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