Hej!‏ (Letter From Katherine - 07/15/2013)

Hello my dear family!

Things are going well here in Odense. Last Tuesday we had dinner with our Bishop and his family. They are such an awesome family! After dinner with them we went to this music fireside thing. One of the ladies in our ward has family visiting her. They are from Utah and they are incredible musicians, kind of like the 5 browns ya know? Anyways, it was glorious. haha It was in Itte's back yard and the setting was beutiful and so was the music. You all would have loved it! I have pictures.

Wednesday we had a zone meeting, and media training. It was fun to see the zone, and now we all know what to do if someone wants to interview us. I wanted to call up the newstation right away. How cool would it be though if they did a news cover of all the missionaries here in Odense! They actually did one a few years back in Odense, and they showed us it in the media training. It was pretty funny. 

After the meeting and training we went to Svendborg to teach Nina and Lucia. They are the ones that came to church last sunday and said they wanted to be baptzied. Lan Le wanted all four missionaries there so we all went and the lesson was incredible. We went over the first lesson and then showed the restoration dvd. The spirit was so strong. Everyone could feel it, and it was so cool because even Lan Le's kids were so into the lesson. I had no idea that it meant so much to them. Nina and Lucia will be getting baptzied August 3rd. I am thrilled! 

The Odense 2nd ward will be having two baptisms on August 3rd, one on August 10th, and one on August 17th. We are all so excited! The Lord is hastening his work. it's extremely humbling to know that it's not because of us that we have baptisms. These people are ready and words can't even express how blessed I feel to be able to be a missionary at this time, in this ward. 

Thursday we had a really cool experience. The elders in the first ward have been working with a lady that is actually in our area. They have been having a hard time progressing with her, so they decided to have us work with her. They took us to do service for her so we could introduce ourselves and get to know her. She had no idea that we were coming, so we weren't even sure if she would be home and we had to take the train to get to her home. Ken Hall picked us up at the train station and when we get to her house and she answered the door guess what? She was in the middle of a project! She wanted to repaint the window frame, so we sanded it down for her. The elders were definitely inspired to go visit her at that time. It worked out perfect. Hopefully we will be able to meet with her soon!

Sister Nuttall and I went to this relief society activity and it was fun. The culture here is so different. Enough said.

Friday we had another appointment with Nina and lucia, and it was at Lan's house again, so of course she fed us. She always feeds us and it's so much food. We weren't expecting her to feed us because the appointment was at 3 so it wasn't lunch time or dinner time. It caught us off gaurd, and then after that lesson we had a dinner appointment. We all wanted to die. The lesson with Nina and Lucia went well though. We talked about the plan of salvation, and when lan Le bore her testimony of the atonement the spirit was so strong. 

Saturday a member in our ward took us to this flea market carnival thing. his name is Klaus, and it's actually the man that came to my danish class to surprise dane for his birthday. How funny is that? Anyways, he took us to this carnival thing and it was super funny. You know how Riverton Town days brings out Riverton's greatest people? yeah you should have seen this thing. IT was HUGE! and the people there were crazy! It was fun, but I would be perfectly fine never to go back to that again. 

Sunday we had two of our investigators come to church. Michael and Ike. After sacrament meeting Elder Ivie went up to Ike and asked if he was a member. Ike said no...not yet. He is african american and he doesn't speak danish so I think the meeting was kind of rough for him. We had someone translate for him, but it would still be hard ya know? He said he will be definitely be seeing us again though. LAst week he even told us that he wants to be baptzied it's just going to have to take time. We want to be able to set a baptismal date with him soon. His wife is danish and I think it would be the coolest thing ever if we could teach her too. This is Michael's second week at church. He hasn't been able to meet with us during the week, but he likes coming to church. hopefully we can schedule an appointment with him soon!

Oh yeah! Guess who played the organ in sacrament meeting yesterday? haha I did. the first song was really rough. I had a hard time hearing the congregation so I was off at first, but luckily i pulled it together! We had dinner with Elder and Sister Ivie last night with all the missionaries. It was fun, they are one of the funniest couples I have met. 

Oh yeah! this is super random, but Sister Nuttall and I went to visit a member the other day, and  guess what? she drew us. She is extremely talented and her artwork is all over her house. We asked her what we could do for her and she sat us down and started drawing us. She is so sweet, and I will treasure her drawing forever. 

So yeah, i think that's about it. It's kind of a long email this week. I hope you don't get bored! 

I am so thrilled about Christina's news! How wonderful. Thank you for all your love and support! I love you all so so so so so much!

one other thing. I'm gaining weight. ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! so any suggestions would be appreciated. Har det godt!

Love Katherine

Letter From Katherine (07/08/2013)

• The sun is shining in odense!!!!‏

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Hej Family!
   

  The weather has been so nice here lately! It is definitely a nice change from the rain. I haven't even had to drink hot chocolate in the mornings, so that's good.

   You're not even going to believe what hapened yesterday. It was incredible. So I was fasting that Sister Nuttall and I would get a baptisimal date. We go to church and Lan Le, introduces us to a woman and her two children. We started talking to her and getting to know her. After sacrament meeting she said she wants to be baptized, her daughter is also old enough to be baptized, so we set up an appointment for Wednesday. While that was going Down, a 15 year old boy WHO has been coming to church with his mom went up to bishop, and they set up a baptismal date for the 17 of August! What????? yeah it was incredible. There was so much happening! We also had an investigator at church named Michael. When we went to the sunday school class for investigators one of the members started talking about everything. Seriously everything. The Word of wisdom, tithing, temple recommends, etc. We have only met with michael once before he came to church so we were a bit worried. It turns out that he really enjoyed it, and if anything he is just way more interested now. So yeah sunday was busy! The power of prayer and fasting is so real.

  Also, during testimony meeting Jytte, the older lady WHO fed us dinner a while ago stood up to bear her testimony. She went to a teaching appointment with us earlier in the week and she talked about how after the teaching appointment it was the happiest she has ever felt in a very long time. She is so sweet. I think that getting the members out teaching with us is helping them become more excited about missionary work. The man that she taught with us is named peter. He told us how he used to have a drinking problem and smoking problem but now he doesn't have a problem with either. he is so prepared for the gospel, and he doesn't even know it!

   

  It probably sounds like i'm super busy all the time, which most days I am, but there are still some days where we bonk doors and contact people. Saturday was one of those days and It was probably one of the slowest days in my life. It was rough. No one wanted to talk to us!!! It would have been so easy to have just finished the day early, but we stayed out and kept trying to contact people. While doing so, we got a phone call from one of our investigators. He said that he saw us walking and he wanted to meet up. So we met up and were able to talk to him for a bit. We even scheduled another appointment which was huge because we have been trying so hard to Schedule an appointment with him for quite some time. That was a miracle in and of itself.

  It was fun hearing about the 4th of July festivities! Guess what? I was able to celebrate here in Denmark! Ken Hall (Dane's uncle) had a party for all of the missionaries. It was so fun! We played lots of games, talked about good ol' America, sang patriotic songs, and ate. We even had s'mores! It was a very fun day. I will send some Pictures.

  So yeah. Things are going really well here. I'm sad that i have to wait another week to see Pictures of Rudy! I hope that you all have a great week! I'm looking forward to hearing Christina's results. It sounds like youth conference is going to be fun! I love you all so so so so so much! Thank you for your prayers, I can feel them. Ha' det godt! hej hej

  Also, the language is hard. I just want to speak Danish!!!!! 

  Love Katherine

  recipes

  bannana bread

  cinimon rolls

  love you! 

Letter From Katherine (07/01/2013)

My dear Family,

You don't even understand. The food here. It's sooooooooo good!!! Holy cow. We had three eating appointments last week and they just about killed me. The first one was with a member named Ute. I love her. She is a widow, and boy can she Cook! It was a very traditional Danish meal. She gave us these Things that were kind of like frikadæller, but they weren't. they tasted so good. She also served potatoes of course, and vegetables. The danes drink saft. It comes in a Carton and you pour some into a pitcher and put Water in it. I like my saft strong! haha it's really really good. We also had dinner at Lan Le's Again. She is a hoot! she loves karaoke, so of course we sang with her, and then had a spiritual thought. She shared with us some very neat experiences she has had. She is extremely hard to understand because she has a very strong Vietnamese accent and she is speaking Danish:/ but it's okay because you can really feel of her spirit. She loves the missionaries. We also had an eating appointment at a member from the first ward's house. She had all the sisters come over for dinner. She had us all share our testimonies with her, and when we gained our testimonies. The spirit was so strong. and the food of course was delicious. She served pork, and they leave the skin on it to Cook so then it's like bacon on top. Seriously, the food is so good. They always feed us dessert too! I had rød grød miflød! not sure if that's how you spell it, but it's a famous Danish dessert and it is wonderful! Also I had this cake with marzipan on it and it was also delicious! I'm super embarrassed right now because I just realized that this whole paragraph is about food.... It's a good thing we bike everywhere becasue after every eating appointment I think to myself I can never eat again i'm so full. haha  Someone asked sister Briscoe if she was pregnant after our eating appointment on Saturday hahahah so funny. Anyways though, the members are taking good care of us.

On Sunday we had sacrament meeting and afterwards, they showed the missionary broadcast. YOU NEED TO WATCH IT! It's so good. Ute came up to me afterwards and said she wanted to teach with us and she said the broadcast gave her chills. haha she is the sweetest, I love her!

Sister Nuttall and I spend a lot of time trying to visit less actives. It can be frustrating at times because we will bike all the way out there and they're either not home or they don't want anything to do with us. That's not the case with all of them though, so we will keep working on the less actives/ in actives.

We have investigators, but it is challenging scheduling appointments with them and getting them to progress. 3 of them don't speak Danish, so that is kind of a bummer as well. it's okay though. On Tuesday we had 2 investigators drop us. Aisha was one of them. She's the one that I asked if she would be baptized and she said yeah. It was super unexpected. that same day though we found like 3 new investigators. They are all a Little bit odd. and it's hard because the realist inside of me is doubtful, but i'm trying to overcome that! The other investigators that dropped us is named Aanders, he said he would never be a member of the church, but said if we needed help with anything he would be willing. So we asked him if I could "practice" giving him the lessons so I can Work on my Danish. haha he said yes, so we will see how that goes:)

I have gotten a lot better at riding a bike! We bike all day everywhere. I'm not going to lie. It's hard, but it's great exercise!

After Aisha and Aanders dropped us we went to visit a less active and I had a feeling that we should knock on the neighbors door. As a new missionary it's kind of hard to tell if Things like that are promptings or not, but the thought persisted so we knocked. The lady was very friendly and she recognized us as mormons. She is on vacation right now, but she wants us to come back. It was a cool experience for me becasue it helped me realize that when I have those thoughts they are promptings and it is extremely important to act on them!

I got grandma's letter and I loved it! Will you let her know that I got it, and tell her thank you for me. Hopefully I can get some letters off soon, but p-days are pretty busy. Today is just an Essentials p day becasue thursday we have a 4th of July activity at Dane's uncle's house.

speaking of Dane...I saw him here in Denmark! It was fun! he bought sister Nuttall and I ice cream. It was fun to see him. I think he e-mailed you a Picture, did you get it?

We had splits on saturday and that was interesting. When they came for splits we had two service Projects. We helped clear out two peoples Apartments who had passed away. I accidently spilled someones ashes.... yeah... that wasn't so great. Don't worry though! I didn't get in trouble or anything. haha

Everything is going well here in Denmark. There is a lot of Work to be done. Hopefully after watching the broadcast the members will hop on board.

Oh yeah, the weather is crazy! It has been so Cold here. I have been drinking lots of hot chocolate! If this is there Summer then I am worried for the Winter! A lot of people go on long vacations during the Summer and I can understand why. It's quite Cold here, even when the sun is out. The sun is almost never out. Im not complaining though. haha

I loved the Pictures! It sounds and looks like you had a wonderful time in Yosemitie! I'm glad it has been decided that there will be another trip there in two years:) I love you all!

Love Katherine

Pictures

It was sister Ripplinger's b-day last week so i made cupcakes:)

Letter From Katherine (06/24/2013)

• 
  Danmark er den bedste‏
  
  
  
  Hello my wonderful family!

  It sounds like you are having a great time at yosemitie! I enjoyed reading about what you have been doing.

  So funny story. Last week when I was sitting in the library waiting for sister Nuttall to finish on the computer this guy started talking to me. in danish of course. and the whole time I was just kind of nodding and smiling. Afterwords Sister Nuttall came up to me and told me that I had just agreed to meet him at some cafe. hahahaha sometimes nodding and smiling is nøt the best thing to do when you can't understand.

  The members here are awesome. i love them. We had dinner at a members house her name is Itta. IT WAS SO GOOD. seriously, I had to take my belt off on the way home. haha It's fun becasue the dinner appointments are sister nuttall and i as well as the two elders serving in our ward. After we had finished eating Itta showed us her basement. It's a very old house that has been in her family for quite some time. There was this book shelf that was a secret door that led to a room. They hid a jewish man in there during the hollocaust. How cool is that?!

  On tuesdays there is a young couple in the ward that has a language class with us. It's great! they have been so helpful to all of the missionareis here.

  We had an investigator go to the young single adults activity so we went as well, and it was a lot of fun to get to know all of the young single adults. They are a hoot.

  Wednesday it rained, and rained, and rained. It was crazy. We rode are bikes all through it and got lost. At one point I thought we were going to get struck by lightning. It was kind of scary but eventually we found this neighborhood out of nowhere and we began knocking doors. We found a man named Hans and he was very kind. We talked to him for quite a while, but he would nøt give us his numbers. he said he would read the book of mormon and then call us. I hope he does! If he does nøt we will go visit him again.

  The correlation meeting was so cool. The danes know how to do it! I couldnøt understand everything, but I was very impressed. They are very engaged in the work.

  Thursday we took the Train to Nyborg to a dinner appointment. Nyborg is beautiful! holy cow. i wish you could be here seeing all the things that i'm seeing. It was super funny because It turns out that the family I was eating with is Dane's (my danish teacher from BYU) uncle and cousins! hahaha It was really fun. He took us to get icecream afterwards. Jeg kan lide at spise is! We went to visit less actives after, one wasnt home, and the other couldnt meet with us, but he was very posotive about us coming, and he wanted us to come back.

  Friday was zone conference. It was awesome. I had a migraine so that wasnt fun, and i have another one right now, but other than that i havenøt been getting them.

  Hahah we had dinner at a members house name Lanley. She is from vietnam and is hilarious. She is the mother to all missionaries. She loves us. She made so much food and it was delicious! afterwards she made us sing kareoke. haha it was funny.

  Sunday was the burning of the witch holliday, so we celebrated with the other missionaries in odense as well as some of the members. It was a lot of fun.

  We have a new investigator! his name is Noble, and he is from Africa. He is very religous, and he does
  

  

  
  
  nøt speak danish. Our first lesson went pretty well and he is excited for us to come back again.

  im happy and doing well! thank you for all your love and support. Have such a fun time in yosemite!!I I look forward to hearing more about it.

  I will try and send pictures, but I dont have as much time on the computer today. If you dont get them today I will send them next week.

  I love you all!

Letter From Katherine (06/17/2013)

Hej fra Danmark!

Hello Family!

I am in here in Denmark, can you believe it, I cant figure out how to get the question mark to work on this keyboard.

Anyways, I was so happy to hear Christina's happy news. It made my day.

It's been kind of a crazy week. I didn't sleep very well on the flight from Texas to London, and I was super bummed that I couldn't get the calling card to work. I tried what you said to do Dad, and it still wouldn't work. It was something with the pay phones in London. But I will get to skype from a Members house in December, so that will be fun.

I actually sat by a man on the flight from London to Copenhagen who is an inactive member. He is from London and he said that it was sister missionaries that taught him. He said something happened that shook his faith and now he is agnostic, but if he had to choose between which churches were true it would be the LDS church. It was an interesting conversation, and kind of sad. He told me to just be myself, and don't be pushy with people. He also said to hand out a lot of  copies of the Liahona magazine because it has touching stories in it. He was very kind and said that he thought it was very interesting that his seat was next to a missionaries seat. I hope he figures everything out.

When we landed in Copenhagen the assistants and President and Sister Sederholm were there to pick us up. It was very exciting! We went straight to the mission home and unloaded our luggage. Dinner was prepared for us by some members in the ward. It was delicious. I can understand why sister missionaries gain weight here in Denmark. After Dinner I can't remember what happened. Im getting the days mixed up. The next day is when we went to see Christus statue. Holy Cow. It was amazing. Above the statue it says this is my beloved son, here him. and below it says come to me. It was so cool. You have to see it someday. After going to see the Christus statue we went to the mission office and had some training, and we were able to contact on the street! it was very exciting. Then I had my interview with President Sederholm, It went really well, I really like him and his wife. They have two children living with them in the mission home.  K, I really can't remember what order we did everything. I wrote it down in my journal so it's all good. We went and saw a castle and it was super mega fedt! I will send pictures. We also had our first kabobs. They were delicious. One of my teachers in the MTC was obsessed with kabobs. I really enjoyed my time in the mission home, It was so fun. We also had a testimony meeting, and president sederholms testimony was so powerful. One of the nights Sister Sederholm told us the  story of how they were called, and was very neat. The spirit was so strong, and it testified to me that they have been called of God.

My companion is Sister Nuttal from Shelly Idaho. She is 24. She is very kind.  Funny story. We were riding our bikes yesterday, oh yeah, we ride bikes all the time. One of the members in the ward is letting me borrow one. Anyways, we were riding our bikes yesterday and she rides soooooo fast! Holy Cow! I have had to tell her to slow down, because I haven't been doing this for 8 months like she has. So at one point she got way far ahead of me and then I lost her. Yeah, she was no where to be seen. So there I was, In Denmark, with no companion, no phone, and I didn't know the address to our apartment. So the first thing I did was pray. I immediately felt calm about the whole situation. The spirit guided me step by step the things which I should do. At first I just stopped and waited a while for her. I thought she would realize I wasn't behind her, but she never came back. So then I was like should I go look for her or try and find my way back to the apartment. I decided to try and find the apartment. Before I knew it, I found the apartment! Luckily I had the keys so i went in and prayed some more. Finally I found a phone number in the apartment and I went outside asking strangers if I could borrow their phones. It took like 4 tries before I found someone who would let me make a quick phone call. The phone number was the sister training leaders number and I asked her to call sister Nuttal to tell her I was back at the apartment. So yeah, finally sister Nuttal shows up and she was just in tears. I felt so bad. But all is well. I should have kept up with her

So i'm serving in Odensa. It is a city on the island of fyn. It's beautiful and so fun! I do not know my way around very well, and neither does sister Nuttal. she has only been here for 3 weeks. So we're trying to figure that all out.

Guess what. there are 8 missionaries here in Odensa. That's unheard of. there are two sets of missionaries in the two wards. a sister companionship, and an elder companionship. When sister Nuttal and I were walking one day we actually ran into the elders. It was so cool! The Lord is hastening his work! I am in the 2nd ward, but sunday I went to both sacrament meetings and had to bear my testimony in danish. Kind of scarry, but it went well. I loved church here, but it was really hard to stay awake because I could barely understand what they were saying.

Cool story. So Friday we met with one of our investigators. her name is Aisha and she is muslim. We talked about a lot of things, and at the end I asked If when she found the things we were talking about to be true If she would be baptized! I was so nervous to ask her, especially in Danish, but it was a really cool experience.

Another funny story. So our apartment has four sisters in it. Sister Briscoe has lived in Denmark before, so her danish is pretty good. Well before Sister Ripplinger and I got here Sister Briscoe and Sister Nuttal were companions. One time when they were in a government building renewing sister Nuttals visa Sister Briscoe started talking to this family who spoke very little danish. She scheduled an apointment with them to come and talk about the gospel though. So sister Nuttal and I went to go see them. So we get there and it turns out that they thought we worked for the government and could help them get their visas faster or something. Yeah they weren't interested at all in the gospel and it was a really funny/ awkward situation.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot to tell you. we had to take the train to get from copenhagen to odensa. There were 11 missionaries on the train and we all had a ton of luggage. It was the most stressful thing of my life. But It was also way cool because I was able to talk to some people about what I'm doing as a missionary. I gave two of them copies of the Liahona, just like that guy said.

Im sorry my email is so scattered. So much has happened! I love it here. It's so hard, but I love it. I'm looking forward to the day that I can understand Danish. Have fun in Yosemite!

Love Katherine

Letter From Katherine (06/07/2013)

Hej!

Well. Guess what? I'm going to Denmark on Monday 6/10/2013 :) all of the danish sisters serving in Missouri have their visas except one. More details to come. Have a good day. I love you!

Love Katherine

Note:  Just got off the phone w/ Katherine from Dallas - She sounds great - happy and excited - and loved her short experience in St. Louis.

She is on her way via Dallas Fort Worth, London, then Copenhagen.  She will arrive in Copenhagen tomorrow late afternoon Tuesday 6/11.

Letter From Katherine (06/03/2013)

Hi family :) 

There was a tornado, and I survived it. We were actually at a members house for dinner and the sirens came on so we stayed there for quite a while. I didn't actually see the tornado, but apparently it was pretty darn close. The weather here is crazy! One minute it's pouring rain, and the next it's nice and sunny. The lightning during the tornado was awesome! It lit up across the whole sky. It was pretty neat. 

You know, i'm actually starting to like Missouri. haha I have gotten to know the members, and investigators a lot better and it has helped a ton. 

So real quick, guess what?! My companion from the MTC, Sister Bishop, is in Denmark! apparently someone from Missouri will be joining her and her companion very soon. I haven't heard anything about it so i'm guessing it's not me, but if she has her visa mine will probably be here in the next little while. Honestly I don't feel like i'm quite finished here in Missouri, but I will be so excited when I get my visa! She went to New York sometime in January. So we will see what happens!

So funny story. Okay so my trainer became pretty frustrated with me earlier this week. I think she felt like I was overstepping her position as trainer, or something like that. I just kept bringing up that I didn't think it was good that our dinner appointments were super long. Anyways one day all of the sudden she was like, you know what so you're going to be trainer for the day. haha at first I was like how can she do this to me?! but then, I was like okay then let's get to work! we ended up visiting a bunch of members and it went really well. All is well:) and I got to be trainer for a day haha

Sunday was awesome. I loved hearing the testimonies of the ward members. I taught the gospel principles class and that was fun. Everyone here either says I look danish, or I remind them of someone. It's kind of weird. This one guy actually said I reminded him of this other girl in the ward because I smile all the time! what? Me smiling all the time?! how's that for the Murray scowl:) 

I'm enjoying our investigators, but they like to talk so much. Holy cow. One of our investigators named Jenny is soooo ready to be baptized, but her husband won't let her. It's pretty sad. We will continue to meet with her and teach her. Daphney is getting baptized on the 15 of June. Right now her biggest concern is her son Jordan. She really wants him to have interest in the church, but so far he is not interested at all. Our next lesson with Daphney we are going to have some of the youth from the ward there to meet Jordan and hopefully spark an interest within him. Joel and Annie are awesome, but they didn't read any of the Book of Mormon! Hvad for nogle! they said that they would read before we meet with them again. 

Overall this week was a lot better than last week. Want to hear a story? Well we were tracting and this young mother opened the door and she was not very friendly. A few minutes after she opened the door her dog ran out and then she was mad and really annoyed with us. We asked if we could help her catch her dog and she rolled her eyes and said you will never be able to do that. So i said a prayer and within like 10 seconds I totally caught the dog. She didn't want to listen to what we had to say about the gospel, but we ended on a good note...kind of. We did a lot of tracting and found a lot of potential investigators. It's so interesting. When teenagers open the door they are so willing to listen to us and ask questions, but a lot of older people won't even give us the time of day. I actually am starting to really enjoy tracting. We run into the craziest people, and often times the people who you would least expect are the ones who want to hear more. 

Thanks for all your prayers. I have felt them and they have been a huge strength for me. I couldn't be doing this without the support from all of you. I love you so much and hope you all have a great week!

Jeg elsker jer!

Love Katherine