A Good Christmas Celebration

Hey Mom!

I felt like the Christmas season went by really fast as well. This whole year has gone by really fast. I had a great time skyping with everyones.  I am glad that everyone had  a fun Christmas season.

We had a really good Christmas celebration here as well. We pretty much just had 4 days of relaxing and having fun in the beginning of the week. Monday was P-day, and then we finished the night by making brownies to take to various members. 

Tuesday (Heiligabend) was the ward Christmas service, and it went really well. After that, we were taken to Frankfurt by Bruder Stübe so that we could pick up Sister Bass and then drive back to Langen to have dinner and celebrate. When we arrived, the Christmas service in the Frankfurt ward was still going, so we had to wait in the car for a good 45 minutes before we finally left again, but that was alright. When we got to the Stübes, we had a delicious dinner of Spätzle and this brown meat sauce followed by an awesome raspberry creme and meringue. It was awesome. We shared a short lesson with them about being like little children and then surprised them with Kinder Eggs with the little toys inside. 

Christmas day was great. We went to the Kempeners, of course, where we skyped. We had a simple brunch with them as well as a small gift exchange. We did that same lesson with the Eggs there, and they seemed to enjoy it. We were there for a while, and we had just a simple day of celebration.

The 26th was also a really good day. We were with the Mühlmanns for almost the whole day. We had a turkey lunch with them and they gave both Elder Overall and I a nice tie and a Santa Räuchermännchen. After that, we just talked, relaxed, had a really good ice cream cake sort of desert, and then watched an old, cheesy, animated church film called the 4th wise man. You may have seen it before. 

Friday was kind of back to work, but still was a more relaxed day. We went to Darmstadt for district meeting, and we watched the mission Christmas DVD (a compilation the mission sends out of pictures taken by missionaries throughout the year) and traded gifts with each other. It was really fun, and afterwards, we went to lunch at Vapiano, which is definitely a place we need to eat when you guys pick me up. Later in the evening, we tried to go by on a less-active member in Walldorf, but he was not home.

On Saturday, we did part of our weekly planning, and then took a train to Götzenhain to try and get in touch with two older referrals that we don´t have contact with, but neither of them were home. After we got home, we had a lesson with Schwester Sonn, the less-active sister, and it went really well. We talked about Lot´s wife and how this new year is a great time to look forward and make a new beginning to reach new goals. Bruder Sauer, our ward mission leader, came with us. Afterwards, he took us back to the church and we coordinated missionary work with him there. 

Yesterday was a pretty good Sunday. Carlos came to church, which surprised us. Peter Rojas, our member translator, also was there again. We told him what had happened with Carlos, and he went and talked to Carlos and Schwester Murcia to see what the situation was. He came back up to us after church and said that Carlos never said that he didn´t want to meet or learn anymore, but just that he thought getting baptized on Jan. 4th was too fast and he wanted to know more first. So basically the guy that translated for us either didn´t understand what Carlos said or he changed it on purpose because he is not interested in religion and tried to sabotage us in a way. When we found that out, we were really happy that Carlos wanted to meet still, but were kind of angry that the translator had lied to us and also probably didn´t translate everything we tried to teach correctly. We have a lesson with him actually in a couple hours, and Peter will be there to translate everything correctly. We are just going to start over from the point we left off at when Peter was there the last time to make sure there is no confusion or false doctrine that was taught. Anyways, the rest of Sunday was good. We pretty much just had our studies and then tried to deliver some brownies, but no one was home. 

That is about it for the week. This week is going to be really awesome because we are teaching Carlos again and we have a ton of member appointments scheduled. Transfer calls are on Saturday, and there is a decent chance that I could get transferred, so if this is my last week in Langen, at least it will be a good one. I will let you know the results of transfer calls in my email next week.

I hope you have a great week and a happy new year!

LG, Daniel

Christmas is Coming

Hey Mom!

Thanks a bunch for the Christmas package, I guess I had either forgotten to write about it or I didn´t have a chance to pick it up from the neighbor until after last Pday. I can´t remember. But I really like the ties everyone got for me, along with candy and letters and stuff. I am really relieved to know that everything I sent got to you guys safely and that you like it. The Schwibbogen (that nativity-ish wooden thing I sent) looks really cool lit up in the dark! A bunch of Germans have things like that on their window sills, except they usually aren´t as fancy as the one I sent home. 

This week was ok in the beginning but ended kind of poorly. We had Pday on Monday and we went to Darmstadt to play games. Because of the travel times and all of the things we had to get done, we were in a huge rush all day and just barely got our grocery shopping done by the time Pday ended. After that, we went to a city called Rödermark to try and make contact with that old referral. He wasn't home, but on the train ride home, an older man talked to us and we helped clear up some false beliefs about Mormons (plural wives, etc. etc.). We ended up giving him a Book of Mormon, and he wanted to give us 10 Euro for it really bad but finally accepted it simply as a Christmas gift. 

We did more service at the Tafel on Tuesday, which is always a good part of the week. When we were finished and had showered, done studies, and tried to contact a former investigator, we went to part of a school concert with the Wagners. They invited us to come with them, and we asked Pres. Schwartz for permission. He said it was up to us if we were going or not. We then asked the zone leaders to see what they thought, and they said to do it if we felt like it was something good to do. We took it as a sign that the Wagners are gaining more and more trust in us, so we went. While there, we got a sort of referral from one of the sons, Felix. He asked us if we would come play pool with him at the church the next day because he was about to move to Wiesbaden a few days later. He was going to bring a friend along who he had already given a Book of Mormon a while ago, and wanted us to kind of just start talking about the gospel while playing. 

Wednesday rolled around, which started off with the usual studies and lunch. When we were finished with that, we headed to the church to work on a few things on the computer and after that, we headed to Neu-Isenburg. We went by on a few people, including a less-active, a former investigator, a random name who showed up on the ward list, and a member. Unfortunately, none of them were home. We saw the member on her bike (Schwester Murcia) and asked her to give her nephew, Carlos (our investigator) some questions we had written up and then translated into Spanish. Once we had done all of that, we headed home to the church to play pool with Felix and his friend. We only had an hour to play, and for some reason, no one ever started talking about the gospel. We at least got to know his friend, so hopefully we will be able to get his number or address from Felix so we can come in contact with him now that Felix has moved away. We only had an hour for that because we had an appointment with the Mühlmanns after that and we had to catch our train toGötzenhain. We had dinner with them along with a few friends of the daughter,Zinnah, and that went really well. After dinner, we watched a Mormon Message about Christmas and then headed over to a neighbor of the Mühlmanns with SchwesterMühlmann, Zinnah, and her friends, and gave him some cookies for Christmas. We are going by on him again tonight to give him the "Joy to the World" DVD and a Book of Mormon. Hopefully that goes well. 

On Thursday, we had district meeting in Darmstadt. We were there for almost the whole day because Pres. Schwartz was here doing interviews, and Elder Overall and I were the last ones because we were the only ones who didn´t have appointments in the afternoon. Ours were in the evening, so Pres. just asked us to stay and wait, which we did. My interview with him was relatively short considering the fact that I had an interview with him recently. He did give me a interview for a temple recommend though because mine expires in the end of January. He wrote on the recommend that the interview took place in August of 2012 so that it would expire shortly after I got home. That way I could have an interview with my own stake president after the mission. Once we headed back to Langen, we just stayed on the train and headed to the Dreieich Bahn so we could go to Dreieichenhain and have a lesson with Michael, our older, German investigator. He had listened to his assignment we gave him, but told us that it didn´t really mean anything for him. We talked about that for a while and also about faith. We listened to the recording of Alma 32, and he told us at the end that he had little desire to change or do anything, so we mutually agreed it would be better if we didn´t visit him much after that. That was kind of lame, but we saw it coming. He said he still wants to listen to the whole Book of Mormon, so maybe something will happen there when he does that. 

Friday began with the Tafel again. It was the last time we will do Tafel this year. It is shutting down until January 7th, so we will return at that time. After that, we went to the church to practice singing with the ward choir. We practiced and then went to sing in an old person´s home. That went well, and there is an old, sick member in the ward who lives there, so we got to visit with her as well. In the evening when that was all over, we headed to Neu-Isenburg to have a lesson with Carlos. We had planned to talk about the Plan of Salvation, but he had some concerns and misunderstandings about baptism, so we focused our lesson on that. Schwester Murcia´s friend was there to translate for us, and while it was not the greatest that we had a nonmember translating for us, it was our only option. The lesson, we thought, went relatively well. We also got a lesson scheduled with some more of Schw. Murcia´s friends who just happened to be at her house.

On Saturday, we had a kind of slow day. We were in the church for church tours, but no one came. While we were waiting, we got to watch the Christmas Devotional, though. When that was all over, we did weekly planning. It took a long time and we had a hard time focusing. After that, we went by on Schwester Sonn, a less-active sister, and made a new appointment with her. We finished the day by updating our area book and brainstorming for the mission finding day. 

Sunday was kind of a shock. We had planned to have a lesson with Carlos during church, and that happened. Schwester Murcia was not there; she felt sick, so she stayed at home. Her friend took Carlos to church to translate for us again, which was nice of him. We did teach the Plan of Salvation this time, and it seemed to go well. At the end, we asked Carlos to pray, and he did. We were ok with how the lesson went and thought that it would have been helpful for Carlos. After he said the prayer, we started packing our things to head down to sacrament meeting, and the man translating for us said that Carlos had something to say. He then said something in Spanish, which the friend translated. Carlos said that he had thought about it and no longer wanted to be baptized or meet with us. It was really abrupt and kind of a surprise. We were kind of sad, but that kind of thing happens on the mission. We did our part, and did everything we could, but for whatever reason, Carlos didn´t want to continue to learn. After church, we went to the Langners for lunch, which was followed by caroling at another old person´s home and some elderly members. We finished the night having dinner with the Kempeners and a former missionary, who served for 9 months in Langen a few years ago, along with his wife. 

Well, that was the weekly report. It was kind of unfortunate week, but there were still good things that happened. 

I am excited to Skype in a couple days. I will see you on Christmas! Love you!

LG, Daniel

Following a Prompting

Hey Mom!

It sounds and looks like you and Valerie had an awesome time in New York. I would love to go back or even live there one day. I like that big city feel, which is funny since all of the cities I have served in on the missions are some of the smallest. Kind of ironic in a way. 

Well, this week was really great. On Monday, we went to the Christmas market in Darmstadt to do some Christmas shopping. I was the only one who bought anything really big (out of all 9 missionaries that were there, I was the only one who was celebrating his second Christmas on the mission. I am old!). It was really fun and I hope things get to America safely. After P-day was over, we went back to Langen for a YSA family home evening. It was all the YSAs from Langen and Darmstadt, and two of the Darmstadt Elders were there as well. It was pretty fun. 

On Tuesday, we did our service at the Tafel again. Some of the ladies who serve there started asking us about the church and we responded to their questions, but they did not agree with what we had to say. One lady talked about how there are so many different religions and they all have parts of the truth and in their own way lead you to God, so we explained that thanks to Joseph Smith, all truth is to be found in one church, but they couldn´t comprehend that there could only be one way to return to God. It was kind of one of those situations where people just want to state their opinion without trying to understand why we believe the things we do. I was kind of frustrated. Even one of the women supported the other one and said that the truth radiates from her while what we say is not true, but they are just confused and didn´t really open their ears or hearts to what we had to say. We did end up giving one of them a Book of Mormon though, so hopefully she reads in there and sees what we were talking about. Anyway, after coming home, showering, and studying, we had a lesson with Schwester Sonn for the first time in about two months. It went well; we talked about 2 Nephi 31:20-21, and it seems to have helped her. She still says she is not ready to come to church, and she has said that for years now, so hopefully one day things will change. To end the night, we went to an appointment with our older, German investigator, Michael. Bruder Jungheim came and helped us teach. Michael is still trying to find out if he even wants to start finding out if there is a God. He is kind of comfortable where he is at and doesn´t fully comprehend the importance of our message yet, so we will see if he comes around some time. He had trouble reading the Book of Mormon because his eyes aren´t that good anymore, so we said that we would stop by on Saturday to drop off an audio version of the Book of Mormon in German. 

On Wednesday, I went to Michelstadt for a split with Elder Phelps. It went okay. We were going to have a lesson with an older, active member, but we got to his house and he wasn´t there. We got back in the car to map out a path to get to some potential investigators, and the man we were supposed to have the appointment with walked up to the car and said we would have to repark somewhere where it was legal. We thought he understood we were going to have an appointment still after we moved the car, but when we closed the door, he just walked down the road and disappeared. It was kind of strange. So after that, we hit up some potential investigators, but no one was home/no one had interest. The last appointment for the evening was with a member and her nonmember husband. We talked about family history and how it helps us do work for our dead ancestors, and it seemed to go well. 

I drove up with Elder Phelps to Offenbach on Thursday for zone conference, where we split back to our normal comps. We had a really good meeting, talking about asking inspired questions and listening with empathy, as well as extending and following up on meaningful commitments. Afterwards, we took the subway to Frankfurt and sang Christmas songs on the Zeil while giving out a ton of "Joy to the World" DVDs. It was a lot of fun.

The next day, we went and helped at the Tafel again. We didn´t have as many conversations about the church this time, but that was okay. One of the things we do at the Tafel is sort out old fruits and vegetables and throw away the rotten stuff (which there is a lot of, it smells awful). For some reason, on this day there seemed to be an endless supply of bananas, and they had Elder Overall and I sort them. I didn´t like bananas in the first place, but now I really don´t like them. Rotten bananas stink. When the Tafel was over and we showered and studied, we had our Bibelkreis. We talked about Exodus 1-2 and how Moses´ early life played out. It went okay, but once again, not many people were there. We talked with our ward mission leader and the other members about how we can get more people to come because the branch presidency will not let the Bibelkreis die out (they said very specifically it was going to be a long-term activity). Hopefully we start having better attendance there. 

Saturday was a really cool day. The beginning of the day was really boring and slow. After our studies, we went and got some blank CDs so we could download the audio to the Book of Mormon onto one and give it to Michael. It took a little while, and just sitting down all morning and early afternoon made my tiredness catch up to me. We eventually got onto the train to head out to a town called Rödermark. There is an old media referral out there from 2011 we wanted to get in touch with. Our plan was to go first to Rödermark, contact the guy, and then on the way back, get off the train in Dreieichenhain where Michael lives to drop off the CD and a Restoration pamphlet. Michael had told us beforehand the he would most likely not be home, so we could just leave the stuff in the mailbox. We wanted to see him another time within the week, so we hoped we could, through a miracle, find him at home. As we were on the train to Rödermark, we started pulling into the Dreieichenhain train station. As the train was stopping, I had a thought come into my head that we should get off. I shrugged it off a little at first since I was tired and not too l pleased with how the day was going so far, but then it came more urgently: "get off the train now." I told Elder Overall and we got off the train before it started moving. We walked in the direction of Michael´s apartment, and I prayed in my heart that we would find out why we needed to get off and do this plan first. We didn´t have many good opportunities to talk to people on the way there, but between Michael´s apartment and the train station is the Fußgängerzone, which is decked out as a Christmas market right now in Dreieichenhain. Right when we set foot on the market, Elder Overall said, "Hey, isn´t that Michael?" Sure enough, Michael was standing at the first booth on the Christmas market. We approached him and spoke with him for probably half an hour. He told us how he still struggles to know if he wants to learn about the message but he enjoys our company. He said he had trouble reading in the Book of Mormon because of his eyes, and he also didn´t understand some of what he read, so we were able to give him the CD and comfirm our appointment for the coming week. Right after we parted ways, we saw some members at the market and told them what had just happened, and they thought it was great. They bought us some crepes after that. It was an awesome day, and Elder Overall and I were both really thankful for that prompting we received and that we followed it. 

Sunday was just as good if not better than Saturday. Actually, it started off really stressful though. We got a call from a YSA who had forgotten to tell us we were supposed to give the lesson in Priesthood, so we had maybe 30 minutes to prepare a lesson out of the "Teachings of Lorenzo Snow" in German and then give it to the collective Priesthood in the ward. It turned out alright, though. Our other investigator, Carlos, showed up near the end of the class. For the second hour of church, we had a sort of investigator class where we watched the Restoration in Spanish. At the end, we talked about it and talked about how he felt. He said he felt good about it. We invited him right there to be baptized on Jan. 4, 2014, and he said yes! It is going to be a struggle getting everything in place for that and teaching him all of the lesson because our translator is going to be gone until the 27th, so we are searching out other opportunities to make up the difference (members who speak Spanish in other wards, Spanish friends of Carlos´ aunt, who is a member, etc.). We are praying that God will help us find a way to accomplish this great feat if the time is right. After church, in the evening, we went to the Kempeners and had dinner with them, as well as watching the new Mormon Message about Christmas. They also had us watch Mr. Krueger´s Christmas with them.  It was an awesome day.

Well, we are about to head to Darmstadt for a board game P-day as well as to hit up the Christmas market for one last time, and we have to leave now to catch the train. I hope you have a great week!

LG, Daniel

A Spanish Speaking Investigator

Hey Mom!

We had a really great week this week. We just had Pday on Monday, and then in the evening didn´t have any appointments, so we checked up some information about old referrals in the church´s referral manager system and then prepared some materials for the rest of the week.

Tuesday was a really good day though. We woke up early and went to the Catholic church here at 7:30 a.m. to go do service for the Tafel, which is like a place where they take all of the groceries that are about to expire, clean them up, and then give them out to poor people. We got to do some really good service and a lot of people asked about what we were doing there and it was great. There was also a potential investigator there that just happens to serve at the Tafel as well. The best part is that they want us to keep coming back, so we get to do this service every Tuesday and Friday morning. Later on, we went and contacted that referral from Bru. Jungheim. The guy let us in, but he has some weird opinions about religion and is not super interested in learning about our message. We read in Alma 40 about the next life and he told us he hopes there is no next life, no matter what kind of life it is. He is not suicidal, but he said he hope his life ends soon even though he is only 57. So that was a little strange. After that, we visited the Jungheims and told them how it went in addition to sharing a lesson with them. 

On Wednesday, we headed out to Dietzenbach to try and get Elder Overall´s visa stuff taken care of, but unfortunately, the place was closed. We had only the information for the 2014 hours of operation, but they didn´t turn out to be the same as 2013. After we got back, we helped the ward set up tables and things for the ward Christmas party. When we were done there, we walked to Erika Jochum´s apartment, an investigator who has been meeting with the missionaries for 12 years or so. We straight up told her that if she wasn´t planning on getting baptized eventually, we couldn´t teach her. She said she still wants to meet but probably won´t get baptized. We most likely won´t go over there again. 

On Thursday, I had a split with Elder Schmidt from Michelstadt. We were in Langen, and we had a really good split. We gave a lady a Book of Mormon who said her daughter went off with some gambling addict that gets in trouble with the cops, and now she has little contact with that daughter. We promised that the Book of Mormon will help, and she took it gladly. She didn´t give us a number or address though, so hopefully she reads it and calls us. We later headed to Gravenbruch where a member couple lives, the Mohrs, and had a good lesson/dinner with them. 

We headed to Heidelberg on Friday for our zone training meeting, and that went relatively well. We learned a lot about meeting and working more with the YSAs in our wards. Since then, we have set up an appointment with our YSAs for tonight to talk about those things, and they are also coming to Pday activities today (going to the Christmas markets in Darmstadt). Anyways, when we returned from Heidelberg, we went to the church to help with more Christmas decorations. As we were there, we walked past the entrance of the church and saw an old man reading the poster we have on the door saying what activities we have and when they are. We opened the door and he told us he wanted a tour through the church. We let him in briefly and he just talked and talked and talked about a lot of random things. After inviting him to come back the next day for a tour, he left. We finished up the night with our Bibelkreis, where we talked about Isaac and Rebekah. 

Saturday was an awesome day. The first part of the day was actually not so fun, though. We went to the church, and that old guy came for the church tour. I have never heard someone explain and assume more random things that don´t have anything to do with our church´s doctrine before that tour. Every time we took him to a room in the church he just would go off about how we must do this and that with the various rooms, pictures, chairs, etc. for the longest time. At the most, a church tour should take 15 to 20 minutes, but we were in there for an hour and 15 minutes. It was brutal. An example of what I am talking about was when we went to the basement where we have Priesthood classes. At the front of the room there happened to be four chairs set up and he asked eagerly what the symbolism of the four chairs was. We told him that usually the bishopric sits there and presides over the meetings. His response was that there must be a reason for the fourth chair and then proceeded to come up with this elaborate story about how the 4th chair must be symbolic of a person of high authority that is no longer alive but we set a place for him anyway out of respect. Our response was that what he said was not the case and that it just happened to be that four chairs were set up. That is how the entire tour went. At the end (and all throughout) we invited him to read in the Book of Mormon. He finally responded that he doesn´t need to read books, but that instead he holds books between his hands and just believes, then he knows everything he needs to know about that book. It was really weird, but at least someone came for a tour. 

Later on was when the day got awesome. We had a lesson with the nephew of a member from Columbia. His name is Carlos, and he doesn´t speak German or English. We set up an appointment with him last Sunday through a member from Spain who speaks English, and we had him there to translate everything. It went perfectly. Carlos accepted basically everything we taught and was excited to read in the Book of Mormon and come to church and make out a new appointment. Then after the lesson, we all went upstairs to the ward Christmas party, which was a lot of fun. For an awesome end to the day, we tried to call a bunch of these old referrals again who never seem to answer the phone, and one guy answered, not having had contact with the church since he was referred 3 or 4 years ago, and he said he is still interested in learning our message and taking the lessons in our church building. He doesn´t have time until January, but he said he wants us to call after the holidays to set something up. It was a great day.

Sunday was also good. We had church (Carlos came) and later on a lunch appointment with an older member couple, the Grassmans, and then a dinner appointment with Peter Rojas and his fiancee, where the Dietsches were also present. It was a good Sunday, but we had to eat way too much haha.

Well, things are going well with Elder Overall. We are heading to Darmstadt today to check out the Christmas market and get some cool things, which should be fun.

That is all for the week. I hope you have a great one!

LG, Daniel

Thanksgiving and Voradventsfeier

Hey Mom! 

It looks like everyone had a really good Thanksgiving over there! The golf looked fun as always, and I guess it won´t be too much longer until I am back doing that as well. We got to have two Thanksgiving dinners here, so that was really cool. One was with the district after district meeting (the senior couple in Darmstadt prepared it) and the other was the "before-advent-celebration" with our Elder´s Quorum, which was basically just Thanksgiving. It was really good. 

Well, this week was ok. We started with a sport Pday on Monday in Darmstadt, and that was pretty cool. We later on headed back to Langen, and we had a really good lesson with the Kempeners (the Branch Pres. and his family) on Monday about the Priesthood and how God wants us to use it. The Kempeners are really cool. 

On Tuesday, we had lunch with an old member couple, after which we spent some time writing thank you notes to all of the members. In the evening, we went to Peter Rojas´ (an awesome member from Spain) place for a dinner appointment. When we got there, he asked us if we had a little bit of time, and we said yes, to which he responded that he wanted us to help him decorate his Christmas tree. It was a lot of fun. After that and dinner, Elder Brown shared his favorite scriptures with them as kind of his "goodbye."

Wednesday was pretty great as well. We went to Darmstadt for district meeting. It was a joint meeting with my district and the Darmstadt district. Afterwards, we had the Thanksgiving lunch I mentioned earlier. When we got back, Elder Brown had to pack his stuff until we had an evening appointment with the Mühlmanns. We watched the new "Wrong Roads" Mormon Message with them, which is really a good one. 

Thursday was transfers. We headed up to Frankfurt, and I got to see a lot of missionaries I didn´t see for a long time, including Elder Proffit, Elder Fowler, and Elder Goodrich. I am pretty excited; Elder Proffitt got transferred to Speyer which is in my zone, so I will be able to have more contact with him. I also picked up Elder Overall, my new companion. He is a good guy. We got back and went to Egelsbach to deliver some of the thank you notes Elder Brown and I had written, and then ended by having supper with the Grassmans (the Elder´s Quorum Pres. and his family). We watched the Mormon Message "Men's Hearts Shall Fail Them," and that went well. 

On Friday, we delivered some more thank you notes around Langen and then did our weekly planning. After that, we went to the church and helped set up and later participated in the "Voradventsfeier" (pre-advent-celebration). It went really well. A few members brought their nonmember friends, one of which became a referral. We are visiting this man, Michael, tomorrow evening shortly before we visit the guy who brought him to the activity. We also hoped to have that investigator Jonas there. We got in contact with him again, and he wanted to come, but he didn´t show up and now isn´t answering his phone again. It is frustrating. 

On Saturday, we did a lot of work in our area book, scanning through records of people we could try and contact who were investigators in the past. We decided to pick some out from Egelsbach since we still had a thank you note to deliver there. One of the addresses didn´t exist, but the other two were valid. Both of the people seem promising, but they both said to contact them after the holidays. I can imagine we will hear that from a lot of people. In the evening, we had our correlation with the ward mission leader, and that was good. 

Yesterday was a really good Sunday. Bruder Grassman blessed his newborn baby, and there were a ton of nonmembers there. It was fast and testimony meeting, and the Spirit was really strong. I also got up and bore my testimony, shortly describing what missionaries do. It went well. We haven´t gotten any referrals from this yet, but there were some people who seemed to have good questions and a good experience in the church. After church, we went to the Langners for lunch and talked with them about charity. We later finished the evening with studies. All in all, the week was good.

We have a lot of stuff planned for this week with members and with a couple nonmembers. We need to help the YSAs set up all the Christmas stuff, and we also will have a lesson before our Christmas party with the nephew of a member who is in town. He speaks only Spanish, so Peter Rojas is going to be there as well to translate everything. I hope it goes well, and then we could possibly send the referral to Columbia (I think he is from there) when he leaves in a week or two.

Well, that was the week. I hope you all have a great week and that things continue to go well!

LG, Daniel