Celebration week!

Haha, so I guess this week was the last week of a celebration in Heide called Hahnebeer.  As we were driving back from an appointment, we got stuck at a stop light as a parade went by.  It was actually kind of funny.  I have a picture or two, but I don't have time to post them.  So perhaps next week I can do that!  The streets were crowded, it was quite an interesting thing.  Two horses also were fighting right in front of our car!  I thought they were going to go mad and start kicking at the cars, but they didn't.  The owner got them under control and the parade went on.

We had a couple walk-ins this week!  It was really cool!  Let me tell you though.  It's really weird going up to someone's door, telling them you have a message about God, and asking to come in and share it.  It's even stranger when you are inside.  I don't know how many people have done that before, but going into somebody's house that you don't know, trying to speak a language you aren't fluent in, and teaching them gospel principles that they don't want to believe is quite an experience.

We had a zone conference this last week on Thursday!  It was way fun!  I learned a lot, and it was a really cool experience.  I also received so many letters!  Thank you so much for the letters!  Expect responses soon, but not too soon, because I got a ton of letters!  Haha.

Well Enjoy your week!

Week 2 Transfer 2

Well, this last week seems to have slowed back down.  We are having some bipolar weeks with lessons and investigators.  One week they are all interested and listen to us, the next week they decide they don't want to meet with us anymore.  I don't understand.  It's definitely an interesting experience.  I hope to be able to understand why people are the way they are!  It's hard to do something for someone when they don't allow you to understand why they feel the way they feel.  Maybe I need to learn to ask more questions, the only problem is I probably won't understand the answers!  Haha!

Well, there was some local holiday here recently.  It wasn't Valentines day, that isn't celebrated here that much.  There was some beer fest holiday for Heide.  I don't know exactly what it is, but It brought people from all over the place to Heide for a day.  It was kind of cool because I saw significantly more Porsches and nicer cars.  People wanted to show off for sure.  There was some cool Mercedes that somebody had.  You could tell it was a higher end one, but I couldn't see what kind it was, he was going too fast!  It sounded awesome though. 

We had an appointment with a former investigator.  I guess my trainer and his old companion taught him before, and then they lost contact.  We finally regained contact and had a lesson.  I didn't say a whole lot because the lesson wasn't very well planned out, but my companion was saying a lot.  It was really a miracle.  He was saying things that he wouldn't normally say, and I could tell he was speaking with the gift of tongues.  It was powerful.  I shared a scripture, and Elder Erickson asked him if he would be baptised on March 13th.  He said he had a birthday that day, so he couldn't... so then we asked for March 20th.  He accepted!  We have a baptismal date!  We are praying that it will go through and he'll make it to baptism!

This week is my first zone conference in the field.  I'm excited!  We are heading to Hamburg Early Thursday and it should be awesome.  I will also be able to see some of my missionary buddies from the MTC.  That will be fun!  I always enjoy the support of a good friend when nobody else seems to want to listen to you.

The weather has been chilly lately.  Usually there are clouds which hold some heat in, but the last couple days there have been less clouds and more cold!  Of course, after walking around a couple hours in it, you are pretty numb and can't feel it anymore.  I imagine the pioneers who hit bad winters.  What a challenge that must have been!  phew!

Ich wunsche euch Alles Gute! 

Hello out there!

Wow!  Do I have a story this week or what?  I hope I can write it all in time!  Haha!  First off, I attached a few pictures.  One is of our car in front of the church building, a couple are in the dorf called Schlichting, and I believe my companion is in one of those pictures.  There are some really cool windmill farms out here by the North Sea, I hope that sometime I'll be able to get a couple pictures of them.  We'll see I suppose. 

Well, let's begin!

We have been doing so much finding here in the Heide area in Germany.  We have been doing hours and hours of door to door, and street contacting.  We are slowly finding people that listen to our message.  This week has been good.  We had appointments that didn't fall out!  It was very exciting. 

One of the appiontments was with a man named Celal Altug.  He is from Turkey.  His German is very good, he has been speaking it fluently for 5 years.  We met him on the street and he wanted to meet with us at our church building.  That is normally a sign that they don't want to meet, but don't want to say no.  We showed up at the church, and he was already there waiting for us!  It was a miracle in itself.  As we began talking to him, we found out he was taught by missionaries about 5 years ago.  He had a very good knowledge of our beliefs.  He received the Book of Mormon before, and loved it.  He told us his story.  He used to be very socially inept. In Turkey he had his hand blown off by a bomb, and several other bad things happen to him.  He was so traumatized that he became mentally instable and was unable to talk with people normally.  He said he just couldn't do it.  He fled to Germany and tried to return to a normal life but couldn't.  Then, he got a Book of Mormon from the missionaries.  He said that the book helped him out so much in his life.  He was helped significantly.  He said that he started to converse with people normally, and he began to live a normal life.  He took up playing soccer again, and the Book of Mormon completely changed his life around.  Just as my sister recently testified, even do I testify:  The Gospel Changed Lives--For the BEST.  He was so happy that he was able to meet with us that day, because he really wanted that book again.  It's a miracle, because he said he was getting deported back to Turkey the next day.  We haven't seen him since, so I guess he got deported, but at least now he has the Book of Mormon.  It was amazing.

Next story!

So there is a family in the Branch, the Dahleka family.  They invited us for dinner and we had... American Hamburgers!!!  They thought it was so awesome, and they were so excited.  Elder Erickson and I just had to laugh.  The only problem is, in Germany they think Americans eat several hamburgers at a time on a normal basis.  As a result, he made... who knows how many hamburgers.  A LOT!  He didn't want ANY leftovers and so he wanted Elder Erickson and I to ear everything they didn't want.  So after they ate 2 hamburgers each or so, they waited for us to eat the rest.  I believe I ended up having 6 hamburgers!  It was rediculous!  They kept laughing and talking about how funny americans are because they eat so many hamburgers.   My goodness.  The ideas that Germans have about Americans are sometimes really weird!

Saturday, we were doing some door to door stuff.  We went to one door and rand the bell.  Someone came to the door and said he didn't have interest, but he didn't open the door.  In Germany, multiple families will live in one house, so we proceeded to ring the next klingel.  The man hadn't gone back into his section of the house yet, and so he came back by the door and yelled through the closed door that he is going to call the police.  This is a common threat for us, so we just went our merry way and continued going door to door offerring people the restored Gospel.  Perhaps 30 minutes later a car rolls up and stops right by us as we are walking.  It didn't take long for us to find out they were the Police.  It was kind of funny.  They asked for Identification, we gave it to them, and they ordered us to stay there and then they went back in their car and called our information into the police station.  After waiting a few minutes in the pretty cold weather, they came back out with smiles on their faces and said, "Alles in Ordnung!"  "All is in order."  The way he said it (he said it several times) made it sound like he was sorry for the interruption of our time.  He even made sure to give us everything back, and wished us a "beautiful evening"  I'm not exactly sure if there is an english equivilent for the expression he used.   Anyway, that's my experience with the German Police.  (And I must say, from that experience, the USA police seem a ton more intimidating than the German police).

On top of all of that, it snowed yesterday and yeah.  Interesting week!  I hope for another good week in the service of Our God!

Quick post

So I don't have a lot of time, so I am going to post a quick post today.

This week was transfer calls! I have been in Germany for six weeks now!  Wow!  The time really goes by fast.  I feel like I just got here yesterday!  I'm not being transferred, as was expected, and neither is my companion!  yay!  haha

This week I did a lot of door to door knocking.  It has been quite an experience!  Especially in the rain and wind!  It's definitely unlike anything I have ever done before.  I can tell that Elder Erickson and I are planting seeds that will grow in the future! 

We have a muslim investigator who comes to church and meets with us from time to time.  He told us a little bit about the muslim faith and how it's super similar to ours.  They believe so many similar things!  It's really quite interesting!

Well I hope all is well with everyone!  Enjoy another week!