11-23-15

Hey,

Don't have much time this week, so I'm sorry to say that this will be a short email :(

Things are going great and I'm feeling wonderful! We had a MASSIVE snow storm yesterday so we were just shoveling snow for the most of church so that people wouldn't get stuck in the building.

Otherwise, Elder Vance and I have been traveling lots as always :) We were in Copenhagen just a few days ago when there was a bomb threat on the trains and at the nearby airport. This world is crazy!! I love my mission!!

We find out about transfers on Thursday, so that should be exciting! Looks like I'm due to move which is quite a bummer, but it's alright. A new chapter in the mission.

I'm happy and optimistic, loving the winter weather and looking forward to Christmas (all of the decorations have been up for a while now).

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

Ældste Jed Bradshaw 

y

11-16-15

Hello!!

God Mandag alle sammen!! It is getting CHILLY in Århus, but that can't keep our spirits down!! We've had such an awesome week with splits on the other side of the country to 6 hour zone trainings and everything in between! 

Zone training this week was all about family history work and how we can use it as a finding tool in our mission. There is tons of potential here with the people of Denmark because they LOVE their families and they have such a good system set up that makes it so easy for them to find their ancestors! 

Oh guess what?!? A couple of weeks ago when I was on splits here in Århus we contacted this lady on a bridge. She turned out to be a school teacher that was looking for someone to come and give a presentation to her students as they were beginning to study world religions!! Well this last week we finally made it out to her class!! She called them the class of ''misfit children'' as they were all struggling students of some sort. They had tons of questions for us and we just chatted openly for about two entire hours! By the end we had handed out several copies of the Book of Mormon and they had given us lots of hot dogs in return. It was awesome. Then as the teacher escorted us out of the building she took us to the principal and introduced us to him. He was so impressed by what we do that he insisted that we come back and present to more of his classes! Awesome!

We've had some exciting progress with our investigators, especially one man named *S*. He's *F's* best friend and this last Friday he invited us over to cook us some traditional Ghanaian food. It was delicious and after we ate we had the chance to share the message of the Gospel with him. He is now on date to be baptized on the 19th of December! He's such a great guy. 

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

Elder Bradshaw  

11-9-15

Howdy Y'all,

Happy Monday!! I hope you are all healthy and happy! I certainly am! We just kick started our Monday with a great 5 mile run with our investigators Mr. T (the Colombian) and his wife *S* (the Dane)! Elder Vance and I have become avid runners actually. We were in Copenhagen this week for our Mission Leadership Council and we spent the night at President O'Bryant's house so we decided to invite him to go running with us in the morning. Of course he couldn't say no! You should have seen it... ha ha it was hilarious. President was the only one with a headlamp on (it was pitch black) and we went running through a thick forest so Elder Vance and I had to stay as close to President as possible in order to see where we were going!

Sunday was a great day this week. Mr. T showed up for the closing hymn of sacrament meeting but was able to attend guest class and priesthood meeting with us translating along the way. We've been encouraging the ward to invite their friends to church recently, and this Sunday, two of them brought people! One brought her boyfriend who really wants to come again and the other brought her best friend from Ghana!! It's so great when the members get involved in the work. It gets everyone more excited and it keeps the missionaries happy.

We've been trying to visit a member a day recently and we've really seen the trust between members and missionaries grow. They are inviting us over to their place more often to eat with their families, which is awesome! Especially this one family, the *T-Ns*, who have really taken a liking to us. And I don't know how, but the father *F* found a Hollow Bodies ad online some place and looked up everything about us. He then pranked me this last weekend by blasting one of our songs that he found on the internet right after we had blessed the food. He thought it was hilarious. I didn't. Good one *F*. Good one.

Oh a crazy thing happened this week!! As we were on our way to Copenhagen, standing in a packed train like canned sardines when *J* from Hillerød (my first area) ran up to me and tried to give me a big hug!! Ha ha I didn't know what to do! We had the Sister Training leaders with us and everything, so I kinda just stood there as she hugged my stone body. At first she reprimanded me for not talking to her after I left the area, so after I explained that I couldn't she told me some great news!! Apparently *M*, a man we found and spent months teaching in Hillerød, got baptized!! So that was a neat tender mercy for the day. 

This week has been a great testimony for me about the blessings that have to come to each and every one of us because of the restoration of Christ's Gospel to the earth. Just think how much it changes the way you and I live our lives every single day! It's beautiful. I know without a doubt that Joseph Smith was called in his imperfections to bring to pass a perfect and marvelous thing. 

But I hope you all have a great week!!! I love you ALL!!    

Ældste Bradshaw

11-2-15

Happy November everyone!!!

Holy cow how is it already November? It's been such a great week here! Just go go go every second of every day. It's mostly been crazy because of the fact that we hosted a MASSIVE family history event here in the Århus church building. It's the largest family history gathering in all of Denmark and is run completely by members and missionaries. At one point I believe there were 300+ non-members in that building!!! That's unheard of! We had lots of guest speakers come in to give presentations and the missionaries were running various booths around the church and answering any questions. All in all it was a huge success. We now have a massive list of people that would like the missionaries to come to their homes and teach them and their families how to use the Church's ''Family Search'' website! What a perfect missionary opportunity. 

The Denmark mission is actually doing a huge Family History push right now due to the fact that our mission president believes it is the key to the heart of the family loving Danish people. And I'm glad it is because in the process I've learned tons of great things about my own ancestors, especially after my lovely Nana Bradshaw sent me tons of great stories about my Danish ones. Family History work really is exciting!! If you haven't been on recently, I would highly recommend it. 

Otherwise, we've got some new and exciting investigators to work with. Especially one named Mr.T from Cambodia! He married a young Danish lady just a few months ago and they moved over here to Århus! We met him one night at a stop light as we were SPRINTING home to make it home on time. We were waiting at the red light, wheezing and heaving, and laughing, he asked us who we were. We told him we don't have time right now, but if you give us your number we can tell you another time. He gave it to us!! AND we made it home on time with 30 seconds to spare!! He's awesome and doesn't have any religious background at all, so it's been fun just teaching him the fundamentals. He has already attended Football on Saturday and Church on Sunday and really enjoyed it, so we'll see where that goes.

I hope you all have a fantastic week!!! I love you each and every one!!

Ældste Bradshaw

10-26-15

Hello beautiful people!

I don't have much time today, but I would like to share a little miracle with you that we experienced this week. As you know, Elder Vance and I have had some good relations going with this little congregation of people from the Congo here. Well once a year, they do as Christ commanded and they go out and preach the Gospel (basically they go street contacting once a year for an hour and call it good). They invited Elder Vance and I to tag along so they could learn from the pros, but we ended up breaking off from the main pack of them who were preaching violently to people on a busy walking street.

As we started doing our own thing, we walked into this tiny little alleyway in the middle of two ancient Danish homes on this cobble stoned street right next to a canal like the ones in Venice. As we walked through, there was a man standing there smoking a cigarette looking very contemplative. We approached him and started the contact in Danish as we always do, to which he replied ''sorry, what?''.

''Perfect'', we said ''we're from America! Do you speak English?'' Of course he did. We quickly found out that he was from Italy and was only here for the week due to the fact that his brother had just passed away who lived here in Århus and was here to attend the funeral. We showed sympathy, but immediately went into testifying about the great Plan of Salvation. He said that he had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he could see his brother again, but he said that it was definitely something he hoped for. BOOM! Perfect. Alma 32:21.

We testified to him that he would see his brother again and that their relationship and happiness could go on eternally if he would do some things that God has asked us to do. He desperately asked what he should do and said that he would do whatever it takes.... we taught him about baptism and enduring to the end and eternal covenants with God. He asked us where and when he could do these things!! Haha we said it would only take about 3 weeks to get started if the missionaries came often enough and he worked at it. By the end of the conversation his mind was set on doing whatever it would take to see his brother and mother and father again. We prayed with him and got his information to the missionaries in Italy. As he hugged us goodbye with tears in his eyes, I asked him what his name was. He replied ''Antonio''.

''And your brother?'' I said.

''Luca''.

 I got a massive smile on my face as I thought of Jordan and Antonia and their new born baby Luca.

Anyway, that was the miracle for the week. I know that God leads us to certain people in our lives. His hand is in each and every one of our lives. He loves us all. I love you all so much :) I hope you know that. Have a great week!!

Elder Jed Bradshaw

10-19-15

Howdy,

How are all you guys and gals doing?? It's a beautiful clear day here in Århus! It's been raining like crazy all week long, but today is just perfect. Today is also transfer day!! I'll be staying here in Århus for at least another 6 weeks so I'm not moving (WOOHOOO!!!), but we just finished getting all of the missionaries in the zone onto trains around the country. Let’s hope nobody gets lost this time. 

We had zone training on Thursday which went great, but to be honest it's always such a relief when they're over. Just so much to plan and worry about. We also had a district activity after the training where we carved pumpkins!! I've got to say that mine was pretty dang awesome.... I'll try to attach a picture if I can. But Halloween is coming up and... haha well it doesn't affect Denmark at all. But I think we're going to try to throw a Halloween party and see if we can't get the members excited about it.

It's strange being in Denmark during the holidays because they don't celebrate Halloween of Thanksgiving, so the ''holidays'' start in December. Don't worry though, we always find fun ways to celebrate something or another in the apartment. We currently have 7 carved pumpkins sitting on our eating table...

Our investigators are doing great! I think our biggest struggle is just trying to keep our teaching pool going even though we don't have much time for ourselves. But things are still going great despite the hindrances! We're trying to focus on the HOW instead of the WHY NOT.

We have two great families now that we teach from the Faroe Islands. Just this last week the young mother of one of the families gained a huge testimony of the plan of salvation through some miraculous story she just had! And she's loving the Book of Mormon! Mostly, we're just excited for the new transfer so we can start fresh with lots of things. Gosh this is so much fun!

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!! 

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

Ældste Bradshaw

10-12-15

Glædelig Jul og Godt Nyt År!!

JK.

Well, happy week 66 everyone!!! 

Yesterday was the best day ever!! It's been a slightly tough week with investigators due to the fact that we haven't been in our area enough to visit them all, so we really weren't expecting anyone to show up to church yesterday... But we were wrong!! We stood at the door for half an hour and greeted member after member after member, but no investigators. Then the meeting started. We sang the opening song and the bishop read off announcements, then during the Sacrament Hymn, in walks *F*!! Then 10 seconds after him in walks *S*!! Then *J*, then *R*, then Mr. T (yes, that's his real name). It was such a beautiful sight and I couldn't help but grin as big as I could at everyone the rest of the day :D I love the little mercies like that which the Lord gives us every day.

Elder Vance and I have been continuing our tour of Denmark this week. First we were up in an area called Aalborg. I had been there once before and had managed to meet on of their investigators who was a music fanatic (but not as much as me ;)) who I played guitar and piano with. Well this time when I came back to meet him for the second time, he had a gift for me!! Apparently after I had left the first time he instantly went out and bought books by his favorite guitarists full of sheet music and how to make it to the top with the intent of giving them to ME! Well months went by since the first time I met him, but he kept the books for me and gave them to me just 3 days ago! Haha what a great guy. We had a great lessons with him and committed him to be baptized on the 20th of November. Hopefully I will be able to attend.

We were in Copenhagen on Friday for Mission Leadership Conference. That's always such a great experience to see so many great missionaries with an eye single to the glory of God! We were able to get lots done in order to help the mission. Elder Vance and I are now preparing for our upcoming zone training this Thursday. It should be a good one!! Our objective is to motivate and inspire in order to change missionaries mission expectations. 

Oh, one weird thing. We are currently a trio here in Århus because Elder Sakurada had to get emergency transferred to Bornholm, so we have taken Elder McBride under our wing for a week until his new companion gets here from the MTC. Exciting stuff!

I love this gospel. I know it's true. But regardless of whether or not it IS true, it improves the quality of the lives of those that live it. I am eternally grateful for what my Savior has done for me and for the opportunity he has given me to serve his precious people in Denmark. I LOVE IT!! :) and I love you all!! Have a great week!!

Ældste Bradshaw

PS congrats to Ethan for making it to the MTC!!! Bradshaw power for life!