Family Ties

The main problem with going to bed at 4 a.m. is when to get up.  We got up at ten and have been the walking dead all day.  We hate to let the precious daylight hours go by as we sleep, but on the other hand, how effective can we be when we are wanting sleep?

We thought the best course of action would be to walk, We had a few errands to take care of, and set out walking.  It was bracing.  We probably walked close to 4 miles....which isn't much for many of you, but in the cold it seemed like a good walk.  I love to walk anywhere around here.  We carried an umbrella just in case, and it did rain - but not much.

We stopped at one of the many little portable carts that sell warm sweet almonds and munched on them as we strolled along.  We went in and out of a few places, we discovered new little streets with new little shops.  We found a pair of shoes for me that I hope will look good and also FEEL good.  I find that I am opting more and more for "feeling good" in a shoe rather than looks....but it is still nice to have pretty shoes.

SK has been reading the history of his great grandfather - Peter Madsen.  His sister Mary found it online and sent him a copy.  The first night he got it he stayed up very late reading, and last night he had it with him at the center and kept stealing away to read bits of it.  Even when we got home, he sat up reading from it.  He has been talking about it, and thinking about it - a lot. We are hoping at some point to visit the little town up north where he was from.

While we were out, we met the Hansens, who were doing a bit of shopping too.  It is so funny to run into our neighbors among the thousands of people in Copenhagen!  SK exchanged ancestors from Denmark stories with Elder Hansen....we think Peter Madsen and Elder Hansen's great grandmother were on the same ship crossing the Atlantic....and who knows, maybe in the same company crossing the plains.  Those Danes were amazing.

SK's grandfather is Mads Peter Madsen, and he had a large family with a good number of grandchildren.  SK has discovered that he has many more cousins on the Madsen side  than he had thought.  Can you imagine?  I have known SK for 48 years and as yet, have never met a single Madsen cousin out of some 35 or more.

Life was profoundly different just 3 generations ago, and much more difficult.  SK tells me what he has read and has to work hard to control his emotions.  When Peter Madsen and his wife left Denmark, they went to say good-bye to her mother....who was incensed that her daughter would join the Mormons.  Instead of bidding her daughter a tender good-bye, knowing she would probably never see her again, she spit in her face.

It makes me shudder to think of the emotions that mother must have dealt with all her life, a tragedy for sure.  If only she could have felt the sweet balm that comes from the gentle and beautiful teachings of Jesus Christ.....and understood the joy her daughter felt upon finding the restored gospel.

That joy is real, and not dependent upon any earthly thing.

  Isn't it great to read about those who have gone before...to read how they lived their lives and what motivated their decisions....and how perhaps, their choices have impacted generations since.