Congratulations and best wishes to them and their marriage.
I need to try and sum up the last two weeks in this email. The last
week of the transfer flew by. We had a service project, we had zone
conference, and we had transfer calls. The service project was helping
a family in the ward move. It was extremely well organized, probably
the best I've been to on my mission. Zone conference was an uplifting
experience with Elder Adler of the Seventy. The topic of discussion
was sacrifice and offering what we can do to be more obedient to
the Lord's commandments. Elder Adler gave a super pump-up talk at the
end promising lots of blessings, even leaps and bounds of success in
the next month if we commit ourselves to improving. We did take some time
to see some sights in Hamburg:
Saturday morning we received transfer calls--Elder Adams and I are staying
together until I leave. On the 27th I will jump on a train to Berlin at about
noontime and Elder Adams will spend the last ten days or so of the
transfer in a dritt (triple) with the Langenhorn elders. He has no problem with
that because many friends and his grandmother are in that ward. Not
too many changes in the zone except that Elder Pilling is spending his
last transfer in the neighboring area, Altona, so I'll get to work
with him one more time! Everything comes full circle. My first comp in
Luebeck, Elder Jensen, is now in Langenhorn. He broke both arms in a
bike accident last transfer and is now referred to as Elder C3PO.... Every
once in a while, I get to cook for me and my companion:
Last Sunday I spoke in church about 3 Nephi 27:27 and connected making
covenants with becoming like Him. It went well. As I was preparing my
talk, I realized that Elder Bednar's talk from this past general
conference was basically the talk I wanted to give.
Last preparation day we went to the Miniature Wonderland which was super
cool and to Globetrotter, which is a German version of REI. Super cool. I was
in charge of Family Home Evening last week and was asked to talk about
the Academy and how I decided to go on a mission. I showed a bunch of pics
from basic training, throughout the year, soloing in the glider, and opening my
mission call. I think it was a pretty foreign for the Germans but very
cool to see that you can be a member of the Church and still come from
all walks of life.
We were in the train station almost all of Wednesday directing the
flow of missionaries transferring. In a perfect world, missionaries
would tell us when they're coming and when they're leaving and the
platform numbers but that never happens. In the middle of the day we
took a kid that showed up to church last week to a dinner
appointment. The young man is from Hawaii and his uncle sent him here to
Hamburg for a month to get to know the city. The brother who fed us is
from Ghana/Togo and made fufu, a classic African meal. It's
essentially a sticky mashed potato ball with a spicy soup and meat.
The meat that we ate was goat. Oh and you eat everything with your
hands. Pretty cool.
Wednesday night we had an appointment fall through but I was able to
interview the girl who got baptized in Langenhorn yesterday. She is
nineteen and has been living with her best friend's family, a member
family. She was super ready and was one of the best interviews I've
done. Baptismal interviews are one of my favorite things from the
mission. These people are so ready to be baptized and are glowing with
happiness. Unfortunately we weren't able to make the baptism because
we were coming back from Dresden.
Wednesday night I wrote a report for president on developing a culture
of finding in the mission. Last month at Mission Leader Conference (MLC) I
raised the concern thatthe attitude towards contacting in the mission is
not good. I have heard way too many missionaries say that they don't like
contacting or their trainer told them they don't like contacting so they've never
did it/still don't do any contacting. That makes me sick. So with the
help of Elder Adams, I wrote this report (I'll send it in a second
email) and gave it to president. It addresses my concerns,
specifically towards my missionaries and the stories are stories from
my mission.
We left Thursday afternoon to go to MLC in Freiberg. We spent the
night in Dresden and then rode the train over to Freiberg in the
morning. The meeting went well. The topic of discussion was being the
leader you're called to be and helping your people. President asked me
to bear my testimony at the end, especially since this was my last
MLC. I talked a little about my conversion story and my experience on
the mission and then connected that to developing a culture of finding
in the mission. It was a wonderful moment for me and I was really
feeling the spirit. Elder Nearon, who has been absolutely killing it
and just became ZL in Berlin, stood up right after me and gave a
second testimony to what I said. He told the story of finding Angelica
in Marzahn on our first day together and said that our transfer
together changed his mission. That was really special for me. Here is
the temple in Freiberg:
Since we couldn't get back to Hamburg that night, we stayed the
night again in Dresden and jumped on a train in the morning. We had a
wicked solid lesson with the guy from Ghana, Thomas, who came to
church a couple of weeks ago. He was asking really good questions that
lead perfectly into the restoration. We invited him to be baptized and
he said yes. We need to work more with him though in order to set a
date.
We had stake conference yesterday which was one of those broadcasted
ones. The speakers were Elder Christofferson, Bishop Causee, and Elder
Kearon. The talks were really good and focused on the family, the
blessings of the temple, and helping refugees.
We've finally have a normal week this week where we can get a bunch of
stuff in our area done. Take care everyone.
Elder Tanner Germann
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