Germany Week 43

Dear Mum, I'm fairly certain I say this everytime, but it still throws me off that you moved. I was dinking around on lds.org last week and while I was there I saw that I could look at the Ward Diectory and so I looked at your new ward. It was weird. But they all looked nice, at least the people that had pictures on it.

As for General Conference, I've watched most of the last session, and I've watched Pres. Uchtdorf speaking in German about a bajillion times, but the internet at the church always freaks out toward the end, so I still have a few talks I haven't seen. They announced yesterday though that they're going to show it for church next week so that should be good.

The rest of my week was regular. I suppose the most interesting part started a few months ago now, when Elder Tolson (my former companion if you don't remember) contacted this guy named K on the bus. He seemed pretty interested and he said he would come to church. But he didn't. So we called him, multiple times to see if we could meet or something, but everytime he said he'd like to come to church first and never came. Then, we randomly ran into him on a Bahn and talked to him there and he still didn't come. We eventually kind of just gave up. Then, last week, the sisters where dooring a random house and what do you know they doored into K. What's more, he promised them he would come to church. And guess what, he came!!! It was way cool and he seemed to really enjoy it and afterwards he asked if we could meet sometime and teach him more, which we gladly accepted. Proof once more that God gives us miracles after all we can do, just usually not in the way we think.

Well, that's the only particularly awesome thing that happened this week, at least that I can think of right now, so I guess I'll wish you a wonderful week!

Love you more!!!
Elder

Germany Week 42

I loved Conference! It was sooo good! We haven't watched the Sunday afternoon Session yet, but I'm sure it was great too. It was amusing to be with a bunch of missionaries as we watched the first session because there was so much stuff about family so all the missionaries that are about to go home really enjoyed it.

So aside from Conference the week for us was actually, absolutely crazy. Well mostly just Saturday. Though on Thursday we also had a way good lesson with one of our investigators and I think he now understands the Godhead a lot better which was probably his biggest obstacle to getting baptized. But anyway, Saturday was Transfer Calls. Elder Bean and I are staying together and in fact our whole district wasn't too affected by transferrs; Elder Ninow and Elder McKeever left, but everyone was expecting that. Before they announced all that though President told us that six missionaries are coming from the Berlin Mission into the Erfurt Zone in preparation of the Berlin Mission officially takkaking that Zone over next transffer when the Erfurt District becomes part of the Lepzig Stake. Crazy right? Well after President finished telling us that he then informed us that when Elder Bednar comes later this month, he'll be giving us iPads. Yep. I had become convinced that neither of those things would ever actually happen, and here within one transfer both of them are. It's insane. (Also clerical matter in Bezug auf iPads, apparently you'll have to pay for that in my new home ward and the Stake President should have info on it. That is if they sent it to the right Stake President since I've forgotten to tell the office that you moved...)

Well, some over things probably happened this week, but I can't remember them right now, and those where the biggest. Church is true! And the Gospel is awesome. Remember that.

Love you more!
Elder Cloward

Germany Week 41

If it makes you feel better I also had to speak on Sunday, but in German. It wasn't for Sacrament Meeting though; the missionaries taught the combined Priesthood/Relief Society Class. I personally talked a little bit about Alma 36 because we were talking about the Atonement and I used Alma's story to illustrate how the Atonement can be used. The main purpose of the lesson though was to introduce the Church's new Easter Video, which is way amazing. If you haven't watched it yet, you should. It should be on this website: http://www.mormon.org/easter just so you know.

The rest of the week was fairly average. We did have a crazy experience on Friday though. We were just getting back from a split in Wesel when the Sisters here in Duisburg asked if we could come to the church. They had contacted a referral, but he was more inclined to meet with Elders, so they started teaching him, but asked if we could come as quickly as possible, which we gladly did. He came to church on Sunday too, and he seems like he really wants to learn and understand more about the church, but he also has a very interesting religious background which seems like it will take some time to figure out and help him understand some of the doctrines they way they truly are. But I know that if he truly does want to learn as much as he says he does that The Lord will help him and he will be able to quickly understand.

Have a loverly week!
Love you more!
Elder Son

Germany Week 40

Life here is pretty great. Probably the coolest thing about this week though happened on Monday. One of the families we met while dooring that I told you about last week had told us to come by last Monday, so we did. As it ended up she didn't have a huge amount of interest, but she did tell us that if we were in the neighborhood again we could stop by some other time. The cool part was that she was hosting for a family for a student exchange program. The girl and her mother (who was the teacher over the program back in the states) were actually members of the church, which is actually why the lady who lived there had told us to come back on that day. Well, as it turns out, the mother and her son are the only active members of the church, so the daughter doesn't even know too much about the church, but she was sick, and the mother asked us if we could give her daughter a blessing, which we of course gladly did. Now, I don't really claim to know why, pretty much anything happens the way it does, but in that moment I felt like Elder Bean and I had truly been sent there, not for the family that actually lives there, but for this girl, who just happened to be there and just happened to be in need of a blessing. I hope she'll be able to remember that experience and it will help her in the future. I suppose nothing much else happened this week, at least not anything exciting enough for me to think about to talk about, but I just want to say that I know the Lord does work miracles. Sometimes they're small, but I know that if we pray for them, and work for them they will come, we just have to open our eyes to see them. Love you more!!! Elder Son

Germany week 39

Life here is, well exactly the same as always. Nothing too exciting. Met with G a few times. Oh, also went over to M's house. That man is crazy. I was on a split Thursday and we thought nothing was going to happen, and then he called us up and said he invited a few investigators over for dinner and asked us if we wanted to come. It was way cool.

Also, on Tuesday we gave a Chinese Book of Mormon to a girl and told her a little bit about it, but she wasn't as interested as we had hoped so it lasted about five minutes instead of the half hour or so we had planned for so we had a lot of time to go finding. We decided to go off to a deserted road and say a quick prayer that we could actually find someone who might be interested and then we started klingling some doors. Very first door we went to the people were at least vaguely interested and told us to come back some other time and maybe they could actually talk. It was cool.

Love you more!!!

Germany Week 38

Life's pretty much normal here in Duisburg. Nothing too exciting happening, though we did have Stake Conference this weekend. They asked the missionaries to sing a few songs in a choir, so that was fun, but because we're missionaries over a whole Zone we only got to practice once, so that made it more exciting. President and Sister Stoddard also spoke and it was great. President had to translate for Sister Stoddard, until the very end when Sister Stoddard bore her testimony in German. It wasn't the best, or most complicated German, but it was awesome, and I think the members appreciated the effort at the very least.

As for the rest of the week, it was interesting because it seemed to be themed around The Book of Mormon. There wasn't anything particularly crazy that happened, but there where a billion small things that just seemed like they were trying there hardest to point out it's importance. So that's what I'll leave you with today; that The Book of Mormon truly is important, and that reading in it everyday truly will help us to be happy, like nothing else I've discovered.

Love you more!!!
Elder Cloward

Germany Week 37

Dearest Mummzy,

Sending Elder Tolson home was about like sending Elder Swan home. Except Elder Tolson was more noticeably trunky since he had to interact with Sister Madsen all the time who was also incredibly trunky. As for Elder Bean he's from Idaho Falls, just like Elder Tolson. In fact Elder Bean's mother was Elder Tolson's math teacher for two years. I think the simplest way to describe Elder Bean would simply be to say he's a nerd. Now, while he may be younger than me in real life, he actually didn't come out with me, but rather trained Elder Christensen, who came out at the same time as me. So yeah, he's on his death bed just like all of my other companions have been. I might even kill him too, but probably not.

We found out the other week that apparently we get to listen to Elder Bednar in April. (I think that's what President said...) So that should be way awesome. It's crazy because Elder Ballard just barely came (and Elder Bednar was here with him, though he only talked to the Berlin mission not to us) and from what it sounds like that doesn't happen very often.

As for the rest of my week, it wasn't too exciting. Spent most of the first half saying goodbye to people with Elder Tolson and the second half of the week getting Elder Bean up to speed on all of our investigators and the ward and all that jazz. That didn't leave too much time for "traditional" missionary work, but don't worry, we did a lot of it anyway.

Well...I'm drawing a blank as to anything else to say, but you're great!

Love you more!
Isaac