my mark on Denmark: August 2014

August 25, 2014

Killing me softly with his love

Sister Pearson and I had a rockin last week together.

It was such a blessing to serve with such an incredible gal for 3 whole transfers. We worked so hard and had so much fun! Sister Pearson sure changed a lot of lives here in Denmark.... including MINE.

When she left I felt exactly how George felt when Fred died.....

#twins #seeyouontheotherside #partyintheUSA

And now, its almost my turn to die......................

Its the beginning of the end.

My very last transfer starts TODAY. I can't think about that too hard or else my heart just breaks!

But let me just tell you this: God is SO NICE.

He's killing me softly. With his love.

Sister P went home one week early so that she could make it back in time for school to start. Another sister did the same thing..... leaving both me and Sister Vige companion-less for the week. Why don't you just guess where Sister Vige is serving.

SLAGELSE

That's right. I got to spend a WHOLE WEEK serving in my hometown again!!!

It was the most wonderful week in the world. My week in Slagelse was truly a gift from God.

Like I said, He is just SO NICE.

I had such a grand time serving with Sister Vige. She is from Norway and was just the most delightful companion ever! Shame we only got to be companions for one week.....

OH but what a glorious week it was.

We taught a lot of lessons, did a lot of service, sang a lot of songs, visited a lot of friends, and ate a LOT of delicious food. Welcome home Sister Rogers :)

It was just soooooo great to see everybody again. And to see how their testimonies have continued to blossom and grow. The best part was going to church on Sunday! I even got to speak in sacrament meeting!

My heart was so full all week long. I couldn't have asked for a greater blessing, than to spend a whole week at the end of my mission right back where this incredible journey began.

And just wait, God's kindness doesn't even stop there.........

I jumped and danced and shouted for joy when I got my transfer call this week!

YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE WHO MY NEW COMPANION IS.

My best friend/soul sister/ favorite person on the PLANET Sister Denali Hale!!

The same Sister Denali Hale that was my companion for those magical 7 weeks in Copenhagen back at Christmas time. TOGETHER AGAIN! Wooohoooo! This is a dream come true. Somebody pinch me. I couldn't even ask for a better way to end my mission.

You see what I mean??? GOD IS SO NICE. I don't know what I did to deserve this. He's spoiling me rotten.

Killing me softly with His love.

Have a wonderful week everybody!

xoxo

Sister Rogers

Faking a smile. Farvel min ven!

twins!

Service day every day. jo tak!

Garden work with Tina

Tina and Fran!

My gorgeous friend Natascha inspires me. And everyone else around her!

æbleskiver. lækkert.

Slagelse distrikt

sweet sweet Bettina!

home sweet pink home for a week in slagelse!

August 11, 2014

Ten points for Gryffindor

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!

What a great week.

It started out when our best friends called us and invited us to spend our Pday with them at LEGO LAND.

(terrible picture, I know.....

but in my defense, you can't waste time taking good selfies when you've got a land of LEGOS to go play in!)

I start out wayyyy too many of my journal entries with "today was the best day ever."

But Lego Land with our 8 year old best friends is somewhere near the top of my infinitely long "best day ever" list.

Sometimes you've just gotta take Jesus' advice and become like a little child.

We had two big Zone trainings this week! Oh how I love all my missionary friends. I'm completely convinced that the Denmark Copenhagen Mission is full of the best missionaries in the whole world.

This month our mission is studying Chapter 11 in Preach My Gospel.

Its all about commitments. Commitment keeping isn't just important for investigators....

its important for missionaries, its important for members, its important for YOU.

Because commitments are the building blocks of sacred covenants. And covenants are the building blocks of our eternal progression and salvation.

Sister Pearson and I gave our training on the importance of Follow Up.

"Extending an invitation without following up is like beginning a journey without finishing it or buying a ticket to a concert without going into the theater." (pmg 199)

We scooped ourselves big bowls of chocolate icecream at the beginning of our training and then forgot about them. Twenty minutes later- after discussing things and doing role plays and reading scriptures and what not- we went back for our icecream and it was all MELTED and good for nothing.

The missionaries were mad at us for making their mouths water and letting the yummy icecream go to waste.... haha we thought we were pretty funny.

But thats really what its like when you commit to do something or set a goal and then forget about it! Its SO important to follow up, and even more important to follow through.

So think about a goal you've set.

Have you reached it? Have you been doing your best? What can you do better?

Well our chocolate icecream melted into sticky sweet soup and we couldn't partake of its goodness..... But its ok because we tried the icecream thing again and made banana split icecream sundaes for our best friend Daniel's birthday!

My banana split icecream sundae didn't melt.......

Buuuuuut it did end up all over my lap.

Icecream is just not on my side this week.

On a more successful note....

We wanted to do something extra fun for this birthday celebration. Because birthdays only come once a year! So we thought hey, lets watch a movie. Our missionary movie selection is limited to the Restoration, Finding Faith in Christ, and whatever else we can find on lds.org.........

But guess what can be found on lds.org?????

The Phone Call.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-00-0060-the-phone-call?lang=eng

This 25 minute comedy ranks up there with Napolean Dynomite.

Watch it if you're bored.

(And by bored I mean reeeeeealllyyyy bored.)

#missionarylife4life #success

On an even morrrrre successful note....

I made two new friends this week!!

We went to visit two girls from our ward who are inactive and are about our same age.

When I first met Lærke her necklace immediately caught my eye......

she had the deathly hallows on a chain around her neck.

can you say Insta-bestfriends!? Lærke's sister even played 'Hedwig's theme' for me on the violin. It was the best day ever. Harry Potter really bonds people and brings people together ya know. And Lærke even came to institute with us this week!

Dear Kaden, I've already made plans for us to go visit Lærke and Krista and play Harry Potter trivia when you come pick me up in Denmark. HP fans unite!

On Friday morning we were just beginning our companionship study and reading from the white handbook when the phone rang. It was Poul, a cute grandpa from our ward, and he said "Goodmorning! I'm over at the church and I just met this man who is very interested in receiving a Book of Mormon. Do you have time to come over here and bring him one?"

Forget companionship study, you bet we have time!!

We slipped on our shoes, grabbed a blue book, and jotted across the street to the church, where we found a construction guy fixing something or other on our church building. Cute grandpa Poul had thought to stop and talk with this worker on his way into the church, and that simple act of friendship allowed us to teach Thomas about the book of mormon and how it can bless his life and his family.

10 points for Gryffindor!

It was a lovely week over here in the lovely land of Denmark.

I hope you all had a good one too!

And I hope that if you ate icecream, it neither melted nor ended up all over your lap.

And I hope that if God places someone like Thomas in your path this week, you'll be friendly and reach out to them like Poul did. Because you really are the Lord's hands here on earth.

Have a good first week of school kiddos!

Jeg elsker jer alle sammen.

more Xs and Os than you can count,

Sister Breanna Michele

August 4, 2014

MKH, Søster Katie Pearson

I got distracted chatting with my bro on email.... and now I don't have time to tell y'all about my week. But I got this brilliant idea, seeing as my companion has had the exact same week as I have....... So I'm sending you her email instead :)

So here's a little about my week from the eyes of the one and only Sister Pearson.

Kære Brødre og Søstre,

How's it goin'? Guess what? It FINALLY rained here over!! We have lucked out on the weather front, and have had sunny days OUT OUR EARS! It was about time the rain clouds came. The plants are having a hard time. Also, I heard that the glaciers up in Greenland are melting, so...that could pose quite the problem in the future. I'm sure that y'all wanted to know this...that's why I told ya ;) BUT! On to more exciting things haha. Let me tell you about our week!

Part 2 of the Fruit Fly saga:

And it came to pass...that as DaBree and DaKay were opening the cupboard to get breakfast on Wednesday the 30 Juli 2014, fruit flies started to fly at them in droves. DaBree and DaKay were furious. The flies even began to fly up out of the drains. DaBree and Dakay didn't know what to do. They were trapped. They felt like Mormon and Moroni surrounded by blood thirsty lamanites seeking to destroy them. DaBree and DaKay decided that something had to be done. They were not going to be destroyed by these godless creatures. So...they bought death spray, and other such things to destroy these vile insects. They made traps that exceeded the skill level of the fruit flies, and then they began to spray EVERYTHING with poison. They sprayed the place down, and then high-tailed it out of there. They found refuge at the church with their canned beans and other provisions. Upon their return home only they found that...THE FRUIT FLIES WERE DEAD. They had succeeded! But, they had to clean EVERYTHING because...everything had been infected by the poisonous spray.

So that was quite the adventure.

We think that there was still some traces of poison in the house because...we had REALLY strange dreams that night! haha.

Anyway, this past week we had the opportunity to go to Esbjerg on exchanges with Sister Peterson and Sister Grant. They are AMAZING! I got to be with Sister Grant. She is seriously one of the most loving people that I know, and she is just a joy to be around. Anyway, she's only been in Esbjerg for about two weeks, and we had an appointment that wasn't even IN Esbjerg. It was in a place called Varde. I had only been there once while I was serving in Esbjerg. Anyway, there are two trains that go up there, and only one of them got us close to our appointment. As we were a riding, all was well. We got to Varde, but we knew that we needed to get closer to our destination...so we stayed on the train. One by one the stations started passing, and we realized that WE WERE ON THE WRONG TRAIN! haha We got off in a TINY town in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, and looked at the train schedule. Another train wasn't coming for another two hours. We had to put our Sister Missionary loafers to work, and get a walkin'. So, we walked and said 'hej' to all of the bikers as we walked along a path on the side of the freeway haha. It was an eight and a half kilometer walk, and it took us about an hour. BUT! It was a WAY nice day, and Sister Grant and I had a rockin' chat. You know, it was just brilliant!

It was way fun being in Esbjerg though. It was great seeing some of my friends, and it was also fun catching up with them. Those people down there are one of a kind, and I was so fortunate enough to be able to serve there.

We also had some progress with Daniel this week! He informed us that he would like to find out if there is a God! WOOT. So, we're about to get experimental. Because he likes science. I feel like it is quite the small steps with Daniel, but we're definitely getting places. That young man will come back to church. No doubt about that. We just have to do our part and then trust in the Lord's timing.

One more thing. Our ward here in Horsens is quite active as a whole, but there are quite a few youth that are less active and have chosen to live a different way because...it's not easy to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ in Denmark. Well, yesterday was fast Sunday, and it seemed to me that a lot of mothers were talking about their children who have chosen to not be a part of church. As they spoke of their children, they couldn't help but cry. You could just feel the love that they had for their children. In sacrament...it hit me. I know that God answers prayers. I know that one way He answers prayers is through others. Us missionaries are here to answer other people's prayers. I feel like I got punched in the stomach haha. I then got this crazy determination and desire to...essentially change the world haha. And, visit all of these less active kids. There's a neat quote that Sister Rogers and I read a little bit ago. It says, 'those that are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones that actually do'.

I hope that everybody enjoys their last bit of summer! Be crazy enough to change the world! Jeg elsker jer!! Har det godt alle sammen!!

MKH,

Søster Katie Pearson