I'M LEAVING BERLIN!!!!!!!!

Guten morgen Familie und Freunde,

Transfer calls are in and my run in Berlin is over. I'm super sad
about it because I want to stay so bad. The gig we've got going here
in Marzahn is such a good one. Elder Nearon and I had such a fun
transfer together and saw a lot of progress in the work. 

I feel like so many of the people we teach here are on the verge of being
baptized. Not to mention the area and ward are great and I love the
district. Ahhhh I don't want to go. But the Lord has called me another
way--Lübeck. It's going to be a cold one. But from what I've heard,
it's a wicked pretty port city with a good ward. I'm on a train tomorrow
around noon.  Looking forward to updating everyone on that
next week.  

It was another solid week in the work of the Lord. We exchanged with
the Frankfurt Oder elders late Monday evening and then back at
district meeting Wednesday morning. I stayed in Marzahn with Elder
Allen. We had a very good lesson with Angelica, the blind lady. We
talked about the importance of being baptized with the priesthood
authority, and that this priesthood authority is on the earth again
today in this church. She asked us if she could be baptized again then
to which we said YES! Man, I wish I had the chance to seen her baptism
in the coming weeks. Elder Allen is doing well and is ready to leave
Frankfurt Oder to be the DL in Lauenburg. We spent some time going
around trying to find a cassette player. Angelica has no computer and
the Book of Mormon on CD doesn't work in her CD player so we brought
it to her on cassette. By the end of the week, she was listening to
the Book of Mormon on cassette.

District meeting of Wednesday was a good time. I gave a lesson on
faith and the Holy Ghost. We discussed different scriptures in the
Book of Mormon where someone exercised great faith and then was
supported in their decision by the Holy Ghost. 

That afternoon we went to a lesson with a Cuban woman that elder Nearon found last week on
exchange. We brought the Spanish sisters along and it was amazing.
This woman is so prepared. She was really led to meet the missionaries
the other day by the Spirit. We got to know her and taught her how to
pray. After following up with her this week, she is now ending her
prayers in the name of Jesus Christ and is already having a more
spiritual experience praying. Blahh I wish I could be here to see her
grow in the gospel.  Wednesday night we split up and went with two men from
the ward. Elder Nearon went with one to Angelica and I went to
Sebastian, the man the sisters baptized in July, with the other. We
bore our testimonies on church attendance because that seems to be a
tough area for him. It was a really nice visit though.

We had a Peruvian show up at church yesterday who has been a member
for five years now. He speaks German, Spanish and Portuguese and wants
to start coming back to the church. The Spanish sisters were so
excited to hear that we have another person for them to work with.
This past transfer we have worked with them so much. We are killing it
with the Spanish speakers. Coolest reactivation story--my first Sunday
in Marzahn I was looking through the area book and randomly called
some member who was last visited over a year ago. We met with him that
day and a pair of times between then and this transfer. Since pairing
up with the Spanish sisters, he is totally gung-ho back into church
and even fellowshipped as a joint teach yesterday. He's now great
friends with all the Spanish speakers in Tiergarten and he attend
Spanish institute and family home evening. I know that the prophecy in
Doctrine & Covenants 90:11 is from God and I have seen it work
miracles in this man's life.

Thursday morning I registered in Berlin (not worth it at this point)
and then that afternoon we visited the Serbian family. Of course, we
met new people we had never seen before, one of whom was a stud. He
was raised in Germany and is super interested in the Church. The best part about it
is that he can speak perfect German and Serbian. We tried to take him
and a couple other to Institute that night but it was a total fail.
Downtown was shut down because of John Kerry and the Israeli prime
minister who were visiting.  Here's one of my favorite places in Berlin:

We had a good turn out at church yesterday. The father of the Serbian
family came and I think he liked it. There was also a baptism
following the service. Two kids of a member family were finally
baptized after being taught by sisters for the past year or so.  I was
asked to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting. I talked about how I
have studied the gospels and the beginning of Acts in my time here in
Marzahn and one of the biggest themes that stuck out to me was the
example of Peter. Christ saw his potential and he can see ours too. By
the same token, we need to see others' potential. It is through Christ
that we reach this potential. I thought that was an interesting
thought. I was able to say goodbye to everyone. Here's the chapel in Marzahn:

I will miss it.  I'm about halfway there on packing. Should be done tonight. 

Take care this week!

Elder Tanner Germann

White Americans talking about Jesus

Hi everybody! I'm going to try to fill you in on my wicked busy week
as quickly as I can. It was action packed Monday to Sunday.

Monday night we were invited over to a man's house for family home
evening with his friend, who is a member. We have been really trying
to get with this guy because he came to the ward party two months ago
and we were never able to make contact with him afterwards due to a
trip to the hospital. The night was pleasant and we got to know each
other. He grew up right around the corner from where we live. He was
very curious about how the mission works so we talked about that for
most of the time. At the end, his friend (the member) asked if he
would be willing to get together again and watch Finding Faith in
Christ. He agreed but he ended up in the hospital again. It was
honestly really hard to understand two old guys going at it speaking
Berliner.

Tuesday was Sister Means' birthday so we took her to get pumpkin spice
hot chocolates during lunch. 

While we were at Alexanderplatz we ended
up talking to a guy wearing a 49ers hat. Turns out this guy's name is
Rick and he from Vegas playing in the World Series of poker tournament
this week in Berlin. He was amazed at what we do and ended up asking
us if we could take him along with us one day as we work. He actually
called us on Wednesday! 

Tuesday afternoon we went to visit the Serbian
family and tried to teach the restoration but it is really had with
people coming and going the whole time. We gave them that Del Parson
portrait of Jesus and now it is the centerpiece of their family room.
We also got together with our friend Daniel from Cameroon that
evening. He really felt the spirit last lesson when we taught the plan
of salvation and he committed to coming to institute.

Wednesday morning Rick called. He came to the end of district meeting.
He then followed us around the church for a tour and we were able to
tell him able what it's like being a Mormon/missionary. He remembers
knowing Mormons in high school. He then sat in a lesson with a new
convert as we watch President Monson's fiery talk on commandments from
conference. Afterwards he took the us and the sisters out for lunch.

He is a super nice guy and loved learning more about the church. He
also wants to keep in touch. The relationships that you make can be
super valuable. Hopefully we'll get to hang out again sometime back in
the states and I'm going to make sure he reaches out to the
missionaries there! Wednesday night we exchanged with the zone
leaders.

I love being in Tiergarten. Downtown Berlin is so cool. We had a
packed day but only a pair of the appointments actually happened on
Thursday. We visited this Nigerian family and they fed us meat pies
(empanadas) and egg rolls (hard boiled eggs inside fried bread). Yum.
I came down with a bad cold that day and by the evening, I was a bit
incapacitated. I'm sure everyone at institute thought I was a zombie.
Daniel came though!

Friday we visited the blind lady. We got to meet her husband this
time. The lesson went well. We talked about the commandments of
praying often and studying the scriptures. She committed to do those
and come to church.

 She came on Sunday again and loved it. Apparently
she stood up again in relief society and talked about how much she
feels the spirit there. This week we will need to talk about baptism.

Friday evening we went to pick up some of the Serbian kids to play
soccer. We ended up getting six to come with us. Super let down
though--they didn't let us in the hall because we hadn't told them
beforehand that we were bringing people with. Pretty awkward but I
guess it was a pretty good chance to get to know them better.

Saturday morning we had our ward missionary council meeting and then
we had a lesson with the Spanish sisters and our member friend from
Mexico. He came to church on Sunday! Super sweet! Saturday evening I
gave two baptismal interviews with a 12 year old and a 9 year old from
a member family. They will be baptized next Sunday. Like I said,
baptismal interviews are some of my favorite experiences on the
mission. I think the spirit is so strong. It was also a good
experience because it was the first time for me interviewing a kid.
Saturday afternoon was a circus. We went to a lesson with the Serbian
family and brought a member along. Imagine 14 Serbians packed in one
room to hear you. New people come every time we are their. They all
want to see the white Americans talking about Jesus. It was a real
struggle. The father, the one that is really interested, can speak
German as good as an average missionary. Everyone else can barely say
a sentence. He was the translator. Good thing he believed what we
said, right? It was really tough and there was lots of yelling and
blahhh. We went to pick them up Sunday morning but he wasn't there.
There was a family emergency in Spandau and so we came up empty
handed.

It was a packed week and I'm looking forward to this coming
week. Our long-time investigator who we took to the temple a little
while back comes home from vacation this week so I'm excited to hear
him say he's finally ready to join the church ;) and transfer calls
are Saturday. I think there's a good chance I'll stay but ya never
know.

Take care.

Elder Tanner Germann

An eventful Sunday

Hello again, friends and family! How quickly has the week gone by! And
it ended on a high note.  On Monday, there were some amazing things we 
got to see.  

Here is Ishtar Gate (6th century BC) of Babylon built by Nebuchadnezar II:

On Tuesday we had another zone training meeting in Tiergarten,
following which we had interviews again with President Fingerle. I
really liked a lesson that was given on opening your mouth as a
missionary. After reading Joseph Smith-History (which is when
Joseph Smith begins to pray in the sacred grove), the speaker noted
that God and the angels in heaven knew what was about to happen. By
the same token, Satan knew what was about to happen. But Satan can't
kill us. If so, he would have already done that. So what did he do? He
tried to cause doubt and fear. But Joseph Smith's reaction was to
continue praying. We need to do that too! Continue to pray and never
stop. And when we do that, we need to open our mouths because a
missionary that doesn't open his mouth is, well, useless. I thought
that was a good breakdown of that verse and good application to the
work. That evening we attended ward council and were able to talk
about our new converts and progressing investigators. The ward likes
the idea of organizing a member to drive us and an investigator to the
temple.

Market Gate of Miletus (120 AD) Pergamon Museum:

Wednesday we had an appointment with our favorite blind lady that went
really well. She really liked our lesson on faith and repentance and
said that she feels a new hope when we come to visit her. She gladly
committed to coming to church. That evening we went to the young
men/young women activity which has something to do with my report
so I will come back to that.

We got in contact with the Serbian family that we had
found last week! We had gone by on Monday to their address and found
out that it was like a long-term residence homeless shelter which
isn't bad but they have someone working the front desk checking people
in and out. The guy there completely lied to us and told us that no
one under that name lived there. I had the feeling he lied so we went
back and the guy working the desk then was like, oh yeah that
family lives right here! It was the first door right next to the front
desk. Anyways, they were super excited to see us and told us they
really wanted us to teach them about Jesus. They're traditional
orthodox so this should be interesting but we are bringing them a big
picture of Jesus for their room and will teach the restoration
tomorrow.

This is me in front of the old Gestapo Headquarters:

Friday we were all over the place. We had appointments everywhere all
day. We brought the relief society president to a dinner appointment
with a girl that we re-contacted who has come to church off and on for
15 years. She's mentally handicapped but lives alone and has the
desire to be baptized. We're going to see if we can make that happen. 
We then had an appointment with the member from Mexico who said he 
wants to come back to church. Last week he watched conference with the 
Spanish sisters and a Peruvian family so that's cool. We had to leave in the 
middle of the appointment for our next one.  Downtown was psycho 
with a political demonstration but the Spanish sisters were able to take
over. We met with a guy who wants to come to institute this week and
learn about the temple and then that night we met with the German
girl. We really wanted to commit her to baptism because we feel she's
ready but something told us not to. We found one or two objections she
has and bore testimony that so many more blessinsg await her after
baptism. So I think we mentioned baptism enough to where we weren't
annoying or deterring but the next step is clear.

So Sunday we had a good turn out at church. We brought our favorite
blind lady and she loved it. She said she was really touched in her
heart and apparently she stood up in relief society and announced that
and said that she wanted to become a member! So cool! Now we have to
tackle a life-time smoking addiction. It's a real problem throughout
Germany. I was also sustained and set apart to be the second counselor
in the young men.  The boys are wicked rowdy so they want to split
the class and give me one to teach. Exciting, na?

Looking forward to another good week!

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann

21

Hey y'all! Hope everyone is on a spiritual high from watching General
Conference. Gotta love six hours of listening to the prophets and apostles 
on your birthday!

We had a pretty good week. Monday night we sat down with the sisters
and planned out how we were going to tackle the English class that we
want to get up and running. I plotted out twenty specific groceries
stores that I knew would allow us to post fliers on their bulletin
boards and gave ten to the sisters and ten to us. We turned it into a
finding competition. Whoever found the most new investigators while
hitting their stores would get ice cream from the other companionship.
Elder Nearon and I could get anyone until the eleventh hour when we
were on our way home that night. We were walking out of the train
station when some guys made some joke about us. Couldn't really hear
it but I went back to talk to them and we ended up making an
appointment with them. They're one big Serbian family, the one guy
says he goes to a gypsie church, the other said he was Catholic. Super
cool how the Lord allows you to reach your goals. We ended up tying
the sisters. Dangit!

I got super reviews on district meeting this week. I did a combination
of Preach My Gospel chapter 7, challenging the district to improve
their languages skills and chapter 5, using the Book of Mormon. We
each took a common question or objection we hear and had to use a
passage in the Book of Mormon to answer it or respond. We did this
three times and each time you had to explain it differently so it
really forced you to expand your normal vocabulary and way of
thinking/teaching. I have really found it helpful to practice saying
something three different ways to improve my language skills.

I went on a companion exchange with Elder Schmaltz to 
Frankfurt Oder afterwards.  We knocked doors all night in a student dorm 
and found a new investigator and a bunch of super contacts. On the way 
home that night we found another woman who invited us to boxing and soccer. 
She was totally taken aback--she couldn't believe people actually did
missionary work. She's from Eisenhüttenstadt which was supposed to be
the model DDR town so it's no wonder she had never heard of anything
like that.

Elder Nearon visited the blind lady during the exchange and she said she has
felt the Spirit so strongly when we come by and she wants to come to
church. We're going to try to pick her up next Sunday. They also had a
lesson with the German girl who said she knows we're doing the work of
the Lord and helping her. She came to the first session of conference
Saturday night. I am confident that she'll get there. I'm praying that
it's sooner rather than later.

Yesterday went really well. I had a nice 21st birthday with love from
the ward here. I had happy birthday sung to me three times! Thanks to
everyone who wished me a happy birthday!

Elder Hales', Elder Holland's, President Nelson's, and President
Monson's priesthood talks were my favorite. Which ones did you like?
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions?cid=HP14GC&lang=eng

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann

Keeping busy

Guten Tag family and friends!

We stayed busy this week despite having two of our main investigators
out of town; we saw some progress on other fronts. Tuesday morning we
had mini interviews with president via Skype. This is something new he is
instituting in order to be in contact more often with the mission and
to get to know everyone better. We thought since we we were going to
go to the church for wifi that we would go by on this old investigator
who the sisters had run into on the street last week and said he
wanted to meet with the missionaries again. We had gone by two other
times last week, once in the afternoon, once in the evening but to no
avail. The early morning worked! We finally got in contact and will
hopefully meet with him this week. We were headed to the church then
for the interview but I swear the bus driver took a detour and missed
our stop so we ended up going to a Burger King. No sweat, everything
worked out.  We also did some sightseeing on Preparation Day.

We ended up teaching the restoration to the old blind lady that we
found last week on the park bench right outside of her apartment. I
think it went well and she seemed pretty responsive to everything. We
promised to bring her the Book of Mormon on cd which we did on Friday
and she was super excited. She promised to listen to it before she
went to bed every night. We are going to have a lesson with her
tomorrow.

We had a really good lesson with the German girl on Wednesday. We took
along our elders quorum president who is a stud and they really got
along well. We taught the back half of the plan of salvation and then
we just talked about her progress thus far. She really opened up and
talked more about her rough childhood. She does a lot of research on
her own on the church website and has fallen in love with the videos
the church comes out with, especially the new addiction recovery
website and videos. She even whipped out her phone and showed us one
that really touched her--she said she bawled the first time she saw
it. She's doing really well, we're just fighting to get her to come to
church!

We have been working with a man lately that has a bit of schizophrenia 
as well. He is super receptive to the spirit and has come to church
regularly, we're just working hard to get him ready to make covenants with
the Lord. He knows the church is the best thing in his life right now
and he loves reading the Book of Mormon.

We had zone training meeting on Wednesday that went well and inspired
us to have a crazy good weekly planning session. We now have a couple
of projects going on--setting up an English class, organizing members
who would be willing to drive us and an investigator to the Freiberg
temple once a month, and organizing the ward list which has 350ish
names but most of the addresses are wrong.

Doing my best to stay healthy while most of the mission is sick right
now.  Take care this week.

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann