January 9, 2017 TILLYKKE MED FØDSELSDAGEN

Kære Familie,

Happy Birthday Cole!!! Tillykke med fødselsdagen :) I can't believe you are so old. And cool too! What the heck? I was a lot of things when I was 14 but cool was definitely not one of them! Keep it up and don't forget to be a nice guy. The world needs a bunch more nice guys!

This week was really cold! Not like really really cold but I'm a baby when it comes to cold weather! I survived though and we put together a pretty good week. I became buddies with a man from Eritrea in Africa. He doesn't speak danish and only "small english" but because we're both christians language doesn't matter. He called me his "christian friend"! Being a christian is pretty cool because it lets you make friends with people all over the world. There is a lot of power in Christ's name.

There are some days where I am tired and cold but I don't have too much too complain about. The work here in Fredericia is going amazingly and I have to be the most spoiled missionary in the mission, I have been in a car since the beginning of last march! #blessed 

We had another lesson with my pal H--- this week (I sent home a pic holding her turtle the other week) and it went great. After we had talked about what we had planned on I asked if she had time to read a chapter of the book of Mormon. She said ya and I started to open to where I thought she was around the end of 2 Nephi like page 130 or something. She responded with "I guess we can read that again" and I said "What do you mean isn't this where you're at?" "No" she replied matter of factly "I finished the whole thing." "WHAT??" I almost shouted. "Ya didn't I tell you?" she calmly answered. For the record she had not told me that! It was really funny! We're looking forward to her baptism end of January or early February!

I love you family! Hope all goes well with Isaac. He's tough he'll handle it!

MKH

Ældste McBride

January 2, 2017 2017 Is Off With a Bang!

Kære Familie,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I can't believe 2016 is over! Where does the time go? What an amazing year! I can't really describe what this year has meant to me. Here in Denmark people go crazy with fireworks. Here you can set buy and shoot off some really big fireworks! Much bigger than back home. Instead of people going to a fireworks show the whole city kind of just becomes one for the night. The steady rumble of explosions started in the afternoon and kept building until midnight. 

At midnight Elder Howes and I stood in our slippers, wrapped in our blankets, out on our teeny tiny balcony. Everywhere we looked there were flashes of light and explosions of bright colors! A full 180 degree panoramic view of fireworks. The same thing was happening on the other side of the apartment too. We sat there watching fireworks for a long time, cheering in the new year. At some point every flash of light was a memory from the past year.  I remembered days and places and people. Different adventures and events.  Victories and lessons learned. It was so cool.  Every bang made me remember something new.  To list them all off would take way too long.  Too many treasures, experiences and friends, that I love. This was such an incredible year and out there on that balcony was the perfect way to end it!  I am so proud of the progress I've made and the progress I've seen in others. Progression really is contagious.  I'm so grateful for Jesus Christ and the Gospel and the church.  Nothing else in the world is this helpful!

I couldn't help looking forward to 2017 as well.  It will be a year of transitions. A year of new adventures!  I'm excited! 

I love you guys so much I'm always happy to read about what is happening back at home! You're the best! :)

MKH

Ældste McBride

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

November 28, 2016 Happy Thanksgiving

Kære Familie,

It sounds like you all had an awesome Thanksgiving with a heavy dose of American! Over here Thanksgiving would have been a totally normal day, but we got some American going by eating at Burger King. Also the senior missionaries, Elder and Sister Yates threw a Thanksgiving party so we got all the good stuff! They are so cool. We had a bunch of our friends come to it too. It was awesome because more than half of the people at Thanksgiving weren't from America and it was their first time celebrating it! Hooray for America! Fun fact, Danes love Black Friday so the shops were packed with people. 

For this week I'll just share a story about a new friend I've made. I think that is the coolest part of my mission is the friends I've made from all over the world. My new friend's name is V--- and he is from Romania. He has a thick black beard and walked into the church this Sunday wearing jeans and a bright red t-shirt. I introduced myself to him and we started talking. I asked him what brought him to church that day and without hesitation he said, "to worship God of course".  A couple minutes later I found out he was a member of the church that recently moved to Denmark. But this guy just keeps getting cooler. I sat down next to him during sacrament meeting and right before the meeting starts he looks at me and says "one second, I've got to get something" but instead of standing up he just pulls a worn, well read book of mormon basically out of thin air. So fast. He had it tucked into his belt behind his back hidden under his shirt. He is a really funny guy! As we kept talking I learned more about his story. He met missionaries on Cyprus (part of the Athens Greece mission) and was baptized in the Mediterranean Sea. He quickly became part of the branch presidency there. On his first trip to the temple in Kyiv Ukraine he met his wife, also from Romania, who was on a temple trip at the same time. Later they were married in that same temple and he moved back to Romania where he became the branch president. He told me stories of baptisms he had done in the Black Sea! He has just moved to a city about half an hour from Fredericia, Kolding and without knowing Danish and with a map he drew on a scrap of paper he found his way to Fredericia by train and then walked the rest of the way to the church building. V--- is the man! 

I love you family! Have fun starting the Christmas season over there! We've been in full force for about two weeks now :) I'm so excited for Danish Christmas again, that was the best last year!

Glædelig Jul,

Ældste McBride