Email January 26, 2015

Email January 26, 2015 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

Bunch of Burtons

We've had a great week here in Randers. The Lord is continuing to hasten His work. The amount we've been teaching has tripled in the last few weeks, and we haven't even combined the areas yet. There are still two weeks left of the transfer.

Our lesson on Wednesday with Simon went great up in Langå. He doesn't believe in God, but he would like to find out if there is one. He had some great questions that we were able to answer for him, and in the process we recognized a way that we can improve our teaching. At times I feel like we are to ready with all the answers, and we give them two quickly. What we are wanting to change is to start using the scriptures more in answering questions. For example, "What is the atonement?" "Great question, lets look here in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 3, where King Benjamin....." I feel that this would help those we teach to come to love the scriptures more and also to see that the answers are not just coming from us. It also teaches them to study from the scriptures to find answers rather than to just ask. In this way faith is a stronger action. 

Photos From Randers

Email January 19, 2015

Email January 19, 2015 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

Bunch of Burtons

This last week at our zone training we found out that Randers will be going down from four elders to two. Most likely what will happen is I will stay here with one of the other two elders because Elder Amos has been here for a while and its most likely they will want to keep an elder from each companionship. Our apartment is going to be sold because its the more expensive of the two, so we'll be needing to clear it out the next few weeks and then spend a week living with the other two elders before transfers.

Zone training was great, this next year instead of studying a different chapter of Preach My Gospel each month we will focus on using the Gospel of Jesus Christ to help others come unto Him. We discussed our purpose witch is to invite others to come unto Christ and receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.

This last week has been going great, the work has been slowly progressing for a while but this week we have seen a lot of evidence of the hastening here in Randers. The list of people we're working with is increasing and we've been finding some success getting back into contact with a lot of them recently.

Photos from Denmark

Email January 12, 2015

Email January 12, 2015 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

Bunch of Burtons

We were able to get back into contact with Peter Rasmussen, we're going to be having a family home evening with them and Familien Nielsen next Sunday. The last few weeks Peters parents have been staying with his family, and its been the first time in years that he has had his parents together under one roof. They are not fond of the church so we haven't been by to visit Peter and his family for a few weeks. He's been wanting to learn a lot about our family values in the church and we figured whats a better way to teach some of those values than through a family home evening!

We met with our friend Gert a few times this week and he's been reading from the Book of Mormon. He wants to give up drinking and has been taking a few alcohol recovery classes in which a lot of people mention God helping with their problem. He wants to find out if its true, he's currently Buddhist. We had found his name on an old record and decided to stop by, on the way we were talking to some people along the street and the second person we run into was Gert. It was a blessing that we decided to walk rather than bike.

Photos from Randers

Email January 5, 2015

Email January 5, 2015 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

Bunch of Burtons

Hey family! Well New years was exciting! Unlike last year we were right in the middle of the city rather than looking in on it. I expect its slightly what a war zone feels like. I had at least three fire works go off on the ground within 15 feet, pretty scary, not something I would recommend. I was able to get a few of the ground explosions on camera as well as one that flew sideways and hit a building. After a few minutes we moved to another location because a group of people next to us were pretty drunk and things were starting to get dangerous. We saw a few illegal explosions go off, some people buy these fire works from Germany that are more like a stick of dynamite that you throw, and the explosions are always huge. Alcohol and fireworks are not a good combination. And there is way to much of both here in December, being the only month fireworks are legal.

This week has been kind of crazy with New Years. On New Years Eve we weren't allowed out after 6:00 unless we were with members who would be able to take us home after. The next morning we spent the entire day deep cleaning our apartments, one of two days a year. So it hasn't been the most productive week, I'm glad things are starting to calm down and we're able to get back into a more normal routine, nothing of course is ever totally normal as a missionary.