Another week gone by like a bullet. Welcome all, this is Kevin reporting from Germany the land where it is actually cool to wear fanny packs at my age!

So last week I wrote about the two Daniels that we are teaching, and I am proud to say that we have baptismal dates for both of them, and both are native Germans, which is awesome! This week I found out how much I actually click with the younger one. He and I talked all about video games while we were traveling, and then we found out how much we both love long boards! He told me that the next lesson we have he is going to bring two boards for afterward. I can't help but say that I am a little excited!!

Many people use their parents’ religion as an excuse not to care. Religion is a thing for old people here. Not only was I told that by missionaries, but by kids here too. Sad they can't see.

Transfer calls are the first week of September. I personally believe I will stay in Cologne, because I think I have work to do and to work with Daniel. I do think Elder Arts and I will split up, but another transfer would be great

This week we also helped a guy put up a massive fence in his yard. He was a way cool guy and we helped out for 8 hours and then had one of the best BBQs I've ever had. We also had this amazing thing called a doener. They are delicious except they are like bricks. You eat them and then the water in your stomach solidifies them.

Lastly, this week we had an awesome speaker from church headquarters and it really helped pumped me up to work harder. I also got to see a bunch of the guys I came out with! At that conference we had 11 of the 20 of us that got sent to the Frankfurt area. Pretty neat!

I wish I had more to write about this week, but we actually had a lot of appointments fall out on us this week. Love it here but still very much proud of home! We see American flags alllll over clothing and purses. I even saw a few Michigan Wolverine hats, too bad they don't know what it actually means. Hope everyone has a good week.

Greetings all from land of barf on the street cars and home of the women wearing altered bikinis for games convention!!

I make Germany sound kind of strange, but this week was actually quite awesome and I brought my journal with me to help me out. Unfortunately I'm not so sure how much time I have today.

This week I went on another split with a brand new missionary which was kind of scary. We actually got along much better this time, probably because of our attitudes this time. It made it so much more bearable and actually quite a bit of fun. We also had our weekly district meeting and we had two mini missionaries there for just this week. One of them thought I played American football! Now either I'm getter ripped or just fat haha. The German food is kind of filling. This week I had an amazing trifle with pudding, a little crust, and a whole lot of pudding and cherry on top.

This week in an effort to meet and help our neighbors, we made about 5 or 6 kilos of cookie dough. Now I'm not sure what happened, but I don't think we gave out as much as I saw in the "Bucket". This week we also went over to one of our favorite families and helped them build a brand new trampoline. Now of course I had to test it and make sure it was functioning properly, so I did a few back flips and did a little showing off and I decided it was worthy haha.

Just the other day we ran into a guy who started talking to us first. He worked for the airforce and lived in texas for a couple of years. He didn't want to discuss religion, and most people don't, but he was way funny and had almost no accent! It was amazing! As for now, he is a civillian pilot trainer. Right up my alley!  Lastly, we had a really cool experience this week. So earlier as I was on my split, the elders went and met with two guys both named Daniel that both reffered themselves on the same day! We ended up seeing the younger one at church yesterday, and we introduced him to some people in the ward. Turns out the family with the trampoline knows his mother, and has for 25 years! So they had an awesome bonding moment. We also introduced him to Abraham. Abraham is from Mexico and they talked forever in spanish. Abraham even came along and helped us teach him both in German and in Spanish. At the end of the lesson we asked him if he wanted to follow Christ's example and be baptized. He said yes and got way excited, and during his prayer at the end of our meeting he thanked God for this opportunity.

I'm really glad to be out here, and I have never regretted it. I'm learning so much here and I have come to love to serve and to love those that I serve. Serving someone is such an awesome way to show someone you care. I'm so glad I get to be out here for two whole years, even though I miss a lot. Keep me updated and have a good week!

Gummy Bears!

I can't really remember what happened this week and I didn't bring my journal to help me remember. I will say that it rains here a lot. I mean a lot. Elder Arts and I get stuck in the rain all the time, and since it comes out of nowhere we usually don't have an umbrella haha. Still it's kind of fun because it cools us down and then we just run for cover singing "If you like Pina Colatas, and getting stuck in the rain"...We are such dorks but that's kind of what makes this companionship work! We geek out together and then we laugh, which can really help get through a day.

This last week we went over to our good friend Herr Zeitel's house. He is doing way good, but is struggling to gain a testimony of the foundation of the church, which is important. If you want to build a tall building, you need to have a strong solid foundation.

So I'll go on a random tangent just because this is happening as we speak. There is this crazy guy in the internet place that has been talking with elder Arts for quite some time. And really they have been talking about nothing. This guy is wearing a green helmet while using the computer and claims to control the elements and commands it to rain. It just started to thunder and rain and he said it was his dream. Confused? Me too. He says he has strange dreams, and also says "Silence please!" whenever a car honks outside. I feel so bad for elder Arts because he only wants to write his family!

Also this last week we had a random guy show up to church that wants to learn more! Not something that happens everyday. We also had two people both named Daniel call us and set up appointments. Not to mention we have never met these people. We also had some way cool lessons with members. There is this family that we absolutely love, and we helped a bunch with their apartment. The husband is from Albania and the wife is from here. They had us over once the apartment was finished and we just had a fun time talking and eating. It's always fun to be with them because it feels like I have friends again! haha. Being a missionary, our social life is a little bit different. We also went to the Wiegand's house twice and we kind of had a council. The Cologne ward is having some problems with a lot of people not actually coming to church. With one person gone it would hardly be noticeable, except that everyone does that so now our ward is really small. We kind of came up with a plan and are enlisting other strong members to come together to put together a plan of how we can turn this congregation into more of a family. I feel like it will be tough, but it also feels like it is something that will be very rewarding if anything happens.

So last week we went to the Haribo Factory except that the factory wasn't there. Luckily the massive store with the crazy low prices still was! Elder Arts and I combined bought about 10 kilos worth of gummies. Disgusted? Me too. It tastes so good though! We bought 2 boxes each 4 kilos for only 10 euro! It was filled with random stuff but I have to say that any Haribo is way good. I also discovered that it only costs 7 euro to send 1 kilo home and only 2 euro for inside. Will definitely be sending things home!

Ok well I have to go to an appointment soon, and this guy is trying to talk to us and show us his house I think...so...tschuss!

GUMMY BEARS!!!

This week was great, just like the rest of them. We got another investigator so we are now up to a total of 4! We started out with 0 but we have gotten more and more with time, which is awesome! Our latest investigator comes from Armenia, and is the only Baptist in his family. The rest of his family is some sort of Orthodox group. He actually used to come to church and meet with the missionaries, but that was a few years ago. Just last week he ran into some other elders in Bonn and so he referred himself to us! His name is Abraham.

So I think I shared a little story last week of a Chinese couple that we met on a train. If not I'll just summarize real quick. We met them on the train and we asked them if they were religious at all. They said "Not yet" which is weird because people here usually just work their way around the question! We asked them what they meant and they told us that they were looking for something to believe in, and had heard a little bit of the story about Jesus and wanted to learn more. Grinning from ear to ear Elder Arts and I explained to them that this is what we do all day every day! This is every missionaries dream! Unfortunately they lived in Bonn so we gave them to the sisters there. We talked to them yesterday and they came to church and were way excited because they had never attended a service or had prayers before. They now have a Book of Mormon and are learning to pray. Although we don't get to teach them, it's really rewarding to hear what's going on with them.

Also this week I figured I better go get my MTC card out of my luggage since it has my debit card pin number on it. Why it was still in there I don't know. Anyway, I found it and then found some letters in the top of my suitcase. I had some time so I pulled them out and read them! I actually found one from my mom, and funny enough she talked about getting her testimony, how to keep and maintain it, and how it came with time. I say funny enough because this is what our main lesson with our main investigator was about! I read it over and I just got this awesome feeling that this is what I had to share with Herr Zeitel. When we taught our lesson it was very special, and everyone including the members that were there were listening very closely. It was exactly what he needed to hear, and what was different was that it was coming from a person like him and not just this kid. I will tell you that the spirit when we taught him was very much there.  Afterwards we set up another appointment with him and next week he wants to go over the baptism questions!

Germany is absolutely wonderful and I'm really starting to feel welcomed and like it is home. All of us missionaries are getting along really well and today we are going to the Haribo gummy factory in Bonn! It's free to get into, and you can apparently buy kilos worth of gummies for way cheap! Excited? Very much so. You just can't do some things back home that you can here. Speaking of that, I'll upload some photos of the castle we visited last week. Thanks for all the letters and have a good week!

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!

Birthday week!

Hey all!

Just wanted to start out and thank everyone for the birthday wishes. I miss all of you and I got your Facebook messages through my mom. Send me an email sometime and let me know what's up back home, I miss it sometimes!

So this week I went on a split with another elder and it was almost like the blind leading the blind since we are both new. Ironically we actually visited a blind guy....haha. He is so cool though. Pretty sure I already wrote about him, but he is a recently joined member and his name is Wolfgang! This Elder and I got along ok, but that's probably because I was holding in my frustration with him haha. After a very hot day I just wanted to take a shower and he asked me why I would take a shower now when I would have to take another in the morning. Excuse me? Haha. He kept telling me how to do things and our teaching style was just really different. Plus I could tell the people he talked with on the street were WAY uncomfortable. Glad it's over though! Believe it or not I actually did learn from that experience too..in a good way! I think I am beginning to learn patience haha.

So on the 18th it was very very hot. We had set up a time to go to the Radison Blu hotel because a member from my church back home was going to be in Cologne on business. I asked my mission president if I could possibly meet up. He said it would probably not be a good idea, and could also make me homesick. I had no problem with this, so I just set up a time to pick up a birthday package at the hotel because he was bringing one from my parents. Well after an hour of being in the sun, we finally made it. We were so hot, and out of the corner of my eye I see our friend. I was like, well there's no getting this out of this president so I'm going to say hello! It was way nice to meet with him because it felt like home wasn't so far away anymore. It was also really nice to see someone that I knew before my mission because it helped me to feel like Elder Andrew and Kevin are also the same person. We also got a drink there, which was unbelievably refreshing!! We sat and talked and I got my package. He had slipped in some drinks and two pastries from a shop nearby. Let me just say those were the best pastries I have ever had, and that was just as good if not better than eating a cake!!

The next day on my birthday we went to zone training and I talked with the mission president to get to know him better and him me. We had a really good fun talk, and the best part was that it was about 95 outside and the room we were in was like a freezer since it actually had AC! So later in the training, a fireman came in and told us we either needed to stay or get out of the area because a bomb from WWII had been found while digging for a sight nearby. They needed to deactivate the bomb and nobody would be able to come in or go out of the area during that time. Elder Arts and I had an appointment at 6, and we just barely got out by just barely getting on the last train in hours. Luckily everyone was ok, but we also made it to our appointment. Oh and we were also only one of about 10 or so companionships that made it out of the area. This meeting was with a guy we had met on a train. He had so many little questions, and we were able to answer almost all of them with him saying "yeah that makes sense" after most of them. He is so cool and he drove 30 min just to meet with us. His name is Marius, and we just clicked so well. For once out here, I felt like I made a friend with the people here. Unfortunately we told him there were some other elders that could help him that lived closer. I say unfortunately because he is so awesome and we haven't met anyone like him in a very long time. On the bright side, right before that we had a guy from Ghana come up to us and immediately recognized us. We gave him a Book of Mormon and our number and he said he'd give us a call soon. I really hope he does!

So much lengthier letter this week. But also a much better week, and a birthday that was better than most, granted that my Spongebob party when I was little will probably always be up there. Way glad to be out here, and have been having way cool experiences!! Thanks for all the letters and birthday wishes. Have a good week everyone!!