3-30-15

Happy Monday everyone :)

You all look beautiful! Things are great over here right now. Very windy, but great! Things have been going so well since Elder Taylor got here. The work is taking off even more, which I didn't think was possible. Him and I have so much fun together because we both love being really bold when contacting people, so we say some hilarious things to complete strangers sometimes. One funny story from the other day: Elder Taylor and I were on a train on our way to district meeting and a group of 4 Danish girls about 17-18 years old sat down next to us.

Elder Taylor and I were speaking English to each other, and the girls thought it was hilarious and were giggling amongst themselves. I guess they didn't think we could speak Danish because they were blatantly talking about us in Danish right in front of us. Well... being the missionary that I am, I had to talk to them. So I leaned over and said ''Goddag. Har i nogensinde hørt om Mormon Kirken?'' Oh my goodness they were just blown away. They starting freaking out because they realized that we had understood everything they had been saying about us! But I managed to strike up a conversation about the church with one girl in specific. She seemed more interested in the fact that we were from America than  our church, but hey, I wasn't gonna just stop talking to her.

Anyway, I ended up giving the girl our card which had our phone number on it. Whoops.... that might have been a mistake :/ Well, to make a long story short, she ended up texting us TONS of questions. The Word of Wisdom. The Law of Chastity. Eternal Marriage. Elder Taylor and I saw it as a great teaching opportunity, so we replied to all of her questions. We asked her if she wanted to meet up sometime and learn more, to which she replied ''I only want to meet up with the Bradshaw, the one I talked to on the train so we can get to know each other'' .... Oh dear. We explained that we're always together, but she didn't seem to understand that. But in the end she ended up sending the following text (translated of course) ''Look here Bradshaw!! I don't want to hear about Christ! I don't want to get to know you're church! I want to know if you're the one I'm supposed to marry!!'' ..... it also included a few other statements that I have strategically left out. But yeah... that's when we decided to drop her :) Gotta watch out for these Danish girls. They're beautiful, but got to be careful. 

Haha I thought you might enjoy that little story, but there are also tons of great spiritual experiences from this week, as always. I don't know if I've ever told you about *O*, but he is now on track to be baptized in June!! It was such a great lesson. He has a super strong testimony. We also met with *E* this week! We're now 2 for 2 on the tears. She just cried and cried the entire time. Ah I love teaching. The spirit is always so strong. Unfortunately we had daylight savings this week, so she overslept and didn't make it to our early church services, but she'll probably be watching conference with us! Oh boy I can't wait for conference. 

Okay well it's been a great week! I hope it has been for all of you as well :)

Love you all!!!!!!!!!!

-Ældste Bradshaw

3-23-15

Alright,

You all need to hear about *E*. She's amazing. You see, as missionaries in Denmark, we are often combated with the argument ''Well, I believe in Science, therefore, I don't believe in God.'' Well obviously as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we know very well that Science and nature only confirm the presence of an almighty creator. God is The Great Scientist, is he not? Well, Danes don't buy that. But *E* did. Elder Zalewski and I were out to knock on some doors the other day, and we got into the typical 'Religion vs. Science' debate with a college student at her doorstep. It wasn't going well, but I felt prompted to ask her if she thought it would be possible that there was a God that used her beloved Science... but not the way we understand it... rather on a more perfect level of understanding. She stood there for a second and thought, then said (in Danish of course) ''Well, I've never thought about that before. That could very well be the case.'' She then started opening up big time. She told us that she had actually read quite a lot about us online, and was quite interested in what we believe, specifically eternal marriage. She said she thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard of. And it is ;) Anyway, we asked her if she wanted to meet, and long story short, we managed to make an appointment for Tuesday.

Tuesday rolls around and we met up at the church for our appointment. We brought our good friend Morten with us to help with the teaching and fellowshipping. We walked around the corner, and there she was, on the bench just outside the church doors, smoking a cigarette :) 

I guess I should probably tell you a little about *E* first. She is 19 years old, currently living in an apartment in Nykøbing, and studying some sort of science at the nearby university. She's originally from England, which helped her and I to be able to connect a little bit, but she has lived in Denmark most of her life and speaks fluent Danish, so we speak Danish together. 

Okay so we go into the church and find a classroom to hold the lesson in. We take our seats and she just starts firing off questions like she's interrogating us! Well, we tell her that we usually begin with a prayer, and she was fine with that. I asked her if she had any friends of family that we could pray for, and she told me the name of her mother. I offered the prayer. It wasn't long. It wasn't special. But I named her and her mother by name, and when I said amen and lifted my head up, she was in tears. She couldn't get control of herself. So I ran and grabbed her some tissues as she tried to gather her feelings. We asked her why she was crying and she said that nobody had ever prayed on her behalf before and that it really touched her. Woah..... I was amazed. You would not believe the spirit that was in that room. And we had only said the opening prayer!! 

Haha oh man I could honestly write a novel about this lesson we had, but I'll try and summarize it all. Basically she had read EVERYTHING about Mormons online. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And I mean the VERY ugly. But she didn't believe any of the negative stuff. She said she much preferred the positive and spiritual things that she read and watched. She had soooo many questions. We covered everything from Temple garments to Polygamy to tithing, and she loved it all! Haha she loved tithing can you believe it?!! That's usually the one thing that ruins investigators for us. Anyway we eventually managed to teach her the restoration and invite her to be baptized. Oh man you're gonna love this part. Best answer to a baptismal invite ever. We asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said (in Danish) ''Well... that was a stupid question. Of course I do!''        Ha! Can you believe that? 

But that's not it!!! The next day as we were walking along the street we got a text from her. She told us that she had been reading from the Book of Mormon and decided that she would smoke a cigarette as she read, but when she picked up her box of smokes, she got crazy head pain and nausea that went away as soon as she put them down!!!! She told us that she thought it was a sign that she need to ''stop her sins in order to understand the truthfulness of the book''!! What kind of an investigator talks like that??! 

Anyway I could go on forever about *E*. She's just amazing. But ya I'll stop now. Sorry this email is so long.

By the way, I have a new companion. Elder Taylor. He's from Las Vegas and he's freaking awesome!!

Gotta go,

Love you all!!

-Elder Jed Bradshaw

3-16-15

Well... I'm drawing a little bit of a blank this week. 

We didn't spend much time in our own area due to the fact that Elder Zalweski has been performing baptismal interviews all over the district and we live at least 3 hours away from anyone, so when we do go up to other people's areas we usually end up spending the night with them. I'm pretty sure we were only in Nykøbing Falster for 2 or 3 whole days this week. Otherwise I've been traveling about, getting to know southern Sjælland. 

We did manage to meet with *M* this week. He's a retired soldier that served in Iraq. He's seen some absolutely terrible things (I'll spare you the gory details) and uses drinking to help him forget. Well, he told us this week out of nowhere that he wants to stop drinking and has signed up at the local addiction center!! So if he does manage to hold out and fight the good fight, he should be on his way to baptism very soon here :)

We also met with *K* again this week. She's that old lady that can't even walk. Well, when we got to her place, she was in a VERY bad state. She's become terribly sick and it doesn't look like there is anything else the doctors can do for her... her guess is that she will be gone before we manage to come back again... Well, we offered to give her a priesthood blessing, and she gladly accepted. The thing was, I figured Elder Z would be giving the blessing seeing as I've never given one in Danish before, but she INSISTED that I give it to her. So I did. With shaking hands I did my very best to give her a blessing in a language that I hardly knew. I don't even remember what I said, but I remember it was almost fluent Danish... I didn't quite understand what was happening, and then it was over. I'll never forget that.

Anyway, we have tons of appointments set up for this next week and we think we can beat our previous high score! Wish us luck!

Sorry I don't have much time to write this week. I accidentally spent a little too much time on some other emails :/ 

I love you all soooooooooo much!!

-Elder Jed Bradshaw

3-9-15

Heyo!!

Alright, let me start by saying sorry if I sound prideful or if it sounds like I'm boasting, but I can't help it! This week has just been AMAZING!! We broke the records for the area across the board!! We destroyed all of the goals that we set, matching them in every category and even exceeding them in others! We taught soooo many lessons and found tons of new people!!! Like holy cow!! Heavenly Father is just Blessing us so much and we can hardly keep up.

We picked up two new investigators on Friday right after zone training. We knocked into a man named *J* and his wife *M*! Jannik is a crocodile trainer and his wife just gave birth to a BEAUTIFUL baby girl. Problem is, it's a mission rule that we aren't allowed to hold people's babies, and if any of you know me, you would know that it was the hardest thing I've ever done to resist picking her up, especially because she kept on crawling over to me and reaching her arms out, just begging me to hold her!! Ah I was hardly paying attention to the lesson. Anyway. *J and M* are super positive and have already invited us to come back!! So it will be exciting to see where that goes.

On Wednesday we were over at an old ladies house to help her move some furniture when she asked us to go knock on her neighbors door to see if he wanted a chest of drawers that she didn't need.... So we knocked on this man’s door and he was VERY confused as to why two young men in shirts and ties were offering him a piece of furniture, but it really sparked his interest and now we're going back to meet with him next week!!!

Lastly, we found these two great new investigators on Monday. His name is *P* and her name is *S*. He plays in a band here in Nykøbing (I think him and I will be friends) and she's from Australia as a student! They're both 21 and tons of fun to meet with. They absolutely loved our message!!  They're very positive and friendly, so we'll be coming back for sure.

We also were able to meet with *K* twice this week!! We watched the Joseph Smith film with him on Saturday night and he loved it!! His English isn't great so he couldn't understand all of it, but luckily the Spirit speaks in the universal language of love and happiness, and I know he was touched.

So yeah, Things are great here :) The sun is even shining today, so I've got nothing to complain about. I'm now off to play some futbol with some members for p-day, so that should be fun.

Have a great week!! I love you all!!

-Elder Jed Bradshaw

3-4-15

Kære alle sammen,

Things are going great on this side of the pond. A little slower than usual, but still great. We haven't been able to meet with many of our investigators this week, but that has been just fine because we used the free time to visit all of the less active people in our area. Less active Work really is just as important, if not more important than investigator Work. Our branch should be about 50 members, but we're usually only about 15 on your average Sunday. Could you imagine the difference it would make in the area if EVERY member attended?? Members would be happier, church would be more exciting and investigators would be more impressed with Sunday services. So.... I think I've decided to make the less active members the focus of this area. I really think it would benefit Nykøbing Falster for generations to come.

One less active lady that we met with this week is called *B* (I swear it's a beautiful name when Danish pronunciation is applied). She's 70 something years old and has terrible legs. She can hardly walk and requires help with just about everything she does. You should have seen the smile that came across her face when she saw us at her doorstep! Apparently the missionaries used to go and visit her all the time and help her with all the Things that she needed done around the house and yard. In fact, it seems like she was dependent on the missionaries to properly live.

Unfortunately several years ago, the missionaries decided that it wasn't worth their time to visit her, so one day, they just stopped coming. Then there we were, standing on her doorstep, and you would think she thought we were The Beatles from how star struck she looked! Haha it's good to know that we have some fans ;) Anyway, we talked with her for a while, then after finding out that she couldn't buy or make her own food, we ran into town to buy her some groceries and make some dinner with her. I don't think I've ever seen anyone so grateful for dinner! She just loved the Company and love that we offered her. Such a sweet lady.

We also Work with a less active Fellow by the name of *D*. Haha he is quite the character... He lived in the US for several years and has a perfect Southern accent, so we actually speak English with him. It's also been a while since the missionaries have been over to visit him, and I really believe he could be coming back to church soon.

Oh guess what I ate this week!!?! The World famous Habanero Pepper!!!! Supposedly the spiciest pepper in the World (although I think it might be second spiciest)! Luckily I had 3 liters of milk nearby to extinguish the blaze... but wow... that was fun. You should have seen the member that did it with me! Danish people eat very bland foods and can't handle spicy Things, so his entire body was heaving trying to throw it up, but he couldn't. I didn't think it was too bad... in fact, I would say that the garlic challenge from New Years was much worse.

Anyway I best be off. I love you all more than you can imagine :)

Have a great week!!

-Ældste Bradshaw