Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers out there!  Especially my mom!  Love you, Mom! <3 p="">

It was a great week because I got to Skype the family yesterday.  All five siblings were together online!

 

Here are a couple of other highlights from the week:

 

On Wednesday we had the last district meeting of the transfer.  I got a little creative and used the Easter egg dye that mom sent me as part of my lesson.  Every companionship had two eggs.  On the first egg, each companionship wrote one thing that they wanted to focus on, whether it be finding, teaching, or helping people make/keep commitments.  On the second egg they wrote the number of baptisms they wanted to achieve in their area by the end of June.  Everyone got to take them home and keep them on their desks as a reminder.  Ha Ha, of course until they start to stink. Elder Despain's and my eggs are still good.  We are doing well as companions--here are a couple of pics:

That afternoon we hit some area book contacts.  The person at the first door that we knocked on let us in and was super excited to see us.  He was a nice old man and after sitting and chatting a little bit, getting to know each other, we made an appointment to go back next week.

 

Wednesday night we went over to Michael's apartment and committed him to baptism.  He is from Nigeria.  He really likes the church and he wants to be baptized.  He just needs to commit himself to coming to church regularly.  We are in daily contact with him.  

 

We had a really good lesson with Peter and Lars on Thursday.  Lars is the guy that Peter brought to church last week.  They both came to family home evening at a members house Monday night.  Lars doesn't believe in God but is willing to find out if he exists. Peter acted like a member during our lesson.  He did a good job.  I just want him to say he wants to be baptized!  We taught the plan of salvation.

 

Friday morning we retaught the lesson on the Godhead to Nanakofi.  After weekly planning, we went and had an lunch appointment/service project in a member's garden.  We were tilling the ground with shovels...not the most efficient work.

 

Saturday we decided to get out of Bremen and do some contacting in Delmenhorst.  It was a ghost town.  Not sure why.  We ended up going by several less-active members' homes but no one was home.  Kind of a discouraging day.  On the way home, we did a little window shopping....:

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!  Take care!

 

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann

No baptism this week

Hey y'all!

 

The sad news this week is that Nanokofi's baptism didn't happen.  We are going to take some more time to prepare him and hopefully have him ready in the future.  Though that was a bummer, it did not put a damper on a pretty solid week.

 

We met with Peter on Tuesday and had a super good lesson about the temple/baptisms for the dead/the resurrection.  It was really awesome--we basically had one big scripture study session with him taking scriptures from the Bible and the Book of Mormon.  He was really impressed and said he was so amazed; those scriptures in the Bible had never stood out to him like that before.  He is doing really well.  He brought a neighbor to church yesterday and they are coming to Family Home Evening at a member's house tonight.  He said he is still praying about the Book of Mormon and the church.

 

At English class that evening I had a great conversation with one of the regulars.  He has been coming for over a year now consistantly but is athiest.  Basically every week we just talk, in English, because he is pretty capable.  This past week I led the conversation into a discussion about the meaning of life and talked about the plan of salvation the whole time.  He said he was interested in furthering the conversation in the coming weeks!

 

We had a really good district meeting on Wednesday.  We discussed how one goes about changing his nature and then we read Alma 8 together.  I got really good feedback on it.  People said it really felt like we were all there supporting one another in the district.  Here are some pictures of the team:

 

 

Thursday morning we helped a member move and then that evening we exchanged companions with the Bremerhaven elders.  Elder Pilling and I taught some great lessons.  We met with Panja, a less-active member that wants to get back into activity in the church.  He asked about living a disciplined life and so we talked about starting with the basics--pray, read, church.  We read in the Book of Mormon with Joshua and talked about receiving answers to prayers.  That afternoon we exchanged back and visited Grace.  We set a baptismal date with her for the 23rd of May!!

 

Saturday was an interesting day.  We got a referral in a town on the other side of our area near Hannover.  We went out there.  The town was beautiful.  The referral was actually a wrong number and the member that we tried to see there didn't actually live there but walking 5km both ways was good exercise.  We had a fantastic lesson with a less-active member that evening.  Suffice it to say, everyone felt the Spirit really strongly there.  It's hard work but I love being a missionary.

 

Looking forward to more progress this week!

 

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann

BERLIN!!

Hey y'all!  I had a lot of fun this week.  We had some good experiences and got to spend some time in Berlin.

 

We have spent this past week and will spend this coming week prep'ing Nanakofi for his baptism on Saturday.  We will be meeting with him everyday up until then.  We are so excited for him and he is excited, too.  

 

On Tuesday we had a lesson with Joshua.  Finally we got his mom Doris to sit in the lesson.  We read in John 10 where Jesus says, "I have other sheep not of this fold," and then we gave them a Book of Mormon and read with them the beginning of 3 Nephi 11, when Christ visits the Americas.  They were amazed and really interested.  They both commited to reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. 

 

We had a good day of contacting on Wednesday.  We found a family from our area book and we got in touch with two university students from the other elders' area.  

 

Thursday morning we got up and jumped on a train with the other missionaries in the district to Berlin.  DeutscheBahn was striking again but we were able to get there without too much hassle.  We had an awesome day of sight-seeing in Berlin.  We visited Brandenburger Tor, the Jewish Memorial, the Berliner Dom, the East Side Gallery, and more.  That night we stayed in the Tiergarten apartment with 8 other missionaries.  Here are some of my pictures from Berlin:

 

 

 

Friday morning we got up and went to the Tiergarten chapel for the mission conference.  It was really nice to see a bunch of friends from my last area/the Missionary Training Center. 

 

The conference was great.  Two Seventies (general authorities of the Church) were there to present technology in missionary work.  We are going to receive iPads in two weeks apparently.  This whole idea is totally inspired.  The idea behind iPads is not only to further missionary work, reach more people, ease of use, etc. but it is also to teach missionaries good habits online and safeguarding from the evils that can be accessed on the Internet.  The Seventies talked about inoculating our generation from the evils of pornography, just like his generation was inoculated from smoking and drinking.  Really cool!

Saturday we were in lessons all day.  Our ward mission leader joined us with Sin-Gu.  We are trying to help him pray to receive an answer about the Book of Mormon.  We also sketched out a plan with a less-active member on how to get to the temple by Christmas.

 

Yesterday at church Grace asked me, "So when is my baptism?"  It would be great to see her baptized by the end of the transfer (end of May).  Peter came to church too.  He loved sacrament meeting.  He said he hadn't been to a sacrament service in a long time.  He also referred his friend and godson to the Oldenburg missionaries.  He is a super missionary!

 

This week should be exciting!

 

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann