Samstag, Februar 4, 2012

Well, this past week was pretty awesome. Last Sunday, I spoke at church and called everyone to repentance. Ha - not really. I spoke about prayer. It’s easier to give talks in German, I think. I never thought I would give a talk in English in Germany. I was probably more nervous about that talk than my first one in German actually, because my first one in German everyone knew I was brand new and already knew I was going to slaughter their language. Ha, but English is  my mother language, and man - if I messed up speaking in that language it would be bad. I did mess up a little bit in English, but it was just funny.

This last week we found out that a fourth country is being added to our mission! It’s ITALY!!! I have known about this community since I was in the MTC. But there is a section of Italy that speaks German. It is right under Austria. The main city in this section is Merano. I hope I get to serve there one day, since we have Italian in us. There are 4 countries now, though, in the Alpine German-Speaking Mission.

This past week, as well, we had what we call ‘Mission Tour’. That’s when a general authority comes to visit our mission and speaks to everyone. The general authority was Elder Erich Kopischke. He is a member of the Seventy, and he's German. The mission tour took 3 days for him, actually, because our mission is so big. One day he spoke to all the Elders in Switzerland, then all the Elders in Austria and then all of the Elders in Germany. I learned a lot from him. I had one question written down that I had going into the meeting, and that got answered and it was way awesome. I never asked the question and we never really talked about it, but it still got answered - which was awesome. A really cool thing that he said that I’ll share with you was:

"It is true that if we all went home today, that the Lord's word would still go forward (talking about missionary work), but the Heavens would cry. The Heavens cried when Satan left, along with a third of our brothers and sisters. The verses 2 and 4 in the 4th section of Doctrine and Covenants do not promise us how many baptisms we will get, but they promise us salvation."

That was something really cool that he said, I thought. I really learned a lot about how to use my time a little more wisely from this meeting, as well. Actually there’s tons more that I learned. It was good, though.

I found out this past week that Elder Buntain is coming to the office! I don't know if you guys remember, but Elder Buntain and I were companions in the MTC. He's way awesome. I'm pretty stoked for that. He will be coming in on Tuesday. We will be companions for at least 5 months.

Sadly, we didn't have any investigators come to church again. Two of our main investigators just dropped us. That’s what we say when they don't want to meet with us. We think they heard some anti stuff. Because both of them have this "spiritual father", as they called him. And after they met him they didn't have interest anymore. We only have one other investigator, and we can't meet with her too much. She is really busy.

(In response to a question from home:) Well, I am doing good on missionary clothing so far. I have been taking good care of everything (I think). Just the soles of my shoes are the only thing that needs to be replaced on my shoes. I may go to a shoe shop and get them replaced, because there are a lot of shoe shops here in Europe. I actually needed socks, but it was really cool - a member in Klagenfurt saw that I needed some socks, so she got me some for Christmas. It was the wife of the bishop there, actually. That was nice of her. Then, Elder Croft has a ton of socks! He just gave me, like, 10 new pairs, pretty much. So I'm set on socks.

(In response to a comment from home:) I guess it’s kinda frustrating with some of our investigators. I don't think I'm really frustrated, though. I just don't understand why people don't do the things we ask them. It's more of a ‘wonder’ for me. I wonder why they don't do it. Because I think I'm a patient person, but perhaps I'm not as patient as I should be. I have thought about that same thing too, as well. Some of us are really learning how to become more like God. Then some adults are still learning how become like adults, because they still act like children (lol). But I would totally agree with what you said. We really are learning how to become like Heavenly Father.

[ Elder Caraway ]