New Transfer

Hey mom!

This last week was nothing short of crazy. We basically lost all of our potential investigators that we had found, and everything seemed to be going really bad. We have not had anyone to teach besides members, and it has been very very hard. No one is progressing or anything, and everything in our area kind of fell apart very abruptly. I was pretty down and discouraged, and I think Elder Gautreaux probably was as well. Everyone we seemed to call would hang up on us, everyone we contacted on the Fuß said they were not interested, except for one guy who we are going to call again today. It is strange how many fallouts we have had because we are literally doing everything we can to be obedient and to find.

We had Zone Training on Saturday, and Präsident Schwartz and Elder Goldsmith, one of the APs, came too. We got to all have interviews with him and let him know how we were doing. He gave me a lot of really good counsel and some ideas on how to jumpstart our area and get things back on track. It was really comforting, and he is the coolest, most spiritual and revelatory man I have ever met. Elder Gautreaux felt the same way, and we are very excited to start this new transfer.

Speaking of the new transfer, we are remaining in Idar-Oberstein, but our area is now part of the Saarbrücken district instead of the Kaiserslautern district. It is going to make travel a real pain since the areas now in our district are I-O, Saarbrücken, and Bitburg, which are all a pretty good distance away from each other.

 

Also, Präsident wants me to basically be in charge of Idar-Oberstein and for Elder Gautreaux to act as though he were a golden in order for me to get a better feel for how to lead and how to know how to do everything a missionary needs to do here to work effectively instead of just kind of following the leader. I am excited, but it will be tough and I am sure there will be a lot of mistakes made that I will learn from.

We had a really cool experience two nights ago when we got back from Zone Training. We were walking from the Bahnhof back through the Fuß and then to our apartment. We were about 100 or 150 feet away from our apartment and this car pulls up beside us, stops, and a guy gets out. It was late and dark, and I was kind of worried for a second that something weird was going to happen. He asked us if we were missionaries, and we told him we were. He went on to relate that he had met with missionaries 10 years ago and one of his friends from Köln, another German city, had given him a Book of Mormon. He said he had read it, and that he knows it is true. We exchanged contact info, and are going to see him this evening. It was a really cool experience, and hopefully it sets the tone for this new transfer.

One of the APs just finished his mission, so we will be getting another AP to be with Elder Goldsmith. I think his name is Elder Holzer, and I have heard he is the man.

Well, this is the first Pday where I will have time to write to you guys, so I won't make this email too long. I hope everything is awesome and the everyone is having fun with life. Bis nächste Woche!

Liebe, Daniel

 One of the American YSAs interviewed the missionaries from my old district and made a video, and then this picture is from when we went to the temple with Storms, Elder Gautreaux's recent convert, and her friend Loveland. The guy on my left is Adam, the guy who made the video.

YouTube video of an interview with Elder Daniel Squires and other missionaries.