Hej min familie (Letter From Katherine - 03/10/2014)

Hello!

Another week has come and gone. I have been transferred to Lyngby. It's near Copenhagen and President is actually in my Ward ha ha. Guess who is my companion?? Sister Bishop! we were companions in the MTC. It's kind of fun to be reunited. It feels really good to be here. It's kind of hard to explain, but I've never felt so good about transfers before, but I am really excited to be here. I left Esbjerg early this morning, and I have to admit I was up a Little late packing:/ I hate packing. I almost have a panic attack every time ha ha. I had all my clothes in my bag and I was like okay, this isn't working so I went through them and took a few Things out that I didn't need anymore. I ended up packing lighter than a lot of the elders. How about that? Moving luggage from train to train to bus is always a process, but it always Works out just fine. My bike is still in Esbjerg, but one of the elders will be bringing it when he comes to Copenhagen on Wednesday. I am sooooo grateful I didn't have to take it with me today. It would have been impossible.

Yesterday was Emilie's baptism. It was wonderful. She was very ready to be baptized. It has been such a good experience teaching her and getting to know her Family better. I will always remember it. Esbjerg was great, but I felt ready to leave. It was hard saying goodbye to Ana Marie and Min. I didn't realize it would be that hard.

Saturday and Sunday was our stake conference. The missionaries were invited to attend the Saturday meeting in Aarhus. It was a really good meeting. Sister Vige and I rode up with a couple in our Ward and they took us out to eat before the meeting began. It was our birthday dinner:)

Thursday we had a zone conference in Aarhus. It was all about Family history and how it can be used to help us find people to teach. In the meeting I really had the impression that my Family history is part of why I am here in Denmark. It was really neat. I'm not exactly sure what it Means, but it was neat.

I'm kind of having a hard time thinking of Things that happened last week. I'm sorry!

sister Vige and I had a great birthday. Thank you for the birthday wishes! I'm sorry this is a lame email. I hope you all have a great week!

Love Katherine

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Letter From Katherine - 03/03/2014)

My dear family,

 First of all thank you so much for the birthday wishes! They have made my day:) I think it's really weird that I am twenty years old now. I'm so OLD! I am still with Sister Vige so we get to celebrate our birthdays together. It's kind of nice because neither one of us has to worry about making the day special for the other one:) haha

So this week has been pretty crazy. Monday evening we went to Horsens for exchanges. So we were there Monday night and pretty much all of Tuesday. I had a good time. I like exchanges, I think it's kind of fun to be in a different area for a day. plus, it's always good to see Sister Briscoe. We have a special bond because our apartment burnt down. haha I spent the majority of the day contacting people and doing a service project.

Wednesday there was a class that came to the church to see what it was all about. There were about 20 14 and 15 year olds. It's happened once before since I have been in Esbjerg. It went pretty well....At one point the girls went with the sisters and the boys went with the elders. The girls didn't say anything. Siter Vige and I were trying so hard to talk to them and get them to ask questions, but all that could be heard was the sound of crickets. Way awkward but funny. I always get the giggles in awkward situations. That must just be how I cope with them.

When we were finished with them we got a call from a member in the ward asking us if we would be on his tv show. He asked if we could do it thursday or friday but we couldn't. So sister Vige told him that we could do it right then. I was like NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! He told us he would make some calls and get back to us. Within 2 minutes he called back and asked us to be there in 45 minutes. I was not looking forward to it to say the least. Funny story, on the bus ride over to his recording studio I said a prayer in my head that I would be calm and confident. As soon as I said amen guess what song came on the radio?? This Girl is on Fire! haha I couldn't help but smile. So yeah, we were on tv. He recorded two interviews, the first one was 30 minutes long and the second was 14 minutes long. It went okay I think. But I was happy to have it over with.

Thursday we had our district activity in Sønderborg. It was a lot of fun. The weather was perfect. We went to this castle and sculpture park and then went back to the church and made food. We were in Sønderborg for the majority of the day.

Friday we went to Copenhagen! We were able to attend the temple with Helge and her mom (Emilie's aunt and grandma) It was wonderful. I love the temple. It's about a 3 hour drive from Esbjerg and we did 2 endowment sessions and a lot of initiatory so we were there the whole day. Guess what happened while we were there? A man came into the womens dressing room asking for help because he had never been there before. Everyone was like what the? you can't be in here. Turns out he was a taxi driver looking for the old woman he was supposed to pick up. He appearently came in through the side door that was suppoed to be locked. Not good.

Saturday we were able to visit Ana Marie and Min. They are doing well, but there car has not been working well and they live 30 minutes away from the church. They were in church yesterday, but there car stopped 4 times on the way there. We also had a dinner appointment with Sofie, she is the one who knits. She came to sacrament meeting yesterday! I was so happy to see her there. She hasn't been to church in years.

Emilie is doing well and will be getting baptised this Sunday. She's cute. I taught her the gimme a break hand shake thing. It made me think of when Heather feather taught it to us that when we were in Nauvoo :)

So yeah, this week we were kind of all over Denmark. Things are going well and we will find out about transfers on wednesday. this week we have our zone conference in Århus. I am looking forward to seeing sister Packard.

Anyways, It was so good to hear from all of you. It sounds like you are having a good time in Midway. I love you!! Have a wonderful week.

Love Katherine

HEJ!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello my dear Family,

Guess what? So I think I told you that the sister missionary shoes that we bought before my mission survived the fire. Well Tuesday Sister Vige and I were like, okay we should try and Wear them. So we did it. I fell twice, and she tripped once, all in one day. They are way comfy, but super dangerous!!! I do have to admit though that the first time I fell Down the stairs in them I was trying to text someone at the same time. I thought the stairs ended, but there were about 4 steps left. haha I couldn't move my ankle for a bit so I just layed there and laughed. It was kind of bad but super funny. The second time after an appointment I was putting my coat on and I don't even know what happened but that same ankle just gave out and I was on the ground once Again. haha It hurt so bad! but it was quite funny. So then walking back to our appartment Sister Vige tripped and she went flying. She landed on her stomach and I thought I was going to wet my pants from laughing so hard. Don't worry, she didn't get hurt. We decided to put those shoes away for a Little while:)

It has been kind of an interesting week. A lot of times at the end of the day Sister Vige and I will say to each other, It's been a weird day. But, pretty much every day as a missionary is a weird day. Last pday it was pretty nice outside so we finally went to the Beach! We invited the elders to come with. how about that. We played a Little soccer, and it just reconfirmed to me that soccer has never been my sport. haha

So the Ward here in Esbjerg is pretty much all related. Bishop's parents our in the ward and last week his father passed away. Tuesday was the funeral, and Bishop wanted the missionaries there. His dad was such a sweet man. I think he was 86, but i'm not sure. I remember at the Christmas concert when Sister Packard and I had finshed our song and on our way back to our seats he grabbed my hand and just smiled. He didn't let go for quite a while. I can't remember what he said, or if he said anything at all, but it was just so sweet.

Before the funeral began the Family was by the door greeting people and I was overwhelmed with their welcoming and loving hearts. It was a day for their father/husband/grandpa, but they were so loving and gracious towards everyone. IT was a really good experience for me.

We had an appointment with Emilie afterwards, and her Aunt Helge made us a good ol' American breakfast for dinner. It was so good! I do have to admit though, that I miss our home made syrup:) Helge actually invited Sister Vige and I to go to the temple with her on Friday. We are just waiting to see if we have permission from President. I would love to go to the temple so much.

We have been teaching a man named Thomas. He was a former Jehova's Witness. Our lessons with him are quite exciting! He keeps us on our toes haha but he actually is pretty accepting after some explination of course. Last week the member we took with us to his lesson started talking about the temple and baptisms for the dead. He was like what the?... We are also working with a girl from Huang! she is from China and she is awesome! Saturday we taught her Danish and then taught her about the gospel. After, we ate lunch together. She made us some real chinese food and it was so spicy! but it was way good.

A few years ago there was a chinese girl here studying in Esbjerg and she actually got baptized. She has since returned home and now her Whole Family are members of the church. How cool would it be if the same thing happened with Huang? It has been interesting teaching her because she really has no background on christianity. She is so sweet and i'm really enjoying her.

Ana Marie and Min are doing well, but their car isn't working. I can't remember if I told you, but Ana Marie is pregnant and she has been pretty sick. Other than that though they are doing well. Sister Packard's mom sent them the children book of mormon and they were so excited about it! they love it.

ummmm let's see...Today we will be going to Horsens for splits so that should be fun. Transfers are coming up on the 10th. I have a feeling that I will be leaving but ya never know.

IT sounds like you have had a very busy week. Time really is flying I can't believe it. It's almost March! I hope you all know that I love you very much. Have a wonderful week!

Love Katherine

Letter From Katherine - 02/17/2014

Hi Family,

Things are going well here in Esbjerg. Last Monday we were able to finally meet with the girl from the library! I don't know if I have told you about her, but she is always here in the library and she is quite the hoot. A while back we got her number and have tried to set something up. Last week she came up to us and was like okay, when do you want to meet, and we said tonight. So that night we met her at the church, gave her a church tour and baked cookies with her. Cookies get people to like you. haha it works. Later in the week we met with her again and watched the Joseph Smith video. She really liked it.

Tuesday we spent a lot of time with helping a member in our ward clean a farm house. We cleaned the kitched cubarbs- how in the world do you spell cubarbs? It took quite a while, but afterwards we got a tour of the farm! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me:( but it was just a cow milking farm, so we pretty much saw all of the cows and where they were milked. It was fun. After the service project we had an appointment with a young man named Thomas. Problem was we didn't have time to change out of our service clothes so we changed behind this shed thing. The member we were with thought that that was pretty funny.

Wednesday we had our zone training in Frederecia. After Sister Vige and I went  lunch with some of the elders. Elders.... haha

Ana Marie and Min are doing well. We are trying to get them to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead. It's kind of hard because it's pretty expensive for them to travel to Copenhagen. There car also has stopped working. not good. they live about 30 minutes away from the church and it's pretty expensive to buy a train ticket for all four of them. I'm hoping and praying that there car will be up and running soon.

I played the piano in sacrament meeting. it was kind of sad doing it without the violin!

This week wasn't too exciting so I don't really have much to say. I'm sorry!

It sounds like last week was pretty crazy for all of you. I am so grateful to hear that Christina is doing okay. I'm sure that was quite the scare. I'm so grateful that we have a Heavenly Father who knows us, loves us and has a plan for us. I trust him. 

The weather is wonderful here in Esbjerg today. We are going to the beach! I will take pictures. I love you all so so much and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love Katherine  

hvasså? (Letter From Katherine - 02/10/2014)

Hello my dear Family!

We have had another lovely week here in Esbjerg. I have been able to notice the days staying lighter longer, so that that has been great. It actually seems to be kind of Warming up. I'm hoping for an early spring. In the beginning of the week the sun even shone (is shone a Word?) for two days in a row! It was wonderful! I think now that I have lived in Denmark during the Winter I have a new appreciation for the sun. haha I seem to begin all of my emails home with a description of the weather. Small talk...haha

So lets see. what happened last week. We are still teaching Emilie, and it has been a lot of fun. We try to come up with creative ways to help her understand the gospel principles. Last week we talked to her about keeping the sabbath day holy. We had ice cream, and it represeanted Sunday. We had all sorts of different toppings, chocolate sauce, ketchup, salt and pepper, sprinkles. etc. So we used the example of going shopping on sunday is like putting ketchup on ice cream etc. Not sure if how i'm describing this is making sense... but spending time with Family on sunday is like putting the chocolate sauce on the ice cream, and we just used different examples like that. It was a lot of fun. I remember one of the counselors at EFY did it with us an ever since then I have wanted to try it.

So in the beginning of December Sister Packard and I contacted this woman on the street named Britta. She seemed very posotive and gave us her contact information. We tried calling her many times, but never got an answer. One day I thought hey, we should try calling her Again. I'm so glad that we did because she answered and we were able to Schedule an appointment with her. Just last week we went to Vejen, where she lives, and taught her the restoration. It went really well. We invited her to be baptized on the 15 of March and she said yes. She told us to make sure and write that date Down so she doesn't forget haha after that lesson I was like okay, that was too easy she is extremely prepared. She knew some members a long time ago and she told us that she wanted what they had. She was just waiting for the opportunity.

I remember when Sister Packard and I contacted her, we didn't have any strong impressions that we needed to talk to her, she was just the next person on the street. She was super posotive, but when we tried calling her we never got an answer. I tried calling a bunch of times and i'm honestly surprised that I didn't just stop trying.  I just think it's really neat because now looking back on the situation we can see how the Holy Ghost was really guiding us and helping us with the decisions we made, like contacting her and continuing to try and call her.

Guess what? we ate crocodile this week! I can now say that I have eaten something crazy on my mission. It actually didn't taste bad. But i'm not sure why they chose crocodile haha for dessert we had licorice cup cakes. The Danes love their licorice!

So the week before last week we met this super cool asian girl. Last week we taught her and her friend Danish. It was a lot of fun! We gave them a tour around the church, showed them the church website, and then taught some Danish. They don't have any understanding of christianity, I couldn't believe it. They were super interested and they loved that the church is World wide. They also loved looking at all the different temples. It was great! *^-^*

You know Sofie? She's the one that knitted me a sweater. She also knitted one for my future child. It is so dang cute. I will attach a Picture. We had a dinner appointment with her on saturday and she has this super cool ice cream machine. So guess what flavor of ice cream we had for dessert? Yep, You guessed it, Licorice! haha it was way good.

Jamen Altså...that's pretty much it for the week.

Oh I almost forgot! So we had a lesson with Ana Marie and Min and we talked about the Holy Ghost. We asked them to share experiences that they have had since having the gift of the Holy Ghost. Ana Marie talked about always having a Peace of mind and Min said he can understand the scriptures like he has never been able to before. They said it's so different than before. They also talked about how they didn't have any Money for tithing so they paid it anyway:) they said they ended up having Money left over for the month. I love hearing the experiences they are having. They are so wonderful. Last week Min said, "If you need anything just say sister, We're Family" I almost broke Down in tears. I love them so much.

Things are going well. I can't believe how fast time is flying. I hope you all have a wonderful week. I love you!!!

Love Katherine

I can actually see the sun today! (Letter from Katherine - 02/02/2014)

Hello Family!

The sun is shining today! I would say that it even feels like spring, but the position of the sun makes it feel like it's fall. It's really weird. I'm just happy that the sun is out though. since being here in Esbjerg I can count on one hand how many times I have seen the sun. haha hopefully spring comes early this year!

Right now I have a migraine. So if my email doesn't make any sense i'm sorry. This is the first one I have had in forever. i was starting to think that I would never have one again. hah! who was I kidding?

Well now that I have informed you about the weather here in Esbjerg and my migraines I can get to the good stuff:)

Pretty much there isn't really nothing new. haha We got transfer calls last week and I will be staying here in Esbjerg. I'm happy with staying here, but I would have been fine leaving. This transfer is a short one though so I guess we will see what happens. Sister Vige and I will be able to celebrate our birthday together though, so that will be fun.

Last Monday we had an appointment with Emilie. She told us that she wants to be baptized, but she is worried about her dad. We taught her the restoration and it was a sweet experience. It's a completely different experience teaching a child. There is a special spirit there.

We had our district meeting in Sønderborg which was fun. It's supposed to be very beautiful, but I wouldn't know because it was snowing a lot so we couldn't really tell what the city looked like. The elders in Sønderborg said that the only way we could have our district meeting there was if I made cinnamon rolls. haha so the night before we made cinnamon rolls. We woke up at 5 and took like a 3 hour train to Sønderborg. It was fun.

We also had exchanges in horsens with the sister training leadesrs. I was reunited with Sister Briscoe! One of the less actives they have been working with invited the missionaries to go to her church, the 7 day advent church...or something like that. So we went and stayed for their fælles spisning. We totally got fellowshipped by them. haha there was a group of young single adults there that were from Moldovia. one of them was pretty attractive. When we were talking to him sister Briscoe asked him where he works at, but he understood it as where do you work out. hahahahahaha I had a hard time trying not to laugh. After our experience there we went to an appointment. The son of the lady we went to visit couldn't find his passport and he was supposed to be leaving for the U.S. that night. So we all prayed together to find it, and then we searched the apartment from top to bottom. I'm sure Carlos, (the son) loved having sister missionaries go through everything in his room. haha poor kid. We ended not being able to find it. I really thought we would be able to. But we called later that night to see if they had found it, and it turns out that one of his friends had it. After that we gave Isabella's dad a church tour. Isabella is the girl in odense who was recently baptized. Her family lives in horsens and has shown some interest in the church. So all in all we had a good time in Horsens.

Okay so yesterday Josephina came to church. Josephina is the woman from the congo. She is a hoot! She took the train to esbjerg, but didn't have any money to take the bus to the church. So after sacrament meeting we went on splits and I rode with one of the members to go and pick josephina up. She looked beautiful! She was wearing her african clothing, head dress and all. Elder Hansen said, "wow, it looks like she came straight from the mother land." haha She looked great! in relief society the relief society president asked for Sister Vige and I to share how our work has been going. We talked a little bit about our goals and who we have been working with. I also said something along the lines of and we have a friend here to day, her name is josephina. As soon Josephina heard her name she came up to the front of the room and started introducing herself. Not only was it an introduction but it was pretty much her life story. haha I was like okay how am I going to get her to sit back down without being rude. about 15 min later I was able to finally wrap it up. haha it was funny. 

 

That was pretty much our week. Actually that's not true. but those are the main things that happened. 

It was fun reading that you went to the Carl Bloch exhibit. When I first got to the land I was able to go to the Frederiksberg castle and see a lot of his paintings. We probably saw some of the exact same paintings on different sides of the world! crazy! 

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

Love Katherine 

ps. you know you are in Denmark when the sale licorice flavored potatoe chips. haha

Jeg fryser!

Hej min familie!!!!!!

Okay so pretty much it is so cold here! a couple of weeks ago when we were at a zone training I was talking to some other missionaries about how this winter hasn't even been bad. They all laughed and said just wait. haha It has been a pretty mild winter and I honestly thought that it would just stay that way. Boy was I wrong! It is so dang cold. But no worries, I have a very warm coat, and at the end of the day Sister Vige and I soak our feet in hot water. So it's all good:) We actually got a lot of snow last night and it has been snowing on and off today. Anyways, enough about the weather!

Things are going well here in good ol' Esbjerg. Last week we were able to teach Emilie the plan of salvation. It was surprising to me how many questions she had about the plan of salvation, but she has really been giving it a lot of thought. She told us that she would like to live in the Celestial kingdom, but she's not so sure that she wants to be baptized. haha she's cute.

We taught Analine and Kurt the plan of Salvation as well. Everytime we I have been in their home thing have been a little hectic. There 3 year old son is always doing something crazy, Kurt is always bringing up the most random things ever, and Analine is trying to prepare food. haha but this time was so different. There little boy was quietly playing while Analine and Kurt were both sitting at the table with Sister Vige and I. They both listened with a sincere interest. It's crazy how different they are than the people I i knew just a few months ago.

I love teaching the plan of salvation. It is always a good reminder to me of how much our father in Heaven loves each and every one of us. His plan for us is so perfect.

Saturday we went to varde. It's like a 20 min. train ride. We have a couple of investigators out there. Josephin, from the Congo and her danish boyfriend Alex. Everytime we teach them it's always an experience. haha I love it, they are great. Once we got back to Esbjerg we took the bus out to our next appointment with Sophie. We made dinner with her. As soon as we got there she said she needed us to run to the store and buy some onions. At first she said one of you needs to go buy the onions, but when we explained to her that we had to go togeter she asked if we could both fit on the scooter. we were like what? she told us that we could take her old person bike scooter thing. You know the things that handicapped/old people use in the grocery stores. yeah, it was one of those. So we checked in the white handbook, and guess what? it doesn't say anything about those so we rode it to the store. haha it was quite the experience.

We have been doing quite a lot of door knocking and believe it or not I think it is so fun. We have been able to talk to a lot of people about the gospel. Even if there not too interested it is always a good experience. We were able to talk to a young woman from Norway so that was pretty cool. At first when I started talking to her in Danish she wasn't so open and she was speaking what I thought was swedish. Sister Vige could tell right away that this girl was Norweigan she began talking to her in Norweigan and before I knew it we had an appointment with her set up for the next week. haha I just kind of stood there smiling. I could understand some of it though so that was kind of cool.

But yeah, things are going well here. I can't believe how fast time is flying. I hoe you all have a great week and that you know how much I love you!!

I love you! Love Katherine