Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Noch eine Runde!



Elder Seth Foster with  his first mission President and wife - The Kosaks (they are in his current area)
Hallo meine ferne Familie und Freunde!
 

      Welcome to another excitingly not exciting report from the missionary life of Elder Foster! Well what can I say about this week that is the question isn't it? Well it was the last week of the transfer so it is always an exciting one. I mean it wasn't quite so exciting for me if only for the fact that I pretty much knew that I was going to be staying in Cottbus, which is fine because I wanted to stay. But my companion will be leaving me and heading off to the west. Which is also good because I wanted him to leave. Not because I didn't like him, we got along just fine but when you just barely arrive in an area and your companion has already been in the area for 4 transfers it kind of makes it hard to develop a real relationship with the members.

Because they are already so comfortable with the other Elder that they don't really feel the need to get to know you. I mean we all do the same thing. If you invite a group of friends to hang out you will usually talk a lot more to your friend you have already know for a while versus the friends you just barely made a few weeks or a month ago. So yeah it will be a nice change of pace in terms of members. Not to give you the idea that it was bad but it could sometimes be a little annoying depending on the member.

      This last week I went on exchange with Elder Stank from my district and for some sort of reason every time I go on exchange good things or horrible things happen. This time it was good. So a few weeks ago I don't know if you still remember or not but while I was on exchange as that is when it seems to always happen, we talked to a lady on the street and she told us that she had the feeling that should would run into us today and talk to us. So it was a really cool experience in other words and we had a great conversation and we exchanged phone numbers. Okay fast forward a few weeks and we still hadn't made out an appointment, schade schade, but finally and that is when diligence pays off we were able to set up a definite appointment with her and Elder Stank and I were able to teach her along side with the sisters and oh it was a great lesson. The spirit was there, she was excited to have the book of mormon, she wanted to come to church and things were looking great!....I have left out a few details but it truly looked like this lady could have real potential to be baptized. It was grrrreat. But.. haha on Sunday morning we received a text that she would not be coming to church and basically Tschüssed us, which is a funny term we german missionaries have for when someone tells us they don't want to meet anymore. Okay okay it was a little vague and I am leaving out a lot of details for the sake of time. But I can not tell you how frustrating it is when things like this happen. It really is unfortunate how many times I have met people who know the truth of what we are saying and even admit it, but they do not have the courage to do the simple things we ask. But i get it, I understand, it is a hard decision to make, to change your whole life depending on whether or not you receive an answer from God. It has not been easy finding the people humble enough to follow the promptings of the Lord. I have already had enough experiences in this city to know that there are prepared people here. We just have to find them! Coming back to the actual experience though, it was a good exchange with Elder Stank and I got my first taste of what it would be like to have a german companion. Haha well at this point in my mission the only difference was that he could speak better German than if I had another companion.

haha It is unfortunate though because know he is leaving the district to go somewhere else.

      Oh yeah in case you are wondering my new companion is Elder Williams from...I don't know yet haha except what I do know is that this is going to be his last transfer so yay I get to kill another missionary aka send a missionary home. I haven't done that since I sent my two trainers home. I am a lot more prepared for what is to come though.

Usually a missionary that is about to go home is either very diligent or very lazy so we will see, but I think it will be good. I have already gotten to know him a little bit and it should be good. I only say that stuff to help you visualize the mission life or at least from my point of view.

      I am not sure what else to say about the week other than we got to meet with some new converts within the last year here and they are doing good and I can't help to help them to get to the temple or to get their patriarchal blessings. We also of course have a lot of contacts that can turn into investigators pretty soon. A few of them that are actually getting their PHD's here at the university in Cottbus. Just have to keep being diligent and you will eventually make something out with these people or you will at least get a definite answer someday that they are not very interested. Either way what is the harm and their are still others to be found in the process.
     My release date is July 7th! I decided to stay a little longer!

      Well I love you all and I hope all is well on the other side, sorry but its greener on this side. I will tell you why later haha. But I pray for you all and I wish you a wonderful week.

 

Tschüss,

Elder Foster

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