Germany Week 13

Dear Mother,

Our potential investigator in fact did not show up, but we called him about the day before and when he said he wouldn't be able to make it we rescheduled for sometime this week, so hopefully he'll actually be able to make it to that one. As for Elder Carson, he's not being trained by Elder Nilson, but he is in the Zone, so I'll at least get to see him a few times.

As for the rest of my week it was again mostly spent on the streets of Bamberg talking to people. The big exception was Friday when the whole mission went over to Frankfurt to listen to Elder Ballard as well as a few seventies. That was super good. He talked about a lot of different things, including how we need to feel the power of the gospel so we can better help others feel that same way.

Tanner's already going on a mission too? But he's still 11! Man, everyone's on a mission now. This is crazy. Well I hope you had fun at Grandpa's and teaching and everything else you do this week!

Love you more!
Son

Germany Week 12

Hey Mom! Sounds like a pretty awesome Regional Coference. You got to listen to two different Apostles? That's so cool!

Over here in Germany we had a pretty interesting week, at least as interesting as it can be contacting people almost all day everyday. Elder Swan and I made a goal this week to hand out a Book of Mormon for every ten people we talked to, and while we didn't quite schaff that goal, we did pretty good. On the first day we were doing it we had talked to nine people who all said "Keine Zeit" and walked off. The tenth person told us about the same thing, but he also said he could listen for just a bit. We told him a bit about the church and then gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon. He seemed to take it a bit reluctantly, but we kept talking to him for a bit more and we were able to get his number and make out an appointment with him for this Thursday! Pray for him that he'll actually come!

Well, that was probably the most exciting thing that happened all week, so I'll leave you with that thought, that God really does answer our prayers, and while sometimes it's not the way we wanted or expected, sometimes it's exactly the way we asked for.

Love you more!
Isaac

P.S. I knew I forgot something! We had transfer calls on Saturday, and I'm staying in Bamberg with Elder Swan, and since Elder Swan is going home at the end of this transfer I'll most likely be in Bamberg for another transfer, but we'll see about that for sure in six weeks. We're also getting a Golden in Bamberg, and I'm really hoping that Elder Nilson ends up training Elder Carson. Elder Carson was in my MTC group, but he injured his knee so he's just coming out this transfer, and he's awesome and I keep telling Elder Nilson that that's who his Golden is going to be.

Germany Week 11

Hey Mum!

My week was still pretty slow, I talked to a lot of people and we even gave out a few copies of The Book of Mormon, but that was about it. Thankfully August is over so Bamberg should again be full of people that actually live here and not just tourists, and the ward members should be back too, so that should help.

We also had a Zone Training this week. We talked about a lot of things there, including the fact that we're having a Devotional thing with Elder Ballard (and possibly Elder Bednar) on Transfer Day. We also talked about a goal for the Zone for the end of the year. The Zone Leaders challenged each area to have a baptism by the end of the year, and in that moment I felt such a powerful spirit that that truly was possible. I was also reading in the scriptures today, and one of the verses I read sort of reminded me of this. It was in 2 Timothy when Paul is speaking about the Apostasy, and in chapter 3 verse 5 he says that men will have a form of godliness, but deny the power of it. It made me wonder how often we do that. How often do we recieve a spiritual prompting, but then decide that it's too hard, and deny the power of God in our lives? Hopefully we won't do that, and we will instead accomplish what the Lord has in store for us.

Love you more!
Isaac

Germany week 10

Hey Momma!!!

A bit of the view of Würzburg from atop a Festung (fortress)

My week was pretty good. Würzbug was pretty gorgeous, and I in fact do have some pictures that I am going to send you. I also didn't get your e-card, but I can probably picture it in my head, or at least the one you would have sent me if you could have found it, so we're all good.

Elder Swan and I have not been successful in finding anyone to teach, old, new, member or not this week, but we did do a bit of service. We were also successful in finding a guy with an awesome accent who may or may not be a seventy. You see, we had Zone Konferenz on Thursday and Elder Kearon spoke at it. If you don't know who that is, he spoke about scorpions in General Conference a few years ago. I wish I brought my notes, because it was way awesome, but I really cannot remember anything specific right now...

Happy Days!

Love you even more!!!
Isaac

Elder Swan and I battling in a Garden atop a Festung.

Germany Week 9

Dear Sister Mom,

It's weird turning old... Elder Swan this morning said something along the lines of "Happy Birthday! How does it feel to be a fourth of the way through your life, and not even a fourth of the way through your mission?" As for my present, there have been some rumors, and they were actually started by lds.org , at least more or less, that Germany very well could be getting iPads sometime in the near future, but that we'll probably have to pay for them ourselves, so I figure I'll hold off on spending that until I know exactly what's happening with that, or even if it's actually happening at all. Other than that I've celebrated by eating some Kinder Eier and buying some Landliebe chocolate milk. I'm also going to journey over to Würzburg today and see the sites over there. We'll see how that goes.

As for the rest of my week it was almost as uneventful as the last week. All the elders in Bamberg did do a special fast on Wednesday that we would be able to find more people. We haven't exactly seen the fruits of that yet, but the other Elders got a new investigator and that was awesome. Elder Swan and I also went to Relief Society yesterday because so much of the ward is on vacation that they needed a translator so Elder Swan did that so I had to go with. It was really interesting.

Well, that's about it. Hope you have an awesome week!!!

Loves,
Elder Son

Germany Week 8

So this week was the start of August, which apparently means that everyone goes on Urlaub, which meant that the few investigators we did have all disappeared off the face of the earth, which meant we spent all week doing finding work. It was a little rough. Especially since we spent probably close to six hours each day contacting people in one way of another and we didn't even get one potential investigator. We did end up giving out a Book of Mormon, but I wasn't actually there when Elder Swan did that because I was on an austausch with Elder Nilson. That was pretty coool though. You see, Elder Nilson, who is the new District leader btw, plays the ukelele, so he thought we could try walking around the city and playing it and see if it could get a conversation started with someone. It was almost nine, and we had had a few conversations with people, but they were all pretty short and without much substance, so we were walking home. We walked around a corner and a nice old couple commented on Elder NIlson's playing and asked him to play a song for them, which he did. Afterwards he started explaining a bit about why we were there, and they said they already knew about the mormons and weren't interested, but just at this moment a door across the street opened and two girls in about their 30s walked out and asked if Elder Nilson would play a song for their friend for her birthday. We figured it couldn't hurt so we followed them into their backyard where there was a party of 20-30 people. Elder Nilson was a little taken back, but he still played Somewhere Over the Rainbow for them, and did a wonderful job I might add. Afterwards one of them tried to tip Elder Nilson €10, which he of course refused, so of course they asked us what we were doing in Germany, so he explained and bore his testimony to them. Super Cool. We also gave the girl a Book of Mormon as a birthday present. I don't know how much any of that actually helped any of them, but I think it at least made all of those people a little less skeptical of those guys who walk around in white shirts, which is sometimes all you can ask for.

Other than that this has been a pretty boring week. President Stoddard told us that we should always send a scripture, that impressed us this week, in our emails, and I totally had one, but I forgot to write it down or bring my scriptures, so I guess you'll just have to wait until next week.

Have a totally WICKED...er I mean righteous, week!!!

Love you more!
Isaac

Germany Week 7

Ah, August in Germany. Ridiculously hot, and ridiculously humid. What a wonderful combination.

Life here's about as normal as missionary work ever is. We finally got an appointment with this guy we met at Bahnhof on our very first day in Bamberg. He's been texting us ever since and based on his questions and everything he seems like he's golden and really wants to know the truth. Unfortunately every appointment we were ever actually able to make with him fell through, until last Thursday! That was an awesome day. We started out that day with no appointments, but we felt like we should call one of our investigators, got an appointment with him that day, the guy I was just talking about, A--, called us and made an appointment for that day, so suddenly we had two appointments. Then, one potential investigator we've been calling everyday for almost a month called us back after I had the sudden inspiration to ask Elder Swan if we had tried texting him. It was a miracle day. Sadly none of them came to church yesterday, but hopefully they'll come next week.

Also, these days at least seem a lot shorter than they did at Ultradent.

Love you more!
Elder Son