Email April 7, 2015

Email April 7, 2015 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

Bunch of Burtons

Sunday was great! Easter and General Conference. Because the zone leaders wouldn't buy us tickets to Aarhus for Conference, Elder Parry and I sat in the empty church building here in Randers and used the computer. It was actually really relaxing, and we could bring food to the church building for the meals between sessions. We watched the Saturday morning session on Saturday evening, then on Sunday we watched the Priesthood session, the Saturday afternoon session, and the Sunday morning session. We'll have to find some time in the next week to see the Sunday afternoon session. One talk that stood out to me was by Bishop Gerald Causse from France. Talking about marveling at the wonders of the gospel. And it is a wonderous gospel! The talk right before him was by Elder Jose A. Teixeira who is our area president here. He came and spoke to our mission back in August or September.

I hope everyone was able to check out helives.mormon.org website this last week. There is a great new video the church has made focusing on the living Christ. the website also has a great page describing what Christ did each day of the week leading up to his resurrection. I invite everyone to share the video with friends and family. The church is going to be using this initiative #BecauseHeLives for the next year leading up until Christmas, and they'll be updating the website regularly. 

Isn't Easter amazing, or what happened on that day more that 2000 years ago? Jesus Christ, the son of God took up His life again after laying it down for us. He lives today! And because He lives we can receive his help daily. His strength hourly, to rise above the challenges of mortality, overcome our weaknesses and become more like Him. The only one who lived a perfect life. "How sweet the joy this sentence gives! I know that my redeemer lives!" I love my Savior and I love my God!

We have here what is called Anden Påske Dag, or second Easter. That's why we're emailing today rather than yesterday on Monday, all the Libraries were closed. Its basically an excuse for all the Danes to get another day off work. It was great for us though we were able to take advantage of the day to visit and teach a lot of our investigators.

We have this man we're teaching now named Jesper who is very positive. He read the first three chapters of the Book of Mormon on his own, including the introduction and the testimonies in the beginning, And then he apologized that he wasn't able to read very much. We've been able to set a good pattern with him, planning multiple appointments each week for no more than 25 minutes. Allowing us to meet with him more often for shorter period, so that we're more of guides, helping him with his studies, rather than just teachers. President Sederholm gave me some great advice last Monday to study the 8 fundamental lessons in our missionary training packet, something I haven't reviewed sense I was trained. Using the training packet with Preach My Gospel has been helping me quite a bit in recognizing how I can change what I'm doing to better help my investigators progress.

We found two new investigators this week from Pakistan, both are Christian, which would be hard in Pakistan where there are not very many who believe in Christ. We had set up a lesson with them for the next day, and they fed us dinner. They are currently searching for a church here in Denmark but are disappointed in the lack of faith the Danish people show. They were excited to see us out using our time to help others learn about Christ.

Love you all!

Elder Kenneth Burton