Danish Word of the Week: Fnug

It has been a wonderful Monday! Søster Van Orden, my new companion, is a rock star. She is so diligent and hard-working and so so motivating to be around. She's also hilarious and has an amazing singing voice - she's studying music, theater, and dance at BYU so she's obviously full of all kinds of artistic talent. It's awesome! 

Hopefully I am showing her everything in Horsens! We're going to the big teeter totter today with the Elders, and then heading to Odense (we'll be on exchange there tonight!). Hopefully we'll get there early enough to see some of the sights before Pday is over. 

Our apartment is beautiful! We live in a castle. I'm getting my camera back today (Sister Hadfield has it! She transferred to Odense and we're going to be together on exchanges! WOO!) so I'll send you a picture of our castle next week. It has heated bathroom floors. And a washer and dryer. And our neighbors are some of the friendliest people around - last week we gave cookies to our neighbor Svend, a really nice old man we run into a lot, and he left flowers at our doorstep! How sweet is that?! 

We bike everywhere and rarely take the bus - Horsens is a small town, so we don't really need the bus unless we have sisters visiting or a bunch of stuff to carry home.

We're having stake conference in 2 weeks! I am hoping to see friends from Aalborg there. I love that place!

This week has been pretty wonderful! A lot of appointments fell through, like with G and a lady named G, but we had some really good ones as well. We visited G, A, and Z (I think I sent you a picture of Sister Hale and I with G, when he had a rockstar hair wig on that we gave him). Oh they are the sweetest family. They are going through some really hard things right now, but really enjoy meeting with us. Z doesn't speak English or Danish, so her son G translates for her. She even had him translate the opening and closing prayers for her, and the spirit was especially strong through that. Z had to leave Denmark on Friday, so we went by to say goodbye. I don't know if I'll ever see her again because she's not sure when she'll come back to Denmark, but I got her email so we can stay in touch!

On Friday we had some really great appointments with new investigators! First we met with A, who is studying at VIA and from China. She was soooo excited to get her own Book of Mormon. She let us teach her how to pray and it was a really tender moment - teaching people how to pray is one of my favorite things to do. 

That night we met with K, who Søster Hale and I met last week. K is from Nigeria and is half Danish, and just graduated from college. He is one of the most sincere seekers of truth I've ever met, and really wants to find out if the gospel will help him. And of course it will! His friend R came to the appointment as well... that was pretty awesome, because we ran into K on Thursday and he was walking with R - we just said hi to them in passing, but then afterwards K must have told R a little bit about who we were and he said he wanted to hear about our message too! Ooooh it was just a really great lesson.

The week ended on a really good note last night when we stopped by an inactive member... we just had her address from the ward list so we decided to stop by. It was way far out there, and I kept getting us lost (that whole area take-over thing is always a little stressful as far as figuring out where the heck we are!), but we made it eventually. I was worried we would scare the lady because it was 8:40 at night and it's rare for anyone to knock on your door in Denmark, even more so late at night. But E answered the door and was so happy to see us - because of some really difficult circumstances she can't be active in the church but has an AMAZING testimony. We were so glad we were able to meet her. I really hope we can meet with her again. There are a few members that keep in touch with her and she gets the Liahona Magazine every month, but it's really hard to have contact with her and we're definitely going to be keeping her in our prayers.

I don't know if you heard about the shooting that happened in Copenhagen this weekend, but a couple of people were killed and it was pretty scary/sad to hear about.  Things like that never happen in Denmark and it felt really close to home! The missionaries in the Copenhagen area aren't allowed to go downtown for the time being. Keep the families who were affected in your prayers! It was so unexpected and just so sad.  

This week I have a goal of CATCHING UP ON MY JOURNAL! Ahh! I am so behind and I don't want to forget any of the wonderful things that are happening! Eek.

Søster Hale and her parents came back to Horsens for a few days and we ran into them a few times/had dinner together one night. It was so fun to meet Søster Hale's parents after hearing so much about them!

Anyways everything is going well! Crazy things are happening in the world but the gospel is so reliable. There are some tough questions and Heavenly Father hasn't answered all of our questions but I know He knows each of us personally and has a plan. I'm grateful that I can trust in Him, and that He is so patient and loving to me. I know that the best way we can help other people is by teaching them to live the gospel. Looking back over the last 18 months I can see that I have made a lot of changes in how I do missionary work, and how I live the gospel, but I am still me and I really like being me. :)

Have a great week! Stay warm and safe! I will do the same. :)

Love you so much! Vi ses!

Love,

Søster Barrett

PS Søster Van Orden writes a Danish word of the week home to her family, and I think that's a great idea so here is your word of the week! Sorry I didn't start doing this like 18 months ago! ;)

Fnug - the lint you clean out of the dryer after finishing a load of laundry.