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. 

Speaking of service, we were able to spend a few hours helping this man named Ole on his farm. There were a few fences that had blown down in the wind, so we buried some mettle bars behind the fence leaning against it, then cemented them in place. Should give some good support when the wind starts blowing again. Ole has invited us back as well, we'll do some of the yard work that he never has time to get around to. I had worked on one fence with one of Ole's sons, and we were able to have a nice conversation about faith in God. Next time we'll try and work into the restoration.

Thursday we knocked half an Island. Biked out to a small town at the end of the fjord, then took a five minute fairy out to Hjarnø. A lot of very nice people live there, and we had some great conversations, but no one was that interested. We also had taken a change of cloths with just in case there were any service opportunities, but that fell through. There was one man who had a Book of Mormon already, that he has kept for the last ten years, from when he had talked to missionaries in Italy. We'll try and talk to him again next time we're out there to see if he acted on the invitation we left him.

Sunday morning we called our friend Jan to remind him of church that day, and he told us he was ready to go and he would see us at 9:45. Ten'o'clock rolls by and and he's not there so I send him a text and he responds that he's on the way. Eleven'o'clock comes along and he's still not there! I went outside and gave him a call with no answer. Turned out for some reason he decided to never leave his house. Made us wonder if there is something holding him back that he's not telling us. He's been doing great the last few weeks. We had made a study plan with him that he was holding to, and one can see a new light coming into him. He cleaned his apartment, and was actually wearing a nice shirt rather than the one he wore before that was dirty and had holes in it. So he's coming along, we just need to figure out what holds him back from coming to church again.

Meget Kærlighed,

Elder Burton