Elder Bates and I, I was his last split!We now have three people with baptismal dates! We're way pumped about the work here in Darmstadt. And all three of these people we are teaching are making awesome progress. They are Denzel, Etienne, and Eweka. We set a baptismal date with Eweka this week. He called his wife later (she is a member of our church) and she encouraged him to get baptized even sooner than the date we had set! We'll see how it goes. We have a lot of things to still teach him. We have been teaching Denzel multiple times a week. We love his family, the Pachacama-Jimenez family. We can see how what we are teaching strengthens their whole family. Yesterday we taught Denzel about tithing and fasting. We used an example of giving him ten gummy bears and asking for one back. I love to see him learning and soaking everything up that we teach him. Etienne and Eweka both came to church for the first time on Sunday. Elder Blackner and I were so happy! Etienne loved the whole experience and will definitely be coming again. He told us he was feeling that feeling again that he gets when we teach him and when he prays with us. He loved all the members and the fact that he speaks perfect German wad really nice. A big obstacle is out of the way that is normally there with a lot of the people we bring to church. This transfer is almost over! Which means I don't have much time left with Elder Blackner. We're both dreading him leaving, but we're looking forward to a great next few weeks. We are going to experience some of these people we are teaching getting baptized and we find new people all the time! Thanks for reading! I wish you a great week! Fun Image from Elder Hyatt about something my Dad taught me to say in answer to the question, "What do you say?"Running for the bus after district meeting Hello Everyone! I’m going to try to do this while we’re walking. We’re just walking home right now and we had a way good week. To start off I’ll tell you a story from Saturday and Sunday. We decided to fast dinner on Saturday, so we could fast 24 hours, because we knew that the next day we would have dinner with a member at around 2. So, we decided to do that. On Saturday we had everything lined up, an appointment at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. It was going to be awesome! Things just don’t always work out the way you plan them. We ended up being at Louisenplatz for 6 hours. None of our people even showed up, we called them and none of them answered. It was brutal. We were fasting at the same time and I had to really find some motivation to even talk to people towards the end. I did learn a lot on that day though, I realized that I take a lot of things too personally. We’re supposed to show people love, but in the end we’re really just messengers. If people are rude to us, I shouldn’t care as much as I do sometimes. At the end of that day we had an appointment with Zod. He’s really nice. He’s from Pakistan and he listened. He’s from a muslim background but he just listened very carefully and he accepted our answers to his questions. He hasn’t read in the Book of Mormon or come to church, so we’ll see what happens. His appointment was definitely the best part of that day. Then we went to church on Sunday and we were still fasting. The whole time I was thinking about the finish line, which was that appointment with the members. I was thinking about what kind of food they made us. (I was trying to focus on church and stuff too.) After church we went to their house, we had called them before. It was just a couple minutes before, but they didn’t answer. We were thinking there’s no way they forgot, because I’ve never been to a member appointment where a member forgot. The members are always super reliable when it comes to inviting the missionaries over. We joked about, what if they actually didn’t have food for us and they accidentally didn’t want us to come over today, that would be funny. But that was just a joke. Then we went over there and they didn’t answer their door! We’d been fasting for 24 hours, the whole time we’d just been waiting for this and they just didn’t answer! It was brutal. We called them, rang the doorbell a lot of times and ….nothing. That was the worst. That was not good, we were way mad. Now for the rest of my mission I’m going to call every single member before every member appointment and make sure that’s actually going to happen. That was Saturday and Sunday. Monday and Tuesday we had a split with the Assistants to the President. Also on Tuesday, Tuesday was a way good day! We came back to our area, which to be honest, we missed our area. We went to Frankfurt and we didn’t really like being away from our area because there is so much to do here. So we came back and we taught this man named Avika. He’s from Africa and he is super interested. He understands the concept of his church didn’t actually have authority when he got baptized and he wants to get baptized in our church. This super awesome dude named Elder Pilz, he volunteered to come with us, and he’s actually a member of the 70, but he’s not a General Authority 70. He was kind of explaining to us that he doesn’t have to speak at General Conference and he doesn’t have to give up his job. I don’t really understand how it works, I just understand those 2 things. He spoke way good English and he was super helpful and we loved it. Before the appointment, I was praying so hard that he would actually come. I was just thinking about Saturday, we had so many appointments lined up, and none of them showed up. I was praying, if there was an appointment that it would be great for it to go through, it would be this one. And it did! It kind of taught me a lesson about the fact that we need to do our best to set up opportunities to teach people, but really it’s God’s work and he’s in charge. I feel like God kind of humbled me, because we had been having a lot of success as far as meeting with people goes. He humbled me by letting me know, if I don’t want any of your appointments to go through, none of them will. So we had that appointment and then we went and visited Denzel. So Denzel is a 9-year-old we’re teaching and I love that little guy. I think I mentioned this before, but it’s just like teaching my little brother, just my little bro, teaching him the gospel. He loves it and his family loves it. We can tell that when we go over there, it is strengthening their family. We’re going to be meeting with them today for the 3rd time this week because Denzel is getting baptized on the 25th. That was cool. Then we went over to the church to teach Hassan and he brought 2 friends over. That was a bit involved. They’re all from a muslim background. It was really peaceful, we taught them the restoration and they didn’t say much. Then we just asked if they had any questions, then they just sent in a full attack on the Book of Mormon and modern day prophets. It was hard because we couldn’t even focus on one question at a time because one guy would ask a question and then another guy would ask a question and then another guy would ask a question. It was kind of frustrating because they were attacking the Book of Mormon without even knowing anything about it. But I felt like we did a good job of just getting our point across that they just need to read it. They said they would. They also want us to read the Koran. But that’s not really what we’re here to do. Not that it would do any harm. I did tell them I would pray about if Muhammad is a prophet, which can’t hurt because God won’t lie to us. That was Tuesday Yesterday was good too. It’s been a good week. It’s been pretty tough. There’s been a lot of opposition, at the same time there are a lot of things that have been going really well. God’s really blessing us. Other than that it’s just been super hot and sticky, but I like it better than winter. I just been thinking a lot about opposition. A lot of times for me when I experience opposition or big trials, I sometimes think that means I’m not doing something worthwhile, but it’s actually the opposite. If there’s something fighting back it means that you’re doing something really good. One of the best splits I ever had was with Elder Warr. He told me the best most successful people seek out failure, which sounds kind of weird. But if you can do something and then fail, you know that what you did didn’t work and you’re that much closer to a success. I kind of think that same concept with all of the opposition that we’re experiencing. I guess the main thing that I’m thinking of is this one member that’s causing a lot of trouble for us. It just means that there’s something really good that we need to do, or something really good that we’re already doing, and Satan’s trying to stop us from doing it. It’s kind of hard to keep that mindset because opposition makes you feel kind of awful sometimes. I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind. I hope everyone has a way good week. I hope you are able to listen to this. Thanks for your time. I love you all! Have a good week! Different kinds of rock at Das Hessische Landesmuseum (which we visited last week) that look like burned sheets of browniesOK hello everyone. This is Elder Kimball. I’m trying out something new, doing a voice recording. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe I can work on my public speaking skills. I’ve got my notes in front of me. I’m just going to explain what happened this week and maybe I won’t say anything dumb. Maybe this will speed things up. So this week was great! It was awesome! The biggest thing that happened was on Sunday. Michelle is our investigator or person who we’re teaching who came to church on Sunday. (Well she was one of the people.) So we have been teaching Michelle since I got here. She is a German girl that is going to the University here. She’s way cool and she hasn’t shown up the past couple weeks. Then we were sitting there in the Louisenplatz which is a little platz or a square in the middle of Darmstadt and just saw her walking up. That was a great moment. She rode the bus with us to church and then we had also invited this other man from Afghanistan. His name is Abul. We taught him together with our new convert name Tony who is also from Afghanistan. He showed up which is way cool and he brought his friend Bazad. They both speak great German which isn’t always the case for refugees. They participated and everything so that was way awesome! That was a blessing for sure. A way good Sunday. Other than that I'm still kind of working on getting through the contacts in this phone and seeing if any of them have interest. Basically I kind of talked about it in earlier emails but there are hundreds of people in this phone that haven’t been put in an area book. So I just have this kind of strategy where if I ever have a spare moment, I'll just hit through them as fast as I can. They usually go straight to voicemail, hang up call the next one, and I just mark them as I go and wait and see if they call back. Some of them answer at the moment but a lot of them don't and then the ones that really are interested will call back. We’ve had some appointments with them. It’s been good. Some of them just don't show up.
That’s kind of frustrating. This guy named Allen, we’ve had 3 or so appointments within this week and the last one he said, “oh I can meet tomorrow, I can meet tomorrow!” I said, “OK, so, we’ll meet, but you gotta promise me you'll be there at this time”, and he said, “yeah, I promise!” This is all over text. And guess what? He wasn't there. That was great. It's been fun. There's definitely not a shortage of things to do which I like. There are always people to call or people to talk to. Sunday was way cool and another thing that happened on Sunday, this guy that Elder Blackner met, he came to his appointment that we set up, and the Spirit was just way strong and we gave him a little tour of the church and we showed him the baptismal font and just kind of brought up baptism before we even started the lesson Which is something pretty normal. But this time it kind of clicked with him. He asked, “what is baptism?” and we said we can talk about that today. We decided to teach him the the plan of salvation so we did and it was a way spiritual lesson. Throughout the whole thing he kind of shared his personal feelings with us. He shared his feelings about his family members who had died and we testified to him. The Spirit was just there and Elder Blackner just threw out a baptismal invitation and he said yes. He said, “yeah, I do wanna be baptized.” I was kind of scared, I didn’t want to jump the gun. But he said yes and so I said, “will you be baptized in 6 weeks?” He said “yes” His name is Etienne. I don't know if I said that before, but his nickname is little E. Little E’s going to be baptized in 6 weeks. We just met him! The thing is he is not a refugee so he has no problems with the language or with having a job, or with transportation. Etienne is way cool and we are hoping he’s going to get baptized! Some of you that have followed my emails throughout my mission, probably know that I haven’t had any of my investigators (or people that I’ve taught) get baptized yet, not that that’s really a sign of success, (well it kind of is). But it will be nice and I do have a goal to have people I teach get baptized. I know a lot of times it happens after the missionaries leave the area, but that’s definitely the goal. It would be great if it worked out this time! I’m not going to lie. That was his story, and Sunday was awesome. We also had two other appointments that went through. They were with some dudes with a Muslim background who basically weren’t super open and nothing really happened in those appointments. Not a lot of missionary work got done. We tried though. It was nice just to have appointments go through, and have people be reliable. Other than that, on Monday we met with Christian, who is another German dude. He is also studying at the University. He’s an interesting guy. He doesn’t really believe in what we tell him. We’re trying to help him keep commitments, but he hasn’t so far. We had a member there this time, a German member. That was way helpful. He’s a convert too. We’re hoping momentum will pick up with Christian. He just told us he has no desire to read in the Book of Mormon. There’s nothing really we can do about that except tell him, “I have desire to read in the Book of Mormon and you should too, because it’s great!” So we have that baptismal date with Etienne and then we have also one with Denzel. This is a way cool story. It’s kind of been outlined in my earlier emails. We helped a couple named Santi and Tanya move in. Well, one of them was moving in, or both of them were, I’m not sure. We had a power split in Darmstadt, which means there were four elders here because we brought them all to our area. We all helped them move in and it was brutal, it was so hard. All four of us were struggling and sweating and then we went back and helped again. After all that we were kind of, (so they are both less active, Santi and Tanya), and we were kind of thinking to ourselves, it would be really nice if they became more active after this because it was a lot of time and effort. Guess what, they did! The next Sunday, Santi showed up and was wearing a nice suit and Tanya showed up. Then recently they texted us and said their little 9-year-old son, Denzel, wants to get baptized! Which is great! Since he’s 9, he falls under our teaching, so we will teach him and he is planning on getting baptized on August 25th. He is one of the most open people I have ever taught. He’s humble, he takes what we are teaching and just believes it. He’s already read the Book of Mormon, he’s a smart little guy. It’s been way fun teaching, we’ve taught him twice this week. He’s just showing all signs of actually getting baptized. Yesterday we had MLC, which is Mission Leadership Conference. This is where all the zone leaders and all the sister training leaders come together and talk about the mission. That was a way spiritual experience. President and the assistants to the President, they didn’t really lead it, they kind of let it be led by counsel, so everyone put in their opinions and we made our decisions that way. It was cool to see that with the things I felt, I didn’t need to overly state my opinion, the other people would feel them too if it really came from the spirit. I love all the people in that counsel, my friend Elder Webster’s there, Elder Koch is there, a lot of other super solid missionaries. That was a fun time. It’s cool to be part of those big decisions. I still feel kind of weird there, like I don’t belong. I still feel like a district leader. That was kind of how I thought of myself for awhile, “Yeah, I’m Elder Kimball, the district leader.” But I’ve really enjoyed being a zone leader, there’s a lot of nice things. We travel to people’s district meetings, and give little trainings. I really enjoy that, just seeing the other missionaries a lot and all the splits we go on, learning about the other missionaries on the splits. I’m loving it. I think I mentioned this before too, I’ve never had so many appointments on my mission. I’ve mentioned also that a lot of them fall out, but I’ve never had so many appointments at all. We’ve started working on just always, always following up with the people that we contact, spending an hour every day calling people, and recording what happened in the day and area book. This has just been so effective and also there are a lot of students here in Darmstadt, I’m really grateful to be here. Our success really isn’t because of me, it’s more because of the position that I’m in. Something that I’ve been thinking about lately is just the plan of salvation. I’ve had a lot of people ask me deep questions about it like “where does the resurrection take place?” and “Why couldn’t we just stay with God?” It’s been interesting to look through the scriptures and to read in the Book of Mormon and learn about it and really see that doctrine is in the Book of Mormon. You can ask questions about the plan of salvation and have answers. There are always going to be doubts, there are always going to be fears that you have about the plan of salvation, like maybe you’re scared that you don’t know everything, but there’s also an element of faith in there that you believe Joseph Smith is a prophet and so the whole thing is from God. That’s kind of my spiritual thought for the week. I would also like to have your feedback on doing voice recordings, if I should do it at all. Maybe my speaking voice is too boring or you like seeing the words on the page. I liked it, I might do it again. I hope you have a good week, thanks so much for listening, I hope everything is going well for all of you, my friends and family, I love you all and have a good week! To start off I want to tell you a story from yesterday. Those of you who read my emails regularly are probably thinking to yourselves: "You know, it's been a while since Elder Kimball and his companion have been kicked out of anything." Well, this story will certainly not disappoint. So I think I mentioned that a week or so ago, Elder Blackner and I went dooring at a Studentenwohnheim (student dorms) and had huge success. My thought was, if we're having success there, let's focus our efforts on what actually works! The Wohnheim is made up of four huge buildings, and my thought was to bring the district there. We have weekly finding activities where we usually all just go to the square/pedestrian zone. I guess I was a little too ambitious with my wanting to go big or go home, because I tried to go big and we all had to go home. My vision for the whole thing was that we door the whole thing and set up a ton of appointments and find the elect even quicker. So what happened was as Elder Blackner and I were dooring, this lady approached us and said we had to leave. She said the students had complained, and she had some kind of management position so she was supposed to make sure we leave. We asked who she was and what authority she had to do that, and she said we could talk to her boss if we wanted to. At that point we believed her. So she asked us to have all the missionaries leave, and so we called everyone and we all left. She was nice about it, but at the same time, she was still kicking us out. I can think of a pretty good scripture that I should have quoted to her:
"What meaneth the words which are written, and which have been taught by our fathers, saying: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that publisheth peace;" (Mosiah 12:20-21) I realize that this scripture was used by the priests of Noah against Abinadi, but at the same time, no matter how you say it, she put a stop to the work of the Lord, which is not good news... In other news, Elder Blackner and I have been busy with lots of appointments, which I love. This week we taught Aron, Mustafa, Christian, Michelle and Ramesh, Mark, and Kai-Ming. It's always fun to teach the gospel to people who are interested. Even if they aren't interested in another appointment with us, we've taught them the truth. I've been calling more people who are in the phone. It's interesting the different reactions I get. Some people are happy to hear from the missionaries, some people can't remember who we are but are open to hear more, and some people are angry that I am calling and demand to know where I got their number. I was lying in bed the other night and thinking about all the people I had called, and the thought came to my mind that that's what it will be like when Jesus calls all people unto him at the Second Coming or at the Final Judgement. Some will know his voice and come to him, some won't know his voice, some will, and some will be angry that he is calling. It reminds me of a scripture I have been thinking about lately: John 10:16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. The awesome thing is, our job really is to bring Christ's sheep to him. We are representing him. Another scripture I read this week that I thought was interesting was in Alma 61:15 "according to the Spirit of God, which is also the spirit of freedom which is in them." So basically what the scripture says that the spirit of freedom is the spirit of God. God doesn't want anyone to be in bondage, which was why it isn't a sin to defend your country and to defend freedom. Well, have a great week! Thanks for your emails, and I hope you are all doing well! Elder Kimball Germany Frankfurt Mission Deuteronomy 4:29 At the famous Hochzeitsturm in Mathildenhöhe, DarmstadtHello, my friends! Another great week. One of the most significant things that happened was we had an appointment that I made after calling through the people who have been taught previously in my phone. I felt like I should call through that list of people and it has been way successful! They have all been taught recently enough that they remember who the missionaries are, and a lot of them are willing to meet with us again. Yesterday we met with Ahmad, who said he stopped meeting with the missionaries because they couldn't answer his questions about Jesus Christ. He wants to learn more though, and he showed up to the appointment! That may seem minimal, but we set up so many appointments with people who don't show up. We're also teaching a man who has been taught previously tonight who seems solid. It's been a very good rate of people who make appointments with us actually showing up to them. MathildenhöheAlso yesterday, we got preached to by this man from Cameroon. He asked us what the name of our church was and then launched into a 15-minute sermon about how we only need Jesus Christ. He told us we are of the devil, along with a lot of other things. The whole time we were trying to speak, but he didn't want to let us. I was planning to sit there until he had gotten it all out of him, but at one point Elder Blackner stood up. We had been sitting on a bench and the man had been talking down to us, like his little congregation or something. Elder Blackner stood up straight and told he man he thought it was completely impolite that the man would talk for so long without letting us say anything. Elder Blackner told him it wasn't nice for him to slam our religion like he did, and that the man wasn't representing Jesus Christ in a good way. It was super bold, but I felt the Spirit while he was saying that. It was awesome that we stood up for ourselves and didn't just take it the whole time. When Elder Blackner stood up it reminded me a lot of the whole Joseph Smith in Richmond Jail story, where he commands the men to "cease such talk, or you or I die this instant." Other than that, we've seen a lot of success with dooring student housing. I love all the students here in Darmstadt. Tuesday was a really good day for me, I must have been cashing in on some blessings or something because I had a lot of meaningful conversations in buses. I taught a college student named Niclas about the Restoration in the bus and made an appointment with him. Elder Blackner and I after we successfully destroyed the old toilet seat so we could put a new one on.I'm loving being a missionary and having lots of fun!
My spiritual thought this week: I love studying for questions from people we are teaching. I found some awesome answers to questions in the talk "The Great Plan of Happiness" from Dallin H. Oaks (who is my favorite, by the way), in October 1993. I found answers to why Adam and Eve couldn't have children before the Fall of Adam and Eve and which commandment out of the two commandments that God gave them was the more important one. I also learned about the difference between sin and transgression and why the Fall of Adam and Eve was a transgression, not a sin. I feel like I understand the plan of salvation much better now! If you also want answers to these questions, read the talk! You'll love it! Oh and also, my friends Elder Sanders and Elder Smith are back! They're both in my zone now, so I'll get to keep in contact with them. I had a nice long call with Elder Sanders about how Essen (my last area) is doing. If anyone remembers Hatem, she still comes to church every week! I love you all! Thanks for reading! Elder Kimball Germany Frankfurt Mission Deuteronomy 4:29 12 July 2018
Hello everyone! We had a great day on Saturday, with back to back lessons at the church. We taught two guys named Ryan and Daniel. Ryan is Irish, and it was fun teaching him. At one point we asked him what he thought, and he said he thought it was interesting that we believe that the churches that developed after Jesus Christ's death were so close to the truth, and yet so far. I told Ryan that he was paraphrasing what Jesus said to Joseph Smith: "They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof." There were some members in the church and they were really good about being friendly to Ryan and making him feel welcome. Daniel is from Peru, and we taught him the plan of salvation. He asked us lots of difficult questions, like why Adam and Eve couldn't have children before the Fall and if we believe in evolution. I've researched those questions a little but I would love to hear everyone's input on them also. Daniel convinced himself or was convinced by the Spirit to say the closing prayer. We invited him to and he said, "No--well, okay. I'll try it." That was a cool moment. Elder Blackner and I thought those were some solid appointments. We felt like both of the people we taught at least understood the significance of what we say. Unfortunately they are both busy for a while, but they have sincere interest! Other than that, we saw Michelle today and she gave us hugs. It's not against the rules, we just try to avoid anything that could be interpreted as flirting. The funny thing about it is that there is a member who has been accusing me of flirting with Michelle. I didn't, of course, but people just assume things. I was showing her around at church on Sunday and Elder Blackner was helping a different person we're teaching. The sisters back me up and they know it's all baloney, but what a mess. It's amazing how much trouble a person can get tangled up in without having done anything wrong. I did my first baptismal interview this week! I wondered how I would feel if he was ready and how I would feel if he wasn't, but it was very clear in the moment. I had the strong feeling that he is ready for baptism. The cool thing was that it didn't feel like my decision at all, it was God's. In my study I have been studying about God and why he needs to have laws. A scripture I love about that principle is in 2 Nephi 2:13-- And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away. God is perfect and so we know we can trust him perfectly. Because of that, he needs to be just and have laws, or he would not be God! I would also recommend to everyone to read Free Forever, To Act For Themselves from October 2014 by Elder D. Todd Chrisofferson. I learned a ton from this talk about God and agency and I want to give you my testimony that God lives and he loves us! We can put all our trust in God! That's about all I have this time! Hopefully I'll get some pictures to send later today. Thanks for reading! I love you all! Elder Kimball Germany Frankfurt Mission Deuteronomy 4:29 The district in Luisenplatz after a finding activity in DarmstadtMichelle came to church on Sunday! I was sitting right by the doors to the chapel and we were saving a seat for another investigator who we were expecting. I was way happy when I saw her come in! Something needs to click on our teaching her. She listens to the lessons, but she doesn't quite get the significance of it all. Elder Blackner and I were teaching a guy named Davud yesterday, and after we taught him the Restoration, he said, "Wow, so you really believe that you're the only true church?" We told him yes, and that's why our message is more important than tests that make it so he can't meet with us again. That was a cool lesson because we felt like he understood the significance of our message. If it really is true, it is a big deal. Which would make it really important to find out if it is true. At the Crawford's for Independence Day!On Sunday we fasted and then at the end of the day we travelled for an hour and a half and had dinner with the Wiese family. It was way good and they had also invited Vadym over, who the sisters are teaching. That was a way fun night. Bruder Wiese is really funny and we also had a discussion about the Sabbath Day. We asked Vadym why he comes to church every week, and he told us that in our church he has finally found a place where he can learn about the values that are important to him and about the things he believes. Bruder and Schwester Wiese both bore their testimonies and it was just a powerful lesson. On the Fourth of July, we got invited over to the Crawford's, who are half-American! They made us hamburgers and we had an America cake. That was way nice of them to invite us over, and we had a great time. That's about all! In my studies I've been learning about church history. We get lots of questions and I want to be ready to answer them. It helps to be able to back up what you say with specific facts. It's been interesting to see what testimony-everything events have happened in the church's history. There are of course the dark moments, but even they can be cleared up if you know the whole story and the context. Thanks for reading! Have a great week! Elder Kimball Germany Frankfurt Mission Deuteronomy 4:29 My old district from while I was in Wuppertal, back together again!Street display with Darmstadt districtWe had an awesome week! This week we taught Dong and Itje. Itje is a sort of self-referral. She heard us talking to someone while we were in a Straßenbahn. When we got off at Luisenplatz, she asked who we are and what we believe. We then had what Elder Blackner called "the perfect contact". We told her we believe in Jesus Christ and that he has restored his church on the earth. We mentioned that he has given us the Book of Mormon. We told her we had to catch our bus. She asked for our number so she could meet up with us! We had her give us her number, called her so she could have ours, and then Elder Blackner said "That's our number, and that's our bus!" and we ran and caught our bus. Luckily this is one of those miracle stories that continues! We met with her on Tuesday after helping Santi and Tanja (two returning members) move, going to Mainz for their district meeting, coming back, and helping Santi and Tanja move some more. Itje is German but she speaks ridiculously fluent British English. The only time I can tell that she's not from England is when she speaks German. She always talks to us in English so we taught her in English. She does not normally live in Darmstadt but she is doing a year of service here. We taught her the Restoration and the miracle was, while we were sharing James 1:5 with her she said, "Hey, I know that scripture!" She had a Bible app and that was the scripture of the day! She is super excited to read the Book of Mormon and discover what we believe. I'm way excited to meet with her again. Dong is from China and we're having to start from the very basics with him. So far we have been answering his questions about why he should believe in God and what God is actually like. He's very curious and it's way awesome to see his faith grow as he recognizes God in his life. Darmstadt districtIt's been way fun to have contact with so many missionaries as a Zone Leader and to really get to know the people in my zone. We've been visiting the District Meetings as part of our splits, and I have loved that. I had an awesome split with Elder Park. We became friends pretty fast. We went to some student housing and this student told us he wanted to teach us about the Bible. We sat down on some steps with us and he told us that our message can't possibly be true because the Bible says there can't possibly be other revelation. I could tell things were getting a little intense and so I said that we didn't want to argue with him. He shared some scriptures, and we shared some. We came to a point where he didn't have anything to say anymore, and we bore our testimonies of Jesus Christ. We told this dude that we loved him and we thanked him for talking to us. The dude was smiling by the end and so were we. We were all happy. Elder Park and I agreed that that was an unqualified success. Elder Park said that was "the best bashing experience" he had ever had. That's probably because it wasn't a bash at all. Another fun Zone Leader thing from this week: we're working on helping people follow up with the people they find on the street. We had a Zone calling night yesterday where we took an hour and tried to make as many appointments as possible. We had the companionships send in an emoji to the zone group chat every time they made an appointment. Lots of people participated and we made a total of 19 appointments as a zone! That's all I have for this week! Love you all, have a good week! With Elder Taylor and Elder ParkPersian buffet with Tony and the district for Tony's birthday ! Left to right/ Elder Bates, Sister Knott, Sister Edelmayer, Sister Lawrence, Sister Johnson, Elder Blackner, Elder Richter, me, Tony.For my email this week I am going to send you some answers to questions that my mom asked me. How is Elder Blackner as your companion? He's awesome, he's a super hard worker. It's sort of a different style of missionary work where each companion talks to different people, messages them and sets up appointments with them, and then the first time we both get to know the person is at the lesson. We have taught a lot of people since I got here, that's been way fun. This is how I have always thought missionary work should go, but now I'm seeing it in action. I'm hoping that this is how it normally goes as a Zone Leader. Elder Blackner is also a really easy companion to have. He is neat and tidy, he doesn't have any weird habits, and he communicates with me well. He is also the first companion who I have known before we were companions, so I knew what to expect from him. How do you like the Darmstadt area? Darmstadt is awesome, it's looking like it's going to be one of my favorite areas. It's an ideal place to do missionary work. How often do you do zone leader type things? Here and there, I don't really know how much it is compared to a normal missionary because I got so used to doing district leader stuff. We have a split at least once a week, and we usually spend a little time each day doing things for the zone, either after 9 or during our study time. Did you already know any of the missionaries in your zone? Elder Richter is the district leader in this district, and he was also in my district in Wuppertal. He was Elder Blackner's companion. Elder Heller is an Assistant to the President now and I of course know him from my district in Wuppertal and he was my zone leader when I was in Essen. Who are some people you are teaching now? We are teaching Michelle, who is a 20 year old college student who reminds me of Lindsay. Elder Blackner and I think of her as our little sister because she acts so young and innocent. She's pretty involved with the Catholic church, but she has been really solid about showing up to our appointments and she is coming to church on Sunday. We are teaching Raymond, who is an African who just got to Germany three months ago and who comes to church on his bike every Sunday. Tony is a new convert who got baptized shortly before I got here. He is a tough-looking guy from Afganistan who likes lifting weights. He is way nice and loves the missionaries. His name is actually Hadim or something but he doesn't like being called that because it sounds like a Muslim name and he doesn't like Islam. Do you ever need to write things in German? (Just curious if you work on writing in German as well as speaking it.) Yes, we write lots of texts in German every day. Lately I have spent a lot more time messaging people than I have calling people, because of WhatsApp. I am also working on translating my Patriarchal Blessing into German. Anything interesting and unique about Darmstadt? Apparently there is a lot of Jugendstil architecture here. I don't know what that is though. Do you? The name literally means "youth style". The city is nicknamed "Wissenschaftstadt" which means science city. The name comes from the fact that it has two universities. Also possibly because of the universities, there is an impressive number of people who actually speak German. The students are cool because they can usually speak either English or German. I remember in Wuppertal we could go 20 minutes or so of contacting people without finding someone we could communicate with. The ward is also very big and there are tons of young families. It's just a very strong area in general. It's very small and manageable but still has lots of people to talk to. I'm having an awesome time! I really love life as a missionary. Thanks for reading! Have a good week! My friend Tim from Wuppertal! He was in Darmstadt along with a pack of other YSAs for a missionary homecoming
The Whole MLC!Hello everyone! A week has already passed since I was transferred here to Darmstadt! I didn't get a chance to write about this last week, it's just weird because as a missionary I always saw the Zone Leaders as next to perfect and an amazing team. Now I have been assigned to be a Zone Leader and I feel pretty normal. We had our Mission Leadership Conference with all the Zone Leaders, the Assistants to the President and President Boyer and I was just thinking about how all the missionaries there are so incredible in different ways. It's weird to think of myself as one of them! The MLC was super spiritual. The time flew by for me. We talked about a lot of different topics that are important to our mission. The comment that touched me the most was by a Sister Training Leader named Sister Schllenberg who came out the same time I did and who is going home after this transfer (which is crazy!). She said when she leads splits with other missionaries, she imagines that they are her little sibling. When I think of how my little brother would feel, especially as a new missionary, I would want whoever is going on a split with him to encourage him and be kind to him. And when you help your younger sibling, there is no condescension or pride. You know that you have just happened to have been put in a position to help them. LuisenplatzSunday was awesome. We had five friends at church. One of them was named Sigrid, and she is from America. She speaks perfect German because she went to a German immersion school when she lived in America. I had a lot of fun getting to know her and showing her around during church while Elder Blackner helped our other investigators. It's just awesome being in this area because there have been some really hard workers here and we have quite a few appointments and solid investigators. The city itself is small and manageable. There's also a place called Luisenplatz. It's a square in the middle of the city that is really pretty. There are also buses and street cars that leave every few seconds. So there's lots of people and constantly new people to talk to. That's all I have for this week! Have a great week! All of the members of my district in Wuppertal are members of the MLC now!Ludwigskirche |