Summer rocks.
Let me just tell you why.
My sistermissionaryswag maryjanes are giving my feet a wayyy cute tan line.
And I've got a zebra stripe on my arm from my wrist watch.
And fresh Danish strawberries can be found in plentiful amounts.
And the beach is a great place to teach gospel lessons to your friends.
Summer time is great as a missionary, because EVERYONE loves summer time. Everyone and their dog is outside. And everyone and their dog is happy. Its like a dream world over here.
I've ALWAYS loved summertime... The smell of sunscreen is on my list of top 10 smells because it reminds me of summer.
My favorite summer activity is camping. Because in case you didn't know.... I'm kind of a hippie. I like to hug trees. I'm obsessed with nature. A weekend with crickets and starry skies and camp fires and marshmallows just makes the summer complete.
I got this picture of my fam at our cabin last week......
And oh how my soul longed to be there....
You know, the only down side about a missionary summer is that you can't go camping!
OR SO I THOUGHT.....
Our two best friends Sister Hale and Sister Bishop came to hang out with us this week. And guess what they brought with them.....
A CAMPOUT.
We pitched a tent and roasted mini marshmallows over mini fires.
And now my summer is complete :)
I got to spend the next day with Sister Hale!!! (AKA my favorite person on the planet earth. What a shame we were only companions for 7 weeks.....) Oh but it was just like the old times. We took the guitar around with us the whole day long and sang songs about Jesus to everyone we met.
Our appointment with our sweet friend Lisbeth ended a little early because we may or may not have accidentally sung her to sleep....
Haha so we had some extra minutes, and the thought that popped into my head went something like this:
"The second best Pastry shop in ALL of Denmark is a two minute walk up the street!"
As a missionary, I've gotten REALLY good at acting upon all the good thoughts that I have.
So naturally, we headed right on up that cobblestone street towards Medalion Bakery!
It was quite heartbreaking when we arrived to find a sign posted to the door that read "På Ferie. Tilbage i August."
Ultimate let down.
As we were walking grudgingly away, we saw a young man walking down the street.
"He's going to accept the gospel," says Sister Hale with an incredible amount of certainty.
And guess what?? He did.
We ended up having a 20 minute lesson with Jon right there on the street corner by Denmark's 2nd best bakery. And now we have a new eskimo friend who wants to learn more about God.
Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God, (Moroni 7:12)
For there is nothing which is good save it comes from the Lord. (Omni 1:25)
Including thoughts about bakeries and pastries.
:)
Sister Hale and I then went to visit our friend Maja, who hasn't been to church in a lonnnnnnnng long time. Its been kind of difficult to teach her about the gospel because she has ADD and a lot of other disorders that make it hard for her to focus or concentrate. So Sister Hale and I decided to try a new swing on things.....
We sat in a circle with Maja in her little apartment, each of us with a Mormons Bog in hand.
And we sang it. We sang The Book of Mormon.
Sister Hale strummed on her six-string while we all traded off singing the verses of 1 Nephi chapter 1.
It was one of the best times of my whole mission. Can I go so far as to say one of the best times of my life??
And the best part is, that for the first time in the 3 months that I've been visiting Maja, she accepted our invitation to come to church.
Sister P and I spent a day up in the beeeeautiful city of Aalborg where I got to go on exchanges with one of my MTC comps. What a dream come true!! Sister Hall and I spent our 15 monthiversary together. I thought back on the very first day I met Sister Hall, exactly 15 months earlier. It was AWESOME to be back together as old experienced professional missionaries. Can I just say that sister Hall ROCKS. I remember thinking she was so brave and bold when we were back at the Empty Sea.... and that was nothing compared to the rockstar missionary she is now!
We visited Annette, one of her inactive friends, and taught her a lesson about keeping the sabbath day holy.
"What does Heavenly Father want us to do on Sundays?" -Sister Hall
"I know what He wants me to do. Heavenly Father wants me to go to church." -Annette
And what Sister Hall said next really struck me hard......
"Annette, you know what God wants you to do. So why aren't you doing it?"
What my awesome MTC comp boldly declared should be directed to us ALL.
If you KNOW what God wants you to do, WHY would you not do it???
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK:
District Activity at the beach.
BBQ. Ocean. Guitar. Squirt guns. Football. Jellyfish. And best friends. Life doesn't get better than this.
One of the worst things is when transfers happen and your friends all get ripped away.....
Horsens District being torn apart is even more sad than when the Backstreet Boys broke up.
But on a happier note... We had 3 investigators in church yesterday and we were way stoked about it!
After Sacrament meeting we hung around for a while with Ruslan and Ankhaa to answer a bunch of questions that they had about the church. The elders stayed too and we just had this big discussion lesson thing.
It went from the doctrine of the Plan of Salvation to the reasoning behind the Word of Wisdom, and then somehow escalated REAL quickly to the church's stance on homosexuality.
In the middle of this big long heart-to-heart about challenges and testimonies and commandments and temptations, Ankhaa turned to us missionaries and said something that really struck me hard...
"You guys are all so strong. You're just so strong."
In that moment it just kind of hit me that our investigators look up to us like we're superheros or something.
But the problem with that is that a superhero is something that the rest of the world can't ever be....
Super powers are reserved for people with capes.
My missionary friends and I aren't superheros.
The strength we have is not reserved for people with nametags.
The super strength that we have is available to EVERYONE.
It isn't found in kryptonite. Its found in daily prayer and scripture study.
The words of Helaman 5:12 echoed through my head.
It is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.
And so I bore my testimony to my friend Ankhaa.
That the strength we have is Christ.
And that He can strengthen her as well.
Well friends and fam. I hope that wherever you are your week was as sunny and happy and wonderful as mine.
Remember that "you have within you the power to increase the sum total of the world's happiness by giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged."
Try to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.
Jeg elsker jer!
millions of Xs and Os,
Sister Rogers
i shall call him squishy. and he shall be mine. and he shall be my squishy.
life's what you make it. lets make it rock.
my companion decorated my hair pretty.
In the beautiful city of Aalborg
