Last Mission Email

Hey Mom!

Well, here we go, the last email on the mission! It is ridiculous how
fast the time has gone, and I am really excited to see you guys in a
few days!

I had a really great last week of the mission. Most of our
appointments worked out, and even though I was feeling kind of trunky
the first few days, it got better by the end of the week. I haven't
been thinking about it too terribly much, but I definitely have been a
little anxious the last few days and it's harder to fall asleep since
my brain just bounces everywhere and won't turn off.

Monday was a good P-day. The Unna Elders came and chilled with us at
the apartment, and when we were done chilling, Elder Moore left for
Unna with Elder Pratt and I stayed on a split with Elder Haskell in
Hagen. We went to our ward mission leader's apartment for dinner, and
his wife hemmed the pants I got for the week you will be here. After
we ate dinner, we drove to an old lady's house named Frau Altmeyer,
who is a former investigator. She had randomly read in the Book of
Mormon about physical and spiritual death, so we talked about that
with her.

On Tuesday, we had the final district meeting of the transfer, which
was really good. I split back with Elder Moore afterwards. We then had
to take a big chunk of time and go to Düsseldorf to get a new train
card for Elder Moore. The chip in his old one broke, and we took a 45
minute train ride to go across the street of the station in
Düsseldorf, have the guy program a new card for about fifteen seconds,
and then take another train back to Hagen. It was kind of
inconvenient, but it was necessary. We ended the night with our
English class and writing thank you notes for the members.

Wednesday was probably the slowest day of the week. We continued
working on thank you notes, deep-cleaned the apartment (cleaning
checks were the next morning), and went by on an investigator who was
not home.

Thursday was a little more eventful. It was the 1st of May, which is a
holiday in Germany, so there were not a lot of people on the streets.
We had a lunch appointment with a younger couple in the ward and then
headed to the church to make the invitation for Moritz's baptism. In
the evening, we drove out to Breckerfeld (a small town south of Hagen)
to go by on a couple old referrals, but neither of them were at home.

Friday was when the week started to speed up. We had our studies and
weekly planning (my last weekly plan ever haha) and then had a lesson
with a newer investigator, Monica. She is having struggles with giving
up smoking, and she also suffers depression. We gave her a blessing
and told her that at the next lesson, we wanted to begin teaching the
lessons since that will help her more than anything else in giving up
smoking. After the appointment, we made a few batches of brownies for
members who had birthdays. When we were finished with that, we headed
to the west side of town for a short appointment with the Gens family.
That was the last big thing we were able to accomplish that day.

We had a very busy Saturday. We cut studies short to go help a member
couple move from one side of town to another for a couple hours, then
went straight home to shower and go to Iserlohn to have lunch with the
Gusts. We then headed over together to Manuella's apartment and had a
lesson with her about life after death. A partner at work had asked
her about it, so she wanted to know more so she could tell her how it
is. She herself also was a little spotty with her knowledge of the
next life, so we helped her understand that as well. After that
appointment, we rushed home and then took a bus to Bruder Kramer's
house. We had a good time there and showed him the new "Because of
Him" video on the church's website.

Sunday was awesome. We had a really great sacrament meeting, and we
had three investigators at church. Moritz, Manuella, and, for the
first time, Monica came. It was a really good fast and testimony
meeting, and I hope it helped our investigators a lot. After the
meetings and some goodbyes to members, we met in a classroom with
Moritz to discuss the Law of Chastity, the Word of Wisdom, and
tithing. He accepted all of them and is way excited for his baptism.
The cool thing was that we usually try and have members present for
the teaching of lessons to investigators, and our stake president,
Präsident Zarse, was able to assist us. Afterwards, he took us to his
house in Lüdenscheid and we had lunch with him and his family. Upon
arriving home, we used the rest of the night to finish our studies.

Well, that was the last week. We will be relatively busy for the next
few days, which is of course really good. Tonight we go to our
bishop's house for his less-active son's birthday. Tomorrow, we have
district meeting, a member appointment in the afternoon, and then our
English class. On Wednesday we have planned to have a lesson with
Monica, and then we have ward council. It will be a quick bit of time,
and then we will meet up in Frankfurt on Thursday!

I hope you have a good few days, I will see you in Frankfurt!!!

LG, Daniel

Opposition

Hey Mom!

Well, this last week was pretty interesting and busy week.
I had one of the strangest appointments of my mission on Tuesday. The
week before, we got a call from a woman living in our area who said
she was a less-active member of the church, and she wanted us to come
and talk to her daughter. She didn't speak the greatest English or
German, so we couldn't find out exactly what the purpose of our visit
should be or what we were supposed to talk about with her daughter. We
drove over there on Tuesday afternoon with our ward mission leader.
The woman was an Asian lady, and she invited us into her small
apartment. She first asked us to look around the apartment and tell
her what we thought. She then proceeded to tell us about how she had a
few kids that weren't allowed to live with her and she didn't really
know where all of them are, she had recently been divorced for the
third time and her husband had her scriptures and member records, and
that she didn't want to get a job since the welfare in Germany was
giving her more money than a small job in the town would. It was all
just a strange situation, and we couldn't really tell her what she
should do since that is not our responsibility. We later left with a
prayer, and then she followed us all the way out of the apartment and
to the car, which was a good distance away. When we finally drove
away, our ward mission leader said he realized during the appointment
who she was and that she tells a bunch of weird stories and doesn't
look for work so that the church will pay for her to travel around to
visit her kids. It was a sad situation, but we couldn't really do
anything. Anyway, later on we had our English class, which went well.

On Wednesday, I went on a split in Paderborn with Elder Richards. It
was kind of a bad day; all of the appointments they had set up fell
out. So we spent some time finding and also updating information on
the referral manager system the church has online.

We had a back to back split with the Paderborn Elders, so I went on a
split on Thursday with Elder Isham. This time I was in Hagen. We spent
a good 4 hours on trains going from Paderborn to a town called
Lüdenscheid. It is a long trip anyway, but our train got delayed by
about 45 minutes so it took a while. We visited a less-active member
there who is actually the brother of my old Elder's Quorum President
from Langen. He is a cool guy, he is just kind of tangled up in the
ways of the world right now though. We watched some of the church's
new videos online with him, and he seemed to like them. We will start
meeting with him a little bit more regularly, and hope that we can
help him see the fruits of living the gospel.

Friday consisted of district meeting in Unna and then later on a
street display in their pedestrian zone. We didn't see a ton of
success, but we were able to give out 4 copies of the Book of Mormon.
That took up the rest of the day, pretty much.

On Saturday, Elder Moore and I visited a member who is moving next
week and helped him work in the garden at the new apartment, getting
it ready to plant grass on top. As we were doing that, we got a text
from Moritz, who said he had started to face opposition in his family
against him getting baptized. I got kind of worried and thought maybe
it would keep him from getting baptized on his scheduled day. He said
his sister and brother-in-law said he is not old enough to make such a
big decision so quickly and that if his girlfriend (a member) dumps
him, he won't even want to be in the church anymore. We planned to
talk with him about that the next day at church. We ended the night
with our weekly Bruder Kramer appointment.

We went to church on Sunday morning, and I had a nice surprise there.
The Helzers, one of my favorite families from Solingen, were at church
because a relative's baby was getting blessed. It was cool catching up
with them and getting a picture together. Moritz showed up during
opening exercises at priesthood, and we took him aside with our ward
mission leader to talk about his situation. It was kind of intense. We
shared with him the story of Joseph Smith being persecuted for his
beliefs, and I also talked about Eric Corpuz's story when he got
baptized. Moritz said at the end of the appointment that he was still
planning on getting baptized on the 11th, and he prayed at the end for
strength to overcome the opposition in his family. It was awesome. We
had a really good Sunday with church, and later on an eating
appointment with a cool family in the ward.

Well, today is my second to last P-day. The Unna Elders are coming in
a little while, and we will chill and then I will go on my last split
with Elder Haskell. It should be fun. We will meet with our ward
mission leader tonight and then have district meeting tomorrow.

I hope you have a great week, love you!

LG, Daniel