10-5-15

Kære venner og familie,

Happy Conference week!!! I don't know about you all, but I absolutely LOVED conference, and I haven't even had a chance to watch all of the sessions yet due to time differences! Oh man it really is such an incredible thing that we have a living prophet of God on the earth today. And THREE new apostles called!! Did you know that it's been 100 years since that has happened?? What an exciting time we live in! I especially enjoyed what the last of the three had to say ( I can't remember all of their names). 

But here are a few nuggets that I took away from conference so far: 

• Sometimes we make the gospel far more complicated than it needs to be. The true principles of the gospel are all very simple. Simplify.
• The phrase ''journey of discipleship'' seemed to be a reoccurring theme. Exaltation (living as God lives) is the goal. Discipleship is the journey. A journey always starts with the first step, so start where you are. Don't worry about where you are not. Take the next step necessary to begin repentance. The sooner the better.
• The Holy Ghost can give very customized and practical revelation. Ask him what the next step is for you right now. If it is to be that you should clean your room, so do it. If he tells you to call your Mum and just chat with her, do it. 
• For the Lord, our direction is far more important than our speed.
• We must be temple worthy. Always.
• Today is a day of choosing. Chose to believe. The apostles seems to be focusing on that a lot recently. 
• Avoid debt at all costs. Pay tithing first, then live within your means.
• Dating: Observe the way the people you date act under difficult circumstances. Modesty is far more important than I previously thought. Live worthy of the person you are going to one day marry. We don't marry perfection, we marry potential. 
• Motherly love MUST be divine. My mother is the greatest example of Christ I know.
• The culminating act of all Creation was the creation of Woman. Women, you influence is far greater than you could ever imagine. I salute you.
• It's never too early, it's never too late.

I hope you got some of the same impressions as me and many more. General Conference is such a wonderful opportunity to bless our lives.

We were able to have 3 investigators watch conference in the church with us and hope to be going into the homes with many more this week to watch it with them once the Danish translation comes out. 

Here's a fun thing that's happening: I have been asked by a church here in Århus to gather together a band and play at an up and coming youth convention they will be having for thousands of youth across Denmark!! Elder Vance and I have been attending their weekly Bible study class and this last week after the class I was jamming out on one of their guitars on the stage and the Priest insisted that I come and play. Now the problem of finding enough talented missionaries/members to help me out! But this should be a great chance for us to have some good influence on thousands of young believing youth.

Other than that, we have only been in our own area for a total of 8 hours this week due to the fact that we have been doing a tour of the zone and visiting all 24 missionaries. It's been fantastic and we have seen so many miracles!! This is the Saviors work. I have no doubt about that. I love you all!!! Have a great week!!

Ældste Jed Bradshaw

PS my address is Åparken 6 st. 3, Århus 8000, Denmark. Try and use the weird Danish vowels if you can.   

9-28-15

Goddag Alle Sammen!! 

Stress. That's the word I would use to describe this week. But in a good way...  I think. Basically I just have a plethora of things to do all the time. Which is a REALLY good place to be at as a missionary. I would rather have a million things to do than absolutely nothing to do (where I have also been on my mission). Elder Vance and I have so many different responsibilities and assignments and nobody really understands how stressful it can get but us two. We have trainings on trainings on trainings to plan for, splits to travel to, tickets to buy for other missionaries, messes to clean up left by other missionaries, investigators to constantly think about, numbers to report on, call ins, a suicidal less-active members we have to keep a constant watch on to make sure he doesn't make another attempt at his life, the list goes on and on and on... but I've learned a very important principle from it all. You really do have to forget yourself to find yourself.

The scripture Mosiah 2:17 has never made more sense to me. I've learned of the power and blessings of service. Never have I been happier on my mission than I am right now because I NEVER have a spare moment to think about myself. Time just flies by and memories make themselves. It's beautiful and simple and I want the rest of my mission to go like this. Thinking about others and being proactive is 600x better than pouting and worrying about little old me. And that applies to everybody. So I'm grateful for that lesson I've learned :) 

Our Colombian family is doing great! We've now taught multiple lessons in just Spanish and I'm still learning tons!!  *S* was making slow progress so we took a step back and tried to figure out what he really needed. We came to the conclusion that he had not had a change of heart. The power of the atonement had not taken hold in his life. He had not experienced the joys of repentance. So we started teaching repentance and it's already made such a huge difference in his life!! Oh man I just love the atonement. Too often we as humans think about repentance as a negative and sorrowful experience, but it's just the opposite! Repentance is my favorite thing in the world! It's a time to celebrate. Gosh I could just go on and on with telling you what I've learned about the atonement recently, but it would take far too long. Maybe I'll write a book one day. 

But I love you all!!! I hope you have a sensational week!!

Ældste Jed David Bradshaw (the first)  

9-21-15

Hej alle sammen!

Århus is the most beautiful place in the world at the moment! The cool air has a little pinch to it now which I absolutely love. The thick greenery is starting to see its first signs of color change. The first wave of leaves have begun to fall and the air just smells incredible. So bring out the sweaters because FALL has arrived!!! Gosh I just love the fall so much! Things are going so well at the moment. Some highlights from this week include a great new family that we found yesterday!! They are from the Faroe Islands which is technically a part of Denmark but they speak an entirely different language. They're a young couple with two children and are just incredible people. So humble and kind. They accepted the first discussion very well so we're excited to see where that goes :) 

We have also been seeing lots of success with Spanish speaking people. We have an appointment tonight with a huge family from Columbia. They don't speak any Danish so we've been brushing up on the Spanish for the last few days and tonight is the big test! 

Haha we have also started teaching an entire congregation of people from Africa! One of their members was an investigator and invited us to attend their Bible study class with the youth. We showed up and they had over 30 young adults in attendance! Luckily Elder Vance and I have a pretty good understanding of the Bible between the two of us so the ''discussion'' of Bible study class led by their preacher quickly turned into us answering questions and teaching the entire congregation! We had the preacher stumped on quite a few things we brought up, which is not what we want to do, but it helped solidify our authority as servants of the Lord in front of all of these people. It was a great experience! We're going back this Wednesday. 

This last weekend we had Stake Conference which was great! Both *S* and *J* were able to be there which was great for them to meet so many members in one place! We got a visit from one of our area seventies and he gave a great talk about work and the Sabbath day. For the most though it was just nice to see so many familiar faces gathered together in one huge building. I even saw two of my previous companions who were here visiting!! 

Sorry I don't have much more time to expand upon our week. Elder Vance and I have to spend the day getting ready for our Zone Conference this week.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!!

Elder Bradshaw 

9-14-15

Well hello there :)

What a great week it has been! I just have to say that I absolutely love Denmark! I feel like I've come to this point where Denmark actually feels like my home and Alpine Utah feels like some make believe place. I love it! There are so many important people in my life that live right here in this country, and that's much more comforting than the way I used to look at it at the beginning of my mission when I would say that all of the important people in my life were back in Utah 6000+ miles away. It's nice to be surrounded by people I love. And I truly do love all of these people.

On Wednesday we met an incredible woman!! I contacted her at a bus stop in Danish, so we spoke Danish for a little bit.  Once I found out that she comes from Italy, I used my minuscule knowledge of Italy to impress her :) She mistook us for two Danes, so when she found out that we could speak English, she quickly switched to English! Now I've got to say that this contact turned into the MOST POSITIVE contact I've ever experienced! She was just so excited and happy that we were talking to her and inviting her to do things! She is about 24 years old and 6 months pregnant. Well luckily I've lived with a pregnant woman for my entire life (thanks mum), so I knew just how to treat her. She was smiling the whole time and then when it came time to get off of the bus, she insisted that we take her phone number! We gladly did and then texted her later to meet up the next day. So, we met her the next day in the church building. We had a member with us to help give a tour, then we went through the restoration. She just ate it all up. She then came the VERY NEXT DAY to the young adult activity at 6pm! They were doing institute, and through the whole thing she kept smiling and leaning over to me to say ''there is something different about this place'' to which I replied ''just wait until you come to sacrament meeting''. So now we're just trying to get her a Book of Mormon in Italian and she wants to come to church on Sunday! Can't wait to see what happens! 

Elder Vance and I also gave our Zone Training this week, so that was fun. We trained on how to use scriptures in our teaching which is something very basic but very necessary due to the many new missionaries in the zone. 

We are just so happy here in Århus at the moment! We work hard every day and constantly see the blessings of that hard work! I feel like we are in the field that is white and ready to harvest as it talks about in D&C 4. We've also started working with lots of Spanish speaking investigators so we have bought some Spanish grammar books and are dusting up on the Spanish speaking skills. It isn't going too well. Any advice Elder Kersey? 

Well I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! 

Elder Bradshaw

PS my right ankle might be broken. Don't freak out Mum, it’s just a maybe. It's more than likely just a bad sprain. The doctor said to give it some rest and see what happens. But as for right now, I can't walk on it. DON'T FREAK OUT! I just thought I would let you know so you don't hear about it from someone else :) Nothing can stop me from working :)

                                                       Mission Leadership Council

 Real deer in the Deer park. They just walk around but you can rarely get the ones like this with the big horns to come up to you, so this was a precious moment ;)

                   A cat and the millions of different Book of Mormon languages we have collected

                                   The ankle... you should have seen it without the wrap on. It was huge

                                               The MTC district at mission conference

                                                  Lunch at mission leadership council

                                              Entire mission at mission conference

                                        Picnic with missionaries, member, and investigator!

                                               playing some volleyball with the district.

 Flips with Elder Sakurada (don't worry, it wasn't these crazy gymnastics that broke the ankle)

9-8-15

Good Morning!!

Things have been a little crazy this week due to the fact that 3 new missionaries have now come into Åarhus to try and keep up the work load that we've built up and I have to be training all of them into the area! But it's so much fun because Elder Sakurada is one of the new missionaries! I don't know if you remember him, but he was from my MTC group and we are just two peas in a pod. We have way too much fun together! I love having 4 missionaries in the apartment now. It makes everything so much more fun. 

We had 12 completely new missionaries come into the mission this week, 5 of which are currently in my Zone, so that's exciting! We'll be traveling all over the place to visit them all and make sure they get the right impression about the mission and about missionary work in general. I've really seen how setting the right expectations is such an important thing in all kinds of work.

Exciting things are happening in Åarhus. We were planning on a baptism this Saturday with the Sisters, but it looks like it will be moved to next weekend, which is fine. We've been doing lots of work with the ward here. I've been teaching all of the priesthood holders in the 3rd hour about the importance of member missionary work, and they've really jumped on board! We're leading the mission in member present lessons. 

Lets see... I played a musical number yesterday in church with the guitar. We were in Copenhagen for a few days for various meetings with the mission president. *J* is progressing towards his baptismal date. The work is moving forward :) All is well. 

I have a burning testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. I know it's true and nobody can convince me otherwise. I truly believe I have the best job in the world. I would do this forever if I could. And I will, just without the name tag one day. 

I love you all and wish you a wonderful week!!

Ældste Bradshaw

PS Happy Birthday to my beautiful big sister Jordan and my stud of a little brother Ethan.!! I love you both!!😂😂🎊🎁🎂🎈🎆🎉

Wow - not sure about knocking on this one.  Think this door is yours Elder.