A Wonderful Reunion

My wife, Martha, and I were called from our home in Canada to serve in the Denmark Copenhagen Mission. After two weeks full of excitement and learning at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, and a long flight from Salt Lake City, we arrived in Copenhagen on June 22, 1999. President and Sister Rasmussen, our mission president and his wife, met us at the airport and took care of us for the next two days. We were then given a car and asked to live in Aabenraa and help in the Sønderborg Branch with missionary and membership work.

The first Sunday at sacrament meeting we greeted members and introduced ourselves. Shaking hands with a middle-aged gentleman, I said, “I am Ejnar Iversen.” He replied, “I am Bent Bisgaard.” We looked at each other and could hardly believe our eyes. It was the same Bent Bisgaard who 32 years earlier had joined the Church while living with us in Canada. He said he lived in Fredericia and had been assigned to speak in our branch that day. What a wonderful reunion it was—much more than a coincidence. We felt that our Father in Heaven had sent him to welcome us.

In 1967 Bent had come to British Columbia, Canada, where I worked at the government employment office. He was looking for work and a place to stay. I found him work, and Martha and I agreed that we had room for one more boarder. We already had two, one of whom was Svend Hansen, a strong Church member.

Svend soon challenged Bent to read the Book of Mormon, and Bent did so with the intention of finding fault with it. Finding none, he wanted to be baptized. He was the first person baptized in our new stake center.

Soon afterward Bent returned to Denmark, and we were concerned that he might lose touch with the Church. But he attended church in Denmark, and it happened to be a fast Sunday. He was sitting at the back of the chapel minding his own business when he was asked to bear his testimony, something he had never done before, in either English or Danish. He wished he could disappear, but instead he stood and told how Svend Hansen had challenged him to read the Book of Mormon. As soon as he mentioned Svend’s name, people looked up in surprise. After the meeting Svend’s many friends wanted to know how he was doing.

Suddenly Bent had many new friends, and he felt right at home. He has since worked many years with the youth and served on the high council of the Århus Denmark Stake.

Martha and I are very happy to have known Bent and Svend all these years. And had we not served as a missionary couple, we never would have had this wonderful reunion.

If Elder and Sister Iversen had not served a mission, they would have missed a wonderful reunion with a dear friend. (Photograph courtesy of Ejnar Iversen)