Slow week

Just another week here in Germany!

Probably one of my smaller letters, but not a ton has changed since
the last week. Things are moving forward, but very slowly. We had a
pretty cool zone conference with about 60 missionaries, and it
was just kind of a booster and made us want to work harder. I love
these conferences because I get to learn a lot and get pumped,
although I think I lose steam pretty easily haha, but I like them a lot
because I get to see friends. The problem lately, is that most of the
missionaries I know are already home!

I got kicked out of a house for the first time this week. As we were
trying to start teaching one of our investigators, his brother walked
in and saw us teaching and didn’t want us to since he is
Muslim. Kind of a bummer.

Sunday was the children’s program and we had quite a few people show
up, which probably made it the highlight of my week. Not only was it
super cute, but the people visiting loved it, and I heard from a
member that one of the visitors was tearing up quite a bit. That made
me feel really good inside. Afterward was our church lunch, and that
was super tasty! One lady told me about her conversion story, and it
was quite bizarre but really good! Everyone finds the church in their
own way.

No big updates this week, I’m sorry, but I did get fed a lot this week
by members. Mostly I would say that this week has just been a lot of
thinking, and I’m hoping to do a little more changing, and become a better 
person with the time I have left.

Love you all!

A spiritual week -

Hey everyone!

I’m sorry to say that I forgot my journal this week, so I can’t really
remember what happened this week. I’ll do my best though! I’ll just
start off with today since today was pretty much my Dream Pday.

Last night we figured out that the International Auto show was here in
Frankfurt, and so I had a mini episode and made the decision for the
companionship that we were going to go! Missionaries from all over
were there, and it was so incredibly cool. It was fun to get a new
taste, because I have only ever been to the Detroit Auto show. But,
this was the show for all of Europe. We got to see some pretty
spectacular exhibits, and I even got to sit in the driver’s seat of an
Audi R8 that cost over 200,000 euro. It was awesome! Although, I’m
hopeful that I’ll make it for next year back home so I can go with my
dad, who is a little more enthusiastic than your average missionary!

This week I had a very special thing happen to me. We got this
call from a less active we work on and off with, and she just told us
how miserable she was, and how she wants to come back to church and
how she misses her family. I asked her what she wanted us to help her
with and talk about when we would come the following day, and she
said, "I believe in inspiration, you will figure it out." Way to put
on the pressure!! Because she said her son wasn’t going to be there, we
needed to bring somebody else to accompany us. Well we wanted to bring
Greg because he is American like she is, and also because he was
in the army. She worked on the military base, so we thought it would
be perfect..but he never picked up the phone! So the morning came, and
I was praying about who I should bring to the appointment, and a name
came into my head that was the name of one of the senior couples in
our ward. They work for the church, but aren’t associated with the
Frankfurt mission. I figured it was a good idea since they were
American too, so I invited them. Well, during the appointment
hometowns and families got brought up and the woman asked the couple
if they knew a certain guy. Turns out he was their home teacher back
in the states! Not only that, but this man she asked about was her
uncle!! They got up and hugged and the woman looked at me and gave me
a pretty approving smile. Boy was I not only relieved, but shocked!
What an awesome miracle! It just set the tone for the rest of the
meeting, and it went great! God really does know and love us, if that
wasn’t him working through us, then I don’t know what is.

I don’t know why, but this week has been a week for feeling the spirit.
We had two lessons where as questions and problems arose, I just said
what came into my mind, and as I said them a peace and strength came
over me. It was such a great experience both times, and testifies to
me of the importance of missionary work. One of the guys we met with
agreed with everything we said, and he turned into a new investigator!
Woohoo! He’s a super nice guy and everything just went fantastic.

I love this work!! It’s so awesome! There are times that I want to be
home, but I have these experiences and it assures me that I am
supposed to be here, and not only am I helping these people, but I am
learning invaluable lessons from the Lord. I know he’s there! There’s no
way that he couldn’t be!

Love the letters everyone sends, and I’m grateful for each of you!
Thanks for the love and support!

Hooray for functioning toilet!

This week I would just like to say that I am so grateful for a functioning toilette! Our landlord finally got himself together and got our toilette repaired after almost 5 months of being broken! 

One morning this week we were invited over for breakfast, and it was fantastic to have an American breakfast! It was the best breakfast I have had in well over a year! We then later went back to Greg’s for dinner which was also amazing, and we showed them this really cool program that the church just came out with, and so it was a really neat experience. 

I also had a zone leader and district leader split this week, so it was kind of crazy organizing everything! My favorite was with Elder White, my zone leader. We had a ton of contacting success, which of course just amped us up and made the split even more fun! After a coordination meeting, we went out to finish the night off contacting. Elder White played college basketball, and saw some kids playing and so he asked if he could join while I contacted. There was this one really cool kid from Ukraine, and we got along really well. He kept telling me that he had to go, but he never left, and just kept talking to me. We eventually took him back to the church and gave him a book in Ukrainian, and he loved it! We are going to meet up with him hopefully some time this week and play basketball and then teach him the first lesson. All together he and I talked for over an hour! 

A few nights ago we went out contacting, and I prayed about what language I should bring with me. I didn’t get any particular feeling, but I grabbed a Romanian translation. We met a cool African guy that set up an appointment with us, but he spoke English. Still hoping to give this one copy out, I talked to a guy on the bus ride home. Where was he from? Romania! He felt like God loved him but that he was just too bad of a person and that he couldn’t ever change that. We talked for a good while at our bus stop and then gave him our number and our Romanian copy. It was awesome! Can’t believe this little technique works! 

Lastly, we spoke to a man from India and he happened to be Christian! We explained what we were doing and he listened pretty intently. As we explained the Book of Mormon he became fascinated, and ate it up when we gave it to him. We had him read Moroni 10 3-5 and I asked him how he felt, and he said, "I feel like I don’t even have to ask if it is true". He asked if he could ride with us to where we were going, and we said yes. We were going home, so we had him wait outside and we ran in and grabbed a Hindi translation to which he was very excited. He asked if he could donate 30 euro to the mission, but we instead gave him our card and the web address for the church so he could find his own congregation in India and do it there. What a cool guy! I love this work! It is so cool and so rewarding and fulfilling. 

Got to see some pretty cool things this week. I really love it here. I hope everyone has had a great week! Love you all and wishing you the best!

Deuteronomy 4:29-31

Hey everyone! Can’t believe another week has gone by! Sometimes I can’t
believe I have almost been gone a year and a half.

I started trying something new this week that actually worked pretty
well! Every time we are about to go out and do a long streak of
contacting, I pray about what random language I should bring with me.
Well I tried it and I was able to give out a few books in other
languages! I don’t do that every time, I just thought it was a neat new
thing.

This week we met up with that couple that we helped move last week,
and it went great! They fed us dinner, and we had a great lesson and
they are really thinking about the church in their future, which is
amazing! We were with them a little longer than expected, and because
we had a scheduled appointment for a church tour they drove us to the
church. Well we ended up giving them a tour, and then the guy never
even showed up, which we were thankful for because he was acting all
psycho on the phone and all four of us actually thought he was going
to come and cause some serious trouble. He may have been high...On the
bright side they want to come to church!

We got to have a street display in Aschaffenburg this week, but it got
rained out. It has actually been very rainy and kind of cold lately.
It’s turning into sweater weather! Finally! The day before the street
display we were there as well, but because we met with a less active
member. He is so cool, and he is such a positive example of just
moving forward and being happy. He went to Africa and stayed longer
than expected, and because he couldn’t move his stuff from his
apartment in Germany the landlord just threw everything away.
Everything he had worked for in the last 15 or so years just gone. But
he is so positive, and I just can’t understand how he is so upbeat! But
I shared Deuteronomy 4:29-31 and not only is it one of my new
favorites, but it really boosted him too.

Sorry I don’t have much time, but I hope that this will do the trick
this week. Love you guys! You guys are bomb!