S3:E03 "Elder Swan burns the witch"

Hi,

 

So... everything is going well in Denmark. Just to follow up on the whole P90X thing... I did two workouts, the first one was easy peazy, but then the next one was pleio, took me four days to be able to walk normally. I haven't done it since, and I don't plan on doing pleio ever again. But my short workouts seem to be working. Ever so slowly becoming in shape.

 

Okay, so on Tuesday, I went on splits with Elder Singleton, which was pretty sweet. He is going home in 2 months which is weird. But while on splits we went to an Organ concert in an old school castle church. It was actually pretty sweet. (Although the music was super old and pretty bad...) BUT, we found the best kebab ever. It's like betos times 20. Tastes so much better, and it's bigger. Fun fact, I'm going to go buy one for lunch soon! But it's like a greek burrito thing... if you want to learn more there is always google!

 

Then the next morning for our exercise we went and found my MTC teachers grave. That was exciting. My companion got two ticks on that hike. After that we helped put up two shelves for a member. But it was all with a screw driver, which was exciting. Then we met with an investigator, who told us that she kind of wants to take a break from religion, but then we kept teaching her and she felt the spirit and said that when we say it, it seems so right. At the end she said she still wanted to meet with us and pray and read from the book of mormon... so we don't know what she is right now. Half investigator. So last email I said that we don't do much knocking... that was a lie. We have been trying to find this week, so we have been knocking quite a bit. BUT we met an awesome black guy. After talking to him for a bit, we said that we were from USA and he was just like "Why aren't we talking in English?" then he complimented us for dedicating 2 years of our lives and took a card and seemed interested. Super nice guy.

 

Pretty much all we did this week was knock... not a whole lot happened. Although our mission president came down and taught a lesson with us. That was exciting. While knocking I made friends with two cats that followed me around the whole time we were in the area, that was pretty awesome. I love making friends, especially ones that like me.

 

Last night was the witch burning festival here. So we went with Yaseen. It was quite fun. They were singing songs, and watching a witch burn by the ocean. A lot of fun! I will send some pictures to some peoples.

 

Thanks for everything!

 

Ældste Swan

 

 

S3:E02 "The room full of smoke"

Hey everyone!

First week in Denmark has gone by. It went by super fast. The language is coming along... slowly. Trying to understand right now is my biggest problem, but I can see improvement almost everyday that I am here. Just so you all know my address is:

Ældste Andrew Swan

Ringgade 161,st TH

6400 Sønderborg, Denmark

That is that (6400 is the zip code)

We have been keeping really busy with teaching. We have spent very little time into finding which is awesome. (That means we have apointments almost all the time) One of my favorite people, a member named Yaseen, commited to quit smoking on Thursday! We will be praying and working with him a lot, because he wants to go to the temple and to progress in the church more.

We had a dinner apointment which was exciting. We brought along Amelie, an investigator we have. It went really well. We had dinner, I was trying to understand everything that was being said, and for the most part I felt included in it. (Except I have this problem that everyone offers us water or saft at apointments so I drink 2-3 cups) so that was distracting. But I learned how to ask for the bathroom! After dinner we had a really good lesson with the parents of the family we ate with and Amelie. We just answered some of the questions she had and went around and bore testimony. She is at the point where she will either commit to living the gospel or not.

We also met with Kimito Juarez. This kid is super smart. He can speak Danish, Spanish, and English fluently. But his english sounds like a British person mixed with Stewie from family guy, which is quite entertaining. He is a really funny kid, and quite Christian. Although I feel that he isn't progressing to join our church, it is nice to talk about Christ and just have nice discussions that way.

I made some awesome Chowmein... there is your random fact of the day.

So, crazy thing happened last week. I went on splits with my neighbor! Elder Francis and I spent the day working together. The crazy thing is that we are both fairly new. (He has been here 4 months) so it was exciting but a lot of fun. We knocked doors for the most part, but didn't get any luck with that. (Members are how to find people!) Danish radio stations are really strange... it has every genre of music and every time period of music. On the bus back to the apartment, we heard a pop song, then the next song was the makerina. (fail at spelling)

So... one of our district goals is to be the most fit district. Lauren and Phill will never guess how we are doing it! P90X! It's not too bad,Tony is a funny man, and teaches me to be dedicated to my workout.

We have these two investigators, Phillip and Prenilla. They both play in the orchestra here in Denmark, and we had a really good lesson with them this week. After this apointment we went to see a less active and taught a really good lesson with them. But they offered us dinner so we ate as well. The next apointment we had was with Shiraz, a guy from Syria. When we first got there, the room was filled with smoke, and his giant hookah was in the middle of the room. But he aired it out for us and put up his hookah (thank goodness) BUT THEN he gave us dinner... so we ate 2 dinners, which were both fantastic, but I felt like exploding.

Yesterday we taught Anders Steen again. We taught him about the word of wisdom. After explaining it and answering questions, he committed to it! No more coffee and smoking! It was very great to hear! I love that man.

Well... I'm losing weight which is fantastic with how much I put on. The food is really good here, but really bad for me. I don't really understand how everyone here is skinny... but none the less.

I love you all!

Ældste Swan'

P.s. I got news that Phill isn't forwarding my emails very well... I hope I can pass on the baton to Lauren because I don't trust Phylis.