I just bought a really expensive coat and I'm sorry. It should keep me warm this winter though. (Letter From Katherine - 10/14/2013)

Hello my dear family!

It has been a good week. 

last Monday Sister Hall and i and two of the elders had family home evening at an eldery couples house. It was so much fun! After sharing a lesson with them we tried to teach them how to play phase 10. After about 10 minutes into it, Edmond told us that he just didn't get it and he was going to go into the kitchen and get dessert ready. It was pretty funny. Trying to teach people how to play phase 10 in not so good Danish is quite hard haha. They are such a wonderful couple though and they have been giving us quite a few of refferals lately. One of them lives in a kloster which is the danish equivalent of a Monestary. So we went to visit her and we saw Nuns! The lady that we went to visit is not a nun though. She use to be a member and she called the Nielsens up and told them that she wants to be a member again. She was a hoot. She is an elderly woman and i'm not exactly sure how with it she is, but we are excited to see how we can help her. She told us that she was very happy for us to come and to come back next week. I will keep you posted with how it goes.

Tuesday we had another lesson with Marejka, she is the girl from Germany who is friends with one of the young single adults. She is very open, and she really liked General Conference. Our other investigator Mona- she was also at general conference- told us that she wants to meet with us after she finishes the book of mormon. She said she should be finished either today or tomorrow, and yesterday she went to all 3 meetings of church in Copenhagen. She told one of the young single adults that while she was reading the book of mormon she gained a testimony of it and couldn't stop crying, and couldn't put it down. The book of mormon seems to do that to you doesn't it? :) We are really excited to start meeting with her. 

Denmark has a lot of random vacation weeks, and this week is one of them so a lot of our investigators are out of town. That kind of makes things hard but we're going to try and do a lot of service for the members in our ward. So you know how we have 6 missionaries in our ward now? Well believe it or not a lot of the members are signing up to feed all 6 of us. Crazy huh!

Yesterday a girl leaving on her mission spoke.

She will be serving in Canada french and spanish speaking. She is crazy, the good kind of course, and her testimony was powerful. I am so excited for her. We went to her house after meetings yesterday. It was crazy because she and her family would be driving to Copenhagen at 2 am and then should we be flying to the MTC in provo. It was kind of sad because they had the open house after church, and then she was off! She didn't even have any down time. But that might have been better for her because it didn't leave her with much time to think about it. There were a bunch of non members at her house, so it was a good experience to talk to them and answer some of their questions about missionary work.

So I don't think I have ever really been a sleep talker, but appearently one night when Sister Hall was sleep talking I started talking back to her. Funny thing is that the conversation was in Danish. haha. Last night sister Hall was contacting in her sleep. It was quite hilarious.

Things are going well here in Odense. Saturday the sisters in the other ward had a baptism. It was a beautiful service, and the spirit was very strong. I was in charge of playing the piano which I love, because I don't get to play very often. After the service was over and people were eating refreshments I continued playing postlude and a little girl came up and just started singing. It was pretty cute. It reminded me of how Brooklyn McKay would always come up to mom after primay and ask if she would play for her to sing.

The house that we are living in hasn't caught on fire or anything so that is good. haha I am

going to send some pictures of it today so you can get a taste of what it looks like. It is quite a bit bigger than our apartment which means there is a lot more cleaning to do. that's okay though! the heated tile floors and the message chair make it all worth it haha.

This week is the Harry Potter Festival! one of the members is in charge of the quittich tournaments and he asked if we could help him run it. how cool is that?! I will be sure to take lots of pictures.

So yeah I think that's about it. It was a good week.

I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!

Love Katherine 

ps. Remember those lovely dansko shoes? Well they were completely protected from the fire, so I have worn them a little. I am very grateful for them, but I'm not going to lie, they haven't gotten any cuter. :) 

Letter From Katherine - October 30 2013

Hello my dear family!

 

I have some good news. We were able to get back into the apartment and get a lot more than we expected out. Everyone told us that our clothes were ruined, but we decided to try and wash them anyways. Fortunately the home we are staying in has a washing machine and a dryer so we have been using it pretty constantly. The smoke is coming out of some of the clothes, but some are ruined. We were able to save a lot more than I thought though. My luggage was covered in soot, but I took it out of the apartment anyways and I will try my best to clean it. It has been a crazy week. We only had a certain amount of time to get our things out of the apartment so we were quite busy with that, and then trying to clean what we got out. It hasn't been a typical missionary week that's for sure. It has been really hard, and I am now kind of dealing with anxiety. I actually brought it up to the other sisters today and they said they were all feeling the same way, so that gave me some comfort haha. 

So transfers happened. Sister Hall and I will be staying here in Odense. I was actually really surprised that I wasn't being transfered. I feel extremely blessed to stay here in Odense, but I was thinking it would be easier to get back into missionary mode after the fire by moving to a different area. It's just kind of hard because I feel like i have worked the area. At the same time though, I really think things will be picking up. 

Yesterday in church relief society was combined with the men and the lesson was all about missionary work. It was held in the chapel, and our Bishop had us come sit on the stand while he explained that the work cannot be done without the members. It was awesome. I have not been able to see the Relief Society broadcast yet, but President told us to find some time this week and watch it. I am looking forward to that and also General conference. I love general conference!!! It will be different not watching it with the family though that's for sure. 

Guess who is in my district now? Dane's little brother! haha he is a lot like Dane. It has been fun getting to know him. He will be moving to the first ward on thursday because his companion, elder larsen, will be training. We had a dinner appointmentment with Ninna (she was just recently baptized) and it was great! Her husband hasn't been supportive of her joining the church, but he has gone from not letting us visit to being kinder every time we do visit. 

Yesterday we had a fireside for the young single adults. It was awesome. There was a great turn out, 20 young adults, 6 of which were not members. We watched the Joseph Smith movie and then had a couple of people bear their testimonies on the resteration afterwards. A lot of the young adults are returned missionaries so they are doing a great job of inviting people to activities.

So yeah, things are going well. It has been kind of a stressfull week, but we're getting back in the routine of missionær arbejde. I can't remember if I told you, but we are staying in a couple's home who is serving a mission on Bornholm. It is a very nice home. The only problem is that it is kind of a ways out in first ward so it takes a while to get to our area. Thank goodness for busses! Both wards have been so helpful and generous. Words cannot even express how grateful I am for the members help. They have been awesome. We are definitely being taken care of here in Odense, actually in all of Denmark. there have been members from all over Denmark calling to see how they can help us. We are so blessed. 

Thank you for all your love and support. Have fun celebrating Adam's Birthday!!! I will make sure to celebrate here in Denmark. I love you all so so much. 

Love Katherine xoxox