Email September 22, 2014

Email September 22, 2014 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

Bunch of Burtons

Hey does anyone back home play Subway Surfer on their smart phone? Its kind of like Temple Run but in a more modern setting. Anyway the owner of the game is the son of one of our investigators. And she's the CFO of the company. We hadn't been in contact with Inge for about a week and a half and all of a sudden as we walked down the fjord we ran into her and she showed us the game. I've met her son too, when we were painting her basement the first week I got to Holbæk. Kind of exciting.

Anyway. Prequel to my story.... A few weeks ago that family we knocked into and the Mom invited us in telling us she had seen us earlier that day as we were walking down the street and she went off about how she felt so bad for us because we should be out here enjoying ourselves, having fun, not preaching about our church. She invited us to come back whenever but did not want to talk about religion.

  Well, Wednesday evening we stepped outside of the apartment with a plan of what we wanted to do, finding, but with no idea where we wanted to go. Realizing this we stopped right where we were at and offered a prayer asking for guidance to where the Lord wanted us to be. After we closed, Elder Eisert and I each had a different name come to mind. We realized they were both somewhat in the same direction so we headed off that way hoping someone would be placed before us. We reached an intersection where we had to decide which person to visit, right or left. The song "Choose the right" came into mind and I started singing it as we walked up to the corner so we decided to go right, towards Gitte. Another apartment complex came into mind that was somewhat on the way where we could try visiting a few potential investigators. We headed off that way and went up to the first stop by to find they weren't home. On the way down we thought to knock on the rest of the doors that had not answered the last time the building was knocked. The very fist door we knocked was Ditte, the woman we had met weeks ago. I was completely caught off guard because I wasn't expecting to see a familiar face, I had thought Ditte lived in a totally different building, and she had been marked at a different address in the records. She let us in when we asked if we could share a quick message with her and her son Frederik. We sat down and she told us about how we have been on her mind ever sense the first time she met us. Before we began teaching Ditte mentioned how her son Frederik doesn't believe in God and that he only believes in science. By the end of the lesson we had found Frederik has a very strong hope that there is a God. He wants there to be a God and he is willing to do what he can to find out. We've now had multiple lessons with the two of them and they want us to keep coming back! They are praying together as well! Ditte has strong faith in Christ and has been living the best life she could through the knowledge that she's had and now is excited to add to that knowledge.

At another point during the week we walked around a corner and ran into Margo, her face lit up and she told us that she had literally just been thinking about us and trying to figure out when we could next come and visit! She mentioned again how every time she needs help the Mormons show up. We were able to set a time to visit, she is trying to figure out for us though if her son Jakob will be able to be home at that time.

I guess we're teaching quite a few single mothers with teenage sons. Frederik is 17 and Jakob is 19. We're trying to get them to church, our ward has a great youth group and both Frederik and Jakob would make some great friends.

Ike, I love your quote "Get comfortable with being uncomfortable", Elder Bednar said something similar when he visited about how we are to be eternally uncomfortable. Might as well get comfortable with it then. When we are constantly repenting and changing we are never "comfortable". Change is hard, but its the only way for us to improve and progress. Imagine if a body builder only lifted comfortable weights, he would never become a champion. If a runner just went on easy jogs he would never become an athlete. We need to push ourselves and be eternally uncomfortable so that we become the beings we were intended to be. If you find yourself completely content with life, change, push yourself to grow. In the parable of the Talents the servant that was given one talent was said to be wicked and slothful because he buried it in the earth. The cozy warm earth where nothing could get to it. Sounds comfortable to me. Then there are the two other servants who went out and put their money to the exchangers and profited greatly. They kept themselves busy, they were uncomfortable because they were undergoing change. Repentance. And because of this they inherited all that the master had.

In Elders quorum on Sunday they asked the class what there favorite points of the gospel were. I've come to find one of mine is repentance. The fact that we can change, we all make mistakes and fall into ruts where we don't progress, but because of the principle of repentance we can be lifted out of even the deepest ruts by simply taking the hand of the Savior. We become more, we grow.

"Ability will never catch up with the demand for it." - Malcolm Forbes

....So we can change.

Have a fantastic week! I can't believe Alex will be home on Wednesday! That does not seem real! I can't wait to see all the photos and here her homecoming talk!

Meget Kærlighed!

Elder Kenneth Burton