Monday night Elder Meeks and I went to the Wlokas for dinner. They are a couple that just moved into the congregation/branch. They have two kids grown up and out of the house now. He just got a job managing the Magdeburg bahns (trolly cars) and sometimes he drives them too. They were super nice. We had green beans and sausage served in a red sauce. I forget the name of the dessert but it was vanilla yogurt with green grapes in it--pretty good. We shared our favorite scriptures with them and even had them share their favorites with us; then we played a game of dominoes. Here's a picture of Stadt Park in Magdeburg:
Tuesday was my first attempt at street contacting. I actually would not call it a fail. I was able to walk up to people and introduce myself and ask them a question without blanking. After a question or two I didn't understand anything they were saying to me so Elder Meeks had to jump in but that's okay! No one was very interested and the longest conversation we had was with a Jehovah's Witness. There are a lot of JW here in Germany. Many Germans confuse us with them. JW are not allowed to proselyte like we are. Tuesday afternoon we had a lesson with a less-active member named Claudius. He was born into the church but hasn't been in years. He doesn't have any faith--he says he can't believe in something he can't see. He also made a list of all the problems he has with the church... We talked about the Word of Wisdom. I remembered Elder Bednar saying that we must teach with doctrines. Claudius wanted to go point by point through the Word of Wisdom with us. I told him: Look, we're not going to do that. If we just give you the answers, you'll never know how to find them for yourself. We committed him to reading and praying about each thing in Doctrine and Covenants Section 89 and reporting back to us what answers he gets. We also gave him an Elder Bednar talk to read about faith. We really need to build Claudius' faith. Elder Bednar counsels that the evidence only comes after you put in the faith and do the action. Next time we meet with him we will also tell him that it is important to be doing all that he can to feel the companionship of the Spirit--that includes coming to church. That evening the other Magdeburg elders invited us to play soccer with one of their investigators. The investigator just signed with some team here in town.
Wednesday morning I had Nougat Kissens for the first time for breakfast and from now on CocoPuffs will not be the best chocolate cereal. We need to get the Kissens to the States! They're little chocolate bits with nougat inside aka heaven. I digress... In companionship study, we have been working on both the first 12 weeks training program and the 3-5 minute versions of the lessons, especially lesson 1 since that is the one you teach people on the street when you first meet them. I've been practicing that a lot this week in addition to everything else I need to do. There are a lot of scriptures I still need to memorize auf Deutsch and I am working on being able to understand everything in the Book of Mormon auf Deutsch. Wednesdays are when we meet with the other missionaries in a district meeting. We covered our goals and counseled with each other on certain questions we had with investigators. At the end, Elder Pilling, Morton and I had to do the new guy initiation...which consisted of trust-falling off of a ledge and being caught by the rest of the district. I'll try to attach the vid. We went to Subway after--never going again. American food is so pricey. No way I'm spending 9 euro for a Subway. Elder Meeks and I keep having these huge hornets come into the wohnung in the evening. Elder Meeks killed both of them with a make shift blow torch (axe and a lighter) which I suggest not trying at home.
Thursday entailed a lot of street contacting. We decided to explore the area a bit and went way out. No one we talked to was interested. We had a lesson with our investigator Kolja. Kolja is progressing well. He has come to church the past two weeks and is reading in the Book of Mormon. He had several very thoughtful questions during the second lesson on Thursday. I don't think he has recognized the Spirit quite yet so we are praying for that all of the time. I was really frustrated after our lesson because I understood the questions he was posing and I thought I could offer a different viewpoint than that of Elder Meeks, but I don't know how to say it in German yet! It is such a helpless feeling. Here's the cathedral in Magdeburg:
Saturday morning I woke up pumped for the day, determined to find new investigators. I led our discussion during comp study about how we can help those we teach receive revelation through reading the Book of Mormon. I told Elder Meeks when we went out to go street contact that we were literally going to talk to everyone we saw. We talked to so many people and had great conversations! Did we find any new investigators? No. But were our efforts and results soo much better? Yes! We even taught the first lesson to a man! (Later I realized that when he asked us why so many people in the world are wicked and I shared with him the natural man is an enemy to God scripture, I actually didn't share that scripture...I got it confused with 2 Nephi 2:27 which says men are free according to the flesh. My scripture mastery knowledge is lacking but it wasn't too big of a fail cause I think it still kinda made sense.) It really strengthened my testimony that we need to make that kind of effort every time we go street contacting. Eventually we will find people who are prepared to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't want to be an average missionary just going through the motions. I truly want to find and teach people. Saturday night we played soccer again with the other elders and another investigator. A bunch of neighborhood kids joined.
Yesterday at church the stake presidency was in our branch to change the branch presidency. Elder Romney (he and his wife are the senior missionaries here in Magdeburg) is the new branch president. That is good news because we will now be able to coordinate very well with him on the needs of the members. The stake president was very nice. He loved my last name, of course. Street contacting yesterday afternoon wasn't too successful. We went to where the mall was because everything is closed on Sundays and it wasn't shoulder to shoulder mayhem like during the week. The most eventful thing that happened was a Muslim man coming up and telling us we were "fooling" people...right.
We are really trying to meet with our other investigators and less-actives. Several are students here and are very busy. Some missionaries aren't as comfortable doing street contacting. We're offering salvation here! Let's get to work!
I miss American food. I just want some Ritz--is that too much to ask?! They don't even sell ramen. Otherwise I am doing well and working hard! German is tough. I don't understand a lot of what people say. I need to get used to people not speaking clearly and I am working to extend my vocab from church things. Members have been very nice with that. They were all very happy to help me with the language and common courtesies at the dinner table.
I hope everyone is well! Bis nächte Montag!
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