A picture with the NEW Mission President, President Christian H. and Sister Sibylle E. Fingerle ( they are left of girl in yellow skirt in front). Seth is on the left side of picture behind the girl in the bright blue skirt & black shirt...sort of.
Hallo hallo! Willkommen Willkommen!
Well well another P-day has arrived, what do you know. I
kind of get the feeling that the millennium is gonna come around before I
actually finish my mission. I am not saying it is too long or something or
other. But simply the fact that is just feels like I will never leave the
mission. I leave here now! There ain't no coming back! Signs in English or
large amounts of people speaking English around me isn't going to happen
because I was born here, yeah that's right, I never even lived in America to
begin with. Yeah haha I don't know just some random thoughts I guess.
I don't know a lot happened this week so I am unsure how to
go about unraveling the whole weeks events. Chronologically would probably be
best but I think I am just gonna wing it and go with whatever inspires me the
most first. Which is as of right now...nothing. Sometimes it is just a struggle
to get the motivation to write anything after a long tiring week.
The first thing I probably want to talk about is probably
about a new convert in this branch since about April. I don't know his first
same but I know him as Bruder Mills. And he is from Ghana and actually lives at
the Ausländerwohnheim (home for immigrants) here in Neubrandenburg. And oh
goodness he is an absolute example in my eyes. So this last week we met with
him and just kind of got to know him a bit because I am still kind of new in
the area and don't know everybody super well yet seeing as I am technically a
part of two different branches. So while we are meeting with him in his kind of
''dorm-room'' style apartment. I come to find out that he is actually a part of
a royal family down in Ghana that owns thousands of square miles of land. And
that his dad the current head of the family wanted him to take over. But
because of circumstantial reasons, he decided not to take over and instead came
here to Germany. I just meet all kinds of people on my mission it is crazy. But
here is the better part, so right after meeting with him, we took him along as
a joint teach to go teach some other Africans. And the lesson is going well and
we kind of get on the topic of why do the wicked people have many riches or why
don't the righteous people have many riches? And then it kind of got onto the
topic of well are material things and lots of money happiness? So in answers to
these questions I was reading a story out of the bible and applying it to us
and the questions. And then it came to me, wait, Bruder Mills is the perfect
example. And so I asked him in front of all the others what kind of life he had
in Ghana. And he admitted, yeah I did have a good life in Ghana, I had
everything I needed and more, and yes it is hard to live here in Germany. But
he understood the more important things in life. It just kind of hit me because
we were just talking about the story of Jesus and the young rich man who
wouldn't give up his riches and go and follow Jesus. And in that moment I just
thought if Bruder Mills was in his position he would have done it, he would
have left all his riches to follow Christ and partaken of the true joy and
eternal blessings that the young rich man in the story denied himself. It was
kind of an eye opening moment for me. What is important to me in this
life?
Another thing of significant reporting value is that last
Friday Neubrandenburg zone and Berlin zone had a zone conference together in
order to meet the president for the first time in a more formal manner. So once
again I had to drive into the heart of Berlin and pray that I didn't die from
some kind of the crazy traffic. But we made it safe and sound. I think that
everybody is all pretty excited about the new president, not that the old one
was bad but just because we were all impressed by his ideas and focus for the
mission. It was kind of interesting though because the whole thing was in
German, usually we have everything in German except for zone-conference. But as
far as I have seen so far, even his weekly letter to us was in German. Which
for me is totally fine because it doesn't even bother me anymore, but for the
younger missionaries. I don't know it will be interesting I guess. They will
just have to learn German even faster I guess. I can say though that I will
miss President Kosak and his authoritative kind of humor and way of going about
things. But I think there are still great things in store for the new president
that we have just received.
To end my letter I will tell you a little bit about the
district activity we had in Neubrandenburg. So last Saturday we all the members
in the Neubrandenburg district were invited to come to this ''Pioneer Abend''
where we went on a 6km roundtrip hike through a forest by the lake in
Neubrandenburg. And then we came back and had a barbecue and played volleyball
and ping pong. It was pretty nice actually and for the first time since what
feels like eternity I felt like I was on vacation or something. I mostly talked
to President Hammer's kids or they for some reason wanted to walk with me on
the hike. And then also to a couple of other investigators that showed up but
yeah it was nice and actually for the first time when I played
volleyball I wasn't actually that bad, I figured it out in the middle of
playing or something and I wasn't hitting the ball and having it fly all over
the place. So that was enjoyable. haha
Anyway, I was planning to have this letter be a whole lot
better but my motivation just wasn't up to par today. I still love you all
though and hopefully next week I will be able to write a more riveting letter
of my experiences as a missionary. However I wish the best for you all and I
hope you all have a great week.
Tschüss,
Elder Foster
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