the past 3 weeks

Góðan daginn vinir!

Sorry I haven't written an email in a few weeks. Don't worry, my sister's roasted me for it already.

So about 10 days ago, all of the missionaries on Iceland flew to Denmark for mission conference! It was so amazing.

The day we flew out, we flew from Akureyri to Reykjavik in the morning, then drove from Reykjavik to Keflavik and flew from Keflavik to Copenhagen in the afternoon. While in line to board in Keflavik, I turned to Elder Whittle, and asked probably a little too loud 'DO WE NEED OUR PASSPORTS?!' Some how we didn't think about it until 10 minutes before we took off. So we got on the plane going to reykjavik, and I was super nervous that we wouldn't get to go to Denmark. As soon as we landed, we told Elder McGary and talked with one of the Iceland Air workers, they said we could get someone in Akureyri to ship them down on a mail plane that was gonna land at 1:00. Our flight was at 3, and boarding started at 2:20 so we had a little more than an hour to get our passports, drive the 45 minutes to Keflavik, get through security and get to our gate on time. So elder Brenton (the senior couple in Akureyri) went to our apartment and got our passports shipped to us. The time came for the rest of the missionaries to leave for the airport, and we were just sitting in the Church, waiting for our passports to make it down here. We got them and got to the airport as fast as we could. Then we hustled through security. It's amazing because intercontinental travel in europe has next to no security, so we actually got to our gate before the rest of the missionaries boarded and stuff. Then we flew to Denmark, seeing greenland, norway, and sweden as we flew. When we got there, to my surprise, there was nowhere to check passports, and nothing at all saying we were in Denmark, we just walked straight in. On the way back, nobody checked our passports in Denmark or Iceland either. So basically we all panicked for no reason.

In Denmark, I was dying. It was 70 degrees and humid, and I sweat the entire time. Iceland's changing me. After I finish my mission and go back to texas in march, I will die. Probably have heat exhaustion or something.

We stayed in the place who's name sounds like "baller-up" idk how to spell it, it's danish. With the zone leaders, and two other elders. I was trying to sleep on the couch, but being sweaty and to tall for it, I didn't get the most refreshing nights.

The first day was mission conference. We woke up and did our best to get 8 people showered in the one shower we had, then we got dressed and went to a local stake center. (Denmark has 2 stakes) We started with a little introduction from the APs and President Mattsson, then we went to trainings done by all of the different Zone Leaders and LSTLs. They were really amazing and spiritual. Then we all ate lunch together which was awesome, and had a devotional by President and Sister Mattsson. It was amazing. After that, he started doing interviews with the Iceland missionaries. Mine was towards the end, so I and my comp went to McDonalds for dinner. There's no McDonalds in Iceland, so it was pretty cool to get to try it again. Long story short, the food has about the same effects In Denmark as it does in America. I was not feeling the best for a little bit. XD. Then I got to have my own meeting with president! During it, he gave me a blessing and the spirit was so strong. Afterwards we went home for the night.

The next day was our 'p-day' where we could check out Denmark a little! We started with a trip to the temple! We got to do endowments, and I got to do it in Icelandic! It was really amazing. Some of the voices are members we know, because like nobody speaks Icelandic.

After that we got some lunch and went to Downtown Copenhagen. The APs and LSTLs moved their p-day that week so that they could show us around. We were in this full sized van, which I would have died driving on such small innercity streets. At one point we tired to parallel park it, and it was at a 30 degree angle over the curb and onto the side walk, so we made the inspired decision to try to park somewhere else. We went to see the original Kristus Statue, which was really cool. It's in a large church and there's statues of all of the apostles. Then we walked by a canal for a bit. Saw a lego store (they're pretty large here because i'm pretty sure LEGO was founded in Denmark) legendary.

We climbed to the top of a church called "the church of our savior" and we got to look out over all of Copenhagen. It's super flat, kind of like Texas except for with no space.

We came back to Iceland early saturday morning. (We woke up at 2:00am Iceland time) Then we flew to reykjavik. Elder whittle and I spent our time there writing our talks and preparing a lesson for sunday school. Then we flew to Akureyri in the evening. On Sunday we were dead. I hadn't gotten enough sleep for 3 days. I did my best to give my talk, about holding to the Iron Rod and Spiritual Crocodiles.

The next day, we had to catch up on everything like shopping and laundry and such. we also had the opportunity to go to the fjord and fish. We didn't catch anything, but some northern Bottlenose whales swam by like 15 meters away from us. That was insane to see. We also started teaching 2 venezuelan families Icelandic.

On tuesday we helped on of our friends move a fridge.

On wednesday we got to play soccer with the venezuelans, and that was really fun! It was a great way to meet some more people and not just have them shut the door on our faces.

On thursday, Roderik (one of the venezuelan dudes) Asked us for help getting a fridge too! It turned out to be the old fridge of the person we moved on tuesday! So we got to say hi to them again. When the person they had asked to borrow a trailer from came, it turned out to be one of the people we had knocked into that was one of the more positive people It was amazing! In the one act of service we met one friend, a potential family friend, and another potential friend!

On friday we taught the venezuelans english! And they invited us over to their house the next day for Arepas and games! We went over, and the Arepas were so good. wow. hispanic food is so good. Roderik speaks english well, and Alen, the other father of the family speaks english too. After dinner we were able to teach them the restoration! We taught it in english, then showed them the restoration video in spanish. The spirit was so strong, and they said that we could continue teaching them!

Yesterday, after we had returned to our apartment, we saw the Northern Lights! That was so cool! I had never seen them before. I got a few photos, but they're not the best. Still, it was so cool!

Öldungur Rasmussen `

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