September 26, 2016 Wow! I've been here a long time now

Kære Familie,

This was another really good week! I got to see a lot of really great friends. Both missionaries and members! This week we had stake conference in Århus. Let me tell you about a stake conference out here. They're amazing! Members of the church from all over half the country drive all the way to Århus and the church rents out the main concert hall in the city. There is seriously so many amazing members there and also the 40 missionaries in the stake. Everyone runs around seeing old friends and then the talks and testimonies are always really good. It is seriously one of my favorite things, Jylland Stake Conferences. I got to see friends from Aalborg, Odense, and Aarhus. I was amazed because there were actually a few people from Aalborg that even remembered my name. I feel so blessed with how tight missionaries and members are here in Denmark! They are all huge examples to me. It was awesome to talk with them :)

One crazy thing was how long I've known some of these people. This one girl and I realized that the first time we met was a year and a half ago when she skyped us missionaries in the MTC. Time really flies on the mission. Last year this time I was running around Aarhus like a madman with Elder Sakurada and now its already been a year. I've made so many great friends here! 

On a spiritual note I found a sripture I really like Romans 8:28 "and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." in my mind thats kind of what faith allows you to believe, that everything in your life, every experience enjoyable or not, will eventually be for your good. I don't believe we're just subjects to unfortunate circumstances or that God sometimes just teases us by making life hard. Its all for a purpose. The stake President said in his talk that Jesus often stopped to teach those that followed him instead of going straight to the destination. He then said this is still how he teaches those that follow him, sometimes I trial is sent so that we stop and can be taught. Brilliant. I love that idea. 

I love you guys! Keep on "churching" Mom its good for ya. ;)

MKH

Ældste McBride

September 19, 2016 We're Staying!

Kære Familie,

Transfer day was this morning and I didn't have to move a single suitcase! That's right Elder Gardner and I are staying together. We were both pretty excited! :) Everything is just going really well here. M--- has a goal to be baptized on the 8th of Oktober! We're very happy for her, she is just loving it! Other things are going really well here as well. We have been so blessed.

Two of my old companions got transferred into our zone today to be district leaders so it will be really fun to work with them again! They're good guys, Elder Weese and Elder Magleby. Our zone is now 4 districts with a total of 26 missionaries. They're all studs. 

Another fun story. There was a baptism on Iceland last week! It was held in a swimming pool in a little city at the very north of the island, a place called Akureyi. The first baptism in that city in 20 years. Extra cool, I got to meet her once while she was in Selfoss for a little while. We had a lesson and she was just incredible. 

Another fun thing. We went to a city called Sønderborg for splits! It is the southern most area in the mission! I was on splits with a missionary in his first transfer Elder Burgin. While we were out knocking we met the sponsor of a handball team. I started talking to him about handball and then I just asked him for tickets! Dad you should be proud! He said tentatively ya and then ran back in the house to get his business card. By the end of our convo he was actually pretty pumped, he kept laughing and saying "nobody is going to believe me when I tell them this story". So Elder Gardner and I left that night and the next day Sønderborg got swiped in on the main sponsor's season tickets to the opening game of the season on the second row. Ya I got some cool zone leader points that day haha :)

But ya this whole transfer was just amazing! This next weekend we have stake conference in Århus and I'm excited because I'll get to see people from 3 of my old areas! 

Hope you all have a great week! I love you!

MKH

Ældste McBride

This awesome guy in our ward loves Arizona! Loves it!

Sønderborg!

September 12, 2016 Welcome to Hotel Fredericia

Kære Familie

We had another wonderful week here in Fredericia! Things are going so well! M--- came for the 5th Sunday in a row and she brought a friend, and the friend brought her boyfriend. It was awesome. She loves the church and it has been amazing watching her make the changes in her life and seeing how much happier it makes her.

Elder Gardner and I have turned Fredericia's apartment into a chocolate chip cookie making machine. We got a chocolate chip cookie recipe and after like the 2nd or 3rd try we figured out how to make really good cookies really fast. So we have made a ton of cookies in the past couple weeks. 

One of the things I really enjoy about being a missionary is hosting splits! Often in our mission elders have to travel to a different city to have splits and so they sleep over one or two nights and then go home. Since my first area I've always thought it was really fun to be a good host! So we always have good food and have the apartment clean and plan out good workdays. In Fredericia we even have guest towels haha! This last week we had elders on splits and we made Pazookies. They were sooooo delicious!  So that was a lot of fun. I've really learned how to make wherever I am my home. 

I'm very proud of President Isaac, the mullet man! Those pics were so funny! I have some cute little bros. Our family in general is just awesome.

When I opened my email today I had my death letter from the mission. When you have 6 months left they send you a letter letting you know that they are starting to plan your travel home. Yikes. Time flies I guess.

Well I love you! Have a great week!

MKH,

Ældste McBride

How I reacted when I got the 6 months left letter.

September 5, 2016 Awesome Week

Kære Familie,

What an awesome week! We had a lot to do this week because we went to all three districts in the zone for district meetings! So we traveled to Odense and then Esbjerg and later in the week, Copenhagen. When I set foot in Esbjerg's church building I completed a huge accomplishment, I have now been to every church building where a ward meets in all of Denmark. Not all the branch buildings but every single ward building. I have been here a while haha. 

I'll jump to stories. You meet a lot of cool people as a missionary. While on the train to Copenhagen I thought I heard these two girls speaking Spanish, turns out it was Italian! They were from Milan and recommended that I visit Venice someday! When we got closer to Copenhagen we got delayed because of track work. They had no idea what was going on so we started translating the situation for them. They were really nice, just on vacation here in Denmark. Then our train got canceled (while we were still in it), so we had to get out and quickly catch the metro train if we wanted to get to Copenhagen at all that night. So we ended up running off of a train, through a station, and onto a different train with these Italian girls and their bikes! It was chaotic, but pretty funny. They were really thankful, I honestly don't know what they would've done if we weren't there haha! I think by the time the metro left we had helped like 10 people figure out that they were now on a train going to Copenhagen. So that's how we made friends with some Italians!

Another story is that one of our investigators told us she was bringing a friend to church this Sunday! Awesome! Then another investigator promised us that she was coming to church this week also with a friend. We were pumped! Then we figured out that they were talking about each other haha. Only one of them came to church, though, 4th week in a row! She told us next week she is going to knock on her friends door until she answers and comes to church haha. Doing our job for us! 

I laughed pretty hard at your story mom! This one senior missionary one time gave us a big rant on that topic haha. The world is a little crazy! Also seeing a BYU game got me pretty pumped! Are they good this year? Cole's hair does look good ;) I'm getting my hair cut today by someone in the ward who has supposedly won some contests in Europe in hair cutting so I'll let Cole be the judge next week! Missions are awesome, you guys are awesome! I love ya!

MKH

Ældste McBride

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!