Email July 27, 2015

Email July 27, 2015 - Elder Kenneth William Burton

Bunch of Burtons

Well turns out I'll be staying here in Horsens after all. With Elder Porter, which will be nice. For the most part on my mission I've only been with my companions for one transfer. I think Elder Porter will be my fourth that I have had for two. Whereas he's just the opposite, I think he's only had a few companions who he has only been with for one. Interesting how that works. The Lord has a different plan for each of us, but in a way it just shows how much he truly loves us. There are how many missionaries out in the world now and he cares where I am serving. This is where he wants me to be right now, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to keep serving him here. 

Our district is barely changing at all. Sister Wright and Elder Sulivan are heading home, then Sister Mann who is already serving in our district in Aarhus is transferring here to Horsens to take Sister Wrights place. So we're only getting two new out of eight. 

Isn't change great?! We move forward into new circumstances with the opportunity to learn and grow. To become more than we were and continue doing good. 

Photos from the MTC

Ike with his MTC Companion Elder Batson

Email July 25, 2015

Email July 25,2015 – Elder Isaac. K. Burton

Another great week in the MTC!

Hey everyone!

  This week has been great! Nothing to crazy or exciting except for the fact that I've already almost been here for 4 weeks. This week has gone super fast! It feels like last P-day was just yesterday. Everyday is filled with awesome classes and study time. The new missionaries that came to our zone last week are doing great! they've all gotten into the swing of things and they're all gonna be awesome missionaries. I found out that we have the biggest zone in the whole MTC now so that's pretty cool. I think this next week we.ll get our travel plans! We are supposed to be heading out on August 10th, and so our district is starting to get really antsy. We got some emails from some elders in the district ahead of us who are now in Argentina and it sounds awesome! None of us are ready to go with the language, but we are all ready to get there anyway. At the same time though, I still love the MTC! It, truly a special place and a once in a lifetime experience. Last week we were able to go to the temple for the first time since being here because it had been closed for cleaning. IT was super nice though to be able to go and I fell like it was a whole different experience to go through as a missionary. I cant wait to go through the Buenos Aires temple when we get down there, I'm sure we,ll be able to go a lot because its in our mission. We are way lucky with that.

Photos from Horsens

Troll swing in the park

Eating hummus with a new investigator from Syria 

Email July 20, 2015

Bunch of Burtons

Lets see, highlights from this last week.... We found a new investigator named Fared from Syria. We contacted him on the street and he invited us over. He doesn't have the greatest Danish so there is a bit of a language barrier, but it opened up him asking if we could help teach him Danish. When we came to our appointment with him he sat us down ate the table in front of this huge bowl of humus and a bean dip thing. Then handed each of us a durum, kind of peta bread mixed with a tortilla, and showed us how to rip a piece off and dip it in the humus. Tasted great! Way to much though, when we were done with our durum's he handed us another. And this is right after dinner

We had our interviews with President O'Bryant, so that was nice to be able to get to know him a little bit better. He's a great man, I'm excited to be able to work with him through the future. He kind of hinted that I'll probably be transferring this next week. So it will be exciting to see what happens, we should be getting calls on Wednesday. Time is just flying by.

Email July 18, 2015

Email July 18, 2015 – Elder Isaac K. Burton

Hola amigos!

So, some kinda cool news, last Sunday my companion and I were called to be zone leaders here in the mtc. It's been a great opportunity! Basically our job is to watch out for our zone and make sure everything is running well. WE minister to the members of our zone by getting to know there hearts and becoming their friends. We always try to be there for if anyone is struggling or has questions. Our administering responsibilities are that my make sure that each district is running well and that the work is progressing. WE are in charge of planning sacrament meetings and priesthood meetings each week. So basically we just supervise everything and then report back to our branch presidency. We are their eyes and ears. It has been pretty crazy though. on monday the two other districts in our zone left for the field so it was just my district until wednesday which was pretty nice. Things got a little crazier wednesday though when we got 5 brand new districts for a total of 53 new missionaries. So we jumped from having a zone of 10 to having a zone of 63. Quite the jump. Our branch president has worked here at the mtc for 4 years and this is the biggest zone he's ever had by almost three times. But it's been good! Me and my companion ran the orientation meeting for all of them and gave them a tour their first night and it seems like everyone is getting the hang of things really well. All the new missionaries are super cool. With this calling though I've definitely had to be humbled and really learn to rely on christ and the holy ghost to help us lead the way he wants us to. Thats been my main focus this week, becoming closer to my brother Jesus Christ and becoming more in tune with the spirit. My companion and I both felt very inadequate when we were first called, but as has been said, God qualifies the called. I have definitely felt a difference in how I've done things this week. You don't become closer to Christ by trying to let him guide you and work through you. You become closer to Christ by striving at all times to do do as he would do. By doing that and by focusing on having more christlike attributes, you will become closer to him and you will begin to know what he would have you do. It's a lot harder than it sounds too. The key is to turn outward at all times. Turn out towards others and not in towards yourself. Elder Bednar gave this amazing talk a few years ago here at the MTC called The Character of Christ. It is definitely the best talk I have ever heard. Elder Bednar talks about how the character of Christ is that he turns outward at all times, even in times of trial, while the natural man turns inward. We all need to strive to turn away from the natural man and instead strive to always turn outward. That is how we become more christlike people and really build our relationship and love with him. 

Photos from Horsens

This is why missionaries aren't given motorcycles....

Elder Porter in the rain

Email July 13, 2015

Email July 13, 2015 – Elder Kenneth William Burton

Bunch of Burtons

Hey everyone! Its crazy how busy five hours of service makes things. We're doing service a tone right now because of President O´Bryants suggestion last week when we met him. We've been seeing a lot of good come out of it as well.

In preparation for our zone training this next week President O'Bryant has asked us to study Peter's life, watching for ways his courage was strengthened throughout the New Testament. I started this morning and I'm enjoying it a lot. I've noticed multiple times now mentions of Peter forsaking his own will, leaving something behind and following the Savior in obedience to a commandment. The story when Christ commands Peter to drop the nets again and Peter responds that he has already been doing so all day with no success stands out to me. He had been out all day working hard doing everything he knew how to do in order to catch fish. "Nevertheless" he went out again in obedience and caught too many to keep. His desire to follow the Savior helped him have the patience to continue to endure to the end. To keep going, and not give up. Christ then calls him to be a fisher of men and he forsakes his nets a goes. 

Email July 11, 2015

Email July 11, 2015 – Elder Isaac Burton

2 Week down

Hey everyone!

 Thanks for all the pictures and emails! Its way nice to here from you! Looks like scout camp was a success. This week has flown by! it seems like last P-day was just yesterday. Its nice that its going fast though cause im super exited to get to Argentina. The 4th of July was fun! we had a devotional where one of the branch presidents here at the MTC spoke. Then we were able to watch the fireworks from BYU's stadium of fire. IT was way cool, and made me realize that I haven't seen fireworks like that for like 4 years cause I've always been at camp. So it was fun to see them. Sunday night we had a devotional where Jenny Oaks Baker, the famous violinist and daughter of Elder Oaks came and spoke and played for us. Her kids also played with her which was cool. IT was really neat to feel the spirit so strong as she played. She is very talented. The rest of the week has just been filled with learning Spanish, teaching investigators, and building our own testimonies. It has been awesome! The MTC really is a special place. You can feel the spirit here constantly and you can really feel in during lessons with investigators. Teaching investigator is way fun and hard. Especially since I'm still not even close to being fluent in Spanish. But its cool to feel the spirit bring words to your mind as you teach and its amazing to feel how the spirit works no matter what language you are speaking in even if you don't understand that language very well. The district ahead of us (Jackson Meyer is in the district) is leaving for the field on Monday, so then itll just be my district till the next week when we get 50 new missionaries! so we;ll have like 60 missionaries in our zone and my district will be the only one with any experience here. So it'll be fun t o teach all of them the ropes. 

Photos from Horsens

Email July 6, 2015

Email July 6, 2015 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

Bunch of Burtons

Well, Mitch's baptism didn't quite go as planned. In fact we have lost contact with him. This last week his health dropped, he can't sleep at all at night so he sleeps when he can during the day, so he shuts off his phone and the buzz box on his door so he wont be disturbed. We haven't heard from him sense a text he sent us last Tuesday morning. We're praying for him and hoping he'll call us, seeing how it doesn't work to call him.

Friday we met President Obryant for the first time. I'm so excited to be able to work with him for the next few months. He brought a few "points" or suggestions that he feels we should be leaning towards as we go forward with our work. He feels strongly that we need to remember and focus on being a Preach My Gospel mission. Reminding us to focus our studies on those basic teachings. He wants us to be a "full purpose" mission. Not focusing just on investigators or baptisms but on inviting everyone to come unto Christ. Investigators, active and non active members, and everyone we meet throughout our day. He suggested we strive to give an invitation in every contact with every person we talk to. We're also going to be doubling the service we do. Which I was happy to hear. The last transfer I've felt strongly that we need to be serving a lot more than we actually do, "No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care." The best help we can give people is obviously through the gospel message, but they don't recognize that at first, so we need to show love in a way they will recognize in the attempt to open their hearts to learn more. 

Email July 4, 2015

Email July 4, 2015 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Hey everyone!

     So it turns out that my P-Day is on saturday while here in the MTC so thats when i'll be writing my emails. The MTC is awesome! They really baptize you with fire here which is a little crazy but its awesome too! You are immediately thrown into the MTC life and in our first our teacher spoke nothing but spanish. It was crazy but way fun too. So before I was dropped off at the mtc we met an elder on the temple grounds who happened to be going to the same mission as me! turns out that he is my companion! kinda cool that we got to meet before we were even in the MTC! His name is Elder Batson and he's awesome! he's a little quiet but he's really good at spanish and hes a great teacher! I have and will continue to learn a lot from him. My district is way cool too! there are ten of us, 4 of whom are going to the same mission as me, 4 who are going to another mission in Argentina, and 2 who are going to a spanish speaking mission in texas. We all get along super well though and are already great friends after only three days. The first few days here have felt super long! I think its just cause we aren't really used to the schedule yet. Each day goes by a little faster than the last though which is good. Spanish is hard and it feels like we are learning slow but then I remember that I've only been here for three days and I'm amazed at how much i already know. I'm excited to see where we are at in 6 weeks. Yesterday we taught our first lesson to a mock investigator in spanish. It was pretty rough...but it taught us really well who far we have to go and how hard we'll have to work to get there. I have such a desire to learn right now!tin my life have i wanted to learn so badly and felt so happy while doing it. It's an amazing feeling. I want so badly to learn spanish and to be able to really teach effectively with it. I know that that will happen, I just need to keep working at it. The food here is really good! I haven't been eating as much as i expected I would though so thats probably a good thing. Preach my Gospel is such an awesome book! Id never really thought about it before but it is written by the prophet and apostles. That shows exactly what a great book it is. It literally has everything you need as a missionary. One thing that has been a major focus here so far is learning our purpose. It is is super simple. Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ. So that is our focus and that is what we are learning to do. I love you all and hope to ear from you soon! I hope everything is well at home.

Love, Elder Burton

Entering the Provo Mission Training Center on July 1, 2015