Six years ago today. I sat in the hospital room when my beautiful
baby sister took her very first breath. It was the most beautiful
miracle. My cute sister has always been so special to me. I can't
believe its been 6 whole years! I can't imagine life without her.
I LOVE YOU ABSTER! More than I love Denmark and more than I love pumpkin pie. Tillykke med din Fødselsdag!
WHAT a week!
On Tuesday Søster Grant and I left our apartment at 7AM
in our sweatpants to go catch a train to Copenhagen. We were supposed
to meet up with the missionaries from all over Sjælland to play some
Thanksgiving American football.... but instead we stood at a bus stop in
the rain for 45 minutes waiting for a bus that never decided to come.
Bummmmmerrrrrrr. But on the bright side we got to travel in our sweats
:) Highlight of my life. Sweats are like my long lost best friend....
forcefully replaced by skirts and tights. I have a feeling we'll be inseparable when we're reunited again in 10.5 months time.
But even better than being reunited with my
sweatpants was being reunited with all the other missionaries. I LOVE
big zone trainings and conferences and activities. Because it really
reminds me that I'm not alone. I'm a part of a huge ARMY of missionaries
and we are all fighting this same battle together. There are over
80,000 warriors in God's army of missionaries. Isn't that crazy?! Gives
me goosebumps.
After our missionary training we got to have a THANKSGIVING FEAST.
We're talking turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and yams and
pumpkin pie and everything in between! And we ate until we never needed
to eat again. Home sweeeet home.
On Wednesday
our plans fell through.... so we decided to bake some cookies to bring
to one of our less active friends, even though she is almost neverrrr
home. (she works full time AND is in school full time). But even though
there was prob only a 5% chance of finding anybody home, we took a
chance and took the 30 minute bus ride to her house. Because it felt
like the right thing to do.
It was.
Not only was Karin
home, but so was her nonmember husband. They welcomed us in and told us
how it was a great coincidence, because we caught them in the middle of
the only 2 hours they'd be home together before 10pm
the whole week. We had a nice hyggeligt chat about Denmark and America
and Harry Potter and other normal people things. I could tell Karin was
nervous when we asked if we could share a scripture with them...
(previously she'd told us how she has a hard time bringing up the gospel
with her husband and that she didn't know if he'd ever be open to talk
with missionaries...) But he was totally open to it! We shared a
scripture and bore testimony of Jesus Christ. Karin testified too, and
the Spirit was SO strong. After a closing prayer, her husband said he'd
love to have us come back sometime! I was DYING. Karin walked us to the
door and the look in her eyes changed my life. "Thank you. Thank you SO
much. THANK you" she whispered to me as she gave me the worlds tightest
hug. I walked out of the apartment building with tear drops falling down
my face and an overfull heart. As I thought back on the whole
experience I realized that it all went back to when our original plans
had fallen through. Sometimes the Lord has to pull a few strings to get
us where He needs us to be.
I don't believe in "coincidence."
I believe in the Lord.
I believe that "the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith" (1 Nephi 1:20)
and I believe in miracles.
Lots of other good things happened this week too.
One
day we biked out to our friend Hanne's house so she could help us with
our language study. Nobody knows Danish like a Dane! Her house might be
my very favorite little corner of the whole planet earth. She lives in a
little cottage with a thatched roof at the end of a long bumpy road
lined with towering trees. It looks like it belongs to Snow White. So
hyggeligt. And Hanne is teaching me how to knit! So we practice Danish
while knitting and drinking steaming cups of vanilla tea.
Best hour of my week.
Except for I had a lot of "Best hour of my week"s this week.....
Like
our lesson with Ghulam. He is SO great and has the kindest heart.
Towards the end of our lesson I was telling him he could ring to us if
he ever needed help or anything. He said "I know. I have 'Rogers' on my
phone under 'family.'"
I wanted to cry. I love cute Ghulam.
Who would ever have thought I'd be best friends with a 60 year old Muslim man?
Another
one of the best hours was when we met up with our rockin investigator
Bettina. She handed me a wrapped up package and when I tore away the
green paper I found a heart shaped chocolate cake. She said "Its because
you have a heart of gold." Haha! I think it would've been more fitting
to say that I have a heart made of chocolate.... more accurate too! But
oh my heck she is the sweetest ever. Did I mention that she doesn't know
ANY English? We can sit and talk with each other for an hour or two with
no problems! Sometimes I forget how cool that is.
But one of the very very best hours of the week began with our morning prayer on Saturday
morning. It was Sister Grants turn to pray- she was praying for some of
the less active members that we are working with, and when she asked
Heavenly Father to belss Christa and let us know what we can do to help
her, the thought came to me like a neon sign in the middle of the desert
that we needed to visit Christa. Not even 10 seconds later, our prayer
was interrupted by the phone ringing. Usually I'll silence it until we
finish praying, but when I glanced at the caller ID and saw none other
than Christa's name, we paused the prayer and answered the phone.
Christa said she needed help. I said we'll be there in 20 minutes. We
finished our morning prayer and then forgoed our studies as we threw on
our coats and scarves and headed straight to sweet Christa's house.
Turns out she just needed us to take her trash out and get her mail from
the mail box. (She lives on the 5th floor and has a hard time climbing
all those stairs.)
But really, I think the trash and mail was just an excuse. Just a
reason to have us come over. What she really needed was a little bit of
friendship and a lot of love. I was soo happy that she knew she could
call us. When we walked back home after visiting with her for about an
hour, I felt like I'd made a difference in the world by making a
difference in her day.
Sometimes love is the best service you can give.
Christ, of course, is the perfect example of selfless love. One of my favorite scriptures is 1 Nephi 19:9...
"And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a
thing of naught, wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it, and
they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yeah, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men."
That's what love is. Putting others before yourself.
I hope we can all be more selfless, all show more kindness, all share more charity and love.
"Happiness doesn't result from what we get, but from what we give." -Ben Carson
Love really is the best thing we can give. Remember that this week.
And remember that I love you all so much!
XOXOXOXOXO
Søster Rogers