Letter from Katherine (04/28/2014)

Hello Family!

Well let's see...what has happened this week...

Today we had transfers. It's a lot less stressful when you're not the one moving:) Sister Bishop transfered to Odense. The weather has been gorgeous lately so it has been reminding me of Odense since that is where I was last summer. After getting Sister Bishop to the train I had a couple of hours before Sister Sheradin arrived. Two of the other sisters were waiting for the companions to come as well so we decided to go do something fun. Sister Peterson, Sister hadley and i went and saw the Little Mermaid! It was soooo fun! We had a good time together. Sister Sheradin has made it here safe and sound. I think I will enjoy her.  

Saturday and Sunday we had stake conference. Both meetings were very nice. President Dykes from the 70 spoke at both meetings and he did a really good job. Saturday was kind of crazy because we had to travel to Roskilde for the meeting and we were planning on taking public transportation, but one of the s tog stations decided to catch on fire. It was pretty hectic but we were able to get a ride from Bishop's wife. haha funny story. Sister Bishop and I went to the mal to grab something to eat before we had to catch our ride and on our way out i went through the spinning doors and it must have been super clean or something because I thought the door was finished and I walked right into the glass. It was pretty funny. Sister Bishop and I both had a really good laugh. At the Saturday meeting the stake president spoke a Little bit about the missionary that recently was killed in Sweden. He said that the day the missionary was killed was the day of his first baptism in the land. He talked about how the missionary had written in his journal that it was the best day of his life and he also had written about how he knew that his life on earth would sould come to an end. His talk was very touching. Sunday they held the meeting in a music gymnasium. You could tell that the auditorium was build for music because the choir sounded so good! Jette was at stake conference and she absolutely loved it. A girl named Amalie was also there. She was an Exchange studen in Las Vegas and she lived with some members. The sisters before me worked with her, but yesterday was the first time I have met her and she is super awesome. Her Schedule has been crazy so she hasn't been able to meet, but we have an appointment with her tomorrow and i'm hoping that she will be able to meet more frequently.

 

I'm not going to lie, i'm having a hard time emailing right now. I am sooooo tired.

I think I told you

about hte easter egg hunt last week. It was a lot of fun. After we met with a man named Alex. he is from Ghana and he actually is a member of the church. We invited him to stake conference and sure enough, he was there. He told our Ward mission leader that he wants to start coming to church, so taht was pretty exciting.

We have met with Natalia quite frequently, but last week she told Sister Bishop and I that she needed to take a pause. She said that she still will pray and read the book of mormon and live the Word of wisdom etc.. but she needes to take a break from meeting with the missionaries and coming to church. So we'll see what happens. she was not happy about sister Bishop leaving.

A lot of the senior couple missionaries went home today. Elder and Sister hansen, the office couple went home so sister Bishop and I had lunch with Sister Hansen last week. It was a lot of fun. It's kind of sad that they are leaving. The Ivie's went home today as well. They were the senior couple in Odense. I can't believe that is already time for them to go home. Weird.

We had a fun eating appointment with a member named Esther. We went to her house and washed her Windows while the elders organized some of her papers and cooked dinner. It was fun.

Sister Bishop and I also ate with the von Scheel Family. Bro. von scheel is actually working in Canada right now and Sis. von scheel is waiting for the house to sale. They have a son on a mission in Greece and a son WHO is serving in England. He has actually been home because of his Health. The doctors aren't sure what it is, but he sleeps a lot. Sister Bishop and I went over to see them and he almost fell asleep while we were talking to them. It was sad but a Little bit funny. Hopefully he gets feeling better so he can return to his mission.

It will be weird not having Sister Bishop here, but I actually think it will help me get to know the area and Ward better. I am pretty excited that I will get to bike Again. i have missed riding a bike! Sister Bishop had a doctors appointment last week and they think that she might have fibromyalgi. It will be interesting to see what has been the cause of her pain.

I think that's about it. I am way tired, but happy:) I hope you have a wonderful week! i love you!

Love Katherine

God Påske! (Letter from Katherine - 04/22/2014)

Hello Family!

This week has been good. One of my favorite experiences was doing service for a woman who has m.s. She has met with the missionaries before but hasn't been taught by them in quite some time. Sister Bishop and I have been able to keep in touch with her, but everytome we went to visit her she either wasn't home or she wasn't so interested in having us there. Her m.s. is very dabilitating (is that a Word?..) and she is in a Wheel chair. SIster Bishop and I have thought that the best thing we could do for her would be to serve her, it was just a matter of her being willing to let us serve her. We decided that we would just show up at her house one day in service clothes ready to be put to Work. We were prayerful that she would be home and open to us helping her! Well, last week we showed up at her house and the door was wide open, good sign right? We called to her and she told us to come in. I think she was super confused, but we told her that we would love to help her with anything that she needed done. She put us to Work in her back yard. It was great! She has a son who is about 11 years old and he kept saying to her, Mom, it's so nice that there are people who care enough to help you because you can't do it. It was very touching. It was definitely an answer to our prayers that we were able to help her.

Wednesday we had dinner with Biskop and his Family and they invited us to bring a friend. We brought Natalia, the girl we have been teaching who is from Ukraine. After eating we shared an easter message about the Savior. The Bishop's daughter asked if we had seen the new video called because of him, we hadn't, so she showed it to us. Holy cow, it's so good. Sister Bishop and I have been showing it every opportunity we've had. We love it so much!

EAster is a 5 day holliday here so it was tough finding people at home. Saturday evening we had dinner with the elders. Sister Bishop and I made cafe rio pork and it cooked while we were out working. I was super worried that our Apartment would catch on fire. luckily it didn't. We have a picnic table in the back of our Apartment and the weather has been lovely so it was a lot of fun. 

We found a man in our area named Alex who is from AFrica, turns out he is a member!

Sunday we had Easter dinner at the Sederholm's. It was a lot of fun. It seriously is so fun being in their Ward.

Monday Ken Hall came to Sjælland to do an easter egg hunt with some of the missionaries. It was so fun!!! WE played a lot of egg games. I got egg all over me. It was gross but fun.

 

Oh yes, I almost forgot! Transfers. Sister Bishop is transfering to Odense, and I am getting a new companion. Her name is Sister Sheridan and she was in the MTC at the same time I was just in the other district.

one of the Pictures is from our eating appointment with the elders, the other at the easter egg hunt, and this random guy on the street gave sister Bishop and I roses.

Well. THat's about it I think. I'm sorry i'm not the best writer. there is like zero organization to my emails. But all that's important is that you know that I love you!!!!! I hope you all have a great week!

love Katherine

Letter from Katherine (04/14/2014

Hello my dear Family,

It has been a good week.

Tuesday we had our district activity and we went to the zoo. It was a lot of fun! and I'm sorry Utah, but the zoo in Copenhagen beats the hogle zoo by a lot. I guess the zoo here actually is quite scandelous though because they fed one of their giraffes to the lions... haha I think i already told you about that... When we went the lions weren't even there, so my guess is they fed them to the...crocidiles? I don't know. Funny story though, so we had our district meeting before we went to the zoo and Sister Bishop and I thought it would just be so smart if we wore our normal clothes to the church and then we could hurry and slip on a skirt once we got there. I had the thought that we should probably just go in our church clothes and then change after the meeting. Well, we decided it would just be so much easier to Wear normal clothes because then we wouldn't have to carry them around all day. Well we get to the church and guess who was there....President! haha that will teach me to Wear normal clothes to a district meeting. Rookie mistake. haha I was super embarassed, but I think President thought it was kind of funny...at least I hope so. The zoo was great though.

I went on Exchanges this week with the sister training leaders. They do it a Little differently here on Sjælland than they do it in Jylland. instead of both sisters going to the sister training leaders area one of them comes to our area and one of us goes to their area. Anyways, I went with Sister Peterson.

 It was great being with Sister Peterson for the day though. I was able to get back on the bike!!!! I so miss riding bikes. I never thought those Words would come out of my mouth. haha I don't know what it is about Exchanges, but it seems like every time something awesome happens. One of my favorite miracles of the day was when Sister Peterson and I had an appointment, but we showed up and they cancelled. Don't worry though, we had a back up plan! we went to the college housing right by where our appointment was suposed to be. We looked at the record of the person that we wanted to visit and I noticed that it was from like 2011 or something. I told sister Peterson that there was no way that that person would still live there because it is student housing. She said yeah, you're probably right, but we should try knocking the door anyways. So we did. We talked to a Young man for quite a while. He was so interested. Some of the scriptures we showed him were the one in the bible about Jesus saying he has other sheep and the scripture in 3rd Nephi where Christ says that these people are his other sheep that he was talking about. The spirit was very strong. Ya know, i'm not sure what will happen to him or if he will be a super posotive investigator, but I do know that the Book of Mormon is true. and I love those moments when we testify of The Book of Mormon because every single time the spirit testifies to me that it is true. I love the Book of Mormon. Not only has it strengthened my testimony of the restoration, but it has stengthened my relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ.

Thursday we taught Lati Danish Again. It is the funniest thing ever. Right before we finish we make him go talk to someone in the Library in Danish. he actually does pretty good! On the way home from the library this crazy man asked Sister Bishop and I if we were twins. We were like uh...yeah we look so much alike.... he then asked us where we sleep.... so then we just walked away really fast. haha he was crazy

Guess what? I have been on a mission over a year now. I haven't really been keeping track but it was kind of hard to miss because sis. bishop's mom sent us a package of stuff for us to celebrate. haha It was kind of fun because a year ago Sister Bishop and i were together in the MTC and now we are together here in Denmark. I can't believe how fast time flys. It's so crazy.

 Natlia is doing well and is as funny as ever. She is the one from Ukraine. speaking of which. What is going on there? It sounds like it is getting worse?

We have a lesson today with Jette. It has been quite a while since the last time we met with her because she has been so busy. It will be good to see and start teaching her Again.

A couple of weeks ago sister Bishop and I contacted a lady on the street and talked to her for a Little bit. She gave us her number, but when we tried calling it later in the week it just rang and rang so we thought that it must have been a fake number or something. Last week we were knocking doors and guess who we knocked into? that same lady! haha there is no escaping us. we were able to set up an appointment with her. It was pretty crazy though because sister Bishop can't knock Apartment Buildings because of the stairs so if we do an Apartment Building we can only knock the first floor and this woman just so happened to live on the first floor. coincidence? I think not.

Well, I think that's about it. I will attach some Pictures. I love you and hope you all have a great week!!!!

Love Katherine

Letter from Katherine (4/7/2014)

Hej min familie,

Conference was great wasn't it? I still haven't seen the second session of the sunday session, but we are planning on watching it later this week with Natalia. I really enjoyed conference, but it had kind of a different feel this time around. I don't know how to explain it. haha It was great though and I loved every minute of it. It's amazing to me how much more I have gotten out of conference as a missionary, than I ever have before. I'm not going to lie though, my conference breakfast was not even close to as being as good as the egg casserole and pull apart rolls.

Sister Sederholm was in charge of feeding all the missionaries and Young single adults inbetween sessison yesterday so she had Sister Bishop and I go over before conference started and make sandwhiches with her and Heather. it was fun! Subway and Coranados totally should have hired me. I make a pretty mean sandwhich. 

The majority of the missionaries on Sjælland Watch conference together so it was a lot of fun to see some of the missionareis I haven't seen in a while. I saw sister Hall! since being on her mission her father has quit smoking and become active in the church Again and been back to the temple. Her old sister went through the temple as well as her older Brother and sister in law. Her Brother and sister in law will be getting Sealed in the temple some time this month. I just thought it was so neat. I remember one time she was looking at my Pictures and she saw the one of our Family outside of the temple right after I had been through the temple for the first time. She told me she loved that Picture and that she loved how we all had our temple bags. She said that was her dream, for her Family to be able to go to the temple with her. Now look at them! It's wonderful.

Sister Bishop and I actually had the opportunity to attend the temple on Saturday. Guess who let us into the temple? Thomas Kofold. Also known as Jesus in the film Finding Faith in Christ. That was pretty awesome. haha I love the temple so much. Everytime I go I am overwhelmed by the spirit. It is always such a wonderful and uplifting experience for me. I was able to see one of the new films. So good. It made me understand Things in a completely different way. I absolutely loved it. It was a perfect beginning for the spiritual feast we had over the weekend.

I was able to see the women's coference. It was so good! I really enjoyed it.

Things are going well here. We have a lot to do and are staying busy. This is kind of random, but this last week Sister BIshop and I read the Denmark dedicatory prayer. It is very neat. IT was Thomas S. Monsen who dedicated the land. Anyways, I don't think you can find it online, but I will make sure and bring a copy home.

This week we have our district activity and we wil be going to the zoo. I guess there was a big scandal a while ago about the zoo we will be going too. They killed one of their giraffes and fed it to the Lions in front of kids. haha yeah... It should be fun!  

Oh yes before I forget! So I met the new office couple and guess what?! they know aunt Sheri! I was very excited to hear that they knew her. I would like to email her, so if you could send me her email that would be great! 

I hope everyone had a great time celebrating DAd's birthday! 

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

Love Katherine 

Hello! (Letter from Katherine - 03/31/2014

Hello Fam,

It has been a good week here in Copenhagen. I have been enjoying getting to know the members a lot. We have an awesome ward here. I think I already told you this, but I can't remember... the church Building is being remodeled and won't be finished until December. So for the time being our ward attends church in Allerød, which is just North of our Area. The ward in Allerød doesn't have sister missionaries, and when they saw Sister Bishop and I they thought they were getting sister missionaries and they were pretty excited, but then they realized that we were just from the other ward. Our Ward mission leader has been on vacation and I met him for the first time yesterday. He looks so much like Alan!!!!!!!! It was crazy!!!! Alan has a Danish Dopleganger. haha

So you remember the Hall Family? Ken hall lives in Odense, and he is Dane's (my Danish teacher from BYU) uncle. Well Ganne, Ken's mother and Dane's grandma passed away and saturday was her funeral. Ganne was in the Gladesaxe 2 ward, but I never got to meet her, because at that point she had moved to Odense to live with Ken. Her funeral was here in Copenhagen so I was able to attend. It was fun to see Dane and his family and some of the people from Odense. Lan Le, and Ninna were there too! I don't know if you remember them. lan Le is the one that would always feed us dinner, and Ninna was the woman that was baptized when I was in Odense. I just love them so much. It really was sooo good to see them. Ganne's funeral was beautiful. They had all the grandchildren share some of their favorite memories of her. Even though I never met her, just by knowing her Family I know that she was a wonderful woman.

Right now Sister Bishop and I have been working with a woman named Ellen. She is so wonderful. We showed her the restoration film and she absolutely loved it. She wants a copy so she can show all of her friends. I can't believe how accepting and believing she is. She has definitely been prepared.

Natalia is doing great. She is so much fun. We were able to Watch the Thomas S. monsen Biography with her. It's way good! If you haven't seen it, I would definitely recommend it. She was looking up where the church Buildings are in Ukraine and when she moves home the closest one to her is 3 hours away from where she lives. Crazy huh? We are so blessed to have so many church Buildings and temples close to us.

So we have been working with a Young man named Matti. He is 26 years old and is a member of the church but hasn't been active for quite some time. We had an appointment with him on Tuesday but it ended up Falling through because we couldn't find a woman to go with us. He texted us and pretty much said that we were wasting our time with him. The text we sent back was kind of super funny... needless to say, he was at church yesterday:)

Yesterday President and Sister Sederholm were in Odense, se they let us borrow the car so we could take their daughther Heather to church. After church we went back to their house and ate tacos. It was a lot of fun. Heather is a cute girl. After church I started getting a migraine and I didn't have my medicine with me. Rookie mistake! so by the end of the night I was not feeling so hot. But hey! I got to drive the Sederholm's car and eat tacos with Heather. haha

Yeah. That's pretty much it. Thank you so much for the emails, it is always so good to hear how you are all doing and what you have been up to. I am sooooo excited for general conference. General conference as a missionary is the best thing ever. We have some investigators who are planning on coming to Watch it with us, so hopefully it will be a good experience for them. We haven't seen the women meeting but they will be showing it on Saturday, so we will get to see it then. Sister Bishop and I will be attending the temple this Saturday :D I will get to see the new film. I am very excited to say the least.

Dad- I hope you have an awesome birthday. Make sure to celebrate the Whole week!!! Do you still eat at Wingers? The other day I just was really craving wingers. Sticky finger Quesodillas!

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

Love Katherine

Hvasså? (Letter from Katherine - 03/24/2014

Hello my dear Family,

I just have to tell you that last week while we were eating dinner at a members house the son was looking at his phone and then he asked me if my first name was Katherine. I told him yes and he then told me that he had found my blog. haha I thought that was kind of funny and a Little bit creepy. I just hope that my letters that you post on the blog are passende;)

So pretty much this week hasn't been too exciting. Last Monday was Sister Bishop's birthday, so it was fun to celebrate it with her. I made her baked oatmeal for breakfast! Her mom sent her a bunch of birthday decorations so we decked out the Apartment. It was fun. We also did some shopping, and guess what? I bought some new shoes! They are crocs!! yeah, that's right. Crocs!! They don't look like crocs at all though. They're actually pretty cute and super comfy. How about that? We had dinner at a members house and it was a lot of fun. 

Tuesday we had Ward council and it was the first Ward council I've been to since being in this area. Holy cow. This Ward is very missionary minded and it's pretty exciting. I remember last general conference feeling a sense of urgency because the Lord really is hastening his Work before his coming. Sitting in Ward council I sensed that same feeling of Urgency. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's just like okay, we all really need to get to Work, because it's happening! The missionaries were only supposed to take about 10 minutes to talk about the people we are working with and such, but those 10 minutes turned into about an hour of the Ward leaders asking questions and giving suggestions. I loved it. When the missionaries were about to leave so the leaders could continue on with the rest of the meeting, the Bishop asked everyone to think about why it took so much time to talk about missionary Work. I loved it.

Wednesday we went to visit a Young man WHO we had giving a book of mormon to the week before. We get to his Apartment and guess what? He had read the Whole book of mormon! It was awesome. I was surprised that he wasn't ready to be baptized right then and there because the book of mormon is so true!! He unfortunately wasn't too interested in us coming back, but we won't give up on him that easy. It was pretty crazy though, because it's not every day that you meet someone WHO reads the Book of Mormon in a week.

Later that evening we taught two Guys from Africa Danish. It was pretty fun. At one point I got the giggles pretty bad. Danish is a very hard language and I had forgotten how hard it is when you are first trying to learn it.

Friday we were able to meet with Jette. She is awesome. She really is so prepared to recieve the gospel, but teaching her takes time. I'm learning to be patient. Sometimes it's really hard as a missionary...or as a normal person for that matter, because we just want Things to happen now! We were able to meet her 10 year old son though and he is so so sweet.

Natalia is awesome. We talked to her about tithing and fasting. She was super accepting of tithing and is looking forward to fasting. She comes from Krim... I think that's what it's called, The Island that is now Russia, and she is not very happy about what has been going on. It's a crazy World that we live in, isn't it?

I was able to meet Ellen this week. She is in her 60s and the sisters met her on the street. She is awesome and she has a cat named phiona. She asked if I had a cat and when I said yes she asked what it's name was. I told her my cat's name was notoes and she thought that notoes was a mean name. haha but then she said all that matters is that he is loved. :) Anyways, Ellen is very sweet. Teaching her also takes time.

Guess where we had an eating appointment on Sunday? at president and sister Sederholm's house! It was great. It was the first time I had been back in the mission home since like my first day in the land. Being in their Ward is definitly a bonus of this area. Sister Sederholm is awesome and it has been fun getting to know her better.

Well, that's pretty much it for the week. Things are going good. Thank you for your emails, it is always so good to hear from you. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love Katherine

Elvis Has Left the Building (Letter From Katherine - 03/17/2014)

Well Hello!

 

First of all...Dad, I can't believe you have been released as Bishop. I think your new calling should be Ward Mission leader :D I was excited to hear about the new Bishopric, but it's kind of sad that our Ward will be so small. only two Laurels?! that's crazy. By the time I get home though it will probably already be back to the same size haha it sounds like the Ivory devlopment is growing like crazy.

So I have had a good week. It's always a Little bit of a challenge getting to know a new area, but I really am enjoying it. The church Building that we meet in is actually under renovation right now and won't be done until December. Crazy huh? It's a pretty big Building and has a gym in it, but it's quite old so it needs some Work. Our Ward will be meeting in Allerød, which is North....I think. Our Ward is pretty big. There are about 150-200 active members. Awesome!!! I am really getting looking forward to getting to know them better.

Right now we are working with a Young woman named Natalia. She is from the Ukraine and is an au pair for a Family WHO are members of the church. She is so great. I'm not so sure if she likes me yet, but we're working on it! haha Last week we went to CUV with her and that was a lot of fun and there are so many UVs. i am definitely not in Esbjerg anymore. haha

So while we were at the Young single adults activity I ran into this girl that i met from my Danish class at BYU. She would come and sit in on the class sometimes. Well turns out that she is actually living in Denmark right now. It was fun to see her!

We are working with a woman named Jette right now. She is great! One of the members WHO recently returned home from her mission contacted her at the bus stop. Her first time in church she just cried because she had finally found the church she had been looking for. Jette asked us to teach her about the standards of the church. We taught her about the Word of wisdom and the law of chastitty, and she liked both of them. She is very prepared.

 

Okay, so story of the week. Yesterday after church we had an eating appointment with a man named Philliph. He is one of Copenhagens very own bus drivers. He had invited us to eat dinner and after we had planned to teach him about the book of mormon. We needed another woman, but no one was able to come with us so we brought the elders. We got to phillips house and there was like 4 other people there. It was like a dinner party haha we ate delicious food and answered a lot of there questions about the church. Everything was going fine when another guest showed up. Guess WHO it was????? Elvis. It was a Danish Elvis inpersonater. Those three Words should never be used in the same sentence haha. We thought he was a stripper!!!!!! I was freaking out. oh my goodness I didn't know what to do and no one was saying anything! So I simply said, "Uh, I don't feel comportable." Elvis started singing and I was just like okay if he start

s to take his clothes off I am so out of here. I had my escape route planned and everything. After one song our district leader got us out of there. I don't know if he was a stripper or what, but all of us were like what the heck just happened. haha The elders said that our faces were priceless when we saw elvis walk in through the door. and appearently instead of just saying I don't feel comfortable I actually yelled it. haha I guess I was panicking, but we made it out of there okay, and nothing happened. It was so weird. I never thought in a million years that I would see that on my mission. haha It was so bizarre.

Today is Sister Bishops birthday so we have been doing shopping. It was like the first time I had been in a mall since, well since the Apartment burnt Down. I felt so out of place! I kept nocking Things off the hangers and racks and I was just like okay, i need to get our of here. haha I bet you never thought you'd hear me say that huh?

So yeah. Those were the highlights of the week. i'm doing well and enjoying Lyngby. The weather was great last week, but these past couple of days it has been rainy and windy, How is the weather at home?

Okay. Well. I hope you all have a great week! I love you sooooooooo much! Thank you for your emails they always make me so happy. I love you!

Love Katherine