Germany Week 92

Oh the ridiculosity!

You know what was super crazy? On Wednesday at district meeting we witnessed what I like to call the "death throes" of Elder Sullivan. He gave a Thema at his last district meeting. It's so weird that he's going home. Having someone that you went into the MTC with go home. It's even weirder for Elder Olson since he was his companion there. Our whole group got automatically extended, but Elder Sullivan removed the extension so he can start right up with school when he gets home. I'm totally geeking out about it. After district meeting, the district went to McDonald's but we didn't order anything and went to Burger King instead. It was totally worth it.

 The next day was also pretty close to the top of my crazy list. Last week Saturday we got a call from the APs that we would be spending our Thursday driving to Berlin to get our tires rotated. Yeah, baby. It was exciting to have another crazy road trip, but it was also super unfortunate because that's the only day we usually have appointments and we had to cancel them. The drive itself was actually really stressful for me - just being nervous on the freeway, and especially once we were driving around in the dead center of Berlin and our Navi couldn't find the address of the church. We somehow managed to get there safe and sound. Then we stood there for about 15 minutes talking to an Ehepaar (married couple) that was there while they did the car maintenance, and then we got to leave. Totally not worth the three hour drive. It was also pretty disheartening because I knew a few good friends were like twenty feet away from me in the Leadership training meeting that was going on, but I couldn't just barge in there to say hello. Then once we were a little ausserhalb (outside) Berlin we pulled in and ate Burger King for the second day in a row. Welcome to America! When we got home we blitzed some neighborhoods in Halberstadt with the rest of our brochures. That was nice to feel like we'd done something at the end of the day. Overall though, we were both pretty irritable - the day (aka the drive) had been tiring and unfulfilling. On top of that, I was starting to get nervous for the transfer call coming up on Saturday. But we were able to talk and cheer each other up in the evening. I am so grateful for Elder Olson. We're really able to help each other up, and that makes things so much easier.

not exactly what I had in mind for the finished product,
but I guess this can still decorate the Halberstadt
apartment until someone throws it out...

 Friday morning was really nice. We went and did some more painting. Most awesomest thing ever. ;P I really enjoy it. I finally got everything blocked in, but there's still a ton left to be done. But as we all know, it's not about the painting, it's about the peacocks. There were a bunch of kids running around there measuring stuff for one of those "the weather is nice and the teacher doesn't want to be cooped up with you all in the classroom" school projects. It was pretty funny to listen to them while painting. There were a lot of people out that saw me. Don't know what they thought of it though. There was one guy who came up and talked to me for a minute, that was cool. We didn't make it so far as the gospel, but he wanted to look at the painting and asked where we were from. Whether or not my public flocks to the font, it's definitely been a great experience.

 Saturday morning we waited on the transfer call. And then we waited some more. And a little bit more. They're supposed to call between 9 and 12, and at 12 our district members started calling us to talk about what happened to everybody. But we hadn't gotten the call yet. Well, we sort of had at like 11:50 - the APs called, but it only rang once. Either Elder Olson accidentally hung up instead of answering, or Elder Bangerter hung up. So we tried to call 'em back a couple times, but they were of course busy. So a few minutes later, Elder Bangerter called again. He was like, " I see you were trying to contact me." Then he was like, "Wait, has president called you yet? He said he was going to call you." At first I thought he was just joking with me, because as everyone knows, President only calls the people with unusual assignments, like Zone leaders. He continued, "Well, you and Elder Beck will be coming into the Office. You'll be doing normal missionary work from at least 6:00 to 9:00, but during the day you'll be helping coordinate everything with all the new missionaries coming into the mission." Now, I've recently heard it said that every mission in the world has an Elder Beck, but it just so happens that our mission has at least two. I had already heard that the Elder Beck in Köthen would be training, so I surmised, and Elder Bangerter confirmed it, that I would be with the one that just got to Leipzig and kind of reminded me of Brother Rasmussen  Then Elder Brandley will be coming to Elder Olson in Halberstadt. That's pretty funny too, because Elder Brandley is going home with us as well, so even though I'm getting transferred, Halberstadt will still get a double homicide white wash. In the word of Bruder S, "Hilfe!" I don't know Elder Brandley all to well, but he seems really cool and I think Elder Olson and him will get along really well. Plus they already know each other - They were bunk mates for three weeks in the MTC.

What a thought inspiring sign

 After the transfer call, the district came to Halberstadt, where, after a nice meal at Subway (silly Americans, you can eat that stuff in America), we doored a bunch of the places we'd given brochures to, and were able to make out three appointments. It's been a long time since I've had that. I suppose strength in numbers is helpful. It'll hopefully be a good starting point for Elders Olson and Brandley.

 Sunday was really nice too. The Stake Patriarch came and spoke to us. He gave a pretty in depth talk/sunday school class on the temple and patriarchal blessings. I got to give a quick tschüß (goodbye) testimony to the branch, which was also nice. After the meeting, R and H got their patriarchal blessings. It is so extraordinary how they're making such good progress in the gospel. And the fact that they sought it out themselves makes it even better. Afterward we all (Elder Olson and I, the Patriarch and his wife, R & H) went to the S's/S's for an awesome lunch.

Scenic Schierke

 In the Evening, Elder Olson and I headed off to a little town called Schierke tucked into the mountains of the Harz - It's a gorgeous place, everyone says it reminds them of a miniature park city. Just with German architecture and witch decorations all over everything. Tomorrow night's Walpurgisnacht, I don't know what that actually is, but it has some connection to Goethe's Faust and the Largest Mountain in the Harz, the Brocken, and lots and lots of Witches. Elder Olson calls the city Tauschdorf, because he always takes people to work there while on Tausch, but that was the first time I made it up there. I was like the last in the district to make it up there. It was gorgeous, and nice to load up on some nature before delving into Berlin.

 I don't know exactly what I'll be doing in the office, but I'm pretty excited for it. Actually,

Step into my heavily forested office

I'm really excited for it. Maybe once I know what I'm doing, I won't be. ;P I will certainly be more comfortable than I am on the streets. I'm definitely glad I still will be doing that stuff though. I wouldn't want it to be like a surprise 6 week early release. On Tuesday morning I'll be jumping on a train to Berlin with Elder Sullivan - we'll both be heading to the office, but I think I'll mosey around there a little longer than he does before going home.

 I love you! The Church is true!

Germany Week 91--Leapin' Lizards‏

Wellsers, wellsers, wellsers...

 This week went pretty fast. But I don't feel like all that much happened. But.... I'm just in kind of a hazy mood... Butt... whoops. totally didn't mean for that second t to get in there. But... this is getting a little out of hand. But... this keyboard seems to require brute force. But... That's probably not very important to you. But... There are two noteworthy events I can come up with for this week.

 The first would be our Tausch with Köthen. Quite the party. I went to Elder Beck. We actually spent most of the time calling and making out appointments with members, so mostly I just sat there, studied and baked a cake. That was pretty intense. Then in the Evening we went and tried by a bunch of contacts. Meanwhile in Halberstadt, Elder Olson and Elder Jex passed out about a hundred million brochures. Pretty intense, na? Speaking of those brochures, we haven't had much success with them yet, but it's clear that people are at least noticing them. Most of the time they just look at us and say no, but I get the impression that they've been half expecting us, and they seem to know who we are. There are only a few sentences on the brochures, they require little more than a glance to take in. So in the worst case, people at least have a better idea of who we are. But... yeah, Tausch was fun, brochures are a party.

 Noteworthy event number 2: I engaged in a little something Elder Olson and I like to call peacocking. What we mean by that is that it's not a direct form of missionary work, like walking up and talking to people on the street, but something that draws attention to us and will hopefully raise their curiosity about who we are, what we're doing here, and what our message is. Then in the ideal situation in my head, people just flock to us and ask to get baptized. But even in a more realistic sphere, I hope that it will make people stop and think about us, recognize that we are people, that we are to some degree normal, and be a little more prone to take the time to talk with us when we do approach them.

What is that ridiculous man doing painting in a suit?

Our particular form of peacocking has been painting. It's an idea that I got after our Zone Conference, when the AP's talked about using more creative finding methods and "risking the awkward." I've debated a lot about it, and there have been lots of smaller obstacles, like what am I going to paint with? and what am I going to paint? And what am I going to wear? And Is that allowed? But most of those questions have slowly resolved themselves and I'm loving it. There were some acrylic paints already in the apartment (There are some benefits of being in an area where Sisters recently served) and Elder Olson has an old suit that he doesn't want anymore and fits me well - voila! Painting suit! Then there was the matter of deciding what to paint. I thought about just painting the plan of salvation or like a picture of a temple, or Jesus or something, and who knows I might still do that if I have the time, but I felt like if I'm going to be painting outside, it would make sense to paint something that I see. I was looking for good views for a few weeks as we wandered around the city. I wanted some sort of central location where people would actually see me (Otherwise I'd probably be painting in the middle of the Harz somewhere....). I kept coming back to painting the Dom, the big church in the middle of the city. It's so gorgeous, and is a symbol of Halberstadt to me, but, as a missionary, is it weird to be painting somebody elses church? I still ask myself that a little, but I decided to go for it. Besides, it could very easily lead into a conversation about the apostasy, reformation and *drum roll* the restoration! I've really enjoyed it a lot and I'm excited to keep up with it. I only feel bad for Elder Olson, cuz he seems to get a little bit bored. His job is to read and look approachable while I paint. We'll see if it will develop into something more.

 The last couple days I was in a pretty bad mood, having a pretty hard time, and Elder Olson asked me how I was doing and we had a really nice chat. It helped me a lot, and it made it a lot easier for me to get up and get back to knockin' on people's doors.He's so supportive and easy to work with. I'm really grateful that I get to have him as my companion. It would be super cool if we got to stay together for our last transfer. We'll find out on Saturday what's going down.

 Well, I love you! Have a great week! And remember, Jesus loves you!

Germany Week 90--Ampitheater Schmampitheater

It sounds like you had quite the party this week. It's good to hear that Jonnypookins is super hardcore and gives good talks. I was always a big fan of that guy. I feel like I'll probably just be disappointing you on the 16th of June, so if you could just anticipate a less cute version of my primary talks, that would be greatly appreciated.

  This week.... Let me turn to the annals of the Daily Planner, wherein all secrets are just waiting to be unlocked...

 We've been working on this Broschüre project, I think I might've mentioned it - Our GML made these brochures that introduce us and the church, and we've been putting those in people's mailboxes, and just following it around doing doors. we got a new map of the city and are marking off where we've done. It's not the most effective work, but it's what we've got at the moment, and it's a good way to keep us focused on doing something. In Nienburg I did a lot of that too - not with the brochures, just with marking off doors on maps, and it really helps me to, I guess, feel like I'm doing something and keep on track, even if the only fruits I'm seeing are colorful lines filling up a city. Hopefully we'll find some more people through it too, and we're trying to supplement that with other, more creative activities too. We spent Wednesday in Leipzig having our Zone Training Meeting. It was nice. Pretty normal meeting...

 Thursday was our party day where we actually have appointments and get to teach. Bruder S wanted to talk to F's about charity because they'd mentioned the neighbor kids annoyed them. I was a little nervous about it, but it was a good lesson and they took Bruder S's comments well. Then we went to T another member. In order to spice up that lesson we used an old school Church Video that we found in our apartment called, "Are you Listening?" It was a party.

 Y not? Sorry if my letters in reserve are questionable....

 Friday the party just kept on going with me Tausching to Leipzig with our beloved Zone Leader, Elder Norman. I had a nice time with him, we tried by a lot of contacts, had some interesting discussions, one with Zeugen Jehovas who were proselyting on the same street, and another with the roomate of a contact. They were both nice though. In the evening and at lunch we had a ton of fun - Elder Baker and his companion are in the same apartment. If I didn't know better, I'dathunk everybody there was on goofballs. For German study I played scrabble against Elder Baker's toy dinosaur.

 For church yesterday we just watched the last session of conference. It was good. I'm excited to watch it in English later though. The translation is obnoxious to listen too just because you can still hear the english, just not well enough to catch all of it, so I always find myself switching back and forth on which language I'm listening to and missing half of the message. It was still good though ;)

 And today there's either some sort of Hippie convention in Magdeburg or the new spring fad is to just wear hippie clothes. It's pretty intense... Our branch president would be all over that. He loves hippies.

 Anyhoodles, I love you! Church is still true! Have a faaaantastic week!

Germany Week 89

I feel like quite the World Traveller. On Wednesday we were in Magdeburg, Friday we were in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Saturday we were in Köthen, and yesterday we were in Hannover. That's quite a bit for one week as a missionary.

 Magdeburg was just for District meeting. It was nice, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Missionaries making their pilgrimage
toward a checkpoint on the way to restoration

 Lutherstadt Wittenberg was a bit more out of the ordinary. We went there for a District Finding activity. It was super cool to be there. It was there that Martin Luther preached and on the 31st of October, 1517, nailed his 95 Theses of complaint against the Catholic Church to the door. It was really cool to be able to see the place where such a pivotal moment in History took place. Martin Luther's acts not only reshaped the political environment of the Western World, but were invaluable in that they opened the way for religious freedom and made the Restoration 300 years later possible. I really wish I'd been able to brush up more on my history before or while being there, maybe I would've had a better Idea of what to look for.

This is as much as we got to see - The Door's where all the action was anyway.

I see what you mean with "Feste Burg"

After we got to see the church, we went a little more into the city, split off into pairs. Everyone had brought 2 copies of the Book of Mormon and we were going to try to give them out. I went off with Elder Williams. We klingeld a few people, and no one seemed to want a free copy of our book, So we decided to just walk for a little bit, to find another area or give it to someone on the street. We walked around a corner where a woman was standing at the gate of her garden. I was just going to walk past her, but Elder Williams turned back. As soon as he did, she started speaking to us. She said, " I was just sitting in my garden when I thought I heard the English language." (whoops... but at least in this case it made her want to talk to us...) She said she's been to the US and Canada many times and loves it there. She's even been in Utah and to Salt Lake City a few times. She said she's seen the Temple, but she knew nothing about our religion and was very happy to learn that we are Christian. She's a Seventh Day Adventist. We had a great talk and were able to find a lot of common ground. She was really interested in our beliefs and in what the Book of Mormon was, but declined to take our copy... (Even though we reoffered it I don't know how many times....) After we left her, Elder Williams said, "I kinda just want to write a note in it and drop it in her Briefkasten." I was very much for the idea. As we were headed back in that direction we stealthily (with a pretty loud 'Plunk') slipped the Book of Mormon into her mailbox. Even though she said she didn't need it, I have the feeling she at least appreciated the gesture, and hope she'll read in it.

Isn't Elder Williams so inspirational?

 We went to Köthen on Saturday night to watch the live broadcast of the Saturday Morning session. We were there with our district and a bunch of members that I didn't know, but a few of whom I got to meet. I met Elder Schütze, one of whose final acts as area seventy was to tell me I should practice standing with my back against walls to improve my posture.

 Sunday, for the rest of the sessions of conference that we got to see, we went to Hannover. I was really hoping that the Hs or the Ls from Nienburg would be there, but they must've been watching from home, or Stadthagen, or for all I know Salt Lake. It was really cool to be there. I got to see Elder Zondler and Elder Slinker (Trained by Elder Pack), as well as the Wilhelms, the Senior couple there. It was really nice to see them and cool to be in Hannover - It's been one of those "home along the way" places for me. And not just because there were comfy couches to watch conference on. ;) We actually sat on hard chairs for most of the sessions, we left the good seats for other people when there were other people, don't worry.

 But, General Conference of course is not about seating arrangements or seeing old friends, it's about hearing the word of God through his called servants. General Conference has always been my favorite. Though I have not yet seen the Sunday afternoon session, which I infer has the powerful line up of Elders Oaks, Holland, and Christofferson, I'm still going to go so far as to say it was an excellent conference. I really liked the story about one Craig Sudbury... I thought to myself, "huh. That's funny. That's Curtis' dad's name." So I'd just like to piggyback on Pres. Monson and give a shoutout to my good friend FC Sudbury III. I really enjoyed the conference. They appeared to me to talk a lot about Obedience, Missionary Work and Having/Providing refuge in dark times. As I reviewed my notes, I thought about how it is through Obedience and preservation of virtue that we create and sustain that state of refuge, personal peace and light. It is through missionary work that we are able to provide that same refuge to others. As the world around us grows increasingly distant from the light of the Gospel, it becomes more urgent that we cling to the standards that preserve that light and shine a beacon for others to do the same. Well, as dad seems to always say after conference, looks like I'm not off the hook.

 I love you and wish you the best! I know this church is true, that it is lead by true prophets of God and that as we follow their council we will find an increased personal peace and will be able to provide that peace to others as well. Have a great week. and... GODSPEED! ;)

Germany Week 88

Well well well... Let me see what I can recall.... Monday Elder Olson and I taught Institut (more like lead the discussion) to our three JAE's - It's important to keep up your vocabulary words - And that was nice.

The Halberstader Dom in quite a bit of her (his? its?) Majesty

 So for Tuesday I ought to start with the Tuesday before where Elder Olson and I slipped up. So there had been Osterbasteln (an Easter Artsycrafty activity) planned, but a bunch of people weren't going to be able to make it, so we switched it to this Tuesday. No problem with that right? Leider doch. You see, We had invited a less active member to the activity, but forgot to inform him of the change. So we learned later that they had showed up, but there was no one there Osterbastling when they arrived. So I felt super bad about that. We let him know that there was the activity this week, but we wanted to do something more to apologize. So Elder Olson's trainer taught him how to make this Swiss bread, (apparently called something along the lines of 'Zopf') so we decided to bake some as a peace offering. But then that kept being postponed, then it took longer than we anticipated, so we went to deliver the bread just like 45 minutes before the Activity started, but we drove over to give it to them, but they weren't there. Upon our return, we discovered that they had just come to Osterbasteln pretty early. But then we felt weird giving them the bread at the activity, so we just had it there for everyone. I felt pretty sheepish... But they seemed very happy to be there and not at all upset that we'd forgotten to tell them about the change. Hopefully I'm not thrust down into the fiery pit or anything.

The Road Trip is kinda hazy...

 Next Up: Off to Dresden! It was perty intense! Magdeburg got permission to stay overnight with us Wednesday so we'd be able to make the vast journey early the next morning together. It was quite the party - but don't worry, not too much of a party. I was pretty excited to get to sleep because I knew I was going to be driving at 6:30 the next morning. I don't know what those two had been eating, but we had to open a lot of windows.... Anyway, Thursday morning I got to drive off into the snow. I was not happy when I saw that it was snowing, but luckily it cleared up pretty quickly as we were driving, so it didn't obstruct my driving too much. What did obstruct my driving however, is that just outside of Dresden there had been an accident and there was bumper to bumper traffic. It took us around half an hour to get less than 10 kilometers. And that's a very vague description, because I really wasn't paying attention, and actually have no idea how far we went in that time. I hope the people in the accident were ok, but it looked pretty bad. Most of it was cleaned off to the side by the time we could see it, all we saw was a totally destroyed motor home. I'm grateful that we made it safely. We were on time too. Well, actually we were late for the "Only the people who are a half hour early are on time" thing, but no one except for Elder Beck seemed to mind that we were a few minutes late for that one.

 No prison can hold KARL G. MÄSER!

 Zone conference itself was fantastic. It's also really weird because it was my last. We've still got a couple Zone Training Meetings in the Zwischenzeit though. So that's good. President talked a lot about our purpose and our vision of strengthening the members and the church in Germany, specifically about building up the stakes. Sis. Kosak talked about the importance of having unity in companionships and what we can do to foster that Unity. I'm glad that Elder Olson and I get along so well and are able to support each other. Of course, there are always things we can improve on. The Assistants talked about being more creative in our finding activities - that we don't just depend on Street contacting and Door to door, because we know they're not the most effective anyway. Instead we should be striking up natural conversations with people wherever we go that will naturally lead to who we are as missionaries and to the gospel, and that we should be trying new things that get people to talk to us rather than us talking to them. And as you know, that is like my favorite thing ever. I'm all about people talking to me and hunting people down has always been dismally low on my list of favorite pass times. The tricksy part is that it takes a lot to create those situations where people come to you. The APs called it "Risking the Awkward." Somehow I feel like I'll just end up missing the mark and "Embody the Awkward." heheh, not really. I'm much too much of a coward to take it that far. One of my companions, Elder Ririe used to talk a lot about the importance of creative finding methods and that always struck a cord with me. I'm really excited about it sort of becoming an official stance of the mission. Mal seein' what Elder Olson and I are able to come up with.

 You told me those brownies were FREE!

Whatever you are, don't be a scrub

 It was also really cool to see friends there - Elder Pack is now serving in Chemnitz, Elder Dzierzon is in Görlitz, Elder Jenkins is in Forst. 7 Missionaries from my MTC group were there, so that was really cool (The same as when there were 6 plus Elder Jenkins). And It was really cool to be in Dresden. I'm told that it's a gorgeous city, but the only site [sight?(sitesight?)] seeing we were able to do was the Karl G. Mäser statue outside the Stake Center and the Burger King inside of HauptBahnhof. You know, Brigham Young said something along the lines of, "If you don't go on your mission with frivolity in your heart, seeing the sites, looking for this and that, you'll've come and gone in vain." What was that? Did I accidentally slip an extra negation in there? Naja, It was a really fun trip. The Magdeburg Elders are so cool. It was a really great day.

 There wasn't too much else exciting in the week. Easter was nice, I sang with J in Church, and it went well until something went terribly wrong in the third verse... And we had a nice eating appointment with Sch. M

Elder Olson in most of his Majesty

. And today we went to the Branch President's house for another Easter Meal. It was fantastic. They're awesome people.

 Well kids, I guess this is where I sign off.

Gaaawwwldiiin Greeewwwwp!

 Love you! The Church is true!