Monday, July 28, 2014


Hey all!

Hope everyone has been having a good week, and hopefully its not as hot back in the states as it is here! Then again if it is, I'm pretty sure you all have air conditioning! This week was pretty busy, but most of the productive things came on Saturday, so I'll only talk about that.

Saturday was the day of a baptism for a guy the sisters and we have been working with. His name is Lukas, and boy does he have an awesome heart. He is really good friends with the other recent member of the congregation, Wolfgang, who was baptized himself only a little more than a month ago. Lukas really wanted to have Wolfgang baptize him because it would be like Wolfgang handing down the title of newest member to him. This actually proved to be somewhat of a small problem in planning because Wolfgang is blind and has a crooked back. Because we believe in baptism by immersion, we weren't sure how Wolfgang was going to dunk Lukas all the way under, let alone make sure he went all the way under. What ended up happening what that Lukas just kneeled and Wolfgang pushed his head under. It was kind of funny but really beautiful at the same time.

Earlier that day, we went by a person in our record book that was taught by the missionaries two years ago but never got baptized. We stopped by and he was thrilled to talk to us about the Bible! Donald comes from Ghana and loves the gospel and has very, very deep questions. We talked for more than an hour and he told us that he wants to meet on a regular basis, which is awesome! So now we have two main investigators and another one that is the wife of a man who has some sort of mental handicap. We don't entirely know much about them, but they love the church. She herself is even more handicapped, so it's kind of hard, but she really wants to be baptized. I'm not sure she really understands, but it's awesome that she wants to be baptized so much.

Later on and after the baptism, we got on a bus with about 7 other missionaries and a member. Elder Arts was talking to a man who belongs to the Islamic faith. Elder Arts gave him a card with the number of the elders living in the mans area, and within an hour of saying goodbye the guy called the elders and then said he would come to church the next day. What! Crazy! Then, after we said goodbye we ran into a couple from China and they wanted to learn more about Jesus Christ. As a missionary those are the words you just LOVE to hear! haha. Unfortunately they too did not live in our area, but they gave us their number and said they wanted to meet with missionaries.
My bishop is Hungarian and we had a Hungarian meal and it was absolutely amazing. I don't think I have a favorite food here yet, but Fanta is probably my favorite drink here. Tastes way different. Better really.

The language is coming better and I can understand Americans when they speak German almost perfectly, but only because they think the same way I do. I still have some trouble understanding other people though. I kind of have to spend time warming up to the language and then my mind switches into German mode and I get so much more. Cologne is so huge it's hard to have a sense of direction. Even the people here seem to have trouble sometimes. After all it is the 4th biggest city in Germany.

This week has been really good, and I am trying to getter a better hold on my attitude and way of seeing things. I love this mission, and I hope I continue to run into people I feel like I can help. We are all where we are for a reason, and I love finding my reason. Have a good week everyone! I'm off to see a castle!

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