Ancient ruins in autumn.

Hey MOMO! Thanks for all the news!

Good job in your tennis matches! Keep playin hard! Sounds like everyone had a nice weekend! Oh man.... dad bought a tractor... never thought I'd see the day dad would buy a vehicle that goes slower than 60! It looks nice! 

Im really glad Rachel is doing better lately. That helps me rest a lot easier. I think she's finally adjusting to independent life. It's definitely not an easy transition. Man... The German keyboards have the y and z keys switched, so it's been fun adjusting. Now I'm adjusted, but when I go home it'll be chaos... bah, Germany. 

 

at the ruins

 

Being on my mission I've really realized just how many blessings I had being raised in our home. I've learned lots about charity and grace and how to interact with people. And how to love people. I'm so grateful for the love we had and showed for each other always on our home. 

Yeah! I've already been away a whole season! Autumn (Herbst auf deutsch) hasn't really struck yet... it's getting colder, but everything is still green! I'm not sure how much changes here... I definitely miss the family hikes. But we went on a beautiful hike today with the district!! We went and found some castle ruins! It was beautiful and very old. Although I still miss the hikes we did as a family... doing things with the district is nice, it feels like we're all family. Can't wait until I get to hike with you guys once again :) 

 

 

Yeah, I've heard my share of bad news from all over the world. Everyone is getting this eerie feeling like something big is about to go down in Europe. Something that will really humble the people. Präsident Kohler has been having us go over the emergency plans and stuff. It just feels like the world is about to climax. But don't worry, if I do what I'm supposed to do, I'll be safe :) I did indeed try new foods here! We had Croatian food, and it was pretty good. Rice with meatballs and mashed potatoes! Then we had ice cream. Cinnamon and hazel nut ice cream... not my favorite, but pretty good! We had this Soda that was actually the communist attempt to make Coca Cola.... haha. It was good! It was more like soft root beer than anything else... 

 

 

Normal meals... normally I eat some really good German granola cereal for breakfast. It's actually surprisingly good. For lunch we usually make some kind of stir fry or sandwiches. Sometimes we even eat salad! Then for lunch we either eat with someone or make burgers, Pizza, or paninis... we bought a panini maker. Worth it. :) sometimes we have special things, like maultaschen, or pigs in blanket. We eat ramen sometimes, but that's when we don't have much time. I am trying to stay fit :) I've been slacking a little bit on my morning workouts, but still goin at it! Sometimes it's just horribly hard to get up and do something at 6:30 in the morning. To drink, I've actually barely had any milk!! Crazy right?? The milk here doesn't taste as good... I drink LOTS of water mostly. It's really easy to get ahold of, and it's the best for you :) no ice cubes in Germany though! Gotta keep water in the fridge and pour it into glasses. Yeah, we can find most of what we like and need. Some things just aren't found here, and that's sad. BAGELS DONT EXIST. IVE BEEN GOING CRAZY CRAVING BAGELS. THEY DONT SELL THEM. But they sell Philadelphia cream cheese oddly enough... but no BAGELS! 

As for investigators... 

Michael is doing great! He's midway through the non smoking program right now, and we're hoping he keeps going strong! :) he's giving up tea, coffee, and cigarettes right now. He's a trooper. 

We actually have a wealth of good people we teach :) but EVERYONE has one thing holding them back from being baptized. I guess sacrificing something is always part of true conversion. But no one else is ready to take that step... Thomas just isn't reading. He says he knows there's something good here, and that he really wants to know if the church is true or not, but he doesn't read, he doesn't come to church barely at all, and in general he's just not trying very hard to find an answer... You already know about Britte. She has a lot going against her if she decides to be baptized. Justine is only 16, and needs to wait until she legally has religious freedom to be baptized (17). Because her parents don't approve. 

But that's just how it is :) the good thing is that I know these people will be baptized... it'll just take time. They just need lots of time to think it over and they'll realize just how happy the Gospel of Jesus Christ can make them. They'll realize how important they really are to their Heavenly Father. The joy and the peace available to them is comparable to nothing else. 

This was a busy week for us! We got crazy news!! We got transfer calls... and MY COMPANION is the one getting transferred!! I'm staying in Ellwangen for about another 2 months! He's only been here six weeks! Which means I'll be having three companions in my first area! That earns me the official title... Keeper of Ellwangen. Oh yeah. He's going to München to be a zone leader! My new companions name will be Elder Hale. Apparently he is really really cool. :) I'll be sad to see elder Donald go though... we had lots of fun, and did lots of good work. 

 

 

I actually didn't get kicked out of any houses this week! Woot! In fact... we found a couple people that are seemingly interested in meeting and learning from us! That was nice. We had a couple crazy appointments this week xD 

We visited a less active member (a member that doesn't come to church very much) named Bruder Baumann. He has a physical disability... he twitches a lot. And he has the dirtiest apartment I've ever seen.... oh man. But anyway, the man speaks ONLY in dialect. Only in Schwäbisch! And he mumbles very very badly... And I was on exchange with a brand new missionary.... I understood about 4 words in an hour and a half.... he understood none. It was basically him trying to tell us his life story and us smiling and nodding, throwing in the occasional "oh, I see..... interesting... wow..." and so on. And then he felt the need to show us a 30 year old foreign film about Christ.... it was the worst quality piece of cinematography I've ever laid eyes on... it was awkward. So.. that was interesting! 

Then we visited another less active, who just has some very strongly opinionated views on church doctrine... which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.... except that he's mostly wrong... 

We showed up ready to share something simple, and found that his equally strongly opinionated agnostic daughter was also there... and wanted to sit in on the discussion. 

It was chaos. 

She told us she was a religion teacher, and that she just wanted to see how Mormon missionaries taught. She said she didn't want to interrupt, just observe. So we decided to just read a little bit of scripture from the Book of Mormon with Bruder Stanke. The problem was, he took every single verse we read with him, twisted it into his own words, and used It to attack his daughter for not being religious... 

They basically argued the whole time, Bruder Stanke trying to force his false doctrinal ideas on his daughter, while she fought back with philosophy. Needless to say... it was frustrating. Bruder Stanke was basically doing the opposite of missionary work in this case, and everytime we tried to explain something, he would argue against what we said. We walked out of that lesson not knowing exactly what had just occurred.... but then we ate ice cream to make us feel better, so all was good. 

 

 

We went to speak with people on the street and ran into a lot of interesting people! One guy was Muslim, and tried telling us that in the Bible, Jesus says that Mohammad will be the next prophet, and that he'll come from Mecca. He said lots of other strange things that didn't make a lot of sense, and finally we asked him how he knew all of this. He said he read it all on the internet. I told him then that i learned everything i knew from God and his scripture, and that i knew it was true through personal revelation from God. He stopped talking.... and wished us a good day. That was a fun night. We talked to lots of good people and saw lots of the town :) 

We meet with this old lady every Sunday who is so old that she can't go to church. We bring her the sacrament, and have the opportunity to talk to her for an hour before her caretaker comes. I enjoy this time very much. She always has wonderful things to share and finds joy in the smallest little things. Last time we talked about the world, and how it's going. She just always seems to find every opportunity to rely on her faith, and then does it. Very strong testimony. That was really nice. 

I found some cool prophecies from prophets and apostles in early days about Germany. I'm very honored to be a part of this work, and getting this stone rolling. 

 

 

"In the name of Jesus Christ I prophesy among the Germans there is a
great work to do. Bigger than in all other countries and in a short
time this work will have more converts to the kingdom of God than in
any other nation."
-Orson Pratt

"In Germany, Switzerland and in Austria there will be hundreds of
stakes, HUNDREDS! And we want you to count on that, look forward to it
and help with it. In Europe there can also be dozens of temples if you
start to prepare yourselves and the people around you. For God,
nothing is impossible. For humans, nothing is impossible if they
prepare to become Gods one day. What you dream about, you can bring
about."
-President Spencer W. Kimball

Love you all :) until next week