Auf wiedersehen Magdeburg, ich fahre nach Bremen!

Ganz kurz today because I am running out of time, but this week was crazy!

I went on an exchange with Elder Glissmeyer in Köthen on Tuesday.  We had a lesson with a man from the Middle East.  We got out of there as soon as he said, "There is so much war and killing at home and I know that it is all because of the Americans."  Wasn't going to stick around for anymore of that.  I mean, we were obviously Americans so....

 

Following district meeting on Wednesday we had an appointment with Arianis, the Albanian boy we met last week.  He lives in an orphanage for teenage boys from war-torn countries.  We had a good lesson, he committed to reading the Book of Mormon.  I am not sure how serious he was about it though.  All of his friends came down and sat in on the lesson which was awesome but they were a little distracting.  Here are the pictures from district meeting--going to miss these Elders! 

 

We got a call from Elder Morton that evening to drop everything and go to the hospital because President Romney had a heart attack.  We showed up there right away and were able to give him a priesthood blessing.  We were expecting him to be unconscious or something but no--he was his normal, funny self.  He was even trying to sit up for the blessing.  What happened was not a full on heart attack--a blood clot passed through his heart.  However, they still have him in the hospital because he has clots in his legs.  He is on blood thinners and will hopefully be out tomorrow.  Dad--here is a picture from the hospital--shout out to your company, a Hill-Rom bed!!

 

The rest of the week was a little crazy from then on.  Elder Morton and Elder Gibbs were in charge of the Romney's car and driving Sister Romney everywhere she wanted/needed to go.  They came to our lesson with Fadi Thursday night.  Basically we had to reteach the same lesson again.  He said he had tried to read but he stopped because it was "boring."  And he won't read out of the Arabic version but he doesn't understand the English so...a little frustrating.

 

Friday we found an excellent new investigator who we then met with Saturday morning.  He was really receptive to the Restoration and committed to reading/praying about the Book of Mormon.  Hopefully he does!

Saturday we got transfer calls.  I am leaving Magdeburg after six months and going to Bremen!  I will be the district leader there.  Bremen is big.  There are four elders and two sisters there.  Then we have two more elders and two more sisters in the nearby town of Bremerhaven who are also in our district.  Should be really fun.  Elder Pilling, my friend from my district at the Missionary Training Center, actually spoiled it for me.  He called me that morning and said, "NO WAY, YOU'RE MY NEW DISTRICT LEADER?!"  They had called my new companion and told him and then he told Pilling and then Pilling called me before the mission president's assistants did.  Pretty exciting.  My new companion and I are whitewashing (both coming in new to the area).  So he was in the second companionship there in Bremen, but the other two elders are being transferred so he and I are taking over that first area.  Should be interesting since neither of us really know the teaching pool.

 

I am really going to miss working in the same district as Elder Morton.  We were companions in the Missionary Training Center and have been in the same district the first six months here in Magdeburg--very unusual to spend so much time working together but it has been great!

And of course the highlight of my time here in Magdeburg was helping teach Johanna who got baptized a few weeks back.  What a blessing for her and for me to be a part of that.

 

Well, I am on a train to Bremen at 0900 tomorrow. I am excited to update you next week!

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann

False addresses

Hello again, family and friends. Another week here in Germany has completely flown by. Before we know it, it will be March already! Elder Oldroyd and I had a frustrating week of work.

 

Monday afternoon following emails the four of us missionaries went to the barber shop and got haircuts. It always feels good to be clean cut. That evening we had an appointment with a Brazilian man that we met last week. The address he had given to us was false. That has pretty much been the story for most of the new investigators we and the other companionship have found the last few weeks.  It is so frustrating.

 

Tuesday we had a jam packed day. Following study we had an appointment with Patrick. The last time we had met with him was two weeks ago. He had read the chapter in the Book of Mormon that we had assigned him to read (2 Nephi 31) and he had many questions about it. He began with, "I am a bit critical about what it says here."  Which is totally fine because that means he really studied it. We had an awesome lesson, probably my best with Elder Oldroyd.  I thought we really asked inspired questions and allowed Patrick to answer with his heart. By the end we had conveyed to him the Plan of Salvation and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ fits into that. It was really cool. At the end he said that it had all made sense and he committed to pray about the Book of Mormon. He prayed to be open to receiving the gospel. We then were supposed to go and have a lesson with Daniel. We got to Schönebeck but they never showed up. I called and they said their family was going to the movies instead. I stayed calm. But something is holding Daniel back and we don't know what it is. More to come later on that.  We came back and taught German and English class and had a meeting with our branch mission leader to discuss current investigators. We finally got material to teach an English class! Now we don't have to make it up anymore. Still making up German class as we go though.

 

Wednesday we had a really good day of contacting. The night before in our meeting with our branch mission leader, he gave us a ward list and asked us to go through at our own pace and try to find the whereabouts of each person—wheather the address is still good, etc. The other two missionaries had started that last week and we even tried it last Saturday too but this week we really hit it hard and it turned out to be successful. We had picked an area of the city to go to and then we went through and plotted where every less-active member lived in that area as well as all of the former investigators in our area book.  With that, we found three new investigators Wednesday. The three were found by street contacting between addresses. It was really quite effective and we were able to get a read on several less-active members and former investigators in order to update our records. We then had a lesson with Fadi, who brought his roommate into the lesson which was awesome. (The problem was, they lit up a massive hooka thing and smoked that the entire lesson.) Fadi is the one we found a couple of weeks ago that was a former investigator of Elder Morton. He is from Syria and because of the wars there, doesn't believe in God but wants to. That is the key. We taught the Restoration. It was very interesting to him and he had so many questions. We committed him to reading and praying but he refused to say a prayer in front of his friend.  He also requested that Elder Morton come to the next lesson. Elder Morton had a profound impact on Fadi when he met him the first time and talked about what we believe. We are all going over there on Thursday for a lesson.

 

Thursday we tried the same type of plotting/contacting but not with as much success. The areas we went to had fewer people on the streets and half of the people we visited didn't live at those addresses anymore. We were supposed to have a lesson with a Russian that we met on the street the other day but guess what—false address. So then we went to our appointment with Johanna; we covered half of the commandments. Elder Oldroyd did a fine job leading that lesson.

 

Friday morning we were up early to catch a train to Leipzig. I thought zone training meeting went very well. Kind of the theme for the meeting was Galatians 5:22-23 which has become one of my favorite scriptures to use in lessons to talk about the Spirit. The Zone Leaders had assigned a couple of companionships to take some time to teach how a companionship should prepare for a lesson, plan/role play, and then execute. We also had interview with President Kosak. My interview was low stress. He had me teach him a five minute version of the Plan of Salvation. I am sad that his time as mission president ends in June. At the end of the meeting President quoted Joseph Smith History 1:29 and encouraged us to find out where we stand before God and what we can do better. Zone Training Meeting went longer than we expected so we missed our train. Finally we got back into town and fortunately Marion, Galia, and Rafael were still willing to have us over. They said they have been receiving some ridicule from there friends about the church and had tough questions about Joseph Smith and polygamy. Really, though, I thought we answered them exactly how Preach My Gospel and the prophets today tell us. Elder Bednar used polygomy as an example in a talk.  He said simply, quote the eighth article of faith and explain that polygamy was a revelation given to a prophet and then was taken away by a revelation through a prophet. As it says in Preach My Gospel, help your investigators see that the real question is, is the Book of Mormon true?  Because if the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith was a prophet. That is why the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. And that is how you teach DOCTRINE.

 

Saturday no one was able to play soccer so we did our weekly planning instead. We went to the way northwest part of the city that morning, where I had never been, and the address that we were given for our appointment was false. We then went to go contact less-actives/former investigators in the area and found that the address on the branch list for one of the members didn't exist.   A real shame. That evening we went with the Romneys to the less-active woman we got in contact with a week or so ago—she wasn't home for our appointment. We consoled ourselves by going to dinner with the Romneys and the other two.  Here's the soccer field we play on sometimes:

 

Yesterday in church I taught the lesson in our Sunday School class. Marion bore his testimony again in there which was super cool.  My piano playing in Sacrament meeting went alright. Elder Morton was asked to speak last minute but he did a super job. Gotta always be ready! Daniel and his mother came to church. I had a conversation with them. Daniel just doesn't have the desire to be baptized. His mom doesn't encourage him because she is worried he will become less-active like his older brother. We need to really sit down with Daniel and see what is holding him back, why doesn't want this. He doesn't want to meet with us without his mom there and she always works so they said they have no time for us. We can't force him to do something he doesn't want to do, especially baptism. But AT LEAST can we meet with him?? AHHHH. We ate lunch at the Wlokas house and then had our study in the evening.

 

We are prepped for hopefully a less frustrating week with correct addresses! I am on an exchange with the other missionaries tomorrow in Köthen; I'll be with Elder Glissmeyer—should be a good time. This is the last week of the transfer which means we get transfer calls on Saturday.  I have been here in Magdeburg for six months...it might be my time to go. We shall see. I will let y'all know next Monday.

 

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann

It was really cold this week!

Hey family and friends! How are you doing? I hope you had a lovely week. Everything here went well for the most part. We are just chugging along.

 

Last Monday we had a good Preparation Day. We went to family home evening at the Wlokas' house with the other two missionaries. We ate some good speghetti and played that German version of SORRY again. I am losing my touch at board games because I lost miserably.

 

We had a successful day on Tuesday. After study, we went out finding and found a man from Afghanistan. We invited him to our German/Engish class that we were holding that night and he came! It was reeally frustrating though. He spoke no English and a little German so trying to teach him German without a language in common was nearly impossible. That afternoon we also went and visited the Winklers. They are 80 years old and have lived in Magdeburg forever.  Bro. Winkler has actually lived here his whole life and they live in the same house his grandfather built. Pretty cool. They met each other when Sis. Winkler served here on her mission in the 50's. They are super sweet and love the missionaries. She gave us egg salad to bring home which is to die for. I've been living off of that this whole week.

 

Wednesday we had district meeting per usual. The zone leaders came this week so I got to reminisce about USAFA with Elder Thorley. He's going home in early May because he still has to do summer programs at the Academy. After lunch we did a little finding competition. Elder Gibbs and Elder Morton took one side of the street and Elder Oldroyd and I took the other and whoever found an investigator first got ice cream from the other companionship. We won :) We won the last time we did it too but still haven't gotten ice cream yet. I am keeping a tally. You gotta love a friendly finding competition. That afternoon we had an appointment with Johanna. We talked about the temple and the blessings that come from it. She shared her experience of going to the temple for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Then we got her signed up on familysearch.org and got her started on her family history. She is really starting from square one. Familysearch.org didn't have any records from Cameroon. In addition, her dad really doesn't know many names of ancestors, let alone dates. The Romneys took us out to dinner that night. They are so nice!  Here's a picture of our district:

Thursday we coordinated with President Romney and made a surprise visit to the towns of Güterglück and Barby. Members there are not good with answering their phones/calling back so making surprise visits is the next best thing I guess. We were one for two. The one family in Güterglück was home but the Jaffkes in Barby were not. When I finally got a hold of Sis. Jaffke that night, she told me they were on vacation. (Right now the state of Saxon-Anhalt has two weeks of vacation). We made an appointment for tomorrow. Daniel's baptism is supposed to be this week but the last two weeks they have been scarce so I think we are going to have to move it back again. That afternoon we stopped by the church and one of the members of the branch (he is from Iran) was practicing the Iranian bagpipe. I was so confused. I didn't even know there was such a thing. He showed us some videos, though, of him and his brother. Apparently his brother is a professional bagpipe player? Who knew?  On the way home, we found a new investigator that afternoon as well.  Here are some pictures from the ferry ride to Güterglück:

 

Friday following weekly planning we had a lesson with Marion. It was a really awesome lesson, I think because it was just us three so there were no outside distractions. We fielded a lot of his questions about the Book of Mormon. He is in 2 Nephi now and scriptural language is quite difficult to understand. He asked questions like what is a burnt offering, what is Zion, why did God tell Nephi to kill Laban. We asked him how he felt after bearing his testimony last Sunday. He really opened up and said, I mean it. I know this is the direction I am supposed to go it. He told us about how this week his feet were hurting and so he prayed asking Heavenly Father to help stop his feet from hurting and the pain went away. They have also been praying as a family. They prayed together last week and asked that the move to a new apartment would go well. He was so suprised at how well it went and how happy everyone was to help. It is so cool that he is already having these experiences with prayer and recognizing that his prayers are being answered. So happy! :)

 

Saturday morning we had an appointment but it fell through. We thought it was a false address but we found out later that day that you had to ring under someone else's name.  We are going to go back though. But while we were trying to find that address we passed a crazy lady on the street. She took one look at us and said, "Get off of this street. Nobody wants to see you here ever again.“ Keep in mind, that was her response to me saying "Guten Tag!“ I responded very nicely, "No worries, we're just looking for someone here.“ She said, "I have lived here for 34 years. Nobody wants you here.“ At this point I was just like, wait this lady is serious. I said, "Uhh you're being really rude.“ To which she responded, "I'm not being rude, I'm just telling you to get lost.“ So that was my Saturday morning.  Marc came from Leipzig and bought us lunch. He is the person Elder Morton and I skyped with when we were in the Missionary Training Center in Provo. We were supposed to play soccer that afternoon but nobody said they could come so we did some contacting. We made one quick sweep of the main drag, found two new investigators and a couple of contacts, and then went and dug through our area book. We had a bunch of records from the same part of the city so we just went and visited those folks for the rest of the evening trying to see if they still lived at the same addresses. Most of the records came from 2008 and half of them don't live at the addresses anymore.

 

Yesterday we had church.  Playing the piano went well. One of the counselors from the stake presidency came and spoke and did a good job speaking about building on the rock of Christ. After church Marion and Galia invited the four missionaries over for lunch. We had potatoes, meat, and vegetables on this fondu type of thing. It's a combination between fondu and the Pizza Pizzaz maker. It was really yummy. Last night we were at the church and ended up sitting in on one of Elder Gibbs' and Mortons' lessons. It went really well.

 

This week it was super cold outside. It snowed a bit but it never really stuck and then it was gone in a couple hours. Hopefully this week will be a little warmer. Hopefully we can really get Daniel to the point where he is ready to be baptized this next week or next week. I hope everything is going well at home for everyone. Take care this week!

 

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann

Fast Sunday

Hallo liebe Familie, Brüder, und Schwestern! Ich hoffe alles gute! We had a really great week this past week. Lots of progress, plenty of new investigators, and lots of hard work.

 

On Monday we had our preparation-day per usual but it was Galia's 33^rd birthday so we had a birthday party for her! We held it at the church because they were still without power at their house. It turned out really well. The Romneys brought party hats, noise makers, and a cake. We had the ping pong, foosball, and air hockey tables out. Flor came with her daughter and also the other two elders so it was a very fun party. Everyone had a great time. She was very appreciative. She recorded Elder Morton singing and me playing the piano. Apparently the whole world saw that on Facebook and loved it.

Tuesday we had our appointment with Patrick, the guy that we found last Saturday night. The lesson went super well! He was genuinely interested, asked some really good questions, and in the end said the closing prayer. He has a Catholic background, which is very common for people of Polish descent. We have a return appointment in a week. That afternoon we were street contacting and found a new investigator named Fadi. We met him on campus and as he walked us back to his dorm he told us about how he met with missionaries two months ago. It didn't hit me until we left his dorm that he is the Fadi Elder Morton lost contact with a month ago because he moved! We were telling Fadi about the Book of Mormon and how its brought joy in our lives and he stopped us and said, "You know what's cool—you all say the same thing about this book. I want to have this joy in my life that you guys talk about.“ Thanks Elder Morton for planting the seed! ;) We had German and English class that night. I taught both. We don't have any material for the classes so I was just winging it. 

Wednesday morning we had district meeting--nothing new to report from there. Following lunch we went back to the church and helped Galia and Marion clean the church. Galia was a cleaning lady in Spain so she really knew what she was doing. We only stayed for an hour but apparently they were there for another two. The church really got a deep clean. We had an appointment with Claudius that afternoon to follow up on the activity he came to last week. We read 2 Nephi 31 and invited him to come to church, and really focus his thoughts on Christ. He wouldn't commit to it. It was kind of funny 'cause we were talking about how God and Christ are perfect and he said, "How do you know that?! It doesn't say that in the scriptures!" Elder Oldroyd said, "Let's check the scriptures." And then he read 3 Nephi 12:48 which is when Christ was among the Nephites and says that everyone should be perfect like he is and also like Father in Heaven is--it really helped him understand. That evening we went by and saw Mohammed. He said he had two friends that wanted copies of the Book of Mormon, too, so we said we would bring them by the next morning.

Thursday morning the appointment with Mohammed fell through.  But after that we had a really good day. We found three people street contacting, two of which are friends of Matheus, the really cool Brazilian guy for which the other two missionaries have a baptismal date. They are Brazilian as well and were super open to learning more. We went by Abduel that evening. He is the tailor that always invites us to come sit down in his shop and get a geography lesson of Kurdistan. We were planning on giving him a Book of Mormon but instead, we add his nephew to our investigator pool who was just sitting there too! We're meeting with Ibrahim this coming week. 

Friday we had weekly planning in the morning, we helped Marion take down the cabinets in his kitchen, and then we went to Johanna's for a lesson. We watched the video "The Restoration."  She loved it. She is doing well. That evening we went and visited a member.

Saturday was intense.  Tuesday night Marion told us that they were going to be moving apartments on Saturday. He had been complaining to the housemeister about the neighbor above him who is always drunk and crazy in the middle of the night and instead of talking to the neighbor, the housemeister went and gave Marion until Saturday to move out. Anyway, so we coordinated with President Romney to gets some members there to help. We got three members there and then the four missionaries. It took us from 0900 to 1500 but we got it done. The worst part about it was that their new apartment is on the sixth floor. I swear, one of the members that came just about passed out. Marion and Galia were very appreciative.

Yesterday there was literally only 15 people at church. Everyone is sick! Nevertheless, we had one of the best fast and testimony meetings ever. Johanna did a really nice job bearing her testimony and at the end Marion even got up! He said that he has been so grateful that he has gotten to know the church. Before he met the missionaries he did not believe in God and he did not believe that there were good people in the world. But now he knows that there is a God and that there are good people and he knows that this is the right course for him in his life. AHHHHHHH SO COOL! Afterwards he came up to me and said, "We gotta get me baptized!" We have some work to do first but that was the coolest thing ever. I'm so happy. He and Galia are really working on their friends. We are going to get with Flor this week and help motivate her to come to church. Marion says she has just been sleeping in. They are also introducing us to another friend this week! Yesterday afternoon we brought the sacrament to a couple in the branch who were sick. They were super appreciative. 

We are looking forward to another progressive week. I hope everyone is doing well at home. Take care.

Elder Tanner Germann