Just chuggin' along in Berlin

Hey fam and friends!

I'm just chuggin' along here in Berlin. We are slowly making progress.

Monday night we went back to the Christian community for a woman's
birthday party. She was really happy we came. Unfortunately, I don't
think we will go back because we we haven't really made progress there
with anyone. One of the Assistants to the President actually grew up in a 
community like that in Canada before he was baptized. He really wants to 

go meet the American girl that is there but we called off that visit.

Tuesday morning someone finally came and fixed our water heater. We
had been without warm water for about two weeks.

District meeting on Wednesday went alright. I like the idea of running
it like a companion study to exchange ideas and better our study time 
but it needed refining. I switched companions with the Frankfurt Oder
elders afterwards. I went there with Elder Greaves. We went to a
lesson with one of their investigators. He is the boyfriend of a less
active member. He is a stud guy. We talked for awhile about the Air
Force because he served in the DDR Air Force. They fed us some of the
elk that he shot last week for dinner. Super tasty. We taught the
restoration. I really liked the approach Elder Greaves came up with.
We taught the first lesson backwards--beginning with the Book of
Mormon and ending with God is our Heavenly Father. The man liked it,
asked good questions.

Thursday we stood on the border of Poland. The missionaries in this area
are allowed to go there if they have an investigator.

Friday was a super good day of appointments. We met with one guy we
just found on a list of contacts. We also had an appointment with a
man we met at church. We thought he was a member but turns out he
never got baptized. He is a strong Catholic but has been coming to our
church for the past 10 years. I'm excited to start teaching him. We
also had an appointment with the German girl where we finally got her
to open up more. We read in John 10:3 and Nephi 11 and then watched the
Mormon Message 'Hope of God's Light'. She said she could really relate
to that video. She then proceeded to pose a bunch of questions so we
were able to touch on things like the temple.

Saturday was the baptism of the sisters' investigator. The ward was on
a temple trip so the turn out was not great. Elder Glissmeyer was
asked to baptize him and I was asked to give the talk. I took 15 or so
minutes. I related the story of Alma's conversion/Mosiah 18. I then
encouraged him to write down that night how he felt that day and also
to do the same Sunday night after his confirmation. I also shared a
pair of personal experiences. I think it turned out well. We went by a
less active member's house that night who said he really wanted to come 
back to church and committed to come next Sunday.

 
Yesterday I was able to participate in the confirmation. In Sunday
school we talked about the sacrament and what it means to take upon
ourselves the name of Christ. I referred to my old license plate for an
example--MORMON! We also had our ward mission correlation meeting last night.

Today we went over to Potsdam! Check out the gorgeous Prussian palaces!

Love,

Elder Tanner Germann