Week - 12 Ukelele, the ER, Jul, a new transfer, and Gratitude

Happy mandag friends!

Hahahahaha this week...oh man..........ok....so I was super sick until Thursday or Friday and we went to the hospital because Insurance said to.So we spend 2 hours trying to FIND the right address...turns out it was just the Emergency Room! Wow! The Slagelse hosptial is like 25 Buildings that span over a long way...it was rough. THEN 4 hours in the actual emergency room. They took my blood, did an EKG, and tested me for everything under the sun to tell me I'm fine and to go home. I knew I was fine and I wanted to go home...but c'est la vie. The whole time Søster Perkins and I were just laughing about the fact that I did not belong there...but the nurses and doctor were all really nice and helped me with my Danish and health.

I'm healthier now and back to full-fledged Work which feels so so good. I love it.

We had zone conference this week on Wednesday which was so fun! We had a talent show, talked about gratitude, and just had a good time as all the missionaries on Sjælland met together to be better. Søster Perkins and I had an awesome talent that we did with our dear Assistants to the President friends, Elder Reimschussel and Elder Mogensen. The night before Søster Perkins taught me 5 chords on the Ukelele, the Elders found a missionary, remix, rendition of Dr. Seuss' green Eggs and Ham and Sister Perkins and those Guys did a read-aloud while I played the ukelele. It was so funny. The premise of the book is there's Brother Lurch and can not will not learn about the Mormon church. Also during this here Zone conference, we went around the room of about 40 missionaries and stood up and said one sentence of what we were grateful for. It was powerful.

I said i was grateful for my Family the knowledge I have that I can live with them for eternity.

Saturday and yesterday were finally days where we could go out and Work and it felt SO INCREDIBLE! Oh my goodness. Honestly I will take biking in Wind and rain from one appointment with friends to another rather than staying inside when there's WORK TO BE DONE! HOLLA! I was so pumped to get out and talk to people.

The Danish is still coming...tehe.

Also, I don't know if I told you all yet but I will be training in February already because they don't have enough sisters. So that's fun!

So Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. Something about a penny in the old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny, a half penny will do. If you haven't got a penny we still love you.

CHRISTMAS! (Pronounced "yool" here in Denmark) Is coming and I am so pumped. The new Christmas video is out and I love it. Here's the link

https://www.mormon.org/Christmas

it's good everybody. Lights are up everywhere and there are silly Little Charlie-Brown-esque Christmas trees up EVERYWHERE just on the street. It's funny. I'm so excited.

They have these Little Things in Denmark called Nissen (neesen) that are Little elves and they come and just help out around the house and are so cute. Søster Perkins and I are making a house for them in our Little Apartment.

HEY something else that's really exciting - I finished my first transfer of 6 weeks here in the beautiful land of Denmark! Today marks the start of a new transfer and I am so excited for it. This is Sister Perkins last transfer which makes me less pumped because she's great and I am going to really miss her when she becomes a normal human being Again. Oh well..

But I did it! i survived my first 6 weeks in Denmark. Weird, eh? I think so.

Ok, Thanksgiving was lovely. I am so thankful for this life that I have. i love gratitude. It's probably my favorite thing ever. The impact gratitude has on our lives. Honestly, when we're grateful how can we be sad about anything? We've been asking that question to people on the streets this week "Hvad er du taknemmelig for i dit liv?" aka "What are you thankful for in your life?" And the responses and conversations it sparks is incredible. I love when people demonstrate their gratitude and hoenstly when we have that gratitude in our Hearts, life gets better and we can demonstrate our love to our Heavenly Father, isn't it so great?? Oh man I love it.

LIFE IS GOOD EVERYBODY!

LOVE YOU ALL! HAPPY DECEMBER TOMORROW!

Knus,

Søster Chesley

(pic swips - me in the ER, such a silly thing *and the cool church in our neighborhood with lovely Jul lights* and a hat from grandma Chesley - I wear it all the time)

Week 11 -I'M THANKFUL FOR YOU

Ok there's so much to write about from this week. We had our one month training meeting for THREE DAYS! It was so great to see my MTC distrikt again and to party and just enjoy life and missionary work.incredible. Really all of it was so incredible. On our first day we did some training and then went to Frederiksborg Slot . This MASSIVE castle in Hillerød. I took too many pictures and I was in heaven. Like a kid in a candy shop. But a history major in an ancient Danish castle in Europe that's been around since the early 1600s. There was a very special energy there. We got to see the original Carl Bloch paintings that the church uses all the time and that was 

The second day we got to go to the København temple - that place is so special. I love it so much and I was so happy to be there again. What I great gift we have on this earth today. Temple time=Fun time. We also ate at this huge buffet and took 3 trains to get there. What a day. Also watched the Book of Mormon documentary while we hygge'd.
OH MY GOODNESS I HAVE NOT EXPLAINED WHAT HYGGE IS! (pronounced hooga)
Hygge is a very danish thing. It's a word that doesn't directly translate to english. The closest thing I can get is warm, cozy, togetherness. It's used as an adjective hyggeligt i.e. That dinner appointment was very hyggeligt, thank you for the hot kokoa!
Or as a verb i.e. we can just hygge for the evening. 
It is my favorite thing about denmark. One of them at least. hygge hygge hygge. 
Anyways, everyone should watch it, it's great. The third day I got on a train home to Slagelse. Where Sister Perkins and I were reunited and it was great. 

Saturday, it snowed like crazy except nothing really stuck on the ground...

And yesterday I was confined to my bed all day due to this silly sickness that has befallen me. But alas, I'm sure I'll be up and at it again in no time! It was weird not going to church yesterday. I hated it haha. I think that's one of the worst things about being on a mission is when you get sick and can't do missionary work. 
BUT I've learned something while in training, actually a few things I want to share. 
1. We cannot let our enviornment influence our happiness. Life's too short and it's not healthy. We need to constantly be fighting for our happiness. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Our happiness is so important in life and we should see it as something to constantly strive after. 
2. When setting goals I should always have a Christ-like attribute that that goal is helping me increase. For example: learning danish. A goal for that is learning 10 new vocab words a day and learning to utlize them. Great goal, yeah? BUT add this to the mix. Learning 10 new vocab words a day to help me increase my knowledge and diligence to be more like the Savior and help the Danish people more fully. It's the idea of good, better, and best with goals. I've been a lot more conscious of my goal setting while on the mish. Good stuff.
Happy early thanksgiving everyone! I'm thankful for you all! 
Love youu guys oodles!
Love,

TT

love you guys!

So the mission president's mom Søster O'Bryant also has a mission blog. There are a lot more pictures on it. And it's kinda fun! http://cop-den-mission.blogspot.dk/ 

there it is! There's a lot of me recently from my one month training meeting!

Weel 10 -chokolade

Man oh man....I don't know where the weeks go. I've been in Denmark for a month come one of these days soon. It's weird. Still don't know half of the danish that is spoken to me but I guess that's what makes it fun, ik? (ik=right/yeah/words said to gain some sort of confirmation) But because I've been here for a month i will be in Copenhagen from tomorrow to Friday doing stuff with my MTC distrikt with the Mission president and his wife which is exciting! Some more training, sight seeing (I'll take pic swips) and THE TEMPLE! WOO!

Awesome Denmark

MY WORK PERMIT CAME THROUGH! I am now LEGALLY allowed to be here in Denmark! Fancy dancy pantsy visa holding Denmark missionary lady - that's mee!

A day in the Life of Søster Chesley:

6.30 wake up, do some poor excuse for a work out

7.00 get ready for the day and eat breakfast and stuff

8.00 personal study time

9.00 companionship study time

10.00 training time

11.00 leave the apartment to go do stuff

12.00 lunch (usually)

13.00 language study time

14.00 go out and do stuff whether it's lessons or talking to random people or what

17.00 dinner (usually)

16.00 go out and do stuff

21.00 come in and plan for next day

21.30 rest time

22.30 bed time HOLLA

and then we do it all over again. It's typically like this unless weird stuff comes up.

SLÆGTS FORSKNING! AKA FAMILY HISTORY!

EVERYONE DO IT! MORMONS NONMORMONS IT DOESN'T MATTER! Family history is so excitingggg and I love it so much! What a way to help people out by teaching them about their family's and whatnot! We've been helping people with their family history and it's just such an awesome experience getting to know where these people come from! We have a friend who is from Syria, He's lived in Beirut and Lebanon and Italy and he has his family tracked down to the 600s! WHAT?familysearch.org has one of the biggest databases  for family history finding and whatnot and the best part? IT IS FREE! Oh man...the Spirit of Elijah has been super strong and very much there in my heart. yes yes yes.

Mathilde, a cute less active did our nails today

We had a super awesome lesson with a less-active member who is so cute. She's the sweetest thing and gave me a little cactus candle! Oh my goodness it's perfect because candles are fiery and hot just like where the cactus grows in ARIZONA! ugh. she's so sweet. Anyways, we talked about how it isn't a sin to be weak. How God doesn't forgive us for our weaknesses, through His grace we are made stronger and learn more about Him and don't necessarily get over our weaknesses but we develop tools to make coping with it better like charity, love, faith, humility, knowledge, patience, all of those CHRIST LIKE ATTRIBUTES! I was emailing Kyley about this and she put it perfectly by saying 

"Christ had weakness but no sin and how weakness  are given to us by God and sometimes satan will get us confused between what is sin and what is weakness and he will use these divine weaknesses against us to make us feel worthless when in fact God gave us these weakness cuz he loves us and he wants us to have them so we can turn to him and humble ourselves and that's beautiful." - Kyley Lauren Chesley

It's just something we can all do better at remembering I think. 

baby ents

Anyways, as the wise Langston hughes once said "Life is fine, fine as wine, life is fine!"

I've never had wine but I'll take good ole Langston's word for it.

Love you all! Have a beautiful week!

Enjoy the sun the moon and the stars everybodyyyyy

also keep people in Paris and in Europe and around the world in thoughts and prayers. 

Love you all!

love,

Søster søster 

Week 9 -Danish Word of the Week: FORVENTNINGER

FORVENTNINGER aka EXPECTATIONS

what a great word. I was having a crazy hard time this week with Søster Perkins being super sick and us having to just stay in and roost in our little apartment I had a lot of time to think...hoohay, amirite? Well I had been feeling pretty low on energy and low on life, it had been a number of days since the sun had shone and the wind was knocking people over and I can't understand things anybody says to me and it was just like "what in the world is this place that I'm living in?" 

Well...Monday night and Tuesday we had splits with our Sister Training Leaders, Søster Reed and Søster Mann. I was with the wonderful Søster Reed and we had a good talk while walking in this park. She said what really helped her at the start of her mission was during her prayers to God every morning she would ask Him what His expectations of her were for that day. Nothing else, just for that day, and that would be what she would focus on and put her efforts towards. Smart sister right there...There's a lot of expectations of us in this life and God expects a lot from us BUT He doesn't expect it all at once. So out came the paper and pen and splitting it in half. One side: what I'm freaking out about and on the other What am I going to do about it. If there wasn't anything I could do about it, such as weather, people's receptiveness, etc, it got crossed off and then realizing I don't need to be fluent in danish right now but I do need to try and talk to these people and talk during lessons. 

Anyways, that's the dansk word of the week - forventninger.

yes.

cool church that rings every hour and some cool fog lighting

Ok other fun things from this week other than splits...Søster Perkins is super better now, so we were trying to visit people and riding our bikes and whatnot and we were stopped to ride across the street when this old lady stops us and just tells us her life story while holding Søster Perkins' hand and resting her hand on my shoulder. She moved to Sjælland from Jylland to marry this man but now he's dead and everyone's dead. She also said that religion is so interesting to her and she believes she'll be with her husband again. Then she continued to talk about how there's a storm coming tonight so we better not be out in a few hours or else the wind will knock us over because the wind has knocked her over before....

so fast forward to that night: 

With the old woman's last words of "Pas på piger!" (take care girls!) but being the diligent missionaries that we are and the time during this day being 20:30 we decided to continue kontakting but it was raining like crazy and the wind was insane. And off we went! It was so funny and just a crazy time of Søster Perkins and i trying to talk to people and just getting blown away. It was a hoot. With the old woman's words ever ringing in our words "Pas på piger!"

what a day...

And then i thought...this message is too important to keep indoors. This message needs to be shared in rain and wind and snow and sunshine and all of it! It's so important! It means so much! 

Yesterday was Stake Konference for all of Sjælland. There are only 2 stakes in Danmark...but still...we had two investigator friends come which was so awesome! i was nursing a borderline migraine so I couldn't concentrate too hard on the dansk but it was just so cool. And it was just fun to be in  Gladsaxe and København with all the members on Sjælland...so cool.

Also BIG NEWS: I HAVE OFFICIALLY TRIED MY FIRST DANISH PASTRY THIS WEEK. It was heavenly. I already know weight will be gained on this here mission of mine. What with every meal consisting of potatoes and bread and some form of delicious pastry or dessert. It's inevitable. But as Søster Perkins says "We're on a mission, not a diet..."

Also today, we actually MADE some danish pastry - vienerbrød. It was so scrumptious. Man, danish food may be the death of me...that just reminded me....I thought I was going to die last night at this dinner appointment we had. I just finished stuffing my face with potatoes cooked in milk and cheese, frikadellers (some danish meatball), and bread and this yummy apple cake. So I am so full like if I eat any more I will probably burst...and then they say "eat more cake..." and I thought "this is it...this is when I die...this is how I go, death by cake like Marie Antoinette..." but then I ate more and lived to tell the tale...

Well, that's it! 

One more thought for the week: Luke 17:32 "Remember Lot's wife."

How often do we look back longingly at our past lives instead of looking towards the future with a firm faith in God's plan for us? As Elder Holland said "Faith points towards the future."

love you all! Have a happy week and a happy Monday and just a happy all of it!

Love,

Søster Chesss (beacuase Danes can't say my name)

Week 8 -but you're a king and I'm a lionheart

hello hello hello (say it quickly in a british accent like the little elves from Phineas and Ferb)

Ok I think time is on some sort of speedy thing here in Scandinavia...

Today has been crazy foggy, like weird ominous foggy...and dark. Oh well.

On a bus earlier this week heading out to Næstved Of Monsters and Men song came on - "Howling ghosts they reappear, mountains that are stacked with fear...but you're a king and I'm a lionheart..." Oh it set my little soul on fire! Listening to that song on that bus IN Denmark IN Scandinavia. It was surreal. We were driving past huge white windmills, like the ones on the way to San Diego, and the greenest hills I have ever seen and weird forests and it's all just so surreal. 

yes.

Søster Perkins and  I contemplating the great mysteries of life

This week we've had some really solid lessons and we have a lot of progressing friends which is really awesome. I had my first door slammed in my face which was really funny to me. Søster Perkins and I laughed and laughed about it on our way to the next door.

Søster Perkins has been real sick this week so we've been working on trying to get her better so we can get back to work and stuff. Baby steps of lots of rest, lots of warmth and lots of peppermint, honey, and lemon (thanks Dad).

Our friend Harold the friendly spider

The Danes here don't really care about Halloween at all. The day before Halloween some members in our ward took us and the Ældster in our area to this awesome shop with jack-o-lanterns, and this really cool pottery and the Danish version of Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera was playing which meant I was a happy camper. Then there was a man dressed up as dracula that took a swig of something strong and spit it out on a stick of fire making him breathe fire. It was so funny and so great. We were just loving it. 

Also I ate the biggest slice of pizza I have ever before laid eyes on. It was a meat pizza. Ham instead of cheese with pepperoni and bacon on top. It was incredible. 

Another random thing from this week - my distrikt and myself all had the opportunity to be media trained yesterday  for 5 hours. So 8 hours of church on a fastsunday...oodles of fun...YES.

We were trained on how to conduct ourselves in interviews adn stuff...So we got mediatrained because the Elders in our distrikt from Nykobing are being interviewed for this newspaper thing...but now I am trained to officially talk about the church on camera or in print which is fun haha.

Our apartment's bakyard - magical aye?

Almost no one can say my name right here in this great land. it's incredibly amusing. The most common one which is surprising to me is "Chelsney" I don't know where they get the n from but its there...or I just get "Chesss" The "ey" sound is nonexistent in this here language. It's funny.

Also, shoes get taken off before entering homes. AND the Danes have WAY better table manners than Americans. All forks are used byt he left hand and knives by the right (I guess I've been doing it wrong my whole life) you don't start eating until everyone has there's and the host starts. And you eat everything in front of you. And when you're done you put your knife and fork together at the 5 o'clock. It's so interesting. 

Last thought for the day:

Even though I am incredibly NOT confident being out here: the language, the teaching, the language, the people, the language. I know where I CAN find my confidence and that's in my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ. I can find strength in the fact that I am a daughter of God and through Him i can be confident. That this isn't my work, this is His and He will be there with me every step of this crazy adventure. 

Life is good.

God is good.

Happy Monday!

Kærelighed,

Søster Chesley