Monday, August 25, 2014

August 11, 2014

August 4, 2014

July 28, 2014


New Comp! Elder Eisert!



Email August 25, 2014

Email 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

Photos of Denmark



Email August 18, 2014

Email 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

Photos from Denmark


Email August 11, 2014

Email 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.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Photos from Denmark

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.