July 24th, 2011

Hey there! :)

First of all, Hey Tani, Thanks for the email!!! I'm glad that you are so excited and have been having such a great time!! That camp of yours sounds like a blast. I always enjoyed scout camps and things like that. I'm excited to see you in a few months! It's gonna be weird to see how much you and Tia have changed.

I am doing great!! I hope you are doing good too. I've been thinking a lot about coming home, and I'm so soo excited, but I'm also sad. I've been hear so long that it is gonna be hard to leave. I'm really gonna miss so many people, and also the danish food. :) But it is going to be so great to see everybody again! I can't wait!
I know, it's crazy what happened in Norway?? There was a bombing and also a shooting a little ways away. There were a lot of people who were killed. It's so terrible what some people chose to do. It is really shocking to everyone hear in Denmark, because that kind of thing never happens here, and Norway is so close and so similar to them. Today everyone in Scandinavia had a moment of silence at noon to respect the people who were killed.
We have been really busy lately. We always have so much going on, but that is always a good thing. it's a bummer because we can never play soccer golf. We keep planning on doing it every pday, but it is always crummy weather, its ridiculous. We are in July and I've had to wear a coat for the past 3 weeks! It seriously has been raining every single day. I don't know if I told you about this or not, a week or so ago there was a ton of major flooding in the Copenhagen area because of all the rain. Everyone's basements were flooded and the streets and railroads were too. It caused millions of dollars in damage. It would've been interesting to be serving over there. The missionaries apartments were flooded too. Anyway, I'm ready for some sunshine and good weather! Until then we will just be playing a lot of ping pong for pdays. That's always fun too.
I know! I'm so excited for Elder Bednar! It's gonna be so cool. He has always been one of my favorites to listen to, and it's going to be awesome to be able to be so upclose and personal with him. I'll let you know all about it. I didn't know that he came and visited Camrons mission when he was there!
I'm so happy for Jennifer's mom too! Baptisms are always so great! It's so awesome when someone you know accepts the church and the gospel and is changed and blessed by it. It always makes all the hard work worth it. They are planning on visiting utah sometime in the future and also stopping by to visit me perhaps. That would be way fun! I told her that my mom is always happy for guests, and that we could take her around to some of the sights in the area.
Whoah, Rurika and Camron are having their wedding in one month! It's coming so fast! I'm excited to hear about how it goes. Hey here is something interesting. Elder McCleary has an older brother who is getting married next month too.
Well, ya wanna hear a bit more about my week? Well, last pday we didn't really do much other than email and play ping pong and relax a bit. Then on tuesday we worked over at Inge's on our big project. We thought we were gonna finish and we probably could have, but we ran out of stinkin bricks! So know we have to wait to get some more. Oh guess what! While we were working there I got stung by a bee! }:-( Dumb bee. It got all swollen up and then later itched way bad.
Wednesday was Interviews. Those are always fun, because its a good chance to talk one on one with president, but it's also a good chance to just hang out with the other missionaries while president is interviewing the others.
Thursday was a Silkeborg day, and those are always good. We met with the pearce family, and they said that they are going to be coming to church next week to hear our talks. We also met again with Omar and Malan and their family. This is awesome because this is really the first time on my mission that I've been able to teach families! And those are always the best. Omar and Malan have promised to actually set a date for their marriage within the next couple weeks, and then we will actually be able to set a baptismal date as well.
Friday and Saturday I can't really think of any noteworthy things that happened. Oh except for the crazy drunk guy that squirted invisible ink on my shirt. He saw us and ran over to us and they squirted all this stuff on my white shirt and started laughing and we kept walking. Then he ran and caught us and was like, it's fake it's fake, see... haha
Then Sunday was talk day number one. Get this, I had to prepare the sacrament, bless the sacrament, give a talk, and translate the other talk. We get called on for a lot... But the talks went well. It was just me and McCleary who were speaking. He took about 13 minutes on his and then I was left with like 25 minutes.. I was able to take up 20 of them and we ended a minute or two early. Now we are all warmed up for next week in Silkeborg.
We were invited over to dinner yesterday by some members and they gave us some chocolate cake that they made, it was way good. They gave us the extra to take home. Ya know what's way good? Have you ever tried cake in milk? You put the cake in a bowl and poor some milk over it. It is one of the best things ever! It's definitely the best way to eat cake. I think I learned that from Landon.
Hmm, well that is all. I don't have any pictures of me, but it has been another 6 weeks, and that means that I decorated a new planner! Woohoo! I really like this one. Let me know what you think. I also have a short video of Melissa. :)
I hope you have a super amazing week! See ya so soon!

Love Elder Tyler Lee.

July 17th, 2011

Hello!

How are you? I'm doing good. Thanks for another email! Hey guess what today is... It's my 20 month mark! o_O How the heck have I been on my mission for 20 months?!?!

I'm glad that you've had a good week. Yup we have been keeping busy lately. This last week was really busy too, but in a different way. We were out of our area for like half the week. Let me tell you all about it.

So last pday we didn't actually end up going to soccer golf. We all got way too competitive in ping pong and played for too long, and that threw off the schedule and we wouldn't have had time to go there. But oh well, we will just have to do it another day. I have to say, I am getting pretty good at ping pong. We were playing some more this morning.

Tuesday was one of the only days that we had to really work in our area. We had 4 appointments, but it was dumb because 2 of them canceled and 1 burned us. So the day didn't turn out like we were hoping. Then that evening we packed our stuff and hopped on a train to Frederica where we spent the night. We went there because the next day was zone conference.

So in the morning on Wednesday we woke up early and caught another train over to Copenhagen. It was an awesome meeting. At the end, they said that there was a surprise for us and president went out to get it. And then he came in with a hoodie on, acting all gangster. It was the funniest thing ever. Anyway, they got mission hoodies for all of us!! Isn't that cool? Also at the zone conference we found out about some way awesome news! On September 7th we are going to have a special guest for a zone conference... It's going to be Elder Bednar!! They said that it would pretty much be 3 hours of question and answer. Anyway, we are all way excited for that! How cool is that?!?

This was one of the coolest zone conferences ever because when we were done we went to the temple for a session. It was so cool! I'm glad that I was able to go there another time. It's a bummer that I'm not able to go to the temple very often as a missionary.

After that we had some dinner and then me and McCleary and 4 other missionaries went to the mission home to sleep. It was cool because we were able to just talk to president in a different situation and see more of his personality come out and really get to know him and his family better. Sister Andersen was also really nice and baked us some cake.

The next day we went to the Fredriksborg Castle as a zone. That was way cool. It's the one that I had been to one time before that has those paintings by Carl Bloch. It was fun being there with so many other missionaries.

Well that was the end of our big road trip. After the castle we has some lunch and then headed back home. It was a fun trip. We were only home for one day, Friday, and then we were off again. On Saturday we went to Randers because there was a baptism. It was a guy named Søren that Elder McCleary had taught. He is a way old, tiny man. Elder Oakey who baptized him was so scared about how he was going to dunk him in the water and get him up again without killing him. Haha, but it went well.

And someone else got baptized on Saturday! Malene Christophersen!!! Jeniffer's Mom! I was really bummed that I couldn't get permission to go to it. Especially since they wanted me to help them out with a musical number. But I was told that it went really well, and that they were so happy.

Then we ended the week with a good day at church. David, the organist wasn't there, so I played. There was a family of like 9 Germans that showed up, so both me and McCleary had to translate.

So anyway it was an excellent week. A lot of good stuff happened.

Tomorrow we will go work on our project at Inge's, and hopefully we will be able to finish it. It is really close, and there really isn't too much left to do.

I think that Ausra will continue to progress. The mission office is working on finding the missionaries that will be responsible for her and then we will get that info to her. So she was in Denmark for studies, and now she is done with that and decided to go back home. Wanna hear something cool? So this week and next week she is in Bornholm on vacation where she used to live and 2 days ago she ran into the missionaries there! She talked with them and asked if they know me and McCleary. They said yeah and talked with her and invited her to a church activity they are having this week and she is gonna come. Elder Nørgaard on Bornholm called me and told that story.

I know! I still can't believe how soon I'm coming home! I'm glad you are excited. Haha. I haven't received any papers or anything about it. I don't know why they send it to you but not us. I know for sure that Elder Shreeve will be on the same flight as me. He has a layover in Salt Lake for a couple hours before he flies the rest the way to Arizona. And Van Nevel travels the same day but he lives in Florida so I doubt he'd be on the same flight to SLC. Elder Hansen is most likely extending. But there is also a sister missionary, Sister Reshke who will probably be on the flight. She lives in Washington I think.

You asked about how they have all been doing. They have all been doing great and enjoying their missions. Elder Van Nevel was the one without much family support, but he has been a great missionary. I am really jealous of him because he has been serving in Aalborg for nearly 8 months now. He's been one of my best mission friends. Elder Shreeve and Hansen are both doing good too. It was fun seeing them all the other day.

Oh yeah, I have to talk next week in sacrament meeting in Herning, and then the week after that in Silkeborg! Ugh... Oh well.

I'm glad that Jansen is recovering and everyone is doing well. That is awesome that Hannah McKinnon got married. I had no idea that her and McKell had stopped dating. They had been dating as long as I've known them pretty much.

Thanks for the picture of Tani and her hand made skirt. that is way cool! I didn't know she was in to that. Did she take a class in school that taught her that or what?

I have a few pics for you today. The first 3 are from the Fredriksborg castle. The first is me with my favorite painting in the castle. Some kid with a rifle. hahaha. Oh you can also see the Danish Mission Hoodie that I got. The 2nd is a painting from the castle that looked to me like a guy praying about the Book of Mormon. And the 3rd is me and some weird little creature. Then the last one is me and the other missionaries that were at Søren's baptism. That big fella next to me is Elder Horrocks. He makes me feel so tiny. Haha.

Well that's all I can think about for today, so I'll get going. Miss ya! And I hope you have a wonderful week! See ya!!! :D

Love Elder Tyler Lee

A few additional pics!

Hey I just received an email from the Bowlers.

We had an inspection on our apartment and we passed. Big time. it is the Bowlers who are there with us and they took us out to eat and we saw some sights. There is this cool big statue thing that looks like an alien spaceship.

July 11, 2011

Hey everybody!!

Thanks for the email! :) How are you doing this week? It sounds like you have had a pretty fun week, Except maybe for Jansen. That looks pretty painful! Is he doing alright?

I'm glad you were ok with me writing you a day late again. We got a lot done with Inge this past week. The project is almost done! We have poured so much sand and layed so many bricks. So if you ever need to lay some bricks, I'm a pro by now. ;) I'm going to have to get some pictures of the backyard when it is all finished. I wish I had some before pictures. Maybe Inge has some that I could get.

This has actually been a really good week again. Everyone seems to be really impressed with our work because we get so many member present lessons each week. We've been leading the mission all month! The thing is, most of them just come to us. We have some really awesome members in the little branches here. We have had so many busy days lately. Which is a good thing. I always prefer having lessons scheduled over knocking on doors all day. On Wednesday and Sunday we had Silkeborg days, and got 4 lessons there each of those days. We are also going back tomorrow and have 4 more planned. Silkeborg is awesome and that is where most of our positive work is taking place.

Malin and Omar and their family are doing so awesome! They came to church again yesterday and we gave them a lesson about the priesthood. Omar said that it is important to actually use the priesthood that he has, and is now working on being able to baptize Malin. He was also called in to an interview with the branch president and I think he might have been given a calling. Cool! The other day we were also at there house and I got some pictures of Melissa. I'm sure you would like to see her.

Well we emailed on Tuesday, but we weren't able to take the rest of our pday until Thursday! But it was a fun day. first we went to the mall and I wasn't planning on buying anything, but then I saw some cool shoes that were way cheap. (150 kr) (25ish dollars) and so I bought them. We also bought some ping pong paddles and balls, because at the sports hall they have a ping pong table, then we went there and played for over 3 hours!!! Crazy huh? But it was so much fun. Its cool because me and McCleary both had tables at our houses and we are like exactly evenly matched.

Friday we woke up early to go to a district meeting in Horsens. We were told the night before at like 9 that we were supposed to do a 15 minute training.. But it turned out pretty good. After the meeting we hung out a little with the missionaries there and we all went out to eat some delicious steak and fries. When we came home we had an appointment with Ausra. We also had another one with her two days later, on Sunday. She is doing so good! At the one yesterday we had Mia with and it was so good. We challenged her to baptism, and she said she can't answer that now but she could maybe see it in the future, and then Mia told all about her conversion story, how she told the missionaries that she would never ever become a Mormon. But that changed. The spirit was really strong and Ausra had a lot of sincere questions about how she could experience what Mia did. It was sad because it was also the last time that we met with her, because she moves in 2 days. We exchanged emails and stuff and she is excited to meet some missionaries in Lithuania.

Umm well those are the highlights of last week. Our pday has been really fun so far. Oakey and Horocks came down from Skive to have Pday with us. We played a bunch of card games last night and this morning, and then we went and played ping pong for like 2 hours. We started out taking turns and having a tournament but then we decided to play 4 player. We had teams and you have to pass the paddle after every single hit. It was crazy but so much fun. Me and Horocks were the grand champions. After we are done emailing we are planning on going to play soccer golf. Yeah that's right, soccer golf. Just imaging golf, but with giant holes and a soccer ball. They have a whole course and we scored some free tickets.

So I got a call from Elder Shreeve. He said that he got an email from his dad and his dad said that he had received his travel plans. So I assumed that you had received mine as well. I was excited to see if you wrote anything about it, but there was nothing in your email. So I had to check on facebook just in case and I saw that you had written about getting them. So yup, I guess I got my travel plans! So now it is certain! It is going to be a looooong day, but I think it's cool that I'm arriving at 2 something. So we will have a few hours to do something before I collapse of exhaustion.

Your 4th of July sounds really fun! I heard that they legalized more fireworks in Utah! That's cool. Now maybe it is more like a Danish New Year. Its cool when everyone is launching them all at once. My 4th of July this year was really dumb. We did nothing to celebrate. ha ha
I have some pictures for you! Two of Melissa and two of my new shoes.
I hope everything is going great! I miss you all and can't wait to see you on November 22! :D
Bye!

Love Elder Tyler Lee

Hey there!!! :) I'm glad that you are doing good! Sorry again that I made you wait another day. There are sometimes just so many things that come up, but I always feel bad when I'm not able to email you on Monday.
Yesterday was a crazy day. We were helping Inge and her sister with some work. We have spent a lot of time over there helping them because they have a huge project going on in there backyard. They are laying bricks over the yard, so we have been helping with removing the old ones, laying a ton of sand, leveling out the sand, and now finally laying the bricks in. It has come a long ways and it is looking really good. I'm excited to see the final result. Inge is always nice to reward us with a good meal. Well this has been another good week for the most part. Last Pday we went to the city mall and looked around and explored. I didn't get anything that time. Then we went back to that Gymnastic Hall that I told you about and we went to the gym planning on playing some basketball, but they had all this gymnastic stuff set up in the gym. It was cool, they had trampolines and pads and a huge foam pit, so we did some flips off of the trampoline. That was way fun. But I did so many flips that by the end I was starting to feel nauseous. Tuesday was a Silkeborg day and those days are always some of the best. We had 3 appointments there that day and they went well. The last appointment was with Omar and Malin. It was so awesome because this time there 2 kids were awake and we were playing with them a bit. They have a 3 year old boy named Lukas, and a little 1 year old girl named Melissa. I told you about her. She is the little cutie with thick long brown hair. It was funny, she was so shy at first and would just hide behind her mom, but by the end she was so active and playful. They had a play doctor set and were doing check ups on us. Omar and Malin are doing so good though. They came to church this week and really enjoy when they come. We are going over there tomorrow. :) Alright I need to tell you about our new investigator, she is so awesome! A couple weeks ago we knocked on this girls door and she let us in. Her name is Ausra and she is in her mid 20s and from Lithuania. She had met the missionaries before and she was excited to see us. She is believing in God, but not so much into organized religion. But she has a lot of curiosity and wants to learn more about out church. We came a second time, last Wednesday and talked about the book of mormon and Joseph Smith. We gave her a BOM in Lithuanian and marked 3 chapters that she could read, and she said she would. Then we came again yesterday, and she had read all 3 chapters that we suggested. She said she liked it but it was kinda confusing and she wants to start from the beginning so she can follow along with the story, so she is going to start on that. We also taught her the plan of salvation and she was really interested in that. So she is doing way good and we have high hopes for her, but you wanna hear the down side? She is moving back to Lithuania in 2 weeks.. :/ We are trying to get a foundation planted in her and hopefully there will be some missionaries in Lithuania that can take over. Thursday was interesting. We got on the train with our bikes to go into town like we had done many times before, but for the first time someone came by to check our tickets. So we showed them our passes and she said, ok that's good but where are your bike tickets? We were like, uh what?... Anyway, apparently ya have to have bike tickets to have bikes with, and so she gave us a ticket. She was nice enough to only give us one ticket and told us not to do it again. So we called into the office and told them the story, and he was nice, he said to send it in and he would take care of it. So now we had to add another expense to our area to buy some bike tickets, and we are thinking that all of this might change presidents mind about taking our car away. Friday we helped a member in the ward move. His name is Thomas Søgaard and I was actually at his baptism over a year ago. Crazy. Anyway he was moving closer into the town and needed some help. Then Saturday was an even bigger service day. We had our district leader and his comp come over for splits and we all 4 went over to Inge's to lay the sand. It was nice having so many there, Inge's son Patrik was also there. It was nice because it was Elder Hardy's (District Leader) birthday the next day so Inge had a big dinner with some way good cake. It was fun, in the evening while they were with us we played a couple games of Settlers of Catan. That is always a fun one. And finally, Sunday. Sunday was another fast Sunday. I was surprised that the ward was actually able to fill up the entire hour with their testimonies. There were only like 15 people there, but they took up all the time. I was just waiting for a pause so I could go up there but it never came. Oh yeah also on Saturday morning, we had a surprise come knocking on the door. It was Elder Christensen and his brother Erik! It was kinda weird seeing Christensen not as a missionary. It was cool though. They couldn't stay long because they were on their way to Copenhagen, but they wanted to stop by and say hi and leave behind a bag of reese's. :) Well that is what happened with me this week. I'm glad you had a fun week too. :) Thats cool that Jansen went to EFY. That's good that he had a fun time. Did he come back with a girlfriend? It sounds like you have had a lot of fun St George time! You are making good use of those condos. I'm excited to get to spend a little time there as well. That's cool that you were able to go to the stadium of fire. I remember that one year we went and it was fun, even though it was a lame country band that performed. It really is ridiculous trying to get out of that place. Haha I assumed that you would want to hear my release date. :) Isn't that just crazy?!? I have like 4 and a half months left! At some points it seemed like it would never get here and I would always be a missionary, but now having a date makes it seem more real. And it is not very far away at all! I'll be going home at the same time as the other 3 elders in my group but we all live in different states so we will get split up on the way. I am so excited to see you all! :D haha I'm glad you liked my planking pictures. I think that is pretty funny. It's so pointless and stupid, but it's funny. I have some pictures for you too! First of all it is me and Christensen when he came by. Then there is my VDR ring. I customized it for the 4th of July. It looks better in person, the picture didn't work too well. The 3rd picture is one of me when McCleary stole my camera. And then I have 2 videos of me flipping. That's all for today. Have a fantastic week! Love Elder Tyler Lee Oh yeah, that you for sharing the story from Scotty's email. That is crazy! I have had some crazy stuff happen to me, but I think he has me beat on that one. I'll have to write him sometime and ask him about that.

Elder Lee with Dane and Eric Christensen

Look who Whe saw as we drove through! He is doing well. He seems to have a good
relationship with his companion (my grandson) Elder McClearey

Dane Christensen

June 27, 2011

Hey there!! I'm doing great! How are you this week? I hope you have had an awesome week. Hey just so you know, President told me my release date, but you probably don't really want to hear that... :P Anyway, things are still going really great here. They have a good train system here and it is easy to get around also with our bikes.
We were able to see that family a little bit again. We were hoping that they would come to church, because they usually do, but we were bummed when they didn't show up. We decided to stop by them afterwords. It turns out that they wanted to come but Malin had a way bad migraine headache. She gets them every once in awhile. Omar was thinking about taking the kids with and coming anyway, but it was too tough at the time. So they said they were sorry and they are looking forward to coming next time. We have a meeting with them tomorrow though and that will be fun for sure.
Speaking of church, we went to the Silkeborg ward yesterday for the first time. There were about 10 people there and like 8 of them were over 70. Haha. But they are really nice. I told them that I can play piano and they were so excited and happy about that. After the meeting they all came up to me and thanked me for playing and said that it has been over 2 years since they have had music. They have just been singing a capella. It was kinda funny, in our Sunday school meeting it started out being about a conference talk but ended up just being all the old people telling pointless stories of the olden days.
We haven't had a chance to go back to Ikast where that guy Ashley lives. We have been pretty busy, but we will try this week hopefully and we are hoping that we can run into him.
We have gotten in contact with another former investigator. Her name is Isabella and she is a 70 year old lady from Scotland. So we speak English with her. She was such a nice old lady. Just your basic grandma. Her house was covered in tons of pictures and trinkets and all that, and she was always telling us stories about her grandkids and her childhood and everything. She is so cool though and so positive. She absolutely loves the church. She loves the people and the doctrines and everything. She told us that she wants to be a Mormon and that she would be if it wasn't for Joseph Smith. She doesn't believe that he was a prophet and that the book of Mormon is true. So that is what we will help her with.
On Wednesday we had Specialized Training in Århus. That was good. We watched a little movie about being a ''Go-getter''. And for lunch we ate some huge sandwiches. They were way good! Yup McCleary is a good guy. It is another Williamson-like companionship, meaning that we just do a bunch of random pointless childlike things, that just make things more exciting and fun. The other day we were in Silkeborg and we did some planking pictures. I'm sure you've seen some of those pictures before. It's when you just lay down flat on something and take a picture of it. It is just way funny for some reason. Oh and yesterday we had a lunch opera. When preparing, eating, and cleaning up, we sang everything we said.
And those are the highlights of this week. I guess I will stop teasing you and let you know my release date. Are you ready?? President said that it still can change if something happens, but this is my expected release date anyway. It is November 22nd! So just before Thanksgiving. And a little less than 5 months.
Glad you liked my pictures and video. Those roof pictures where actually where an investigator lives. I have a lot of pictures for you today! Lucky you! :D The first few are from Silkeborg, there was a lake with some cool fountains. Then there are some of those planking pictures that I told you about. It was pretty dang hard to lay on that little sign like that. The last one is me holding hands with a weird pig man. Enjoy. :D Oh yeah, I bought a new jacket as you can see in these pictures. Me and McCleary actually bought matching jackets. I saw it first and dibs it, but McCleary got the same one anyway. It was a good price, just 200 kr. (Like 35 bucks) So what do you think of it?
Thats cool that Tani and Tia did their play. I am sure they did an awesome job. Chelsey told me she went and that she really liked it.
That's cool that you could go see those youtube guys. So they started with youtube videos and now they have a show they do or what? I liked those sombrero mustache pictures. haha
I hope Jansen has a good time at EFY. That is good that he is going.
What the heck? Elder Christensen couldn't handle being away from Denmark and he is already back? He is probably spending most of the time in Odense I'd assume, but that would be cool if I ran into him. I'll keep my eye out. Well I hope you have an incredible week! I miss you a ton! Love Elder Tyler Lee