June 8, 2015

Dear Family,

 This week has been kind of slow.  On Tuesday, the day grandma, grandpa and Michelle got to the country; I went to Unna and had a split with Elder Morris. He is from Utah. He and I rode back to Hagen on the train and then we caught a bus out to the other Kleinert’s house and went and had lunch with them and talked to them about Preach My Gospel. It went pretty well. Preach My Gospel is really a good book and you guys should study it with the scriptures. It has a lot of different ways we can better ourselves. Like chapter 6 “Christ like attributes”. I really like that one.

After that we went to the Church and had English class. It went good also. It is hard teaching English to people who don’t know it. After that, Elder Morris and I walked around the city doing some contacting and then went home and had dinner.

The next day we had a district meeting and then went and got Dönners together. Then I went on a split with Elder Strong from Arizona and we went to Ludenscheid, which is in our area, to go by on less actives members. We went by on some different people and met with a guy in an old folk’s type home.  It was super weird and awkward. He didn’t want to talk with us so we kept trying to talk to him and yeah it got super awkward and finally we left and he told us not to come back.  It was kind of sad.

On the way to Ludenscheid, however, I started talking to a guy who is a school teacher in Hagen. He was really cool and I gave him a Book of Mormon. Don’t know if he will read it but I hope so.

Then on Thursday we split back and Elder Frickey and I went to the bishops to talk to him about people in the ward. We call it Gemiko here but I am not sure what the English translation is. We ended up having ice cream and sharing a thought with Bishop and his wife. It was good fun. Then he dropped us off at this park to do contacting along the river. It was way hot and I wanted to go swimming more than ever. It was 34 degrees Celsius. It was boiling hot on Thursday. I think that’s around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

The View from my window in Hagen

On Friday, we weekly planned and then went to Iserlohn another area we have, to go by on less-active. Then we had another appointment back in Hagen. We waited around a while for our appointment and then we texted him and he told us he forgot.

On Saturday we went to a guy who we had an appointment with but his kid answered and said he wasn’t at home, so we went by on a less active with no luck. Then a member picked us up from the train station and we went to an investigator nearby and had a lesson with her. It went really well and we had a good time. She is a lady from Brazil I think. After the lesson, we went and ate dinner at Kramer’s again and there was a missionary who was here 20 years ago who was visiting. We had a good time and ate steaks.

On Sunday we went to church and a member from Bulgaria showed up. The elders there called us and let us know she was coming. She didn’t speak German or English so we sat next to her and tried to make her feel welcome. She had a friend who spoke German so we could sort of communicate. Then we were going home to do our studies and Brother Kramer asked if we had an appointment for dinner. We told him no, so he invited us and the kids from another family over because their parents were gone. We had a good time and played football with Kramer’s son and a kid named Leon. It was awesome. After dinner, we went home did studies and then went by on a guy who didn’t answer the door and then went to bed. And now I am here emailing you guys. haha. So that was my week!

My goal this week is to read Mathew in the bible. I am a few chapters in but I got to finish it. Yes, kopf is head and Hitler’s book was mein kamp and that means my battle. I love the German people they are all cool and funny. Some are grouchy and mean though. I never get to go to the Temple here. You get to go at the end of your mission but they just said it will be closing this September, until July 2017.  That really stinks.  I don’t know why, but I have really wanted to go to the temple lately. I think maybe I have seen what a huge blessing it is to others and how I kind of take it for granted.  I realized now that our whole purpose in life is to try and be like Jesus and bring others to him. I gave a short lesson in a district meeting that we had and was talking about the missionary purpose and I realized that Alma went around his entire life trying to convert people and how he never really took a break. I realized that when I get home, it’s going be a long time before I die but I shouldn’t quit trying to share the gospel. I kind of thought if this really is the true church and we are saying its true why do we stop being missionaries after our missions. That’s just kind of one thing I got thinking about.

Well I miss you too and Love you guys all very much! Have a good week!

Devin