Germany Week 54

Dear Mum,

Well, it sounds like you had a pretty exciting week. So much to do and it all sounds fun. What's more Joseph's back! Weird. What's weirder is that Sam is leaving. Don't know if I can handle that one. Also weird that people actually read that mission blog thing. Apparently Elder Bednar reads blogs too, so maybe he read mine too...

Well probably the most noteworthy thing of my week was the move to Mainz. Elder Bean did not go home, but is in fact going home at the end of this transfer. My new companion, Elder Blanchard is actually younger than me on the mission, which is weird for me. I'm actually his second companion so it's way different than all of my other experiences. Should be interesting.

My new address is:
Boppstraße 36
55118 Mainz

So my First day in Mainz we got a Text from one of the members here telling me that we needed to meet because apparently Elder Blanchard told everyone that I was coming. Well then I asked what this member's last name was and it was Baake. Turns out the ehemalige Elder Baake (one of Jacob's former companions) lives here. Crazy crazy.

Well, this place is hip happenin and you're great! Have a fantabulous week!

Love you more!
Isaac

Germany Week 53

'Ey Mums!

I'm glad you got the air conditioning fixed so you don't have to live the whole Summer like you were in Germany. Of course at this point I don't really mind not having AC right now considering I was tempted to wear a sweater today. T'is verrückt (crazy).

Anyway, this week was great. M. did indeed get taufed (baptized). That was great. Unfortunately I somehow didn't get any pictures and he's in Poland for a month now so I probably won't get a picture with him. I think the Sisters took one though, so maybe I can get it from them. Anyway, other than that the week wasn't too exciting. Most of it was taken up getting ready for the baptism. We did also have Transfer Calls on Saturday though. (That was a ridiculously busy day) Turns out I'm going to Mainz. I don't know too much about it, but it sounds like a nice place from what people say. What's more it's fairly close to Frankfurt, so hopefully I'll be able to go to the Temple before it shuts down.

Also, you're great, church is true and I hope you have a wonderful week! Oh, also you should tell Jacob and Kyri and Logan to have a happy belated birthday.

Love you more!
Elder Whatever-my-name-is-these-days

Germany Week 52

Hey Mom,

Does that mean you have actual AC? I'm jealous. Too bad Germany doesn't believe in AC, though it hasn't been hot yet so I guess that's okay. In fact today I feel like I should be wearing a sweater.

Anyway, this week was pretty great. Probably the highlight was yesterday when we met with M. That was the last actual lesson we'll have with him before his baptism on Saturday. Other than that he just has his interview and then should be ready, so that's way cool.

We also had Zone Conference last Tuesday. That was way awesome! The last half of the Conference was taken up by discussing different aspects of the Atonement. It was one of those times when I basically just get out of it that I really need to understand that better. It was also cool because President instructed everyone giving Themas to try to be as much like Elder Bednar was as possible so that was awesome.

Well there was assuredly other things, but I can't think of them now.

You're great!!!

Love you more!!!
Elder

Germany Week 51

Anyway, as for stuff going on around here, it's a real party. One of the members here (By) got set apart yesterday for his mission and that was awesome. That brings the grand total of missionaries from Duisburg up to three, and next month it will be four, and sometime a little later this year it should be up to five. This ward is on fire. Anyway, he's going to be an awesome missionary, and it also made church yesterday exciting because there were a bunch of random people there.

We also had our final lesson with J this week, this time over in Mühlheim. That was awesome as always. At the end of the lesson he basically ended up bearing his testimony to us about how the Church is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that The Book of Mormon is true. That kid will go far, though sadly I won't be there to see most of it.

Interestingly enough however The Lord once again showed us His miracles in the way He wants and not the way we want. You see, we've been working to try and get better at finding, and while we're still not amazing we've been getting better. Now knowing that we were about to loose one of our best investigators I suppose you could say that we were getting even more desperate to find a new one, and nothing was happening, we weren't even getting potentials. Then, just before our last lesson with J a member in Essen gave us a referral. From what she told us about the man, we were worried our first appointment would end up being rather bashy, and would therefore probably be our last because there's really no point going any further with that. Very soon after we started the lesson though, we could tell that it wasn't going to be like that at all. This man really wants to know the truth, and he's willing to do a lot to try and find it.

It was so cool to see the Lord blessing us and fulfilling His promises. It was once again not how I expected it, nor was it exactly related to what I had been trying to do to receive a blessing, but I know it is from Him, and I know that He wants to bless all of us, and that he will, the moment we start even trying to better follow Him.

Have the most wonderful week of all time!
Love you more!
Isaac

Germany week 50

Schloss Drachenburg

Dear Sister Mom,

Sorry I'm writing this on Tuesday, it turns out between having to do non P-day things in the morning, crazy Verspätungen and Elder Bean's email not working that we weren't able to do it yesterday so we figured we'd make up a little of the lost P-day and quickly send emails today. Anyway.

So when you say that Christine is getting married, are you referring to my cousin? Because I had no idea about that. Well, whoever it is it sounds exciting and I hope you have fun. I guess Alexa really wasn't lying when she told me that everyone and their brother was getting married.

Also, life here's been pretty exciting, mostly with J. At that appointment on Tuesday one of the very first things he said was that he knows the church is true because he's prayed about it and received an answer. We haven't met with him in a month or so and he's still been reading and praying and receiving answers that whole time! The kid's amazing! It's been such a cool Bestätigung to meet with him and see how powerfully God answers prayers if we're really looking and willing to listen. Sadly for us he lives in Oberhausen, which is actually in a different Stake, so we're transitioning him over to the Oberhausen Elders so they can teach him and hopefully baptize him into that ward. We're still working with M here and he's great too. There haven't been as many crazy experiences with him, but that's mostly because he already knew that he wanted to get baptized before he started meeting with us, so we've mostly just been making sure that he knows all the things he needs to to get baptized. It's been great to watch him grow too though, and he really seems like he'll be ready for his baptism in two weeks, so that's great too.

Let's see...what else... Oh, on Saturday Düsseldorf also had some awesomeness going on. A bunch of the JAE's that are getting ready to go on missions came and did a street display with us, so we all got to go out with these native Germans who were fresher than Goldens. That was way fun and it was great to get some of their enthusiasm and optimism that they had for the work. I can't think of anything too specific that happened, but it was overall an awesome experience.



We also went spätzieren at a Schloss (bzw Burg, but at least I know it's not a Festung) in Bonn! Enjoy!

Love you more!
Elder Son

Bonn

Me calling the people of Bonn to repentance