September 13, 2015

Hey family!

Es geht mir gut und dir? Diese Woche war sehr gut! Danke. Und wie war deine Woche? 

We just had our transfer call this last week but I am staying in Hagen for another six weeks. I think the next transfer is on my birthday. So I still have some time here. We are trying to start up some new activities. We are staring soccer next Saturday for all the less active YSA kids. And maybe we will start a Family Home Evening group as well. 

But yeah, this week was good we had a few member appointments and we spent some time looking for spots to chalk the plan of salvation on the ground. We are going to have the youth do it so that should be cool. We also went around and found soccer fields.

We are trying to get better with our contacts. We were just inviting people to church and they would say they would come but no one has, so we are trying now to make out appointments and get numbers. I was talking to Brother Kramer’s wife, Lilo, about it and she was a pro. She teaches sales people at Tupperware where she works. She was too good so maybe we can get a lesson from her sometime. 

We met an Italian lady and her daughter on the street she pointed at us and said to her daughter "See I told you they’re Mormons", so we talked to them for a bit.  The daughter thought we were city people but the mom told her we were Mormons. She had only seen our backs too. It was really cool but once again, we didn't make an appointment out. She told us she would visit though. 

Oh yeah, I have to give a five minute talk next Sunday. I am kind of nervous. It's on praying to recognize through the Holy Ghost. Hopefully it goes well. It's only five minutes. I think the bishopric guy thinks I don't understand too well. I do understand more than I can say but it was super funny he asked me about three times about it and said no more than five minutes about five times and then he also sent me an email to make sure I got it. Then on Sunday he asked me if I got the email and understood it all. Haha. Yeah so if you have any pointers for me you can email me them through the week. 

Man I do miss snow. They don't get much here. The leaves are barely turning yellow also. I miss Alaskan winters. I got the pictures. Thanks for those. I sent you some more of my awful selfies.  No more engagements don't worry Haha.  The zoo we went to is in Dortmund and the castle is on the same river as the big horse statue just further west. West of Herdecke. Our area is huge and makes for tough traveling. I can get a ticket called the fun ticket for 17€ a month and it gets me everywhere and Elder Freeland can't because he is 21 so he has to pay about 14€ just to get to Iserlohn and back.

Well I love you all so much and can't wait to skype you! Have a good week and keep reading the scriptures! 

Devin 

September 6, 2015

Hey family! 

So I don't really go into depth on who we are teaching because I think it's illegal to share information about other people over the internet here in Germany. So yeah deswegen (that is why), and if they see stuff on the blog thing they might get upset. 

But anyways everyone is doing well. Alli left to Syria for a month, so we won't be seeing him for a while. And we haven't been able to make it out to the Italian guy. Manuela is doing well.  We met with her and Brother Kramer Saturday and had a good lesson about prayer, fasting and personal revelation. It went really good and Brother Kramer is super nice. He is always joking around but then he is good at bringing it back and being serious. 

Our goal isn't going to good. We are kind of slacking a bit on that. But we are getting better at talking to people, not more people, but holding a conversation and trying to help others come closer to Christ. We talked to a guy on the street and we thought he didn't speak German because I asked if he wanted to meet sometime and he just said yeah. Normally no one says yeah. So we thought he didn't understand but then he started talking to us more and he really did seem interested so hopefully we can meet Thursday.

Monday we did that other move and the lady did live on the third floor, but she had an elevator so it took zero time. It was way better. It did suck having to take a train all the way to Witten though. 

Also this week, I got proposed to. There was some girl walking with her two friends and I think she said "missionaries!" and then she got on one knee and asked if one of us wanted to get married. I told her not yet and she looked a little sad. Haha it was super weird. 

I am getting your pictures and I did get the video. Thanks that was cool. I can't believe they already have the bridge done. I remember when it was just that big pile of dirt. 

Well it sounds like the fair is going good. I miss fair food. It is just the same every year but it's so good, but that's okay. Today we are going to a member’s house and he is making us his famous lasagna. It's so good. 

Quick question for you. What is the purpose of a ward council and what do you think we can do as missionaries to make it a more effective use of time. Well we taught this one guy. (I don't want to share his name) but it was a really good experience for me. I haven't done too much teaching out here but that was awesome it makes me really want to teach again. He had actually read and he had questions for us. He had real legit questions from his life that he needed help with. We told him about the Holy Ghost and how God will help you know what's right and wrong, and he asked us why he did bad things in his life. It was a way cool experience and what I liked best was he had questions that he had seemed to have actually have pondered about, not just stupid try and prove us wrong or get us stuck questions. It's kind of hard sometimes I got a little frustrated talking to a guy on a street. I asked him if he wanted to learn more and he asked me if I wanted to learn more about his church and I didn't answer right away and so he said "see you have your religion I have mine you don't want to learn about mine why do I want to learn about yours." It was kind of dumb but I just need to be better at telling people I do want to learn more and add on to what they already have. But oh well I guess there is always next time. 

Hey mom, there are definitely a million refugees here. And no we haven't had any more moves. You would think the refugees would hear us out but most of them are already Muslim and think that Jesus is just a prophet. So it doesn't go too far. The leaves here are all still green but it's definitely getting a little colder here, which is good. It was such a hot summer. Well see you all later! 

Auf Wiedersehen! 

Devin