Senior Conference

Our two-day Senior Conference began today.  We met in a church here in Copenhagen, sang an opening hymn, had an opening prayer, and settled in for a spiritually uplifting meeting.  I presented "The Book," to President and Sister Sederholm, which turned out to be a beautiful gift from all of the senior missionaries.

Sister Sederholm gave a slide presentation of mission work in Iceland, showing windswept landscapes along a rugged beach with young elders posing in all kinds of zany shots.  She set the powerpoint presentation to a hymn about rescue called "Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy."

The entire presentation was lovely.

Then Jesper Paulsen, a member of our stake presidency spoke to us about the history of the church in Denmark.  He knows a great deal and is a marvelous speaker.  He told us stories of the early missionaries, the first Book of Mormon translated into another language (Danish of course), and how Denmark passed a law declaring freedom of religion in 1849 (and the things that lead to that law) and the arrival of the first missionaries in 1950.

It is remarkable in scope.  He told some wonderful stories from World War II about Danish saints who participated in the resistance who were a part of the underground movement to get Jews out of Denmark to safety.  It was also through Denmark that European missionaries were able to leave when the looming war made it unsafe for them.

Jesper is amazing.  He has written a book with a lot of this information in and it has been published. But I have a hard time reading it because it is in Danish.  The good news is that he has translated it to English and has given it to a publisher in Utah, who has agreed to publish.  But they are currently just sitting on it.

If you are interested in the history of the church (written in English), as well as individual saints from the early days in Denmark, you might want to just drop them an email and let them know of your interest.  Perhaps if they knew people want to buy such a book, they might get them printed soon.  Their information is:

Greg Kofford Books

11444 Jolley Acres Cir Sandy, UT

Phone: (801) 523-6063

Web: http://www.koffordbooks.com

After Jesper spoke, we all had pizza, and then returned to the chapel where President Sederholm addressed us, and then had each of us stand and bear our testimlonies.  It was a great meeting.  President and Sister Sederholm will be greatly missed.  They have been incredible leaders.  They will depart Denmark on July 1.

We all walked over to the temple, about a block away....snapped our pictures together on the front steps, and then attended the 4:30 session.  To end the day together, we drove out to an historic little village, where we had dinner.  

Sister Sederholm silhouetted against the harbor.

SK and I both had fish...pretty good!

The beautiful little village of Dragoer

Kate and Derek did some more sightseeing today, but it was a relaxing day for them....that is, until SK beat us all in a good game of Nines.  He was unstoppable....and quite exultant too.....which is just slightly obnoxious!