Yeah, the rest of Christmas has been pretty good. Christmas part 1 (25th) was nearing it's close as I talked to you, and part 2 (today) has been quite uneventful so far. The internetladen was closed down today, but then we remembered that the Church had internet as of Saturday, and the member we're going to lives nearby. And President indicated that we should do emails today, but if we can't to do them Tuesday or Wednesday.
I still don't have much of anything to say though. But yeah, so that it can stand in the annals (does that word mean what I think it means?) of history, tomorrow I'll be getting Elder Weitzel as my new companion, who was in fact Elder Popp's companion in Glückstadt when I first got to Elmshorn. So that'll be exciting.
And I can't think of anything else to say. So, have a beautiful week, and a nice new year/life.
Love,
Elder Cloward
Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Germany Week 21
So with skyping, we still haven't figured out the times exactly, so I guess we'll just have to forgo the whole thing this year. I can talk to you on Mothers day. ;P I'm just yankin' your leg... The Thoms actually said they would call you when we've got it figured out. Is your church at 1:00 now, or is that starting in January? Is the Swahili Branch still there? Anyhoodles, I'm still not positive of what time will work, or how Skype works - if you need the members username, or they need yours or whatever - I've only used skype that once. But, as I said, we can get that all figured out through the Thoms.
And I'm kind of a little bit jealous that you went to Ryan's Homecoming, but it's ok, cuz I expect to see him at mine. I was definitely going to ask you for news of him. I'm glad you had a good time. Man, I miss that guy.
The Ward Party sounds like it was prettty crazy... It sounds like it was cool though.
The Christmas package you sent was marvelous. I love my scarf and am glad to be reunited with a couple of my old ties. And I know what all the wrapped presents are due to that pesky customs form, but am waiting to open them - most of those things matter more what the pattern/picture is than what the item itself is anyway. I'm excited to see them.
And as for a picture of myself in the old man hat, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting to take one. Or ask someone to take one. Getting pictures of oneself is such an obnoxious business. I do actually have one though, though my face is pretty blurry. The Billboard behind us says, "Mission Christmas Present fulfilled," which we thought was funny, because we'd just gotten our mission Christmas presents.
This week has been at parts great, and at parts pretty blah.
Zone Conference was great. That's when we got the packages, and we had a cute little gift exchange, and President gave a great Thema about reaching out to everyone with love, doing away with predjudice and the significance of Christ's love and atonement. It was really good and it softened my heart a good deal. It was a marvelous Zone Conference.
And I'm kind of a little bit jealous that you went to Ryan's Homecoming, but it's ok, cuz I expect to see him at mine. I was definitely going to ask you for news of him. I'm glad you had a good time. Man, I miss that guy.
The Ward Party sounds like it was prettty crazy... It sounds like it was cool though.
The Christmas package you sent was marvelous. I love my scarf and am glad to be reunited with a couple of my old ties. And I know what all the wrapped presents are due to that pesky customs form, but am waiting to open them - most of those things matter more what the pattern/picture is than what the item itself is anyway. I'm excited to see them.
And as for a picture of myself in the old man hat, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting to take one. Or ask someone to take one. Getting pictures of oneself is such an obnoxious business. I do actually have one though, though my face is pretty blurry. The Billboard behind us says, "Mission Christmas Present fulfilled," which we thought was funny, because we'd just gotten our mission Christmas presents.
This week has been at parts great, and at parts pretty blah.
Zone Conference was great. That's when we got the packages, and we had a cute little gift exchange, and President gave a great Thema about reaching out to everyone with love, doing away with predjudice and the significance of Christ's love and atonement. It was really good and it softened my heart a good deal. It was a marvelous Zone Conference.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Germany Week 20
Dearest Mommy,
I can't really remember my week right now, but I'm pretty sure it was good. Let's see if I can jog my memory a bit.
So.. I'm gonna look at pictures even though most of them aren't from this week.
1. Thanksgiving - Elder McCallister, Elder Ririe, and my Pumpkin Pie
2. More Thanksgiving - Elder Ririe and Elder Thom
3-5. I finally took some pictures of Burg Bentheim
6. Elder Crowther - which reminds me I did yet another Tausch this week - I'll tell you about it in a minute.
7.More Burg
8. The Back of the Weihnachtsmarkt in Rheine
Actually, all of those but the Thanksgiving ones are from this week.
So on Wednesday after Distrikt Meeting, Elder Ririe ran off to Osnabrück with his dear friend Elder Ririe, While Elder Crowther stayed in Bad Bentheim with me. First we went by some people, put some cards in people's mailboxes, and then we retaught the 2nd lesson to F, who was recently baptized. It was a lot of fun, and he spent the whole time making fun of Elder Crowther's writing/drawing skills.
While no one made fun of my writing/drawing skills, they would soon thereafter have ample opportunity to make fun of my driving skills. (To those of my readership who cringe at the site of words matching up in adjacent lines, I excuse myself for 2 reasons. 1. They probably won't line up as well in the format you read it in, and 2. It was meant to be a parallel statement, so it's actually nice in this instance) You see, Elder Crowther has not yet received his German Drivers license, but has surpassed the 6 months in which ones American license is valid. I then, was left to navigate the perilous journey to Rheine. Now when I say perilous journey, I mean the nice, quick, 20 to 30 minute joyride that is usually found between those two cities. Only I drive like an old lady. We actually made it to the city of Rheine quite well - however, once there I needed to fill up the gas tank. So we put the gas station in as a point of interest in the Tomtom, which I was able to follow fairly well, to our destination, which was in fact, a mortuary/gravestone engraving shop, and not a gas station, as our Navi claimed. Lest you take this as a foreshadowing of the ultimate restingplace of our journey, let me remind you that I am in fact writing this email, and therefore survived my ordeal. It is perfectly acceptable, however, to take this as an omen of the metaphorical ill turn which was taken. So I pulled off into a sidestreet where I telephoned my trusty companion to inquire as to the actual location of our gas station, which he was able to amply supply, inclusive of satisfactory instructions of how to reach said destination. These I followed very carefully and was able to get to the gas station without event. In the return journey I met my demise. From the gas station, it was a simple issue of returning to the Ring, which encircles the city center, until I was able to pull off onto the sidestreet where we are accustomed to parking. On an ordinary night, this wouldn't have presented much of a problem - BUT THIS WAS NOT AN ORDINARY NIGHT! (Did I tell you that the Blankens were watching that one time? Those crazy Lektektiliums or whatever they're called) Actually, the night was pretty ordinary, though the dark raininess didn't help me much. So, the Ring in Rheine is tricksy, false and wicked (Wow! that literary allusion was way depthier than I initially intended for it to be! I wasn't even thinking about what I was calling tricksy false and wicked...) for you see, there are lots of times when the lanes and turns, and roads sticking off of the ring are a little bit difficult to follow. And anything like that that's a little bit difficult is a lot o' bit difficult for me. So, I of course got confused when I was supposed to turn left to stay on the ring, but instead went straight onto a terribly constricting road, ended up driving in lots of circles, running into several dead ends and nearly into quite a few pedestrian areas before I finally met my final resting place in our usual parking spot. I cried out "Land!" as I tore myself from the wreckage that was our entirely undamaged vehicle. Our Journey whose naive beginning took place at about 4:00, at last found its close at 5:45. If I get a new companion in a few weeks, I really hope he can drive.
I think it's funny how the times I think I don't have anything to say are the times I get into story mode and end up taking forever....
Some other good things that happened during the week was a meeting with G, to which the Thoms accompanied us, which was quite nice, where we discussed the Plan of Salvation and more about Priesthood authority, The ward Christmas party on Saturday, which was quite a bit of fun, and to which M and her kids came. They also came to church, which was really good. Her daughter loves primary - I think she's the cheif force in getting them to church. I also had to give a talk (which I'd been assigned at the Christmas party, since the one in charge for the week had totally forgotten he was in charge) So I talked about Joy, since yesterday was the Advent of Joy, and thought the brief parts where I tried to say something out of my head were short, garbled, and terrible, I read some excellent selections from addresses of Elders Eyring and Wirthlin.
So yeah, it's been a good week. I know this church is true, and I know that through Jesus Christ we can have joy. Because of his sacrifice we can repent, be forgiven, and become more like him, and find joy therein. We can also fill our everyday lives with joy, despite our struggles, by looking to him, looking up, and learning to laugh.
Oh, and I suppose you asked me a couple questions that I ought to check on - just the singing thing. I sing along with the congregation in Sacrament meeting, and I sing a little bit in the apartment, but I think that sometimes drives Elder Ririe crazy. We were going to do some Christmas Carolling as a ward, but that fell through (see, my english is getting better every day). Otherwise, I don't sing to much.... I figure if someone liked my voice enough to ask me to I would, but I definitely wouldn't feel comfortable waltzing around inviting people to hear how amazing my voice is. I feel like that's an awkward place to end my email, but I'm gonna anyway, cuz that's how I roll. Have a nice life, a beautiful week, and a marvelous Christmas season.
I can't really remember my week right now, but I'm pretty sure it was good. Let's see if I can jog my memory a bit.
So.. I'm gonna look at pictures even though most of them aren't from this week.
1. Thanksgiving - Elder McCallister, Elder Ririe, and my Pumpkin Pie
2. More Thanksgiving - Elder Ririe and Elder Thom
3-5. I finally took some pictures of Burg Bentheim
6. Elder Crowther - which reminds me I did yet another Tausch this week - I'll tell you about it in a minute.
7.More Burg
8. The Back of the Weihnachtsmarkt in Rheine
Actually, all of those but the Thanksgiving ones are from this week.
So on Wednesday after Distrikt Meeting, Elder Ririe ran off to Osnabrück with his dear friend Elder Ririe, While Elder Crowther stayed in Bad Bentheim with me. First we went by some people, put some cards in people's mailboxes, and then we retaught the 2nd lesson to F, who was recently baptized. It was a lot of fun, and he spent the whole time making fun of Elder Crowther's writing/drawing skills.
While no one made fun of my writing/drawing skills, they would soon thereafter have ample opportunity to make fun of my driving skills. (To those of my readership who cringe at the site of words matching up in adjacent lines, I excuse myself for 2 reasons. 1. They probably won't line up as well in the format you read it in, and 2. It was meant to be a parallel statement, so it's actually nice in this instance) You see, Elder Crowther has not yet received his German Drivers license, but has surpassed the 6 months in which ones American license is valid. I then, was left to navigate the perilous journey to Rheine. Now when I say perilous journey, I mean the nice, quick, 20 to 30 minute joyride that is usually found between those two cities. Only I drive like an old lady. We actually made it to the city of Rheine quite well - however, once there I needed to fill up the gas tank. So we put the gas station in as a point of interest in the Tomtom, which I was able to follow fairly well, to our destination, which was in fact, a mortuary/gravestone engraving shop, and not a gas station, as our Navi claimed. Lest you take this as a foreshadowing of the ultimate restingplace of our journey, let me remind you that I am in fact writing this email, and therefore survived my ordeal. It is perfectly acceptable, however, to take this as an omen of the metaphorical ill turn which was taken. So I pulled off into a sidestreet where I telephoned my trusty companion to inquire as to the actual location of our gas station, which he was able to amply supply, inclusive of satisfactory instructions of how to reach said destination. These I followed very carefully and was able to get to the gas station without event. In the return journey I met my demise. From the gas station, it was a simple issue of returning to the Ring, which encircles the city center, until I was able to pull off onto the sidestreet where we are accustomed to parking. On an ordinary night, this wouldn't have presented much of a problem - BUT THIS WAS NOT AN ORDINARY NIGHT! (Did I tell you that the Blankens were watching that one time? Those crazy Lektektiliums or whatever they're called) Actually, the night was pretty ordinary, though the dark raininess didn't help me much. So, the Ring in Rheine is tricksy, false and wicked (Wow! that literary allusion was way depthier than I initially intended for it to be! I wasn't even thinking about what I was calling tricksy false and wicked...) for you see, there are lots of times when the lanes and turns, and roads sticking off of the ring are a little bit difficult to follow. And anything like that that's a little bit difficult is a lot o' bit difficult for me. So, I of course got confused when I was supposed to turn left to stay on the ring, but instead went straight onto a terribly constricting road, ended up driving in lots of circles, running into several dead ends and nearly into quite a few pedestrian areas before I finally met my final resting place in our usual parking spot. I cried out "Land!" as I tore myself from the wreckage that was our entirely undamaged vehicle. Our Journey whose naive beginning took place at about 4:00, at last found its close at 5:45. If I get a new companion in a few weeks, I really hope he can drive.
I think it's funny how the times I think I don't have anything to say are the times I get into story mode and end up taking forever....
Some other good things that happened during the week was a meeting with G, to which the Thoms accompanied us, which was quite nice, where we discussed the Plan of Salvation and more about Priesthood authority, The ward Christmas party on Saturday, which was quite a bit of fun, and to which M and her kids came. They also came to church, which was really good. Her daughter loves primary - I think she's the cheif force in getting them to church. I also had to give a talk (which I'd been assigned at the Christmas party, since the one in charge for the week had totally forgotten he was in charge) So I talked about Joy, since yesterday was the Advent of Joy, and thought the brief parts where I tried to say something out of my head were short, garbled, and terrible, I read some excellent selections from addresses of Elders Eyring and Wirthlin.
So yeah, it's been a good week. I know this church is true, and I know that through Jesus Christ we can have joy. Because of his sacrifice we can repent, be forgiven, and become more like him, and find joy therein. We can also fill our everyday lives with joy, despite our struggles, by looking to him, looking up, and learning to laugh.
Oh, and I suppose you asked me a couple questions that I ought to check on - just the singing thing. I sing along with the congregation in Sacrament meeting, and I sing a little bit in the apartment, but I think that sometimes drives Elder Ririe crazy. We were going to do some Christmas Carolling as a ward, but that fell through (see, my english is getting better every day). Otherwise, I don't sing to much.... I figure if someone liked my voice enough to ask me to I would, but I definitely wouldn't feel comfortable waltzing around inviting people to hear how amazing my voice is. I feel like that's an awkward place to end my email, but I'm gonna anyway, cuz that's how I roll. Have a nice life, a beautiful week, and a marvelous Christmas season.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Germany Week 19
This week's been pretty good. Ultimately, however, it ended in failure. You see, the big Advent der Wunder thing we're doing required that for this first week, we have a perfect finding week - that means that we needed to get seven new appointments during the week, which we did not manage to do. So, that was kind of a bummer. We definitely could've worked harder for it, probably could've worked smarter for it - one always can - but we did work pretty hard. So I don't feel that bad about it. At least I'm trying not to. It's just that there are all of these things that we're supposed to be doing throughout the month, and we're already out of the running, so to say. One thing that's going to be hard is to work diligently on the rest without getting casual because we didn't make the early requirements... But I definitely intend to go forward with it.
Though we didn't get the miracle we were supposed to, we did see some other miracles. For instance, yesterday a few different inactives came into church - it was only for the last few minutes, and they didn't go to any meetings, but we were able to get a chance to visit a little with them, and invite them further. It doesn't seem like that much, but especially when you consider that we've been specifically praying and fasting for increased church attendance, it's certainly something.
On Wednesday night, the last day of November, we had just enough Kilometers left to drive to Osnabrück to do a Tausch (Which means exchanges, or whatever you nonGerman people call it - we always call it that, and we usually only use splits when we're doing them with members - but to tell the truth, I still haven't figured out what half of the other missionary terms mean anyway... people are always using them, but no one's ever defining them...). So I stayed in Osnabrück with Elder McCallister. We had a lot of fun - at least I did - hopefully he did too. While we were just chatting, he mentioned that he knew a family who lived up on the hill in Salt Lake (He's from Oregon). I was like, "ah yeah, the Aves. There are lots of rich people who live up there." He's all like, "this family isn't rich," So I was like, "well, not all of them are rich - I guess the Sandstroms aren't rich." and he was all like, "wha!?" And then it's all like, "Oh mylanta! They're the people he was talking about!" Though the Sandroms are by no means the only nonrich people in the aves, this story does prove that they know everyone. Apparently his older Brother and Cambria were in the same hospital when they were little, and their families kept in touch.... I thought that was exciting.
We ended our Tausch with going up to President's interviews in Hamburg - it took pretty much the whole day to get there and back, but it was nice. On the train ride there, Elder McCallister taught me how to do a rubix cube. Except I'm beginning to suspect he taught me a false last step, just to be a jerk... I think it's funny that I finally learned it from him when I've had so many 'cuber' friends and people who've offered to teach me - I guess I just didn't have anything better to do on the train. I got to see Elder Jenkins and Sister Kitterman at Interviews too, which was nice. Sister Kitterman leaves, I believe, a week from today, so it was good to talk to her before she goes back home. She gave her "finisher Testimony" which was really good, and she said some good stuff about handing your heart over to Heavenly Father that I neded to hear. She also enjoyed the story that Elder McCallister knew the Sandstroms....
Yeah, I feel like I'm getting to know the area fairly well. As for geographic size, I can't be any more specific than "very large." Maybe if you look up the Bad Bentheim Branch on lds.org, you'll be able to get a better idea of that.
Mmmkey Dokey - That's pretty much all that'S coming to mind to say at the moment - so Have a beautiful week, a nice life, and In case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight!
The Church is true!
- Elder Cloward
Though we didn't get the miracle we were supposed to, we did see some other miracles. For instance, yesterday a few different inactives came into church - it was only for the last few minutes, and they didn't go to any meetings, but we were able to get a chance to visit a little with them, and invite them further. It doesn't seem like that much, but especially when you consider that we've been specifically praying and fasting for increased church attendance, it's certainly something.
On Wednesday night, the last day of November, we had just enough Kilometers left to drive to Osnabrück to do a Tausch (Which means exchanges, or whatever you nonGerman people call it - we always call it that, and we usually only use splits when we're doing them with members - but to tell the truth, I still haven't figured out what half of the other missionary terms mean anyway... people are always using them, but no one's ever defining them...). So I stayed in Osnabrück with Elder McCallister. We had a lot of fun - at least I did - hopefully he did too. While we were just chatting, he mentioned that he knew a family who lived up on the hill in Salt Lake (He's from Oregon). I was like, "ah yeah, the Aves. There are lots of rich people who live up there." He's all like, "this family isn't rich," So I was like, "well, not all of them are rich - I guess the Sandstroms aren't rich." and he was all like, "wha!?" And then it's all like, "Oh mylanta! They're the people he was talking about!" Though the Sandroms are by no means the only nonrich people in the aves, this story does prove that they know everyone. Apparently his older Brother and Cambria were in the same hospital when they were little, and their families kept in touch.... I thought that was exciting.
We ended our Tausch with going up to President's interviews in Hamburg - it took pretty much the whole day to get there and back, but it was nice. On the train ride there, Elder McCallister taught me how to do a rubix cube. Except I'm beginning to suspect he taught me a false last step, just to be a jerk... I think it's funny that I finally learned it from him when I've had so many 'cuber' friends and people who've offered to teach me - I guess I just didn't have anything better to do on the train. I got to see Elder Jenkins and Sister Kitterman at Interviews too, which was nice. Sister Kitterman leaves, I believe, a week from today, so it was good to talk to her before she goes back home. She gave her "finisher Testimony" which was really good, and she said some good stuff about handing your heart over to Heavenly Father that I neded to hear. She also enjoyed the story that Elder McCallister knew the Sandstroms....
Yeah, I feel like I'm getting to know the area fairly well. As for geographic size, I can't be any more specific than "very large." Maybe if you look up the Bad Bentheim Branch on lds.org, you'll be able to get a better idea of that.
Mmmkey Dokey - That's pretty much all that'S coming to mind to say at the moment - so Have a beautiful week, a nice life, and In case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight!
The Church is true!
- Elder Cloward
Monday, November 28, 2011
Germany Week 18
Tell Jerry Powell "hi" from me too. And that it turns out I didn't really need to practice because the keyboards in our gemeinde play by themselves. :P Nah, I've definitely had to plunk my way through a lot of hymns out here. I hope she's doing well.
My week was good. I've had absolutely no problems getting around on Busses, largely because we almost never take them - the time in the story I told you is the only time I've used one since Elmshorn (And there we only used them once or twice). Here we mostly use our car and our feet, but otherwise we use the trains (When we're going to Osnabrück or Hannover or wherever). And we don't have bikes here.
Last week I bought a charger cable for my camera, which was luckily waay cheaper than I expected, but I haven't really taken pictures yet. Sorry ;P And My Old man hat definitely doesn't have ear flaps - I believe the term "newsies hat" might summon the proper image. Elder and Sister Thom call it an Elder Morris hat, but I don't imagine that'll help you much.
Our Thanksgiving here was fantastic. Sister Thom made a proper thanksgiving meal for us using improper German ingredients. It was suuuper delicious and amazing. I highly recommend Ehepaars. The Osnabrück Elders and the Zone Leaders (with whom we'd just been on Tausch) were there too. It was a real blast. And a particularly nummy blast.
Wednesday after District meeting is when we tausched - So I went up to Oldenburg with Elder Evans and Elder Johnson was in Rheine with Elder Ririe. I had a great time with Elder Evans. He's a really cool guy. First we went to an appointment with a recent convert and talked about patriarchal blessings - she was really cool and really excited about the gospel. Then we rode around on bikes, street contacting. That was not my favorite activity. Add to the stress of talking to people on the street some constant starting and stopping on a bike. And mix in my clumsiness. Then throw in the fact that that seat was really uncomfortable. and that it was too loose and shifted into some really uncomfortable positions.... It was alright though. We actually made out 4 appointments.... Then we went to do some doors. At the first door - well, technically the 2nd door, but the 1st door at which anyone answered- this guy just let us in when we said who we were. It was funny too, because he didn't say "come in" or anything, he just said, "is it alright if we meet in this room downstairs, because I live alone and don't keep the heater on upstairs." We were, of course, willing to oblige. He knew a little about the lifestyle of mormons and had been impressed by their activity in communities and everything, but knew little of our doctrine, but was very interested. He was very sincere and thoughtful and we had a great discussion with him as we taught the first lesson. Then, as we really got to the Book of Mormon, he asked, "So you're saying that this book is good enough, that millions of people have believed it and joined your church? Would you be willing to sell me a copy of this book?" That is one of the best questions someone could possibly ask. We gladly gave it to him for free. They made out an appoinment for a couple weeks, because he wanted time to read it and be prepared for the next meeting. It was super exciting.
So yeah, those were some highlights of the week.
Yesterday was the First Advent, kind of the official beginning of the Christmas season. President Pimentel has also put together a really cool program for December centered around the Advents, concentrated on inviting people to Church, and as always, Finding, Teaching, Baptizing, and Keeping. It's going to be an Advent of Miracles. Yesterday we also got the Ausstellung display for our Gemeinde (I don't remember if I said it before, but the District President liked them so much he ordered one for every ward/branch in the Oldenburg District) Now we've got to call the city governments to find out where we can do it, because the places that we're supposed to have are currently being used for Weihnachtsmarkts.
Weihnachtsmarkts are super cool by the way, and very nummy smelling - they've just started going up the with advent of first Advent. Rheine doesn't seem to have one, which is weird - maybe they'll just put it up later or something? Anyway, I'm getting pretty excited for Christmas.
I'm really excited to be here serving my mission in Germany where the Christmas traditions are so strong - I think it will be a marvelous opportunity to really pay attention to and appreciate the true significance of Christmas - the birth of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world. I know that he did come to the earth, that he is the only begotten of the Father, and that through him we may find everlasting peace and joy. I love you all, and I know this Church is true! Happy Christmas!
My week was good. I've had absolutely no problems getting around on Busses, largely because we almost never take them - the time in the story I told you is the only time I've used one since Elmshorn (And there we only used them once or twice). Here we mostly use our car and our feet, but otherwise we use the trains (When we're going to Osnabrück or Hannover or wherever). And we don't have bikes here.
Last week I bought a charger cable for my camera, which was luckily waay cheaper than I expected, but I haven't really taken pictures yet. Sorry ;P And My Old man hat definitely doesn't have ear flaps - I believe the term "newsies hat" might summon the proper image. Elder and Sister Thom call it an Elder Morris hat, but I don't imagine that'll help you much.
Our Thanksgiving here was fantastic. Sister Thom made a proper thanksgiving meal for us using improper German ingredients. It was suuuper delicious and amazing. I highly recommend Ehepaars. The Osnabrück Elders and the Zone Leaders (with whom we'd just been on Tausch) were there too. It was a real blast. And a particularly nummy blast.
Wednesday after District meeting is when we tausched - So I went up to Oldenburg with Elder Evans and Elder Johnson was in Rheine with Elder Ririe. I had a great time with Elder Evans. He's a really cool guy. First we went to an appointment with a recent convert and talked about patriarchal blessings - she was really cool and really excited about the gospel. Then we rode around on bikes, street contacting. That was not my favorite activity. Add to the stress of talking to people on the street some constant starting and stopping on a bike. And mix in my clumsiness. Then throw in the fact that that seat was really uncomfortable. and that it was too loose and shifted into some really uncomfortable positions.... It was alright though. We actually made out 4 appointments.... Then we went to do some doors. At the first door - well, technically the 2nd door, but the 1st door at which anyone answered- this guy just let us in when we said who we were. It was funny too, because he didn't say "come in" or anything, he just said, "is it alright if we meet in this room downstairs, because I live alone and don't keep the heater on upstairs." We were, of course, willing to oblige. He knew a little about the lifestyle of mormons and had been impressed by their activity in communities and everything, but knew little of our doctrine, but was very interested. He was very sincere and thoughtful and we had a great discussion with him as we taught the first lesson. Then, as we really got to the Book of Mormon, he asked, "So you're saying that this book is good enough, that millions of people have believed it and joined your church? Would you be willing to sell me a copy of this book?" That is one of the best questions someone could possibly ask. We gladly gave it to him for free. They made out an appoinment for a couple weeks, because he wanted time to read it and be prepared for the next meeting. It was super exciting.
So yeah, those were some highlights of the week.
Yesterday was the First Advent, kind of the official beginning of the Christmas season. President Pimentel has also put together a really cool program for December centered around the Advents, concentrated on inviting people to Church, and as always, Finding, Teaching, Baptizing, and Keeping. It's going to be an Advent of Miracles. Yesterday we also got the Ausstellung display for our Gemeinde (I don't remember if I said it before, but the District President liked them so much he ordered one for every ward/branch in the Oldenburg District) Now we've got to call the city governments to find out where we can do it, because the places that we're supposed to have are currently being used for Weihnachtsmarkts.
Weihnachtsmarkts are super cool by the way, and very nummy smelling - they've just started going up the with advent of first Advent. Rheine doesn't seem to have one, which is weird - maybe they'll just put it up later or something? Anyway, I'm getting pretty excited for Christmas.
I'm really excited to be here serving my mission in Germany where the Christmas traditions are so strong - I think it will be a marvelous opportunity to really pay attention to and appreciate the true significance of Christmas - the birth of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world. I know that he did come to the earth, that he is the only begotten of the Father, and that through him we may find everlasting peace and joy. I love you all, and I know this Church is true! Happy Christmas!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Germany Week 17
Hey there Mom, sounds like you had a pretty good week.
I've had one too.
So last Monday I did buy myself some gloves, a scarf and an old man hat. They came to 34 €. I love them a lot. Though 34€ is sounding like more to me now than it did at the time. But I promise, they were the cheapest ones I could find that didn't have Hello Kitty on them. ;P I actually love them very much. Now I have the same type of hat as every old man in Germany. Some old men in America have them too, but not as many. Once I have a camera again, I'll send you a picture of how amazing I look as an old man.
What else happened this week...? Well, we went to Osnabrück three days in a row, which was quite the party. Monday we went for Vorbereitungstag, then Tuesday we went to babysit Elder Crowther between the time Elder Bossart left and Elder McCallister came - and we wandered around there for a while trying to get in contact with people. We were also using our Niedersachen trainticket, which may or may not work on the Busses there... You see, we took one bus, the driver said it was good, and took us to the next bus, where the driver said it wasn't - so then we went to another bus that was going to the same place, and he said it was good, but then when we caught that same bus on the way back, the driver said it wasn't good, but since the other driver had brought us out there with it, he'd be willing to bring us back just this once.... I don't know if my words were too garbled for that story to make sense, but hopefully it at least conveys the confusion we experienced as to the validity of Neidersachen Tickets on the Busses of Osnabrück. Then on Wednesday we went there again with the Thoms for District meeting, which was also quite the party.
We had a couple pretty good lessons this week, but we had more fall out. We were able to make out several appointments for next week, which will hopefully go well (mostly with former investigators...)
One really great thing was that M showed up to church yesterday with her two daughters even though she was late and had a terrible headache. I ended up staying with her in the Primary when we went to drop her kids off - I think it was really good for her. First, her kids seemed to really enjoy it, she saw that they enjoyed it, and there was a very simple lesson that touched on a lot of different things like Church Attendance, the Sacrament, Prophets, and the Scriptures. With her level of German, I think it was good that it was very simple and directed at children - I think she understood a lot of it. She was also able to meet and talk with some of the Spanish speaking members, which was really great. We've had a few appointments fall out with her, but she really seems to like church, and I think she could really make a lot of progress.
So that's most of what I've got to say, so I hope you have a marvelous week. I know the church is true, I know that as we turn to the saviour we will find the greatest measure of happiness, and we will receive the comfort and support that we need. Love you!
I've had one too.
So last Monday I did buy myself some gloves, a scarf and an old man hat. They came to 34 €. I love them a lot. Though 34€ is sounding like more to me now than it did at the time. But I promise, they were the cheapest ones I could find that didn't have Hello Kitty on them. ;P I actually love them very much. Now I have the same type of hat as every old man in Germany. Some old men in America have them too, but not as many. Once I have a camera again, I'll send you a picture of how amazing I look as an old man.
What else happened this week...? Well, we went to Osnabrück three days in a row, which was quite the party. Monday we went for Vorbereitungstag, then Tuesday we went to babysit Elder Crowther between the time Elder Bossart left and Elder McCallister came - and we wandered around there for a while trying to get in contact with people. We were also using our Niedersachen trainticket, which may or may not work on the Busses there... You see, we took one bus, the driver said it was good, and took us to the next bus, where the driver said it wasn't - so then we went to another bus that was going to the same place, and he said it was good, but then when we caught that same bus on the way back, the driver said it wasn't good, but since the other driver had brought us out there with it, he'd be willing to bring us back just this once.... I don't know if my words were too garbled for that story to make sense, but hopefully it at least conveys the confusion we experienced as to the validity of Neidersachen Tickets on the Busses of Osnabrück. Then on Wednesday we went there again with the Thoms for District meeting, which was also quite the party.
We had a couple pretty good lessons this week, but we had more fall out. We were able to make out several appointments for next week, which will hopefully go well (mostly with former investigators...)
One really great thing was that M showed up to church yesterday with her two daughters even though she was late and had a terrible headache. I ended up staying with her in the Primary when we went to drop her kids off - I think it was really good for her. First, her kids seemed to really enjoy it, she saw that they enjoyed it, and there was a very simple lesson that touched on a lot of different things like Church Attendance, the Sacrament, Prophets, and the Scriptures. With her level of German, I think it was good that it was very simple and directed at children - I think she understood a lot of it. She was also able to meet and talk with some of the Spanish speaking members, which was really great. We've had a few appointments fall out with her, but she really seems to like church, and I think she could really make a lot of progress.
So that's most of what I've got to say, so I hope you have a marvelous week. I know the church is true, I know that as we turn to the saviour we will find the greatest measure of happiness, and we will receive the comfort and support that we need. Love you!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Germany Week 16
OOh.. I´d practically forgotten about transfer calls. It´s a good thing you mentioned it. As you might guess from my having entirely forgotten about them, Things will be staying the same for me. Elder Ririe will stay with me in Bad Bentheim. The only change in our district is that Elder McCallister, who was my Distrikt leader in Elmshorn, will be replacing Elder Bossart in Osnabrück. I just can´t get away from that guy! ;P nah, it´ll be good to see him again. We have this crazy theory though. So you see - Elder Ririe is the District leader here, and Elder McCallister has been stripped of his District leader position - something which only happens once every other blue moon - But wait! there´s more! Midway through the transfer apparently 5 or so District leaders are dying (going home). So we suspect Elder Ririe will be siphoned off after 3 weeks to fill one of those positions, and Elder McCallister will reascend to his former Glory as Distrikt leader. Once again - I just can´t get away from this guy! so yuppers. I´m writing this email from Osnabrück, we decided to come spend our Pday here since we´ll never see Elder Bossart again - at least for the two weeks between now and President's interviews. So far we´ve done a whole lot of nuthin'... hopefully I'll have time to buy that wintery stuff, because this last week has taken a turn for the ridiculously colder. It´s really not too bad, but it´s bad enough that I´m really glad that I can write an effective run on sentence while still maintaining the intention to write what I had originally intended to write which is that I´m glad that I finally, after several repeated weeks of forgetting, remembered to include a question in my latest email ensuring my eventual ability to purchase some Mittel with which to more efficiently warm myself, a word here which I´m not entirely sure I used correctly, but if I did, it means basically what the context ought to imply. It still hasn´t snowed at all, and it´s just been hanging out around freezing. And the last couple days there´s been this ridiculous fog - which is actually super awesome. If you walk into a bunch of trees, it sounds like it´s raining all of the sudden, and if you're driving under them, you´ll get an occasional large drop of water on your windsheild, and I must apologize for my sentence structure, but you see, I'm just stuck in run on mode, which I certainly hope my loyal fan base is enjoying as much as I am, though If they find themselves unamused, I find myself extremely greatful for their inherent loyalty, as is implied in their title, which reminds me that the trees would seem to be collecting the moisture of the fog and dropping it onto the ground, such as to be comparable to rain, as is apparent from my earlier description - a description which was surely to be lost in all of the muck of the monstrosity that is this sentence - which again brings me to the idea that my readership is likely excersizing a great deal of patience in reading this overblown grammatical framework, containing only meager bits of meaning, and I must again thank them for indulging such an atrocity, an atrocity, which I will soon be bringing to a close as a concession to appease those readers who are on the verge of dropping out of the 'loyal' section, and perhaps even the 'reader' section.
As you may`ve noticed, I don´t really have that much to say. I can´t think of anything that happened this week that is worthy of report. Things are going pretty well - we´re pushing forward, but It´s time to get ready to do some harder pushing. We´re excited to really try to work harder and more effectively this transfer.
Wow - for not saying anything, I took foreeevvver writing this. I figure I´ll try to make up for my lack of substance with a few pictures I've managed to take. I won´t be able to take anymore until I manage to get my hands on either another charger cable or a converter deely from American to German outlets, because my battery is dead as a doorknob. Elder Baake had a compatible charger cable, but now I´m on my own.... ok, fine, here they are.
1. Church in Rheine
2. Place in Frankfurt Mission when we went there to help a lady in the ward move
3. View from my desk
4. View from our walk around Rheine the other day
5. Classic
6. nuther view
7.Elder Ririe
8.nuther, more Rheinecentric view
9.The Only picture I´ve managed to get of Burg Bentheim... I´m always forgetting.
Anyhoodles, I know this church is true, I love you, and I'm glad to be able to be out here spreading the gospel. Have a nice life!
As you may`ve noticed, I don´t really have that much to say. I can´t think of anything that happened this week that is worthy of report. Things are going pretty well - we´re pushing forward, but It´s time to get ready to do some harder pushing. We´re excited to really try to work harder and more effectively this transfer.
Wow - for not saying anything, I took foreeevvver writing this. I figure I´ll try to make up for my lack of substance with a few pictures I've managed to take. I won´t be able to take anymore until I manage to get my hands on either another charger cable or a converter deely from American to German outlets, because my battery is dead as a doorknob. Elder Baake had a compatible charger cable, but now I´m on my own.... ok, fine, here they are.
1. Church in Rheine
2. Place in Frankfurt Mission when we went there to help a lady in the ward move
3. View from my desk
4. View from our walk around Rheine the other day
5. Classic
6. nuther view
7.Elder Ririe
8.nuther, more Rheinecentric view
9.The Only picture I´ve managed to get of Burg Bentheim... I´m always forgetting.
Anyhoodles, I know this church is true, I love you, and I'm glad to be able to be out here spreading the gospel. Have a nice life!
Monday, November 7, 2011
Germany Week 15
It´s been getting pretty cold here, but it´s warmed up a bit a few times. Most days recently when I go out I wear a light coat and usually end up taking it off and putting it back on a couple times - so it´s been chilly, but nothing super cold for the most part. It´s a gorgeous fall though - you would be super jealous - All the trees are turning colours, and it´s amazing. Due to the nature of our area, that is, having a whole bunch of small cities spread out in a large geographical area, that means we end up driving through the foresty areas a lot. Of course it also means we´ve got the Zone Leaders breathing down our necks alot about kilometers. And we end up taking more scenic countryside routes because while they take longer,they´re physically shorter. So it´s beneficial in some ways.
I very much enjoyed your little story of seeing Carly, Emily and Martha. I´m glad you recognized Carly, and I hope they enjoyed the Play.
Umm... I don´t really know what I want for Christmas... My socks are doing just fine, though I do love ties - I don´t need any more but would gladly accept some - while you´re at it, you could send me all of the ties I left sitting around my room. I would enjoy having more of a variety. Of course, I can probably get new ties cheaper here - there are 3 € Ties at C&A pretty often.. So basically, I don´t know. I certainly wouldn´t mind a couple american candies. Like smarties... or sweettarts. Of course, that has much more to do with my current cravings than anything I actually need. I haven´t seen any candies like that here, but I also haven´t looked. I also wouldn´t mind some peanut butter, but that´s actually not very hard to find here, so if I ever decide I need some, it´s not a big deal... So basically, send me whatever you feel like. One thing I sort of want are German books.. like Literature and Fairy tale books and stuff. But President´s statement about books at Zone Conference made him sound far less liberal than certain other missionaries have made out... But those would obviously be better to buy here anyway. I have been considering buying some and shipping them straight home. Mmmmk... I´m just rambling now.
Hmm... let´s see... what have I been up to this week?
Wednesday was Zone Conference, which was really nice. It´s kind of a day when you get to relax, but at the same time are getting excited about the work and it´s a great platform to take off from. President encouraged us to be terrible missionaries (see D&C 105:31,5:14) He talked about our church becoming as clear as the sun, coming out of obscurity, and really being well known here. It´ll be marvelous to have less people mistake us for Zeugen Jehovas. One thing the Assistants revealed was a new fancy stand thing for Ausstellungs (Street booth type deelios) that Sis. Pimentel put together. We´re getting pretty excited about the idea of doing Ausstellungs. (Maybe in part because It´s much easier for me to talk to people when they come to me) Elder Ririe and I had already been talking about doing them - I don´t know how wide spread they have been throughout the mission, but in this gemeinde they apparently used to do them all the time, but they sort of died out a while ago. Each zone has been given a stand to rotate between whoever needs it, but Elder Thom´s already asked about getting one just for our branch. I´m excited for this new (at least to me) approach to missionary work. I know that I´ve noticed in myself much more motivation as we´ve kept ourselves busy with more diversified types of work. Like that one day last week (or the week before, or however one refers to that one week that I already wrote about) when we spent the whole day doing street contacting and doors and I was about ready to staple my head to a wall... Even in that situation though I need to just have a better attitude. This week I felt like I was doing a lot more good, we were really keeping ourselves busy with visiting members, doing service, Zone Conference, and the like. Though it was a bad week for finding, something we really need to work on this week, I felt much better this week, like I was busy, like I was actually making progress. So I really want to keep that up, but slip in a few more hours of finding time in between. I feel like I´m kind of just talking to myself, but hope it also makes a semblance of sense to the rest of the world.
Another fun thing is on the train from Zone conference we decided to have a Tausch with Osnabrück - so Elder Bossart came with me back to Rheine, and Elder Ririe stayed there with Elder Crowther. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately our appointment in the morning fell out, but later we had English class with the Blanken kids, a tiny bit of time for street contacting, and a short appointment with M from Venezuela, to which we brought a member from Nicaragua - they seemed to get along quite well - then we went to Osnabrück to tausch back. Oh man - and I had to drive that day because Elder Bossart hasn´t gotten his German license yet, but you can drive with an American one for your first 6 months there. Let me tell ya, I haven´t gotten any better in the last several months of not touching a steering wheel. And the streets and drivers here are ridiculous. But I survived! Though I did drive a lot more timidly and slowly than would´ve been best.
And On Saturday morning we helped the Blankens put gravel into their yard - it was a lot of fun, it also felt really great and rewarding to do some manual labor service. I´m super sore from it right now. It made Morgen sport this morning just that much more difficult - but that much better too.
So yeah, things are going beautifully out here. What I don´t believe is that it´s the last week of the transfer. So we´ll see on Saturday who´s going where and if anything will change around here.
I know that whatever does happen will be for the best, and will be for our prophet and learning. At the very least it will be character building ;P I know this work is guided buy the Lord and I know it will keep marching forward regardless of how much I slack off, so why try, right? Nah, I´m just Joshin´ya. Though that is true, it´s something that rather excites me to want to be part of it. To be a more involved part of it and to really help the Lord´s work move forward. I know he´s got a plan of how I can contribute to the Kingdom, so long as I am willing to do it. It is marvelous to know that I am in such a position to move it forward, and I pray to live up to that calling. I know this church is true, and I know God loves his children.
Love you! Keep up the amazingness!
I very much enjoyed your little story of seeing Carly, Emily and Martha. I´m glad you recognized Carly, and I hope they enjoyed the Play.
Umm... I don´t really know what I want for Christmas... My socks are doing just fine, though I do love ties - I don´t need any more but would gladly accept some - while you´re at it, you could send me all of the ties I left sitting around my room. I would enjoy having more of a variety. Of course, I can probably get new ties cheaper here - there are 3 € Ties at C&A pretty often.. So basically, I don´t know. I certainly wouldn´t mind a couple american candies. Like smarties... or sweettarts. Of course, that has much more to do with my current cravings than anything I actually need. I haven´t seen any candies like that here, but I also haven´t looked. I also wouldn´t mind some peanut butter, but that´s actually not very hard to find here, so if I ever decide I need some, it´s not a big deal... So basically, send me whatever you feel like. One thing I sort of want are German books.. like Literature and Fairy tale books and stuff. But President´s statement about books at Zone Conference made him sound far less liberal than certain other missionaries have made out... But those would obviously be better to buy here anyway. I have been considering buying some and shipping them straight home. Mmmmk... I´m just rambling now.
Hmm... let´s see... what have I been up to this week?
Wednesday was Zone Conference, which was really nice. It´s kind of a day when you get to relax, but at the same time are getting excited about the work and it´s a great platform to take off from. President encouraged us to be terrible missionaries (see D&C 105:31,5:14) He talked about our church becoming as clear as the sun, coming out of obscurity, and really being well known here. It´ll be marvelous to have less people mistake us for Zeugen Jehovas. One thing the Assistants revealed was a new fancy stand thing for Ausstellungs (Street booth type deelios) that Sis. Pimentel put together. We´re getting pretty excited about the idea of doing Ausstellungs. (Maybe in part because It´s much easier for me to talk to people when they come to me) Elder Ririe and I had already been talking about doing them - I don´t know how wide spread they have been throughout the mission, but in this gemeinde they apparently used to do them all the time, but they sort of died out a while ago. Each zone has been given a stand to rotate between whoever needs it, but Elder Thom´s already asked about getting one just for our branch. I´m excited for this new (at least to me) approach to missionary work. I know that I´ve noticed in myself much more motivation as we´ve kept ourselves busy with more diversified types of work. Like that one day last week (or the week before, or however one refers to that one week that I already wrote about) when we spent the whole day doing street contacting and doors and I was about ready to staple my head to a wall... Even in that situation though I need to just have a better attitude. This week I felt like I was doing a lot more good, we were really keeping ourselves busy with visiting members, doing service, Zone Conference, and the like. Though it was a bad week for finding, something we really need to work on this week, I felt much better this week, like I was busy, like I was actually making progress. So I really want to keep that up, but slip in a few more hours of finding time in between. I feel like I´m kind of just talking to myself, but hope it also makes a semblance of sense to the rest of the world.
Another fun thing is on the train from Zone conference we decided to have a Tausch with Osnabrück - so Elder Bossart came with me back to Rheine, and Elder Ririe stayed there with Elder Crowther. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately our appointment in the morning fell out, but later we had English class with the Blanken kids, a tiny bit of time for street contacting, and a short appointment with M from Venezuela, to which we brought a member from Nicaragua - they seemed to get along quite well - then we went to Osnabrück to tausch back. Oh man - and I had to drive that day because Elder Bossart hasn´t gotten his German license yet, but you can drive with an American one for your first 6 months there. Let me tell ya, I haven´t gotten any better in the last several months of not touching a steering wheel. And the streets and drivers here are ridiculous. But I survived! Though I did drive a lot more timidly and slowly than would´ve been best.
And On Saturday morning we helped the Blankens put gravel into their yard - it was a lot of fun, it also felt really great and rewarding to do some manual labor service. I´m super sore from it right now. It made Morgen sport this morning just that much more difficult - but that much better too.
So yeah, things are going beautifully out here. What I don´t believe is that it´s the last week of the transfer. So we´ll see on Saturday who´s going where and if anything will change around here.
I know that whatever does happen will be for the best, and will be for our prophet and learning. At the very least it will be character building ;P I know this work is guided buy the Lord and I know it will keep marching forward regardless of how much I slack off, so why try, right? Nah, I´m just Joshin´ya. Though that is true, it´s something that rather excites me to want to be part of it. To be a more involved part of it and to really help the Lord´s work move forward. I know he´s got a plan of how I can contribute to the Kingdom, so long as I am willing to do it. It is marvelous to know that I am in such a position to move it forward, and I pray to live up to that calling. I know this church is true, and I know God loves his children.
Love you! Keep up the amazingness!
Monday, October 31, 2011
Germany Week 14
Doo de doo de dooooo....
Hmmm... So, This week is kind of garbled up in my mind. I feel like I'm finally getting out of the slump the chicken pox left me in. It requires more motivation to get out of the apartment and work when you realize it's possible to lay around all day. But I did it anyway. You should be proud of me.
There's this Venezuelan investigator, M, who's moved into an old house and we've been helping her fix up the house a bit. So we were there a few times in the week. She has alright German, but it makes it difficult to teach and be sure that she's comprehending. Luckily though, the branch has a few Spanish speaking members, including one who served his mission in Venezuela who's super excited to help out. We've given her a few pamphlets in Spanish, and watched La Restoracion (That's just my guess, I don't remember if that's the real word). She seemed to like it, but is pretty quiet about it. She said as she read one of the pamphlets she got goosebumps all over. And that while she was watching the movie she had good feeling she couldn't describe. And she came to church yesterday - that's actually where we watched the movie. So working with her is really exciting, even if it makes me wish I spoke Spanish. I told her my mom could speak Spanish and she was like, "Well why can't you?" Every once in a while I want to just pull out the few spanish words I know - but they're all the easy ones and her German is a bazillion times better than my Spanish. Germans do that to us fairly often - they'll just keep talking until they happen to know a word in English and then they'll say both. It doesn't really help much, but sometimes it's amusing.
On Wednesday after District meeting, We had a Tausch with the Zone leaders - Elder Harris came to Bad Bentheim with me. I was kind of in a crummy mood to begin with, and I didn't really know what to do, since I felt like I still didn't know the area or the members really, or even the investigators, so I was kind of anxious. So then we did finding for most of the day - just talking to people on the street, and then a few hours of doors. I can confidently say that those are not my favorite activities. Elder Harris seems like a pretty cool guy, but I was being Mr. Grumpy Gills. It actually did get a bit better as we went on, but I could definitely have used an attitude adjustment. Maybe I'll become a decent missionary some day. I think I was at least keeping my grumpiness to myself - I was trying at least to look happy... I guess that's something. Not enough, but something.
Yesterday was a good day though. Elder Ririe and I both gave short talks in church, and I felt the spirit more strongly in that meeting than I have in a while - during the sacrament, and during a sister's talk. I felt marvelous as I took the sacrament, and I really felt like it was a point from which to go forward, that I can renew my efforts. It was a confirmation that I really was renewing my covenants, and it was rejuvenating. Right now I'm feeling tired and sluggish again, but looking back on how I felt yesterday is helping me look up a bit more. "It's better to look up."
So I had hoped that we'd be able to make it to Elmshorn as well, but there wasn't a train that could get us there without skipping church here entirely. So we just stayed here.
Right after the meeting we had Gemeindeessen (food as a ward), one of the boys in the branch was getting baptized, so we drove out to Osnabrück where they've got a font for that. In the times between I would seem to've quickly transformed into a playground. Those kids are crazy. It was fun, but I should be a better example of stoicism. I got the feeling the parents were not very happy with their kids, and I wasn't really preventing them from jumping all over me... Gotta think stoic thoughts.
I feel like I'm in a little bit of a weird mood today, I hope it doesn't show through in my writing and make me look like a lunatic.
Anyhoodles, I love you, I know this church is true, and I know that as we serve God and as we serve each other, we will find strength and joy.
- Elder Cloward
Hmmm... So, This week is kind of garbled up in my mind. I feel like I'm finally getting out of the slump the chicken pox left me in. It requires more motivation to get out of the apartment and work when you realize it's possible to lay around all day. But I did it anyway. You should be proud of me.
There's this Venezuelan investigator, M, who's moved into an old house and we've been helping her fix up the house a bit. So we were there a few times in the week. She has alright German, but it makes it difficult to teach and be sure that she's comprehending. Luckily though, the branch has a few Spanish speaking members, including one who served his mission in Venezuela who's super excited to help out. We've given her a few pamphlets in Spanish, and watched La Restoracion (That's just my guess, I don't remember if that's the real word). She seemed to like it, but is pretty quiet about it. She said as she read one of the pamphlets she got goosebumps all over. And that while she was watching the movie she had good feeling she couldn't describe. And she came to church yesterday - that's actually where we watched the movie. So working with her is really exciting, even if it makes me wish I spoke Spanish. I told her my mom could speak Spanish and she was like, "Well why can't you?" Every once in a while I want to just pull out the few spanish words I know - but they're all the easy ones and her German is a bazillion times better than my Spanish. Germans do that to us fairly often - they'll just keep talking until they happen to know a word in English and then they'll say both. It doesn't really help much, but sometimes it's amusing.
On Wednesday after District meeting, We had a Tausch with the Zone leaders - Elder Harris came to Bad Bentheim with me. I was kind of in a crummy mood to begin with, and I didn't really know what to do, since I felt like I still didn't know the area or the members really, or even the investigators, so I was kind of anxious. So then we did finding for most of the day - just talking to people on the street, and then a few hours of doors. I can confidently say that those are not my favorite activities. Elder Harris seems like a pretty cool guy, but I was being Mr. Grumpy Gills. It actually did get a bit better as we went on, but I could definitely have used an attitude adjustment. Maybe I'll become a decent missionary some day. I think I was at least keeping my grumpiness to myself - I was trying at least to look happy... I guess that's something. Not enough, but something.
Yesterday was a good day though. Elder Ririe and I both gave short talks in church, and I felt the spirit more strongly in that meeting than I have in a while - during the sacrament, and during a sister's talk. I felt marvelous as I took the sacrament, and I really felt like it was a point from which to go forward, that I can renew my efforts. It was a confirmation that I really was renewing my covenants, and it was rejuvenating. Right now I'm feeling tired and sluggish again, but looking back on how I felt yesterday is helping me look up a bit more. "It's better to look up."
So I had hoped that we'd be able to make it to Elmshorn as well, but there wasn't a train that could get us there without skipping church here entirely. So we just stayed here.
Right after the meeting we had Gemeindeessen (food as a ward), one of the boys in the branch was getting baptized, so we drove out to Osnabrück where they've got a font for that. In the times between I would seem to've quickly transformed into a playground. Those kids are crazy. It was fun, but I should be a better example of stoicism. I got the feeling the parents were not very happy with their kids, and I wasn't really preventing them from jumping all over me... Gotta think stoic thoughts.
I feel like I'm in a little bit of a weird mood today, I hope it doesn't show through in my writing and make me look like a lunatic.
Anyhoodles, I love you, I know this church is true, and I know that as we serve God and as we serve each other, we will find strength and joy.
- Elder Cloward
Monday, October 24, 2011
Germany Week 13
Yup, I finally got out of quarantine on Wednesday, when we went to Hannover for Leadership training ( For Elder Ririe, who's District Leader) I went out with the Hannover Missionaries and a few others with companions in leadership (Including Elders Sullivan and Clayton from my Golden group) and we split up and worked there a bit. I especially enjoyed just going out doing street contacting with Elder Clayton - That guy is awesome. And it was good to feel like I was actually doing something for once.
It's actually been pretty hard to get out of quarantine mode - After laying around in an apartment all day for 12 days, it seems a lot more difficult to jump back into mission life. Elder Ririe and I have both been pretty sluggish the last few days. I really need to be better motivated. But it was still good to be out and working, even if we weren't up to the pace we should've been. We've done a lot of walking, a lot of driving, a lot of passing out cards, and visiting with a recently baptized member, who's super cool.
So Yesterday was the day for C's baptism up in Elmshorn, and I got permission from Pres. Pimentel to go up for it. So we had to get on a train at 6:30, in order to get to Elmshorn in time. So at 9:30, as our train was pulling out of Bremen toward Hamburg, Elder Baake called me and said that C was really sick and so the baptism was being postponed to next week. We couldn't really just go home at that point, so the Müllers just invited us for an eating appointment. We went, got there just as Elmshorn's Church was getting out, and I had a great time talking to people and eating at the Müllers. Then we took trains back and got home at about 9:20. So basically, we spent ten hours in transit for a nice eating appointment. There of course is another problem - that is, that I haven't even been to Church in Bad Bentheim yet! I missed the first two Sundays because of my Chicken Pox, and the third for what I thought would be C's baptism. I've met several of the members at other meetings and service projects, but it's really important to be in church. And today is starting the 4th week of the transfer, but it's as though I just got here. Next week they've planned the baptism later, so it's possible that after Sacrament meeting (In which I'm speaking anyway) we could take off and make it. But that still means I'd miss Sunday School and Priesthood. So I'm pretty divided in my mind - I know I'd personally rather go to the baptism, but I really don't want to be short cutting the area in which I'm actually serving. Of course it's not just my decision anyway, I'll need to ask President Pimentel about it too.
I know this church is true, and I know God lives! I know that the commandments he's given us are for our benefit even when to us they seem like nothing more than "character building exercises," which they in fact are, but so much more. In that character building process, we are protected from dangers and sorrows, and we are strengthened and gain perspective and joy. I have seen this in my life, I have seen this in the lives of those we're working with. Heavenly father loves us, and that is exactly why he has given us scripture, prophets, guidance and commandments. I say these things in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Well, I love you! I hope all is going splendidly for you. Have a nice life!
It's actually been pretty hard to get out of quarantine mode - After laying around in an apartment all day for 12 days, it seems a lot more difficult to jump back into mission life. Elder Ririe and I have both been pretty sluggish the last few days. I really need to be better motivated. But it was still good to be out and working, even if we weren't up to the pace we should've been. We've done a lot of walking, a lot of driving, a lot of passing out cards, and visiting with a recently baptized member, who's super cool.
So Yesterday was the day for C's baptism up in Elmshorn, and I got permission from Pres. Pimentel to go up for it. So we had to get on a train at 6:30, in order to get to Elmshorn in time. So at 9:30, as our train was pulling out of Bremen toward Hamburg, Elder Baake called me and said that C was really sick and so the baptism was being postponed to next week. We couldn't really just go home at that point, so the Müllers just invited us for an eating appointment. We went, got there just as Elmshorn's Church was getting out, and I had a great time talking to people and eating at the Müllers. Then we took trains back and got home at about 9:20. So basically, we spent ten hours in transit for a nice eating appointment. There of course is another problem - that is, that I haven't even been to Church in Bad Bentheim yet! I missed the first two Sundays because of my Chicken Pox, and the third for what I thought would be C's baptism. I've met several of the members at other meetings and service projects, but it's really important to be in church. And today is starting the 4th week of the transfer, but it's as though I just got here. Next week they've planned the baptism later, so it's possible that after Sacrament meeting (In which I'm speaking anyway) we could take off and make it. But that still means I'd miss Sunday School and Priesthood. So I'm pretty divided in my mind - I know I'd personally rather go to the baptism, but I really don't want to be short cutting the area in which I'm actually serving. Of course it's not just my decision anyway, I'll need to ask President Pimentel about it too.
I know this church is true, and I know God lives! I know that the commandments he's given us are for our benefit even when to us they seem like nothing more than "character building exercises," which they in fact are, but so much more. In that character building process, we are protected from dangers and sorrows, and we are strengthened and gain perspective and joy. I have seen this in my life, I have seen this in the lives of those we're working with. Heavenly father loves us, and that is exactly why he has given us scripture, prophets, guidance and commandments. I say these things in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Well, I love you! I hope all is going splendidly for you. Have a nice life!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Germany Week 12
Yup. I'm still under quarantine. Yeah, I'm positive I had them when I was little. And you would always talk about how I got a major case, but Joseph got a minor case, so then they came around again, and he got them again and I was fine. Unless that was Isaac. Either way, I remained unscathed as the plague returned due to my earlier suffering. Apparently that has expired. nah, but it's still really minor - it didn't get any worse, but the spots have been migrating around my body. So the only concern is that I'm contagious. Apparently when you get them a second time as an adult they can either manifest themselves as a minor case or as shingles. I have been extremely blessed to receive the former. All of that also means I've done a whole lot of nuthin' since last week.
A couple examples of nothing are:
On Tuesday we actually drove out to Hannover for the mission tire rotation. I tried to keep my distance from people....
Then on Wednesday a new member called us in the morning and said we had to pick him up from the Hospital.. he's been called as a ward missionary in order for us to be able to take him to church... but yeah, we didn't know what else to do, so we went and got him - I stayed in the car while Elder Ririe got him.
Since then, other than a visit to the Burger King drive through, we've kept ourselves under proper quarantine. It was a marvelous opportunity to grow out my facial hair. In a few more days I'll look just like George Albert Smith. Just Joshin' ya, I'd need glasses.
To take up the time, we've been doing a whole lot of reading, a good deal of letter writing (though I've nowhere near written all the people I intend to), and all sorts of Tom-foolery. One fun thing was a game of battleship. We had 40 ships, 812 spaces, and just over 7 hours of play time. It was actually a lot of fun. It was more fun because I won after being behind for nearly the whole game.
Elder Thom suggested/gave us permission to do the Sacrament in our apartment, so that was really nice. That was the third sunday without Church, due to General Conference and the Quarantine, so it was wonderful to be able to take the sacrament anyway. We also sang some hymns and had an opening and closing prayer so we had a little sacrament meeting. Then we read this Hugh Nibley paper on the Book of Enoch together - it was super long but super interesting. It's just incredible to me how much secular evidence there is for the Scriptures brought forth by Joseph Smith. I mean, none of it really matters if you don't have a testimony, but it's just so cool!
Well, it's been a magnificent P week, but I'm ready to go. After tomorrow I'm gonna declare myself well and go out even if I break out with the plague. Just Kidding, I would never knowingly spread the plague - I wouldn't want anyone stretching those words ;P But I'm ready to go back out and help people to find and accept the word of God. I love the opportunity that I have to help people improve their lives and turn to their Savior. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that as we give those out, we are handing people a marvelous tool to bring happiness into their lives and families. I pray that I can be a tool in Heavenly Father's hands to help people to find that happiness. I hope you all have a marvelous week! - Elder Cloward
A couple examples of nothing are:
On Tuesday we actually drove out to Hannover for the mission tire rotation. I tried to keep my distance from people....
Then on Wednesday a new member called us in the morning and said we had to pick him up from the Hospital.. he's been called as a ward missionary in order for us to be able to take him to church... but yeah, we didn't know what else to do, so we went and got him - I stayed in the car while Elder Ririe got him.
Since then, other than a visit to the Burger King drive through, we've kept ourselves under proper quarantine. It was a marvelous opportunity to grow out my facial hair. In a few more days I'll look just like George Albert Smith. Just Joshin' ya, I'd need glasses.
To take up the time, we've been doing a whole lot of reading, a good deal of letter writing (though I've nowhere near written all the people I intend to), and all sorts of Tom-foolery. One fun thing was a game of battleship. We had 40 ships, 812 spaces, and just over 7 hours of play time. It was actually a lot of fun. It was more fun because I won after being behind for nearly the whole game.
Elder Thom suggested/gave us permission to do the Sacrament in our apartment, so that was really nice. That was the third sunday without Church, due to General Conference and the Quarantine, so it was wonderful to be able to take the sacrament anyway. We also sang some hymns and had an opening and closing prayer so we had a little sacrament meeting. Then we read this Hugh Nibley paper on the Book of Enoch together - it was super long but super interesting. It's just incredible to me how much secular evidence there is for the Scriptures brought forth by Joseph Smith. I mean, none of it really matters if you don't have a testimony, but it's just so cool!
Well, it's been a magnificent P week, but I'm ready to go. After tomorrow I'm gonna declare myself well and go out even if I break out with the plague. Just Kidding, I would never knowingly spread the plague - I wouldn't want anyone stretching those words ;P But I'm ready to go back out and help people to find and accept the word of God. I love the opportunity that I have to help people improve their lives and turn to their Savior. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that as we give those out, we are handing people a marvelous tool to bring happiness into their lives and families. I pray that I can be a tool in Heavenly Father's hands to help people to find that happiness. I hope you all have a marvelous week! - Elder Cloward
Monday, October 10, 2011
Germany Week 11
On Tuesday I made my way to Bad Bentheim (Well, actually to Rheine, but it's the Bad Bentheim area, cuz that's where the Gemeindehaus is) by train, and luckily I was able to drag my luggage behind me with minimal problems (The wheels on the largest luggage were destroyed on the way to my apartment in Elmshorn as I first got there - the outer casing of the wheel wore down, got jammed in the joint so it wasn't able to turn, then the wheel itself wore away by scraping against the sidewalk before we even realized what was wrong. see FIGs 1&2)
So we would normally write emails from an Internet Cafe type place, but I happen to be under quarantine, and am therefore writing from Elder & Sister Thom(the couple missionaries)'s apartment. What would I be doing under quarantine, you ask? Let me tell you. You see, it began with a visit to M and her two young boys M and M in my last couple weeks in Elmshorn. You see, M had told us that M&M had Windpocken, which as we all know is the chicken pox. But, me, being a very clever man, knew that If you've already had the chicken pox, you can go to as many pox parties as you like, and be perfectly fine. Well, as you've probably noticed, I wouldn't be telling this story if I was right. Luckily, it does seem to be a very minor case - I don't have to many spots, nor are most of them much more than slightly itchy discolorations. So it's not much more than discomfort for me, but I'm homebound due to the long period of contagion found with chicken pox. Of course that also means I was contagious for a few days before I noticed any signs. Hopefully I didn't get any of the branch members I came into contact with.
The Branch seems to be really cool - we've had a couple eating appointments, we've had ward council, we taught some of the kids in the branch an English lesson, so I've met a lot of the members, despite my not being able to go to Church yesterday (It was saturday night when I first suspected I was sick). They all seem really cool. We end up speaking a lot of english, because a lot of their english is almost as good as their German. A lot of the members are Dutch, so pretty much everone speaks Dutch, English and German, and is constantly switching around between the three. It's quite the party. Elder Thom is the Branch President, he's really cool. His wife is hilarious.
Elder Ririe is cool. Actually, I can't get it out of my head how much he reminds me of Curtis Sudbury. Everything from his stature to his hair color to his quirky sense of humor and the way he jokes around with people. It also helps that he's always wearing a suit. I think it's especially funny because a while back Curtis had a companion that he said reminded him of me. But yeah, I think I'm gonna like working with Elder Ririe a lot. He's easy to get along with, and pretty funny. His German isn't quite so fluent as Elder Baake's, but it'll do ;P. It's more than you would expect from someone from Ogden. He's actually got much better German than a lot of other missionaries I've heard.
Speaking of segues, the area is really cool. There are a ton of gorgeous churches in the area and Bad Bentheim has a Castle! I could stare at them all day. We've also got a car area, so that's a bit different. It makes me feel a lot lazier. We also spend a lot more time in transit so I feel like I'm not doing much. We started listening to the Book of Mormon on Friday, and on the way over to the Thoms' today we finished Jacob 7. Also I've been suuuper sleepy most of the days since I've got here, which I can only blame on the car. I've definitely fallen asleep a couple times while Elder Ririe's driving.
We've been able to do a fair deal of walking though, one of my first nights we went for a walk along the Ems canal, which was nice, and decided to go for a bit of a walk in the morning for Morgensport, which has been nice. Then, a few days later, we decided to walk to a nearby contact, but then we passed it, then we thought the road looped around, but then it didn't, but then it looked like going a bit further, crossing a bridge, and coming back on the other side would be a bit shorter, but then it wasn't, then we took a wrong turn anyway, and had to turn back, and after walking approximately 17 km, we caught a train back to Rheine - my legs swore to never walk again.
But they did walk again. In the morning, I was surprised that my legs didn't hurt as much as my abs, which didn't make any sense. I'm trying to transition this into a closing testimony, but I feel like I'm getting farther from that, rather than closer.
Anyway, I know this church is true, and I know that God has called me to Germany and he has now called me to the Bad Bentheim area. I'm excited to discover what it his he wants me to do here and to do it. And I know he will help me, as we does every one of his children to will make the effort to follow him. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Love ya!
- Elder Cloward
Fig 3 - Crazy Missionaries in Hamburg
( Figures 4 &5 taken from atop the Michaelis)
Fig 4 - My Ugly Mug in front of Hamburg
Fig 5 - More crazy missionaries in Hamburg
Fig 6 - 9 random stuff in Rheine + Elder Ririe..
Apparently I've not yet taken pictures of churches or the Castle. But I certainly will
Fig 10 - I'm not lying when I say our area's on the Dutch border
Fig 11 - The print that the crazy Pidgeon left after flying into our window
So we would normally write emails from an Internet Cafe type place, but I happen to be under quarantine, and am therefore writing from Elder & Sister Thom(the couple missionaries)'s apartment. What would I be doing under quarantine, you ask? Let me tell you. You see, it began with a visit to M and her two young boys M and M in my last couple weeks in Elmshorn. You see, M had told us that M&M had Windpocken, which as we all know is the chicken pox. But, me, being a very clever man, knew that If you've already had the chicken pox, you can go to as many pox parties as you like, and be perfectly fine. Well, as you've probably noticed, I wouldn't be telling this story if I was right. Luckily, it does seem to be a very minor case - I don't have to many spots, nor are most of them much more than slightly itchy discolorations. So it's not much more than discomfort for me, but I'm homebound due to the long period of contagion found with chicken pox. Of course that also means I was contagious for a few days before I noticed any signs. Hopefully I didn't get any of the branch members I came into contact with.
The Branch seems to be really cool - we've had a couple eating appointments, we've had ward council, we taught some of the kids in the branch an English lesson, so I've met a lot of the members, despite my not being able to go to Church yesterday (It was saturday night when I first suspected I was sick). They all seem really cool. We end up speaking a lot of english, because a lot of their english is almost as good as their German. A lot of the members are Dutch, so pretty much everone speaks Dutch, English and German, and is constantly switching around between the three. It's quite the party. Elder Thom is the Branch President, he's really cool. His wife is hilarious.
Elder Ririe is cool. Actually, I can't get it out of my head how much he reminds me of Curtis Sudbury. Everything from his stature to his hair color to his quirky sense of humor and the way he jokes around with people. It also helps that he's always wearing a suit. I think it's especially funny because a while back Curtis had a companion that he said reminded him of me. But yeah, I think I'm gonna like working with Elder Ririe a lot. He's easy to get along with, and pretty funny. His German isn't quite so fluent as Elder Baake's, but it'll do ;P. It's more than you would expect from someone from Ogden. He's actually got much better German than a lot of other missionaries I've heard.
Speaking of segues, the area is really cool. There are a ton of gorgeous churches in the area and Bad Bentheim has a Castle! I could stare at them all day. We've also got a car area, so that's a bit different. It makes me feel a lot lazier. We also spend a lot more time in transit so I feel like I'm not doing much. We started listening to the Book of Mormon on Friday, and on the way over to the Thoms' today we finished Jacob 7. Also I've been suuuper sleepy most of the days since I've got here, which I can only blame on the car. I've definitely fallen asleep a couple times while Elder Ririe's driving.
We've been able to do a fair deal of walking though, one of my first nights we went for a walk along the Ems canal, which was nice, and decided to go for a bit of a walk in the morning for Morgensport, which has been nice. Then, a few days later, we decided to walk to a nearby contact, but then we passed it, then we thought the road looped around, but then it didn't, but then it looked like going a bit further, crossing a bridge, and coming back on the other side would be a bit shorter, but then it wasn't, then we took a wrong turn anyway, and had to turn back, and after walking approximately 17 km, we caught a train back to Rheine - my legs swore to never walk again.
But they did walk again. In the morning, I was surprised that my legs didn't hurt as much as my abs, which didn't make any sense. I'm trying to transition this into a closing testimony, but I feel like I'm getting farther from that, rather than closer.
Anyway, I know this church is true, and I know that God has called me to Germany and he has now called me to the Bad Bentheim area. I'm excited to discover what it his he wants me to do here and to do it. And I know he will help me, as we does every one of his children to will make the effort to follow him. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Love ya!
- Elder Cloward
Fig 3 - Crazy Missionaries in Hamburg
( Figures 4 &5 taken from atop the Michaelis)
Fig 4 - My Ugly Mug in front of Hamburg
Fig 5 - More crazy missionaries in Hamburg
Fig 6 - 9 random stuff in Rheine + Elder Ririe..
Apparently I've not yet taken pictures of churches or the Castle. But I certainly will
Fig 10 - I'm not lying when I say our area's on the Dutch border
Fig 11 - The print that the crazy Pidgeon left after flying into our window
Monday, October 3, 2011
Elder Cloward finds children cuter than stamps -- Week 10
So the subject line would've been my facebook status if I were still into that sort of thing.
I would now like to wish everyone a Happy October 3rd. That includes Happy Birthday to Rodrigo Dutra (even though I haven't seen him since like the 6th Grade), Chelsea Jones, her Grandpa, and I feel like I'm forgetting someone else - please don't hate me. I would also like to wish Gandalf a happy anniversary of fighting Wringwraiths atop Weathertop. Last but not least, happy Tag der Deutschen Einheit!
This was a super exciting week here.
On monday after emails we went to Hamburg, climbed the Michealis, a church there, from which you have a great view of the city. Then I wandered around with Elder Fullmer, which was a blast. I was totally going to send pictures, but I would seem to've left my camera zu Hause. Monday also marked the day of having been two months in Germany, matching my two months in the MTC, and meaning I'm already through 4 months of my mission. I am definitely not a good enough missionary yet to merit being 1/6 of the way done. I'm not any better than the day I got here! I hope that's not true, but it's often hard to tell.
Tuesday pretty much all of our appointments fell out, but we ended up having a blast with UN, a member who we went jogging with in the morning, then he came and replaced our sink, we had lunch and breakfast with him, then when another appointment fell out we ended up going to his house to help him get an old piece of wood out of an anchory type thingy for his fence (I feel like that was a terrible description, but that a more thorough one would be a terrible waste of time) Anyway, that was a lot of fun, and I think he's a really witty guy, though I can never be sure, because he talks way too fast for me to understand a word he says.
That evening we had an appointment with A, which I was pretty excited but nervous for, just because I really enjoy talking with him, and I really want to help him find the truth, but we seem to be making little progress. And he never showed up - which was very unlike him - there've been plenty of times when he hasn't been able to come, but'd always text or call us. And he didn't answer the phone either. So I was worried he'd just decided to tchuss us. But we ran into him at the train station on the way to the Saturday Morning Session of Conference (Broadcast LIVE Saturday evening - I thought that was cool) and made an appointment with him. Turns out he'd been in the hospital because he'd taken to much of a protein powder type thing. So be careful to take a healthy amount, kids....
Any hoodles,... where was I? On Wednesday, I along with a few others gave a Thema (A talk/lesson thingy) on Teaching which I definitely had to prepare on the train on the way there. I did it specifically on Asking questions, and did it by asking lots of really dumb questions, doing exactly what preach my gospel warns against, then read the section in preach my gospel and we discussed how terrible I had been and the importance of good questions. I thought it was pretty witty, but everyone else was really confused at first :P
C has been making wonderful progress, we met with him a couple times in the week, and he's excited for his baptism and to learn more. He came to one of the sessions of General Conferenz and really enjoyed it.
Umm... is there anything else exciting before I jump to the really exciting stuff?
So Saturday morning we had transfer call, which I was anticipating anxiously. I wanted things to stay the same again, but felt that they definitely wouldn't, and though I knew that whatever happened, it would be for the best, I was still really nervous about it for several days leading up to it. We went to Glückstadt to listen to the call as a district, and Elder Redd and I made breakfast, it was delightsome (Though his moonkeybreadlike "Conference Cake" was tragically only done right as I had to leave...). President announced Glückstadt before us, and Elder Turney is taking Elder Popps place - The wave of excitement at the prospect of sharing a district with him quickly broke over the following announcement that Elder Baake would be remaining in Elmshorn and receive a German Co senior companion, Elder Rimmel. I'm sure that's for the best though - I'll definitely miss Elder Baake and I'll definitely miss Elmshorn, with its amazing members and the eating appointment list flowing with milk and honey. And I'll most certainly miss some of our investigators. I think that Papi and his new companion will be quite the powerhouse, and he has a great relationship with the people there that I'm quite sure I couldn't maintain with my whole not talking very much thing.... A while later, we discovered that I will be going to Bad Bentheim, right near the border of the Netherlands.
View Larger Map My companion will be Elder Rirey, who I'm told is super cool. It is a car area, so I'll probably get fatter, even without all the eating appointments. President later told me he thought it was good/funny/something positive anyway... that the Lord had sent me to the opposite side of the mission from Berlin, where he discovered I have a brother that I kept forgetting to tell him about... Anyhoodles, I'm excited to go to Bad Bentheim, and have an exciting new start, even if I somehow have to get my broken wheeled luggage there somehow (Have I told you about that? I have the feeling we don't have any sort of warranty on them, but if we happen to, it would be exciting to get a replacement or something....). blah de blah de blah.
Then of course was General conference, which was, as always, marvelous. It seemed a little bit different to me this time, maybe just because I was watching it in a German church building in a suit rather than on the floor in my pajamas... also the fact that it was night, rather than morning (Though on Sunday the schedule was quite similar, only with Sessions switched around) It was also weird that Bruder M was able to tell us who was speaking in the Priesthood and Saturday afternoon sessions before we watched them. Anyway, I'm indulging in digression. ;P Despite the slightly different atmosphere in which I watched conference, it was just as good as ever, just as true as ever. just as fantastic as ever. I love hearing from Modern Day Prophets and Apostles, and I love the desire it helps to give me to start fresh, to work anew, and recommit myself to the work of God in which I'm engaged. I know this is his church. I know the messages that his servants shared in the last couple days, even the inconvenient ones, are what we need to act upon and follow. I know the lord loves us and leads us. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
I would now like to wish everyone a Happy October 3rd. That includes Happy Birthday to Rodrigo Dutra (even though I haven't seen him since like the 6th Grade), Chelsea Jones, her Grandpa, and I feel like I'm forgetting someone else - please don't hate me. I would also like to wish Gandalf a happy anniversary of fighting Wringwraiths atop Weathertop. Last but not least, happy Tag der Deutschen Einheit!
This was a super exciting week here.
On monday after emails we went to Hamburg, climbed the Michealis, a church there, from which you have a great view of the city. Then I wandered around with Elder Fullmer, which was a blast. I was totally going to send pictures, but I would seem to've left my camera zu Hause. Monday also marked the day of having been two months in Germany, matching my two months in the MTC, and meaning I'm already through 4 months of my mission. I am definitely not a good enough missionary yet to merit being 1/6 of the way done. I'm not any better than the day I got here! I hope that's not true, but it's often hard to tell.
Tuesday pretty much all of our appointments fell out, but we ended up having a blast with UN, a member who we went jogging with in the morning, then he came and replaced our sink, we had lunch and breakfast with him, then when another appointment fell out we ended up going to his house to help him get an old piece of wood out of an anchory type thingy for his fence (I feel like that was a terrible description, but that a more thorough one would be a terrible waste of time) Anyway, that was a lot of fun, and I think he's a really witty guy, though I can never be sure, because he talks way too fast for me to understand a word he says.
That evening we had an appointment with A, which I was pretty excited but nervous for, just because I really enjoy talking with him, and I really want to help him find the truth, but we seem to be making little progress. And he never showed up - which was very unlike him - there've been plenty of times when he hasn't been able to come, but'd always text or call us. And he didn't answer the phone either. So I was worried he'd just decided to tchuss us. But we ran into him at the train station on the way to the Saturday Morning Session of Conference (Broadcast LIVE Saturday evening - I thought that was cool) and made an appointment with him. Turns out he'd been in the hospital because he'd taken to much of a protein powder type thing. So be careful to take a healthy amount, kids....
Any hoodles,... where was I? On Wednesday, I along with a few others gave a Thema (A talk/lesson thingy) on Teaching which I definitely had to prepare on the train on the way there. I did it specifically on Asking questions, and did it by asking lots of really dumb questions, doing exactly what preach my gospel warns against, then read the section in preach my gospel and we discussed how terrible I had been and the importance of good questions. I thought it was pretty witty, but everyone else was really confused at first :P
C has been making wonderful progress, we met with him a couple times in the week, and he's excited for his baptism and to learn more. He came to one of the sessions of General Conferenz and really enjoyed it.
Umm... is there anything else exciting before I jump to the really exciting stuff?
So Saturday morning we had transfer call, which I was anticipating anxiously. I wanted things to stay the same again, but felt that they definitely wouldn't, and though I knew that whatever happened, it would be for the best, I was still really nervous about it for several days leading up to it. We went to Glückstadt to listen to the call as a district, and Elder Redd and I made breakfast, it was delightsome (Though his moonkeybreadlike "Conference Cake" was tragically only done right as I had to leave...). President announced Glückstadt before us, and Elder Turney is taking Elder Popps place - The wave of excitement at the prospect of sharing a district with him quickly broke over the following announcement that Elder Baake would be remaining in Elmshorn and receive a German Co senior companion, Elder Rimmel. I'm sure that's for the best though - I'll definitely miss Elder Baake and I'll definitely miss Elmshorn, with its amazing members and the eating appointment list flowing with milk and honey. And I'll most certainly miss some of our investigators. I think that Papi and his new companion will be quite the powerhouse, and he has a great relationship with the people there that I'm quite sure I couldn't maintain with my whole not talking very much thing.... A while later, we discovered that I will be going to Bad Bentheim, right near the border of the Netherlands.
View Larger Map My companion will be Elder Rirey, who I'm told is super cool. It is a car area, so I'll probably get fatter, even without all the eating appointments. President later told me he thought it was good/funny/something positive anyway... that the Lord had sent me to the opposite side of the mission from Berlin, where he discovered I have a brother that I kept forgetting to tell him about... Anyhoodles, I'm excited to go to Bad Bentheim, and have an exciting new start, even if I somehow have to get my broken wheeled luggage there somehow (Have I told you about that? I have the feeling we don't have any sort of warranty on them, but if we happen to, it would be exciting to get a replacement or something....). blah de blah de blah.
Then of course was General conference, which was, as always, marvelous. It seemed a little bit different to me this time, maybe just because I was watching it in a German church building in a suit rather than on the floor in my pajamas... also the fact that it was night, rather than morning (Though on Sunday the schedule was quite similar, only with Sessions switched around) It was also weird that Bruder M was able to tell us who was speaking in the Priesthood and Saturday afternoon sessions before we watched them. Anyway, I'm indulging in digression. ;P Despite the slightly different atmosphere in which I watched conference, it was just as good as ever, just as true as ever. just as fantastic as ever. I love hearing from Modern Day Prophets and Apostles, and I love the desire it helps to give me to start fresh, to work anew, and recommit myself to the work of God in which I'm engaged. I know this is his church. I know the messages that his servants shared in the last couple days, even the inconvenient ones, are what we need to act upon and follow. I know the lord loves us and leads us. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Germany Week 9
Yeah, I'll go with the letters thing for referring to people.... but I can't promise I won't use the same letters for different people. bwahahaha! keep you on your toes.
Doo be doo be doo bah....
That reminds me that MN and her kids definitely had Phineas und Ferb on when we came to visit them. It was the episode where Doofenschmirtz wraps things up in nice little boxes. Not that anyone cares....
One exciting thing was On Tuesday night we watched "Joseph Smith and the Golden Plates" with our investigator, A. Oh man. I did not like that movie, and I felt pretty uncomfortable showing it to an investigator. I felt like it put the prophet in a wierd light, and it was pretty cheesy... A didn't seem to have too much of a problem with it though, and it is based on true stuff - I hope he got something good out of it. We ended up stopping the movie when he had questions, and had good conversation - he said he'd felt the good feelings we described as the spirit as he'd read the Book of Mormon, but didn't recognize it as an answer, but that there were good things in the book, not necesarrily making the whole thing true. Then he talked a lot about the infallibility of the Qu'ran. I really enjoy our talks with him, but I don't know that any of us are really making progress.
Then Friday was a super intense day. It was quite the party. In the morning we got up and went Jogging with one Br. N, which was nice. We went at a nice slow pace through the part near our Wohnung, so I was the only one that was dying. It was good to see that my shins are getting better, because though they hurt, it was nowhere near the decapacitating pain I had earlier from walking (or from trying to jog in the MTC). We're planning to keep doing it. Then the Google Maps car drove past us on our bikes - So if anyone happens to be looking at Elmshorn in the streetview by the Badewanne in the future, be sure to look for a couple of missionaries (For those of my loyal readership who happen to know that Badewanne means "bathtub," There is a point in the road referred to as such because it dips down under a bridge and is often filled with water during rainstorms, causing uncautious drivers major inconvenience). Then at the M family's we had lunch - Königsberger Klopse (meatballs), which we had actually made ourselves the night before at their house. Then we did splits so Elder Baake could ride around in the fancy Peugeot sports car they had while they were waiting for the more family oriented one they'd purchased. We took pictures of me sitting in it, but I don't have them at the moment... Later that day we went to C's along with Bruder M to give the Third Lesson. C's the one who's been coming to church for the last month or so thanks to Bruder M's invite. It was a really good lesson, and we set a goal with C for baptism, so that was super exciting. It's been wonderful to see some of his questions be answered, and how he wants to improve his life and the life of his son.
On Saturday, we went up to Kiel to have interviews with the President. It was really good to see Elder Turney, and lots of other crazy missionaries, President gave a great Thema on the limitless nature of the atonement, and it was overall a good experience.
Yesterday we did splits for home teaching with the Ms (yup, same Ms, they're amazing). We talked about General Conference for obvious reasons. One of the Families I went to were the same ones we'd had an eating appointment with earlier in the afternoon, so that was kind of funny. It was a nice experience.
I am super excited for General Conference, as always. I really hope our investigators will take the opportunity to watch it and to listen to what the Prophets are saying today. It's wierd to not be within a few miles of where it's taking place, and therefore have it taking place at different times of day. On Saturday at 6:00, we'll watch the Saturday Morning session live, then on Sunday at 11:00 we'll watch the Priesthood Session, followed by the Saturday afternoon at 2:00, and then we'll watch the Sunday Morning live at 6:00 sunday evening. Then just watch the Sunday Afternoon sometime the next week or something. Not that you care. We're going to Pinneberg for it, which is slightly less convenient than slipping out of bed at 10:00 and turning on the TV, but not bad at all, and totally worth it. Ever since I was little, one of the strongest points of my testimony has been that those men and women who speak in General Conference are called of God and know what they're talking about. The Spririt confirms so strongly what they are saying. I know Thomas S Monson is a prophet of God, and I know that he will not lead us astray. I know that as we strive to follow their council and apply the grace of the atonement, we can repent, grow, improve, and receive solace from all manner of suffering. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Love your guts!
Doo be doo be doo bah....
That reminds me that MN and her kids definitely had Phineas und Ferb on when we came to visit them. It was the episode where Doofenschmirtz wraps things up in nice little boxes. Not that anyone cares....
One exciting thing was On Tuesday night we watched "Joseph Smith and the Golden Plates" with our investigator, A. Oh man. I did not like that movie, and I felt pretty uncomfortable showing it to an investigator. I felt like it put the prophet in a wierd light, and it was pretty cheesy... A didn't seem to have too much of a problem with it though, and it is based on true stuff - I hope he got something good out of it. We ended up stopping the movie when he had questions, and had good conversation - he said he'd felt the good feelings we described as the spirit as he'd read the Book of Mormon, but didn't recognize it as an answer, but that there were good things in the book, not necesarrily making the whole thing true. Then he talked a lot about the infallibility of the Qu'ran. I really enjoy our talks with him, but I don't know that any of us are really making progress.
Then Friday was a super intense day. It was quite the party. In the morning we got up and went Jogging with one Br. N, which was nice. We went at a nice slow pace through the part near our Wohnung, so I was the only one that was dying. It was good to see that my shins are getting better, because though they hurt, it was nowhere near the decapacitating pain I had earlier from walking (or from trying to jog in the MTC). We're planning to keep doing it. Then the Google Maps car drove past us on our bikes - So if anyone happens to be looking at Elmshorn in the streetview by the Badewanne in the future, be sure to look for a couple of missionaries (For those of my loyal readership who happen to know that Badewanne means "bathtub," There is a point in the road referred to as such because it dips down under a bridge and is often filled with water during rainstorms, causing uncautious drivers major inconvenience). Then at the M family's we had lunch - Königsberger Klopse (meatballs), which we had actually made ourselves the night before at their house. Then we did splits so Elder Baake could ride around in the fancy Peugeot sports car they had while they were waiting for the more family oriented one they'd purchased. We took pictures of me sitting in it, but I don't have them at the moment... Later that day we went to C's along with Bruder M to give the Third Lesson. C's the one who's been coming to church for the last month or so thanks to Bruder M's invite. It was a really good lesson, and we set a goal with C for baptism, so that was super exciting. It's been wonderful to see some of his questions be answered, and how he wants to improve his life and the life of his son.
On Saturday, we went up to Kiel to have interviews with the President. It was really good to see Elder Turney, and lots of other crazy missionaries, President gave a great Thema on the limitless nature of the atonement, and it was overall a good experience.
Yesterday we did splits for home teaching with the Ms (yup, same Ms, they're amazing). We talked about General Conference for obvious reasons. One of the Families I went to were the same ones we'd had an eating appointment with earlier in the afternoon, so that was kind of funny. It was a nice experience.
I am super excited for General Conference, as always. I really hope our investigators will take the opportunity to watch it and to listen to what the Prophets are saying today. It's wierd to not be within a few miles of where it's taking place, and therefore have it taking place at different times of day. On Saturday at 6:00, we'll watch the Saturday Morning session live, then on Sunday at 11:00 we'll watch the Priesthood Session, followed by the Saturday afternoon at 2:00, and then we'll watch the Sunday Morning live at 6:00 sunday evening. Then just watch the Sunday Afternoon sometime the next week or something. Not that you care. We're going to Pinneberg for it, which is slightly less convenient than slipping out of bed at 10:00 and turning on the TV, but not bad at all, and totally worth it. Ever since I was little, one of the strongest points of my testimony has been that those men and women who speak in General Conference are called of God and know what they're talking about. The Spririt confirms so strongly what they are saying. I know Thomas S Monson is a prophet of God, and I know that he will not lead us astray. I know that as we strive to follow their council and apply the grace of the atonement, we can repent, grow, improve, and receive solace from all manner of suffering. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Love your guts!
Monday, September 19, 2011
Germany Week 8
This week has been a little bit... meh. Nah, it's actually of been really good. Anyway, I'll just tell you what happened.
On monday evening I was forced to use my Hausschwein skills because a member friend who accompanied us to our eating appointment kept putting it on my plate because he thought it was funny. I thought it was funny too. And yummy. My stomach was the only one not amused. That little stinker.
Tuesday was a bummer because all three of our appointments fell out (One with the lady we taught the plan of salvation too - who I feel like though she accepted and said she was "convinced" by the plan of Salvation still doesn't seem to me to feel that the book of mormon or the church are that important - but we've got another appointment tomorrow) So that was unfortunate, and Elder Baake was starting to feel pretty sick, so we were headed to buy some chalk-full-o'-vitamins juice. On the way we ran into one of our investigators with whom we'd had to cancel our appointment, who's been coming consistently to church (I really need to come up with a better way of referring to people....But I don't really want to make up names, and I don't think I should publish people's names....) And he said whatever he'd had didn't take as long as he'd expected and that he'd see us the next day (which was when we'd moved the appointment to. But then he called us a bit later and asked if we could just do it that day again, which seemed to me a marvelous idea - we ended up even having a joint teach since we'd already had one set up with the other investigator who'd had to cancel. It was fantastic. Afterward he ordered us pizza which leads me to some pretty random side notes: First of all, Germans have this weird habit of putting all sorts of weird crap on their Pizzas. Meat lovers is fine thank you, supreme is weird enough for me. but yeah, they'll pile anything edible onto their pizzas and look at you like you're a madman when you look for a conservative salami Pizza.... :P Some of them are good though. The place we ordered from had a bunch of Pizzas named after places in the US and pretended to have something to do with those places. I could not find a single thing that made sense about the 'Utah.' We ordered the 'San Antonio', Which had what seemed to be nacho cheese instead of tomato sauce - maybe it had both... then with more normal cheese on top, and jalepenos. It was quite good. All this talk about German pizza making eccentricitites puts me in the mood to do this:
A couple things I was surprised by in Germany:
1. People are just as fat here as at home. All the talk I'd heard indicated that all Germans were super healthy, biked/walked everywhere, and they considered the American obese person as some sort of mythical creature. I definitely heard wrong. Though even the fat people bike a lot.
2. Little girls wear Hello Kitty stuff.
3. That the things that surprized me are so random
Okey dokey - I say it's time to adjourn this digression, back to the week....
Wednesday, Elder Baake was super sick, so we never left the apartment. I felt bad for him, but it was actually really nice for me. Apparently some people have a problem with being cooped up, but I had a marvelous time reading Jesus the Christ, doing dishes, napping, eating, trying to cut my own hair and rather quickly giving up (though I'm feeling bold enough to maybe try it again soon), studying, etc.
Thursday he was feeling a bit better, so we went to a couple appointments though we still spent most of the day in the apartment. one of those lessons we had we brought our ward mission leader as a joint teach to, and he talked to her about his conversion, told his life story pretty much, and I think it made a really strong impression on her - I'm excited to keep meeting with them
Friday we were able to drop by a less active members, help some members put up a fence to replace the one we'd helped them tear down, and ate exciting african food at a recent convert's house. That night we went to Glückstadt where we had an unproductive albeit fun time looking for people... We didn't find any people, but we did find a crab, and got some fun pictures -
Saturday we had fußball in the morning with the ward, which was quite the party, I only tripped into like 5 people. Then we got a new magical washingmachine! It's basically super amazing. It has a lit display thingy, it works, you can make it "Dry" stuff - it just like rings it out really well, it works, it's pretty, and it works. Then our two appointments for that day fell out, and we had weekly planning.... And I started to get a sore throat....
Sunday (yesterday) I woke up with a runny nose and clogged throat, but was able to make it sniffling through church just fine, then we went to a member family's for lunch, and then ended up going home and napping for a while on account of my nasal condition, after which we went out to another member family for the evening where we played a game called personality, which would've been fun if I understood German.
And today I pretty much got up, spent my life savings on cold medicine, and came here. I hope I get better - that would be unfortunate if I go through as much as Elder Baake did, I don't want to have to lose all of our appointments this week too.
So yeah, that's the story of my life for right now, I hope you're doing well!
The church is true! I know that Christ can and wants to heal us! We just have to believe him and follow him when he tells us what we need to do in order to receive the cure. Some of the stuff he told lepers and blind people and all sorts of other afflicted people to do probably seemed pretty weird to them, but as they did them with faith, they were healed in the process. The commandments and promptings of the spirit may often seem senseless, too hard, or even too simple to us, but Christ is the master physician and his prescriptions are always the right ones. We just need to take them.
- Elder Cloward
On monday evening I was forced to use my Hausschwein skills because a member friend who accompanied us to our eating appointment kept putting it on my plate because he thought it was funny. I thought it was funny too. And yummy. My stomach was the only one not amused. That little stinker.
Tuesday was a bummer because all three of our appointments fell out (One with the lady we taught the plan of salvation too - who I feel like though she accepted and said she was "convinced" by the plan of Salvation still doesn't seem to me to feel that the book of mormon or the church are that important - but we've got another appointment tomorrow) So that was unfortunate, and Elder Baake was starting to feel pretty sick, so we were headed to buy some chalk-full-o'-vitamins juice. On the way we ran into one of our investigators with whom we'd had to cancel our appointment, who's been coming consistently to church (I really need to come up with a better way of referring to people....But I don't really want to make up names, and I don't think I should publish people's names....) And he said whatever he'd had didn't take as long as he'd expected and that he'd see us the next day (which was when we'd moved the appointment to. But then he called us a bit later and asked if we could just do it that day again, which seemed to me a marvelous idea - we ended up even having a joint teach since we'd already had one set up with the other investigator who'd had to cancel. It was fantastic. Afterward he ordered us pizza which leads me to some pretty random side notes: First of all, Germans have this weird habit of putting all sorts of weird crap on their Pizzas. Meat lovers is fine thank you, supreme is weird enough for me. but yeah, they'll pile anything edible onto their pizzas and look at you like you're a madman when you look for a conservative salami Pizza.... :P Some of them are good though. The place we ordered from had a bunch of Pizzas named after places in the US and pretended to have something to do with those places. I could not find a single thing that made sense about the 'Utah.' We ordered the 'San Antonio', Which had what seemed to be nacho cheese instead of tomato sauce - maybe it had both... then with more normal cheese on top, and jalepenos. It was quite good. All this talk about German pizza making eccentricitites puts me in the mood to do this:
A couple things I was surprised by in Germany:
1. People are just as fat here as at home. All the talk I'd heard indicated that all Germans were super healthy, biked/walked everywhere, and they considered the American obese person as some sort of mythical creature. I definitely heard wrong. Though even the fat people bike a lot.
2. Little girls wear Hello Kitty stuff.
3. That the things that surprized me are so random
Okey dokey - I say it's time to adjourn this digression, back to the week....
Wednesday, Elder Baake was super sick, so we never left the apartment. I felt bad for him, but it was actually really nice for me. Apparently some people have a problem with being cooped up, but I had a marvelous time reading Jesus the Christ, doing dishes, napping, eating, trying to cut my own hair and rather quickly giving up (though I'm feeling bold enough to maybe try it again soon), studying, etc.
Thursday he was feeling a bit better, so we went to a couple appointments though we still spent most of the day in the apartment. one of those lessons we had we brought our ward mission leader as a joint teach to, and he talked to her about his conversion, told his life story pretty much, and I think it made a really strong impression on her - I'm excited to keep meeting with them
Friday we were able to drop by a less active members, help some members put up a fence to replace the one we'd helped them tear down, and ate exciting african food at a recent convert's house. That night we went to Glückstadt where we had an unproductive albeit fun time looking for people... We didn't find any people, but we did find a crab, and got some fun pictures -
Saturday we had fußball in the morning with the ward, which was quite the party, I only tripped into like 5 people. Then we got a new magical washingmachine! It's basically super amazing. It has a lit display thingy, it works, you can make it "Dry" stuff - it just like rings it out really well, it works, it's pretty, and it works. Then our two appointments for that day fell out, and we had weekly planning.... And I started to get a sore throat....
Sunday (yesterday) I woke up with a runny nose and clogged throat, but was able to make it sniffling through church just fine, then we went to a member family's for lunch, and then ended up going home and napping for a while on account of my nasal condition, after which we went out to another member family for the evening where we played a game called personality, which would've been fun if I understood German.
And today I pretty much got up, spent my life savings on cold medicine, and came here. I hope I get better - that would be unfortunate if I go through as much as Elder Baake did, I don't want to have to lose all of our appointments this week too.
So yeah, that's the story of my life for right now, I hope you're doing well!
The church is true! I know that Christ can and wants to heal us! We just have to believe him and follow him when he tells us what we need to do in order to receive the cure. Some of the stuff he told lepers and blind people and all sorts of other afflicted people to do probably seemed pretty weird to them, but as they did them with faith, they were healed in the process. The commandments and promptings of the spirit may often seem senseless, too hard, or even too simple to us, but Christ is the master physician and his prescriptions are always the right ones. We just need to take them.
- Elder Cloward
Monday, September 12, 2011
Germany Week 7
So yeah, my week's been quite the adventure. Last Vorbereitungstag was a bit boring though we just kind of did emails then wandered around... In a book store I was really tempted to get a Grimm Märschenbuch (Fairy Tale Book) not unlike the one we have at home, only this one's in German, but I wasn't sure if it was the original writing (which I would want, and it looked like it, but actually for all I know, it was written in Old German....) blah blah blah... It cost 20€... I'm told we're allowed to read whatever we want in evenings/ in transit as long as it's not getting in the way of Missionary work. I also don't know how good of an idea it is to just be lugging along extra books with me. Uh oh - I get the feeling I'm just blabbering, and potentially losing loyal readership. So, let's move on...
...to Tuesday, when we had three marvelous lessons (interestingly all in English.....) In the first of which we were talking about the Plan of Salvation, and it was really cool to see how it answered our investigator's questions - she had been really bothered by the fact that not everyone gets the chance to hear about or the opportunity to accept Christ while on earth, and was also frustrated by the idea that those who lived great lives, and were great people, but who fail to accept Christ suffer the same fate as those who commit all manner of crimes and abominations. It was marvelous to be able to explain and testify to her that in the Spirit world missionary work will continue, and everyone will receive the opportunity to accept the gospel, as well as that there is not simply a heaven and hell, but three kingdoms of Glory - the Celestial for those to accept and are perfected in Christ, the Terrestrial for those who lived righteous lives but did not apply the cleansing power of the atonement, and the Telestial for those who rejected it entirely and lived wickedly without repenting. I have always appreciated those parts of the plan of Salvation, but seeing how directly that addressed her concerns gave me a fresh look at the Importance of that knowledge.
On Wednesday, our washing maschine gave up the ghost. It had been leaking a little for a while, so we'd been worried about it, but on Wednesday when Elder Baake put in a load, the water refused to go anywhere but the floor {I almost wish it was dramatic as the image the way I said that put in my head - I'm imagining something like an opened fire hydrant beneath our washing maschine [pronounced ma-SHEEN-uh. Much like machine (which I would write as being pronounced ma-SHEEN), only I realized I was leaving in the german s and decided I'm too lazy to go take them out (Even though that would've been about ten times easier than this parenthetical mess.) ] Alas [in fact, rather luckily], this was not the case, it was just a slight leak and completely dry clothes.}. Anyhoodles, we're getting a new wasching maschine on Saturday, but in the mean time that means we've had to do laundry at members houses. Which so far, has been quite the adventure....
The Chronicles of Laundry: Book One: Redemption of the Soiled Whites
Once upon a time when Elder Baake and I's wasching machine was receiving the lessons we'd neglected to give it in the spirit world, all of our white clothes were pretty much dirty. Our noble metallic steeds bore us to the home of a gallant member couple who had graciously accepted the task of cleaning said articles of clothing. All seemed well.
BUT THIS NIGHT WAS NOT AN ORDINARY NIGHT!!! just kidding, it was actually quite ordinary. I just felt I needed a surge in suspense to be followed by some self contained light hearted literary commentary in order to release some of the tension produced by the cosmic forces weighed in the balance of this story.
As Saturday waned, and Sunday Marched uninterrupted forth, Elder Baake became painfully aware of his lack of all apparel resembling snow, Caucasians, or crack cocaine in hue (For those readers who don't enjoy irrelevant drug references, powdered sugar is a perfectly acceptable alternative - the same is the case if my ignorance is showing through, and crack cocaine is not, in fact, typically white). We called the members who had so gracefully taken the mantel of Stewardship over our clothes, but to no avail. Contact could not be made. Our vehicular stallions once again sped us through the night to the Manor wherein our Whites were kept. We knew that while the members with whom we'd left our laundry were away from home, a younger member who lived in their house was home. Thrice we rang the doorbell, thrice our hopes soared high, and thrice our hopes were shattered like a clay pigeon thrown in the path of a mountainman whose shotgun feels more at home in his hand than a turtle does in its shell. (Don't you just love ridiculous metaphoric (hmm hem - Similic) chains?) Calling this young fellow only added to the pile of bright orange metaphorical shrapnel.
It was a bleak time. As our hope lay in tiny shards scattered about the canyon floor, we nearly rode back without so much as a clean shirt, we very hesitantly excecuted a bold approach.
This particular point in the story has a healthy helping of background information as a prerequisite. This young man was snuggling on the couch watching a movie with a lady associate of his. He was also sick and a bit tired. We had also already bothered him and his female friend about something else at her house just an hour or two before. I had all of this in mind as we sheepishly/brazenly approached the one window with light in the house through which they could be seen. As he beheld us through the window, his face was transformed into one of terror, one of frustration, one of incredulity, one which conveyed the distinct sense of, "Why in name of the Cabbagepatch kids are you staring at us through the window?!!?" He then calmed down, opened the window and engaged us in cordial, if slightly perplexed conversation. He was surprised that we had rung both the doorbell and his cellular device without his hearing it, but he understood our plight, and gladly assisted us in our quest, guiding us to the dungeon where our clothes, whose exceeding whiteness was above the whiteness of any of the above mentioned white things, where hanging. We quickly hoisted that which we immediately required into our bags and once again mounted our beasts of locomotion and vanished into the night. The next night we got the rest of our clothes, which we wore happily ever after.
Wow, I really need to get going. I'm terribly sorry that I spent the whole time talking about my laundry, but I must say I enjoyed it.
I love you, I know this church is true. I know that Heavenly father has a plan for us, and that as we grow to understand that plan we gain perspective, which helps us to make decisions - and to want to make decisions - that will lead us to become better people and to return back to him. I know that that perspective, that opportunity, is something he wants every one of his children to have, and that I have here the opportunity to share that with a few of them.
- Elder Jacob Cloward
...to Tuesday, when we had three marvelous lessons (interestingly all in English.....) In the first of which we were talking about the Plan of Salvation, and it was really cool to see how it answered our investigator's questions - she had been really bothered by the fact that not everyone gets the chance to hear about or the opportunity to accept Christ while on earth, and was also frustrated by the idea that those who lived great lives, and were great people, but who fail to accept Christ suffer the same fate as those who commit all manner of crimes and abominations. It was marvelous to be able to explain and testify to her that in the Spirit world missionary work will continue, and everyone will receive the opportunity to accept the gospel, as well as that there is not simply a heaven and hell, but three kingdoms of Glory - the Celestial for those to accept and are perfected in Christ, the Terrestrial for those who lived righteous lives but did not apply the cleansing power of the atonement, and the Telestial for those who rejected it entirely and lived wickedly without repenting. I have always appreciated those parts of the plan of Salvation, but seeing how directly that addressed her concerns gave me a fresh look at the Importance of that knowledge.
On Wednesday, our washing maschine gave up the ghost. It had been leaking a little for a while, so we'd been worried about it, but on Wednesday when Elder Baake put in a load, the water refused to go anywhere but the floor {I almost wish it was dramatic as the image the way I said that put in my head - I'm imagining something like an opened fire hydrant beneath our washing maschine [pronounced ma-SHEEN-uh. Much like machine (which I would write as being pronounced ma-SHEEN), only I realized I was leaving in the german s and decided I'm too lazy to go take them out (Even though that would've been about ten times easier than this parenthetical mess.) ] Alas [in fact, rather luckily], this was not the case, it was just a slight leak and completely dry clothes.}. Anyhoodles, we're getting a new wasching maschine on Saturday, but in the mean time that means we've had to do laundry at members houses. Which so far, has been quite the adventure....
The Chronicles of Laundry: Book One: Redemption of the Soiled Whites
Once upon a time when Elder Baake and I's wasching machine was receiving the lessons we'd neglected to give it in the spirit world, all of our white clothes were pretty much dirty. Our noble metallic steeds bore us to the home of a gallant member couple who had graciously accepted the task of cleaning said articles of clothing. All seemed well.
BUT THIS NIGHT WAS NOT AN ORDINARY NIGHT!!! just kidding, it was actually quite ordinary. I just felt I needed a surge in suspense to be followed by some self contained light hearted literary commentary in order to release some of the tension produced by the cosmic forces weighed in the balance of this story.
As Saturday waned, and Sunday Marched uninterrupted forth, Elder Baake became painfully aware of his lack of all apparel resembling snow, Caucasians, or crack cocaine in hue (For those readers who don't enjoy irrelevant drug references, powdered sugar is a perfectly acceptable alternative - the same is the case if my ignorance is showing through, and crack cocaine is not, in fact, typically white). We called the members who had so gracefully taken the mantel of Stewardship over our clothes, but to no avail. Contact could not be made. Our vehicular stallions once again sped us through the night to the Manor wherein our Whites were kept. We knew that while the members with whom we'd left our laundry were away from home, a younger member who lived in their house was home. Thrice we rang the doorbell, thrice our hopes soared high, and thrice our hopes were shattered like a clay pigeon thrown in the path of a mountainman whose shotgun feels more at home in his hand than a turtle does in its shell. (Don't you just love ridiculous metaphoric (hmm hem - Similic) chains?) Calling this young fellow only added to the pile of bright orange metaphorical shrapnel.
It was a bleak time. As our hope lay in tiny shards scattered about the canyon floor, we nearly rode back without so much as a clean shirt, we very hesitantly excecuted a bold approach.
This particular point in the story has a healthy helping of background information as a prerequisite. This young man was snuggling on the couch watching a movie with a lady associate of his. He was also sick and a bit tired. We had also already bothered him and his female friend about something else at her house just an hour or two before. I had all of this in mind as we sheepishly/brazenly approached the one window with light in the house through which they could be seen. As he beheld us through the window, his face was transformed into one of terror, one of frustration, one of incredulity, one which conveyed the distinct sense of, "Why in name of the Cabbagepatch kids are you staring at us through the window?!!?" He then calmed down, opened the window and engaged us in cordial, if slightly perplexed conversation. He was surprised that we had rung both the doorbell and his cellular device without his hearing it, but he understood our plight, and gladly assisted us in our quest, guiding us to the dungeon where our clothes, whose exceeding whiteness was above the whiteness of any of the above mentioned white things, where hanging. We quickly hoisted that which we immediately required into our bags and once again mounted our beasts of locomotion and vanished into the night. The next night we got the rest of our clothes, which we wore happily ever after.
Wow, I really need to get going. I'm terribly sorry that I spent the whole time talking about my laundry, but I must say I enjoyed it.
I love you, I know this church is true. I know that Heavenly father has a plan for us, and that as we grow to understand that plan we gain perspective, which helps us to make decisions - and to want to make decisions - that will lead us to become better people and to return back to him. I know that that perspective, that opportunity, is something he wants every one of his children to have, and that I have here the opportunity to share that with a few of them.
- Elder Jacob Cloward
Monday, September 5, 2011
Germany Week 6
Let's see... what did I do this week... Last Monday we played Risiko with the glückstadt Elders, and I totally dominated. (Actually, it was really close, but I wiped everyone out in the end)
On Tuesday, Elder Popp was with us because his companions were in transit - We didn't get much done - apparently it's hard to talk to people when your in a dritt - maybe it's made worse because we think it's harder.... we weren't all that productive. -But we did go to a member's house for lunch, who told Elder Popp and I that we're "fat, but not that fat" - which I thought was funny - but she totally didn't mean to be rude (In fact, she'd said something about nachtisch making you fat, and was clarifing that she wasn't trying to insult us)
We've had some really good lessons this week. We met with the guy we met in the Döner Laden a couple times this week, which was really cool - He's so interested - the way he said it, religion is his Hobby - but he said he would go home an pray about the Book of Mormon, he said our closing prayer, and I really think he's felt the spirit. I really hope he'll recognize that. He's a really cool guy.
We've had another guy coming to Church the last couple weeks, whose brother in law is a member here. He's also super cool, and seems to feel good and be interested.
And those are a couple of the people we're working with... Anyway, things are going pretty well here.
And now for some random pictures...
1.Despite its potentially ominous appearance, the prominent building pictured holds an integral position in the Peter Kölln factory compound, whose Müsli production releases the highly sought after scent of cookies to waft through the city air; this act of supreme benevolence contributes enormously to the appeal of Elmshorn.
2. Sister Kitterman and I at Zone Conference
3. Elders Fullmer, Turney, and I
4. Papi Preaching
5.Elders Popp, Baake, and Weitzel in Hamburg (Going further into the Distance)
6. Crappy facebook style picture of me at the Hamburg Rathaus
7. Nikolai (I think) & random building next to it....
Mmmmk - love you! I know this church is true, and I'm excited to be a working part of it.
- Elder Cloward
On Tuesday, Elder Popp was with us because his companions were in transit - We didn't get much done - apparently it's hard to talk to people when your in a dritt - maybe it's made worse because we think it's harder.... we weren't all that productive. -But we did go to a member's house for lunch, who told Elder Popp and I that we're "fat, but not that fat" - which I thought was funny - but she totally didn't mean to be rude (In fact, she'd said something about nachtisch making you fat, and was clarifing that she wasn't trying to insult us)
We've had some really good lessons this week. We met with the guy we met in the Döner Laden a couple times this week, which was really cool - He's so interested - the way he said it, religion is his Hobby - but he said he would go home an pray about the Book of Mormon, he said our closing prayer, and I really think he's felt the spirit. I really hope he'll recognize that. He's a really cool guy.
We've had another guy coming to Church the last couple weeks, whose brother in law is a member here. He's also super cool, and seems to feel good and be interested.
And those are a couple of the people we're working with... Anyway, things are going pretty well here.
And now for some random pictures...
1.Despite its potentially ominous appearance, the prominent building pictured holds an integral position in the Peter Kölln factory compound, whose Müsli production releases the highly sought after scent of cookies to waft through the city air; this act of supreme benevolence contributes enormously to the appeal of Elmshorn.
2. Sister Kitterman and I at Zone Conference
3. Elders Fullmer, Turney, and I
4. Papi Preaching
5.Elders Popp, Baake, and Weitzel in Hamburg (Going further into the Distance)
6. Crappy facebook style picture of me at the Hamburg Rathaus
7. Nikolai (I think) & random building next to it....
Mmmmk - love you! I know this church is true, and I'm excited to be a working part of it.
- Elder Cloward
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