Week #22 Ballerup

Kære alle sammen!!!!! So the work here in Ballerup is on FIRE!!!! Me and Elder Jensen are doing work, and this is the best missionary work this area has been doing for like 6 months!! Oh, and I found my ''golden investigator!'' ;)

Investigators:)

So we found 5 new investigators this week!! Two of them live in the other Elders area but it is still great! So lets start with the two that live in the other Elder's area! So late one night walking home from the bus stop, Elder Jesen contacts this man who turns out to be a guy from Morocco who believes in Everything! Haha He was way nice and we met him at his apartment on Saturday which ended up him like feeding us! The Middle East culture is soooooo friendly! It is great! And his wife is going to hook us up with haircuts!!! He just lives in the other Elder's area so we will hand him off, plus get a haircut on Saturday :)! Then we taught Svend last week. We taught him on the Plan of Salvation and said that if he found out that all of this was true that he would,''Absolutely,'' be baptized! The only worry there is that he doesn't know if the time is now to make a change in his life. But we will wait and see the spirit work:) We didn't get in contact with Nikolas or his girlfriend, or whatever she is this week so we will wait and see what happens with him. We met with the guy from Scotland, Derek, and taught him the Restoration and it was way spiritual. He had this crazy awesome dream that he was young and Jesus taught him about love which changed his life, and he was two weeks away from baptism when he went to a Unification church meeting and converted there :( BUuuuuuut, we are giving him a second chance and continue to work with him there! We got a referal on Monday from a guy named David who wanted a Book of Mormon. We stop by and we talk for a bit and he lets us in and we end up teaching the restoration to him and his wife! They are strong members of the Apostolic church and they just wanted to meet with different churches so we could unite together, little did he know that he referred the church of Jesus Christ :) Next, we contacted this guy from Ethiopia who cant speak English or Danish. We got his number some how and set up an appointment. We showed up and he was there! But he got sucked into an immigrant job thing so we were bummed.... But the next day we had to do something at the library and we saw him!! We told him to come follow us to the computers and we pulled up an Amharic Book of Mormon on the computer and he read the introduction and Moroni's promise!! So that is crazy that we are teaching him with a huge language barrier! Oh and shout out to Katelynn because we were knocking the other night and he knocked into a Filipino girl who told us to come back so we will bring Mother Teresa next time!!!! And finally, my golden investigator :)! Picture a 6 foot 7 inches black basketball player from Chicago.... well, that is him!!! We were knocking and this huge black guy ansers the door and he says he is Baptist..... wait there are not too many Baptists in Denmark, so we asked him were he is from and he said Chicago! He said he didnt have time he was busy, and so that was that. Last night we stopped by, he was not too interrested, then we started talking basketball!! His favorite team is the Bulls and he played college ball in the states! Then I dont know how but we started talking about the Book of Mormon and we are coming back next week! So overall, all i can say is that we are blessed here in Ballerup!! 

Looooooooooong Day

So trust me, this was the longest, most tiring day on my mission! We had no time to eat lunch or dinner and got back to our appartment like at 930!!! So what happened was first, we went to Harris, who was an old investigator's bike shop, who fixes missionaries bikes for free!! :) Oh, by the way, I dont need a new bike, he fixed mine and it is perfect now! So we go visit him and we talk with him about God for an hour! He is from the Middle East, was Muslim, and now doesn't have a religion. So we taught him, and prayed with him and just talked about his life with him! Oh, and by the way for all the non Washington state peeps, Washington is his favorite place in the USA!!!! So after that adventure, he went to teach Derek, then went to the library to teach the man from Ethiopia, and then had to take a bus to the church for mutual to help the young men with family history! I had a great time helping the mission leader's son with his and yea! But i am really not that good with family history but there is an excitement here for it! But all of those things took the entire day!!! Travel is nuts here on Sjælland but that day was sooo loooooong!

Losing Best Friends :(

So Roy and Joana. We finally met with them for the first time in three weeks and Roy said he has been slammed with work and that he has no time for church.  He said his first priority is work over the church and that made me so sad inside because i love him and i want what is best for him.  Elder Jensen and i bore testimony on the blessings we get for putting God in our lives first, but it didn't affect anything.  Joana is going to another church in Copenhagen with her Chinese friends because she thinks she will get persecuted for being Mormon in China.  We invited them to pray together every night, to still hold some what of a relationship with God and they said they will do that.  We will eat with them next week and we will focus on telling them that they can be married in the temple for eternity because it has almost been a year since their baptism.  But these were truly my friends and I love these tow soooo much and it just pains me to see them fall from the church, but we are not giving up on them!!!  I am determined to get them back before I transfer out of here!!

Elder Jensen is a balling kid!  He likes to snowboard and like do crazy stuff on trampolines! And I love working with him!!  He is such a hard worker and is so good at Danish, and my Danish has improved so much with him!  I am going to look for a new jacket today but it wont be that much money..  And I feel like I don't have enough time for my mission, it is almost a fourth over and I feel like I just got here!  And everyone is jumping on the family history bandwagon for sure!!  It is awesome how everyone is pumped for it!  That is good to hear that the basketball team is doing good!  And we will have to see in two weeks if I will still be in the area for uncle Matt!   That would be awesome to see him!  And I would have to ask my mission president if i could see him.  And everyone back home, remember that i love all you guys and have a great week!  Mom and dad, you guys are the best and keep being studs!!

AE Reed

                                        Ballerup District

                                          Alex has investigators!

                                         Alex and Danish friends

                                          Zip Line