down. This is my last full week of missionary work ahead and I'm not
sure if I'm ready to go back to regular life. Here's a bit of regular life as
a missionary:
Two weeks ago on Tuesday we helped Elder Adams' grandmother throw out
a bunch of furniture to make way for new furniture that she was having
delivered later that week. We then rushed home and changed into
regular missionary clothes and visited a couple of families to give
them invitations to the stake primary activity and temple open house.
One of the families that we visited was the one we took President
Fingerle to my first week in Hamburg. They said they were planning on
coming to the stake activity that weekend which they did and the kids
even participated in the presentations. That evening we also met with
our friend, Thorsten. We had a really good time studying Alma 40
today. It was a cool experience at first because we prayed and I asked
in the prayer that we could be calm and think clearly and he said
right afterwards that that's exactly what he needed and it turned out
great. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted. We didn't nail
down a date at that time though.
The next day we went over to Altona and visited their district
meeting. Kinda weird thing--apparently the image other missionaries
have of Elder Adams and me is that I'm this military general and he is
the loving motherly figure... Good cop bad cop? That image seemed to
originate from the Altona district. Just lots of young missionaries. That
night we had a lesson with Jafar before institute. That was the first time
a member was there to teach with us since going to the US for three or
so weeks.
That Thursday we went to our own district meeting and then celebrated
our district leader's birthday by taking him out to lunch. That
evening we had a lesson with the woman and daughter combo who took us
to that messianic Jewish service several weeks ago. Basically she told
us that she read this brochure written by three PhDs that said
crazy things about Mormons and she decided that she got her answer
about the church. The big lesson from this my friends, is that a person
needs to go to the source for their answers! Study the Book of Mormon
and pray about it in order to get an answer! There's no other way!
The next day we had an appointment with a Jewish man from Jerusalem.
He's here in Hamburg playing in a symphony. Elder Adams had met him
knocking doors last month and then we finally were able to meet with
him weeks later. We taught the restoration and introduced the Book of
Mormon--it went well but trying to draw connections to Judaism
was harder than I thought. The number of Muslims I've taught far
outweighs the number of Jews I've taught on my mission. That evening
we were asked to come to a piano concert at the church. Every year one
of the members of the bishopric organizes a concert with a
professional pianist. It was crazy good! I thought the beautiful Steinway
was about to fall apart as this Ukrainian tickled the ivory. He played
concertos for two straight hours, no notes. I've never seen fingers
move that fast.
The next day we had the stake activity and then we had our district
leader council. With this council, we discussed the zone goals, how we
did last transfer, and set new ones. I felt like it was super
productive. I wish I would have had those meetings when I was a
district leader. Right afterwards we taught an English class. Thorsten
came as well as a woman named Christina. This woman was referred by a
missionary in Romania that Elder Adams had met in the MTC. She had
gone to his English class there. The world is soooo small!
Last preparation day we went to the HSV stadium, Volksparkstadion.
That was wicked cool although I was a bit bummed that they coved the
grass. It's the off season now so they just have concert after concert there.
That evening we met with Jafar. We broke it to him that he needs to
have at least 3 years of residency before he can be baptized and he took
it like a champ. He's a super dude. We decided that we're going to help him
focus on deepening his knowledge of the scriptures. He agreed to going
chapter by chapter in the Book of Mormon. We got through one verse that day...
Hahaha. It's good though. We led the ping pong activity at Family Home
Evening activity that night.
Tuesday we got registered in Hamburg. I was even able to navigate my way
into unregistering at the same time! It was such a weird request that
they took me to the from of the line and the woman got it done for me
in about 15 minutes. That's the deal in Germany. You register in the
city you live in, giving them your address and showing that you have
permission to live there. When you move out of the country, you have
to unregister. I'm making sure I get it right, just in case I have to
apply for another visa in Germany at some point in my life. That
evening we planned our lessons at zone training meeting.
Wednesday we had interviews with president and zone training meeting.
Our first lesson was solid. We talked about our zone goals, living up
to our potential, and 1st Corinthians 13. The second went alright--we
just presented a new idea to get referrals from members. The third
lesson was not very satisfying. It was about accountability but I
don't know...I don't think it flowed well. Afterwards we traded companions
with the Lauenburg Elders. I was with Elder Winkel. He's a great guy
and also long on the mission--he goes home next transfer. We had
another lesson with Jafar that night discussing the second chapter of
the Book of Mormon. That went swimmingly! Here's our Hamburg zone:
Thursday morning Elder Winkel and I went street contacting and met a
new guy that was super nice and sounded like he had moderate interest
in what we had to share. He had the week off so he invited us to come
over the next night. Before we exchanged back, we met with Thorsten
and taught the plan of salvation. It went really well, especially that
it clicked for him how important agency is and that commandments don't
take away our agency. That evening Elder Adams and I met with
Henrietta and talked about using the scriptures to raise children. We
attended ward council at the end of the day. Street contacting:
That man Elder Winkel and I met stood us up. First of all he gave
us the wrong address but we found him on that street and then he hung
up on us when we buzzed him. That's always super disappointing. That
evening we met with Bismarck, a member from Ghana who cooked tilapia
for us.
Saturday we played soccer and had our English class again. Thorsten
and Christina came and Christina brought a friend! That's exactly what
the classes are for. I really like it because they all can speak pretty well
so what we do is pick out an article from the Ensign, read it, discuss
it, and ask reading comprehension questions. Two for one--English
class and a gospel lesson.
I'm excited for my last full week in the field. I want to thank all my
family and friends for reading my letters and keeping up with me.
Hopefully you have seen growth and development. I can say that it
has been a wonderful, uplifting experience and the best two years for
a lifetime. I will always remember the experiences and lessons. I'm
excited to come home and begin a new chapter.
Much love,
Elder Tanner Germann
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