Yes Mom, and before you start getting the wrong ideas I'm
fairly certain that Brother Wolfert meant that I was a humble, as opposed to
humbling, missionary. Though I think both are fairly accurate. I'm happy to say
that I've yet to have a fellow member be flat-out rude to me and while I can't
say the same for non-members, I imagine such remarks would be a lot more
stinging when coming from those who are supposed to be your greatest teammates
as a missionary. Also, any news on the letter mix-up? I'm glad you're managing
to survive, Wouard. Sounds like quite the dangerous life having three little
girls around. Gotta admit I'm pretty jealous. Germans don't typically believe
in such delicous desserts like peanut butter bars. They're more into the boring
stuff, life fruit-based desserts. Quite the tough life. What Lisa, you didn't
even take a selfie with your German food? On Friday we're giving a 20 minute
lesson about baptism. I'll let you know if that also feels like 5 minutes,
tehee. Don't worry Andy, there are more precious sorts of gems out there for
you to find. Good luck with the Old Testament, my half-hearted attempts to read
it haven't gotten me too far. Joey, there are so many myths about missionary
work, I'm glad to put this one to rest. I think if we were to not spend half
our day knocking doors and stopping people on the street, we wouldn't have much
to do other than scratch our bum bums and get fat off of eating appointments with
members. Yeah Dad, bike areas definitely help with keeping in shape. I'm afraid
I've started to go back down in terms of weight, I never quite made it to 150
pounds. Quite the shame.
Another solid week in
the happening world of Stadthagen. Of course for the most exciting part I just
happened to be on exchanges in Bielefeld. Elders Barboza and Fritz had an
appointment with our investigator Frau Heumann, and at last she accepted a
baptismal date! And aside from the fact that she needs to work on her church
attendance, she's pretty well prepared for it. Coffee had been a problem, but
as it turns out (I was also quite shocked, but it came to us from the mouth of
the Mission President himself) you're allowed to be baptized if you drink
de-caffeinated coffee. Or maybe that isn't all that weird...no clue. In terms
of church attendance she always has "good" excuses when she doesn't
make it, but excuses are still excuses. But either way, it's been awesome to
see her make progress. At first she didn't understand the Book of Mormon all
that well, but now when we meet with her she explains stuff (for example the
fall) better than I could have explained it after 10 years of being baptized.
We also had a pretty cool appointment with another
investigator, Martin. He had come to our showing of Meet the Mormons and had
talked for a good 15 or so minutes with the Bishop. They both live in Hameln
(southern city in our area) and so arranged a little dinner appointment with
each other to be had at the Bishop's house. So on Friday we met Martin and his
wife Anja at their apartment and rode with them to Bishop Schwing's. It was the
first time we had been able to really talk to Anja; at the beginning she had
been totally against Martin meeting with us. Her friends had told her the
classic "mormons have more than one wife" line, and naturally the
concept of her husband having more than one wife wasn't terribly appealing to
her. But after being able to actually meet not only missionaries, but also
normal members, she opened up a lot and seems to have just as much interest as
Martin. Unfortunately we didn't have much time (it takes like an hour and a
half to get to Stadthagen from Hameln) and were only able to give a condensed
version of the restoration. Short, but also sweet. I'm excited with the
direction things are going with them.
This week I felt like I was (for probably the 102nd time)
reminded of the importance of hope. "If you have not faith, hope, and
charity, you can do nothing." That being the case it only makes sense that
those are the things that Satan would focus his attacks on. And if he can
diminish hope, then by definition faith will also decrease. And without faith
on Jesus Christ, I imagine it's somewhat harder to be filled with His love. In
other words, we gotta have hope. Hope for the world, hope for others, and
perhaps most importantly, hope for ourselves. I guess what I'm trying to get at
is that, based on my experience, there will be times that Satan will attack our
hope. He will tell us that things will not and can not get better. He will
smother us with lies and temptations in order to blind us from the fact that we
are beloved children of God with infinite potential, who have every reason to
hope for improvement.
So don't let that old liar get to you :). Have an awesome
week!
Elder Larsen
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