December 26, 2016 Og et godt nyt år!

Kære Familie,

It was so awesome to see you guys yesterday! It seems like you're all doing so well! I can't believe Cole is a cool 8th grader, I was definitely not cool in 8th grade! 

I had an awesome christmas too! I'll tell the story through pictures :)

On Thursday we had zone conference! It was great! We had a training and then a lot of Christmas songs and we read the Christmas story. We ate really good food and also watched Finding Dory. It was a lot of fun! Despite almost half of the missionaries presents being stolen everyone was in really good spirits. Our mission is stacked with great misisonaries :) We did however get a visit from Santa Claus. This year it was Elder Ericksen, the missionary I trained! I have almost never laughed harder. He was perfect for that role! (see first 2 pics)

I was lucky and got my package which meant we had some sweet apartment decorations! We put up the giant tree of high 5s and got in the Christmas spirit. I even did my best to look like a Russian missionary with my cool new hat. We've been blessed with weather in the mid 40s for the past few weeks which is nice! Denmark isn't quite as cold as everyone thinks! I thought my package was hilarious though thank you guys so much! :) (next two pics)

The next two pictures are on Christmas Eve. We had presents under an itty bitty Christmas tree at the Molbeks apartment. They are a great family! On Christmas Eve it is tradition in Denmark to eat what is called Ris Alamande or rice pudding with whip cream, chopped almonds, and cherry sauce. It tastes amazing. In the pot they put one whole non chopped almond in and whoever finds that one gets a gift. There was accidentally two almonds in there this year so Daniel and I both won. Funny enough I also won last year! I guess I'm pretty good at eating a ton of dessert :) (pics 5 and 6)

On Christmas we were with the Bornemann Family! Thomas and Marie are the parents with Jessica, Joshua, and Emily their kids. I gave Emily the slingshot screaming monkey thing for Christmas. She loved it :) That family is great! My family is also great! I got to see you guys. Looking good ;) I love you and miss you! See you soon :) (Pics 7 and 8)

Merry Christmas,

Ældste McBride

December 19, 2016 Glædelig Jul

Kære Familie,

Hey that is so cool that you guys got to try Æbleskiver!! That is very classic Danish Christmas. I ate a ton last year but we haven't gotten quite so much this year. I'm glad you got a tiny little taste of Danish Christmas. I'm going to make you this dessert called Ris alamande someday. That stuff is good! I think I should be able to skype at 4 but if I can't I'll let you know before.

I had a pretty good week this week. I was with a temporary for about 10 days and things went great! Today I'm picking up my new companion Elder Howes, almost 20 months after we entered the MTC together. He's traveling all the way from the island of Bornholm so he'll probably be exhausted by the time he gets over here. It will be fun and weird to be with someone from my own group! The last time I was with someone who had been in the mission equal or longer than me was August 2015. That is a long time ago! 

Elder Fairbanks and I had a good week! We had a lot to do but eveything went well. We met a Mexican man out late one night and had a first meeting with him yesterday. He is only the 2nd person from mexico I have met on my entire mission! My spanish was pretty rusty unfortunately so we just spoke english. He's a really good guy! Another big highlight was that we got to go to Århus to see the missionary christmas concert! We drove up and picked up Elder Gardner and his companion on the way to. It was like a christmas road trip! It was so fun!

I'm looking forward to seeing you all next sunday!! Sorry I couldn't figure out any presents to send. oops! I love you! 

Glædelig Jul

Ældste McBride

December 12, 2016 Christmas Craziness

Kære Familie,

This week has been crazy! There is a group of missionaries touring the country to perform christmas concerts and so it made transfers crazy. I'm still in Fredericia and Elder Gardner moved to a city called horsens. We're still in the same district which is awesome! We had such a good companionship. Busiest time of my mission. Now all that business is entirely up to me to handle. Because of the music tour my new companion has to stay for a while in his old area so I have a companion right now for about 10 days on a temporary split. His name is Elder Fairbanks and he's a really funny guy. He's a lot of help but since he is leaving so soon all of the planning is up to me for our area and the zone. It's a lot! Time is flying by so fast it is insane. I can't believe we're so far into December already! 

I think I'll be skyping sometime between 2-4 Danish time so I think thats like 8am your time? I'll try to figure it out a little bit better by next week! Wow I had almost forgotten about AD. That was a good chapter in our families history :) I think I'd like to ride into my wedding on those Green Machine bike things we had. 

One really fun thing was that the ward here had the Christmas party! I don't know if i told you this tradition last year but Danes hold hands with each other and walk around their christmas trees while singing christmas songs. It is really fun. I think Danes are where they got the idea for the Whos from whoville in the Grinch movie! They know how to Christmas :)

Love ya!

Ældste McBride

December 5, 2016 17 Awesome Weeks in a Row

Kære Familie,

Wow Congrats Cole! You guys look like real studs out there!! You look so big compared to last time I saw you! That is definitely a bigger trophy than anything I've ever won! You must have been really good if teams chose to forfeit instead of play you wow. Pretty jealous you got to see Jim Gaffigan!

We are still just being blown away here by how many fantastic days and weeks we have had! We went to the temple with M---. She loved it! It was such a cool experience to be in the temple with someone for the first time! She said it was the greatest day ever. It is so cool to see how happy she is about the Gospel! 

We stayed in Copenhagen and were on splits with the assistants. They happen to be some of my best buddies in the mission too. It was fun.  I worked with Elder Hartmann and last time we were on splits was over a year and a half ago when we were both in training in Aalborg! Man I love that guy. At church we had 3 people there for their first time. That's a lot! One of our friends showed up wearing an all white dress. Perfect to be baptized in ;) Christmas food in Denmark tastes so so so good!

Transfers are on Friday. We aren't really looking forward to them very much! But who knows where I'll be or who I'll be with next time! I love you all so much! 

MKH

Ældste McBride