With Elder MejiaWe had an amazing experience on my split with Elder Mejia, the Zone Leader. We said hi to some people as we were walking, and they cheerfully responded. I had an intense prompting to talk to them, but we kept walking. I told Elder Mejia I thought we should stop and talk to them, so we backtracked and I was able to find them--a man and his girlfriend. What he told us after we explained a little bit about the Book of Mormon was amazing. He said he prays every day, and he had prayed for the missionaries to come talk to him. He had heard of the Mormons and he was hoping they would come talk to him. He told us several times that he was grateful that we wanted to meet with him and that he was so sad we we passed him by! There were tears in his eyes as he explained this to us and the Spirit was strong. We're looking forward to our appointment with him, his name is Mario, and his girlfriend Helga. Elder Mejia is from Colombia, and he speaks German, Spanish, and English! He is a very hard-working missionary, in fact he tired me out. At the end I asked him to bear his testimony to me in Spanish because I wanted to hear him speak his native language. Pictures by an old square in Wuppertal As far was what Elder Hyatt and I have been doing other than the split with the Zone Leaders, we had fun talking to Frau Augustin at a ward grill activity, and her lesson this week went well as always. We taught her about prophets and gave her an assignment to read the talk from the latest General Conference To the Friends and Investigators of the Church. A bit bold, you say? Yes, I think so too. We can't teach Mohammed anymore becuase he is not planning on staying in Germany, but we went by him this week and he was so happy to see us! He told us he was glad we hadn't forgotten him. He said he would come to church again! It's hard when we can't teach people who are making progress. Usually it's really hard for us to communicate with him (without a translator), but he was understanding and communicating with us better this time! Something that has been really important for me on my mission is realizing that the Atonement covers everything that we can't do. That's what my parents always taught me--we do our best and then the Atonement takes care of the rest. I am someone who sometimes gets anxious if I don't really have control of a situation, but I know that all I need go do is do all that lie in my power and then stand still with the utmost assurance. D&C 123:17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed. Darum, vielgeliebte Brüder, laßt uns frohgemut alles tun, was in unserer Macht liegt, und dann mögen wir mit größter Zuversicht ruhig stehen, um die Errettung Gottes zu sehen, und daß sein Arm offenbar werde. In the kitchen with Elder HyattThis email is a bit too serious, so guess what it's time for? Some irrelevant TL;DRs! They're back by popular demand! And by that I mean that my mom told me that they were funny. For those of you who are not as well-versed in the Internet as Elder Hyatt, TL;DR stands for Too long; didn't read, and it's a bullet point summary of a long Internet post for people who see how long it is and skip to the end. Here we gooooooòooooooo! TL;DR: -Backtracking is better than no tracking -Frau Augustin gets grilled! -I'm bold, I'm bold, you know it, uh huh -Progress Shmogress -Standing still on a mission? What? Sister Hyatt's sister came to Germany and dropped off a package for us with some of Elder Hyatt's mom's cookies (so delicious, and one of them had my name on it!)P-Day trip to a forest and a bridgeCool Euro coinPicture with Elder Heller from our split!The best way I can describe Sundays as a missionary is intense. I've learned so much about the reasons behind the meetings we have in the LDS church, and because Sunday is the Lord's day, we tend to have more opportunities to do missionary work on Sundays. This Sunday was especially good. Our Ward Mission Leader gave a great talk in sacrament meeting, and our Bishop gave a fiery lesson about doing missionary work.
I've been working on getting us around. Elder Hyatt is really good with the trains and buses, I call him the Zugmeister (train master). It's easy for me to let him do all the navigating, but I want to be able to get around, so I've been navigating sometimes. It's been scary but fun. Remember my thing about naming splits? I was on a split this week with Elder Heller, our new native German in our District who is fresh from the MTC. I decided to name our split the Uhrtausch, becuase we switched watches for a little bit (Uhr or Armbanduhr in German) and becuase of the following story that I think is one I will continue to tell after my mission. So Elder Heller and I headed to a lesson in Ronsdorf, which is a fairly remote section of the Wuppertal area. The lesson was with Ahmed, but it fell through. We decided to visit someone the Wuppertal Elders had contacted previously, Mike. Mike welcomed us in, and we had a hard time getting through the lesson. He had lots of questions, and we wanted to commit him to do something. It made me realize how blessed we have been to have investigators who have been humbled. We got out of that lesson by 9 pm, and we were supposed to be home by 9:30. I figured we would be able to catch a quick bus home--that was how we had gotten to Ronsdorf. But as you know, I'm new to this whole navigating thing and the buses didn't leave as often later at night. Neither did the trains. We weren't going to get home until after 10:30, which meant that we would have to call the Mission President. Neither Elder Heller nor I had any Wunsch (desire) to do that. I'm very grateful that I was with Elder Heller, because he had the idea to call a taxi, which would have never occurred to me. The taxi got us home just before 10:30, and so we only had to call the Zone Leaders (the missionaries in charge of several cities). Elder Heller kept saying, " That was a long day," and I definitely agree. We had a lesson with some members this week and the Bishop had told us to teach them about the Word of Wisdom. It came up during the lesson that the brother has a smoking problem, and we helped him make a plan to improve. I love being able to help people with their real-life problems as a missionary. We had an experience with Frau L. on Sunday--she's an investigator who hasn't made much progress lately because of how busy she is. We visited her and she told us things were not going well and that she was really stressed. We said a prayer with her, and it seemed like we all felt peace afterwards. I think she felt the Spirit comforting her. I wanted to close with sharing how special of a feeling I felt while testifying of the Book of Mormon to Mike in our lesson. I really have had experiences with that book, the first big one being when I was seven years old and I prayed to know if it was true. I received a special feeling and I believe you can too! Word of the Week (again from Elder Heller): Geschmacksrichtung Literal translation: taste direction Actual translation: flavor The castle we visited a few weeks ago (Schloß Burg)So we actually found out this week that the world is ending on May 13! It came up when we were talking to a guy on the street who knew who the Mormons were. We tried to make an appointment with him, but he said it didn't matter anyway becuase he knew the world was ending. It's really unfortunate, because I won't get to finish my mission. I made sure to put the world ending in our calendar on May 13 though. Elder Hyatt asked me where I was putting it, and I said that right after lunch would probably be good. Nur Spaß (all fun, don't panic or anything)! The refrigerator we pushed through a windowWe helped the Della Corte family, who just moved in, get their refrigerator into their house through the window this week. Brother Della Corte, showed us around Wülfrath a little. I found out this week that there are multiple cities included in the Wuppertal area. Wuppertal is where we live, but we also do missionary work in Wülfrath and Schwelm. Wülfrath is a little medieval town, and the reason we had to push the refrigerator through the window is because the house was built in the 1600's! Brother Della Corte told us the story of how the city has burned down numerous times, mostly because they would always have big celebrations after they rebuilt the city from being burned down, and then it would burn down again. It was great to meet with the Della Cortes--they are so excited about missionary work! The forest we walked throughWe met with a man named Herr H. this week. He is the man who called us after getting handed a pass-along card and wanted to meet with us--we were so excited! We taught with a sister from the ward, who thought it was funny that his name was Hummel, becuase that translates to bumblebee. On Sunday she told us she was excited for our lesson with ''Mister Bumblebee,'' which Elder Hyatt and I thought was hilarous. The lesson went alright, but we're not sure how much he understood. I'm always so happy to be in a lesson. We had another great lesson with Frau Augustin! She's still making progress, which we are so happy about. She agrees with what we tell her, and she's been reading in the Book of Mormon. She described to us how she has such a good feeling when she meets with us and then it's gone when the appointment is over. We taught her about the commandments to read the scriptures and pray, which I didn't feel like I had the vocabulary for since I never got the chance to teach the commandments in the MTC. I scraped through though! Frau Augustin is a native German and very bright, so I think she knew what I meant. This week it has been hard for me to keep going, but I want to testify of the importance of pushing through! So much joy can come from trying your best to go out and do, instead of deciding that your effort is for nothing and putting in less effort. Word of last week: Schwerbehinderteparkplatz Definition: an only barely decipherable and sterotypically long German word that means disabled parking place. Word of this week (I learned this one from Elder Heller, the new German Elder in our district): Heißhunger Translation: A craving for something, especially for candy according to Elder Heller. Easter candyWuppertal bumper sticker featuring Tuffi the Elephant escaping from the SchwebebahnTuffi was a female circus elephant that became famous in Germany in 1950 when she jumped from the suspended monorail in Wuppertal into the river below. On 21 July 1950 the circus director Franz Althoff had Tuffi, then 4 years old, take the Schwebebahn in Wuppertal, as a marketing gag. The elephant trumpeted wildly and ran through the wagon, broke through a window and fell some 12 metres (39 ft) down into the Wupper river, suffering only minor injuries. A panic had broken out in the wagon and some passengers were injured. Althoff helped the elephant out of the water. Both the circus director and the official who had allowed the ride were fined. (Wikipedia) The old districtThe new district |