Saturday, January 31, 2015

Wedding Day

We have several Young Single Adult temple workers.  One of them was married today.  We have known the family since we were here last time, in fact Bent Leit was our bishop.  Sarah married Troy Leininger, whom we also connected with as his brother was one of our missionaries 10 years ago.
One of the Leininger sisters moved here for 4 years with her husband, Troy came from the US to visit, He met Sarah and they have been keeping the airlines and airways busy. They plan to settle in Denmark.
 The .brides leave the temple in their wedding dresses and remain in them through the day.
 This afternoon they had a reception at the chapel - the video presentation was an imported US custom.

They had lovely little tidbits and tonight will have a big celebration dinner with close family and friends with songs, speeches and gift-opening.  A long day.
 
 Here we are with our missionary, Tommy Leininger and his parents.  They had 7 of their 9 children at the wedding. The other two and most of the spouses, including Tommy 's were home expecting or with new babies.

Friday, January 30, 2015

A Great Day Trip

We have had such a good week and today was especially great.  We had groups from all over the temple district.  We had our monthly group from Sweden, and a  carload from Odensse. Three sisters from Alborg found a good deal on airline tickets and flew down this morning, did three sessions, and flew home tonight.  A couple from Aarhus  found train tickets for a good price and came down for two sessions. Three sisters from Esbjerg came Wednesday night and have been the first ones in the temple and the last ones to leave since then.  It is wonderful to work among such dedicated saints.

The blossom arn't really a sign of spring, this type of tree produces them in the winter.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Handicap Parking

First time I have seen this:  Special bicycle parking spots for handicap bikes and mothers with attachments for carrying their children.  It does make you wonder what the handicap is if you can still bike.

 You also need something to cover your seat when it rains.  This one was very clever.


Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Good Health Care


WE often hear horror stories of the health care system here.  Today, however, I had a very positive experience.  I woke up with an infected eye.  I called the doctor covering for my doctor ( he is off on Wednesday and it seems I only need someone on Wednesday, go figure) I actually liked this man better, he spoke better English. When I told him I had an infected eye he asked for my card number (everyone here has a health card) and called a prescription for eye drops in for me.  Crazy part, is I could pick it up at any pharmacy (apotek) I wanted.  Jim was going out and picked it up at the closest one to where he was going







 The eye is already much better.
   


  






Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Visiting Teaching

I biked out to visit teach today. Look at the cool way they make privacy on their balconies.
 Nice opportunity to individualize.
I was so glad to find Pia doing much better after a cortizon shot for her shoulder.  She was worried she would need surgery.  It was a brisk day, I've discovered you just have to commit and go for it.

Monday, January 26, 2015

New Washer

Our washing machine started to leak last week.  Fortunately it ran right into the shower drain.  By Saturday night it was totally dead.
 A new one came today and Allan, the temple engineer, hooked it up.
 Now I just need to figure out how to do a load in less than 2 hours.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Greeting Cards

The Danes are fond of making their greeting cards.  Ten years ago they did a lot of cut outs on their own.  Now I notice they are using professional cut outs, but the time and effort are just as personal. It is a fun creative outlet.
  The design in the middle of this card is  a combination of  hand-folded shapes.  It is a birthday card.  There is someone in the Relief Society that makes them for us to send to our sisters who have birthdays. I was grateful for the reminder and loved the card to take to Pia this week.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

White Day

We had such a good day at the temple.  Many saints came over from Sweden and many came to the open baptism and we had many baptisms. We had five people come today to do baptisms or the dead for the first time.  Three were new members who were brought by missionaries, another was a reactivation, missionaries brought, and the last was a boy who had just turned 12 and his parents brought him.
  We all love it when we are busy   You can actually feel the spirit grow.  It was especially nice to see a sweet sister who received her endowment, not to long ago, come back.  There is also a sister who is suffering from a chronic fatigue sort of syndrome that has figured out how to come to the temple and manage it.She is so excited to be able to come weekly, instead of struggling to come twice a year.

We had a little snow this afternoon, nothing compared to Jutland's 7 inches.


Friday, January 23, 2015

Smoothies

We have discovered these fabulous smoothie juices.  They are thick and all fruit.  The Mango one tastes just like being in Hawaii......
The temple has been pretty slow this week.  But today was much better, we had plenty of workers and enough patrons to really get some work done.  We were able to do all ordinances most sessions.  One cute young sister had made the goal to be to every session this week and she only has two more to go in the morning.  She said it has been wonderful to spend so much time in the temple and especially today through five sessions.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Harry Potter Fridge

Refrigerators here are usually thin and tall.  The fridge part is on the top and the freezer on the bottom.  Last time I was here, I thought it was strange, now I love it.  The advantage is that you can see what is there and you can pack and repack.  Today mine could have been used by Harry Potter, it has managed to hold everything I needed to put in, amazing!

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Space

In most Danish homes, especially apartments, space is very limited.  Most towels are hung by a loop on the end.
These towels from America I finally got around to  "remodeling."

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Feeding the Multitude

Knudsens are so good to feed the missionaries.  Tonight they had a full house - 24 !  Only 6 were young missionaries.  We have 8 of us from the temple, 3 from the mission office, one couple working with the YSA and one couple photographing records. It is nice to connect with everyone.  Tonight we had curry sauce with fruit over rice and pork roast.   Erling does a nice job of coming up with new menu items month after month. And the best part, we gave away three pass-a-long cards on the bus and train.  You do get missionary opportunities when you pray for them.


 

Monday, January 19, 2015

Full Family Night

We had a full Family Home Evening at Hansens.  All three missionary couples: Don and Kayla Hansen, Pam and George Hoge, and Don and Dorte Taylor and Pres. and Sis. Buur and Pres. Nilsson were there.  Sis. Nilsson had to go home to Sweden for a doctor's appointment.  We enjoyed a talk by Elder Nelson on temples and Kayla's carrot pudding.
On a personal note, I went visiting teaching on my bike and after a month it was a bit of effort.  But it  felt good to get out and exercise..  You just have to get over the idea that it looks cold.  Here they say there is no such thing as bad weather, only poor dressing.

Company for Dinner

We invited the Taylors, our new missionary couple for Sunday dinner, they had guests so we included them and Pres. Nilsson who was home alone.  Alis is a good friend of Dorte's, but not active.  Maybe the Lord has a plan in action....
This post is late as my Chrome didn't connect.  Computers! Thanks to Allan, our temple engineer, I am back in business.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Holiday Bord - High Priest's Party

Each January the High Priest's activity is a traditional holiday lunch.  They hold it after the rush of December and it is something everyone looks forward to. It is a big buffet and you are supposed to enjoy the first course of fish: pickled herring, fried fish filet, shrimp, etc.

then the meat course: fleskesteg, frikadeller, chicken, liver posteg, bacon, pork loin etc.

 and the final course is cheese and crackers and fruit plus they had a lovely fruit salad in whipped cream.
There were many kinds of bread, relishes and spreads to go with everything.

Everyone brought a $2.00 gift and we threw 6s to see who got the gifts and then who could take them away.  It was a fun night.
     

Friday, January 16, 2015

Happy Day - New Missionaries

We are so happy to welcome  Don and Dorte Taylor, our newest temple missionary couple today. They are from Kanab, and both speak fluent Danish.  Dorte was born in Denmark, went to visit some Danish girlfriends in Utah, met Don, got married and stayed.  They have been working in the St. George temple so are trained temple workers and ready to go.
   We have had a couple of days with very few temple workers, This afternoon I think there were only two sisters plus the coordinator. But we all step in and enjoy the blessings of participating in the ordinances.  It was a very nice day.  But we are certainly grateful for the Taylors.

 

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Hard Water

Denmark, especially Copenhagen, has extremely hard water.  It is a constant battle to keep the white spots of everything.  Someone finally mentioned that they put an anti-kalk in with their laundry.  I tried it and sure enough it was like instant soft water results, whiter, softer clothes.
The dishwasher needs to have salt added, a mini water softening system in the machine itself.
While I was fixing machines I pulled out the major filter in the dryer.  Really so much tender care these machines need.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Language Class

We are back on schedule  for our Danish Class with Mette.  Today we met at Madsens.  I drive us there as it is down by The Lakes.  We had a serious snow storm for 45 minutes that had me worried, but it was all gone in an hour, too warm.  But they were the biggest flakes I have ever seen.  I should have taken a picture.....
   But we had a good time today, the food was delicious and we are working on present tense verbs ending in r or er.  Now if I could just remember the Danish verb to add it to.  I do remember spiser (eat).

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Second Tuesday

 The second Tuesday of each month we have a special session for two of the wards.  Tonight we had 32 which was one of the largest groups.  I love New Year's Resolutions, hope they last.
   Afterward we go to the church for refreshments.  These homemade macaroons were amazing!
Danes actually use a lot of coconut.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Peter

For Family Night tonight we watched a BYU film on Thorvaldsen's Christus Statue.  It really is such a wonderful piece and now has so much meaning for us as members of the Church.  It was interesting to see how several people were all impressed at about the same time to have a copy on Temple Square.
    Along the sides of the church are the 12 apostles which are equally detailed and fabulous.  For Christmas Jim and I gave each other this wonderful find from the Forum Loppemarked.
    It is an early Royal Copenhagen porcelain of Peter with the keys.  It is a real treasure as there are very few of them around.


 

Sunday, January 11, 2015

The Girls are Ahead

Today we went to hear  Lea Meilsøe talk before she leaves for the Scotland/Ireland Mission on Thursday.  We have a close connection with her grandmother, Kirsten, and their family.  They had the whole family along with a few friends sing a special number.  Any grandmother would have been proud of this fine group.  I was so pleased for her.

 Bent Leit, the bishop, announced that there are now more sisters than elders serving from the Copenhagen Stake.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Family Connections

About 50 years ago, missionaries were sent to Bornholm to find a family to strengthen the church.  They only baptized one sister.  She moved to Copenhagen, and had a son and a daughter.  They each had 7 kids, among them 13 sons.  From those sons have come some of the strongest families in the church here in Denmark.  Today, most of the Paulsen sons(Claus, Jesper, Lars,, Dennis and Jorgen and their children came to do baptisms for the dead.  They were celebrating two grandsons going on missions shortly. You can imagine they did a lot of ordinances and enjoyed a great family reunion.
   On top of that two other families came plus several single adults. Our Saturday Open Baptisms have been a huge success for individuals and families.


   This Roth family also brought their son for his first time.  They are working here for a year and the son has spent a semester at BYU.  He has a mission call to Guatemala in February. How amazing that a boy from Idaho, who is going to Guatemala, comes to Denmark to receive his endowment!
One of the temple workers' daughters went to school with Sis. Roth in Idaho and her best friend here, Liesle, is the sister to my daughter's best friends.   It is such a small world!

Friday, January 9, 2015

Temple Blessings

This is another day when there is no picture  possible or that would do it justice.
One of the great blessings of the temple is the wonderful people you work with and the spirit and dedication they bring to the temple.
  Today Sis. Amdi came to serve.  She is from Herning which is a thee to four hour train ride away.  She was scheduled to come yesterday but called to say she was in the hospital and would come as soon as she got out.  She has MS and had an acute attack over the holiday and went in for treatments to try to stop the progression.
     She arrived and stayed through all three sessions.  I was privileged to work in initiatory while she was there.  I had been using Danish but switched to English as I wanted so much so give her the promised blessings.  It was such a sweet experience for all of us, even now as I think of it, it brings tears.  She is probably one of the purest, most humble and spiritual people I have had the opportunity to meet.
     She thanked me over and over for allowing her to come, but in truth, we are all so much more blessed by her presence.


Thursday, January 8, 2015

Counselors

Poul Erik and Anna-Liisa Buur, our second counselor and assistant  matron, just came back from a week's vacation with their entire family at an all inclusive resort in the Canary Islands.  They took everyone in their immediate family, including a newly engaged granddaughter's finance, to celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary.  They were, however, not unhappy, to get back to the quiet and calm of the temple.

Nils Erik and Karin Nilsson, the first counselor, and wife. are from Sweden and the perfect couple for what we have needed at the temple.  They are so loving and the Swedes are so pleased to have them here.    We have had a wonderful first year at the temple, thanks to these two dedicated couples.
Besides positive numbers we are all examples of how working in the temple makes you healthier.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Christmas Plates

Denmark is famous for their Christmas Plates. Originally there were two companies: Bing and Grondahl and Royal Copenhagen.  Royal Copenhagen bought B and G years ago.  We have acquired quite a few plates and love to decorate with them.  Chris and Ange added 2014 this year to our collection.  We love it, the Hans Christian Andersen Theme is so perfect.
 This is the statue of H. C. Andersen just outside the City Hall here in the middle of Copenhagen.  All our visitors have to see it and climb on his knee...if they can.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Christmas Additions

The decorations are all put away and of course took more space than they began with, mainly  because of the few special treasures I added
 I found these darling little battery operated trees,  I decorated them and they were good night lights for the kids' rooms.
 These little climbing nisse men arrived from the local genbrug
The heart came for my birthday and works well for Christmas and Valentine's.  The Royal Copenhagen Snowman was a special surprise from Jim
George Jensen is a famous Danish designer and these are some of the lovely ornaments from his collection, much appreciated gifts.