Wednesday, April 2, 2014

On the way to President's house for Leadership Council. 
Half of our MTC district is now in the Leadership Council! 
Plus, let me tell you why this picture is special: 
we are together on our 13th month mark. 
SCARY! Time is just soaring!

Exchanges in Odense.
The bathroom is really small. You can literally sit on the toilet,
brush your teeth and take a shower at the same time!
Just wanted to demonstrate it.

The Time Has Come... We Can't Even Remember Band Names!

Dear friends and family,

Things are going really well. We were in Odense this week for exchanges and Copenhagen for Leadership Council. We will be visiting Vejle, Fredericia and Aarhus this week for exchanges and zone training. Travel much? Ja, tak! 

As a mission we are studying the Book of Mormon

Random story. Kind of like a "you know you are on your mission when..." story. We were on the train the other day and there was a song playing. I started talking to Sister Pearson about it, here is our conversation:

Sister Orgill "This song kind of reminds me of the band 'Who is We'"
Sister Pearson "Oh yeah, they sing a song I really like...
Sister Orgill "Which one?"
Sister Pearson "The one about Juliet"
Sister Orgill "Check Yes, Juliet? I think that actually might be a different band."
Sister Pearson "Oh that's right... yeah, it's 'We Three Kings' that sings that one."

We soon realized that both of the bands we named off were not the actual names of the bands...

It's "He is We" and "We The Kings"

Fun times.

Rado came to church yesterday. He was one of the ones who had come to institute and bore his testimony on the sacrifice the Savior made for us. I had to translate church for him. Oh man, it was way hard! There were 2 speakers that I had an especially hard time translating. Sister Pearson and Elder Ockey both gave talks in Sacrament meeting so that was nice to translate since I can understand everything they say. It was also nice because Sister Pearson quoted Joseph Smith's first vision in her talk. Thanks to Tennessee, I already had it memorized in English as well. Just to let you know, there is not a day that goes by that Sister Pearson and I do not reference Tennessee. We feel so blessed we had the opportunity to serve there!

But yeah, I've decided I do not want to be a translator after the mission. I'll use Google for that ;)

Happy April Fool's tomorrow! Do something crazy and tell me about it :)

Love always,

Søster Orgill

P.S. Jeff, my brother on a mission in California, turns 20 today! Crazy! I miss him! He's so awesome!


A quick picture pause during weekly planning

Authentic Italian spaghetti




Real Italian Food

Hey family and friends!

We went on exchanges this week, twice. Once in Aarhus (a 30 min train
ride) and once in Aalborg (a 2 hour train ride). It was great. We
probably looked a little strange because we of course had to bring our
own dynes and so we piled them in my huge purple laundry backpack and
cycled on down to the station. I will have Sister Pearson take a
picture today of what it looks like since tonight we are traveling to
Odense.

Some of you may want to know more about the responsibilities of Sister
Training Leaders since it is a new leadership position as of last
year. Sister Pearson and I are over six companionships of sisters. We
are to have exchanges with each companionship each transfer (once
every six weeks). Every third transfer, we travel to the
companionships apartment, but the other two times they come to visit
us. This transfer, we are traveling to them. Before we come, they
double up plans so we can do twice the amount of work in their area.
We get to meet members, investigators and contact new people where
ever we go. Sister Pearson and I also are in charge of looking over
their area book, planners and conducting a cleaning check. At the end
of the exchange we all share what we have learned from the other
missionaries and highlight their strengths.

As Sister Training Leaders, we are also in charge of collecting data
for zone reports once a month. Basically, we call the missionaries we
are over and type up monthly goals regarding missionary work for the
coming month and follow up on the previous month's goals. The report
also including gathering concerns or comments they have for the
mission. We review these reports the following week at Mission
Leadership Council and discuss how the mission is doing and what the
theme will be for the coming month.

Okay, so now you know.

When we went to Aarhus, Sister Hale and I were on exchanges. She
brought a guitar with her on the train so we could go stop by
someone's how who hadn't been to church in a while and sing to them.
She suggested we sing on the train while we were traveling. And, we
did :)

This 50 year old man from Yugoslavia came over to talk to us and thank
us for the music. We talked to him a little about the church and got
his address so the Aarhus sisters could share a message with him and
his son.

Every Thursday, we have an Institute class at church, or "CUV" Centre
for Unge Voksener meaning, Center for Young Adults. There is usually
only one Danish scripture study class. There are only 3-5 members from
the church that come. It has been a challenge recently for the teacher
and us because we have had sometimes five extra people there who we
need to translate for.

So, we have begun our own scripture class we teach in English at the
same time. Last week was the first week and it went really well! :) We
taught about the Restoration of the gospel. Sister Pearson explained
how there was a pattern of God sending a prophet to earth to give
guidance, but when the people are so wicked an apostasy occurs, God
withdraws his authority from the earth. She drew a diagram of a time
line where prophets were on the earth, including the Savior in it as
one who brought back God's authority to the earth to act in his name
and when God's authority was not on the earth. Since God is the same
yesterday, today and forever, he continues in the same pattern and
called a prophet to end the apostasy that occurred after Christ. We
had an investigator there who asked, "What makes Jesus Christ
different from the other prophets that brought God's authority back on
the earth?" Another investigator answered saying, "the sacrifice he
made for us." It was an incredible lesson. The spirit filled the room.
The question was raised, "well what will people if they lived on the
earth when God's authority was not on the earth and they did not have
a chance to be baptized?" Unfortunately, we were out of time, but we
are excited for the next lesson we will get to teach on the plan of
salvation.

Usually after the institute class, we have dinner, a spiritual thought
and then a game! :)

Last week, we played the couch game. You write your names on a piece
of paper, throw them into a container, have every draw a different
name (but they are not allowed to share it). Then everyone sits in a
circle. We were divided into a boys team and a girls team. The object
is to get your team on the couch. There is one extra seat in the
circle. The person to the left of that seat in the circle calls out a
name of a person to sit next to them, but they don't know who is who.
You basically have to be a detective and remember everyone's names so
you can win. It's fun. I used to play it at college for FHE.

Oh and we had dinner this week with Lorenzo from Italy and Ankhaa from
Mongolian. Lorenzo made us homemade Italian spaghetti. It was way good
and fun to finally try authentic Italian food! : ) We brought him a
Book of Mormon in Italian. He was surprised we had one for him and
said he is excited to check it out. For dessert, Sister Pearson and I
made crepes, my favorite version: strawberries, nutella, vanilla syrup
and whipped cream :)

Life's good. We ran to catch two trains this week and we made both
just seconds before they left. We also contacted a referral from the
Bishop in our ward. Turns out it is a family who is really nice,
loving and positive. We will meet with them again next week.

Happy Spring :)


Love always,


Cool tree next to our apartment

Cosmin and Roby. 
Roby helped us take Sister Briscoe's 
luggage to the station today.

Institute

Horsens district 

Familysearch.org

Familysearch.org

I just got a new companion today. Crazy, huh? Sister Briscoe and I
were only together 5 weeks, but it was a great 5 weeks. Very
productive and lots of fun.

I apologize, the email today is not going to be very long because I
have to pick out my classes for school that I will be taking the
fall... Wow, time really flies, like a hawk (șoim).

Things that happened this week:

-We met 3 new Romanians when we decided to go check out VIA University
College to see if we could do some service projects on campus.
-We met with Kaj who just got baptized. His girlfriend lives in Fiji
right now and apparently she has decided she wants to visit the church
there sometime soon to see what it is like!
-We had a missionary zone conference in Aarhus. The theme was family
history and we talked about the importance of stories and pictures,
how learning of our ancestors can bring us closer to our family. It's
a great conversation starter, too! We were encouraged to learn more
about familysearch.org and then help others use the free site to find
their families. So that's the theme of the week. We decided we wanted
to share the website with Ankhaa who has come to institute and church
a few times. Sister Briscoe and I brought out family history charts.
While we were there, Sister Briscoe starts listing off some of the
names of her ancestors. She said, "Parshall Terry III" and then I
freaked out! That's my relative, too! Turns out we have the same great
great great great grandparents! Who knew, right? It was so cool! We
hugged like 8 times and now call each other cousin.
-The flowers have begun to blossom here, it is gorgeous! I will take
some pictures this week.
-We had Stake Conference this weekend. I loved being able to see
people from Fredericia ward. I just love being here :)
-Oh and we had dinner one last time (the weekly Missionary and
Romanian dinner) before Sister Briscoe and Elder Christensen left. It
went really well and I wrote a song and dedicated it to all of us.
-My new companion is Sister Pearson. We were companions with Sister
Peterson at the MTC together. I'm excited to serve with her again.

The sun is shining, life is good.

Love you all so much!


Søster Orgill