Inga's Baptism!

I am doing great. The weather... not so mmuch! there's a snow storm going on outside right now! Brrrr! Yesterday we biked and we did almost as much walking as we did biking because the roads were so slippery and covered in ice in some spots! But it's really really fun. Sister Packard and I stay positive and it makes a big difference! Being cold isn't hard if you have a reason to laugh or at least smile. :)

Søster Packard and I with an advertisement for Zion National Park!  Small world, eh?

(I wrote to Hannah about how our Sister missionaries here in Rapid City received a note written To: LDS.  Not Sisters, or Missionaries, just LDS, it was sort of funny!, so she wrote this back:)  Lots of people just call me Barrett, even though Søster is right there on the nametag! Rude!! Speaking of the nametag, a couple that we work with invited us to go to an ice hockey game with them (and the elders too, President Sederholm said that we can!! woo hoo!!), and then the husband said "Feel free to not wear your nametags." Whaa? I think maybe he's just embarrassed about the missionaries or something. Either way, we told him we would keep our nametags on, thank you very much, and then he said "well hide them under your jackets." WHA?! We told him we definitely wouldn't do that either. It's funny how much my nametag has come to mean to me, because that little piece of plastic shows who I am and what I stand for. I would never hide it under my jacket! Sheesh!

So, my week has been so fun!

On Monday we didn't end up going to get warm winter gloves (I suffered all week!) But we did practice piano and violin a lot for the baptism, and then we just ended up jamming out on the piano! It turns out Sister Packard and I both really like to sing, so we were dueting it up and throughout the week we brought the ukulele to some lessons and sang to our investigators! It was REALLY fun. 

It's fun to have music as a connection! And our musical number went GREAT on Saturday, everyone loved it and we were asked to perform again in sacrament meeting in a few weeks! A couple of people came up to me and told me that I shouldn't have kept it a secret that I play the piano since I've been here so long, but they don't realize that I had to get permission to practice the piano an hour every day from Monday to Saturday so that I could make the song sound decent enough! It's been a long time since I've really made the effort to play a song well. I miss practicing! How weird is that? 

With Inga before her baptism

And, since I've got the missionary mindset now, practicing the piano taught me a lot about the Atonement. Sometimes while you're playing you mess up. So you take that measure and practice it again and again, slowly and then a little bit faster until you have it mastered. Then you mess up again and you do the whole process over again! But by the end, you can play the whole song through and it sounds beautiful. 

It's just how life works! And the best thing is that we don't have to stay stuck with our mistakes, we can keep trying to get better a little bit by a little bit!

We spent a lot of time this week getting ready for Inga's baptism, with lessons with her and Henrik and getting in contact with everyone that we needed to help us with the program.  Inga's baptism was on Saturday.  It. was. AWESOME! oh my goodness!  What an amazing experience to be a part of! (Obviously I wasn't doing the baptizin', but I got to help Inga learn about the gospel and make the decision to be baptized!)  This is a great work!  And I get to do it for the rest of my life, as a missionary, and with my friends and family, and someday when I have kids.  I love it!

With Henrick and Inga

We also had some awesome lessons and found 2 new investigators! At the beginning of the week we set the goal to find 3 new investigators this week. By yesterday evening, we hadn't found any. Sister Packard said "We have to find 3 investigators by tonight!!" So right before a lesson with a Ukrainian couple (more on that later), we knocked a couple of doors. 

I was a little skeptical about us finding anyone, but the second door we knocked was a Greenlandic couple who let us teach a lesson on the doorstep and invited us to come back next Saturday! How exciting is that?! So right there at the end of the week we found 2 new investigators, and almost reached our goal. 

Then we had our lesson with the couple from Ukraine - they are so cute! They are both from the Ukraine, but they met here in Danmark and got married a year and a half ago. We brought a member with us and it went really well. 

It was really funny because Viktoria speaks English well but not Danish, Viktor speaks Danish well but not English, our Danish is decent, the member we brought is Danish and speaks a little bit of English, and Viktor and Viktoria both speak Ukrainian. So there were 3 languages being spoken the whole time, and it took some time for everyone to understand each other! But oh, the Spirit was so strong. It reminded me that it is the Spirit who teaches us, not us, and no matter what kind of language barrier there is, the Spirit still does his job.

Also, to end the week right, Sister Packard and I made crepes for dinner last night! Last year at school Brianna made super good crepes all the time, and she sent the recipe over email last week! They were delicious. Ahhh it reminded me of all the fun times I had with my roommates last year. I love those ladies! We have a group email and we write to each other every week, so it's fun to see what they're up to! 

And now it is Monday, and we're starting it all over again! We find out about transfers today so that's exciting! I'm pretty sure nothing will be changing with Sister Packard and I, since she just got here, but some of the elders in our district will definitely be leaving. I'm going to miss them! We have a really good group, so it'll be sad to say goodbye. But we'll all see each other around!

Did Grammy and Grampy get the package I sent them? I know Grandma and Grandpa did, so I think they must have! 

The pictures this week are Søster Packard and I with an advertisement for Zion national park! Small world eh? and Us with Inga, as well as us with Henrik and Inga, and then Sister Packard and I in our natural habitat. ;)

Anyways, I love you! Have a good day!!!

PS the blue scarf I have on in the last picture - Sister Packard's Grandma knitted a couple of scarves for Sister Packard to give to her companions, and it is the CUTEST thing ever. It's not that long - maybe an arms length - and on one end she attached two cute big buttons so you can button it. I thought it was a super nifty idea, and I think you could do it for Sydney or Emily, or yourself! Or me. ;)