Letter From Katherine - 10/21/2013

Hello Family,

 

This week was the Harry Potter Festival and it was a ton of fun. I have decided that when jeg rejse tilbage I will read all the books and then Watch all of the movies. But I'm getting way to far ahead of myself.

 

I'm trying to think of what happened last week but everything is blurring together. The weeks are flying! Last week was after år ferie so most of our investigators were out of town, so it was kind of a slower week, but it still seemed to fly! Oh yes. I remember now.

 

So last week we had Exchanges witht he sister training leaders. So sister Hall and i got on a train and we were off to Horsens. Once we got their we went to a dinner appointment. Guess who I met? I can't remember their names, but Dad, you Work with this guy whose parents are serving in Denmark. They were at the eating appointment! because he was the man who baptized the member that was feeding us. cool huh? So that was fun to see them. Im pretty sure they had just gotten to Denmark. They were very excited.

 

The next day we went to Work in horsens. Sister Briscoe and I had an amazing experience. We went to visit a Young woman named Kaitlyn. She is from Ohio and is living with her Danish boyfriend. We didn't have an appointment with her so we were praying that she would be home. Well my friends, she was home! we talked to her for quite a bit on the doorstep, but since missionaries are kind of a Little forward we asked if we could come inside and talk. She said yeah, but my boyfriend is sleeping. I'm not going to lie, i was kind of hoping he wouldn't be home. We went in though and Rasmus(boyfriend) woke up and joined in on the discussion. holy cow. They were both sooooo open and the spirit was strong. Sister Briscoe and her companion have met with them since then, and they both said that they would be baptized. :) I am very excited to hear how they Progress. I'm not sure if you have watched the district, but if so, they kind of remind me of Jackie and Caleb. On the way out of that lesson sister Briscoe and I were just grinning. We were so happy, and the next lady that we contacted just so happened to be a less active. Cool huh! she gave us her number and seemed pretty excited to meet with sister missionaries.

 

So Horsens was great. Sister Hall didn't even jump on me in the middle of the night screaming about rats, haha. Sister Hall and I met with a Young woman who came to Sofie's talk last week. She said she was interested in meeting with us, but it was a rough lesson. IT was just...hard! It was like one of the lessons in the MTC. I felt like my Danish was a lot better, but it was just a hard lesson. I'm use to people being pretty accepting and open when we teach, but not this time. I hope she will meet with us Again. I guess we will see.

 

But on the other hand! Mona came to church yesterday and told us that she wants to be baptized. She said she wants to be meeting with missionaries atleast three times a week. You probably can't tell over email, but I have a really big smile on my face :D

 

The Harry Potter Festival was Friday and saturday. We took an Essentials pday last week so we could experience the festival for ourselves haha quiditch was so much fun. They had harry potter charactesr all around the city and the Little kids loved it. They also had Booths set up where you could buy a wand, make a broomstick, etc.. it was really neat. So I can't remember if I told you last week, but one of the members is part of the IQA (international quidditch association) haha yes, it's a real thing. Anyways, he was in charge of the quidditch games and he recruited all of of the missionaries to help him. It was soooo fun.

 

Things are going good in Odense. I love it here. I love the members. I'm so happy.

 

We have had Svendborg missionaries for a while now, and this sunday we will be having sacrament meeting in Svendborg. pretty exciting. 

 

Well Family, I love you all very much! I'm so grateful to hear from you. I hope you all have a wonderful week.

 

Love Katherine

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 

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