Letter From Katherine (06/17/2013)

Hej fra Danmark!

Hello Family!

I am in here in Denmark, can you believe it, I cant figure out how to get the question mark to work on this keyboard.

Anyways, I was so happy to hear Christina's happy news. It made my day.

It's been kind of a crazy week. I didn't sleep very well on the flight from Texas to London, and I was super bummed that I couldn't get the calling card to work. I tried what you said to do Dad, and it still wouldn't work. It was something with the pay phones in London. But I will get to skype from a Members house in December, so that will be fun.

I actually sat by a man on the flight from London to Copenhagen who is an inactive member. He is from London and he said that it was sister missionaries that taught him. He said something happened that shook his faith and now he is agnostic, but if he had to choose between which churches were true it would be the LDS church. It was an interesting conversation, and kind of sad. He told me to just be myself, and don't be pushy with people. He also said to hand out a lot of  copies of the Liahona magazine because it has touching stories in it. He was very kind and said that he thought it was very interesting that his seat was next to a missionaries seat. I hope he figures everything out.

When we landed in Copenhagen the assistants and President and Sister Sederholm were there to pick us up. It was very exciting! We went straight to the mission home and unloaded our luggage. Dinner was prepared for us by some members in the ward. It was delicious. I can understand why sister missionaries gain weight here in Denmark. After Dinner I can't remember what happened. Im getting the days mixed up. The next day is when we went to see Christus statue. Holy Cow. It was amazing. Above the statue it says this is my beloved son, here him. and below it says come to me. It was so cool. You have to see it someday. After going to see the Christus statue we went to the mission office and had some training, and we were able to contact on the street! it was very exciting. Then I had my interview with President Sederholm, It went really well, I really like him and his wife. They have two children living with them in the mission home.  K, I really can't remember what order we did everything. I wrote it down in my journal so it's all good. We went and saw a castle and it was super mega fedt! I will send pictures. We also had our first kabobs. They were delicious. One of my teachers in the MTC was obsessed with kabobs. I really enjoyed my time in the mission home, It was so fun. We also had a testimony meeting, and president sederholms testimony was so powerful. One of the nights Sister Sederholm told us the  story of how they were called, and was very neat. The spirit was so strong, and it testified to me that they have been called of God.

My companion is Sister Nuttal from Shelly Idaho. She is 24. She is very kind.  Funny story. We were riding our bikes yesterday, oh yeah, we ride bikes all the time. One of the members in the ward is letting me borrow one. Anyways, we were riding our bikes yesterday and she rides soooooo fast! Holy Cow! I have had to tell her to slow down, because I haven't been doing this for 8 months like she has. So at one point she got way far ahead of me and then I lost her. Yeah, she was no where to be seen. So there I was, In Denmark, with no companion, no phone, and I didn't know the address to our apartment. So the first thing I did was pray. I immediately felt calm about the whole situation. The spirit guided me step by step the things which I should do. At first I just stopped and waited a while for her. I thought she would realize I wasn't behind her, but she never came back. So then I was like should I go look for her or try and find my way back to the apartment. I decided to try and find the apartment. Before I knew it, I found the apartment! Luckily I had the keys so i went in and prayed some more. Finally I found a phone number in the apartment and I went outside asking strangers if I could borrow their phones. It took like 4 tries before I found someone who would let me make a quick phone call. The phone number was the sister training leaders number and I asked her to call sister Nuttal to tell her I was back at the apartment. So yeah, finally sister Nuttal shows up and she was just in tears. I felt so bad. But all is well. I should have kept up with her

So i'm serving in Odensa. It is a city on the island of fyn. It's beautiful and so fun! I do not know my way around very well, and neither does sister Nuttal. she has only been here for 3 weeks. So we're trying to figure that all out.

Guess what. there are 8 missionaries here in Odensa. That's unheard of. there are two sets of missionaries in the two wards. a sister companionship, and an elder companionship. When sister Nuttal and I were walking one day we actually ran into the elders. It was so cool! The Lord is hastening his work! I am in the 2nd ward, but sunday I went to both sacrament meetings and had to bear my testimony in danish. Kind of scarry, but it went well. I loved church here, but it was really hard to stay awake because I could barely understand what they were saying.

Cool story. So Friday we met with one of our investigators. her name is Aisha and she is muslim. We talked about a lot of things, and at the end I asked If when she found the things we were talking about to be true If she would be baptized! I was so nervous to ask her, especially in Danish, but it was a really cool experience.

Another funny story. So our apartment has four sisters in it. Sister Briscoe has lived in Denmark before, so her danish is pretty good. Well before Sister Ripplinger and I got here Sister Briscoe and Sister Nuttal were companions. One time when they were in a government building renewing sister Nuttals visa Sister Briscoe started talking to this family who spoke very little danish. She scheduled an apointment with them to come and talk about the gospel though. So sister Nuttal and I went to go see them. So we get there and it turns out that they thought we worked for the government and could help them get their visas faster or something. Yeah they weren't interested at all in the gospel and it was a really funny/ awkward situation.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot to tell you. we had to take the train to get from copenhagen to odensa. There were 11 missionaries on the train and we all had a ton of luggage. It was the most stressful thing of my life. But It was also way cool because I was able to talk to some people about what I'm doing as a missionary. I gave two of them copies of the Liahona, just like that guy said.

Im sorry my email is so scattered. So much has happened! I love it here. It's so hard, but I love it. I'm looking forward to the day that I can understand Danish. Have fun in Yosemite!

Love Katherine