Dinner and Danish Hymns

About a week ago, Elder Parker and I, along with Sister Henderson of Salt Lake City and Sister Rovig of Idaho Falls went to the home of sister Eva Pallesen to have dinner.  Sister Pallesen joined the church here in Aarhus over forty years ago, and still talks warmly of the wonderful Elders who knocked on her door, bringing her a spirit she had never felt before.

Sister Pallesen does not speak English, but we communicate at church each week with my very-broken Danish, hugs and smiles.  When we have eaten at her home, she reminds me of my Mother by cooking baked chicken or creamed hamburger and onions on potatoes.  There is always plenty of potatoes, but if Elder Parker eats what appears to be near the end of the potatoes, she heads to the kitchen to peel more!  Luckily Sister Henderson intercepted the bowl and assured her we had plenty.

Eva has a special tradition when she feeds the missionaries in her home.  At the conclusion of dessert (apple kage with let mælk) she brings out her old Danish Sange books and we sing hymns A cappella.  I always try to quickly read the music "in my head" to discover what the tune is before singing, because I am still learning to read the song titles in Danish.  I am successful about 90% of the time, but I just discovered last week at Church that there are Danish hymns in the song book in addition to the familiar ones we know back home.  Couldn't figure out at first why I didn't recognize the hymn even after we started to sing.  Playing the piano in Relief Society has been even more fun!  Good thing I can still count...