Greetings all! This week we were finally able to meet with a less-active member, Mandy, who kept cancelling our appointments with her. We met her in a park by the church. She was so nice! She was baptized a couple years ago but then right after, she was diagnosed with a siezure disorder and would go into the hospital for months at a time. She still has lots of siezures but she is able to work as part of the handicapped workforce here in Magdeburg. She says she still reads the Book of Mormon everyday but she can't come to church because she lives way up on the north side of the city and the bahns (trains) hardly come on Sundays. I was thinking, "WHAT?! SHE'S NOT ABLE TO COME TO CHURCH BECAUSE SHE DOESNT HAVE A RIDE?!" We can certainly help with that. So we are working out a carpool so she can come to church.
Saturday afternoon we had a lesson with Claudius, a less-active member. We shared the First Presidency message out of the Liahona magazine with him about praying with real intent. We committed him to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is the word of God and he actually agreed to say the closing prayer! Progress!
Saturday were transfer calls--that's where missionaries get transferred to other areas. It happens every six to eight weeks but there isn't always a change. It's unusual if a missionary and his trainer are separated during the first transfer so you can imagine I was really shocked to hear that Elder Meeks would not be finishing my training and was being transferred to Flensburg on the Denmark border.
My new companion is Elder Sagmeister, a native German from Passau in Bavaria. He is the fourth of seven children so basically his family makes up a good portion of their congregation down there. He has only one sister and she is the youngest. His older brothers have either gone on or are still on their missions. He is now 13 months into his mission. He knew no English when he got here. He's had to learn since I am his fourth American trainee. He really knows what he is doing and he is the best finder in the mission. We found nine new investigators this week! We get along very well. He has a lot of drive like me. We speak German a lot! He doesn't know grammar rules since it's his mother tongue but he is always willing to teach me how to put a sentence together and pronouce words. That's one thing I have been working on so I don't sound too American. He says that my German is already very good but I don't know about that. I have been helping him with English, too. He can get his thoughts across but it's kinda rough at times. I am starting to see progress in my language ability. I can understand everything in lessons and when we talk to people on the street. I don't know every word but I at least know what they're talking about so that is super exciting! Now I just need to work on being able to put sentences together faster. I am kind of OCD about my grammar so it's like nails on a chalkboard when I hear myself make a mistake but I am able to correct it for the most part.
I picked him up in Leipzig on Tuesday. Last Sunday I played the prelude music for sacrament meeting. Elder Romney said I am the priesthood pianist and the backup ward organist. A sister has began to play in sacrament meeting. She does well but she is super nervous so I told her that I can play a couple songs so she is not as stressed. She was so happy to hear that. President Kosak gave me permission to practice during the week now. I came down with a cold last weekend. We went to an dinner appointment Monday night and after about 45 minutes of hearing me blow my nose they sent us home. But I got a priesthood blessing by Brüder Wloka and Elder Meeks. Brüder Wloka gave the blessing. It was pretty cool to get a blessing in German. I am feeling much better now.
Tuesday morning I put Elder Meeks on a train to Flensburg and them I got on one to Leipzig. The Zone Leaders met me there. My new ZL is an Air Force Academy cadet! He is a 2016er from Squadron 5, The Wolf Pack. We are best friends now! He is a lefty too and wants to fly C-17s like me! Elder Sagmeister and I got on a train to Magdeburg and then we went right to Branch Mission Council when we got there.
Wednesday made me realize how a day could really go in the mission field--we found five new people! We went finding for six hours and talked to everyone we saw. Then we went up to the university to visit some contacts. We made an appointment for tomorrow with someone we found listed in our area book. Then around campus three Indian men asked us what we do so we told them and they agreed to meet with us! We are going to bring them copies of the Book of Mormon in Hindi. We went to an appointment that evening but it fell through so we continued to do some contacting and found a Lithuanian kid who was really nice. He spoke hardly any German and no English but he was excited to hear that we had a book about Jesus Christ in Lithuanian. He told us to come over the next day.
Thursday morning our appointment with two of the Indian guys from the day before fell through which is unfortunate but we are going to go by their apartment again this week. We left a note in their mailbox--we figured it was theirs since it was the only non-German last name in their building.... Our appointment also fell through with the Lithuanian kid. I think the language barrier might have had something to do with it. He said 13 Leipziger Str. but that was abandoned so we went to 30 thinking he meant that but that was also abandoned and halfway torn down. So he is kind of lost at this point which is also super disappointing. I stopped and talked to an old woman on the street an she talked to me for like 30 minutes. She told me all about how she prays every night for her husband who is not religious and is in the hospital. She cried to me right there on the street. It was so sad. I told her we would be willing to help her in anyway that we can. I gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and testified that I know that families can be together forever.
Later on that evening we talked to a Bulgarian family. The mother speaks no German so the son translated. There's a 16 year-old and an 8 year-old. They were really excited to hear about our message so we set up an appointment with them for the next day! Thursday night we went to Brüder Titigue's house for a power visit, one of those 15 minute visits with members where we share a spiritual thought and ask how we can help with their missionary work. I guess I didn't explain the concept too well because when we showed up he was disappointed to not see the other two elders with us and he also made us all dinner. So it turned into a dinner appointment! He is a super nice guy. He loaded our plates. Elder Sagmeister could not finish so when Brüder Titigue left the room, I ate the rest of his food. Afterwards we stopped a guy on the street and he was also excited to hear about the Book of Mormon so we made an appointment with him for this week. We had fun talking to another man on the bahn home. He tried to speak English with us. We told him we could help him learn more and invited him to church.
Friday we had district meeting. There is a new missionary in Köthen who actually went to Elder Morton's high school. Saturday we did weekly planning in the morning and then jumped in the car with Brüder Wloka to Leipzig--stake conference. The adult session was good saturday night. I didn't understand all of it. It is hard to sit for two hours and try to understand all that is said. They spoke so fast. Saturday night we stayed in Leipzig and then Sunday morning went to Stake Conference in a concert hall they rented. Good talks from what I understood. President Kosak spoke on hastening the work. We had a nice tour of the German countryside with the Romneys on the way home. Literally, they turned a two hour drive into three. But they are awesome! Last night we had a really good lesson with Kolja on prophets and the Restoration. We extended the invitation to be baptized. After going back and forth for 15 minutes, he couldn't bring himself to agree on a date but he did say that if he received an answer to his prayers, he would be baptized. I am confident that he will be baptized by the end of the year.
Han, the girl who had a baptismal date, all of the sudden took a job in Bremen and moved there this week. I am sad but the Elders there will take care of her.
It was a fun week! Lots of excitement. Elder Sagmeister is teaching me how to be persistant but personable and loving! Looking forward to another great week! Take care all!
Elder Germann
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