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

Das Haus des Herrn!

Hallo gütige Familie und Freunde!

 

Well the weeks have certainly been flying by this last transfer. It is hard to believe and it is probably starting to sound a little bit repetitive but the last week of the transfer is already here. What could possibly happen? I will probably stay here in Cottbus, it would be rather surprising if I was to leave after only one transfer. But I am quite sure that my companion will be leaving or at least I hope he does....not because we don't like each other but because he has been here for quite a long time. So he needs to go somewhere new. But you never know with transfers the most unexpected can become a reality. I think it is a weird condition of missionaries to think that there are going to be in their area forever if they are there for 4 or 5 transfers. You just get a weird feeling about it or you just start to accept it, either way it will be interesting to see what happens.

 

Honestly probably the most exciting thing that happened this whole week was going to Freiberg for Zone-Training-Meeting. And if you don't already know that means I got to see the temple for the first time!

Woot! Unfortunately no we did not get to go inside because it is of course still under renovation until May or June or something or other.

But it was still just a nice moment to stand in front of the Temple in Germany in awe and gratitude. It is also very beautiful down in the Sachsen area of Germany. While we were in the train we drove through slash by a lot of german villages and woo they sure are pretty I can tell you that. It was a glimpse of the Germany that you picture in your head most of the time when you think about Germany before you have ever actually visited it. And for about the last week everything has been covered in snow so it just added to the majestic view of everything. It has just barely started to warm up a little so the snow is gone or at least in Cottbus. And I am completely fine with that because one day it was about -2 degrees fahrenheit. That was cold and I was not enjoying my time outside haha. So it is nice knowing that you won't freeze to death when you go outside to talk to people.

 

Unfortunately we didn't have too much time to go find people this week which is a bummer because that is what we are here to do! But we are still cursed with the fallen out appointments deal. But we are staying in contact with these people so there is still plenty of hope to still meet with them. It is really weird to get towards the end of your mission because it really starts to weigh heavy upon your mind that you will not have as much time as you may think and it is imperative to find these people as soon as possible. I guess we have just been doing a lot more member work recently. Hopefully we will see the fruits from that in the near future. But I have been enjoying the time that I have had getting to know these members and some of the new converts. Especially Patrick who is this new convert from Cameroon. So he speaks alright German and French....French is a weird language.

Haha it sure does sound funny when somebody tries to speak German with a French accent. Not to mention trying to read French is about as nightmarish as first trying to read english for a foreigner, except maybe even worse. Haha anyways he is pretty cool and he basically has an german mom now haha because he himself is only 19 and didn't really have a family back in Cameroon. So it has been cool to get to know him.

 

I don't know if it is the mission that does it to you. But I literally feel like I can't remember anything anymore haha or anything that happened during the week and then you wait a little bit longer and you remember everything again. It is quite a curious event that takes place within my mind. Either way it was a good week and this next week should be good too. I hope you all will have a nice week yourselves. I love you all and I pray for your good health and strength.

 

Tschüss,

Elder Foster

Unser Lauf nach Poland!

Hallo mein gütiger Leserkreis!

 Hello hello here is Elder Foster out of the city of dreams Cottbus!

Well during this time of the year and if I really want to be specific the beginning of it. Germany tends to turn into.....a war zone. And I mean that almost in a literal sense because of the amount of fireworks that were being launched into the air. Another funny thought to that is to think of the fact that Germans are complaining about so many refugees coming in and not having enough money to support them but then they are quite literally throwing hundreds of millions of euro into the air on new years day. Haha at least I found that funny. 

What can i say about this week i guess. It has been pretty eventful since I have arrived here in Cottbus. However the beginning of my week started with an exchange with the zone leaders and because the zone leaders area is so far away they just decided to stay the night at our place for a couple of nights. So on the next day we had four great elders walking the streets of Cottbus. And it was really quite great.

Sometimes zone leaders can be overly strict about things in a pharisee sort of way but these Elders were good and it was just a good time to be able to serve with them for a day. Although I did have to switch the day of district meeting to Tuesday because of it so that they could visit and that did cause a few problems, however everything managed to get worked out and once again it is always great to see how the Lord influences with his spirit and you don't even realize it. By that I mean the district meeting was perfectly planned not because of me but because the Lord wanted us to learn something in specific. 

Of course New Year's Eve was crazy especially here in Germany. You were just hoping that somebody wasn't going to drop a crazy firework on top of your head as you were walking underneath an apartment balcony. And actually a few days later as we were walking with some investigators on the street, one of them decided to light one without us knowing about it and the next thing you know there is a mega-size firecracker exploding about two feet away from me. It was loud enough that you thought a bomb went off or something. Even up until day you can still hear random explosions off in the distance. Doesn't help that my companion would always pretend to get shot every time he hears it. That doesn't get old after a while but obviously nothing I can really get mad about haha. 

We also had a new years run! All over the mission, missionaries participated in a new years run. So my district and the Görlitz district met up in Forst at about 10:30 in the morning and ran 5 kilometers together. Except this is how it really turned out. One apparently there was supposed to be some kind of event but nobody was there expect us and so we had no idea how to figure out that we ran 5km. Luckily we have iPads and Elder Schulte and I were able to map out a stretch of 2.5 kilometers and we would just run there and then back, which happened to be right on the polish border. Yay! However the only people that knew the route was Elder Schulte and I. And Elder Schulte couldn't run because he had to stay with his companion who just had surgery a couple of weeks ago so they just walked a little bit of it and then walked back. I mean the directions weren't hard at all you basically took one left and then just followed a road all the way up to the end point which was essentially the border of Poland and then you run back, simple right? However at first everyone was following but then after a time everyone lagged behind although they made the first left turn which was the hardest part, basically only Elder Oldroyd and I ran the whole thing while everyone else either took a lot of break or got lost haha however all in all it was fun. 

Okay a couple more things and then I have to end this letter. One cool experience that happened was when Elder Barboza and I were dooring this apartment building in the evening and of course we were weren't expecting much and it was freezing cold! It has been so cold this last week we were just hoping someone would let us in the main stairwell so we could get out of the cold for a little bit. However we got a lot more than expected when a couple from Atrea (some country in between Sudan and Ethiopia) let us in and in their apartment were about 6 other people there and wow yeah it was great. I was honestly just glad that they were Christian haha. But yeah after we had a small visit with them because we had to run and catch a bahn (tram) shortly thereafter. A couple guys actually had interest in coming to our church and hopefully we have a book of mormon in their mother language. It was just great and I am just glad the Lord has been leading us to all these great people as of recent. 

Sorry about the lack of detail in this letter. I am actually currently at the Kosak's house so I have been distracted the whole time by my former mission president and his wife they even ordered us Pizza! So I was a little rushed to write something this week haha. But all in all everything is going good here and I only expect many more great things to happen. 

I love you and pray for you all! And I wish you a wonderful week.

 

Gesundes Neues Jahr!

Tschüss,

Elder Foster