Big Changes

Hey Mom!

That is really awesome that Kiffyn got her mission call to San Jose, she is going to be a really awesome missionary, and tell her I say congrats!

Well, I have some exciting news for this next transfer: I have been called to be a District Leader! I am getting transferred to Solingen, which is in the same zone as Elder Hutchings, so I will see him on Saturday, which I am pumped about. My district consists of Solingen, Wuppertal, and the Düsseldorf Elders and Sisters, so four companionships ins gesamt. The Düsseldorf Elders, Elder Riplinger and Elder Sommerville, are the zone leaders, so I will be able to work pretty closely with them to help out the district and zone. One of the sisters in Düsseldorf, Sister Nelson, is going to train this transfer, so I will also have a brand new sister missionary, Sister Smith in the district, so all in all, I will have quite a bit of weight on my shoulders, so I hope I do ok. The Wuppertal Elders are Elder Kearl and Elder Brown, and they have a baptism coming up so I am going to have to do a baptismal interview pretty soon here, which is pretty intimidating. My new companion is named Elder Fowler. He is one transfer younger than I am, so I will be the older elder in the companionship. I will be his "golden buster," which is what we call missionaries in our mission that are companions with an elder who just finished getting trained. So Elder Fausnaught golden busted me and now I am golden busting Elder Fowler. His MTC companion is in K-town Zone, which I have been in since I got here, and he said he is really funny and a good elder so I am excited. Either way, we are going to be a really young companionship because I am going into transfer 4 and he is going into transfer 3. Elder Bonzo, my MTC comp, also has been called as a District Leader, and he is going to Unna. It was really cool to hear on the transfer call that we were both going to be District Leaders.

This week was pretty good. It went by pretty quickly, and I don't have my planner on me to remember everything that we did since this week was the start of a new planner, so it probably won't be super detailed. We met with a few less-actives this week, and also with a handful of members. On Tuesday, we met with an active member in Gemeinde Idar-Oberstein. He has a couple of issues and is always kind of bobbing up and down in his seat, and he told us why when we visited him. He said apparently he used to be a life guard back in the day and was normal, but he got poisoning from the chlorine and now he can't control all of his movement and kind of twitches and bobs a lot. I feel really bad because there were times during the lesson where he would stop and think about something for a second and stop twitching, and I could totally see how he probably used to be since he just looked normal, and then he would start twitching again. He is a really nice guy though, and has a lot of potential investigators for the missionaries.

Wednesday consisted of going and getting our summer tires from the tire shop because we were supposed to get a new car on that day, which is awesome because the Opel Corsas that we drive are garbage. Then we found out on the way to get the tires that we were going to have to wait until Monday (today) to pick it up, which was a bummer. I have been the driver of the car this whole transfer since Elder Fausnaught doesn't have a German license, and I was really pumped to get rid of the Corsa and get a new Toyota Yaris.

We also did some work with our investigators. We finally met with David again; he had gotten a new job and it has been hard for us to meet with him for the last 2 weeks. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation, and he took everything in well. I hope he gets baptized sometime soon after I leave here.

We met with our German investigator a bunch of times this week. She has been doing better with not smoking, but it is still hard for her. We did get another potential investigator which is really cool. She is in pretty much the same situation as our other investigator, so hopefully they can both be helped.
We spent a lot of time hanging up posters and giving out fliers for the Vocalis Choir, a German LDS youth choir that tours around Europe, and they are coming to Idar-Oberstein on December 1st. It is kind of a bummer because I am doing all of this work to advertise for them but I don't get to see the concert, but oh well.

On Thursday, we went to those farmers we found a couple weeks ago and did about 3 hours of service for them, which meant 3 hours of shoveling up horse crap from the ranch. It was pretty sweet because it is really hard to find service opportunities in Germany. Everyone thinks we are either selling something or have hidden motives or something, but these farmers said we can come by any day to do service for them.

Yesterday, we went to the Idar-Oberstein Branch for church, and I got a picture with almost the whole branch, but I forgot my camera at the apartment, so I will send that picture next week. Afterwards, we met with the Schülers for one last time. Bruder Schüler is my favorite guy in the ward. He is just a little boy stuck in an old man's body, and always cracks hilarious jokes.

Today, we finally got to drive up to Frankfurt and pick up our new car. The new Toyota Yaris is a million times nicer than the Opel and we literally drove off the lot with 0 kilometers on the car. I am really disappointed that I get to only drive it for 2 days though. After that, Elder Fausnaught's new golden is going to get to drive it (he is training this transfer in Idar-Oberstein), and I will be walking and taking public transportation in Solingen. The Yaris is kind of ugly on the outside but the inside is really nice and it drives really smooth, so I will miss it.

Other than that, it has just been the same old. I am excited to be leaving Idar-Oberstein, even though the area is really starting to pick up and I loved serving with Elder Fausnaught. It is about time for a change of scenery. I don't know what Solingen looks like yet, but in Düsseldorf I know they will have some pretty big Weihnachtsmärkte so I bet I could find a pretty sweet Nativity set there. I also heard that Solingen makes the best knives in Germany, so I will have to take a look into those when I get there!

That is all for this week. Pretty crazy, and I hope I can fulfill my calling this coming transfer. I hope everything is well, Love you!

Liebe, Daniel