Germany Week 23

Dear Sister Mom,

As it turns out M2 did not get baptized this week. He is indeed American and he ended up having to leave a little earlier than anticipated, so he was gone by the time he was going to get baptized. I think he's probably already referred to the elders back in the states, or he will refer himself very soon though, so I think he should still be good, I just won't get to be there.

Things here have been about the same as always. It is getting a bit colder, and I actually bought a coat last week. I know, I actually bought a coat. Crazy. It looks really classy though. I'll have to take a picture of it and send it to you sometime.

We also had Stake Conference yesterday. That was super interesting, especially since Nürnberg is a bilingual stake so everything was said in one language and immediately translated into the other. They do it every week here in Bamberg, but it was still strange in a Stake Conference setting for some reason. Stake Conference was really good though. I think my favorite talk was given by our special guest Präsident Stoddard. He made a really interesting point that missionary work is really all about helping people better understand Christ, and that everything else we teach as missionaries, as well as everything everyone does as member missionaries, is really just appendages thereto, and really just helps people better know Christ. Also, he spoke in German, which was way cool, though I think his translator was expecting to translate into German up to the very moment that Präsident Stoddard started speaking. It was great.

Well, keep on being awesome!

Love you more!!!
Elder Son

Germany Week 22

Elder Nilson and I taught Bamberg's lone deacon on Sunday. That was a handful. The kid's awesome, but he's a bit irreverent sometimes. We finally got him to pay attention and everything though, and then it was a really good, spiritual lesson.

Other than that nothing too exciting happened. We did some contacting. I went on a split and taught the Familie G. They are awesome. The dad is way funny, and he constantly cracks jokes, but he can also be very spiritual. It was a way good lesson about God's plan, and how while he does have an over arching plan for us, he also has a plan for each of us individually. Also, we found out this week, that because of some crazy circumstances that popped up M2 will be moving back to the States pretty soon, and he wants to get baptized before he moves, which means he's trying to do it this Saturday. It seems like it's going to happen and we'll hopefully be able to go and see it! Ich freue mich dafür! Matt ist der Hammer!

Well, I think that's about it for me. Have an awesome week!

Love you more!
Elder Son,

Germany Week 21

My week was fairly uneventful. Pretty much the same as every other week. M2 hasn't moved to Bamberg yet, but was rather visiting. He's hoping to move here in a month or two, but I'll most likely be gone by the time he moves back as well as for his baptism. We'll see in a few weeks with transfer calls. He still calls us every once in a while and he seems like he's doing really well, so that's awesome, but nothing else too much is happening here right now.

Um... yeah...

Have a dandy week!
Love you most!
Elder Isaac

Germany Week 20

Yum, brownies... Now I really want some brownies, but thankfully there are a lot of other delicious things here that I can eat, even if I haven't seen any brownies in a very long time. Elder Swallow does indeed know Steven Nelson, so that's exciting. As for Christmas I might wear a scarf if you sent me one and some warmer socks would probably be nice, but mostly I just need to get some gloves, and probably buy a nice coat. We'll see.

My week was pretty crazy. Elder Swan and I had to run around saying goodbye to people for the first half of the week and then on Wednesday we had to go down to Nürnberg. I stayed there until Thursday and Elder Swallow was supposed to come in on a bus at about 5:00, but they called a bit before and said they'd be there about an hour and a half late. We'll, that made everything interesting because we were supposed to be meeting with M2 at 6:00, and he suddenly wasn't going to be there until 6:30. So I took another missionary, Elder Cochran, and we ran back to Bamberg, did a sort of lesson with M2, but mostly just sat down and talked with him to help him keep from smoking, since he's trying to give that up. Afterwards we ran back to Nürnberg because our new companions should have been there for about an hour already, even with the delay, but of course when we got back, they still weren't there, so we actually met them as they got off the bus.

Church yesterday was great. Elder Swallow got up and bore his testimony. And one of the Weniger Aktivs that the other guys have been working with came and stayed for the whole time. It was awesome. In fact in Priesthood, he even made a really good comment about home teaching and how it's about caring about the people and not just giving a rote lesson, yes, the lesson is important, but it's not the most important. As he was saying that I realized just how much Home Teaching is like missionary work, because that's exactly the same thing with us! The audience tends to be a little different, but everything else is pretty much the same.

I can't think of anything else that really happened this week, but I hope your week is awesome!

Love you more!!!!!
Elder Cloward