Monday, April 13, 2015

Die Weimar Republik!


Easter Zone Conference before Elder Foster's transfer to Weimar, Germany --where he is serving in the Germany Frankfurt mission.


Discretion- There will be a lot of random capitalized nouns because I am no longer using a Computer in the church and apparently the Computers in German libraries capitalize the nouns automatically and that is too bothersome to have to go back and Change every word.

Unfortunately the end of  saying "Moin!" =(  (They don't use it down here)

 Hallo!


So after about a 500km move from Bremerhaven to Weimar, I can now say that I do not want to do that again. And if you might be wondering how I exactly did that. I packed everything that I have including my far too big of a collection of books into my two big blue suitcases, put on my backpack, put on my guitar and boom off I go. Both of These suitcases are easily over 50 Pounds by the way. From my Apartment in Bremerhaven to the train station I had some help from my companion but after that it was all me until I got all the way to Weimar. One of the few times a missionary actually gets to be alone while on his mission. However it is a Little bit stressful because I don't have a phone and it is Kind of awkward and difficult to haul all that stuff around myself so if I had missed my train or if my train had fallen out then I basically would've been stranded somewhere in Germany with all my stuff. But I made it somehow haha.
I guess some of the first things I can say about Weimar is that it is definitely a beautiful area, actually far more beautiful than Bremerhaven and Hannover. Number 1 because it isn't just a bunch of flat land but it has hills and some small mountains, not to mention the architecture of the buildings are great and intact. because it wasn't all destroyed from the war. Weimar also has a lot of history behind it and actually Hitler held a lot of his rallies here in the inner-City area. Our Church is in the middle of the City and actually in an Office building. The branch consists of about 14 or so active members so half the members that were in Bremerhaven.
Currently the work in this area is going really slow, we only have a couple of real investigators. And unfortunately a lot of the people that we talk to on the streets are tourists from other parts of the Country. Also there are a lot less foreigners here mostly German, which isn't a bad Thing, we want to teach Germans, they just normally don't want anything to do with Religion. Unless of course and here is a Little Story that happened this week. So basically all we have been doing is finding and so my new companion (Elder Banks from California) and I were talking and he was saying he wanted to find a German Family of 5. So two parents and three Kids. So the other day we were Walking down the street in this neighbor Hood and we see a man with three Kids and we were both thinking okay perfect exactly what we are looking for because the mom is probably just not with them at the Moment. And so we stop him and ask him a question about the Family and he actually stops and talks to us and doesn't immediately reject us like most people. And was actually interested in what we said. So we were both thinking whoa this is really Happening right now. But.........he ended up being a J-Dub or Jehovah's Witness. So we basically just ended up having a long-winded conversation, almost a bible bash because he quoted like a hundred scriptures that somehow supposedly made sense when put together, (they didn't), basically had the usual J-Dub infuriation. We didn't fight or anything or say anything unkind to one another it was just....indescribable and time wasting. It was just funny because of course the one German that stops and talks to us is a J-Dub and and he didn't even live in Weimar, he and his Family are from Stuttgart so even if we were crazy enough to want to meet with him again. We couldn't because he was a Tourist as well. haha so this area is interesting. Only those who have taught J-Dubs can understand what I am talking about. haha so I'll stop.
I am glad to be here and to serve.  To explain even more of the adventure that I have gotten myself into down here is this. So yesterday during our Weimar branch conference. We were told by the church leaders in the area that the Weimar branch along with another branch in Gotha would be moving to the church in Erfurt. So we don't even have a church anymore in our area. haha so the German and English classes that we have at the church can't happen anymore. And anybody who we find and teach who does not have a car, most people, are now looking at a 40 to 60 Minute commute one way to get to the church. So the few Advantages that we have in this area are being taken away haha. So this is going to be interesting. Maybe my companion and I just Need to have more faith the Lord will lead us to the right people who will take on These expanding commitments. But either way the work has gotten significantly harder in this area. So a lot of praying and following the Holy Spirit is going to be needed to be done. I haven't given up so the only way is Forwards.
 Well that concludes this weeks adventure. I hope to have increasingly better News as the time goes on. I love you all and I hope everything gets continually better for you all as well.

Tschüss,
Elder Foster


 


 

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