Drunk wants to date companion!

Hey everyone, Im going to make this quick because I dont have a lot of time.

Something funny that happened while we were finding, was that a drunk
polish guy contacted us and wouldnt let me talk. He would only talk to
Elder Sommer...and then asked him out to dinner and told him he would
pick him up. When both of us tried to explain that we cant separate,
nor want to, he was livid and I was just laughing because I couldnt
believe what was happening. When he finally drove off on his moped, he
was still driving on the sidewalk and almost swerved into a parked
car.

Something cool that happened really helped cheer me up, was that we
had a day almost free from rejection! I was having a really rough day,
and pretty much the only thing planned for 8 hours was finding. I just
wasnt having a good day, but as we began contacting, the first 2
people we contacted gave us their numbers, and we even had a small
lesson with one of them. At the end of the day, after a long trip that
at the time seemed for nothing, a 21 year old got on the bus and we
talked with him for 30 minutes! He gave us his number and invited us
to a religious group he goes to. Lastly, after he got off the train
(He got on our train after we got off the bus) I went to the bathroom
and as I was walking back I was contacted by a worker on the train and
asked me to translate for a guy. Turns out he was a refugee, and one
of the nicest guys ever. Anyways, that day was so full of miracles
that it was a sign for me that the Lord was watching out for me on one
of my worst days, and that he loved me.

Things have been really busy since I have become the district leader,
but I love it so much. Cant believe that it has already gone by so
fast!! Anyways, take care, and stay safe!

A week of firsts

I got to do a lot of "Firsts" last week with the new call and opportunity to be a district leader. It was a lot of fun, and I went on a zone leader split and got to kind of feel like I was seeing how the mission functioned. There was also a meeting for the leaders where we discussed the vision of our mission and the things that we want to see in our areas and districts. Normally I am not one to like meetings, but that one was pretty good.

Also got to hold my first district meeting, which was a fun new experience. It was neat getting to lead it all and to welcome the three new people into the district.

On our way home one night, we came across a super big leaf pile in the middle of a park, so I took off my coat and jumped in! I couldn’t pass that up! So the next morning we went back for morning exercise and got all dirty, but it was so much fun!

Another night on our way home we were trying to use our time rather than just go in. Well, I’m sure glad we didn’t go in because I had one of the funniest experiences with a drunk Bulgarian guy. He started holding our hands after he would shake them, and was yelling that he loved God. So, we gave him a card with Christ on it so he could call us later, but he just started kissing it. We realized that he was beyond reaching at the moment, so we told him we had to go. Funniest part is, is that he grabbed Elder Sommer and cupped his hand and patted his face, and did the same with me after I took a good number of steps back.

The work is still going a little slow, but the work is going better for the other elders. Fortunately, we did meet with a woman that we contacted last week and she wants to meet this week, so we were excited for that particular lesson.

We love a couple that we have been working with but they have been super busy lately.  We haven’t had any opportunities to teach them for a while now.  They each got 2 jobs and don’t have much extra time.  A member actually ran into them the other day and asked them where they had been and she said they have been so busy, which I know is true because we saw it, and she said they were still interested.  Nobody is giving up on them, so that makes me happy.  I love them as friends and hope I can help them.

Not a whole lot to report this week, but hopefully things will pick up. Thanks for everything everyone!

Another week gone by!

Hey Everyone - it's been another great week.

On Tuesday we had our Book of Mormon Circle again and that went really
well although nobody new showed up. Earlier that day though we met a
really special lady while we were out contacting. We asked her a few
questions and she was very bubbly, but it changed when we asked her
what faith she was from. She said catholic, but that she didn’t go
anymore. She told us she felt like God was trying to reach out to her
since we were the third people to talk to her about God. We got her
number, but as we were saying goodbye I felt like I needed to testify
to her, so I promised her that God was reaching out to her, and that
she was loved by Him and He was watching out for her. All at once she
burst into tears and just kept thanking us. She ended up calling us
and worked out an appointment, but she was sick and explained how she
wasn’t able to go to work, so she asked if this week would be ok. So,
hopefully things work out!

On Thursday we had the opportunity to go to that religious group
again! It is super fun but I think we are going to skip this week, we
don’t want to come off like we are trying to crash or dominate their
group. But, there were some people there and they asked us some
questions concerning our faith, which was pretty neat. I mean, that’s
why we go!

On Friday we met with a less active and she made us dinner and we got
to sit down and talk with her boys. We shared a spiritual thought as
usual, but then we ended and tried to take down the barriers between
us and the kids, because lets be honest, missionaries are strange! We
are just different! So we broke things down real simple and got
talking about God and if he really exists. We ended up having a super
cool discussion and we left the boys with a commitment to experiment
and see if God is there by praying, just like you can experiment with
science and find out truth.

Not a real fast week but not really slow either. Its gotten pretty
cool here, and that has been nice going out with a jacket on.

Hope you all have a good week!

Kevin

40 Day fast brings miracles

Just began another transfer. Too bad it feels like I just started the
last one. Nuts how the time flies by! I’ve been noticing that a bunch
of my friends are going home whether they are in this mission or
people that I was in the MTC with.

A special shout out to Bill Everson who had a birthday this week!  Happy Birthday!

We had some pretty amazing things happen to us this week, and so I am
excited to share them with you!

On Tuesday I had one of the best splits ever! We had a Book of Mormon
Circle planned for that night since we are starting it up again, and
as were on our way there from another city, I contacted a guy on the
train and decided to go an extra station since it was going ok. He
didn't end up having interest, but I was glad I did it. As we were
walking to her place, I saw this guy a few times but never talked to
him. As we continued walking, he stopped us and asked us what church
we were from. Turns out he had met the missionaries in Croatia before
and had also gone to church twice! We told him we were on our way to
this woman’s house, and that she also spoke Croatian and when we
invited him to come he said yes!

Right now there is a 40 day fast going on with the ward, and this was
one of the miracles that we saw this week. Once we got in there they
kept going back and forth, and the woman’s niece was there and she
joined in and testified of the church even though she wasn't a member!
They pretty much taught the first lesson and we had him read Moroni 10
in Serbian. He told us how good he felt, and how he felt so happy! The
only word he could use to describe it, was to say that it made him
feel brave. Hopefully he will be attending this week on Tuesday. The
niece requested a blessing as well because she was feeling down, and
she had a miracle happen the last time elders gave her a blessing.
Once the blessing was over, she was crying and thanked us. We are
going to begin teaching both of them from now on!

We also tried a new experiment this week, which consists of visiting
the members, asking them to pray for us, and then contacting in the
area. It works super well! And we talked to so many friendly people
that didn't wave their hands at us like a magician and then walk away
like normal!

There were just a lot of things that went well this week. One last
thing. A while ago I wrote that we met with a religious group, and one
day this last week we met the leader on the street and he invited us
back! Well nobody showed up but his friend and a family member, so
they had us teach them about our church! The leader actually wants us
to come back and teach the lessons and see if we can work together in
the community to help people out! How cool would that be? This 40 day
fast is working miracles for us in the field!

Much juicier than what the past few weeks have been, so I hope you all
enjoyed it, and that yall got a glimpse of things over here. Thanks
for all you do!

Kevin

Scriptures are the best!

Hey Everyone!

  So first I would like to say that if you have any sort of apple device
and have an icloud and want to add me to check out photos, then send
me your ID and I’ll be happy to add you.



Something that I commonly ask missionaries is what drives them to be
the way they are and to do what they do. I was reading in the
scriptures this week and I came across Alma 29:10 where Alma just
straight up tells why he commits his everything to the work, so I
thought that was pretty cool and thought it would probably be the best
to have that be my driving force to be a missionary. So many things
you can learn from scriptures.



One morning we had the privilege of having breakfast with two
referrals. It went really well, and we had lots of fun. Then we got to share a spiritual thought, so we had the first lesson or restoration as our
main point. Afterwards we had a way fun Gemiko coordination meeting
with our ward mission leader and had a good dinner made by him and his
wife.



We got to do lots of gobys and contacting this week, and we met some
pretty cool people! One we are going to meet with on Thursday we
think. But it was really fun to see that people were put in our path
to brighten our day and to talk to.



Sorry to say that this is it for this last week, but I'll make up for
it in photos from PDay today. I'd like to wish you all the best, and
hope y'all have a great week. Take care!

Kevin

Floods and repentance!

I’m happy to report that this week was not as empty as last week! Let
me start off with something kind of funny. Lately our shower drain has
been really clogged, so I decided to take off the cap and clean out
the top of the drain. As I finished, the screw holding the cap onto
the shower floor fell down in the pipe. I kind of just shrugged my
shoulders and said, what’s the worst that could happen. Well, I’ll tell
you! The next morning right after Elder Sommer had finished showering,
I got a knock at my door, and it was our neighbor from down below! I’m
sure you can guess what happened next!

We went down stairs and to our horror there was water all over her
floor and still coming down from the ceiling. Luckily she was calm,
and not at all mad. Apparently it has happened two other times. We
cleaned up, and I tried to explain that it was my fault, but her
broken German didn’t allow for her to understand. Oh well?

Later that day we went to the store to buy a new screw, and on the way
there I saw a guy wearing a University of Michigan shirt, so of course
I had to contact him! I contacted him in English, even though I knew
he wasn’t from America, but it worked! We ended up having a great
conversation, and we showed him the Book of Mormon and he asked if he
could keep it! He then gave us his number, so we need to set something up for this week.

Trying to explore our area while doing missionary work, we went to
Seeligenstadt to scope out the city for pday all the while contacting.
It didn’t go so well just because all of the people were tourists and
its a smaller area. But! As we were going through and doing some
doors, this guy stopped us and asked if we were Jehovas Witnesses.
Quite determined to tell him the truth, I gladly and quickly told him
no. He then asked us if we were Mormons, to which I even more
excitedly replied, yes! We didn’t talk much, but he took a book and
told us that in his 15 years in that city, we were the first LDS
missionaries he had ever seen. Pretty cool, right?

Last story! We had another lesson with sister Young, and it went so
well! We talked about repentance, because that morning I kind of had
an epiphany. Repenting for me has always been associated with the
thought telling God that you fudged up, and I have heard for the
longest time to repent daily, but I could never figure out what
about. I was and have been a good kid, and I never got how one was
supposed to repent daily unless he had knowingly messed up. Well
lately I've been really trying to focus on developing a stronger
relationship with Christ, and I've been praying and looking at the
scriptures to see how that's possible, and at our district meeting
this week it was brought up that we draw nearer to Christ by
repenting! I had always heard this but as I heard from general
conference, hearing is not always understanding. That morning I woke
up and thought on Ether 12:27 which talks about weakness, and It
occurred to me that the reason I sometimes feel that I haven't had
much personal growth on my mission or grown closer to Christ as much
as I could have, is because I was relying on myself to propel myself
and make changes on my own, rather than rely on the lord and his
atonement to help me. I learned that repenting is in fact setting
goals with Heavenly Father and relying and asking for his help to make
positive changes in your life. As I shared that the spirit filled the
room and she told us that she wants to make changes in her life too. I
had feared that she would be offended, but with the help of others and
the spirit, it couldn't have gone better.

Good week this week, and I'm hoping this next week will be better!
Hope you all have a nice day and enjoy the crisp, cool, autumn air.

Kevin

Awesome Conference talks!

This week went by so fast, but there were some days that just didn’t seem to end!  Day after day though I just keep finding myself in bed again, and it
is absolutely wild.

For a district meeting with a few elders and sisters I gave a
presentation about sacrificing things for missions, and what was cool
was that I learned as I was talking. It’s always cool when you say
things you didn’t plan, but that fit in perfectly.

Every week as of a week or two ago, we began trying to focus on weekly
Christ-like attributes, and last week was diligence. I wont lie, the
contacting this week was tough. We came home one night and we had
about 25 minutes to spare. After coming right back from a service
project we decided to run up and change clothes and go contact for 20
or so minutes. As soon as we stepped out the door there was a man
walking past the door that we have talked to multiple times. If we had
come out a minute later or even a few seconds later he would have been
gone! We ended up having a pretty good discussion too. Blessings!

On Friday we had the opportunity to have a street display and it went
unbelievably well! We gave out somewhere very close to 30 books, and
we got to know a guy that we ended up teaching the next day. He even
came to conference!

That’s pretty much the latest and greatest from me. Not too much has
changed lately. Just a lot of really good conference talks from the
Prophet and Apostles on Sunday. Love you all!

Kevin