Talk, Talk, Talk

Køge

Hans and Lis Andersen

We were invited to dinner at Hans and Lis Andersen’s house this week.  Hans is the Stake Patriarch and is very knowledgeable about the gospel.  He also has some theories which he only talks to certain people about.  Of course Norma would be one of those people.  They speak excellent English, so language was no problem, and we had a very enjoyable evening.

On Tuesday morning we went out for our morning walk, but it was so cold and windy that we decided to ride the subway out to the end of the line and see what might be interesting enough to visit on a sunny day.  On the way back we thought we should also ride to the end of one of the S train lines.  It took a half hour to get to Køge.  It was cold and rainy when we got off the train, but we walked into town anyway.  The rain didn’t last long and we enjoyed discovering a wonderful old town with quaint streets and many possibilities for a day of photography.  We will return another day when the sun is out.  By that time we will have studied Køge’s history.

I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting in the Søborg Ward today.  This would be the first time in forty-five years I have given a speech in Danish.  We have been here for six months and neither of us has been asked to speak in our own ward, the Frederiksberg Ward.  It has been a relief, because I couldn’t imagine stumbling through the language at the pulpit in a ward where every sacrament meeting speech since we arrived has been excellent.  The Søborg Ward is the ward we lived in when we were living here forty-five years ago, so it is fitting that I should be invited to give my first speech there.

Preparing for the talk has been quite the experience.  To start with, it is important that you understand where I am with the language.  I can understand about 98% of what is said, and generally I can hold a conversation.  My problem is age.  Many times I get in the middle of a conversation and can’t remember the word I need.  As a result I need to quickly revise my direction and approach the conversation from an angle which uses a word I can remember.  So the idea of standing before a large congregation and coming up “blank” is frightening.  My assignment was to speak for fifteen minutes.  I knew I would have to read the speech to make sure I wouldn’t spend most of the fifteen minutes searching for words.  I wrote the talk and then went to Google Translate.  Google is helpful, but not very correct, so I corrected the mistakes Google made and then asked a Danish friend to read the speech and correct the mistakes I made.  Then I started to practice out loud so my tongue would get used to the words being said correctly.  The words, which I doubted were being pronounced correctly, needed to be reviewed with a Dane.  After knowing how to pronounce them correctly I timed the talk.  It was twenty minutes, so I began “cutting” in order to get it down to fifteen minutes.  After reading it through five or six times last evening, I went to bed.  While trying to sleep, the idea was planted in my mind that the speech didn’t say anything, and why was I even giving it.  I did fall to sleep as I was trying to rewrite it.  This morning I read it again and decided it was a good speech.  As I was reading it again just before we left to catch the bus, it occurred to me that I wasn’t pronouncing the words correctly and no one would understand what I was saying.  I gave an English copy to the verbal translator at church and knew that if he read it correctly, at least the foreigners would understand my talk.

I expected to be the first speaker because I was an unknown, but I was announced as the last speaker.  The Youth speaker spoke for a brief four minutes so when the speaker before me stood up it was only twenty-five minutes after the hour, which meant that she and I would share forty minutes.  She began speaking and seemed like someone that would be respectful of others preparation and only speak for her allotted fifteen minutes.  I had a problem; how would I fill twenty-five minutes with a fifteen-minute speech?  The minutes ticked away as she covered her material.  After fifteen minutes it didn’t appear that she was ready to quit.  I was relieved. After twenty-five minutes I had another problem; how could I cut my talk when I had already trimmed all I could.  Finally the Bishop began to introduce me and he took four minutes, so now I really did only have ten minutes.  You’ll be relieved to know that I took my allotted fifteen minutes anyway and received many compliments. I prayed just before I stood up that my brain and my mouth would get in sync and the congregation would understand me.  I was told by a very reliable source that every word was perfect.

Happy Valentines

Grethe Ljungstrom invited us over for lunch after Priesthood meeting and Relief Society.

I was able to breath again by then.

That’s enough for now.

Mom and Dad

Elder and Sister Larsen