Monday, November 28, 2011

Hej med jer!

Glædelig Taksigesdag! Happy thanksgiving/black friday everyone!

Hope everyone had a hyggelidt thanksgiving with their families. The holiday season has made me painfully aware of how much I miss you all. In the spirit of Thanksgiving I'd like to say how thankful I am for my family and friends. You are all a huge inspiration to me and remind me of the need to count my blessings. I'm thankful for the blessings that come from living the gospel and the opportunity to be here in Denmark. Its a pretty unique experience, as I'm sure you can tell. Chances are if you're reading this, I know you. Which means I owe you a personal thank-you for your example and help. If I don't know you, well... Go to mormon.org. Its cool.

We had a great thanksgiving week. Our mission præsident was cool enough to let us have a thanksgiving celebration in connection with zone conference. Thus, we were down in Aarhus on Wednesday and Thursday. Such a cool city. I'd love to serve there one day. Kind of has that big-city feel. But wednesday morning was a turkey bowl followed by Thanksgiving lunch. Both were exceptional. It was great to play some good ol' muddy american football. I borrowed some cleats from an elder who wasn't playing and we had a fun time. Our mission president watched for a little and was pretty confused. He asked when we were done, in a very mild-mannered Haven't run that much in a while, unfortunately. I miss sports!!

Next was the feast. There were 3 ektopars (senior couples) who prepared it and basically went all-out. It was fantastisk. They made so much delicious food. I forgot to get a picture of it I was so carried away in eating as much as humanly possible. But it was great.

After which, we had a talent show. haha that was lots of fun. Me, Williamson, Klc, and Dunshee put together a 'Book of Mormon Stories' arrangement and performed. Our band is called the Boxcar Children, since we're on trains quite a bit. But it was pretty impressive, if i don't say so myself. Williamson and I were on ukes, and Dunshee and Klc had homemade moraccas. Williamson has a video of it so we'll see if we can get it uploaded or something somehow. Idk. But it was a blast. We had a great time. Not bad for our first gig. Book us for 2013 if any of you out there are interested.

Thursday was zone conference. It was very good. Not much else to say i guess. Took alot of notes... Yay.

Friday we had a great meeting with Christof and June (fake names). They're a young couple we met in Hjørring last week. He's in Denmark playing professional soccer actually. From england. So its weird teaching in English. It just doesn't come out quite the same. But they're both very very curious and we're excited to see what happens with them.

The peruvian family I've mentioned is so close to baptism! They just gotta take the step of faith, and they're having a tough time with it. I've learned alot about faith through teaching them. It really is a 'leap of faith' most of the time, because we dont know exactly what we're leaping into. Could be a swamp, could be a swimming pool. But we gotta have the faith to put Heavenly Father to the test and make the jump.

Had my first experience with being yelled at in public on Thursday, that was cool. Williamson, Klc, Dunshee and I were on a bus in Aarhus headed to the train station, standing just talking among ourselves, when a guy a few rows down said (in a scottish or irish accent or something not quite english) started yelling about how crazy mormons were. He was very drunk. But being loud in public is very unusual in Denmark. They are a private, self concious, self contained people. Basically, don't draw unneccessary attention to yourself by being obnoxious. Thats the first rule of Danish society. So this guy made quite a statement. We all laughed about it. He said some pretty derrogatory things, but he was a wacko. it was fun.

We had a "hurricane" yesterday... It was really really windy and rainy actually and we couldn't really work outside.  But the danes were all kinda freakin out. It was funny. Hurricane advisory in Nordjylland... haha now i can say i've been outside in the middle of a Danish hurricane. Beat that.

So we're shifting into the christmas cheer now, and Denmark does Christmas right. We've got two or three 40-50 foot christmas trees scattered througout town and every sign or lamp post has lights on it. I think its mandatory by law or something. There's bands dressed up like santa that walk around town causing traffic jams and disrupting gågade shoppers, but they spread the christmas musical cheer so i guess they can get away with it. We put up our christmas tree in the apartment yesterday. Its a very indie christmas. Our tree is about a meter tall and didn't have a stand so we stuck it in a stack of 5 kg weight plates. But it has lights, so that was cool. We've recently been listening to Sufjan Stevens Christmas album and its fantastic. I would highly recommend it. We've been making hygge food. Soup, mashed potatoes,etc. I'm learning how to cook, believe it or not. Poor man's food, but food nonetheless.

Thats about it i guess. All i can think of in the life of logan. ældste logan wooden, i mean.

I miss you all! Happy Christmas! Think about other people this holiday season. Thinking about yourself is boring.

med kærlig hilsen,

ældste wooden

Wednesday, November 15, 2011

Goddag til jer!

It was a tough week in F-havn. Had some great moments and some rough ones. Lots of dropped appointments, flakey people, and cold weather. But some great progress with investigators and just good ol' fun. Such is life I guess right? We win some, we lose some.

Most importantly, we successfully played floorball without any major injuries. Chalk one up for safety first. Williamson will regain full vision in the next two weeks we're hoping. Still a little foggy. David Bowie all the way.

But, exciting news right now. We're looking at a few potential baptisms with Karen and her children, Tyra and Bernard, (All fake names, privacy's sake) right now. They're awesome. From Peru, so language is kind of tough. We teach in a medley of Danish, English, and Spanish. haha its kind of a riot sometimes. But they're awesome. Karen is battling breast cancer right now so we have been keeping really close contact with them and its amazing to see a family grow together in the gospel. I've watched as the church has strengthened this family quite literally. Tyra is 10 and Bernard is 18, and they enjoy church despite the fact its 100% danish... Which is a miracle in and of itself. But Bernard reminds me of Nick and Andrew. haha We're really good friends with him actually. He always comes and plays soccer and floorball with the branch. December 22nd is what were looking at as a possible baptisimal date because its Karen and ældste Williamson's birthday, so that would be a fun little party. Keep them in your prayers.

Everyone is gettin in the Christmas spirit over here, its pretty fun. Danish culture is very social. Everything is about family and friends and who's with. Its fun. Interestingly enough, as a result they dont use brother and sister so-and-so when addressing members of the church. Everything is just first names. Its strange at first but I've grown to like it. Instead of Præsident Christensen, kind of a mouthful, its just Kasper. And last week we had a lunch appointment after church with Ella, this sweet old lady in the branch. I don't even know anyone's last names really. haha But the informalities bring everyone a little closer together, its fun. I'm learning alot about Danish traditions and they're so sweet. Their holiday traditions, birthdays, weddings, you name it. They've got the coolest traditions. Real heritage, not quite like the states. haha But i do miss american soil, i promise i'm not a traitor or anything here...

But I gotta run, we're running out of computer time.

Love you all! Sorry i'm short in writing again this week. Thanks for all the support though. I appreciate your letters and notes and thoughts and prayers. They do not go unnoticed. Oh and if anyone wants to send me anything, use the Søndergade address on this blog. The other address takes way longer. And if you send packages to the other address they just stay at the mission office until the next zone conference or something, which will be a while. So yeah, be sure and send stuff to søndergade. its a good place. you can even stalk me on google maps. haha

 

med venlig hilsen,

ældste wooden

Monday, November 7, 2011

Hey everyone, its me again from, the north pole.

 

Its gettin pretty dang cold up here, but wintertime in Denmark is supposed to be pretty sweet so I'm looking forward to it.

 

We had another interesting week. Haha as usual.

The last few days have been a little slower paced because of some health struggles...

Wednesday night we played floorball (indoor floor hockey, no skates) like we always do, and Ældste Williamson took a wild slapshot to the eye from about 6 yards away. We rushed him out to the bathroom and watched as his blood filled his iris. Usually his eyes are blue but his left one was green/brown. We both said "lets get to the hospital," but all the Branch members were just making fun of us saying that Americans just rush to the hospital for everything. So we waited a little bit to see if we could get things to calm down but his vision continued to deteriorate to the point where he couldnt see his own hand a foot in front of his face. So finally Arna (the member who did the dirty deed) drove us over to the little sygehuset here in Frederikshavn. The doctor took one look at him and said "I can't do anything for you, go to Aalborg." We then realized we were in for a long night. We went over to the ward mission leaders house, I gave Ældste Wililamson a blessing, and then we got picked up by a little government sick transport van. Not really an ambulance, persay. So they drove us down to Aalborg, we talked to our chauffer and he almost took a book of mormon but not quite. Typisk. Then we waited 30 minutes in Aalborg for an "eye specialist." By the time we got to see him it was 00:30. (12:30 am) He administered a basic optometry exam from what i could tell, did a ultrasound to make sure there wasnt any permanent damage, and gave him a bunch of medicine. Anyway, long story short we end up staying the night with Ældsterne in Aalborg and got to bed around 3 am. I woke up the next morning with an awesome head cold, so i'm wrestling with that right now too. Williamson is doing better, but still doesn't have full vision back. We end up finding out he probably got a minor concussion as well. All in all im not too impressed with the doctors I've seen here thus far, but what can you do but hope you dont fik en bod til din øjne.

 

[I ran out of time bc i had to write president and we have a train to catch but we will probably take a few minutes to write more tomorow. Vi snakkes.]

Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011

Goddag alle, jeg håber du har det godt.

 

Its been a busy and fun week in norjylland aka The Northern Kingdom. I'll start with an interesting night in a pinsekirke...

We had an investigator invite us to her pentacostal church on saturday night bc they had a "prophet" coming from Mississippi to address them. We, uh, yeah. We went. haha It was an interesting experience. We got lots of weird looks as we walked in. Everyone was extremely nice to us. And as we sat down we could see the word spread that the mormons were here like the wave around lavell edwards stadium on a good day. It was really funny. But I enjoyed it. They had a christian rock band play for a long time, and it appeared to me like the members of the congregation were really enjoying it. They believe that they have the gift of tongues, so at the end of every song the room would fill with chatter as each member of the congregation would start praying in a different made up language. To who or what they were praying, or what about, I have no idea. The tower of Babel just exploded around us. So that was interesting. After about 45 minutes of the band-prayer routine, the "prophet" gave a very general, energetic Mississippi-style message that felt more like an inspirational speech. That lasted about an hour, after which he began "healing" people... Thats where things got interesting. He would put a hand on their head or neck or chest or some combination thereof and start praying/shouting in english/made-up-language... Until the person passed out. There was always someone standing behind to catch them, after which they had a nice warm blanket draped over them. And the patten continued. After about 15 minutes of this, we looked at the clock and saw it was getting late so we courteously stepped out. But holy cow. Talk about an eye-opener. I've never been more thankful for the truth of the restored gospel.

 

Monday we headed up to Skagen, "The land of light," for p-day. Its kind of a mystical place in Danish culture. We walked all the way out to the northernmost tip of the country. It was really fun. We ran around in some nazi bunkers, saw some cool stuff. The city of skagen smells like pure fish. Its rather abrasive, really. But its lots of fun. If you're ever in the area, let me know. We'll get lunch or something.

 

Denmark is a very interesting place. I love it here, but the government really affects the way the country and the people operate. Its sad to see, but people are pretty apathetic about life in general sometimes because the government creates this bubble of high taxes and all you can eat benefits, so they essentially have nothing to worry about in life. Which would make anyone apathetic and lazy, really. But I have never been more thankful for the United States. Seriously. Im not tryin to get all sappy and patriotic here but my eyes have been opened a little bit, thats all.

But other than that, Denmark is a thousand times cooler than the US, of course. haha

 

Thats all for this week, i guess. Oh, i had leverpostei a few days ago! It was delicious. Everyone go out and try some, just for me. Its, uh, liver paste... But dont think about that. Its delicious. Throw it in the oven for a few minutes, heat it up, spread it on some bread. Some hardy (sp?) rye bread. Rugbrød, preferably, if you can get your hands on it. haha It's some really hardy traditional Danish bread.  Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

 

Med kærlig hilsen,

ældste wooden