Des wegen?

And here we are again another P-day has arrived. And only one more P-day in the MTC until I am on my way to Germany. And oh I can not wait. I think back to right before I left for the MTC and everyone's favorite question to ask you was "So are you excited?" And of course I said yes. But really it was kind of an odd excitement. It was an excitement that you still had some worries about. I mean I wondered how I would adjust to the missionary life or if I could hack the work. But as time has gone by in the MTC it has actually been the exact opposite. I have felt more purpose and more meaning in my life than I ever have before. There is nothing else in my life that has allowed me to give so much of myself to. I mean not everything has been perfect so far and probably one of the harder things to get used to is having to deal with a companion. And I have learned something about companionships and it is this. So you either get along with your companion or you don't. And if you are getting along with companion it means you are working together in righteous or you are working together in unrighteous or in other words not really caring about the mission. So really what it comes down to is this. If you are not getting along with your companion it means that one person cares and the other person doesn't really care. One person is serving a mission and the other person is merely on a mission. So sometimes you have to be bold and say "is what I am doing really wrong or do you just not care?" Because if you do care then I need to know because I need to be the one who does the changing. So if you probably can't tell I hope I can have a companion in Germany who has progressed enough that he desires to work hard. Which brings me to another thing I have learned while being here and that is over-bearance is boldness without love. So be bold! I fear no man! Haha sometimes I imagine myself standing up on a park bench in Germany and yelling to all the people to come hear what I have to say. I am not going to Germany to convince the people and that isn't truly the missionary duty. Sometimes you just have to say hey this book is pretty crazy and it has some pretty crazy stories in it BUT I know that it is true. If you experience this book for yourself if you experience prayer and if you exercise your faith you will come to know of its truthfulness by yourself. You can not be converted by any other way you cannot rely on the testimony of others. I do not want the people of Germany to be convinced by my words that would be the worst mistake. I want them to be convinced by their own experiences through the holy spirit. I am merely there to love them, and to help them have their own experiences with finding the truth. So back to what I was saying forever ago. I am very excited to be so close to going to Germany. I am excited to walk up to the very first person in Germany and with my half broken German ask them if I can talk to them about the Book of Mormon. I am even excited to be rejected. How weird is that? I want my faith to be tested. If that is what it takes for the Lord to trust me then so be it. What good would it do me if I could lazily go about my mission breaking the mission rules or not really trying and still baptize somebody. It would do nothing for me and would serve as a bad example to other missionaries who would think they could do it the same way. So come what may. I fear no man! A mission truly is a privilege and a blessing. I am sorry if any of you feel like I am ranting right now. It is just some of the feelings I have been experiencing while I have been at the MTC. You experience a lot of the same things every day at the MTC but you always learn something new each day and you feel a little bit different about the work each day. I guess I am just ready to leave. And I only have 13 days left until I do but it still can not come soon enough. The MTC is like the bump in the trail before you even ascend the mountain. There is still two years left to serve and to give my all to the Lord and know to have patience and that if I am trying my hardest that is always good enough. Nothing I do is in my own name. Everything is done in the Lord's name and that is why I can say with confidence that I am good enough to do this work because through the Atonement of Christ I am made more than just pure but I am able to progress limitlessly.

So what else can I say about the MTC experience? I feel like every possible thing to make campus a little more tedious has happened while being here. Like for instance in the cafeteria they had to block off one half of the entire cafeteria while all the new mission presidents were here being taught by the first presidency and the twelve. And for three weeks the temple was closed down for cleaning and maintenance. And finally they are re-doing the floors in the building where we have devotionals so we have to walk to the Marriot Center to have all of our devotionals. So essentially I came to the MTC during a very busy time. Other random things I can talk about. So every Wednesday my zone or in other words the Germans like to get sack lunches and eat out by the bookstore, so we see all the new missionaries come in. So around 20-30 of us in the zone like to gather around them and applaud and sometimes make tunnels for them and even give giant group hugs for some elders. So basically the Germans of the MTC are sometimes called the Germs. Haha Other random things. So in the residence halls the Germans share the floor with the Russians. And sometimes you feel like the "wall" needs to be put back up. Some real cold war tension. I haven't participated in it yet but some of the Germans and the Russians gather on opposite ends of the halls and play a game called Frisbee Roulette. Which basically you throw the frisbee as hard as you can down the hall at the opposing people at the other end and if you flinch or you move you are out of the game. I have no desire to be blasted in the face with a frisbee. One last random thing. So some of the guys in one of the districts have come up with this thing called Schutzbrille or in english it means goggles. And basically what this is all about is that while in the MTC apparently there will be sisters in the district who at first you may not find the prettiest but as time goes on you will be under the Schutzbrille effect and they will become pretty to you. They have a lot of fun with that. So if anything these little stories just go to show that even though you are a missionary you are still just a 18 or 19 year old or whatever. I try to keep myself away from those sorts of things because then I don't feel like a missionary or my focus is being drawn away from the work. But I can not lie that it is sometimes entertaining to watch the other elders go about it. But yep that concludes another P-day update. Hopefully next time I will be a little more organized with what I have to say in general. But as always I am thankful to be here and I am thankful for all the support I was given to help me get here. And you all are always in my thoughts and prayers.

Sincerely,

Elder Foster