This girl is on fire!.....and so is the Apartment... (Letters from Katherine - 09/23/2013)

Note:  We got a call from Katherine's Mission President on Sunday.  Seems like there was a bit of an issue with the apartment.

Letter 1
This girl is on fire!.....and so is the Apartment...

Hej!

Letter 2
We Didn't Start The Fire!!
(Response to my note - "Who left the curling iron plugged in?")

Hello!!!!

Yes, it's true. There was a fire in our Apartment due to some electrical issues. no one left anything plugged in. It is actually quite amazing that none of us our hurt. Sister Hall and I were fasting that day so we didn't go back for lunch. We considered going back to take a nap during our lunch hour, but i didn't feel good about that so we stayed out.

Pretty much everything is ruined. Fortunately I was able to get my passport and migraine medicine. Thank goodness. We did some shopping today. clothes are so expensive it makes me sick. Im sorry. I am officially the most expensive child.

We are doing well though. Elder and Sister Køster are serving a couples mission in Bornholm so we are staying in their home. It is definitely an upgrade from our Apartment.

Im still kind of having a hard time believing that it happened. The Wards here in Odense have been amazing. Words cannot Express how grateful I am for all the help, clothes, and food they have given us. We are so fortunate.

read D&C 84:77-99

Letter 3

Fire Sale!!!

passport is safe, migraine medicine is safe, area book is safe, and so are the scriptures that I have had since I was 8. I don't remember putting them in the case when we left that day, but when we went back to the Apartment they were in the case and protected from the fire. I had my camera with me so Pictures are fine. My journal is nasty, but it survived. What wasn't burned by the fire is completely damaged by smoke. so yeah. crazy huh?


Letter 4

Okay, take two.

I will try and explain Things better this time. But before I begin I would just like to say that I was able to go to the Copenhagen temple it was wonderful. Really, I had no idea how much I have missed the temple. We had to go to Copenhagen for my language test, (all missionaries have to take it) and after we got their we discovered that I wasn't scheduled to take the test, so that caused some stress but the people were very kind and worked with the office to let me take the test. Oh yeah and on the way I started having a migraine. So it was all just kind of hectic and then we had to be at the temple at a certain time so we literally ran there. It was so crazy getting there, but as soon as I stepped into the temple I was just overcome with so much Peace. It was such a good feeling. Im so grateful for the opportunity i had to go.

So back to the fire. Sister Hall and I had decided the night before to fast together. We left the Apartment at 10:30 and started contacting. There was a marathon taking place in Odense so we basically invited everyone watching the marathon to come to church. Lunch time came around, but we were fasting. The night before we considered taking a nap during our lunch hour but I just did not have a good feeling about that. I think i know why now. So we stayed out. Our church starts at 2, and towards the end of sacrament meeting the Sister Briscoe and Sister Bartholomew motioned for sister Hall and I to come out. Right then i knew something was wrong, but I had no idea what it was. We went Down in the basement and they told us that our Apartment had caught on fire and that everything was destroyed. Then we dropped to our knees and prayed together.

As soon as president found out he was on his way, so we waited for him to get to the church. when he got there we went and looked at the Apartment. I have some Pictures, but it doesn't do it Justice. EVERYTHING is Black and covered in soot. It was horrible.

The members have been amazing though. We are all doing well. We went shopping today so that was good. But everything is so expensive. 

I'm Soooo Tired!! (Letter From Katherine - 09/16/2013)

Hej min familie!

 

Like the subject line says, I am so tired. but doing great! I had the hardest time keeping my eyes open in sacrament meeting yesterday. Missionary life is exhausting haha It's worth it though:) Nothing too exciting has happened this week, but i'll give you a little run down of the weeks events.

 

So last week after p-day we had a dinner appointment with a young couple who was just recently married. They are so much fun! I don't know what for, but Sister Hall asked them what their favorite smells were haha....yeah. So they both said they love the smell of books. They then pulled out a bunch of their texts books so we could smell them. It was super funny. They are both returned missionaries as well. Julie served in the Oakland Sacramento mission and Christian served in Ogden Utah (woot woot!). They both loved their missions. It was a lot of fun talking to them about the experiences they had.

 

Tuesday we went to visit an investigator, but guess what? we accidentaly got on the wrong bus haha. I'm not sure how we managed that. So we weren't able to visit Helle (investigator) until later that evening. So before that, we went to another appointment and then to CUV (young single adult activity). CUV is every tuesday and it is always a lot of fun. We were hoping that one of our investigators would come, but he wasn't able to make it. The Ivie's are the ones that run the center. We don't always go to CUV, but it's a lot of fun when we do. Okay so after CUV we went to try and visit Helle again. So she answers the door and we're about to make an appointment with her when her neighbor comes around the corner and told Helle that she could not make an appointment with us. The neighbor was pretty upset and told us to leave. We started walking away when the neighbor came up to us and explained that Helle has a brain injury and can't handle visits from us. The whole situation was kind of sad. We were able to find a lot of potentials in her area though, so that was good.

 

So we went to visit this less active family, but it turned out that they live quite a ways away. on our way there we asked a man for directions and we ended up talking to him for quite a while. When we started back on our trek to find the pedersons we realized that we needed to run back to the bus stop to catch our bus. We really had to run. It was super funny. We would point to something in the distance and say okay, we'll run to that tree and then we can walk for a second. So we did that a few times when we saw our bus pass in the distance. So yeah we missed our bus. haha I don't know why i'm telling you all these details. haha sorry if this e-mail is long and boring! 

 

Later that night we had a dinner appointment with Familie Fredereksen. He is the stake president, and I met their daughter at the MTC. We had frikadæller! not sure if that's how you spell that... They were delicious. And guess what? That was the first time that I really felt like I understood danish. It was awesome! There's hope for me learning danish after all! Don't get me wrong though, it's still super hard.

 

Sister Hall and I have been working a lot with Nina. Unfortunately her daughter Lucia doesn't want to meet with us. Sad huh? we're going to try and get the primary kids involved. It's hard though because they live in svendborg which is kind of far away. Nina is doing awesome though and is getting ready for the ward temple trip so she can do baptisms. She wants to take her mom's name so we have been doing family history with her.

 

There is also a new member named Hellen. She was actually baptized in England the same time that Nina was baptized. Hellen is 18 and she is wonderful. She is Danish but lived in England with her family for a while and is now back in Denmark for school. She fed the missionaries on Saturday and it was a lot of fun. She has a cute little kitten too! So yeah, Sister Hall and I have been working with them and teaching them the new member lessons.

 

Yesterday Biskop told us that he wants us visiting atleast one member every day. Active eller inactive. I think it's a great idea. There will be two more missionaries in our ward that will be coming pretty soon depending on visas. Some missionaries from last transfer still haven't gotten their visas. My group was very lucky to have gotten them so quickly. Transfers are coming up. Not this wednesday but next wednesday im not sure what is going to happen but I would be sad to leave Odense. I love it here. But at the same time I think it would be exciting to serve somewhere else. I have decided that If I do leave Odense I would love to serve here again at the end of my mission. So yeah!

 

We're still trying to find people to teach. We have been meeting with members quite a bit and so far we haven't gotten too many referrals. The mission is switching gears and the new missionaries are kind of the start of that. At zone trainings we have talked about effective ways of finding people and guess what? bonking doors and contacting isn't one of them. It's all through the members. Things will pick up though, because the members are starting to catch on.

 

Well Family, I love you all so much. I hope you have a wonderful week!

 

Love Katherine   

Hej min familie! (Letter From Katherine - 09/09/2013)

Hej min familie!

 

As of right now sister Hall and I don't have very many investigators...but all is well! We have spent a lot of time meeting with our Ward members and doing service. It has been a lot of fun getting to know the Ward members better. I love my Ward here in Odense! Yesterday the missionaries from both first and second Ward sang in sacrament meeting. I lucked out and got to play the piano, which I was glad for. A couple of the elders are completely tone deaf so earlier in the week when we were practicing I got the giggles way bad, so its a good thing I wasn't singing with them because I probably would have lost it. I dont know why, but for some reason I think it's the most funny thing ever when tone deaf people sing. I think it sounded okay though. If not it's the thought that Counts right? I also got to play the piano in primary Again. I love being in primary! The children are super funny. One of the Little boys WHO - I don't know why it capitilizes random Words or letters. Anyways, the Little boy that gave a talk in primary showed the mormon message of the the boy WHO ran races with the handicap boy, and then he talked about serving others. The Little kids loved the video and they were so into it. They are usually quite rowdy, but while they were watching it was dead silent It was really sweet. So yeah I love being in primary, it's a lot of fun.

 

Sister Hall and I had a really neat experience this week. After CUV (the Young single adults activity) we went to visit a woman that sister Nuttall and I had met like sometime in July I think. The first time we met her she talked to us on her doorstep for a while and then told us to come back. When we went back she told us that she would be on vacation for quite a while and that we should try in like a month. So we went back and she wasn't home. Well Sister Hall and I decided to try Again. We went and knocked on her door and guess what. She wasn't home. Sister Hall suggested that we go and visit a member who lived close by, and I thought that was a good idea but I told her that I felt like there was something else we needed to be doing. So she asked, "Okay, what is it?" and I said, "I don't know. I just know that there is something else we should be doing." So I tried going through the Ward list to see if there was someone else that we should visit. Nothing really felt right so we decided to go visit the member that Sister Hall suggested. We got on our bikes and began to head out when we decided that we needed to pray about our decision. So right there in the middle of the road we said a prayer. And guess who came riding by on their bike? The potential who wasn't home. She asked us what we were doing and we told her we were praying. We talked to her for a few minutes and she gaves us her number and told us to call her and come back. It was really cool. It was just another reminder that although at times we may feel a Little lost as to what we should do, the lord will always guide us. It is his Work after all:)

 

Sister Hall and I also did some good ol' service this week. We went over to Lan Le's house and moved this gigantic pile of Wood that was on the side of her house into the middle of the yard and then burned it. We found toads, spiders, and giant snails during the Whole process. We also got stung by stinging neddle. We totes got the job done though! After that we went to Bishop's house and helped get ready for the Ward party. It was a lot of fun! I really have enjoyed getting to know the Ward better.

 

Last Tuesday we had an appointment with an investigator and we took JJ, a member, with us. We got to the appointment and the lady told us that she wasn't feeling too well and she wanted us to come back the next day. We were a Little disappointed when JJ said, "well what's next? there is obviously someone in this area who needs to see us." I loved that he said that, because if he hadn't I think we would have left the area to visit other people. We decided to knock doors and it was actually pretty succesful. We talked to a lady for quite a while and she said She's not so sure if this will change her life or anything, but she is willing to give it a try. haha Little does she know:) A lot of the people in the area gave us their numbers, which usually never happens. JJ called it a gold mine. A Little bit about JJ, he is from Greenland! Cool huh! he served a mission in Ogden Utah. He's awesome and a huge help with missionary Work. As of now missionaries aren't serving in Greenland, but I think that will change soon. JJ is one of 3 members from Greenland. He has a really good spirit about him, it's kind of hard to explaing, but you can just tell that the greenlandic people are special people. I can't wait for the day when missionaries can serve there.

 

So last night we had an eating appointment. It was delicious like always, but after it was dark and rainy and we had to ride our bikes home. The elders still don't have bikes so the members offered to give them a ride. Are elders are so chivilrous that they offered to ride our bikes home so we could ride in the car. NOT!!! So there we are riding in the rain when all the sudden my chain falls off. Okay, so I fixed it. It falls off Again. After the third time I was just like whatever I'm walking. haha typical missionary experience. It was funny.

 

You know, it's tough not having people to teach, but I'm happy. I really am so grateful to be here serving the Lord. I know that he knows what he is doing, and it is so important for me to rely on him completely.

 

I love you all so much! I'm so grateful for all your love and support. You're always in my prayers.

 

MKH

Katherine

Helloooo!!!! (Letter From Katherine - 09/02/2013)

Hello my dear family,

So since Sister Hall and I don't have too many investigators we started off the week just trying to visit a lot of members. It was great and I really enjoyed getting to know some of them better. Wednesday we had a huge service project. An elderly lady is moving to a nursing home and she needed help cleaning out her apartment. She is also an artist and a hoarder, so it was a huge project, and for the most part it was only the missionaries that were there to help. So that took up a lot of our time this week, and then a couple of the sisters including sister Hall got sick. So it has been kind of another weird week, but don't worry.  All is well. I'm happy.

It seems like the people we do meet with are really nice and happy to meet with us, and the first lesson goes really well, but when we try and schedule another time with them, they never respond, so that's kind of a bummer, but I KNOW that there are people here ready to hear the gospel. I just hope i'm doing all that I can to find them.

It is definitely fall. The last few days of August I could feel the weather changing and yesterday and today it feels totally and completely like fall. I love fall but it is quite chilly here in Denmark!

I have loved having a 4 sister apartment. We have been having a lot of fun together. It's going to be weird when I live in an apartment with just me and my companion.

I'm sorry I don't have a lot to say again this week. I'm not discouraged though I promise. It just hasn't been the most exciting week.

I hope you are all doing well and that you know I love you so much! Thank you for all your love and support.

Love Katherine