Happy Halloween!

God Halloween! (Happy Halloween...easy, right?)

Welps, it's been a week! I've spent this week all over the place, so I'll give some sort of a run down if I can remember everything.

Let's see! On Tuesday, we went over to Copenhagen for our Zone Conference. Elder Paul Johnson, of the European Area Presidency and First Quorum of the Seventy came to tour the mission. He is an incredible teacher! I guess he used to serve as the leader of the CES system at some point, so he's got to be good! He taught us how to be better teachers. He didn't tell us anything we didn't know before, but he taught it in a much simpler and more different perspective. It was really good. I got popcorned up to the pulpit as President O'Bryant gave his training. He wanted me to give a 2 minute talk about the fall in Denmark. Uhhhh.... yeah well, I had no clue what I was doing so I just rattled off anything running through my mind... Then he told me to stop, then had the zone evaluate it (I got wrecked) and then I tried again. That time, I did better! So, I have officially given a talk in front of a General Authority and it was a bad talk! Got that one off my bucket list. At least President knew I was one that could take the heat and not shrink under pressure. I sat back down and I was pretty much tired after that. That took all the energy out of me. Well worth it though! 

In our drive through Sweden, I finally saw a real grocery store! It's called Willy's! Basically the size of a Lowe's Foods or idk, an American average sized grocery store! First time in two yearsI've seen that. It was a great sight. Apparently all the grocery stores in Denmark are just tiny, because that's the grocery store standard in Sweden. We also ate at Pizza Hut. I've never been to one of those in the states, but those are also not found in Denmark, so we ate there too. Oh, at the grocery store the soda is about half the price of what it is in Denmark, same with the candy, so I got a Mountain Dew, a Fanta and a Reese's Fast Break (also not found in Denmark). So the trip was well worth it! We also took a stroll through IKEA too, so that was fun. 

Oh, in other news, our hot water got infected by something, so they shut that off for our apartment complex area, so we had to take showers at the church. If you've ever thought about showering in the church building's cleaning closet, then you know what I did. I have been doing that for 3 days now. Glorious! 

Anyways, we have a new investigator that's recently gone through a divorce and has two young kids. He's read a little in the Book of Mormon and he considers it scripture comparable to the Bible! So progress has been made there. We have quite a few potential investigators to work with, but nothing really too set and stone.....something has to pull through soon. It'll be harder to work in the dark now that the time has changed over to Daylight whatever. So the sun sets around 4:45pm and Danes finish their days when the sun goes down, so it'll be a challenge finding people who want to give us their time in the dark, but it's all a part of the experience! The area is in great shape and we have a lot to work with, so the time after the sun sets is a perfect time to stop by those who were already found!

I unfortunately only took one picture. I really need to do better with the camera... But, I'll send pictures from the mission's blog as soon as they're put up. I'll take more pics, I promise haha! 

Anyways, have a great week! I love you all!

Love, 

Ældste Taylor Howes

Act on Your Promptings

Hey!

It's been a pretty good week. Not too much incredible happened, but the weather has been a little bit better. It's never fun to be out bundled up in a ton of clothes and then get rained on. But the rain has held itself off of us, so it's been good! :)

Where do I start... Hmm. JW's! The Jehovah's Witnesses were actually very nice. We had two appointments with them. There was no bashing, but just sharing of different principles and doctrines. We stumped them a few times with scriptures out of the Bible where it clearly states Jesus is Jehovah, not God, and they're going to take time to study the Hebraic root or whatever they do, but we're hoping we open their minds a little bit to some more truth. We think it's going forward nonetheless!

We're still in the process of finding. We're getting a lot of potentials, but just the ones that say, "Yeah maybe some other time." So it's a tedious task to weed through and prioritize who we should go by, but at least we're getting something, right? We had to drop the investigator going through the ARP program, so that was a shame. He started mocking the message a little bit and wasn't willing to do anything yet. We left a clear choice, were loving and bold, yet he chose to say no. Can't do anything about that. He still wants to meet, but he doesn't want to talk about God. Sorry pal!

This week, I'll be going back to Copenhagen! Yay, tour through Sweden and a boat ride. It should be another adventure. It's always fun! The mission is hearing from Paul V. Johnson from the First Quorom of the Seventy. So that'll be really fun to hear!

Oh, in other news, the lady down stairs from us died, so the senior couple will be moving into that apartment, and we will be moving into theirs, so we're getting an even nicer apartment! WOOHOO! :) Tender mercies. As a death wish, the lady gave a pet bird to the senior couple, so they were stuck with a random bird in their apartment for a week until they could get rid of it. Pretty funny haha!

I read a scripture this morning. I love the story where Nephi and his brothers retrieve the plates from Laban. There's many key principles to learn from in that story, like faith, boldness, bravery, you name it, but one thing I learned was to confirm feelings of the Spirit. If you're familiar with the story (if not, get to it), then you'll read the Nephi was prompted by the Spirit to kill Laban. At first, he doubted. He thought, "I'd never kill anyone!" (Paraphrased ;) 1 Nephi 4:10). Then the prompting came again. He debated the reasoning behind it, then finally, we see that the Spirit says unto him, "Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief" (1 Nephi 4:12-13). Sometimes we receive a normal prompting or a prompting that puts us on our back because we don't understand it. Just like Nephi, we are required to discern all of our promptings to confirm that they are from the Lord. I think we'd all be more inclined to act upon our promptings if we do take the time to confirm them. :)

I love you all! Sorry I still have no pictures....I'll get some this week. I tried this week but my camera was dead.. But I'll talk to ya next week!

Love,

Ældste Taylor Howes

Impromptu Talk and Slippers

Hey!

It's been a pretty good week. We saw the temperature drop down to 5 degrees....5 degrees Celsius. Which is 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Still pretty cold, especially with bone-chilling wind coming across the ocean. But we're holding up like stone walls!

First, we ran into some Jehovah's Witnesses this past week while stopping by a non-responsive investigator. They contacted us by saying we were diligent. Thanks! Then later they wanted to set up an appointment for Tuesday. We'll see how that goes. We're ready! They're good people, but it's no fun when people try to tell me what I believe in. It'll be fun though.

Anyways, we found two new investigators this week. Both a mother and father. They're genuinely interested in the message, so we'll be going to their house tonight to see if they kept their commitments. Hopefully something comes out of that. Another investigator we have been working with has been going through the Addiction Recovery Program. The man says he's weighed down by his smoking habits and is having a hard time finding God. We prayed about it and thought the perfect solution to that was the Church's ARP program. We started it with him this past week and set some goals on how he will trust in God more. He also wrote down some genuine responses to those questions in the booklet. He's coming along well. He's progressed quite a bit since our first discussion. Slow but sure progress has been made! Other than that, some of our potentials and investigators have been absolute burninators. We're trying to think of ways to solve that problem..

In other news, I got my voting ballot! Woohoo!

Lastly, well, I gave a talk this week on dispensations. It was a 20 minute talk (I know, right?) and I learned a lot of things both preparing and giving the talk. If we look back to Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ, those principles taught throughout the world at that time, still apply today in one way shape or form. Learning about the times of apostasy gives you an idea how the world would be without prophets or clear guidance. It sounds terrible! We're lucky to have a prophet today, only because there was one confused, 14 year old boy who was humble enough to ask God a sincere question. Now we have everything we need and we know that there will never be a time of apostasy again. That's how much God loves us! :)

I gotta pic with the senior couple. They got us some slippers! I'll send a pic haha! They're called "hyggesko" in Danish.

Anyways, I love you all! Have a good week!

Æ. Taylor Howes

I'm the one on the bottom!

Winter is Coming

Hey!

I don't have a ton of time because I have to go get my haircut and I spent too much time trying to register myself to vote, so that means I'm short on time haha!

I've had a good week this week though. We found one new investigator and found a lot of potential investigators. We gave out 5 Books of Mormon this week, so that's really good! It's gotta be a high for a while! We also had an investigator in church, and a different investigator come to YSA on Friday, so things are going pretty well here so far! 

We broke out our scarves, gloves, winter jackets and everything this week to keep us warm. Hopefully this winter isn't so bad. But the weather hasn't been too bad. It's been pretty drizzly and stuff, but not drenching. We've had 30 mph winds but we can tolerate that alright. I drove for the first time in a while this week too haha. Woah it's been a long time. I didn't wreck though haha But it was good to get back behind the wheel for sure! :) today, I'm not doing anything adventurous as it's raining out there haha. But my week was good! 149 days to go! Woo hoo! They'll be buying my flight home in a little bit :)

In other weird news, I led sacrament for the first time ever this week. That was actually pretty fun! It was an experience for sure!!

Anyways, sorry this is short. I didn't do any adventuring this week, so no pictures :(

I love you, have a good week!

Æ. Taylor Howes