The Past - The Present

KAJERØDGÅRD

We have had some strong spiritual "palm to the forehead" knocks since we received our call to serve in Denmark.  As a result we have been doing family research in much of our free time.

Norma is as intense with her Swedish research as she is with any other project she takes on.  Our Temple President, President Ljungh (Young) is equally as intense and has become an expert.  He is helping Norma, and I am impressed with all of the help programs they have for family research in Sweden that we don't have here in Denmark.  Norma does have a distant cousin that moved to Denmark in the mid-1800s.  He married two different times in the St. Johannes Kirke in Copenhagen.  This past week she said we should look for this church and go talk to the priest.  When we looked on the map we found it within walking distance.  We went there and they sent us to the Land Archives.

St. Johannes Church

St Johannes Church

At the archives, where I was explaining that I wanted to find some living relatives, they said I would have more luck (call it what you will) if I would go to the Birkerød Arkiv which is where the family lived and went to church.  So we took the train to Birkerød, which is where Norma and I lived for 9 months back in 1967, by the way.  They were very helpful.  They knew the farm that my great-great-great grandfather owned.  The farm is named Kajerødgård.  A town has grown around it and the town is now called Kajerød.  It was also within walking distance from Birkerød, so we walked over there and took some photos.  Of course it is now developed as houses and there are none of the original buildings there, but it was good to stand where the family had stood in the 1850s.  The other interesting thing about finding such help at the archive is that I want to go forward to the present instead of backward so I can find some living relatives.  This is a very difficult thing to do and everyone shakes their head when I tell them, but at the Birkerødarkiv they had the owners of the farm.  I found out that the farm was owned by my great-great-great grandmothers family, and it listed them by name with the wife and all the children.  My great-great-great grandmother and grandfather inherited the farm and when they died they gave it to one of their five sons Anders, who was the brother of my great-great grandfather and an uncle of Hans Peter Larsen.  It listed his name and the name of his wife and their children.  They in turn gave it to their son Peter when they died and it lists his wife and their children.  After that it was sold and is no longer in the family.  As you can see I was able to come forward three generations on at least one brother of my great-great-great grandfather

Birkerød Country Church

Birkerød Country Church

Now I have a funny story to tell (the kids have heard this story 

Kajrødgård

before but not it's relationship to the present)  When I was on my mission in 1958 I served in Frederikshavn.  There is a small island seven or eight miles off the coast from Frederikshavn.  Every other Tuesday my companion and I would sail to the island and hold Primary with a young family who lived on a farm.  In Denmark the farm house and the barn and the other farm buildings were constructed around either a closed square or an open ended square or U shape.  The animals would be allowed to move about in the enclosed yard.  That meant that the hey, straw, animal waste, both solid and liquid, would also be in the yard if the farmer didn't clean it daily.  This young family had about five children as I recall.  It was a week in June when the strawberries were available.  The family was quite poor, yet they saved up to feed the missionaries every other week.  Sister Steffensen was making strawberry portage, which was cooking on the stove.  We missionaries were in the warm kitchn talking to her, and the kids and flies were enjoying the warm June day running and chasing  the farm and through the kitchen.  During one of the trips through the kitchen one of the boys reached down and took off his sneaker to throw at his brother.  As he raised it up over his back to throw it,

Kajerødgård

 of the "you-can-imagine-it" fell out of the shoe and into the strawberry portage.  I think my companion and I were the only ones who saw it.  Sister Steffensen came back to the stove and stirred the strawberries.  You can imagine the difficulty we had with eating the strawberries with grit in our teeth.  But we did!

New State Church by Jørn Utzon

This past week at the Temple there was a new Danish Temple Worker.  As I passed her in the corridor I noticed her name tag she was Sister Steffensen.  She was too young to be the Sister Steffensen, so I asked if her husband had grown up on the island off the coast of Frederikshavn?  She said he had.  Full circle!  Her husband had likely seasoned the strawberries that day, or at least helped with it.

New State Church by Jørn Utzon

There's much to tell about the past, but one of the best connections to the past took place in the Temple this week.  I have mentioned the Holm Larsen family we taught in Frederikshavn back in 1958.  I sat down to study in the Temple on Wednesday and a man came to me and said "you are Gary Larsen, do you recognize me?"  I didn't.  Then it dawned on me that he was Tage Holm Larsen, one of the eleven children in the family we taught.  I could see his father in him.  He was 20 years old back then.  We spent some wonderful time together talking about the past, some of which I will address another time.  The real heartfelt connection was when I was able to participate in a Sealing Session where he was the Sealer.  As I've mentioned before, a missionary always wonders what's really i the heart of the new member, and will they stay with the Church and continue to build their testimony.  This young man, who I have wondered about for many years, not only stayed with the Church and strengthened his testimony but he has served in the Temple as a Sealer for 20 years (Switzerland, Stockholm and Copenhagen).  He travels 6 hours every month or two each way to serve in the Temple.

There's more to come at a later time.

This is a great experience.

Mom & Dad

Elder & Sister Larsen