Hymns of Zion

Clyde and I received our materials to learn Danish.  We have a tutor that we Skype with for several hours a week from the MTC and soon we will have a couple that will speak Danish with us for 1 or 2 hours a week, also supplied by the MTC.  (I think this is what you were doing Marianne, when you were helping with German).  Brother Birk, our Danish tutor, always begins each session with a hymn, a thought and a prayer.  We sing from the Danish hymnal.  The literal translation of the Danish hymnbook title is "Hymns and Songs".  By looking at the notes, I have figured out quite a few of the hymns.  As with ours, the first three hymns are: "The Morning Breaks"; "The Spirit of God"; and "Now Let Us Rejoice".  When I saw that - I found it strangely comforting.  The day we finally had our materials in hand, I was feeling very overwhelmed.  Then I picked up the Danish Hymnal and knew everything was going to be okay.  I guess that music has always brought peace to my soul. 

Because I am a bit frantic right now with moving in 93 days, having to spend 2-3 hours on Danish and getting my exercise in daily, I hadn't realized I had pretty much eliminated music.  The other day as I was dusting and packing, I put in a classical music anthology.  I got more done and was more content than I had been in a long time.  It is obvious.  Music is important to my well being and I have to make time for it daily - just like reading my scriptures.

Happy Birthday Carl and Dane!

I apologize for the post being a day late.  Sundays are a mess around here lately.  This is a picture from last summer of Dane eating a lemon.  He wouldn't stop and yet by his face it looked so painful.  I see this picture and laugh!

This is a pretty good picture of Dane and wonderful picture of the back of Carl's head.  This is the only picture of Carl we got from last summer.  I think it is wonderful that these two share a birthday.  Carl has been a very special part of our family for a long time.  When I met Carl, I knew he was the perfect fit for Carianne.  The Lord has blessed us with his addition to our family.

Dane is a sweetheart and now we are heading to reside with other Danes but because that is their nationality - not their name.  I wonder if you had decided on one of the other names for Dane, would we have gone to Holland?  Happy birthday to two very special guys!

The Good We Do

During General Conference, we are always told about the humanitarian aid the Church has given and where it has gone.  I remember hearing stories as a young girl from Ezra Taft Benson about when he was in the Eisenhower cabinet and distributing goods to war torn Europe after WWII, how the Church's pork and beans were the favorite cans because there were very few beans and it was mostly pork.  For people that had been living off the land - that canned meat tasted pretty good. 

Tuesday mornings and I go to an open knitting class.  There is woman the comes that was born in Germany during WWII.  She remembers Marshall Law and the hardships.  She remembers that when she did her catechism or got a new dress - for several years it came from boxes from the states.  When she heard I was going on a  mission for the Mormon Church to Denmark, she lit up.  She told me that our Church sent the best boxes.  The clothes were new - not ragged hand me downs and quilts were thick and fluffy.  But her favorite memory was the pork and bean cans.  She said it said there were beans on the can - but it became a family game to see how many beans (or how few) were in a can.  She said sometimes there would be as few as 4 beans - just so it could say - 'Pork and Beans' she supposed.  She supposed right.  Her family loved getting that can of pork or a can of Spam because they could do so much with it.  It was the story I had been told as a youth but now I had a recipient tell me her side.  I love it and I wanted to share.  We do real good and should be proud of the work we participate in.

What Our Mission will entail

One of the frustrating things about this mission call has been lack of information.  I would call the mission offices and ask and they would send me to the family history center.  No one knew what we were doing or what was expected of us.  When I told one sister that the dress for my husband and me was 'business casual' and I would be wearing pants on occasion - she actually wondered if we had a 'real' mission call.  I assured it was signed by the First Presidency.  Finally early Tuesday morning, Clyde received an email with the job specifics in it.  We are going to learn how to operate digital cameras for the purposes of microfilming important documents in Denmark.  I cannot tell you how relieved we were to just know that much.  In the letter it affirmed so much but it also explained that we report to the Church Offices for one week of intensive training.  That was suddenly like a bell went off.  We have received subsequent correspondence and found that this particular calling is from THE Church offices.  Partly because it falls between a mission and family history and partly because it goes under the historical records department.  We funnel into three departments just by the nature of what we are doing. 

This next part is whining - so if you have listened to me lately you can quit reading.  Danish is HARD!  I want to say it with a German accent and I want the words to be pronounced as the would in German.  It doesn't work.  I am feeling like President Uchtdorf when he said his mouth was not made to speak English.  Well, my mouth is not made to speak Danish!  The other thing that Clyde and I have learned is we are not very patient with ourselves.  We want to be able to do things perfectly immediately and that just doesn't work in this setting.  However, I did find out that a bunch of the place names in my ancestors genealogy were spelled wrong.  I am thinking that is why we  have never made headway in those lines.  I am sending the corrected spellings to my parents so they can fix them and possibly move forward now.

We are fine...

We have spoken with a few people that realized that this is our temple day.  We never made it to Boston because of the lockdown.  So we spent the day doing things to get ready for our mission and the move.  The temple has been closed until further notice.  We are far enough away that there should be no problems.

What kinds of extracurricular activities did you participate in after school?

I pretty much focused my high school career on music (even my first few years of college - both times).  If it had to do with choir, ensemble, or the musical - I was in.  Especially when we lived in Frankfurt am/Main Germany, I would quite often be gone from the time we left for Seminary until after 11 pm.  I would go for weeks like that.  Some of my best high school memories were during that time.  My Senior year, the choir director would not allow me even to audition because I had been in Melloteens in Frankfurt and their choir could not compete.  I just wanted to sing.  I didn't care if it was an honor choir.  I immersed myself in the Church that year and participated in the plays that popped up and competitions that came along.  I even managed to embarrass my sister horribly on a temple trip by taking over the microphone on the bus and singing a song that Leslie Lassiter (MaryLynn Hopkins sister) and I made up about the trip.  Good times.  Hard to believe that I was that outgoing then.

Headphones

Clyde and I have been trying to learn Danish.  For some reason the materials have been slow coming from the MTC and we are on our own with the online materials.  The problem with that is that they are not very clear.  For example in the word af the f is silent but there is no explanation about how to pronounce the a.  Is it long, short or pronounced like an umlaut.  So we started listening to the audio version that was sent us.  We realized - when we both were pronouncing words differently and I was adding a b in front of a word (that didn't belong) and Clyde was adding endings that I wasn't hearing - that we were missing something.  So Saturday we went and got some Bose headphones.  We will eventually get a pair for each of us because unlike the young missionaries, we can have them on our mission.  Also we have been told that some of the work can be very tedious and to have music to listen to listen too helps to move it along.  We will both have to get something to listen to music on before we leave but that just made sense to me.  Also listening to Danish with the headphones on, you hear the nuances and it is so much clearer.  Plus with both of your ears covered you hear what you are saying back and can correct yourself better.  Now my next problem - retain what I am listening too!  Thankfully a lot of it is the same as German.  Gymnasium is High School, Universitat is University and lehrner, etc, are the student teacher nouns.  Danish months are pretty much spot on with German months.  The word day is spelled dag but pronounced day.  So when you say good day you sound like your are from Australia because it becomes G'day.  Good morning is G'morn but you make the o long.  I am enjoying this.  This is how all missionaries are learning the languages now.  You do courses at home with a tutor on Skype and do hours of homework.  This way the time in the MTC is cut shorter because they are more prepared (hopefully) when they get in there.  We, as senior missionaries, can go for a week before we report to the MTC and do an immersion process at the MTC - where we speak nothing but Danish for several days.  Clyde and I are seriously thinking about doing that.  Younger missionaries - if going foreign speaking go in for 6 weeks and sometimes are sent to the MTC in the areas close to where they are reporting.  The young man that was helping us work out our language needs said the Church could very well double our missionary force from last October to this October.  That is pretty phenomenal.