In Slagelse

Slagelse is AMAZING! It's such a hyggelig town, and the ward is so loving. It really feels like a big family. It's a LOT slower paced than Copenhagen, that's for sure! We walk everywhere (Søster Vige is having problems with her knees and the buses run once or twice an hour so they're not usually efficient) and there's almost no one else out walking! 

Søster Vige and Søster Barrett

But, we contact when we can and one woman named F we talked to on Wednesday asked us to come tell her more about the church on Thursday! We were happy to oblige. ;) She was just curious about what the church was, but by the end of our lesson she said she felt so touched by what we were saying, and she wanted to learn more. It was such an amazing experience - all three of us were so in tune with the Spirit, that F would ask questions that went exactly with what we were about to teach, and then Sister Vige or I would answer with exactly what needed to be said.  We are meeting with F again this week and inviting her to baptism! 

We also have this great investigator M, who is from New Jersey (he's got a great Jersey accent) and in his 50's. He was in the Air Force! Sister Orgill and Sister Vige contacted him on the street and he was so excited to find out that Sister Orgill was from America too that he kissed her on the forehead! Wahaha. He has a lot of great questions and concerns, and I think he may be reading some information from non-LDS sources, but he's very sincere and wants to give the message a chance. 

On my first night he came to a family home evening with us at the bishop's house (by the way the bishop and his family are AMAZING! okay the whole ward is. Everyone is so supportive of missionary work and SO happy to help and really welcoming to the people we bring). Afterwards M said that it felt like he was with family, and he even wrote a card to the bishop's family to thank them. How sweet is that?!

We also work with a lot of amazing less-actives and recent converts. It's so fun because Søster Handley told me about all of these people before I came here, so whenever I meet someone she talked a lot about I feel like I'm meeting someone famous! So there's S, who just got baptized a few weeks ago. She has some pretty out-there ideas about life, but she is on her way and will do really well as long as she continues to stay humble and teachable (it makes SUCH a difference let me tell ya! Plus it's the first step in the conversion process, according to D&C 20:37).

We also meet with T, who was reactivated over a year ago, and her fiance F, who got baptized in March. He is from Italy and doesn't speak much Danish or English, so T does a lot of translating. We're going to learn I am a Child of God in Italian so we can sing it to F! We're also good friends with T's parents, J and R, who are also recently reactivated. J reminds me of the witch in Brave and the two together kind of remind me of the old married couple in The Princess Bride (the ones who revive Westly).

We ate dinner with a wonderful woman named L last night who is starting to come back to church, and the three of us had a lot of fun together. After dinner L came with us to sing some hymns to M and read a scripture with him - it made him so happy!

One last picture from Frederiksberg!

I brought my ukulele to church yesterday because I thought we were going to sing at a nursing home right after church, but it turns out we were actually going home to eat  lunch before that so I didn't really need to bring it with me. Either way everyone kept asking about it and the bishop even said we should maybe do a musical number with the ukulele in church :) Isn't that so cute?

But we took the uke with us everywhere yesterday and sang at the nursing home (a big success! I was really surprised because not only did the old people enjoy it, but so did the workers and one of the old ladies daughter - she said the songs really touched her and made her cry. The Holy Ghost was definitely at work!), with L and M, and then we stopped by a really sweet girl named M who was baptized earlier this year but has stopped coming to church. I love singing to people because it brings the Spirit in such a special way.

And I LOVE Søster Vige, it feels like we've been companions for way longer than a week in a good way! Hehe, Sister Vige speaks amazing English (she is from Norway) and knew it before the mission - she says that she prefers speaking English with Americans because it doesn't feel right to speak Danish or Norwegian with them. But! I think my Danish has gotten a lot better in the week we've been together simply because Sister Vige speaks Danish almost perfectly, and I am working on imitating her accent. Plus if I don't know a word or how to pronounce something, Sister Vige does! It's sooooo nice. Plus Søster Vige is just the sweetest Sista ever - she's really supportive and go-with-the-flow, very funny, and so in tune with the Spirit. She was trained by Søster Nuttall so we reminisce about Søster Nuttall together all the time :) I love it!

With a basil plant M gave us

Everything is just wonderful here. Slagelse is a really special place full of really special people. This week we're going to be meeting with M and F a few times, as well as J and R, L, N (another recently baptized girl... she's amazing! We're working with her on going to the temple), B (also recent convert, working on going to the temple!), and more.

On Saturday we're having a mission conference with Elder Bednar! Isn't that exciting? It's going to be awesome. We're reading some of his talks in preparation for it, and they're amazing. Have you read Seek Learning by Faith, Ask in Faith, or Converted unto the Lord? I highly recommend them!

This month as a mission we're studying Preach My Gospel Chapter 12! It's all about preparing people for baptism and confirmation. It's so important to help people know what it is they're getting into - baptism is a covenant with the Lord, and though no one is asked to be perfect to enter that covenant, we're expected to understand it and do our best to live it. Which puts a big responsibility on us as missionaries to teach the doctrine so that our investigators cannot misunderstand what it is we're talking about!

Love,

Hannah