Twenty Years Old

I am 20, woohoo!!! Søster Hadley was awesome and really made the day wonderful - she made me breakfast, told everyone in the ward it was my birthday, and told me 20 things that she loves about me! It was so sweet. :) 

Some really cute cakes a member made for my birthday!

We also finished the evening by watching Ephraim's Rescue, which was awesome! Or at least awesome to a sister missionary! ;) But it really was good, and if you have the chance to see it I definitely recommend it.

Me opening my birthday package!

Wow! It sounds like you get to end the time in Rapid City pretty stress free. I bet the house looks amazing. Remember when we moved in and it had a beautiful blue carpet from the 70's? Ahh, those were the days!'

Well I hope you get the chance to eat at Armadillo's one last time too! 

A birthday tea that the sweetest lady, T, put on for me.

My week has been lovely! From Monday evening to Wednesday morning we had Søster Briscoe visiting while she waited for her new companion to get to Denmark. Søster Briscoe is an amazing missionary! She is really good at talking to people and making it look effortless - and helping them feel the love of Jesus Christ right on the spot. 

She said something that really stood out to me - that she has learned to love people for who they are and not what they do. I am working on that because I know it will help me love our investigators and the people we work with even more - because we're all imperfect, and no one lives up to their full potential or their best self all of the time. But that doesn't mean we aren't worth loving! And Heavenly Father definitely loves all of us for who we are not what we do - because He definitely knows what we are capable of, and that we frequently fall short, but He is always willing to encircle us in the arms of His love. 

On Tuesday I went out contacting with Søster Ripa! It was the one day it rained last week, so that was a nice welcome to Denmark for the new missionaries. ;)

We also met with E for the first time, who is the lady that called us a few weeks ago and asked if she could meet with us. It was awesome! she asked so many questions and is so sincere. She has a lot of faith in God and is very good at hearing His voice and following the guidance she receives. It was very interesting, because maybe 9 or 10 months ago, she had heard a lot about the church (because she was dating a member) and prayed to God to ask if she should join the church - but her answer was that it wasn't what her heart wanted, so she shouldn't do it. Now, she is looking into the church because she is interested for herself and not because of anyone else, and I think that this will be different because she is sincere about it.

Yesterday night we had a really sweet moment! We have been stopping by people on their birthday, and giving less-active women birthday cards from the Relief Society. We had a card for someone named L, so we stopped by her house - turns out that it was actually a man, and his name is L! He is from the US but served a mission in Denmark and married a Danish woman. Søster Hadley did a good job of hiding the card away in her bag without him noticing, and then we wished him a happy birthday and started to talk a little bit. He hasn't been active in church in a really long time and he said he thinks the Lord doesn't need someone like him. But he let us make a return appointment and we are really excited to help him feel the happiness of the gospel again! 

Copenhagen is sunny and clothes free! Hahaha now that the sun is out and it's getting pretty hot, people don't wear as much clothes as they once did. But don't worry, Søster Hadley and I are keepin' it modest and stylishly sister missionary every single day. :)

A crazy cheeta-print slug!

It's really fun though, because I haven't seen the night sky in a few weeks at least! The sun rises a LONG time before we wake up, and sets after we go to bed. It's light enough outside at 10:30 to be like 5:30 in the evening instead. Isn't that strange? 

And I don't think I've ever ridden a pink bike, but I am still riding the good ol' bike I bought in Aalborg after I ruined the other 2 I tried using! Maybe it just looks pink in pictures. But it's white and kind of dirty! Our p-day today is a little crazy because it's Second Pentacost Day which means that most places (stores and libraries) are closed, and we're taking an essentials pday so we can go to the temple. 

But we're going to do some service at H's house, (a less-active woman) and go with the elders to an appointment later this evening. 

And this week we have a zone conference! I'm really excited about that!! We're also going to hopefully be meeting with a few really positive potential investigators - we're seriously on the edge of some really great miracles! 

Unfortunately on Saturday G told us she doesn't want to investigate the church as seriously as she did because she doesn't feel like she can follow the rules, but we're going to keep meeting with her once in a while and try to help her see that the rules aren't confining - they are freeing! And you just have to give it a chance. 

Sister Hadley and I with some great coca-cola bottles: Søster and Skat!  Skat means dear or treasure.

Anyways it was a great week and this week will be too! I'm really excited for the zone conference because this month we're studying chapter 7 in Preach My Gospel and we are going to practice giving the lessons in Danish to members and investigators, and they are going to critique our Danish and tell us what we can do better. I really want to get better at Danish, because if I can speak the language better, then the people we talk to can focus more on what we say than how we say it in our wonderful American accents. :)

I love you a lot and I hope that everything is awesome this week. Have fun this last week in Rapid City, and take lots of pictures and send them to me!! Love you!

Love,

Hannah