hope everyone is well.
The middle of this week was pretty hectic. Monday night the zone
leaders called and asked us to trade companions on Wednesday. Super
short notice but we made it work. Wednesday morning we went to the
chapel in Tiergarten in order to take an Introduction to
Genealogy class. A good thing since I haven't really done it in the past.
We were taking names from Ancestry.com and trying to fit
them into our family trees on familysearch.org. My family tree is
pretty well filled in back to the 1500's so I had a really hard time
finding new names at first. I just found a lot of problems.
Fortunately I got a second chance at it. I went on exchange with Elder
Kreutz in Tiergarten. He had to be at another district's class session
Thursday morning so I took the opportunity to try again. I actually
ended up finding a handful of names that I could add to my family tree
on familysearch.org. These are names that I can now take to the temple
sometime and do their temple work for them. That's pretty exciting!
We were all over the place Thursday. We met with a guy that was just
baptized into the Tiergarten congregation last week. His story is so cool--he
found out about the church by watching Meet the Mormons on Netflix. In
addition, he quit smoking and drinking and walked into the church the
next Sunday and said, "I want to be baptized." I was really
impressed--his understanding of the concept of repentance is
top-notch. Right after that lesson Elder Kreutz got a text from a
random number saying something like, "Hey, I got this number from
Mormon.org. I have had contact with the church in the past and have
decided that I wanted to come back. When can I come?" We texted him
back and invited him to institute that night. He came! This guy is
legit. We got to talking and he was telling us about how he wants to
find out if the church is true. He said he has watched every general
conference for the past five or so years and this past general
conference really made him want to come back. I looked and a temple
was the background on his phone. This guy was also in his twenties so
that was pretty cool. Hopefully the Tiergarten elders will be able to
help him get that testimony. Institute Thursday night was really good.
President Kosak came and taught. It was the first time I have seen him
since he was released as our mission president. His topic was the digital age
and he used the material we have gotten as missionaries and related
them to everyday life.
We didn't get to meet with the German girl this week... She ended up
in the hospital... Not really sure what happened but she says she's
out and okay now. Just trying not to put too much pressure there at
this point. The German guy who has been coming to church for the past
ten years or so said he would join if he got an answer that the Book
of Mormon was true. That's pretty big. We have some good members
helping out there. He went over to a member's house last night for
dinner and they're actually going on vacation together at the end of
next month. Our African-Portuguese friend came to church yesterday! I
think it was a good experience though he can't speak German. We're
assuming the German will come at some point since he can already speak
three or four other languages. It's now going to be a team effort
trying to help this one German guy that the sisters have been meeting
with. We started meeting with him,too, this week. He has a real desire
to be baptized but is struggling to quit smoking so we are trying to
help be a more powerful influence for good.
The congregation here is instituting nights out with us every week which I think
is a great idea. Things in the mission have been hectic. The goal is
to get all of the people that have been baptized in the last year to
the temple next month. They realized though that it's a logistical
nightmare trying to organize rides, both temples in Germany will be
closed by the second week of next month, et.. Hopefully everything
can get worked out.
We have a Mission Tour this week. Elder Paul V. Johnson is coming and
we will be at the zone conference in Berlin on Thursday. Lots going
on, just trying to stay organized and focused. Until next week!
Love,
Elder Tanner Germann
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