Email October 19, 2015

Email October 19, 2015 – Elder Kenneth William Burton

Bunch of Burtons

I get to stay here in Horsens with Elder Curnow! I was getting worried that I might transfer because we were told there would need to be a lot of changes made with a large group of new missionaries coming in. This means I'll have been in Horsens almost 8 months. Even longer than I was in Randers, its not too common that a missionary is in an area here for 5 transfers. I'm excited though, I love it here, and I love the members! Last night we were passing by the Bishops house and thought we would stop by to say hi. He was right in the middle of an "experiment". Making a new pancake recipe with protein powder. So he invited us in to test it out. I thought it tasted good, he seemed a bit disappointed in how it turned out though.

So my scripture this week that I'm ponderizing is in Galatians 5:22 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith."  My hope is that this week I'll be able to better recognize the Holy Ghost and his influence by pondering his fruits. That should come as I better understand them. One fruit that has been standing out to me the last day is "faith". I remember a zone training we had a few months ago where the Sister Training Leaders asked everyone to take a minute and write down the ways the Holy Ghost speaks to us. I wrote down, and had the Spirit confirm that his promptings almost always require an act of faith to follow. They require stepping outside of my comfort zone. Rebelling against the natural man. And acting in faith leads to an increase of faith. An increased trust in the Holy Ghost.  

We had a great zone training this last week. Our Zone Leaders showed a short video of a football practice where the coach was trying to teach the players the height of their potential. He had one boy begin what they called a "death crawl", which is basically crawling on your hands and feet without letting your knees touch the ground. With someone on your back. Before he started the boy asked "how far? ... to the thirty?" The coach responded "I want you to go to the fifty" and then he put a blind fold on him. He made Broch, the boy, promise he would do his very best. That he would not give up even though he doubted he could go to the fifty yard mark. Long story short Broch made it to the in-zone 100 yards with a 160 pound man on his back. Because he was blind folded he could not judge the distance he had gone, or how much he had left. He could only give it his all. His capability was much higher than he had expected. In the scriptures it says that through Christ "the blind shall see", I believe this is more than just physical blindness. We at times limit ourselves because we may not be able to see all that we can be. But as we keep our eyes on Christ we will find ourselves become so much more than we ever expected.

I learned that a man I taught back in Odense, Vo Long from Vietnam, was baptized recently! The last I had heard of him was that when his baptismal date was coming up two years ago, he took a trip to Norway to avoid it, and then ignored the missionaries for a long time. I'm so happy to hear he began searching again and was finally able to overcome the things he had been struggling so much with.

A woman here in Horsens the Sisters were teaching was baptized yesterday, I had the opportunity of giving her the gift of the Holy Ghost. Her and her son George are from Romania. She speaks no English or Danish, so the meeting was translated by her son who was baptized two weeks ago. I wasn't the one teaching them, but its been neat to see them grow in the gospel in the time I've been here. At one point when George had decided to be baptized the only thing that was holding him back was a fear that his family wouldn't support him. But his mom came to church to see what it was all about and her heart changed. Now she's joined with her son in Christ's Church.

Over all a good week.

I hope you all are doing well.

Med kærlig hilsen,

Ældste Burton