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

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!