Germany Week 44

View from atop the Castle

Whoopsies...
So last Monday... We went with the District down to see a Castle! Marienburg! It was quite the party. I super enjoyed it, and there were tours and everything. It was very interesting and very nice to look at. I'm glad that Elder Welker was willing to go again, even though this was his third time. We also had a nice little hike up to it. Woo hoo.

Me being awesome by Marienburg

 Then Tuesday morning, we got a call from the Zone Leaders in Hannover, saying that one of them, Elder Staheli, was sick,  but they had a whole bunch of appointments, and were wondering if we could come down and do splits. And we had gar nichts (absolutely nothing, for the nondenglish speaking readers) that day until the evening, so we were very happy to oblige. I took the morning shift of being with Elder Staheli, so I was pretty much just hanging out in the Hannover apartment. Then I realized I was in a baking mood, so I just went ahead and made a cake from scratch - my first one ever, and it turned out quite well. nom nom nom. Then we all had lunch together, which was nice, then I went out to an appointment with Elder Carlson, which was good. Then Elder Welker and I returned to our area, where we were able to catch this really cool portuguese lady and give her her Book of Mormon. She said she was excited to read it, but that her schedule is really crazy so we should just drop by whenever we're in the area, that she'll have questions ready for us, and that she's going to talk to her member friend about it on the phone. So we're super excited about her.

Hoodlum Missionaries
 in the Courtyard

  Wednesday we had Zone Conference, which was super awesome. I really enjoyed the Themas, especially Elder Thorley's, where we made personal Titles of Liberty from one of his old shirts. President Pimentel talked about different meanings and applications of the Love of God, and they introduced this Esprit de Corps like never before thing.. crazy Frenchies... anyway, All three German Speaking missions united in fasting yesterday, and will be concentrating together this Wednesday on Finding prepared investigators. It should be awesome. And the best part for me about Zone conference was seeing Elder Turney and the Thoms. Pretty much the coolest people ever.

We could move into a different house,
 but keep the same bush

  Thursday was a little bit more of a normal missionary day, but it turned out to be excitingly abnormal in its results. As we were doing doors, there were two different people who gladly accepted copies of the Book of Mormon and were pretty interested. The first ones told us at the door that they weren't interested, but as we were leaving, they called out the window - "Can we have the book anyway?" We would've had to be crazy to say anything other than "Of course!" And we were able to give them one and give a quick explanation of it - they didn't really want to meet, but the daughter certainly seemed like she intended to read it - which is the important thing really. With the second one, the first thing the girl asked us was if we also present it to people in Neustadt, because she knows somebody there that would definitely be interested. She was pretty interested herself, and gladly accepted a Book of Mormon. We didn't make out an appointment, but we're definitely planning on trying by again.

You love the talking stove - Let's bake a cake!

Then that night, after our appointment with some members fell out, Elder Welker was like, "we could go get some ice cream cones." And having not quite yet been relieved of my baking mood said, "Or - we could buy a thing of Ice cream and the grocery store, and I could bake a cake." Which we totally did. This time I made a chocolate cake, the one pictured, and it was good, though not as good as the one I'd made in Hannover.

For clarification -
I wrote the thing at the bottom,
and Elder Welker drew the rest later.

  Ok... so I'm totally out of time, darn it, but the next few days were awesome too. Friday we had a ridiculous amount of appointments go through, which was a miracle, and it was my year mark, which made me super nostalgic, and we had a cool appointment and got 2 new investigators last night. And through the week it's been super hot and I've been dying from allergies. So that's the story of my life.

 Elder Cloward is out! Peace!

Me being Awesome
(My camera wasn't being quite so awesome)

Germany Week 43

So yeah, it was a pretty good week. Lots of doors. yup...

I guess I have one slightly more exciting thing to say. So Wednesday, at least I think it was Wednesday, when we were going out to do doors, this guy was just standing on the street, holding a Netto Bag (Netto's a grocery store). As we walked toward him, he just smiled at us and then started talking to us. He was like, "I want to talk to you guys about God - So we need to walk over to this Bench." So then he had us sit on the bench, he pulled out some Wine and some chips from the bag, and asked me to hold the chips while he peed in the bushes, which I of course did gladly, as any responsible citizen would. Then he was like, "ok - tell me the 12 commandments." Then Elder Welker and I just told him different commandments and good things to do and stuff and he would kind of just get going off on stuff... so he was talking to us for, I dunno, 40 minutes... then We were like, well, we don't have too much time, we wanted to go talk to some people... Then he just said he wanted to come along. There was also this group of guys standing a little ways away from us, and he said, "let's go talk to them about God!" One of those guys had already told us they weren't interested, and more than that, I wasn't particularly interested in including our new friend in our street contacting, so we declined, and just left. So this guy was like, "Fine, I'll talk to them alone." So then we left, and tried by a contact, who wasn't home - but then we saw that our friend was back, just staring at us. So we ended up talking to him a little bit more, before he accepted our reason that we had to visit some people alone. 

And.. that was our best appointment of the week. Just kidding, we did have one other appointment, and that went quite well.

Well, have beautiful weeks and beautiful lives, all you beautiful people!

 - Elder Cloward

Germany Week 42

It was great to talk with y'all too. Yeah, we just hung out at the church for an hour between calls - And Elder Welker also seemed to enjoy talking to his family. 

I feel like I don't really have anything to put in the email since we talked last night, but I wouldn't want to leave out the rest of my fan base who weren't involved in the conversation. And, truth be told, all we talked about was asparagus anyway, so I suppose I could slip in a little something about my week.

  There was nothing too exciting though, mostly it was a kinda same Ol' knocking on people's doors week.

One cool thing that was that we finally got to meet with one of our two investigators. That's always a plus.

Cute story though - So on Friday night, we were biking back home, and this guy just stops us, and is like, "Hey, I want you guys to come to my apartment tomorrow and meet with me. I talked to some of you guys a while ago." He told us his name was O., and gave us his address. That's always a nice thing to hear, but the way he was saying it, there was something fishy... Who knows what though. He kept being like, "You're not lying, right? you're really gonna come?" So the next day we go to his apartment and ask for O. The guy who answered the door is like, "Yeah... he's here..." and we're like, "Ummm... could we talk to him? He asked us to come yesterday." This guy just looked at us and was like, "I didn't see you yesterday..." Then it clicked. Aach So! We been duped! I asked, "Oh - are you O?" So it turns out his friend was just playing a joke on him - With a description of the "O" we had met, he knew exactly who it was... So that was pretty exciting.

  We also had President's interviews, which was good. Ummm... Yup.

Well, have a beautiful week, everybody!

Here's the church where we meet.

Germany Week 41

We mostly just spent this week wandering around and going door to door trying to find someone that's willing to listen to us. 

We'll definitely be doing a lot of that in Nienburg.

There were definitely some exciting things though. For instance, yesterday, C got the Priesthood. It was very cool to see how well he understood the responsibility and the power of it. We had a nice Testimony meeting, too. Just how few people are in church on Sundays? Because we've usually only got 25 people, but we seem to manage pretty well. It just means that most people get up, which, in all honesty, is probably better anyway.

Another nice thing was that we were able to drive out with some members to visit an older lady in an Old Folks home to celebrate her Birthday. She enjoyed it very much, and it was great to be able to be a part of that.

1. Bush

Umm... the only other thing that comes to mind is that there are a lot of those bushes here like the one next to our porch. It makes me feel kind of at home. There are also Box Elder Bugs, but with a pretty different pattern. I've only managed to get one cruddy picture of a bush so far though.

And I may as well send you some pictures from Wandering around Hannover with the Hildesheim Elders last Monday.

2. Elder Marshall (aus Hildesheim) & Elder Welker overlooking Hannover from the Rathaus

3. Elders Welker, Spendlove, and Marshall in the Rathaus

4. Yeah, Elder Welker and I are pretty much the Bomb

5. Yeah, Elder Marshall and I are pretty much the two coolest people to ever stand in front of that Rathaus

6.And that's me trying to be artsy in the Rathaus

Well kids, the church is true! I hope you all have a beautiful week!