"Focus on What Matters"

Hey!

Not that I'm counting down or anything...But I'm excited to say that I have been here for just about a month now! I've got my 1 month training on Friday this week and I get to go to the Copenhagen temple! I'm stoked for that. Time has just been flying by!

This week, not too much happened. The weather was fantastic and we had so many tourists out. It was beautiful out! I'm glad to see that it's finally warming up!

We took advantage of the weather and did a bit of contacting. We got 3 new potentials so we will plan on working with them soon! We did splits with the Zone Leaders this week, so I got to go to Ordrup for a day. That's a pretty area too! I've got stories for that day....So anyways, we had a District meeting with the District down there, and after, we all go get food. So we went to a place called Den Sort Gryde or something, and it translates to the Black Pan. So I got a hamburger and fries and a drink. It was expensive and had no idea why. So it comes off the grill and I've got a burger the size of my plate. Easily 4,000 calories. So yeah of course I ate that up. Next, I had about the amount of fries that you would get from Five Guys, and of course I eat that up. A ton of calories. So yeah I stretched my stomach to the max because I was planning on heading back to HIllerød an hour later. But nope! My companion and the other Zone Leader weren't ready to change back. So an hour later, we ate AGAIN at a dinner appointment with the Bishops family of that ward. I was worried for my life and thought I would explode. I just crammed as much down as I could because I didn't want to be rude. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Anyway, aside from that.

On Friday, our ward held a concert of everyone sharing their talents and stuff. We got 8 less actives there and 2 investigators. So it was a success! It was actually a good little concert. All the Danish children have music class so they're all talented with the Piano and Cello and stuff.

On Sunday, we had church of course, and we invited 2 investigators that tagged along with us. After church, we set up another appointment with one of them, Deepak, and it was on his request. So that was fantastic! Then later that night, we met with the other, Jason, the Vietnamese guy I may have talked about last week. We committed him to baptism for the 11th of July! So we're super stoked for him, and that's the first baptismal date this area has had for a couple years, so hopefully the ward will be a bit more satisfied. They have generally had terrible missionaries come through, so it's understandable!

So that was just a little bit in a nutshell! I got a quick little message I'll share. In Denmark, people have a hard time knowing what happiness is. They focus a lot on their money and their possessions. It's hard for us to break that for some people, but I've seen a couple of our investigators progress when they shift their minds a little bit. We should try to focus more on things that actually matter, and that will last forever, like our families, friends, and God. Because God gives us our families and friends so that we can have happiness. Try to strengthen our relationships with these gifts, most importantly God. I can tell you right now that a mission isn't even all that fun, but it's the happiest I've been in my life because I have seen people grow their faiths and be happier. I have even myself tried focusing on the relationship I have with God, and I've seen myself be happier just from something so simple that we hear from everyone everyday. But it just requires action. So that's my challenge to everyone! :) I promise you'll see a difference!!

Anyways! I love you all! Hav det godt!

Ældste Taylor Howes

PS. Sorry for no pics this week..... ):

Pictures in Denmark

Frederiksborg Palace

Frederiksborg Palace grounds

Just a little windy! ;)

8 Potential Investigators!

Hejsa!

This week was pretty cool. Or Cold. It was cloudy all week and pretty rainy, but hey! That's Denmark. Friday we had perfect weather. It was awesome. Anyways here's the update on my week!

So Tuesday we had our Zone Training and that was cool to be with so many other Elders and Sisters. It was nice to talk with a bunch of people. Afterwards we had some McDonald's. And it's not as bad as it is in America. It was some quality food....kinda. But it was good!

On Monday, we went around contacting by the Castle and we found a guy sitting on a bench alone. So we said in Danish, "Hi, my friend and I are missionaries from our church - Mormon Church.." and then he responded in English, "Sorry, I don't understand." So we said, "Oh, we speak English too!"

So we taught that man, Jason, all about the first lesson. That God is our loving Heavenly Father, he blesses our families and Joseph Smith restored Jesus Christ's church that he established on America. It turns out, he fled from Vietnam to Denmark because he would have been thrown in jail or something like that. I guess in Vietnam, they have a lot of civil unrest right now. Also, he knows nothing about religion. Not even God. So we taught him all of that and went to his Apartment several times to talk to him about our church, We got him to pray for the first time and he said, "I got this weird feeling I've never felt before...it scared me!" And we were like "YES, that's the Holy Spirit and God showing his love for you and that he hears you!" So ever since, he's been progressing and we should be asking him to baptism the NeXT couple of days. This guy doesn't speak English very well, so he's hard to communicate with a Little bit.

This week we did some contacting and door knocking and got about 7 or 8 potential investigators, so hopefully we will be teaching them here soon. It's pretty exciting! We visited a few less actives and we invited them to church. They came and they said they'll be back NeXT week! So that was exciting to hear.

This week, I'm almost positive I gained 10 lbs. We were fed this week sooooo much and we even had like a record of 4 dinner appointments. It was awesome. We went by this Family, the Ricks, and they're awesome. They're less active and they fed us these Danish pancakes - which is pretty much a sugary pancake that tastes like a waffle cone. We put ice cream in the middle, rolled it up like a burrito and ate it like an enchilada. It was sooo good. I ate like 9 of them. I thought I would explode. The Ricks always feed us with something. We just need to get them reactivated! They'd be such a good active Family in the Ward.

Anyways, Denmark has been treating me pretty well! I love it here. I wish the weather was better, but that's okay! I should be in Hillerød about 6 months, so I'm happy about that. It's a great area. Really beautiful with the Castle!! Anyways, I'll attach a couple Pictures!

I love you all! I'll talk to ya NeXT week!! (I don't know why the computer capitalizes Things wierd. so I'm sorry!)

Kærlighed,

Ældste Taylor Howes

Pictures

This is Elder Howes district

Elders Williams, Nonu, & Howes

Elders Williams, Merkey, and Howes

Elders Merkey and Nonu are serving in the Philippines and speak no English. They will be speaking Cebuano.

1st Week in Denmark & Traveling Days

Hej!

Denmark is pretty awesome. It's like walking through a fairytale - especially where I am right now. I'm in a town called Hillerød, which is like 45 minutes outside of København (Copenhagen). I'm where the Frederiksberg Castle is, and oh yes, it's even better in real-life than pictures. My companion and trainer is Ældste Brady, and I'm almost positive he will be Assistant President to Præsident Sederholm (or the new guy) soon! 

Anyways, with that set aside, the Work here slow. Not many people care to know about church, or any religion for that matter. We go door to door and they're just like "I'm not interested." So we move on. We've only got one potential investigator from all of like 200 houses. And that was last night! WOO. 

The church here is quite small. It's a Ward with about 80 active members, but they're all awesome and tried to talk to me - even though they know I hardly understand them. All of the church meetings yesterday were hard to understand but I got the general gist. I had to get up in front of everyone and speak Danish to introduce myself and bare my testimony. My Danish wasn't bad at all, it's just my American accent that I will never be able to get rid of. No one can for that matter. I can understand probably 75% of what people say, so hopefully by next week I'm at least pushing 77% and make a bit of progress. 

The food here is amazing. I haven't had anything bad yet, which is surprising because I've made about half of it. The other half was the amazing part - Danish cuisine! They love their potatoes and meats.... And I do too!! I'm so grateful to be here rather than somewhere like South or Central America and getting fed something I shouldn't be eating. 

The flights here were interesting. I had like a 3 hour flight from Salt Lake to Dallas and sat next to a super nice lady and we talked about the church a Little bit. From Dallas to London was a looooonggg flight and I had the worst seat ever. I sat in the middle of the middle of the back of the plane next to a missionary and a guy who hated me just because he saw my nametag. But that's okay because all of the missionaries headed to Denmark or Finland were all using some chat room on the flight so we had a good time. Also they served breakfast like 3 hours after dinner so everyone on the plane woke up so confused because it was like 6am London time but like 11pm our time so we were like really messed up and dumbfounded for a Little bit. So then we traveled through Heathrow's gigantic airport to wait for the flight to Copenhagen. So anyways that flight was like 1.5 hours and I snapped some pics. The flight was weird because it was British Airways and they said rubbish, and they have like a cart with expensive items you can buy on it, and that was really weird. So we landed in Copenhagen and it was like 70 degrees or so.. Pretty much beautiful..it hasn't been that way since. But that day we met our mission president and went on to the Mission office where we ate some smørbrød, which is decent. After, we moved onto do some contacting in Copenhagen and of course no one was interested really. They took some of the Cards we gave them, but for the most part they all said that God has no meaning for them. It's pretty hard to hear considering that God is basically what our life is. Anyways so we went to the mission president's house and ate a REALLY good Danish meal and then had a little testimony in his living room. After which, we went off to bed....and I got 10 hours of sleep. It felt incredible. Keep in mind, we were awake 48 hours, and we wreaked and were brutally exausted.. I can't remember some of that day in all honesty!

Anyways we have like 5 non progressing investigators we've been working with. They all love drinking and smoking so it's hard working with them. All of Denmark has a hard time with it, and they want to stop because it's a commandment God gave us, but they just love it. Some of our investigators and inactives feed us, so I like that a lot! The people here are awesome though. They're super nice.

A lot of people here think that we are Jehovah's Witnesses and it kinda stinks because they drill Copenhagen and are pretty ruthless with people. So we get that a lot. But when we go door to door, they either react, "I'm not interested, but I appreciate what you're doing," or "No thanks," or "No" and they stare us down and shake their fists at us as we walk away, or curse us out. We only had one say that we can come back. So the Work here is a bit slow but as long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to, I know the Lord is going to bless me and I have already seen that! I never get disappointed or upset about it, and that's exactly how I know.

Anyways, Denmark is pretty awesome and really similar to the USA, cultural wise. So I got Lucky! They love Puma over here and it's kinda funny to see how much they mob for it.

It was fun to talk to the Family yesterday too! It was too short! ): But at least I get to email, right? I just gotta wait for Christmas now.. ): Anyways, I hope all is well! I've seen how I've been blessed out here just doing what I'm supposed to, so my message to everyone out there is to do what you're supposed to, and I promise the Lord will bless us all. :)

Jeg elsker jer og hav det godt! Jeg vil taler med jer næste uge! jeg kan ikke vente for det!

Kærlighed,

Ældste Taylor Howes

PS I was really tired in that pic so don't judge. That's in Copenhagen. AKA facebook header.