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

 

 

Der letzte Brief von der Küste des Bremerhavens und eine neue Mission?!?!

Elder Foster and Paul on Easter Sunday.

Moin!

Fortunately this week might actually be an exciting edition of the Elder Foster Chronicles. So where to begin I guess is the real question…Let us just begin with a quick recap of what happened this last week. So last week I was able to experience another hurricane while serving in Bremerhaven. We had zone-training-meeting in Oldenburg, we were also in Wilhelmshaven for a little farewell for a senior couple that was serving there. And then of course we had General Conference this past weekend. Also, during zone-training-meeting and an unexpected conference call on Friday night. The President informed me that he had a special position for me.....and that he will no longer be my mission president....what?! Because he will be sending me down to Erfurt district which is currently in the Frankfurt mission so the technically I will not be a part of this mission anymore. And it has already been approved by the Presidency.....okay are you sufficiently confused enough? Alrighty well let me explain. So if you look at the bottom of this email where I have included a graphic you will see in the top right corner a map of our mission and all the zones and the areas a missionary can serve in the mission. And if you look at the blank spot where the word Leipzig is that is where I am currently going. And the reason why I am going there is because we will be taking over this area and bringing it into our mission. So instead of just white washing and sending completely new missionary programs who do not know the area and do not know the members. President will be sending 5 other missionaries and I to go down there and take on Frankfurt missionaries as our companions to get to know the area and the members before we completely take over. And so for a transfer we will be in the Frankfurt mission and we will write Frankfurt mission president for our emails and be under their rules and basically be cut off from our mission. But it will only be for a transfer then our companions will be replaced by Berlin missionaries. It is actually a pretty big undertaking President Kosak even had to close down quite a few programs just to be able to send us few missionaries down there. So it is a pretty interesting situation. Oh and by the way I will be a district leader while I am down there too. Oh yeah and I completely forgot to mention where I was even going. So I am being transferred to Weimar. Which is apparently a small town with a lot of history and it is very pretty as well or at least that is what a member here in Bremerhaven told me.

So in case you couldn't already tell a lot of what has been on my mind recently has been about this new position as a district leader and being sent to an entirely different mission and still being expected to keep the rules of my own mission. Because apparently I have heard there rules are really different down there. Some have even said that is somewhat to say a party mission--not entirely sure what that means by any standard but nevertheless I hope that no conflicts arise while I am down there and will try to keep to the standard that I have been asked to keep.

So there are a lot of exciting things going on in the mission right now. Including one of them being that we are all going to be getting iPad minis. I don't remember if I have actually talked about them before but this is something that they have been telling us about since I arrived in Germany and actually even longer than that for the missionaries before me. But apparently we will be getting them this month and having a big mission conference about technology.

I guess some of the unfortunate things about leaving or about getting this new position are that I will be missing two baptisms that will be happening in the next couple weeks. And of course because it was conference weekend and there were only a few members here and there for the conference sessions at the church I wasn't able to get pictures with some of the members in the branch like I wanted to. But honestly it is fine and I am kind of liking the pattern of my mission so far, and by that I mean 3 transfers in each area. I think that is the perfect amount of time to be in an area, with 4 transfers being the uttermost I would want to be in one place. The next area that I am going to is actually smaller than Bremerhaven and also a lot more Germans and a lot less foreigners so we will see how things go done there. Although I am already convinced that success is possible in any kind of area. 

Other random things that happened this week is that we took Alex, one of our investigators who is getting baptized this Saturday, which I will not be there for once again, we took him to go finding with us last Wednesday. And we actually ending up finding five new people so that was pretty cool. But it was actually kind of funny because of how nervous he was and just kind of repeated the things we said right after we said them. But it was cool and it made finding a little bit more exciting for once. Maybe someday we can get him to go on a mission. Seeing as he is still 21 only a few months older than me actually. And on Saturday, 5 other missionaries and I snuck into a church building and hid in the cellar for about a half hour. In order to surprise the senior couple that was going home. Didn't really surprise them.....because Elder Wild and I got caught hiding behind bushes when they were going into the building. We totally thought those bushes were thick enough to not be seen....guess we were wrong.  It must've looked pretty sketchy to see two guys in suits hiding quite clearly behind these bushes.

Well I thought this week I would have a lot of interesting things to say but it ended up about the same as usual. Haha well I hope you all had just as an eventful week as me and that you all enjoyed general conference as much as I did. I pray and hope for all your happiness. Until next time!

Tschüss,

Elder Foster

Random Favortie Quotes of this Conference:
-RM does not mean retired Mormon
-Don't be a Latter-Day-Sinner, Quitter, or Hypocrite
-The Church is stronger than it has ever been!

Vermutlich lohnt es sich, schleimend rumzuschleichen um Ziele zu erreichen.

Moin!

And here we are at the end of another transfer, and this one was seemingly faster than the last one. I believe that will be a common occurring thought as the time continues to go forward throughout the rest of the mission. As each passing day goes by the more silly it seems that the mission will actually come to an end someday. To think back before I even came on a mission and was kind of worried how it would be to get used to the mission life and having such strict rules and schedules to follow through with. Now it is just an everyday occurrence. Even being in Germany itself has no real hold on me anymore. It would honestly be unsettling to suddenly end up in an environment where everything was in English and everyone around me was speaking English. It would probably be interesting to be in an environment where the people didn't have the German mentality or behavior. In all honesty the longer I am on a mission the scarier it actually feels to even think about going home. I even had a dream the other day where I was home for some unknown reason and all I am thinking during this dream is what am I doing back home?! I need to get back there, which is where I need to be! So basically the metamorphosis is almost complete.

Sometimes the struggle is real. And I mean when it comes to writing letters. Because of the fact I feel like an 80 year old man who can't remember anything except for the most random things. Not to mention that this week was very uneventful. Let us see what I can find within my mind.

 Okay I got something to talk about I think. So something as a missionary that we have to do, whether you already know about it or not, is something called an exchange. Or as we call it in Germany, “an Austausch”. So more often than not you would hear us say to each other. "Are you going on Austausch?" Sometimes the Danglisch is unreal but okay back to the real details. So during these exchanges, we exchange with the district leader or the district leaders companion which we like to call the District Frau sometimes, not the nicest of terms but funny nonetheless and nobody takes offense. And so the district leader has an exchange with every elder in his district at least once during the transfer, so unless you are the district leader you end up going on about 2 exchanges per transfer. And for some unknown reason the last 4 exchanges that we have had, I have been the one that has stayed in Bremerhaven. Which means that I get all the responsibility for those days that we exchange because it is my area and whoever is with me is only there for the day so basically they don't make any decisions and just follow my lead. Personally I am not the biggest fan of exchanges because far more often than not they don't achieve their purpose. Depending on the missionaries an exchange is usually one of two things. You are either with the district leader and you are putting on your "tausch" pants because they are going to be reporting everything back to the mission president about the exchange. Or you are with his companion and the exchange becomes a mini-vacation. Neither of which I really agree with because it defeats the point of the exchange. The reason why I am talking about this is because I had an exchange this week.

Something else that happened this week.....Elder Pilling and I were invited to play indoor soccer with one of the younger members and his friends. That was pretty fun and it feels kind of cool to be the foreigner for once. Although I am not too sure they liked how aggressive we played. Hehe. It is kinda weird when they invite us to parties afterwards like we are normal people or something. It is gonna be an interesting transition someday let me tell you. Other than that this week was pretty standard with some extra standard on the side. We found a pretty cool young German. We had some appointments, we had church, and we had lots of rain and wind especially today, although it seems to be clearing up at the moment. It seems the activity nights are dying once again and nobody showed up so that is lame. Hopefully we can reignite the flame for that. Recently most of our attention has been focused on the fact that we have to find somewhere, where we can do baptisms in Bremerhaven because of extenuating circumstances. And because we don't have a baptismal font here we have to do it in the ocean or a pond or something but that will be really cold. So we are trying to have a pool somewhere but yeah really no idea at the moment. When it comes down to it we will do whatever we have to but it is always nice to make sure it is as comfortable as possible. 

Sorry this edition of the Elder Foster Adventures wasn't so exciting, let's just say it was writer's block and I had to make up for it is putting a filler-episode in there or something. But naturally I think and pray for you all and I hope that you all have a nice week.

Tschüss,

Elder Foster

Schöner ist, wer nicht die Stirn kraus zieht.

 Mion!

...gewöhnungsbedürftig und beispiellos verwunderlich, So unvorstellbar unbeschreiblich und sonderbar!

You know by the time I will have finished my mission I think I will have written enough in my letters and in my journals that it would be comparable unto a few lengthy novels. That will be an interesting thing to look back on indeed. But oh how useful they will be in the future because there are already people whose names I have forgotten that I knew back in my first area of Hannover. That is kind of a scary thing to say the least. That is why I need to take more pictures or at least send them so they are saved off somewhere. I already regret taking little to no pictures in Hannover so I think this time I will rectify that mistake.

So let us get straight to the matter why don't we? So yesterday I had the great opportunity to confirm someone a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and give them the gift of the Holy Ghost. That was very cool and now I can actually say that I have both baptized and confirmed people on my mission so that is pretty cool although besides the point. It was definitely a special experience and I could really say that I felt the spirit giving me the words that I needed to say. It is an often heard saying that one should seek to build his gifts and talents. I certainly feel the desire to develop this gift of the spirit and to know he is there as I give blessings in the future. It is definitely a gift that is above that of the gift of tongues.

So these past couples of weeks, here and there, we have been doing some evening sport with our newly converted member Paul. And oh let me tell you what a great breath or maybe more like a lot of intake of fresh air that has been. It is much nicer to be able to work out at night and a whole lot more energy too. Because at 6:30 in the morning as we just barely roll out of bed you can feel the desperation and the struggle occurring as me try to move ourselves to do anything. As I zombily try to do some push-ups and sit-ups in my Aztec looking robe. So now that we have this wonderful opportunity to get outside and do something a little bit more active. I have only come to find how much strength that I have actually lost. Boo! But oh something else random is that we don't even sleep in our bedroom because one my companion likes to sleep on the floor for some reason haha it’s more comfortable than our beds apparently and two because every morning from around 4:30 to 6:30 which is when we actually get up. The alarm clock of our neighbor who lives through the wall goes off. And literally quite literally like clock-work it goes off every 15 minutes as he continually hits the snooze button. Who in their right mind has to have an alarm go off for two hours in order to get up in the morning?!?! Let us just say I wasn't exactly filled with charity for our neighbor. So now we sleep in our living room, my companion on the floor and me on a mattress on the floor that I pulled out of our bedroom. Our bedroom is now only a place where we store and change our clothes.

So we are still plagued with the curse of finding people only to have the appointments fall out on us which only makes us waste our time. And then go on to find more people that will do the exact same thing to us. Something else that has just barely come to my mind is how important it is that we have a prophet. Because I can't tell you how many people we talk to who say they are catholic or evangelisch (protestant) but then have completely different views of doctrine. Like for instance just today we talked to a man who said that he was catholic but then said he doesn't believe in a life after this one. God lives in heaven but apparently we aren't going to be there with him. But if you asked another catholic they would probably say that was completely false. Or another guy who said that he was envangelisch said that Christ said he didn't need a church. But if you once again ask another person who is evangelisch they would tell you that was false as well. The point is how can all these people say the read the bible and understand it and even be a part of the exact same church but have completely different views of principles and doctrines. Now I can't say that everyone in our church sees everything the exact same way, however because we have a prophet because we have a direct line back to heavenly father you can definitely see how much more united our testimonies and teachings of Jesus Christ are. It doesn't depend on the bishop or branch president in what we actually believe in but rather lead by the holy spirit that helps lead us to believe that these things are true and the at we do have a prophet today. Pretty cool basically haha.

If there has been anything that has been exemplified these past few weeks or maybe more accurately this past few months, I would have to say that is is persistence. Recently a couple of days ago I came across a statement that Heber J. Grant often liked to quote. "That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do--not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do is increased." Despite any kind of hardships or any difficulties, when I have persisted to keep the commandments, to fulfill my calling as a missionary, to look beyond my own progression and look to helping others to progress, and to build the kingdom of God on earth. My ability and capacity to be happy has increased beyond what I ever could have imagined. So be persistent in those things that are worth striving for! As always I hope all is well back home and I think about ya and I love ya.

Tschüss,

Elder Foster

 

Zum ersten mal seit Ewigkeiten!

 

Moin moin!
Hallo meine geehrte Damen und Herren! Wie geht es euch?! Habt ihr mich vermisst? Wahrscheinlich nicht meine Briefe, weil die so schlecht sind. Aber vielleicht mein Gesicht. Na ja! Ihr habt genug Bilde von mir.

Okay now starts the real letter. And this week I have some good news to say the least. Because last Saturday Paul Gogula was baptized! Woot! It has been a long time since I have seen one of those things. After much hard work and many blessings we have seen the first fruits of success here in Bremerhaven. And actually that is not all! If everything goes well, we will have another baptism in two weeks! Definitely exciting times to say the least. Really I am just at a loss for words it was nice. And it was kind of hard to imagine there for a little while. I still can't quite comprehend that we just had a baptism or that we just planned for one and did all sorts of things that were necessary in order to have one take place. There is certainly a brighter sort of hope that was developed inside of me. Not too long ago in this area it was hard to get 2 or 3 lessons a week. But now we are getting far above that and we are even baptizing people. We have truly been blessed and led by the Lord.

It really is cool to meet so many different while on a mission, and to honestly take a good look into people's lives that normally wouldn't happen unless you were first really good friends. Take for instance yesterday we talked to a guy from Nigeria on the train back to Bremerhaven form Cuxhaven. He had already gotten a Bachelors degree in business and is currently in Germany to learn the language and eventually get a Masters degree. Ha he chose an interesting language to learn that is for sure. This guy also looked like he was 24 maybe 25 and we are just talking to him and asking him about his life and by the way he is actually 33. That was a shock for us. And he was a very cool guy; he was definitely one of the more affluent Africans that I have met since being in Germany. But it is interesting because from what I have learned from the many foreigners that I have talked to in Germany. My opinion is that Germany is the place to get an education and a job but it is the place where your religion dies! Haha everyone that comes here just stops going to church, okay granted they don't always know the language that well and come on who is gonna learn religious words in a new language that would be crazy.....Unfortunately Germany is more oriented towards school and work more than anything else. And as long as you call yourself catholic or evangelisch (protestant) and you have your baptismal and confirmation paper somewhere then that is good enough to say that you have your own faith and therefore need nothing else. We still find the gems in the rough nonetheless. I totally just veered off from what I was originally saying but na ja. But yeah it is just cool to get to know so many different people from so many different walks of life. If only people would open up to us just a little bit more.  Real quick of some more examples of people. Frau Antar who is a young native German but who is half African and half Turkish, very interesting mix. She is Muslim but very nice and very open and willing to learn about other religions. She likes to say "whoa das ist heftig" a lot which makes me laugh because it sounds kind of like something a surfer-dude would say. And she says when she goes to church she doesn't feel whole? haha don't know exactly how to translate that. "ich fühle mich nicht wohl." And then there is Chilly Willy who is an American from Georgia who owns a little American-food mini restaurant. He is literally one of the coolest guys I have met and he has blue eyes although he is black, first time I have met someone with that. And he is also hilarious, and we even played guitar and sang summer of 69 with him right in his small restaurant. So here is this guy who is super nice, super funny, and literally everybody in Bremerhaven knows him but there were a few moments when we were with him that there seemed to be a kind of sadness about him......So it is great to be able to meet such great people and really get to know them but not only that but to share something with them that will not only make them happy now but will also help them to overcome any kind of trouble in life. That is one of many things I love about the gospel of Jesus Christ it is truly an enabling force. People who are true to the gospel are not free of trouble or hard times, but there always have the way to overcome them and to be happy despite them.

Okay one last person I need to talk about before I end my letter. So the person that will be baptized in the next two weeks is Dijanna Bsedes from Serbia who is only 14 years old. When you look at her you wouldn't think that she was only 14 though. Even yesterday a member asked us if she was married....and then we had to explain to him that she was only 14. Haha anyways I admire this girl so much. She is only 14 but she can speak pretty dang good English and because her parents can barely speak German or English she is the one who talks to the lawyers and the police because they are foreigners and still don't have their permanent visas yet. She also just got accepted for an internship to become a doctor someday. Basically we love her and her parents and they love us and even the other day while I was on exchange with Elder Germann, the district leader we taught her one of the lessons and she opened up to us like I have never seen before and told us spiritual experiences that she had back in Serbia that I can't relate to even in the slightest and yeah it is just awesome and I am excited for her and so impressed she does so much and has so much responsibility to carry despite only being 14.

 

Well I hope this letter was something a little bit different and I hope you now have a little bit better of an idea of who I talk to and the kind of experiences that I have. Even though I can't even write down a hundredth of them, or remember that much in this very instant. I hope all is going well back in the good ol' U.S. of A. or wherever you might be. Thinking of and praying for you always. 

 

Tschüss,

Elder Foster

 

P.S. Sorry if the formatting or whatever is horrible the computer I am using right now, not the usual one, doesn't allow me to make edits without deleting things all over the place.