The First of Many Lasts

Potato soup.  Boring....right?  I felt bad serving my guests potato soup today, but I wanted to serve something that would agree with Mette.  Right now, or at least until the doctors can find some answers for her, potato soup is fairly safe.

Our Danish class was a lot of fun.  We are reading and translating 3 different children's books that are classics in any language, and I am enjoying them more and more.  We scheduled out the rest of our classes together....up through the evening of June 23, which will be the last.  Sister Hoge will be leaving shortly after that, and SK and I will be saying goodbye to Denmark in August.

It seems kind of funny to be on the last lap here.  I knew it was coming.....I saw it coming as the days, weeks and months raced by.  But here we are sprinting toward the finish line.

After the Danish class, SK and I went to the mission office to have our quarterly interview with President Sederholm.  He is amazing.  He sits and talks to us as if he has nothing else in the world to do.  We talked about the YSAs, about the apartment, parking, missionary apartment inspections etc.  We covered everything.

He was complimentary, sharing some kind things members had said.  He bore his testimony....strong and touching.  Both SK and I were teary.  He shared with us that the church in Denmark is on a steady rate of growth....each quarter doing better than the last.  We can feel the spirit of the hastening of the work.

We knew this would be our last interview with him since he will be leaving the first of July.  We talked about how much we all love Denmark and the people here.  He knew exactly what he meant when he said it left an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach to think about leaving all of this.  He is excited - as we are - to be home again with our families.  But to leave this place, these people....that is hard.

On the way out, we peeked in to say hello to Sister Hamblin in her little office.  She will be working on our travel plans very soon.  She arranges most of the travel in the mission, and according to her, we are next (she and us) to be scheduled to leave.

I guess from this point on we will be experiencing the "last" of a lot of things.

I think the trick will be enjoying each thing as though it were our first...savoring every moment.