Stake Conference in Hamburg

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope y'all had a good week.  My week was a bit anticlimactic--let me tell you about it.  See also the pictures of Bremen.

On Tuesday Elder Despain and I went to Oldenburg for district leader school.  This being my second one, it was pretty standard.  But it is always good to talk about our purpose as district leaders and get some new ideas.  The one thing that was new this time is correction.  As leaders we do have the responsibility to correct the members of our district if something wrong is going on.  That was new for me.  For the most part, everyone does what they are supposed to so I don't have to do any of that but correction in the church, specifically as a missionary is a special teaching time. 

We came home that afternoon and had a lesson with Herr Stieflea.  Marcella was the member who went with us.  We taught the third lesson, the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We wanted to commit him to baptism at the end but it just didn't fit right.  It was a good lesson but it didn't really go as planned.  Marcella said some good things; she talked about how she came to the decision to be baptized.  Herr Stieflea said he was interested and definitely looking to find out if this is the true church of Christ.  He is awesome.  He even answers the questions in the back of the brochures we give him.  I have never seen that before.  

 

Wednesday we had district meeting.  I asked the Bremen sisters to give the lesson on finding the faith to find/finding through talking about the family.  It went really well.  There was a good Spirit at the meeting and we did a good role play.  At the end I closed by talking about being bold.  

 

Thursday and Friday were supposed to be killer days.  We were supposed to have ten appointments and commit two people to baptism but only two of those appointments actually happened. Some really bad luck.

 

Saturday and Sunday we went to Hamburg for stake conference.  The Area Seventy was there.  During the adult session on Saturday night, the speakers addressed the area plan--bring one friend to church, become physically and spiritually self-reliant, and find one ancestor's name to take to the temple.  On Sunday, all of the talks focused on the importance of eternal families.  The Area Seventy got up at the end and talked about how testimony is action.  The members need to be actively sharing their testimony everyday.  

  

We came home yesterday afternoon and met with Nanakofi.  We taught him most of the commandments.  He is on board with those.  We have a few left as we queue him up for baptism on May 2nd.  We also went to see Grace last night.  She was pretty sick.  We wanted to commit her to baptism but there was just no way.  We gave her a priesthood blessing and then told her to get some rest.  Hopefully she is feeling better later this week.

 

Thursday we go to Berlin for the mission conference and the introduction of iPads. We won't have a lot of working time this week with that trip so hopefully we can see everyone and the appointments won't fall through this time!

 

Have a good week!

 

 

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann

MOIN!!

Was geht ab, y'all?  I hope this email finds everyone well.  I had a really good week this past week and I am really looking forward to this coming week too.

 

Tuesday morning I took Elder Horrocks to the train station and put him on a train to Schwarzenburg--I miss him :(  We got along really well together.  I stayed at bahnhof that whole afternoon putting people on trains/helping them make connections/picking them up.  Here is a picture of our leadership training meeting before all of these transfers:

 

That afternoon my new companion came, Elder Despain.  He grew up in Spain but his family has lived in Arizona for the past couple of years.  He is only a transfer older than me in the mission and is a really nice missionary.  We went to an appointment that evening with the man Elder Bakly and I found last week who said, "Yes, absolutely.  Come over." It was real.  The man loved the Restoration! We are going back there tomorrow.

Wednesday we had a really good appointment with a less-active member Elder Bakly and I contacted last week.  He was baptized in '06 and I think was kind of converted to the bishop and missionaries.  He stopped coming to church when the bishop was replaced.  He was mad that that happened. Our lesson ended up being on service.  It was really good.  We talked about how none of the local leaders in the church receive money for what they do--everything about the church involves service.  He said, "Oh wow, I had no idea."  We commited him to reading in and praying about the Book of Mormon so that he could develop his own testimony of it.  That night Elder Pilling and his trainee came back from Berlin and overnighted at our wohnung (apartment).

 

Thursday we had two awesome lessons, one with Peter, a super German man, and one with Grace, Fred's cousin.  Both lessons actually were about the plan of salvation.  Peter came to our appointment with questions written down, he had read all the pamphlets and had even done the question/answer section in the back!  We had a great lesson were we walked him through the plan of salvation as we drew it on a piece of paper.  Elder Despain drew it because he is a better artist....  He opened up about his parents dying.  It was a good lesson.  We were running late to our appointment with Grace so he offered us a ride!  Our appointment with Grace was super.  We did the same drawing thing.  At the end she said that she wanted to be baptized.  That evening we had a good night of soccer with a pair of investigators.

 

District meeting was held on Friday.  I had talked to the Bremerhaven sisters about focusing on placing good questions in lessons so I gave the lesson on that.  We read about Ammon teaching King Lamoni, disected a clip from one of our training videos, and role played with current investigators.  It was a good lesson.  Afterwards, Elder Despain and I went to Doris' house.  We ended up just teaching her 15-year old son Joshua because she wants him to learn the Bible.  We started off with the Bible but eventually turned it into a lesson on the Restoration ;)  He ended up being really open to it and said he was free everyday after school to meet.

 

We met with Richmond Saturday morning and taught the plan of salvation.  He is doing well.  We also met with the random guy that stopped Elder Horrocks and I in the train station a couple of weeks back.  Turns out he was actually baptized a few years ago in Leipzig and wants to come back to church.  He also gave us a referral!  That afternoon, we met with Nanakofi and taught the plan of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ combined.  He loved the drawing of the plan of salvation and he said he is really looking forward to being baptized on the 2nd of May.  Elder Pilling baptized his investigator that evening.  The baptismal service was nice.  Nanakofi stayed for it and even Peter came!

 

Yesterday at church, Grace, Nanakofi, and Michael were there.  Michael has been a little evasive. I have been practicing being bold and straight up, but loving and so I told him Michael, we are here to baptize you--you want that right?  He said yes.  So I told him he needs to make time to meet with us and we will gladly get him there!  That afternoon getting on the bus some German guy said, "Are you guys missionaries?"  We talked to him about what we do and are meeting with him on Friday.  Gotta love it.

 

Our days this coming week are pretty booked.  Looking forward to a busy and productive week.

 

Love,

Elder Germann

General Conference and transfers

Hello family and friends! 

 

I hope everyone had a fantastic week and a spiritual experience watching General Conference.  I had some really cool experiences this week--not the least of which was to visit this pancake ship on our preparation day with one of our recent converts:

On Tuesday we traveled to visit Richmond.  Richmond was baptized in Ghana several years ago but when he came to Germany, he had no idea where the church was or how to get in contact with the church.  Seems to be a common occurrence.  He lived next door to the chapel in Ghana apparently. We had a good lesson about the Restoration.  The bishop asked us to go through all of the lessons with him as a refresher.  He has a testimony of everything.  It's sad though because right now he is not allowed to go to work or school so he just has to sit around all day.  He doesn't have enough money so we gave him an old shirt or two, a tie, and some pants so that he can look good for church.  He was really grateful.  That afternooon Papa, an investigator from Gambia, invited all of the missionaries over for Gambian food.  It was delicious!  We had or ward missionary correlation meeting that night and following that, I began my exchange with Elder Bakly.  Here I am with the Sister missionaries after correlation meeting:

Elder Bakly and I had a super good exchange.  We got up in the morning and had a great morgensport.  I ran a basic-style workout ;)  We had push-ups, flutter-kicks, wall-sits, lunges, you name it.  We were even reciting scriptures while we did it.  It was a lot of fun.  Elder Bakly didn't really appreciate it but that is okay...haha.  We did our studies and then we went out for the day.  Our appointment fell through at the university.  The investigator never showed.  But it was cool because Elder Bakly had this feeling to go back so we did but on the way we stopped a young woman.  She is Mexican and has been in Germany for a week.  She has a bunch of Mormon friends at home.  We exchanged numbers and we are going to get together this week!  For the rest of the afternoon, we had three less-active members on the calendar and the plan was to visit them and do street contacting on the way, using #becausehelives.  It is my favorite thing to do because it gives direction to your finding and you're killing two birds with one stone.  We had some great experiences simply because we did the basics--talked to everyone, were personable, and spoke directly.  We walked up to one guy and I had asked him if he had heard of the Mormons.  He said yeah, I know that they are Christians.  I said, "Correct!" and that we as missionaries go around sharing a message about Jesus Christ and how he is resurrected and lives.  This message is especially important, seeing that Easter is this week.  We would like to come by next we and share more of this message with you.  He said okay!  It's as easy as that!  We also found a super guy from Ghana later that was really excited to meet with us and hear our message.  In addition, we got in contact with one of the less-actives and set up an appointment.  It was a very successful day and I was pumped because that's the type of day that they needed to kick-start their area.  It was also awesome because those were the exact experiences I needed to have for Elder Horrocks' and my lesson at Zone Training Meeting.  We exchanged back and I was said to my companion, "Elder Horrocks, I have our lesson plan."  

Our lesson at Zone Training Meeting went really well.  We were assigned to talk about the new #becausehelives campaign and how to use it.  Elder Horrocks began it by leading a discussion on John 20:11-20 and 3 Nephi 11:6-14.  He talked about how we have the scriptures that testify of the resurrection.  I then jumped in and we did a demonstration--we demo'd that finding experience that Elder Bakly and I had the day before and we said, look, we had this experience just yesterday!  We then allowed them to role play finding situations.  We closed it with the end of John 20.  I said what I always tell my district--"Say that you love finding.  Because when you say that you love it, you will do it gladly."  Blessed are we that believe in Christ and his resurrection but have not seen him.  We got some good feedback from the zone leaders and other missionaries.  Its kind of exciting, at this point I really don't take notes for my lessons.  Maybe just a few when I am just starting planning but when I give lessons I never use notes.  I really feel like it helps me speak by the Spirit.  Here we are riding the train with the sister missionaries on the way to the training meeting:

We had transfer calls on Saturday.  Elder Horrocks is going to Schwarzenburg in Chemitz and he is going to be the District Leader there.  The second area in Bremen is getting shut down as well as seven other areas in the mission because this transfer our mission is getting a new zone from the Frankfurt mission.  Elder Pilling is training a new missionary.  My new companion will be Elder Despain, Elder Horrocks' MTC companion.  Should be a fun time.  We watched the Church's General Conference on Saturday at John's house, one of our investigators.  That was pretty cool.  He thought the messages were good.  The Saturday morning session was my favorite.  I really liked President Packer's talk on marriage/family.  He has given some great talks on that topic through the years.  On Sunday I watched the Priesthood session, the Saturday Afternoon and Sunday morning sessions.  Nanakofi came to one of the sessions.  He was kinda bored. The sister missionaries got a family of nine to show up to one of the sessions!  That was crazy.  Here is a picture John and part of his Star Wars collection--thousands of dollars worth!!

I am still the District Leader here in Bremen this transfer.  We are splitting the other area's investigators between us and the sisters.  So the district will be down to eight members and I will only have to go on three exchanges now.  Looking forward to another transfer in Bremen!

Hope everyone had a great Easter!

 

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann

A third of my mission has gone by!

Howdy y'all!

I was really hopeful for this past week and it ended up being a really solid week where we reached all of our goals!  We did a lot of walking and train riding--almost borrowed this truck at one point!

Wednesday after a great district meeting, Elder Horrocks and I had lots of success finding--we found three new investigators. We have been really working on not using words like "maybe" or "perhaps" and just being bold, asking people straight up. We talked to this one man who said he has a Book of Mormon at home that he got it from a street display several years ago. He is Catholic and said that we are all Christians so it makes no difference. I told him, "Hey, ya know I have a Catholic grandfather at home and I can tell you that there are definitely some differences in doctrine. We want to meet with you next week and share with you what we believe." He said, "Okay!" Experiences like that really help me feel the Spirit. I love finding and street contacting. I tell my district to say that they love street contacting. It helps them like it and be excited about it :)

We have been really bold with investigators as well. We have a teaching pool of people who have been meeting with the missionaries for eons and are making no progress. It really comes back to how to begin teaching and stating your purpose clearly. We have been redoing that with investigators to help them progress.

Elder Pilling came here for an exchange with me. We had some bad luck with a couple of appointments that fell through but nevertheless we committed our investigator, Nanakofi, to baptism on the 2nd of May. We have some work to get it there but he said, "I want to be baptized in the church on Richarda-Huch Straße!" Hahaha okay we can make that happen. He came to church again on Sunday and had a good experience. Elder Pilling is doing well. He has no ceiling on his potential as a missionary. He has a gift with talking to people and speaking with the Spirit. He does well in all situations.  Here is one of the neighborhoods we worked in:

Elder Horrocks and I went to the Stelter's for lunch yesterday. Brother Stelter talked a lot about missionary work. He had some interesting ideas about getting out of the main city and visiting the villages in our area, maybe once a week. We could go to the villages where the members live, have an eating appointment and look for investigators in the village--there would be a member to teach with.  It is a good idea and Elder Horrocks and I would like to try it out.  Even so, we probably shouldn't spend too much time here--Party Night Way!!

Elder Horrocks is doing well. He is a hard worker and is a support to me. 

Take care this week!

 

Elder Tanner Germann

Making progress

Hey y'all!  How is everyone doing?!

 

We saw much improvement between last week and this week.  We got in touch with a lot more people, we found a pair of German investigators to teach, and this coming week has the potential to be super!  We had a little fun on our preparation day throwing the Frisbee around the park:

                                     

On Tuesday we had language study with Marcella, the new convert Elder Horrocks baptized last transfer.  We are going to be doing that more often because we both feel like we get a lot out of practicing German with a German who is super willing to teach.  She went to the city library and checked out a bunch of books and so she is teaching us using them in addition to our MTC study materials.  We had an appointment with John, an American.  He is really into conspiracy theories and reads a lot of bad things about Mormons but is really open to hearing from us.  We taught a lesson on prophets.   It went well and he said it made sense but he continues to say that it's not really for him.  He keeps our commitments--he read the Liahona we gave him this week.  Doris, the woman from Ghana we met on Sunday, cancelled but she wants to meet this coming week and she wants us to teach her two sons about the Bible--perfect.  After Ward Missionary Council that night, I began my exchange with Elder Rosenvall.

 

District meeting on Wednesday went well.  We did a lot of role plays--finding approaches and 5-minute lessons.  I loved the example Elders Carpenter and Pinion gave in Leadership Training Meeting (take one of your hobbies and make a person finding approach out of it), so I used that.  The exchange with Elder Rosenvall was good--we went and visited a less-active couple in Bremen Nord.  He is a really good missionary.  He works really hard and is trying to help his companion.  Here is a picture of my district--hard to believe I'm the District Leader for these great missionaries!
 

Thursday we had a good lesson with Sin-Gu, our Korean investigator.  We discussed Mosiah 2.  He keeps all of our reading commitments but he only comes to church once a month and we haven't gotten him to pray specifically about the Book of Mormon or the church.  We also met with Hughes.  He is from Ghana and is a super nice man but he is so frustrating.  He is the epidome of flaky.  He told us he wants to meet multiple times a week and come to church but he literally sleeps through everything.  The same goes for his father who we've been teaching, too.

 

We had a service project planned for Friday morning in a member's garden but she cancelled at the last minute.  We ended up trying out a new finding activity that the sister missionaries came up with.  We had chalkboards and we stopped people and asked them to write what brought them joy on the board.  We had some really good discussions but weren't able to close on anyone.  I think the idea could see a lot of success if we do it in to right place (center of downtown) with good weather.  Here was our first attempt at it, in front of the chapel:

                                     

Saturday we met with Nanakofi, another friend from Ghana.  He tried to tell us that he believed that our church was the true church but that he was just going to continue to go to the Catholic church with his mom.  We bore testimony to him and he finally committed to coming to church.  And he actually did come yesterday and stayed the whole time!  He said the church was like paradise.  We also found a 72 year-old German woman on the street that day--we talked to her for 50 minutes right there!

 

Yesterday we had a super good appointment with Grace, Fred's cousin.  Fred flew back to Ghana this week, by the way, and is in a hospital in a coma.  We took the sisters along as a joint teaching opportunity.  We read 3 Nephi 11:1-17 with her.  She loved it.  She asked a lot of good questions about the godhead.  She even said things like, "When I am baptized...."  We need to commit her this week!  We also were walking down the street and this guy stopped us asking if we were Americans.  He knew a bit about Mormons and said he wanted to learn more.  Here we are riding the train with the sisters:

                                     

Elder Horrocks is doing well.  He is so much fun and really supportive.  We are looking forward to a big week.

 

Love to all,

Elder Tanner Germann