Email June 16, 2014

Email June 16, 2014 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

"I can do hard things"

Bunch of Burtons

"I can do hard things", at Zone conference this week they asked us to post that quote somewhere in our apartments. We're going to try and make a huge sign, with one letter on a separate piece of paper. 

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Maybe not mysterious always, but defiantly not what you expect. After an appointment with Jan he drove us to the train station in Tolne with only a few minutes to spare before the train arrived, although it never came. There was some announcement over the speaker that we could barely hear, but the next train that came went right on past the station. We decided to use the next hour we had until the next train to knock a few of the streets near by. As we went up the street a bus on its way to Frederikshavn passed us. Somehow we had miss read the bus scheduled or we would have taken that bus home. We started knocking on this one street and two girls were out front of a house having a grass war, they were 10 and 11. They asked us who we were and then started following us around as we knocked. Each time we would go up to the door of a house they would hide behind a bush so that they wouldn't be seen, and then they would keep following us around their neighborhood. At one point we didn't have too much time left before our train came so we started to leave. One of the girls asked if we were going to visit any more houses on the road down to the train station, and we said we might. They then got all excited and said we should knock on their friends door, and they led us over to a house. Before we could knock they opened the door and disappeared inside. Elder Hawkes and I looked at each other and commented, "This is going to be interesting". We were both expecting them to come back with a 10 year old kid for us to talk to. Instead they came back out and said,"He's coming". A guy in his twenties soon came to the door, Rene, and we had a great conversation with him about God. He accepted a Mormons Bog and said he would read it and call us if he had any questions. He seemed like a great guy and really positive. The whole time the two girls were behind us kicking each other. Not how I expected to find a potential investigator. For some reason we had skipped that side of the street on the way up, but God helped us to be able to get into contact with Rene anyway.

 Our lesson with Simon and Lise Lotte went really well on Saturday, or maybe it was Friday. At one point in the lesson Simon was saying something about the Church and he called it "our church"! Elder Hawkes and I lit up! We offered him a blessing to help him as he stops smoking and drinking, and he accepted. After the blessing we explained that the blessing will work through his faith, he sat there for a minute and then nodded, confident and excited. He hasn't drank in two weeks and has gone from a pack of cigarettes every other day to half a pack in a week. He is progressing so well! And him and is wife are both growing so much. Lise Lotte sent us a text after they had had and argument, some miss communication, and they had talked things through and worked it out themselves. And told about how they are both being tried right now but that they are using the trials to become stronger. At the end of the lesson on Friday we asked Simon to pray. He said he needed to think about what to say first, so we all sat there with our heads bowed for maybe two minutes soaking in the spirit before he began an amazing prayer, starting out with a "Thank you God". They both have so much faith. We're going back tomorrow night to continue teaching the commandments and to explain family home evening. We're going to also try and set a baptismal date with them. 

We ran into an past investigator this week who I think is in the bicycle gang we have seen driving around. He has like four or five motor bikes out in his driveway. Interesting family. They seen super nice and their always open to have the missionaries over so that's good. 

My Danish is improving so much right now because Elder Hawkes and I are speaking it so much. I still have a long way to go though. I am trying to improve my vocabulary right now. I've been taking a small note book with me with words I'm trying to learn and then trying to remember to review them whenever I'm on a bus or train. 

Hope you all have a fantastic week! I hope to hear from you then. 

Meget Kærlighed! 

Ældste Kenneth Buton