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!