A Little Blessing

Tonight Jim and I were the last ones out of temple.  As we were walking out the door we got a call from the handicap entrance in the garden.  Two sisters had been locked in as the counselor in charge had locked the gate just a few minutes before.  It was a nice little blessing that that we were still in the temple and could let them out.  They are here for several days and I'm glad they are continuing to have a good experience.
  I wonder if they could have climbed over the wall......

Traveling

Our granddaughter, Janey is bringing her mother, father and paternal grandmother to visit this weekend.  I have been looking up the places of Jolene's ancestors in Denmark.  The little red balloon is one of them.  The interesting point is that my ancestors come from almost directly across on the other side of the Jutland Penninsula.  I wish I knew more about how the missionaries found everyone.  Did they walk from little village to little village or did they meet people in the market towns?

There was another interesting traveling story at the temple tonight.  A woman came in who is traveling with her family for 6 months around Europe. There are 7 children 22-4.  The husband has a job he can do anywhere on the computer.  They sold their home around the DC area, put a few belongings in storage and are setting up in a few cities and traveling that area and then moving to another area of Europe.  They are renting people's homes and having a great time.

Such a Social Life

Lisa and Johan Koch invite the American Temple Missionaries to dinner regularly.  We went with the Hoges and Hansens tonight to their beautiful apartment.  It will be sad when I have to start cooking for real.

More Missionary PR

We had Family Night at the Hansen's.  This is their apartment, very comfortable. Temple Missions are the best!

Missionary Sunday Dinner

The Hoges invited the missionary couple to dinner today.  They have rearranged their apartment and it is very nice.  Actually all of our missionary apartments are nice.  We have four apartments in our building and three in the building on the other side of the temple.  Elder Hoge pointed out that he walks down more steps to get to the street than to get to the temple. We couldn't be closer.

Saturday Tradition

  We love it when we have all four ordinances going at the same time in the temple. We had 10 come for the open Saturday baptisms plus people sign up for everything else. It was a good day.
  When we arrived in November the missionary couples had a tradition of going out to dinner after the last session on Saturday. We are continuing it with the new couples.  Today we went to the favorite spot for traditional Danish food, Den Sorte Gryde.  It is really just a hole in the wall, but good food and generous servings.  Here we are with the Hansens, Nilssons, and Hoges.

Last Day

Friday  was Brian and Elizabeth and Molly's last day with us.  They fly on to Iceland for four days.  Jim and I were in the temple most of the day.  It was an excellent day with a fine young man coming to the temple for the first time in preparation for a mission and two children to parents sealings.  One is an 8 year old from China who was adopted and the other the parents were deceased, but such a sweet experience for  both families.
  I left in the afternoon and took Brian and Elizabeth birthday shopping.  They choose these beautiful Royal Copenhagen and Wedgewood pieces and I found a good antique dealer close.

They took us to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants here in Copenhagen, the Dalaman.  We haven't been back for 7 years but found we liked it just as well now as then.

I choose the variety platter so next time I know what I liked best..it is the lamb chops.

Copenhagen Day

Biking through Copenhagen is such a great way to see the city, so Brian rented this family bike for the day. It was fun to see the sites, but exhausting, especially in the hot weather

   I took them to rent the bike, got them into Tivoli where they returned later in the day, and then to see The Christus.  Jim and I went to the temple about noon  for presidency meeting followed by our three regular sessions.  We had a missionary come for the first time. Two sisters came from Norway and just missed the 7.30 session so we arranged initiatories and had such a good experience. It was a good day for everyone.

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So Busy Having Fun

As we traveled back from Skagen we stopped at several of the towns my ancestors came from.  The first was Hjørring in the north of Jutland.  This is the church he attended.Sct Olai Kirke.

.Then we went to Stavn where my great grandfather Anders Christensen lived when he met the missionaries
  
It is a tiny village of three streets facing the Limfjord.  The land side has lots of sheep exactly what he went into when he came to Utah.
  Our last stop was at Jelling where the Viking, Harold  Blue Tooth who made Denmark Christian buried his mother and father in two large mounds.  This ruin stone is said to be the baptismal certificate of Denmark.

Today we went to the zoo and bought year passes.  It is nøt far from us and if we go a second time we come out ahead. It is actually an amazing zoo with animals I have never seen before.

I took Brian and Elizabeth out to Frederiksberg Castle to see the Carl Block paintings and still made it back for the 5.30 temple session.

We're Back from Jutland

We have just returned from two days with Brian and Elizabeth and Molly in Jutland.  We had a great time and visited our favorite spots. The first place we stopped was in Aarhus at Den Gamle By.  Think This is the Place State Park but from the 1500's through 1970's. Houses and businesses from the past have been moved here and it was interesting to see how many of the similar things and ideas were brought to Utah by the Danish pioneers.

 We stopped at our favorite baker in Denmark: Langenaes Bakery in Aarhus.  Their Danish Pastry tastes as good as it looks!

Our main destination was Skagen, the most northern tip of Denmark where the North Sea and the Baltic meet.  You can walk out and stand with a foot in a each ocean.  It was a perfect afternoon and of course Brian and Molly got wet.

We stayed in the picturesque little city of Skagen, a perfect vacation destination.

.Day 2 tomorrow.

Roskilde

Jim and I spoke in church in Roskilde today.  It is a strong ward and it was great to see so many in the audience are regular temple attenders and temple workers.
 While there we took Elizabeth and Brian to see the Roskilde Cathedral where all the Kings and Queens and various royalty are buried.  They are currently preparing the space for the current queens tomb.  She has designed it herself...Glass on three rock pillars.  Next time I will take a picture.
   We also went to the Viking Museum.  All museums have great interactive opportunities.  These helmets are real metal and very heavy and make it hard to recognize you, one of the selling points to get Jim in the picture.

Company's Here

Molly and her parents, (our son, Brian and wife, Elizabeth) arrived today from Utah. They had a great trip and Molly slept most of the way across the Atlantic.

 We managed to keep them awake by taking the Harbor Cruise through the middle of Copenhagen.  The day was the warmest we have had here, plus it was a Saturday afternoon and everyone was getting as much of the water and sun as they could.

We went to the Little Mermaid and then to Kristina, the statue honoring the Mormon Pioneer immigrants who left Denmark.

Lights Out

We had a good day at the temple.  Some of our new workers are having such good experiences  They are learning and doing things in the temple they didn't think they could do. Blossoming is so fun to watch.
 It wasn't fun however, when we came home tonight, turned on the kitchen light and it literally blew out of the socket and took the rest of the lights in the house with it.  We found two plugs that worked in the kitchen and managed to get dinner.

Our kind engineer, Allen Jackobsen, came in from his home an hour away and fixed the problem....a fancy fuse system we had never seen before.  Next time we will be smarter...Yeah Allen.

Final Fanø Fact

 My Aunt Ireta had two porcelain dogs as part of her decor many years ago.  I found the same dogs in many windows in Fanø. the Buurs also had a pair and explained why they are so popular.  If the dogs face out, the man of the house is out to sea, when they face into the house, he is home.  It was a way to tell the neighbors what was going on in your home and when to come visit and when not to.

Spaghetti Ice Cream

We had several fun food adventures in Ribe and Fanø including this fun spaghetti ice cream.

 It is a soft ice cream topped with jam, whipped cream and guff which is a sort of marshmellow (pink)

 Jim's big adventure was dried, salted, smoked issen -fish, unique to the island.  It was fried and actually quite tasty, certainly well-preserved.

Fanø Part 2

Finally back to Fanø, the darling little island on the west coast.

 The beach on the island is amazing. It is probably 10 miles long and a mile wide, b  iggest beach I've ever seen.  You could drive anywhere and set up camp anywhere.

 There was plenty of opportunity for wind cycling, note the car and kite.

 The city in the south had many thatched roofs, including these brand new homes.

We ate at this lovely old Kro, said to be the oldest Kro in Denmark.

First Family Home Evening

We had our first Family Home Evening with our new group of missionaries tonight.  We grilled pølsers and everyone else brought something.  Everyone introduced themselves and we had a good hygglig evening -cozy and friendly. Our new missionaries are working on their Danish and it was appreciated by the natives.

Lise and Ole Ravn-Peteresen from Aarhus are serving with us for a month and  Ella Damsgaard and Bodil Furbo are in the sisters' apartment for the next week. Fun to have them all here.

These are just two of the five varieties of pøIsers and frankfurters I bought.

The Morning After

All last week there was a Jazz Festival going on throughout various spots in Copenhagen.  It didn't catch up with us until last night and they gathered under an underpass just around the corner.  It was loud and we could hear them easily from our apartment.  However, it stopped at exactly 11 pm and fortunately it was raining so one wandered over to the Temple Square to finish off their drinks, a sweet blessing.
   The rain has lasted through today and we have dropped 20 degrees since our 80 on Wednesday.
   The best part of today was going to church and meeting Sophie.  She was baptized when we were here before and Sis. Hoge connected with her and invited her to church and she came.  We were so pleased to see her as I think she might not be a regular attender.  She has graduated from school here and is working as a carpenter.  A cute girl.  She lives in the Roskilde Ward boundries.  We are talking there next week so we invited her to come and hopefully get her integrated into the ward.