Hallo liebe Familie und Freunde!
I am coming to/from Gurmenland! The weeks are just flying
by and this week was quite jumbled up to say the least. As in some of the days
where we usually have things were on different days so the beginning of the
week felt like the end and the end felt like the beginning. All in all though
it was a good week although we were able to meet with as many people as we
wanted to. Haha not like that is a surprise.
On Monday we basically got up and got ready and then went
off to go and help a member. We basically just helped him carry heavy pieces of
granite to the job site where he would be installing the granite floor. So it
was a lot of heavy lifting but I was okay with that if just for the fact that I
have been in the mood to do some physical labor. Who would've though that you
would get into that sort of mood? We were planning to do other things on our
P-Day but then we got a call from one of the members that said that one of the
recent converts in the ward was in the hospital. So went to visit him.
Unfortunately, he was in the psychiatric ward so you can imagine why he was in
the hospital. But thankfully we were able to lend him a little bit of comfort in
this time of need. The Lord really does show you how to comfort those in any
sort of situation.
Tuesday, we went with the Sisters to a lesson with a lady
that I call Frau Balrog. We originally just went with them because she wanted a
blessing and of course we went to give her the desired blessing. However, we
were wrangled into staying a little bit longer and ending up staying for the
entire lesson. And I am sure I have mentioned this before but because I am with
such young missionaries in this area. You could add up the total amount of time
that the three other missionaries have been out on their missions and it
wouldn't add up to a year so yeah I am definitely the most seasoned missionary
to say the least. So it was good that I was there because this lady loves to
talk so for new missionaries that can be kind of hard because you are not quite
getting everything and then you have to somehow interrupt her so you can
actually get back on course. But in the end, it turned to a really great lesson
and this lady already knows everything about the church and has read the Book
of Mormon and has been to church in the past a bunch and the like but still
isn't baptized. She has had quite a few hard things happen in her life and has
kept the faith throughout this time. But she has quite a hard time
understanding why she must suffer so much despite doing all that she could. She
kept asking whether she was cursed or if she had done something to deserve all
these things. Thanks to the Spirit we were able to help her understand how the
Atonement can work in her life and how through baptism and this step in
following Christ that she could be forgiven for the things she has done wrong
in her life but also receive the peace she has been searching for so long. We
even talked about some of the conditions of baptism and she is definitely
willing to get baptized, we just have to help her get ready. There was much
crying from her towards the latter half of the lesson but at the end when we
gave her a blessing. She said that all the sadness was gone. Another testament
of the power of the priesthood and the power of God which was also awesome
because I had my trainee do it and even though he was struggling to speak
German. The power and the influence of the Holy Ghost took effect and he gave
this woman the exact help she needed. So it doesn't matter if you are the most
skilled or if you don't have any skills at all the Lord will make up the rest
when you are willing to act and put your trust in him. The rest of the day was
spent visiting with one of our recent converts and then meeting with our ward
mission leader and then having choir.
Wednesday, was a classic finding day with a few
surprises. We did our studies as always and then I tried to make a few last
minute calls to see if there was anyone who would be free to meet before we had
an entire day of finding which led to a lot of people who didn't answer. Then
we went outside to go and head to the train station so we could go to Spremberg
another city in our area. Because we wanted to try something new. But the
second we got out of our apartment we got a phone call from one of our
investigators named Herr Konetzny. We basically took him over from the Sisters
because they couldn't teach him without us. And they couldn't understand him
either so yeah we were basically teaching him from the start. He is like most
Germans that let you come and teach them. They just talk and talk and talk, it
even got to a point in the lesson where he was talking about how happy he was
that we could come over and talk about these things in more detail, not always
the gospel, and just have a good conversation. He is a good guy and he has been
coming to church for the past 6 or so weeks in a row so he is certainly on his
way. We asked him to be baptized again and he is definitely thinking it over
and he doesn't see any reason why not to, he is just unsure. So we hope and
pray that he can get that confirmation from the Lord so he can get baptized.
After that lesson we still headed over to Spremberg which was awesome! Because
right when we got there it started pouring rain! Haha so we had to take cover
because we went unprepared without umbrellas. But fortunately the rains quickly
dispersed and then we talked with...nobody...because there was either literally
nobody or the people that we did see did not want to talk to us but just before
we left we talked to a young gal and she was pretty interested so we added her
to the ever growing list of contacts that we have. The day ended with a phone
call from the Forst Elders or more like one of the elders from Forst that had
somehow lost his companion so that was interesting, he quickly found him though
so that was good. And then we saw our friends from Forst, whose name is
Andreas. He basically made us eat McDonalds with him at the Cottbus train
station as he made lots of sneering faces at people that walked by and said
lots of crazy things and even every once and a while threw his hand up in the
air and tried to do a nice Nazi salute. Haha so it was naturally a great time.
We eventually parted our ways but not without first having hugged my companion
and kissing him slightly on the neck. haha good times.
I talked about too many random things so now I don't have
too much time. But the rest of the week consisted of finding and English class
and then heading over to Freiberg to have Zone training meeting where we threw
eggs at our Zone leaders and where I basically gave my farewell testimony to
the Zone. Very surreal and trippy. But once again it will of course not be the
last testimony given with missionary spirit. Saturday, we had to do a bunch of
planning and we got to visit some of my favorite members in the ward and eat
with them. Sunday was of course great because of the Sacrament and I also had
to give a lesson in the Gospel Principles class without any notice. It was
about the millennium, the most random topic you could ever talk about. Haha.
But it was nice and some investigators showed up to church and even a guy that
we invited off the street showed up to church and said that he would come
again. So all in all it was a good although we didn't meet with everyone that
we wanted to.
Well it is that time again and I just hope you all had a
great week yourselves and that you of course are getting close to the Lord as
well. I love you, I pray for you and I wish you all a wonderful week!
Tschüss,
Elder Foster
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