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