12-30-14

Hmmmm I don't even know what to say right now. So much has happened since last Monday and my mind is currently blank..... 

Transfers just happened. Elder Nelson and I are staying together but we helped everybody move. Whilst at the huge Copenhagen station we met this hot young Mormon couple from Utah! It was our P-day, and I really wanted to just hang out with them, so we ditched everyone else and showed them around Denmark. It was super fun. Oh and last Monday we went to Tivoli, the world’s oldest amusement park! That was soooooooooo fun! Dang, Denmark is awesome. I'm super lucky. 

Oh duh!! We just had Christmas!!! Almost forgot. It was so incredible to see the family. Love you guys. But surprisingly, that wasn't the best part about Christmas. It was weird because I have been looking forward to skype since day 1 of the mission, but the best thing about this Christmas was much more personal. It's actually quite difficult to explain. I just felt like the distance between the Savior and I was so.... miniscule. Nonexistent even. It was so weird to spend a Christmas with His name stapled to my chest. Right on top of my heart. I really got to know my big brother. It was absolutely beautiful. He will always be my best friend. 

Anyway. The *H* family should be getting baptized very soon here. So that's neat.

Also it snowed like crazy so Denmark is now a winter wonderland. So that's neat too. 

Everything is cold and cycling in snow is impossible. I love it.

-Elder Bradshaw

12-22-14

Alrighty I'll just get right Down to it this week. My district is going to spend the day at Tivoli (Danish amusement park) today so I don’t have much time.

This week a miracle happened. Remember the *H* Family?? Well *MH* (ex-supermodel and most famous tv star in Denmark) is going to be getting baptized along with her two children!! I remember when Elder Hooper and I first knocked on her door and were stunned to silence when such a beautiful woman said that she was interested!!

It's going to be such a boost for the church here in Denmark! It's a Christmas miracle!! That's 5 people now on track for baptism. The sad news is that transfer calls should be happening any second now and I'll probably be leaving my beloved Hillerød. I hope not.

Anyway. Enjoy Christmas everyone. I can't wait to see some of you on Skype on Christmas Day!!! I love you all so so so much!

-Ældste Bradshaw

12-15-14

Kære Alle Sammen,

Christmas is coming!!!!!  Who's excited?? I certainly am. This week in Hillerød we decided to start caroling in an attempt to spread that Christmas Spirit! So on Tuesday we went to the local hospital and sang carols for people for a good few hours! It was such an incredible experience! So many of the patients were in tears as they clapped and anxiously waited their turn to tell us their favorite Christmas song.

People don't really do caroling in Denmark, so it's something completely new for them. And while we were in the baby section of the hospital, what do you know we ran into *C* and *J*!! They're two old investigators and they had just had a baby together! So we sang some songs for them and were able to share the new He is the Gift video with them.

I don’t know if you've all seen this video yet, but it really is an incredible Little video. Two minutes long, yet so powerful. The church is really getting good at their films now. Especially compared to the junk they used to make.

But if you have not yet seen it, go to Christmas.mormon.org ASAP and Watch it. Then share it with every single human being you know. SPREAD THE MESSAGE! Christmas is about Christ, so let's try to remember it.

Our teaching pool has really increased this last week. We've been blessed with tons of new investigators, and *V* and *J* are both still on track to baptism!

Unfortunately I'll probably be transferred by the time they get baptized, but that's okay. It's not about me, right? Haha although it would be nice to see it all come together. Oh well. The Work goes on.

Love you all so much!!

Happy Christmas!!

-Ældste Bradshaw

12-8-14

Today I would just like to take a minute to tell you all about a woman named *A*. She's a short Little less active lady in our Ward, no taller than 4'10", but an absolute bundle of joy. Haha I'm really not quite sure how to describe *A* to you. You would have to meet her to truly understand what she's like, but I'll do my best. She's about 53 and we've been teaching her and her husband *S* since day one of the mission. They have two young children that both live with separate foster parents. *A* loves to Cook and would make us food EVERY time that we came over. She has an INCREDIBLE imagination and insisted that Elvis Presley was her actual father and that she was the best of friends with Michael Jackson. Haha but she has such a good sweet Heart and all she ever really wanted was to be together with her children again as one big Family. *A* has been a small ray of sunshine for me. She was often the highlight of my week. She has played a VERY big part in my mission Thus far, teaching her at least 3 times a week. I've really come to love this lady. But on Saturday morning I did something I never imagined I would ever have to do. I, with 5 other men, lowered her tiny Little White coffin into the hard cold ground. She's gone. Nobody expected it. It just happened.

The service was held at a local Dansk Folke Kirke (church of Denmark) and it was so strange. Not many people knew her so I was one of the only ones that showed up to her sad Little funeral. It was really quite sad. This woman that had meant so much to me was just gone and nobody even showed up to celebrate her beautiful life. I remember sitting there in silence, just thinking, when the church bells started ringing loud in my ears. It struck something deep inside me... I'm not sure how to explain it. I felt so hollow and empty inside..

Anyway.... I would just really appreciate it if you would all keep *A* in your prayers. She didn’t have many friends, so not many people will miss her, but your prayers on her behalf would be fantastic. I know she'll see her loved ones Again, but it's still sad. I thought lots about the plan of salvation that day. I sure am grateful for it.

But it's not just sad Things happening, I promise!! This week two more people decided to get baptized!! First is *V*, that blonde lady that cuts my hair!! She's getting baptized on January 17th!! And second is *J*!!! AHHH I can’t believe it when she finally said that she wants to be baptized! So yeah... Things to be happy about as well :)

I love you all!

-Ældste Jed Bradshaw

12/1/14

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I hope you all had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving week because I sure did! I was feeling pretty low at the beginning of the week because I knew that Danes don't celebrate Thanksgiving and that we would most likely be alone the entire day. But what do you know the Lord blessed us with an incredible family from the great U S of A to invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner!! His name is Trey Greenwood and is an inactive member of the church, but when he heard that some American missionaries were going to go without a Thanksgiving, he quickly invited us over to spend it with his lovely wife and children. It was such an amazing afternoon. Trey had an ancient guitar that had been broken for decades and had never been able to fix it (one of the tuning pegs was cracked where the string wraps around. Pardon my guitar jargon) so I took a swing at it and got it sounding as good as new!! We played guitar and sang songs together all night long. It was a night to remember.

Other than that, we've been very blessed with tons of people to teach. There used to be days in my last transfer where we would sometimes go an entire day without teaching a single lesson, but that NEVER happens now. The investigators just come flowing in. We found a new investigator this week named Natada. She's from Thailand and her Danish is really not that good. We sat next to her on a bus one day and started talking. We couldn't get much across, but managed to find out that she had recently lost her husband. Naturally we started telling her about the plan of salvation and that she would see her husband again, and she lost it. Right there on a crowded bus full of judgmental Danes she just started weeping. She asked us how this was possible that she could ever see him Again and we continued to teach the entire discussion right there on the bus. As she got off at her stop we managed to get her phone number and give her the address to the church and what do you know, she showed up to church on Sunday!!

The Lord Places people in our path every day. It's quite incredible. Dang I love the Plan of Salvation. Eternal families are SWEET!!!!

I love you all!

-Ældste Bradshaw

11/24/14

Hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllo everyone.

So it's been my first week here in Hillerød with Elder Nelson, and things are going great as always :) I'm in charge of the area now, so it's pretty much up to me what we do every single day from now until he gets to know everybody. It's been very interesting for me to have to come up with things to do now because Elder Hooper used to do it all. But it's great! I'm learning lots and it's kinda good because I get to do things MY way now :)

Okay so lots of great things happened this week of course, but the highlight would have to be Saturday. **M** was FINALLY baptized!!!! It was such an incredible experience. There was not a dry eye in the entire building (except for mine of course)! Ah I just love that lady so much and she finally went down into the waters of baptism. It was a big deal for her because she has an irrational fear of being submerged in water due to the fact that she was nearly drowned to death on two separate occasions. Okay so maybe it's not irrational. But it was so amazing to see her overcome that and take the next step towards the Celestial Kingdom!!

I love these people so much. I can't even begin to try and explain it to you. Just know that I love them. I love teaching them. I love serving them. I love just talking to them, even if they don't love me.

I love Denmark!

Keep it fresh,

Ældste Bradshaw

11/17/14

Okay, it's been a crazy week.

I'm currently sitting in the library with my new companion, Elder Nelson. He's from good old Alpine Utah and went to Lone Peak with me, yet somehow, I never even knew him... Haha it's a big school so I guess it's possible. Anyway, we've had an absolutely INSANE day with transfers. Transfers are super crazy in Denmark because of the fact that we all use public transportation and each missionary has about three huge suitcases and bike, so there is absolutely no Space on the trains for us. Ah it was just super stressfull. But it's over now.

My last week with Elder Hooper was just incredible. We used the fact that he was leaving as an excuse to get all of our investigators to meet with us, so we were able to teach soooooo many lessons. We finally met with a man by the name of Martin Rif, who we had assumed  had dropped off the face of the earth, but we taught him and committed him to be baptized!! He's in the process of moving, so he says that he can't get baptized until January, which means I probably won't be apart of it, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. Planting for the future generation to harvest. 

We were also able to meet with the Hirse Family.... I'm not sure if you remember them, but I told you all that she was some kind of author. Yeah.... turns out she's a little more than that. Apparently Maria Hirse is one of the most famous people in Denmark. She's some kind of television star, and we've been teaching them this whole time, we've been completely clueless!! Not that it matters. She's still a daughter of God, right? It's just way cool to know how famous she is now. Whenever we tell members that she's a serious investigator, they get all star-struck and ask if we can get them an autograph. Haha it's really funny. Anyway, her 16 year old daughter Victoria said that she wants to become a member. Only problem is her father. He won't let her do anything until she's 18, so... yeah. That's kinda sad. But the lesson we had with them last night was amazing. We taught about eternal families and temple marriages, and the spirit was soooooooo strong. When we showed her a Picture of the Salt Lake Temple she was completely speachless. She thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. 

Yeah... things are going well here in Hillerød. Elder Hooper and I finally started to see the fruits of our work. I just really hope that things don't change too much with my new companion being here. 

Oh hey check out this sweet sign we made in Copenhagen today.

Love you all

Ældste Jed Bradshaw

11/10/14

Dearest friends and Family,

I'm sure you all know why I've gathered you here together today...... well I hope so. Because I certainly don't. I dunno where I was going with that....... ummmm so we're currently waiting on transfer calls, and to be honest I'm a wee bit nervous. We're expecting Elder Hooper to move, so I'll probably be taking over the area and getting a new companion!! It's really exciting, but it'll be the first time that transfers actually affect me. Keep your fingers crossed that I get someone good!

We had zone training this week, which was waaaaaay fun! Because it's the month of November, we ate a thanksgiving lunch (I know it's a Little early) and played some turkey bowl football! It was tons of fun, even though we were all freezing Cold. There should be some Pictures on the mission blog. We found two new families this week, both from Ghana!! We have already taught one of them and it went really well, and we plan on teaching the other one here soon. We've been fasting lots as a mission lately to get new investigators, and the Lord is hearing our prayers. As a mission this week we got exactly 100 new investigators, which might not sound like a lot, but for Denmark, it's a new record!!! Never before has that happened in the history of the Danish Mission!!  How blessed are we??

We also had Stake Conference this week, which was just incredible. I loved seeing so many of the saints gathered in one place. None of our chapels could fit everyone, so they rented out a highschool auditorium and over 700 saints filled the room. It was so amazing. I remember walking in and the Whole place, even though it was packed, was dead quiet, because there was a girl up on the stage singing this song about Christ (in English, which was weird) that just pierced you to the soul. I honestly thought this woman was an angel. And then we were Lucky enough to have a celebrity guest speaker! I'm sure you've all seen Finding Faith in Christ and The Testaments... well the man that plays Jesus in those movies is a famous Danish actor, and he spoke! It was really something special. He told us all about his experiences on set.

Haha okay as I was writing this, the assistants called!!! And, just as we thought, Elder Hooper is leaving me! And my new companion is Elder Nielsen..... We're pretty sure it's actually a kid that went to Lone Peak with me!! Oh man... I'm not sure how I feel about this one..... Pray for us :)

Love you all,

Ældste Bradshaw

11/3/14

Dearly Beloved,

What an incredible week it has been for us here in Hillerød. The Lord has just been opening the Windows of heaven and pouring out the Blessings. I'm literally soaked in Blessings right now. We've just been able to teach and find so many incredible people this week. We're super busy, and I love it. Josefines Birthday was on Tuesday, and she had invited us to her party that night. Obviously we couldn't attend seeing as there would be alchohol and loud music, and she wasn't too happy about that so we tried to make it up to her by planning the Worlds best lesson. Seeing as it was her birthday, we thought we would teach her about the biggest gift we could give her; the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The lesson went..... well I don't quite know how to explain it. The Spirit in that room was like nothing I had felt before. At the close of the discussion, Elder Enniss and I (we were on splits) sang her a hymn to wrap it up. Holy cow... It was just so incredible. I looked atJosefine and just felt like I loved her SO much. But not like any kind of love I've felt before. I'm assuming it was the pure love of Christ working through me, but I'm not sure. That was probably my favorite lesson on my mission thus far.

Other than teaching tons of rad lessons this week, we did tons of fun Things too! Halloween was just awesome! We decided that we just had to knock doors that night to see if we could get any candy. We did. Some in the form of sollidified and caramelized sugar, and others in the form of new beautiful children of God to teach. Haha it was way fun. Hardly anyone here celebrates it, which is a Little sad. Halloween is my favorite, only to be topped by Christmas. On Friday we did two great service Projects. First off we helped a new Family move into our area. They aren't members, but they know members that asked us to come and it was super fun! They're a great Little Family with two kids. The daughter is 18 and all of her friends were there. Naturally they took an interest in the fact that there were four boys from America there, so while they tried to flirt and look pretty, we did our best to teach them about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ :) It actually went quite well and I think we'll be coming back to teach them Again. Later that evening we worked for hours and hours on Building this huge barn out in the middle of the countryside for a member Family. It was way fun.

But the highlight of this week was on Sunday. We were blessed with 4 investigators in church!! I know that doesn't sound like much, but for Denmark, it's almost unbeleiveable. The first two hours went great, and then came the last hour, which is sacrament for us. It was fast and testimony meeting. I was sitting with 'V' and 'G' (17 and 10 year old investigators. They're siblings) and told them that if I went up and embarresed myself by bearing my testimony in my awful Danish that they would have to go after me. They agreed, and I did my part. Then, one at a time, they both went up to the pulpit and bore INCREDIBLE testimony. 'G' was literally in tears!! Ah it was just so amazing to see. I love this church. The Work is gooooood.

I love you all

-Ældste Bradshaw

10/27/14

Happy Halloween week y'all,

So daylight savings was this week in Denmark, which means that it gets darker even EARLIER than before, which I honestly did not think was possible. The sun usually goes down around 4 PM and it is pitch Black by about 6 PM. I sure could use some vitamin D. Pray for sun in Denmark!

Other than that, things are really looking up for us! It's too cold to rain anymore, so we sometimes get extremely light snow, which is nice. I hated being wet all the time. And besides the weather, the Lord has blessed us with tons of new investigators!! Lots of our old investigators have slowly been falling out of contact with us, so we desperately needed some new ones, and sure enough, they came. Last night alone we got 3 new investigators. One of them is actually a really funny story. We knocked on their door and told them about the church, and they were NOT interested, but then I noticed something. On their doorway they had a sticker of Mickey mouse, so I asked them about it. Boom! We were in. They were absolutely OBSESSED with everything Disney, and luckily, I've been to Disneyland many a time, so I was able to have an instant connection with them. But you would not beleive how obsessed this couple was with Disney. I'm not kidding when I say that they had a room in the house that was completely covered with Disney, so much that you could not see the walls or floor. It was incredible. And then after we had talked about all their favorite Disney things, we were able to turn the conversation back to the Gospel and even set up a return appointment! Haha, thanks Disney.

So yeah, the work is really hastening. Margret should be getting baptized either this Saturday or the next, so that's exciting! She's such an incredible lady. Super funny too. Elder Hooper and I have started teaching the guest class every Sunday again, so that's lots of fun. We usually never plan a lesson because there is usually at least one investigator there that has some crazy question that we end up talking about the Whole time. It's amazing to see how many people come to that class now compared to when I first got here. We're being truly blessed with tons of new people. The hard part is just turning them into baptisms.

I've also spent a considerable amount of time down at the States office trying to become legal. They've never had anyone in my situation before that comes from England but lives in America, so they have no idea how to handle it. They're demanding to see a bank statement from the Church to prove that they can support me here in Denmark, but obviously that's very confidential and the church can't give that out. But if they did see how much money was sitting in the Church's bank account, I'm sure they would all be baptized immediately.

Sorry I don't have any crazy stories this week. We've just been busy with the work. We taught tons of lessons this week, which is my favorite part of missionary work, so I'm happy. I've got my dad Upstairs looking out for me. Love that guy.

Have a great Halloween week everyone!!

Love you all!!

-Ældste Bradshaw

(Oh I just remembered, we started guitar contacting this week, so that's super fun. K bye)

10/20/14

Dearly beloved,

    This week it rained. And it rained. And then it rained Again. And then it stopped for 5 minutes, and then it rained for the rest of the week. Oh my goodness.... I have NEVER been so wet in my life!! You should have seen us the other day as we went out for the final Work hours of the day. We had a few appointments from 5-9, but they all fell through right before, so we decided to cycle out to a far away city to knock. It was already raining when we left the Apartment, but as we went along, it started to just POUR down and within 5 minutes I may as well of jumped in a swimming pool I was so wet. Then for the NeXT 4 hours, not a single person had pity on us enough to let us in their nice warm homes. Everything was wet. My wool hat was stuck to my wet hair and there was a miniature swimming pool at the bottom of each of my shoes.  I just wanted the night to be over so bad, but it dragged on and on and on. We could have gone home whenever we wanted and claimed that the weather was too extreme to Work in, but we decided we would stick it out and Work in faith that Heavenly Father would lead us to someone. He did. At the second to last house we were going to knock that night, a man answered the door. I used what Little Danish I knew to tell him about who we were and what we had to offer him. He wasn't all that interested, but we were able to give him our phone number and he claimed that he would call us if there was anything we could do to help him. Then we left. We didn't expect to hear from him ever again.

   We then continued to the last house on the street, planning to retire for the night after that. My companion knocked the door and not 2 seconds later, our phone started ringing. I answered, and tried intensely to listen to what the man was saying over the loud rain. All I could make out were two words: ''kom tilbage'', meaning ''come back''. I assumed it to be the man we had just knocked into seeing as I didn't recognize the phone number. We hurried back to the last house, not even waiting to see if anyone would answer the door we had just knocked. Sure enough, the man was waiting for us at the door. He quickly let us in from the rain and brought us into his living room. We sat down as he fetched us some drinks. When he entered the room, you could tell something was the matter. He already had tears in his eyes. Before anything was said, he started telling us that he had been reading in the Bible earlier that day. He said he read the following story:

   There was a man that lived in Jerusalem that desperately wanted to see Jesus in the flesh while he was on the earth, so he prayed to God and begged that Christ would be sent to him. Later that day, a man knocked on his door and asked if he could come in and rest from his travels, and that in return he would teach him the Word of Christ. The man rejected the weary traveler and continued waiting for Jesus, but he never came. That night in his sleep, he had a vision in which Christ came to him and said ''Why did you reject me today?'' The man replied ''What are you talking about?? I have never seen you before!'' To which Christ replied that the man that had knocked on his door was sent directly from him to deliver an important message.

   Francisk (the man whose house we were in) told us that when he sent us away into the rain, this story immediately came to his head, and he felt like he should invite us to come back. We couldn't believe it!! He basically told us that he recognized that we were sent from Christ himself! It was just amazing. The spirit was so strong, so we started teaching. We taught about the restoration and the Book of Mormon for a while, then challenged him to be baptized. He said that he will, but would not commit to a date. He did invite us to come back again though. It was such an incredible experience. And the best part.... He has an Audi in his driveway and offered to drive us to church sometime!! Haha I really hope that actually happens. I've grown a Little tired of cycling for two hours to church.

   So yeah, that was the highlight of my week. Other than that I finally went inside that sweet Castle by our Apartment. We saw all of the Charl Bloch paintings. I'll send some Pictures. We taught tons of lessons this week. Met some incredible people. You know, all the typical missionary stuff.

It's been a good week. Wet and Cold, but good.

Also, sorry for the weird grammar and random capitalizations. Danish keyboards are super weird.

- Ældste Bradshaw

10/13/14

Goddag! Hvordan har I haft det? Ældste Hooper og Jeg har haft det rigtigt godt her I Hillerød. Det er meget bedre end Utah, synes jeg. Nej, jeg driller bare. Jeg vil altid elsker Utah!

Haha... I can just imagine you all trying to read this out loud right now and absolutely slaughtering it! I promise you it sounds NOTHING like what it looks like, so don't even try and pronounce it. Danish is actually a beautiful spoken language, even if it doesn't look good on paper (or screen).

This week has been packed full of crazy adventures full of action, romance, deceit, joy, and sorrow. Okay maybe not all those things, but it has been amazing. I recently found the world’s best pastry shop. We go there once a week now and it's the best way to start off the day. You walk in and you're instantly welcomed by cute baker girls (Elder Hooper's Words, not mine) and the smell of freshly baked bread (my Words). You feel very European walking out of there with a freshly baked baguette or Danish pastry.

So in church every week I've been going to choir because the missionaries have to go, and this week something terrible happened. We were singing in practice and the crazy conductor lady picked me out to sing a solo!! Ahhh! So that day in sacrament meeting, the choir was called up to sing the interlude song, and I sung the entire first verse by myself! In Danish! Haha it was hilarious. I had to try really hard not to look at the other Elders because they were all trying to make me laugh.

During the week we had over 15 lessons planned to teach, but almost everyone cancelled on us. It was pretty discouraging, but we went forward with faith and just went finding instead. This consisted of knocking doors like mad men and cycling hundreds of miles to get from city to city through rich green rolling hills. One trail even led to a dead end in the middle of a field, so we carried our bikes for a few miles through thick wet grass up to my knees in an attempt to find another road. We ended up in the middle of a bunch of sheep. I quite liked it.

I think I have found my niche market when it comes to contacting in the city or on trains. I've found that if I talk to girls aged from about 16-21, they tend to be A LOT more interested. I think I got over 10 girls phone numbers this week. (yeah I still got game). They just tend to show more interest, and even if it isn't always for the ''right reasons'', they could potentially turn into great investigators. The church in Denmark is in need of some Young new blood, and if I can get all the Young girls to join, the Guys will come flocking, right?

On Friday we carved pumpkins with Josefine! It was so much fun. It felt just like carving a pumpkin back home with the Family. Have any of you started carving yet? I'd love to see em.

Oh and Happy Birthday to Amelia!!!! I can't believe you're already 10! I love you!!!!!!!

We would appreciate if you could pray for a man called Yens Andersen. He used to be the mission president here in Denmark, and is now our Ward mission leader. He's an incredible man and will probably be a General Authority any day now, but his daughter just passed away two days ago. They found out this Monday about a brain tumor and she passed away on Saturday. The worst part was that he was in Utah all this week on official church business and wasn’t able to be with her in her last few days. So yeah... Keep him in your prayers.

I love you all so much.

Keep writing.

-Ældste Bradshaw