Awesome!

It snowed today...first time in 2014, and the second real snow since we arrived here. I think winter may have really come.  We watched it fall from our Danish language classroom.  It is awesome!

SK played CRUD tonight at the center and won big time.  I think he won 3 matches...all of which started out with 16 to 18 people.  Each time someone fumbles or misses, that person is given a letter of the word CRUD.  So you basically have 4 turns til you are out.

Our family jokes about how SK is the most gracious of losers in any game, but he is sooooooo competitive!  When he wins, he can't ...and I mean cannot resist doing some chest-beating.  It has been fun to watch him try to downplay that a bit.  But he gets right in there and shoots the black ball with the best of them.  After the second win, he asked "Isn't that the second win in a row?"  That was unusually tactful!  I am most grateful that he didn't (as Ethan can confirm what he once did) - stomp around the room chanting "Ruthless Awesome!"

In case you missed it, AE Madsen has 2 stars for being the winner of 2 games!

That is the fun news of the evening.  The best news is that I think we had 30 or more YSAs here for FHE.  That is a very good turn out on a night when people have school and work the next day.  We also had 8 missionaries at one time, David, who will be baptized this Friday, and 5 investigators!!!!

Maybe that really IS the fun news.  Three of them were young women who are working on a college project and asked if they could come and see what the church is all about.  I think all of the missionaries, and all of our returned missionaries could hardly contain their excitement. The young women attended Family Home Evening with everyone else.  After a wonderful message from two of the full-time elders, there was a very active game, followed by ice cream and cookies......and of course CRUD, ping-pong and other games.  It gets very loud in here.

The young women who were conducting the interviews went into one of the classrooms with the full-time sisters and Louise, one of our co-chairmen.  There they asked all kinds of questions and got some superb answers.  I was able to speak to one of them before she left.  She shared with me that she thought there was a beautiful feeling here at the center, and she was amazed and happy to see what a great time everyone has here...and how much they seem to enjoy each other's company.

Then they spoke with a young man who has been back from his mission for a couple of years.  He has a rock-solid testimony and is very easy to talk with.  I'm sure they came away from that interview with a very good idea about what a Mormon believes.

I visited with Louise later and told her that we have no idea where those interviews may lead....perhaps years down the road, one of them will remember how she felt here and seek out missionaries.  I also visited with David tonight.  He has a wonderful testimony, and is so grateful to have found the Church.  He is probably about 6'3" or taller, athletic and strong.  Yet when he speaks about the gospel it is with such gentleness and gratitude.  He is both excited and a little awe-struck about the step he will take on Friday.

Wonderful ...Wonderful....Awesome.

Awesome!