August 29, 2016 Life Is Good!

Dear Family,

Thank you mom for forcing the little bros to write me! ;) I miss them more than they probably know! It sounds like things are busy and cruising at home! Mom can you believe how long ago we were in highschool? That was like 2 years ago! Crazy Crazy! Tell Grandma I love her and that I got her note! There is a lady in this ward who moved here from Ogden like 50 years ago and she is just the boss of Fredericia ward. Her son is the bishop and she has another son and his family in the ward and she lives literally 20 feet from the church! She reminds me of grandma, just one of those nice Mormon matriarchs with a ton of faith!

This week was awesome, again. Fredericia is great. We started teaching a Lithuanian guy named Goran. I figured dad would be pumped that I found Goran Dragich all the way out here haha! 

We are working hard and also having a ton of fun. We actually attended 2 beach parties this weekend. One for a ward priesthood activity and the other for a stake YSA activity. They were both really fun, we participated as much as missionaries can haha! One thing that made both of them more fun is that we had some really great lessons right before. Things are going really well here! Elder Gardner is hilarious and we get a lot done. We are seeing some great progress with people right now! President O'Bryant's surgery went well. It wasn't too serious but he is recovering well and plans on being back Sept 4th I think! 

But ya, life is cruising. I don't even remember the last time I had a stuffy nose! We ran for an hour and a half with an investigator one morning haha. Then right after we went and played soccer for a couple hours with some members! We were exhausted. We've been seeing some real miracles happen as we show faith in the people we're helping! It's so fun!

Anyways I love you!

MKH

Ældste McBride

This time our lesson with him actually did go really well! 

August 22, 2016 Another Fantastic week in Fredericia

Kære Family,

Life is so good! We're just cruising out here! To celebrate the Olympics Elder Gardner and I went on a 5k run with a Kenyan woman! That was so fun! I heard the US just dominated this time around. Go team! There are just some really good things happening here. I'm clicking really well with the ward and the city is pretty cool. One funny story was that this week a teenager from Mesa moved into the ward. She's got family in Denmark. I think she was a little surprised to find out that both elders were also from Mesa. You can't escape apparently haha! 

I'm feeling really old in the mission because at the zone conference this week, there were only two missionaries in the whole room, president and senior couples included, who had been in the mission longer than me. Weird because I've got a long time left! 

But ya this week we got to go back to Århus!!! The first time in 6 months! That place just feels like home. I figured it out and since I left for college after senior year I haven't lived in any one place continuously longer than in Århus! So many awesome memories there haha. It feels weird looking back that far on my mission because everything was so different when I first rolled into that place a year ago! Anyways it sure was good to be back. 

The conference was pretty touching because President O'Bryant has to go home and get a heart surgery, he's actually in the states right now. So we're acting under a temporary mission president who was one of our office senior missionaries. He's awesome. President O'Bryant shared with us all a blessing he received from a seventy about the whole situation, it was really powerful. 

I love this mission so much. It is 100% the exact place I need to be. I've been blessed that somehow after the Icelandic adventure it made my Danish better. I have no idea how it happened. I love Danish. Anyway I could go on and on about how cool missions are but I'll save it for some other time!

You'll have to tell Alec I said hi! Also that is so sweet that they chose to be baptized! Awesome! I'm glad to hear you are all doing so well! I love you guys!

Med Kærlig Hilsen

Ældste McBride

Aarhus! With the missionary I mostly trained who is now finishing the training of this other missionary! My grandson! He's actually a Dane but just waiting on his Visa to go to the Provo mission! Pretty cool!

Also this is the ocean. In Denmark!

This is me cheering in the elevator after a lesson! Actually the lesson didn't go very well at all but sometimes you just gotta fist pump anyway ya know? :)

This is the sweet moat (mote?) that goes around the wall of Fredericia! It is so pretty on a perfect summer day!

August 15, 2016 Fun Times in Fredericia!

Hello hello

This has been one of the busiest weeks of my whole mission and we came out on top!! Elder Gardner and I get along really well! Even with the Mountain View-Red Mountain rivalry haha! Cole looks a lot more attractive than I did as an 8th grader that is for sure. Tell him to stay away from girls! Isaac is such a cute little goober haha. I miss those silly guys!

That's so cool Brigham is leaving Taylor is home! I literally got goosebumps hearing about Nathan and mainland china! I would serve another full 2 years if it meant I could go to mainland china when that opens so cool!! Send me a pic of that family that is getting baptized, how cool is that!! Go Las Sendas ward! 

Fredericia is a sweet place, the city is an old fort so the center is surrounded by a dirt mound and a moat, its kinda cool! I've been able to meet a lot of ward members and I'm a lot better with names now that I've had so many places! I'm going to really like it here! We traveled into Copenhagen for MLC and I got to see some old friends that I hadn't seen in like 6 months so that was awesome! There is a lot going on in the mission right now and my zone is stacked with awesome missionaries. There is a lot of faith! We had an awesome first lesson with this woman on Saturday and she came to church on Sunday! She is great! She has lived in Denmark for a while but she is originally from Kenya. It's going to be a great place! 

Life is really good. I've been blessed with a ton of energy lately so I have just so much focus! I love this stuff. You can't give a single ounce of energy or effort or faith to the Lord without him blessing you for it! It's so great! I love you guys! I pray for you and hope you have it good with school starting up again! :)

Ældste McBride

I LOVE my Icelandic sweater!
This is a little peak at our apartment too!

I bought and tried to make sheep head before I left Iceland! This is how you buy it, just frozen in a grocery store, and this was the finished "meal". You can see a little regret in my eyes haha!   Eeeeewwwwww

This was the members house I ate at before I left Selfoss. They could see smoke from the eruption in 2010 from their living room!

A sweet rainbow over the Fjord! Its good to be back in Denmark I love this country!

August 8, 2016 Trains, Planes, and Cars

Dear Family,

I woke up at 4 this morning Iceland time and it is now 8 at night in Denmark! I have not yet dropped the bags off at the apartment, but I did get here safe, a car, a plane, a car, a train, and then a car! I think I may have just completed the longest distance transfer in mission history, but I have no way to check that haha! I am alive and I can still speak Danish alright so everything is good! I love you guys! My companion is awesome! He went to Mountain View! I'll send a pic!

Elder McBride

New Companion in Fredericia, Elder Gardner

August 1, 2016 Transfers Again Surprise!

Hey Family,

I love you guys! This morning I got a phone call from president and found out that next Monday I'll be returning to Denmark! I´ll be serving in a city called Fredericia with another elder from Mesa! It will be a lot of fun! We will be the zone leaders there!

This morning we took a sweet trip to see some epic waterfalls with the rest of our district I doubly enjoyed knowing that next Monday I'll be leaving this place. Iceland is so awesome! I'm heading into my 6th area with my 9th companion!

We had such a good week this week! We had an awesome lesson with this really big buff Icelandic wrestling coach and I think he's really prepared! It has been so fun to work here in this town and this branch! For only being here such a short time I sure feel connected to this place! The Lord prepares specific people in every area for you to meet, there are specific lessons that you need to be taught in every place and there is a specific thing you need to do to be part of his work! Its so much fun to have God as your boss, even when it seems like a mistake happens it never does!

Elder Stewart and I tried to record a video of us singing to dad in Icelandic for his birthday! Hopefully it will send! I have a bunch of pictures this week! I love you so much!

Öldundgur McBride

Woah Icelandic nature! Elder Stewart has been a fun companion! Its been really funny to goof around about the Canada America rivalry!  We also play frisbee sometimes in our apartment! This is one of the most famous waterfalls in Iceland by the way! Gullfoss!

That water is so blue it reminds me of Havasupai!!

I forgot to mention! We went to a pagan ceremony this week! There is this religion on Iceland where they still "believe" in the old Norse Gods like Thor and Odin and stuff. They don't really its more like a movement thing away from Christianity that focuses more on nature and stuff and they believe that you should do good and treat people right for the good karma basically not because there is any real God or sin or anything. That young business casual guy spoke a few words and then passed that horn around for anyone who wanted to say something and then drink out of. We were pretty sure it wasn't beer but we didn't drink out of it anyway haha. I like fast and testimony meetings much much better! :)

Oh look me in a cave on mars!