i was putting my trust in him 100%. When the prayer was over, i opened my eyes and looked at the headings of the two lessons we were supposed to cover in the manual. It was the Holy Ghost and Prophets. I just started talking about how we can use the Holy Ghost in our lives and how we listen to the prophets and follow what they say, but we use the Holy Ghost to find out for ourselves that what they say is  true, just like we do in every aspect of our lives. Words kept rolling off my tongue. I asked questions and everyone was participating. All of a sudden, i could understand what they were saying to me! It was amazing! I was in complete awe the whole time. After, one of the investigators told me that my Danish accent was very good and the Ædstre told me that they were very impressed with how it all went. I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who hears our prayers and keeps his promises to us. I couldn't have done that alone, even in English. The gift of tongues is real and i see it every day. As much as i hate it in the moment, i am so grateful that Heavenly Father pushes us to become better and to realize our potential. The decision to go on a mission is the best decision i have ever made. I never would have grown in these ways if i hadn't. I am so grateful for a living prophet who guides us and for our loving Heavenly Father.

My companions never showed up to gæasteklasse, and i found that they had their own little miracle as well. They had found and talked to one of the less actives that had been less active for more than 5 years that had been bullied and had some major emotional trauma from her childhood. She had been terrified to come to church, but they were good friends to her and made her feel at ease.

I hope you all have a fantastic week! Stay strong everyone and remember that Heavenly Father loves you!

Kærlighed,

Søster Erin Handley :)

7/15/2013

Hej Alle!

Oh boy, what a week! So many exciting things happened! A bit up and down, but you can't enjoy the good without the bad.

This week we had zone training. We had media training which was great. The only problem was, the whole thing was in Danish, which would have been fine, but they made me wear the little translation thing so i could hear the English translation, but the guy translating didn't seem to care at all, and just kept saying "Oh, he just said something about faith. That sounds important" or "He just said a funny joke, too bad you wouldn't understand it" Rude! haha So i didn't get a ton out of it. Good thing we did role plays in English.

We got 3 new investigators this week, which was great! The only problem is i think two of them will be dropping us soon because they are muslim... but, I am hopeful for the last one we got :) His name is Ivan and we found him while we were finishing knocking an apartment complex. It was my turn to begin the approach, and as soon as he answered the door, i noticed that both of my companions had completely backed off, and my trainer had hidden behind the door! Ah! So, i did all i know how to do, i bore my testimony. I said a silent prayer in my heart for help. I told him about the Book of Mormon, about what it contains, and the promise that Moroni gives at the end, that if we read it ourselves, and pray to know for ourselves that it is true, we will recieve an answer. Then, i asked him about his faith and if course i couldn't understand a word he said back, so Søster Christensen stepped in to help. But, he said that we could come back and teach him more! :) So exciting! I know that that was the Lord's way of letting me know that i can talk to people and i can teach them about the gospel, as long as i rely on Him.

So, our ward mission leader isn't exactly our biggest fan just because we're sisters. He's hard on the Elders too, but he's definitely on their side and doesn't hide that. So, we decided this week that we weren't going to give him anything to criticize about so he wouldn't have any excuses :) He randomly texted us and asked us how many push-ups, sit-ups and crunches we could do. None of us actually knew for sure, so we all dropped down and did some push ups so we could tell him in the middle of the parking lot. (I'm not going to tell you how many because sadly, with all of these delicious Danish pastries and other foods, my strength is decreasing and my waistline is not haha) Needless to say, we got a lot of weird looks. There were three 20 year old girls that randomly dropped and started doing pushups in the middle of the parking lot. We must have been a sight! Sadly, the text was not for us and H.C. just laughed at us for even trying. Now we know to work on our pushups and situps so next time we will be much more prepared. Next time, H.C., next time...

Well, it was a good week with lots of good experiences. I am learning a lot and growing in many different ways. Thank you to everyone who sent me letters this week. I very much appreciate mail and i will do my best to write back as soon as we get some time on a p-day. Love you all!

Kære,

Søster Erin Handley

7/8/2013

This week was crazy! I feel like i say that every week, but i really mean it when i say it! Wow! So up  and down, but ended on an up note, so that's all that matters :)

So, this week we gained 3 new investigators, but then lost one of them. He wasn't super positive to begin with, so we were kind of expecting it. But, we also know he'll come back. We also lost the less active who we weren't even sure that she was a member. The missionaries before us told her to read D&C before she knew the Book of Mormon was true... Bad idea! She had some big questions and instead of asking us or turning to the Book of Mormon, she turned to the internet and found a site set up just like Mormon.org, but it was all about being an ex-mormon. So, she watched one of those videos and believed every word of it. Stupid anti-mormon stuff... Gah! Oh well. She'll come back once she realizes that she's not happy.

On a happier note, we got an investigator we weren't expecting in church. That was cool! She came with one of her friends and is now investigating. She's very interested and very excited. Thank goodness for members who invite their friends to church!

Søster Bishop and i also had an interesting time. Søster Christensen had to go to a leadership training in Copenhagen, so we were left all by ourselves in Aalborg. Gah! Two Greenies and no trainer! But, it turned out to be a really great two days alone.We only got lost once and found our way back like pros, and we got everything we needed done exactly as planned, with a little extra time for is. :) But, on the second day, all but one of our appointments fell apart, and in the one that didn't, the investigator dropped us! Gah! And no, that was not our fault. He was jus obsessed with money. lame! But, Søs. Bishop and i successfully pulled our schedule together and made appointments all by ourselves! We are basically pros!

So, the last place we stopped on our way home was this little old lady's apartment. It took her forever to open the door, and when she finally did, we discovered that she was ANCIENT! She was all shaky and looked like she was 150 years old! I was afriad she was going to keel over and die right then and there! But, we sort of communicated with her and told her that we were missionaries coming to visit her. She let us in, and we tried to talk to her, but we couldn't understand much of what she siad because she was so old and shaky. We tried as hard as we could to tell her we'd come back later, but all she said was (In Danish, of course)"I hate americans. You can come back when you learn Danish!"That was all we understood from her! haha So, we told her we'd come back when we learn Danish and that God loves her, then we left. haha

Looking back, there were some pretty rough days this week, but it was a great week. Things are starting to pick up for us, and i can feel that something big is just around the corner. It's coming and were ready for it!

I hope everyone has a great week! Work hard this week and remember that the lord loves you, and i do too!

Kærlighed,

Søster Erin Handley

7/1/2013

Hello everyone!

We had quite the crazy week this week! We were all over the place since Søster Christensen is Sister Training Leader for the area. We went on splits, which was fun, and we did lots of service this week.

So, cool splits story. I was in Horsens with Søster Swett and Bartholomew. Søster Bartholomew was in my MTC group, so our Danish is on about the same level, shich means it's basically non-existent haha. We couldn't understand much of what anybody said all day and we were having a difficult time saying anything in Danish. That's just like every day here. Well, we were walking towards home on one of the mai streets of Horsens, when Søster Swett stopped this older couple on the street. She started talking to the wife which left Søs. Bartholomew and i to talk to the husband. This is quite a bit of a problem since our Danish is quite a bit lacking. As he was talking to us, i suddenly realized that i was understanding what he was saying! It was kind of strange to know what he meant by all of the strange words he was saying. I didn't quite understand every little word he said, but i understood what his questions were and what his concerns were. He wasn't sure if God loved him or why he would alow bad things to happen to innocent people. Søs Bartholomew and i were able to assure him that God does love him, and that even though bad things happen to good people, God has a plan for us and loves us because we are His children. He seemed to really like that answer, and i guess we made a good impression because he wanted to make sure we were taken care of and had food and a place to live. He was very relieved to know that the church took care of all that for us.  We left he and his wife with a Book of Mormon and a pass along card, then went on our way. I could not understand a word the next person we talked to said. To me, that was Heavenly Father's way of letting me know that He is aware of my needs, and the needs of everyone around me. He knows exactly what we need at exactly what time. That man needed to hear what we had to say, and i needed to understand it, so that's what happened. It was a really neat experience.

Yesterday, we went around to visit less actives to let them know that the ward is still aware of them and that they are missed. We stopped by one lady's house, and she opened the door, pants-less. Kind of awkward, but whatever. The next less-active we went to visit, same thing! haha It's just normal here, i guess. Kind of funny. At least the second guy was curtious enough to answer the door with his dyna wrapped around him... haha

This week we went to help the bishop out with his yard. He has been so busy that he has not had any time at all to take care of his garden. Søster Bishop and i took a whole section and weeded it all. It looked really nice :) the Elders trimmed the bushes and did more weeding, and Søster Christensen made the cobblestones look nice. We got a lot of work done for him, and his garden is starting to look real nice. We have another appointment with him for next week. Once we were all done with the garden, the bishop said that he had lunch ready for us. In my mind, lunch is sandwiches, salad, something light. Well, in Denmark, that is not the case when you have guests. He had made two big pans of lasagna for the seven of us to eat, with salad and fruit on the side. He wanted us to finish all of it. haha So, we took the challenge to finish the whole thing. We did! It was great! The only problem, was that we had a dinner appointment for 4 hours later... So, we took our bikes out and biked around, then went to our appointments, and then to dinner. We were still stuffed, but these people had the same expectation of us. Gah! They also made a ton of really yummy food. This time it was potaoes and chicken with whiskey sauce. Yum! We ate it all and were stuffed to the piont we could no longer eat anymore. But, this family had dessert for us too. Oh no! haha So, we all had to stuff dessert into our over-stuffed bellies. luckily this time their kids ate the majority of it, and it was a light dessert of fruit and cream. I don't think i've ever been so full in my life!

The ward mission leader in my ward loves peanut butter. So, this week we had a baking contest with the elders and HC was the judge. Of course we made peanut butter cookies with homemade reese's on top :) They were absolutely delicious! We gave some out to some of the less actives and they were all skeptical of my peanut butter at first, but they loved the cookies and wanted the recipe. I am slowly converting the Danes to love peanut butter. That's the first step to getting them to come to church/get baptized I decided. :) So far, it's working! haha

Well, this week was great. I'm learnign a lot and having tons of great experiences. Hope you all have a great week this week! Love you!

Kærlighed,

Søster Handley

P.S. They have 7/11's everywhere here, and, i found this week, THEY SELL REESE'S! :D

This is me and a fleskasteg sandwich, which is pork with the skin left on. The skin is fried and it is delicious, even though it doesn't sound like it.

There are cute streets like that all over and i love taking pictures of them :)