December 28, 2015 MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It was delightful to chat with you a couple days ago family! There's something about seeing someone actually smiling and laughing that means way more than letters talking about smiling and laughing! Thank you for that gift! It was good to see that Mom and Grandma are still sweet as ever, Cole and Sam are still studs, and that Dad and Ike are still goofballs hahaha! I got the chance to see a lot of Ike's belly so that was pretty funny haha! Thanks again for all the gifts! I sent one but I'm sure it will get home late! It's for the whole family :)

Also by the way those snowboarding pictures get me really jealous but don't stop sending them haha! And don't worry about sending pants to me! I'll just find some over here, it will be easier and cheaper!

We had an amazing week experiencing a Danish Christmas! Christmas Eve was a blast and singing danish christmas songs is really really fun! The Trapp family that we skyped with has an awesome tradition of tacos for lunch on Christmas day, so in that odd way I felt right at home! We love the Århus ward and the Århus ward loves us! Since the missionaries in the ward have been pretty consistent for the past while some really great friendships have been made. I'm really thankful for that beause I didn't have the chance to really get there in the other two wards I was in with very many people!

Tell Alex congrats on getting married soon! That's exciting! Oh and also it was fun to see Alec and JT and that picture of Colton with long goofy hair, great guys!  Anyway I hope you have a wonderful new year! Make lots of resolutions! Elder McBride and I, we begin our year where we are missionaries the whole time! kind of crazy! I love you all!

Godt Nyt År!

Ældste McBride

Juleaften was with this awesome family! The Kearsley Family! Dad-Kim, Mom-Vanessa, 18 year old twins Camilla and Maria, 16 year old son Nicklas, and 13 year old stud Daniel!

Me about to ring a big bell

Some pretty pics of Århus I took from the top of the Domkirke in the middle of the city!

December 21, 2015 It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!!!

Woah!! Sounds like quite the week for the people of Mesa hahaha! By the way snow reports do make me jealous but I still want to hear about them! Oh by the way I met the missionary that baptized Courtney last week! He is the ward mission leader for Fredericksberg ward in the middle of Copenhagen. Pretty awesome guy, way funny to hear about Mesa from a missionary perspective. Super fun to do it all in Danish ;)

This week as the new Family History people we got to go to both zone conferences and give a training for that stuff and that also meant we got to enjoy the festivities twice! The trainings went ok but the rest of the conference was super fun, especially on Jylland where most of the people I've served with are. It had a good mix of fun, spiritualness, and good food! There is a Danish dessert tradition called Ris alaman (spell check? I think its french originally) where you eat this really good rice pudding stuff with cherry sauce and crushed almonds but they put a couple full almonds in the bowls and if you find it you win a prize, so eveyone tries to eat a lot so they can have the prize! It's a blast! We even watched a Disney movie as a mission, Inside Out. Its really crazy funny to watch a group of 20 year olds go wild about a kids movie but that's what happened haha!

We have some really awesome appointments set up for this week with some member families and it will be really fun to experience full on Danish Christmas! Ya, I love you guys and can't wait to skype! I also found a really awesome present for the family that I'm trying to send today but I have no idea when it will actually get there!

Love all of you,

Ældste McBride

P.s. Thank you so much for the Christmas packages! I opened pre Christmas but am saving the Christmas one for actual Christmas!

Nick the Nisse rides the Moose!  And I think that's the cute paper nativity from Aunt Holly!

December 14, 2015 Han skal hjem og opereres

Kære Familie,

This week was another odd week. The decision was made that Ældste Ericksen would head home to get surgery on his toe spend the rest of the transfer recovering and is planned to come back Jan 10. It won't be to Århus however so I don't really know when the next time I'll see him is. It's pretty sad really, nobody should have to kill their son. He handled it all very calmly, but seemed really determined to get back out! I'm sure he'll come back because Denmark was always his dream mission call! On the plus side we took a sweet picture recreating Abraham and Isaac with one of the assisstants as the angel. On the negative side Ældste Ericksen had the thing I've been using to send pics so you don't get to see it :(

My new companion is Ældste Bishopp! He's from Seattle Washington, was at BYU the same time as me, is the youngest of 8 kids, and came to the land one transfer after me! He was serving in the heart of København before I kidnapped and took him to Jylland. We were actually in CPH for a few days because a guy that Ældste Bishopp taught got baptized. It's always great to see someone get baptized! That was only the 4th one I've seen personally in Denmark!

So in the midst of all this Ældste Bishopp and I were called as the new Family history missionaries replacing the sisters that were doing it. That will be an interesting assignment.

Anyways I love you all very much! I received the Pre-Christmas package hahaha. His name is Nick the Nisse! Nisse is basically the word for christmas elves here in Denmark and they are everywhere in members homes! I'll try to find a nativity or maybe a Nisse but I'll be honest I don't know if I'll really have enough time to shop it out and send it off :( I feel a little bad but I didn't think about Christmas far enough in advance. By the way will you thank Brother Holt for the Christmas package and ask him if he designed the card game that was in it.

Glædelig Jul,

Ældste McBride

Recreating the scene of Abraham and Isaac

Good Luck Elder Ericksen!!!  Wishing you a speedy recovery!

December 7, 2016 Glædelig Jul

Christmas is in full swing here! Århus is lively and people are happy and we have a little tree set up in our apartment! Also it hasn't been very cold at all this week! :)

But enough of the good news...(dramatic pause) Unfortunately Ældste Ericksen has a rather serious ingrown toenail so we have been inside quite a lot lately. We've had to be quite patient as we go to different doctors to figure out if he'll need surgery or not and if that means he'll get sent home for the surgery or not. After like 4 doctors opinions it seems that surgery is pretty likely but now we have to wait for doctors in Salt Lake to see pictures of the toe so the Area doctor over like all of northern europe missions makes the decision if he's going home or going to Sweden or Germany for surgery. Its a lot of hullaballoo and mumbo jumbo and other funny words over a toe but it is a pretty nasty looking toe and it is a very boring/stressful process. So yes that's about it as far as life update. Pray for Ældste Ericksen please. Thank you!

Now lets talk about Christmas!!! That's what everybody is talking about anyway! I have not received a package yet but our Christmas conference is on the 18th so if it's in Denmark I'll get it then! Speaking of Christmas packages, do you guys want anything from Denmark for Christmas? I have been trying to think of stuff but I don't know what you want/exactly what it will take to get it home yet! Sorry I kind of thought of this a little late haha! But yes please give me ideas for stuff to send home if you would like something from here haha. The Christmas call is pretty open but we are doing it at this really great familie's house so it's all lined up there! Be expecting pretty early for you guys! I was thinking I could do mine at around 4pm here in Danmark which would be 8am for you guys maybe? I don't remember the time difference. But we'll be doing it in 2 groups so it is somewhat flexible! I don't know if it will be possible to coordinate it with hermano McBride either but just know it will be in the morning for you guys! :) Also will you send me my skype info? I haven't found where I wrote it down last time yet haha!

I love you!

Ældste McBride

November 30, 2015 Thanksgiving!

Kære Familie,

Thanksgiving seemed like quite the party! Those pictures of home really put me in a time machine! Last Thanksgiving is when I put in my papers woahhhh! Did y'all catch that I hit my 8 month mark? That's 1/3 of this adventure already done. time flies! Who is that Maddy person whose new in the family? Does that mean Alex or Matt got married? Dad by the way I forgot I think to say congratulations with all that new stuff at work and that board position thing, you are becoming quite the sophisticated (hope that was spelled right haha) scholarly gentleman! 

This week was way fun! We've been taking essentials p-days for weeks now and so we got to go to Moesgaard Museum which is a way epic museum full of viking stuff! You should see if they have a sweet website or something! We also had a zone conference training/ Thanksgiving celebration which was very fun! There was a talent show and I was asked to MC it with another missionary a few hours before! That meant I got to come up with several on the spot transitional one liners (Dad this is the part where you say "thats my boy") hahaha it was really fun! Some pretty great talents were shown as well! We even got to play American football which was really fun! 

Unfortunately missionary work wise things were slow. John is/was in England until this week and even though he seems pretty busy I'm confident we will see him again. This week in wandering contacting led to us having an awesome discussion with a girl from Holland who was visiting. We sat down on a bench way late at night and had a great conversation with her and I tried to point out the spirit at the end and she said she couldn't feel it, even though I was pretty sure. Then we said a prayer and after Amen she looked up and said "I feel it now", that was powerful! She wanted to take the first step herself and find the church building in Holland when she went home the next day, instead of having missionaries sent to her door so I really hope she did, no way to find out I guess. 

Ældste Bradshaw and Ældste Vance didn't get transferred and neither did Ældste Ericksen and I! The other two elders are going on and unheard of (in our mission at least) 3 transfers together and we're all excited because that means Christmas together! Christmas has been promised to be amazing in Denmark and so far it's keeping up with that promise. Ældste Vance's mom sent us all matching beanies so that's way fun! Anyways I got to go but I love you all so much!

Ældste McBride

November 23, 2015 Snowstorm!!!

Kære Familie,

What an awesome week this was! Biggest news, Sunday morning we woke up to snow! Ya it snowed and then while we were in church it snowed a lot more! It was crazy probably almost a foot in just a few hours! So it is officially cold now and I am officially freezing but that is ok haha. We have a zone conference Thanksgiving event here in Århus in a few days and there will be Thanksgiving food and we will play football so that will be pretty fun. So Ældste Ericksen was in København basically this entire week for his one month training which was way different from how it was when I hit one month so I was with Ældste Gardner (Mountain View boy) for most of the week! We had a blast. 

Ok so best story of the week! I'm a fan of doing this thing I call wander contacting.  Essentially how it works is that sometimes you set a block of time aside that is a little too long to be comfortable.  That way you really have to rely on the Lord and then you walk and wander and talk to anyone you see on the way. We try to go as best we can by the Spirit.  That's why we give it so much time.  That way if you're not really in tune, you'll still get there eventually hopefully haha. Anyway its a little quirky and definitely tough, not exactly something for everyone, but for me I like it a lot because it helps to force me to rely on God. Haha I think I have some weird missionary work theories, but oh well. So we did this for all the time we had after dinner Wednesday until 9! The day had been going great and it was about 8 o clock, totally dark, in a part of the city I had never been and it was beginning to rain. We said a way specific prayer that we could meet our goal and then the very next person we talked to turned into an amazing chat. We said a prayer with him right then, the first prayer he has been a part of for 8 years. Sunday he came to church. His name is J---. Prayer is a real thing!

To add to my people I've met internationally list. Macedonia, Greece, Poland, Sri Lanka, and Sierra Leone!

By the way we didn't have any worries over here in Århus in relation to the Paris attacks. It led to some interesting conversations with the muslim people over here. It's interesting, they run into the same problems with the Koran that the Christian world runs into with the Bible, everyone just takes it their own way. 

I love you guys so much and I'm looking way forward to skyping at Christmas! I love you all so much! 

MKH

Ældste McBride

P.S. I fasted for Austen last Tuesday. It was a very reverent thing for me.  I've never fasted for a more specific reason and been more sincere about it in my life. I asked the people we met with to pray for him when we met with them and I think it helped many of them to see the importance of prayer. I'm glad to hear he's doing a better now. I love that guy!

November 16, 2015 Brief Letter

No real letter this week because we miraculously caught Max while he was writing and we were able to write back and forth for about 30 minutes. He assured us that he's doing great and loving Denmark!  So fun to "talk" to him a bit.  Usually, his letters come in the middle of our night so we can't catch him.  Here are some pictures, though.

Max at the Botanical Garden

Fall Colors

AEldste Ericksen eats his first Kebab

Christmas Decorations!

November 9, 2015 Århus is still Årawesome

Hello family!

I got a haircut by a guy I met in a bus a few weeks ago, his name is Chiko, he's from Egypt. He's hilarious and now my really good friend. He calls me Mac because he doesn't quite get the whole Ældste thing hahah! It was a fun time, we run into him all the time in random places too, so that's always fun! 

I had a couple really awesome pictures of the fall weather but then forgot the thing to get them on the computer so that's my bad! I don't really have a whole ton to write about this week.  It was just kind of a normal week, but we do have some good things prepped for this week which I'm excited about! I'm really hoping something big happens to us really soon!! By the way I did get the watch it is great! 

Also I forgot to tell you but the senior couple that works in the office was so so excited to meet me after the Moose came in! They told me that the mailman came in with a giant smile on his face and set it up triumphantly on the counter in the mission office and then that everybody who passed it laughed until they eventually got it sent out to me haha. So way to go you made a Danish mailman's day a few weeks ago! 

I might be learning how to play squash here soon with one of the members of the ward and the Stake President so that could be very fun! We were able to meet with the Hungarian and Estonian girls again in the Botanical Garden in Århus. It's an interesting situation because I think they're at this point quite skeptical but at the same time way too curious not to give it a try, so I guess that's good! There's a couple of other people that I feel like are in kind of the same boat. That's the tough the thing about college kids, way open but way busy!

Things sound like they're going pretty awesome back at home which is always great to hear! A big congratulations to Dad thats quite the switch! I'm always laughing when I read letters from you guys, it really brightens my day! :)  

I have to keep this kind of short because we're taking an essentials P-day to do an activity later in the week, but I love you so much and I hope you have a great week!!

MKH

Ældste McBride

November 2, 2015 Halloweeeeeeeeeenn

Your Halloween stories are pretty awesome! That is unreal that Zacky is going to be home soon, that's so crazy! I look up to that guy so much haha! Cole is quite the popular kid now isn't he! Just let him know that isn't an excuse to not write his brothers ;)

Over here in the glistening city of Århus we had a pretty awesome week! I'll just boil it down into Saturday and Sunday because those were the best days! Saturday there was a giant family history event held by the stake in our church building! It was a massive thing with a couple hundred non members coming in to learn about family search and things! Our job was to run the refreshment table haha and the plan was to chat with people while they were eating but then all of them came in all at once and then went straight back to another workshop so not a lot of schmoozing took place haha. 

I don't remember if I told you but last week I was called as the Family History Specialist of the Nord Jylland Zone. It is a new position to help support the family history sisters because they're way over in København and there isn't a super clear job description yet but basically I'm supposed to figure out how to help the people in the zone use family history in all aspects of missionary work. I had a couple ideas but it's still pretty vague exactly what I do haha I gues we'll see! Could be fun and I bet it'll make Grandma proud (shout out to mormor!)  haha :) So ya that's that I learned how to find ancestors in old Danish church books and I added a picture of the page with Jørgen Christian Andersen's birth record on family search check it out! After the family history event was a stake young single adult Halloween party. It was pretty fun, Ana whose from Portugal (shout out Portugal) put the whole thing together and we helped her out! That was about all the Halloween celebration I saw and now everything is decked out for Christmas because they don't have Thanksgiving! Christmas will be so awesome in Århus!!

The second awesome thing was Sunday! I'll just call it international day because Ældste Ericksen an American gave his testimony in Danish while I translated the meeting to English for a member from Ghana. Then we went to guest class with Ana, from Portugal, who brought her friend who was from Russia! Then after church a girl I met from Hungary came to have a tour of the church and she brought a friend who is from Estonia! If that whole thing doesn't sound a little crazy then I don't know how to impress ya'll that's pretty dang international!

Well I'm safe and well and having a lot of fun! I love you so much!

MKH

Ældste McBride

This is the Bateman blood line all together haha! Go silly mission traditions!

You know the Kristus statue in all the visiting centers and stuff? We saw the original!!

This is a pretty awesome selfie by this beautiful fountain from when I was picking up Ældste Ericksen in CPH!

The pumpkins we missionaries carved!

October 26, 2015 A Warm (not really its getting cold here) Welcome!!

Greetings family!

Ældste Ericksen arrived in the land last week and he has been doing awesome! I'm pretty sure he's fearless because I haven't found anything he's not willing to do haha! It's be an awesome few days! We've hit the ground running and things have been happening! We met with this guy named A... he's a young Danish guy who Elder Sakurada met and gave a Book of Mormon to almost 2 months ago. We've had almost no contact with him since then and suddenly it works out that we can meet! It was Ældste Eriksen's 2nd day in Aarhus and we had an amazing first lesson sitting cross legged on the grass behind the church building. We have some really high hopes there! 

Then yesterday we were out finding and we kontakted this 20 something year old girl. We ended up in a really awesome conversation and by the end of our talk she was holding the Book of Mormon tight to her chest and thanking us for giving it to her! It was really special.  She definitely felt something powerful! Also expecting some amazing things there :) The work is going well here and training is a new pace that I have to get used to! It's a little tough because I have to do anything that's in Danish basically alone.  It's really been teaching me to just give God control of the situation otherwise nothing good would happen out here! Just an awesome week really!

Anyways Ældste Ericksen comes from the town of Morgan Utah. He has three other siblings and he is 8 years younger than the next youngest! His hobbies include blacksmithing, drawing, video games, and being generally awesome. Other talents include playing various saxophones in big band jazz and making a rose out of Iron for his girlfriend. Once upon a time he had long red hair, that he pulled back into a ponytail. He can also do the voice impressions of approximately 50 famous characters from tv shows and movies (the Joker one is very very scary, terrifying really). He has read the Bible around 5 times cover to cover because he times it to match up with his BofM reading (i.e Isaiah while reading 2 Nephi, 3 Nephi while reading new testament, etc.) Ya that's him, quite the guy! He's just rock solid with his faith.  It's quite impressive and very helpful! He's doing great! The Danish is coming and he doesn't have a fear of talking to strangers (most important missionary skill), so good start!

In the land I've gotten haircuts from members, an Iraqi man in his shop, and other missionaries. Most recently I met an Egyptian man who offered to give "you and all your friends free clips whenever.  Just call and I tell you where shop is ok? Free haircut you and friends!" He's pretty awesome, his name is Chiko. There are a suprising amount of carved pumpkins out here ya!

Anyways I love you all! Mwah mwah hug kiss kiss hug

Ældste McBride

Max and his new Trainee AEldste Ericksen with Pres. & Sis. O'Bryant

Meet the Trainee/Trainer

October 19, 2015 I'm expecting!!! (sounds weird but oh well)

I am currently in Odense, awaiting the arrival of my son on Wednesday! Those Pictures of you Guys copying the statues are hilarious oh man! I laughed loud in the library at Ike the Mermaid in his natural fall forest habitat!

It was a bit of an odd week again for me. I tagged along with the zone leaders this week and because there was a zone training this week they had to prepare for that and with the people they had to visit I just kind of followed them around.  It was fun but I feel like I've been on this weird sort of vacationish thing since Ældste Sakurada left and I've just been following around other companionships. It's kind of fun but I'm getting restless and just want to put in some serious work in my area again. It needs it! 

Other than that I've had just a ton of time to think about this new transfer and I'm really excited.  There will be some seriously amazing miracles, I'm sure of it! In other fun news we had a zone Halloween party where we carved pumpkins! I won the zone ping pong tournament hahaha turns out all that practice really paid off haha who knew? Dad any pro tips for training a new missionary? Oh, we also had interviews again with President. Turns out Pres O'Bryant knows his way around a racquetball court, so that was pretty fun.  I think that means we're officially friends now, so that's good. Anyways I'll send you more info on my trainee once I get my hands on him. 

Fun story of the week, we(Ældste Bradshaw, Æ Vance, and I) visited this guy named Mr. T.(yep thats his name) He's from Cambodia and his wife of 8 months is from Denamark. It's such a fairytale. She was traveling as part of some student organisation around asia and was on this Island for about a week and just about to leave when she met Mr. T and she missed her plane home and lived there for months and months and then had a fully traditional Cambodian wedding with like 900 guests and now they're newlyweds living in Denmark. I've met some pretty amazing people on my mission! We also taught this family from the Faroe islands, and earlier today on the train I had a nice chat with a lady from the Faroe islands. Theres not so many Faroese people but now I've met a couple.  Pretty crazy, huh?

I love all of you so much!

kys kys,

Ældste McBride 

I found this on the Mission blog!  Pretty proud that our cute moose made their blog & newsletter!

October 12, 2015 No Such Thing as a Normal Transfer

Mom you're decorations were so fancy oh my gosh!  That's seriously has to be the most fun job for you. My favorite is the one with the giant cheesy wedding picture I think!

Here in Aarhus we had an interesting week! Last Monday we got a phone call ring ring. It was President! He said Elder Sakurada, pack your bags, you're moving to Bornholm (Little island thats a train to Sweden and a ferry ride away from Sjælland) you'll be leaving as soon as possible! So 48 hours later we hopped on a train with all his stuff and he left to København and I stayed in Horsens for a few days. It was kinda sad because me and Elder Sakurada were such great friends! Now I'm in a tri with Elder Vance and Elder Bradshaw covering Aarhus. It's been really weird. I have to wait until next week to get my companion because that's when he'll be coming from the MTC! Yep, thats right I'll be training! So until then we're pretty busy trying to cover both areas but it's going well so far. 

In other news I'm ponderizing D&C 121:45-46 which is one of my favorite scriptures ever so I figured it would be a good start! Well I'm sorry this is really short but most of the weeks just been doing random things, not really any huge experiences just transfer craziness haha! I love you all so much! Have a great week! Tell Cole and Ike if they start ponderizing now they'll be very wise missionaries indeed!

MKH

Ældste McBride

This the picture of us getting the surprise transfer call! Pretty Epic huh?

October 5, 2015 Conference!

Elder Bateman and my brother, Elder Magleby, got to visit for general conference as well! 
This is a pic from the top of building looking out over our area! 
We live in a really beautiful city!!

Ok now its letter time! We had another pretty great week here in Aarhus! I've now officially been here longer than when I was in Odense, which is pretty crazy to think about! Ældste Sakurada and I have been learning a ton here because we've been really focusing on figuring out our weaknesses and then trying our best to improve on them! Everyone remembers "weak things become strong", but sometimes we forget the first part which is "I will show unto men their weakness" This part is sometimes uncomfortable (usually) but it's just as important! Since we've been doing that we've both become much more focused missionaries, which has been really necessary because we've had a lot of work to do! We met for the first time with a couple different people this week and we're hoping we can meet with them more! 

Conference was really great! We watched both morning sessions live but it was 6:00 pm here haha! It was set up in the church, so we saw Saturday morning session Saturday night, then Sunday morning we watched preisthood, then Saturday night, and then Sunday morning at a members house that night. We still haven't had the chance to see the last session! I really liked a bunch of things, one quote was "reach up, not out" I forgot who said it, its written down somewhere haha. Such good advice, it's not up to other missionaries, or other family members, or ward members to solve all our problems. Most of the time it should be between us and Him. That was smart council for sure! I'm excited to hear that surfer talk that sounds pretty awesome! Also how about Elder Holland delivering a sermon that will echo down from Mothers day to Mothers day for decades. He's always impressive, however I don't think anybody beats Elder Uchtdorf. Elder Stevenson "the Lord qualifies those he calls" and Elder Renlund saying how the Gospel will go forth, preached by simple men. What an amazing attitude all three of those men have! Hey, too bad you didn't get the Elders over that would've been fun! 

You'll have to say hi to Brother Pickron for me and the Benches! How are those families doing? Isaac you should've just unmade Cole's bed.  That could've been a sneaky way to keep him in your room. Also I give permission for Cole to use our room as long as he puts the giant blown up picture of my face on the ceiling over his bed, so that it stares down at him while he sleeps! Also, I'd love to see more mission stories, tell Bryce to send them! That goes for you too Dad hahaha. I should've realized how much I could've figured out by asking people about their missions before I left on mine haha. Oh well! It's a long shot, but ask Eric if a Roberto Arriaga served in his mission! 

Anyways I love you guys!

MKH

Ældste McBride

Taco night! We even had guacamole and those tortillas were so so good!

This is the inside of the cathedral in the center of Århus! 
It had some really weird weird paintings and things inside!

These were some really weird people running around in Horsens when I was on splits! It was for some art/drama week. One of them ran up to me took a look at my nametag and then looked at me as if I was the crazy one hahaha it was really funny!

This is me and Elder Burton posing in front of a sweet hummer! 
I played tourist in order to contact these two girls that took
 the picture, ended up in a pretty good conversation!

September 28, 2015 Kære familie!

Kære familie!

I love all of you! I finally received the package and oh man was it awesome! We'll be making chicken tacos with guacamole here after we shop today! Also the nerf guns were much appreciated and I have no idea how that hilarious moose made it all the way through in the mail hahahaha! That made my whole week for sure! I had no idea how much I missed a good ol box of mac and cheese ahahah! The watch didn't come, though.  I don't remember if you said that should be coming or not hahaha.

Besides that it was a pretty normal week! It was zone conference here in Aarhus so we saw a bunch of missionaries again, which was a lot of fun! We got some great advice on how to teach more focused which is always good haha. We had a couple really big steps forward with the people we meet with! It was really pretty great stuff and we got a lot of stuff set up for this next week so big things ahead hopefully! We get to see every session of general conference because it's broadcast at the church so thats pretty nice and it is a great thing to invite people to! You should invite the elders over and your friend and watch conference together. Or see if they have anyone they want to invite.  I'm sure they'd appreciate that! :)

I lost the cord to send pictures ,so sorry I haven't had any lately! Also I don't have a ton of time to write today but I'll share a funny story! So I'm in the assistants' van with one of the Assistants Elder Mogenson (awesome) , Ældste Vance, and me (already a start to a pretty funny story right?) and I'm on the phone and Elder Vance is holding another phone up to Elder Mogensons ear while we're driving along this street at night, and its loud and we're having a good time and then we run over a hedgehog!! And we a let out a whooooaaaahhh yell thing and start laughing and then trying to explain what happened to the people on the phones and just all in all a really good time haha!

I love you all so much! Good luck with all those things you're working on! There's some serious power in routines as long as they're the right ones! haha

Din yndlings Danske Missionær

Ældste McBride

P.S. We're doing a big family history push over here, so if you can send me any sweet ancestor stories/more about our Danish ancestry that would be awesome! I know grandma sent some a little while ago, so you'll have to thank her for that because she was way ahead of the curve. It's gonna be a big thing over here.  Two sisters just got called as full time family history missionaries and no longer do "normal proselyting" all working with stakes and coordinating family history stuff! Pretty wild! So ya either in hard copy or email or both, some family history stories please! :)

September 21, 2015 Chili Peppers Are Hot

Kære Family

Ok this week we had 6 elders spend the night in our apartment because everyone came to Aarhus for Stake Conference and so we all ended up eating some really hot chili peppers as a challenge to build our brotherhood, of course. It was very painful and very hilarious and all in all just totally awesome!  In even more exciting news I got to work a day in Aalborg!  Æ Bradshaw rolled his ankle so he couldn't go on splits up there, so I got to go up with Elder Vance!  It was an incredible day!  Between the 4 of us up there we found a ton of people that could potentially be taught!  It was a miracle. That area got such a big boost, which is great because I love that place so much and also I was able to help them figure out who was worth getting in contact again from when I was there! It was probably one of the single most effective days on my mission and such a blast to just blitz that area! I also got to work a day in Horsens which was pretty fun, too, for splits with Æ Burton, my district leader. 

Unfortunately, all that meant that I spent a lot of time out of Århus but Æ Sakurada handled things like a stud!  I'll answer some of those questions now, but will you send me a bunch of Jack London quotes? Also, one more fun thing. I've made it a rule to talk to any person I see in a Yankees hat which is surprisingly quite a few. Only one person so far has known that it was a hat for a baseball team, but most at least know its New York. It's a pretty hilarious contacting technique! Also Æ Sakurada and I each ate a spider at an activity with the young men because they're doing survival skills right now hahaha it was really fun!

1. My companion is 19, didn't go to school first. Same with another person in my apartment and one went to a year of college and then came out.

2. Sundays are kind of just a normal day but with church in the mornings. There's only one ward of about 60 people that come every week here and after church we do all the same things we do on a normal day. It must be way weird with only 4 people in the family at church!

3. I don't know about everywhere, but tracting is the program not just a part of it. Just for an example that day in Aalborg, Æ Higby and I talked to people on the street for about 5 hours straight. That was a "heavy" finding day, but those are also the most effective days. I've always felt safe knocking doors, its a pretty safe place I live in haha.  Knocking isn't as bad as people build it up to be.  Its as effective as you are willing/ready for it to be!

4. Service is usually just random projects for members, but we're trying some new stuff here soon.

5. Cooking and cleaning just kind of happen. Things are never spotless, but not usually a disaster. I feel like I know how to clean/ cook pretty fine yep!

6. Usually people have like at least one thing they do really well. I make good tacos, Æ Sakurada makes really good chicken teriyaki!

7. P-days it kind of depends but usually go to a park or something.

8. Sometimes jog, sometimes push ups, sometimes just fight to not fall asleep on the carpet. I'm still not a morning person unfortunately haha

9. Ya I've heard from a few of them yep! :)

10. Mom there's like a million crazy things I can't tell you haha. The missionary schedule is designed so you wake up, study, eat, and then you have 8.5 hours a day to go have crazy experiences. Hahaha but don't worry you just kind of get used to all the crazy!

11. I have seen the blessings of fasting on my mission. Whenever we make a big plan, we fast about it to ask if that is the right plan and then we go out and work! I don't think its a cure all, though, like it should be used for special things.

12. I have not gotten the package yet, but I should in a couple days at zone conference!

Ok that was that! Tell Cole he can't have a girlfriend until after I'm home from my mission!

Love you all

Ældste Max McBride