Transfers

Hey Mom!

 

Sounds like everyone had a good time watching general conference. It is really crazy to think that in probably 6 months or so there could be 18 year old elders and 19 year old sisters in my mission. That is cool that Libby came down with Mat to watch conference at home, and that Ryan got to go to two sessions in person. My favorite talks were from President Eyring and Elder Holland.

This last week was crazy with a bunch of stuff, including transfer calls. I guess I'll start off spilling the beans on what is happening this transfer. Elder Gautreaux is getting transferred to Offenbach up by Frankfurt for his last six weeks, and I will be staying in Idar-Oberstein. My new companion, who I will be picking up on Thursday, is named Elder Fausnaught. I have met him once before, and he seems really cool. I have heard from a bunch of missionaries that he is a really hard worker and that they had a blast serving with him, so I am excited. He just finished training one of the elders from my MTC group. He has just been called to be the second zone leader in K-town zone which is the zone I am in, so this next period of time I serve with him will surely be busy.
 

This week began with a split with Elder Johnson from Saarbrücken. He was really cool, and I am glad I got to be with him for a few days. We found a few potential investigators, who hopefully we can follow up on and then turn into actual investigators.

We have been singing with these choirs still every week. We had an early practice with the one in Kirschweiler on Tuesday, and then we had our concert with them on Saturday night. It was really cool because a bunch of choirs performed and it was all old people except for our choir because of us two. Everyone was talking about us and a ton of people were staring at our name badges forever. The choir that we perform with loves us and basically treats us like celebrities, which is really cool. Elder Fausnaught can sing, I heard him at a mission leader conference during my first transfer, so hopefully he will be cool with going to all of these choirs.

Well, I will get to see Matt (Hutchings) on Thursday when he is here. I am looking forward to seeing him, and there are quite a few elders from my MTC group who are training that are all legit. Elder Proffitt and Elder Ludlow are training, and I hope one of them gets to train Matt, Elder Proffitt because he is a beast missionary and my best mission bud, and Elder Ludlow because he loves and plays baseball and is also really funny.

On Friday, we got to spend the day with one of Elder Gautreaux's friends from back home that is not a member. Präsident Schwartz gave Elder Gautreaux permission to see him and talk to him, and it was really cool. He invited his friend at the end of our meet to meet with the missionaries in Heidelberg, where he is going to college. He said he would think about it and took the Elders' email addresses so he could contact them and meet with them.

Besides all of that, this week was just more doors, sleeping, and studying. I can't believe that I have almost been out for 5 months now. Sometimes when I'm thinking about it I come to the realization that this is my mission, what I have been waiting for for 19 years. It is really amazing to think that I am actually out here doing this and that this is the only time I will get to do this, at least in the same way I am now.

I hope that all is well! Love you!

Liebe, Daniel

Four Choirs

Hey Mom!

This week was pretty cool. We are now part of four choirs that all meet at 8 pm on four different days (Monday in Nahbollenbach, Tuesday in Tiefenstein, Wednesday in Heimweiler, and Thursday in Kirschweiler). The choirs we meet with on Wednesday and Thursday are legit. The leader of the choir in Nahbollenbach told us about his other choir he leads in Kirschweiler, which we went to for the first time last week. When we sat down with everyone, he said "Jetzt könnt ihr Missionsarbeit hier machen!" which was really cool because he is Evangelisch and it is an Evangelisch choir, but he straight up told us that we are doing missionary work there. All of the people love us there too. We are kind of like celebrities since we are young and American among all of these old German people. It is really cool, and there was a guy who sat down next to me and told me that his family lives in Mesa, Arizona and that he had seen our temple there and that it was really pretty.

For part of the week, I was on a split with a missionary who goes home in a week. It was his last split ever, and his body was in Germany but his mind was in America. I don't want to ever become like that because he seriously didn't care about studying or anything, he was just kind of dead. Later on in the week I finally went on a split with our zone leader, Elder Jongejan. It was probably the most fun split I have had. I went to Ramstein for the split, and we had some really good dooring time, a little time on their massive Fußgängerzone, and met with an American Polynesian guy called Tui. He was really cool, and had served a mission, half in Salt Lake and half in Washington. He got "super-transferred" to that mission because a lot of his family lived in Salt Lake, and his cousin was his bishop in one of his wards. He had too much interference with missionary work from his family, so they transferred him where he could get work done. He was really awesome.

We had to deep clean our apartment this last week for a mission-wide apartment inspection, so now our apartment is in tiptop shape. I also got to give a talk in our German branch yesterday about receiving revelation from the Book of Mormon. It was really cool.

Elder Gautreaux has to get his wisdom teeth out this week. It is going to be kind of a rough week, but it's ok. By the way, he said to tell you that he said "hey." This is the last week of the transfer, so I don't know if I will stay here or not. From what we have heard, we think that most likely I will stay here and Elder Gautreaux will be transferred, but we are not sure.

Well, that is all for this week. I hope everyone has a really good week and that alles gute! Love you!

Liebe, Daniel