A Lot of Bike Riding

Hey Mom!

 

This last week was pretty good, all things considered. On Monday, we were with the Wagners for FHE. We watched the video from "Hastening the Work" with the family that does all that missionary work and the missionaries were just kind of there. I don´t know if you know the one I mean. That went well. After asking them what they could apply from what they learned, the 11-year-old son, Jonas, said we should come play ping pong at the young men´s activity where his nonmember friend was going to be. That was cool to see. 

 

Tuesday was a beast of a day. We rode our bikes about 30 kilometers, most of the time through bumpy forest paths, to try and find a member whose record had been sent to the ward. When we got there, the place where it said he lived turned out to be just an old building where hunters apparently used to stay. There was no one living there. Later on that night, we had an appointment with Mario and Emma Langer from the ward, and we watched the same video as with the Wagners. We invited them to watch the entire broadcast, so we will see what happens there. 

 

On Wednesday, we rode the bikes probably about another 30 kilometers on a similar path to visit an inactive man living in an old person´s home. When we got there, the guy in the lobby said that this man´s health was not doing well and that we couldn´t speak with him. So another really long bike ride where not much happened in the end. We spent a little more time contacting in that city, but didn´t end up having a ton of luck. When we got back, we had the young men´s activity and got to play ping pong with Jonas, his dad, and his friend. In the middle of that we had a very brief appointment with a member who is hard to get a hold of since he is always traveling. 

 

We had disrict meeting in Darmstadt on Thursday, and also spent time on that day to make goals and plans for how we are going to contribute to the Frankfurt Mission Goals between now and the end of the year. We ended the night with our English class, where Mike was once again the only student. 

 

Friday was a good day as well. We did some service at the church, trimming and cleaning the bushes and weeds and everything. After that, we had some studies and also our weekly planning session. Later in the evening, we met with the Voglers, a great family from our ward. We wanted to watch that same video we had watched with other members, but their internet doesn´t work so we had to wing it and talk about the same subject without the video. It actually went really well, and hopefully they can make progress with their friends. 

 

Saturday was a relatively busy day. We made some cookies and took them to some old people in our ward, active and less-active. We also went by on some former investigators and potential investigators, but no one was home. We were going to have an appointment with this family we had found knocking on doors, but when we went to the scheduled appointment, they were not home. We wrote them a note, saying we would try to come back the next week. As we were leaving, a man pulled up in his car with his family, and only he got out and went into the apartment building. As we rode past the car on our bikes, I could see the YSA age girl we had spoken with and who had invited us to come back, hiding her face in the back seat that we might not see her. Oh well, that kind of stuff isn´t foreign to me or any other missionary. Later that evening, we had a lesson with a less-active woman, Schwester Sonn, and it went well. To end off the night, we worked on cleaning up the area book. It is kind of disorganized and messy, so we are trying to get into good shape. 

 

Sunday was a good day as well. We had our church meetings, as always, and got some good appointments with some members set up there. Jonas Wagner told us that after playing ping pong, he was able to tell his friend a little about the church, which made us really happy. After church, we went and had lunch with the Dietsch family, some more members in our ward. We watched that same video with them. We invited them to think about what they had seen and how they can apply it. They have a friend that they said they would like to invite to something, so hopefully that all goes well. In the evening, we went by on some former investigators, but they weren´t there. At the second one, there was a group of guys hanging out outside the apartment building, and as we rounded the corner on our bikes, one of them asked us who we are and what we are doing here. We told him, and he said that he thought it was cool, but then said bye. As we rode away, I felt like we had missed an opportunity there, and that we needed to go back and invite them to church. We did, and they at first all said no, but we offered them some cards, and they took those and then started asking questions about us and our church. None of them were interested in the end, but it is at least nice to have a conversation with people who want to know something. 

 

And that was about the extent of our week. We have a really great opportunity tonight to teach. A 14-year-old girl in our ward, Zinnah Mühlmann, has this friend who she wants to get interested in the gospel, and she invited her over for FHE tonight. We are going over there to give the FHE lesson about Christ. I hope it goes well. Pray that things can turn into something great. This week should be a great week. We have appointments almost everyday this week, and we have zone conference tomorrow in Heidelberg and then general conference on Saturday and Sunday. Gonna be sweet!

 

I hope you have a great week! Love you!

 

LG, Daniel