December 30, 2013

Email December 30, 2013

Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

Christmas Week

Bunch Of Burtons

Its so weird to think Christmas (Julefest) is already past, its weird to not have any snow.

So in Danmark they celebrate christmas on Christmas eve. My Christmas whent something like this...

We woke up at 6.30 like normal and I dropped and started a few pushups for my daily workout then went over to the pullup bar before I noticed that Ældste Hinrichs was at his desk opening a carboard box. "OH YA! Its Christmas!" so instead of working out I got to snack on treats for the whole morning! I also made an awesome Christmas breakfast of eggs, hashbrowns and bacon.

In the afternoon we went Christmas caroling with the district, and visited with a few potentials. The first thing a lot of Danish people do when you get let into there house is they go to the kitchen and make you a drink. From Coke to herbal teas (kind of gross) to this one drink were our investigator Lang took out a bottle of bluebeary syrup poored a little it two glasses, filled the rest with water and mixed it with a chopstick. It actually wasnt bad.

That evening we were invited to the Grant's hjem (home) for dinner. It was amaizing! We had like four different types of danish meats and three types of potatoes. Danes eat lots of meat and potatoes. The Åndenstie (duck, but I think I spelled it wrong) was amaizing. For desert at Christmas Danes do a tradition of eating rice pudding. They put one huge bowl on the table and somewhere in the bowl is a full almond. Whoever gets the almond without and keeps it hidden receives a small gift.

The Christmas tree stands in the middle of the room, that way on Christmas you can dance around the tree singing Christmas songs. With every verse change you change the direction.

We got our bikes going finally! I forgot to take a picture of it so ill have to send it next week, actually I just realized, the computer Im at doesnt have a spot for my sim card to plug into, looks like I wont be able to send any photos until next week. Anyway its been really nice being able to bike rather than walk and bus everywhere. Some of the busses dont leave very often eaither so a lot of the time its saves us time to bike rather than wait around for the bus to arive.

Danish toilets are really weird. But in a way I guess they are better. The toilet bowl is really deep and instead of the water comming out of a pipe near the bottom of the toilet bowl it comes out of the rim around the top of the toilet bowl. And there are always two buttons to flush, the smaller button uses less water for when less water is needed if you know what I mean. The taxes here are so high on everything that water is conserved a lot more here than in america. Even washing the dishes. Instead of rinsing off the soap a lot of Danes will just dry the dishes with the soap still on them.

Our fridge is anoying, the other day I was putting something away and I guess I bupped the temperature dile, dyle,  (spelling?) anyway, and it froze my milk and tomatoes, the milk wasnt a problem, but when the tomatoes unthawed they felt like waterballoons and when I ripped one open the tecture was really weird, but basicly moral of the story dont freeze tomatoes. I could have enjoyed those tomatoes. Ah well, now I check the temperature dile dyle thing everytime I close the fridge... just in case. And its paid off twice now.

 We ran into these two Muslim guys a few days ago on the bus and walked over the the gym with them. Then we ended up talkin to them for like an hour to an hour and a half. I was really suprised how many similarities there are between their beliefs and ours. It seemed the main difference was the believed Jesus was just a prophet and that he wasnt the Christ. And the believe in Muhamad as the last prophet God has sent until Jesus comes again. It was really interesting the one guy wouldnt let us get a single word in or we would say a sentence or two and he would cut us off. And he kept telling us how we where mis led and where destend for the firy pit. Which im glad isnt true, God has told us that for those who never had a chance to find the full truth will have that chance after life.

Anyway, through this whole thing the other Muslim guy, kept shaking his head and apoligizing. He had actually seemed really interested in the things we were trying to say but his friend kept cutting us off so we never got to share full messages. We have his number though so hopefully we can meet with him sometime. I feel like if he found the full truth he would accept it.

I guess its really hard for Muslims to get baptised. They have to have a interview with the mission president because by leaving their religion its basicly an invitation for their family to kill them, sooo ya the mission presedent needs to make sure they understand that they can never go back to their country and too make sure there families wont be too upset with the religious change.

I hope eveyone had an amaizing Christmas Eve, Christmas, seccond Christmas and Third Christmas! All of which are selebrated here, probaby just to get more time off from work. And have a Happy New Year! Alma 51:33 through Alma 52:2 is a New years story if anyone wants to read it.

Mange Kærlighed! - Ældste Burton