Ein Durcheinander

Hallo!...gel 

Well I am now writing you from a different city, namely, Erfurt. But you already knew that. And unfortunately I am also writing to you on a Tuesday and not a Monday because here in Germany, whenever there is a holiday almost the entire country is shut down. So even if you are out of food in your entire house, you don't have the option of going to get some unless you are eating out or going to someone else's place which isn't good when you are a broke missionary. But we will get to that in a second.  

Basically this whole week was like a disaster. I don't even know where to begin! So, first of all at the beginning of last week and even until now I have had no money because the last few weeks I have had to travel a lot and therefore buy a lot of tickets. So starting right from Monday, my still Frankfurt companion and I had to pack all our stuff and clean the entire apartment spotless and just get rid of whatever we could in order to get ready to move and then we had to go visit some of his relatives for the last time in Weimar. Kind of cool right? Haha funnily enough he asked me if I would come visit him again. And then still do the normal P-Day stuff like emails and what not. And then Tuesday we take all our stuff in buses, trains, and city-bahns all the way to the apartment in Erfurt and then we had to coordinate with the Elders in Erfurt and Gotha so that someone could give us the keys to the apartment. And then after we dropped off all our stuff we had to head back to the train-station and pick-up my new companion, go back to the apartment, drop his stuff off. And then head all the way back to Weimar and give a couple lessons. And also mind you this is all during the DB strike so basically every train in the world falls out and we had no idea if we could even make it back that night. And also that night and on Wednesday night there were about 10 Elders in our apartment about half Frankfurt missionaries and half Berlin missionaries. So the place was packed with suitcases and all other manner of things. Once again to mention that there is no food already at this point. And then Wednesday we had district meeting and we had to go back to Weimar again for appointments and what not. And then Thursday we sent off all the Frankfurt missionaries and we had to register ourselves in the city and also had to help the other Elders in Erfurt with some of their appointments. And then by some miracle we four elders in Erfurt had to be in Werdau on Friday, which is about 2 to 2-1/2 hours away by train and bus. We managed to make it because one of us had enough money to get us all there. And we had to be in Werdau because we were having a special zone-training-meeting because we were getting iPads, and for us Elders in Erfurt we were also getting a car. However, when we got the car and thank goodness we did because we did not have enough money to make it back. We did not get a gas card, or at least we don't have one yet. So that means we have to use the funds we get every month to fill it up with gas and just send in the receipts for reimbursements during the month. Which believe me the money goes fast. The other day Elder Johnston spent 74 euro of his own personal money to fill up the car with gas. They go by liters instead of gallons here in Europe. But yeah I don't remember what we did for the rest of the day it was already a long day of traveling. And then on Saturday there was a baptism and we also had a meeting with our ward mission leader and we had to head back to Weimar to get some stuff from the apartment before they shut the apartment down. And then finally but not really on Sunday we had a little bit of a rest but still lots to do. So that is kind of a basic overview of my last week. A not so well written one and it is also missing lots of details. I am just glad that now, finally I am no longer eating rice and whatever kind of spices or random things we could think to put in it.  

So on a quick and happier note. The apartment that we have is really nice and it is right in the center of the city where all the people and the cool stuff is. Although that doesn't make it fun for the fact that we can't really park our car anywhere, and we are actually not even allowed to drive it up in front of our apartment because it is in the pedestrian zone. We did it anyways haha until the police told us we couldn't. So, even though this week was such a mess and not a whole lot got done in terms of missionary work I still learned a lot and this week we have already managed to have a good start. So really there is a lot of hope for this area. We are just going to blow the minds of everyone in our mission.  

Well sorry for the mess of a letter haha, hopefully next week I can manage to write something with a little bit more quality. I hope you all are doing well and you are constantly in my prayers. Love ya and... 

Tschüss,

Elder Foster

 

 

 

Erfurter Missionar!

Hallo hier ist Elder Förster! 

Welcome to the brand new season of Elder Foster's weekly letters. Why a new season you might ask? Because it is a whole new transfer and with every new transfer comes also change. And I will now begin to explain all the new changes that have now been made. So first and foremost, I am finally back in the Berlin Mission, whew! Although we will still have some Frankfurt missionaries here until they are transferred away on Thursday. But now instead of being the Erfurt Zone we are now the Leipzig-Süd-Zone. Which also means that the Chemnitz Zone is being dissolved and being split up between us and the Dresden Zone. So there have been a whole lot of changes in the Mission since I have been out here. And to the news more related to me, I will no longer be serving in Weimar but will be sent to Erfurt to serve there, although there is a catch. Because the churches in Weimar and Gotha were shut down the two Elders programs in Erfurt will be sharing a car together. So my companion and I will still visit Weimar during the week, as the occasion requires, and the other Elders program will go to Gotha when it is needed. So it will be another interesting transfer because I basically get to open up a new program in Erfurt but still manage to retain the investigators we have in Weimar. Oh and another thing is that I will still be District-Leader and now my district has grown a bit. So now there are now 6 missionaries, including me, instead of 4, and now I have 2 senior couples instead of just 1. And everybody is older on the mission than I am so that will be interesting as well. Hopefully I will manage to add to their already ever increasing drive to do more and be better.  

Well now that all the technical stuff is out of the way, I guess I can talk about other things. So naturally as it seems to me now, it takes a transfer to really get things going. Although this week was also a struggle to try and find rides for people to get them to church, we made some progress this week. The biggest news being that this week we were able to set up a baptismal date with a German family. Yay! Very exciting indeed, and I know that if they stick to what we have committed them to do that they will progress and be ready to be baptized when the time comes. And thankfully we managed to get them a ride to church, although we had to come back with them on the train. We almost made out another baptismal with the Henning family too. Their mother being inactive and the two children being 9 and 11. They have the desire to be baptized just not the desire to come to church. Unfortunately we were not able to get them to church. :( But actually the reason we didn't make out a date was because the children weren't sure how to recognize an answer from God and what someone has to do to be ready for baptism. So next time for sure we know what we want to talk about. Usually we have a hard time trying to keep their attention but this time they were definitely more involved. They really are so close, we just need to get them to church and I know they will get baptized (and be spiritually ready for it too of course!) Grr! But as a missionary there is something that you learn, and that is you can only do that which is possible for you to do. And then trust on the Lord that he will help you with the things that you don't have any control over. But you will always get there if you do everything that is physically possible for you to do. And all of this go directly along with what I have been recently reading in my studies and actually with my interview with president last week, and even this very morning! It is always interesting when it seems that everything you have been reading and thinking about in a given time suddenly has one big connection. Times like these I know I am being led by the Lord to learn something in particular.  

So really the quote I would like to share is from Joseph Smith who is explaining the latter outcome of the march of Zion's Camp to go and help some members in Missouri who were being severely persecuted and many had actually been driven from their homes. In the end they did not manage to help the members in Missouri and actually suffered much affliction in this whole endeavor. But what Joseph Smith later said was "God did not want you to fight. He could not organize his kingdom with twelve men to open the gospel door to the nations of the earth, and with seventy men under their direction to follow in their tracks, unless he took them from a body of men who had offered their lives, and who had made as great a sacrifice as did Abraham." 5 months later the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Quorum of the Seventy were organized. And seventy-nine out of the eighty-two positions were filled by men who had been proven in the march of Zion's Camp. With also four of them being future presidents of the church. If I or anyone wants to truly open up the doors of this gospel to the world then we need to be willing to offer ourselves up as these men and women did. It was this very same question about Abraham's sacrifice that the Mission president asked me on Saturday. It was also when I was reading in Jeremiah where Jeremiah asks the age-old question of why do the wicked prosper despite their many abominations and asks that the Lord sends his righteous judgment upon them, and then the Lord reproves him for this outburst of ill-nature and impatience by telling him that he must patiently endure still worse. Showing his long-suffering towards a people ripe for destruction. That made me think upon my own endurance and own sacrifice that I must make for the sake of God's children. Or even when I later read in D&C where the Lord said "Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom; otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself. And my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience, if it must needs be, by the things which they suffer." Where I once again thought that for the work to truly progress we must hold ourselves quite literally to the standards of the Kingdom of God. It now makes more sense when Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve said that we need to raise the bar of standards even more for missionaries and that what we need now is "the greatest generation of missionaries" that this world has ever seen. As always I only hope I can talk these things and make the decision to fully apply them into my life, and with assurance knowing that I will achieve the highest outcome. For I know in him I trust.  

Well I hope this week’s letter was alright and that you will all have a wonderful week. I love you all and pray for your wellness.

 Tschüss,

Elder Foster

 

 

Etwas in mir ist anders. Etwas in mir erwacht.

Ahoj!

Well it is the day after Mother's day and after having the opportunity to hear all the latest going on's in the other world. All I have to say is....scary. Everybody is growing up or people are coming back and just everything is changing. It really is just a whole new beginning to a different adventure once I get back. An adventure I don't want to start. Haha I am happy with what I am doing here. I even had a dream the other night where my Mission was extended by an extra six months. The year mark is just a little more than a month away. But do not worry my mind is not constantly flooded with thoughts of home in fact it is probably more than other way around. When I think of home, I think of how much more I need to do here before the time is up. Times like these make me think of Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon. They spent many years in fact far more than I will ever stay here in Germany. But do you ever think they felt like they were leaving a piece of themselves behind once they went back to the Nephite people? Although the blessings that come from missionary work are always the same for those that receive the Gospel or those who help proclaim it. I have learned a long time ago that, that does not entirely mean that it is proclaimed in the same way or more clearly stated, the missionary work is not always the same. Actually just yesterday I was thinking about this because in the newly formed Erfurt Ward. We got a new GML (Gemeinde-Missions-Leiter), and he was talking to us about how he was excited to be called as the new GML and that he was also hoping he would be called as the GML. And really it seems like he will be the first good GML that I will have had on my Mission. So that is exciting but what got me thinking was yeah I definitely want to still be involved with missionary work like this guy. But at the same time I thought....but it is not going to be the same. Being a GML in Germany and being a GML in Utah are definitely two different things. Once again the joy and blessings received from it are the same but it is nonetheless different, not sure how to describe it. There are just some things that I have right now that I do not really want to give up. For instance a silly one but something nonetheless is.....who am I gonna speak German with on a regular basis? And yes, yes I know there are some of you out there who can speak German to some extent, but we will see how long you will speak German with me before it seems like a chore. Haha I am just saying it is fun to speak a foreign language, and the minute I walk out the door there are thousands of opportunities to speak German with someone and getting to know random people and learning new words or expressions that are honestly completely different from English in general. That is one thing about German and probably many other languages as well but you can't just translate your English thoughts into German. You just have to speak it and think in that way. Think like a German! I don't know, like recently I have just been having fun talking to some of the university students here in Weimar. Yeah because there are a lot of international students you run into those people who have much better English than German so you are forced to speak in English but still just the other day we were talking to this lady from Taiwan who has been here the past 4 years getting her Bachelor at the Bauhaus University. It was just fun talking to her and she was really cool and had interest of course! But naturally she left today to go back to Taiwan until August....boo! Or even days before that we ended up having a long conversation with this lady from Cambodia who has been here for the past year. Yes I am talking to people from Cambodia in Germany, weird right? When people actually let you have a conversation with them it is really fun to speak German. Not so fun when you walk around all day saying the same things just trying to start a conversation.

 

At the beginning of this letter I think I was going somewhere with it but I think I lost whatever it was somewhere in the middle of my quatsch (hehe German). Anyways the work is still going pretty slow in this area, although out of the now six missionaries in the Erfurt Ward, we had 13 investigators at church, and actually had 3 baptisms on Saturday. So generally missionary work in this region isn't too bad, not bad at all, but in Weimar it is slowly making its way back up with the possibility that I just leave next week anways haha. We actually found a guy named Fady this last week who is from Egypt. He seems to have a lot of potential, and has actually been going to random catholic and evangelisch churches in the area because he is orthodox and there aren't any orthodox churches in the area. So there is definitely some hope there. It is always about finding those people who are looking for truth or at least willing to look for it. And since we have the truth, I know they will find it, that is if they want the truth and not their own version of the truth. But that leads onto a whole different topic that I don't feel like talking about right now. And it suffice me to say that once a upon a personal study time. I was annoyed by J-Dubs and decided to prepare for future bible warfare. Haha and actually in my quest to disprove the J-Dubs in every possible way, I ended up actually finding a lot of things pertaining to the Holy Ghost itself and Prayer and many of the other basic Gospel principles that we probably more often than not take for granted. This study time actually turned into something that was good for everyone including myself. Maybe some other day I will discuss my latest scriptural opus. Lest they fall upon philistine ears. haha only joking.

 

Well this week's letter was not very informative. But I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. I hope you are enjoying the warm weather as much as I am or that it is also warm wherever you are. I hope you have a nice week and of course I love you all.

 

Schöne Grüße von der Gemeinde Erfurt

und

Tschüss,

Elder Foster 

Ach ja! Hallo hallo herzlichen willkommen zu dem wöchentlichen Brief von Elder Foster. Ich hoffe dass ihr eine angenehme Zeit habt!

As always constantly at a loss of words right before I begin writing these things which is never good because the time only continues to tick by while the screen continues to stay blank and white. Well, I guess I can start as usual with a little update of what may be coming in the possible future for me and for the City of Weimar so as far as I am concerned and also according to a few sources. I will not be in Weimar after these next two weeks. And will most likely be sent to Erfurt with and be with either the Elder that is already in Erfurt or serve there with an Elder that will be coming up from Gotha, who of which I have already served with before. Of course the now newly created Erfurt ward would love to keep all the current missionaries and even give me a car so that not only can I stay in Erfurt but I can also visit the Weimar area. However nothing is 100 percent sure as always, although it seems so far that my assumptions on the Mission have been correct so far. What I think will happen is that I will be sent to Erfurt without a car and just become an Erfurt missionary; my wishful thinking would be that I also got a car but I don't know. Even more wishful thinking is that they actually closed down a missionary program in Marzahn, which is an area in Berlin, in order to send missionaries down here but because we are closing about three areas down here that leaves a little bit more room. So what I am saying is that I would gladly go open up that program given the chance. But that is just my wishful thinking, although Erfurt is also highly favourable.  

It is really quite interesting to be in a big ward again. And actually the members there that came out of my branch in Weimar are trying to get used to it even more so than I. I mean the moment I came into Bremerhaven and Weimar, you immediately begin the process of absorbing yourself into a family. But now sitting in the chairs in Erfurt with all the members, albeit being the first time, you get the sense of whoa I don't even recognize half of these faces. It reminds me of back when I was in the singles ward in Murray. And even after almost being a year in the ward, somebody came up to me and asked if I was new in the ward and then after telling them that I had been there almost a year and even establishing the fact that I had been there longer than them. They continued to say "oh wow well I can't say I have ever seen you around before." And I find that sad to be honest. There is certainly something special about being a missionary and being invited into people’s homes whether it be simply for a meal or for a lesson. It is always a pleasure to be able to feel the Spirit in someone else's home or to invite the spirit into a home that has been missing it. I am also getting the Impression that it is hard to truly say you know someone until you have been in there own home and interacted with them in some manner. I truly hope that I will still have chances in the future after my Mission to interact with people on such levels to truly get to know and love the people within my ward. 

Something that has really been coming up recently during my time here in Weimar is truly the wealth of potential that I see in the people that I talk to out here. However, it always ends abruptly with a casual no thanks. How do I reach the hearts of these people?! This whole entire last week I talked to people who were so sweet and kind and even agreed with what I had to say and where even flattered when I expressed the reason why we wanted to share this with them but then ends in no although it is probably some of the most polite no's. I guess it is better than what happened to me earlier this week when we were doing a little bit of doors before a lesson and while we were having a very nice conversation with a lady and even setting up an appointment for sometime later. When her neighbor coming up the stairs of the apartment building after recognizing who were began to tell us to leave immediately right in the middle of our conversation with this lady. And then continued to get louder and ruder, and beginning to call us trash and a cult while continuing to point down the stairs and yell at us to leave in a not so nice way. The lady tried to stand up for us but to no avail because the guy eventually lost his Patience because we had not moved up to that point and began to try and grab onto me and physically remove me from the apartment. No worries though I kept cool and told him that we would leave and even politely told the lady it was nice meeting here and to have a nice day. As we walked down the stairs we could still hear the lady backing us up and honestly herself too as well. Truly it is unfortunate to have people call us such things and treat us in such ways and believe that we are such bad people and then turn around behave like that, only proving that they themselves  are contradictory. Other than him this week was mostly meeting lots of nice people who just didn't have interest to listen. I wish I had the time to go into more detail about all the different people I have met these past couple weeks.  

Anyways I am out of time again. And unfortunately I don't have any method to upload pictures on this library computer so it is yet another week without any pictures to send to you guys. But I love y'all and I hope you have a nice week. 

Tschüss,

Elder Foster