Friday, August 29, 2014
Monday, August 25, 2014
Email August 25, 2014
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8-25-14 Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton
Bunch
of Burtons
New
companion! Elder Durrant has been moved (today) down to Sonderborg, down on the
edge of Germany. When they have a baptism they'll drive down to the nearest
baptismal font in Germany because its a lot closer than the one in Denmark.
Elder Eisert is my new companion, came over from Ballerup and will be our
district leader. Its been a while sense I've had a companion who was a district
leader. He's from Lehi, Utah and from what I'm told is very good at ballroom
dancing and computer programming, he worked as a intern at Microsoft for a
summer. My first companion that I have kind of known before serving with him.
He had been in one of the other areas on Fyn when I was serving in Odense.
Ya,
so I realized this week that I feel just like Bilbo Baggins from the Lord of
the Rings. Living in a beautiful shire full of rolling fields and forests, blue
skies and streams. But as he once said, "I want to see Mountains again,
Frodo, Mountains!" We were eating at a members house the other day and she
is from Norway. She pulled out a map book of Norway and was talking about the
mountains and wilderness where she comes from. Memories of Camp and the Tetons
came flooding back and I wanted to just go crazy. Elder Durrant commented
recently that I really love clouds because I mention them so much, but without
mountains their the only thing you see in the sky. Ah well, Denmark is very
beautiful and its got some great sun sets now that the sun does set.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Email August 18, 2014
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August 18, 2014 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton
Bunch
of Burtons
We
spent a few hours on Saturday chopping wood as a service for some members in
our Ward. Its made it so the last few days both Elder Durrant's and my hands
have been super sore. A good sore, but there are all these random things that
make them hurt more, like pull ups this morning, or a strong hand shake.
Luckily typing doesn't cause any problems.
We
were knocking the other day and the first person, one of two, who was home was
this older woman named Else. When She had been about to close the door it was when
she said she new about our church and had a few problems with it so she didn't
want to talk. We asked her what those were and she when't off about how our
church forces us to do the things we do and she has no idea how anyone could be
happy in the Mormon church. She told us about how her daughter back in the
States had a friend who is LDS and that the next time she's in the States
visiting her daughter she's going to go to church with the friend to see what
it was about. A great opportunity! I invited her to church on the spot, telling
her about all she would learn coming to church with us the next Sunday. She
seemed interested and we talked for a little bit and resolved a few other
concerns and then after giving her the address and times she told us she would
probably see us on Sunday. And that we could stop by to teach her more! She didn't end up coming
to church unfortunately. Maybe next week after we have stopped by and taught
her a lesson. She did say though to tell our parents thank you for raising us
so well. And yes Thank you! It actually led to two potential investigators this
week. Both older women, Else and Inger who we talked to while contacting on the
fjord. She also was about to turn us away, but we were able to start a
conversation and she when't off about how such nice young men we were. She even
stopped another older couple who walked past and started bragging us up to
them. Going off about our Danish and how we had been raised so well. While
Elder Durrant talked to the couple I talked to Inger and she accepted a Book of
Mormon, surprised we would give her a copy for free, and promised she would
begin to read it before we met with her again. She gave us her number as well,
wanting us to come by and teach her more about the book and about why we are
out here as missionaries.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Email August 11, 2014
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August 11, 2014 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton
Bunch
of Burtons
I feel
like I always start this way, but... Great week! Along with some more
adventures and stories!
First
of all I'm sure you remember about the story from last week about when we had
to park the car early and walk the rest of the way home. Well that one
experience, that one moment of being obedient and not driving past our limit
has been the cause of an exciting story. We were able to finally set up an
appointment for Saturday with Casper, the guy we ran into in Netto as we walked
back to our car. Because I had never been to Casper's house and we were going
to be on splits the day we met with him Elder Durrant suggested showing going
street contacting and showing me where Casper lives on the way. As we walked
around this corner a man yelled at us from across the street obviously drunk,
and then left his friends to come talk to us. He told us this story about how
20 years ago a priest had given him a Bible with his phone number in it and how
he texted the number not to long ago, but never got a response. Probably
because phones 20 years ago didn't always have texting capabilities. Anyway, as
we were talking Elder Durrant and I glanced behind us at the same time and saw
this girl, Cecilia, who we had contacted a few weeks ago and hadnt yet called
us back, she recognized us and said Hi, but kept going with the two friends she
was with. The drunk guy went to leave after a few more minutes and spanked
Elder Durrant as he walked past. Weird. We kept going and realized we were
following Cecilia, and now one of there friends were gone. We were trying to
figure out how to talk to her again when they turned around and started coming
back towards us! But right as they were about to reach us their third friend
came around a corner, joined back up with them and all three turned back around
and walked off. So close! We went and found Casper's house and then headed back
towards the fjord. As we walked across an intersection we saw the drunk guy
again waiving us down. We waited for him to come up to us and he started
talking again. I cant remember all the details, but his friend Henrik didnt
like us to much and was trying to end the conversation and keep going but
Lasse, the wanted to keep talking. We handed Lasse a Mormons Bog and told him a
little about it promising that it would change his life. Henrick tried to grab
it from him so he could read what was on the front cover, but Lasse wasnt going
to let the book out of his hands. I pulled out a second copy of Mormons Bog and
handed it to Henrik and his entire attitude towards us immediately changed. All
of a sudden he was asking if he could keep the book, saying "I swear to you
I will read this book", and was wanting to show it to his Catholic
girlfriend, but she didn't speak Danish so we gave him an English copy instead.
They both were very excited about the books, and we asked if we could come by
and teach them more and Lasse tried to tell us his address twice which neither
of us could catch, so finally he said in English " its Angel Road number
--". Last night we typed in Engelgade but it didnt exist. We were thinking
we must have misunderstood. Elder Durrant then got the impression to type Engel
into the the GPS and found a bunch of different roads with the word engel in it
none of which were in the direction he had pointed. We chose the nearest one,
deciding to just knock the area and see if maybe it was him. We pull up and its
this huge expensive looking house. We checked the mailbox and sure enough the
name said Lasse! It couldnt possibly be the same Lasse though could it? We
knocked and a woman came to the balcony above us and we said we knew Lasse and
that he told us to come stop by. She told us Lasse was sick but that she would
go get him. And sure enough Lasse comes to the porch compleatly sober. And he
recognized us too! We made sure he had our number and we're going to be going
back in about a week so that he has time to get over being sick.
Friday, August 8, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
Email August 4, 2014
Email
August 4, 2014 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton
Bunch
of Burtons
Not
a tone happened in Holbæk this week, we spent two nights in Taastrup on splits
and then a whole day in Roskilde because we have been way short on kilometers.
In fact on our way home on Thursday we had to stop a few kilometers from our
apartment and walk the rest of the way to avoid going over our limit. The walk
actually turned out to be a blessing because the next day, the 1st of the
month, we walked back out to the car and stopped by a store on the way to buy
some seeds for a lesson we had latter that day. As we walked into Netto one of
the workers made eye contact and watched us for a minute until we got closer
and he asked if we were Mormons. He then mentioned he knew a few Mormons and
pulled up a text on his phone and said, "I believe their names are Elder
Burton and Elder Durrant." He was an old investigator that we have been
trying to get into contact with for a while, but neither Elder Durrant or I had
met him. Kasper, the one we were talking to, had thought we were the old
missionaries that he had known before who had been texting him. Now that we've
met it should be a little easier to meet with him. And he is wanting to meet,
he just works about double the time most Danes spend working in a week.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
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