New Mission President Week

Hey Mom!

This week has been crazy.  It's the week of the new mission president seminar where all of the new mission presidents get trained, so that means that all of the general authorities are here. I haven't seen any of them yet, but the MTC has been super busy with all the sections roped off for them. We only have half of the lunch room to use and the line for it is always enormous. Tonight we will have our devotional and we are all sure that it will be a general authority; it's scheduled to be an hour longer than usual, and the apostles are all here, so I'm pretty sure it's one of them. Also, all of the teachers tell us that President Uchtdorf likes visiting the German building and talking with the missionaries going to Germany while he is here. We haven't seen him yet, but the general authorities with be here until Thursday, so hopefully we see him. I've never seen a member of the First Presidency or an apostle up close and personal, so it should be crazy if he shows up.

In terms of our teaching with investigators, we have begun teaching another companionship as role playing investigators as well. Elder Bonzo and I teach Elders Orchard and Root, and vice versa. It's a pretty cool experience and it reassures me that we are all on the same level still in terms of language and teaching. Our last lessons with Karl (Brother Luna) have been crazy. Two lessons ago, we talked about why we go to church, the importance of the sacrament, and how he can be blessed. We were a little short on time, and our commitment for him was kind of last minute, so it wasn't the best lesson; however, our lesson yesterday went amazing. We were able to apply scriptures and the doctrine of the gospel to his life and his kids, and really helped him to see why he needs to be baptized. I invited him to be baptized, not expecting him to say yes, and he paused for a second and said, "Ja, wann?" (yeah, when?). It totally caught me off guard, but we set up a date for him to be baptized on July 17, the day we leave the MTC. That way, we can keep teaching him the rest of the lessons while we are here. It was a really crazy experience and the spirit was really strong.

In terms of the language, everything is going well. I'm getting better at reading quickly and putting verbs in the correct places in sentences. It's weird how many different things can push a verb to the end of a sentence, like another verb, a subordinating conjunction, etc. Sometimes it is really confusing, but I enjoy the challenge. I know it is only going to get better from here. I have started listening to a lot of native speakers during our TALL lab, and it is getting easier to understand them even though they are speaking like lightning.

Anyway, things here are generally really good, and I am getting excited to head to Germany. I hope you have an awesome week and that all is well. Bis Später!

Liebe, Daniel