Boy Mom, I'm quite disappointed that after a short time of being gone you can't even recognize my terribly proper and grammatically-correct writing style. Yeah we were a bit rushed last week, so I forgot to mention that I unfortunately have not yet obtained the birthday package. You gotta be careful though Mom, you don't want to get addicted to those computer games of yours. Familysearch, indexing and whatnot. Yeah Lisa, often I think about how similar Germans and Americans are, but other times I wonder when I see some of their weird cultural things. That's funny with the Jenkins kids, I think the distraction tactic works with more than just kids though. There are times out here where I feel kind of mopey and upset and then one little thing can happen to change my attitude and make me wonder why I was annoyed in the first place. In terms of learning Turkish, it's going pretty slow. Since our only Turkish-speaking investigator speaks better German than Turkish, it's hard to work up the motivation to crack down on Turkish rather than just working on my German, so I probably need to repent. Yeah Andy, I'm not really seeing the resemblance between you and Elder Johnson either. Based on those pictures you sent me, someone is looking a little bit scrawny. Hope you'll be ready to be taken down by your younger bro. I'm sorry Joey, but I don't think you've made it to the point that you can call yourselves "The Larsens." If I ever figure out what on earth Straussenfartens are, I'll be sure to avoid them. That Tracy Hall Science Center sounds pretty legit Dad.
It's funny how a mission changes your perspective on so many things. For example, normally I wouldn't have been very excited to take up my entire Saturday helping someone move. On a mission however, there's nothing I'd rather do than spend 8 hours straight carrying furniture. Even better was that the member we helped invited one of his co-workers to also come help, who just happened to be Turkish. Elder Johnson was able to talk with him and unfortunately he didn't end up having any interest, but hey it's the thought that counts.
On Monday we were able to go to Hannover to visit Brother Erdogan, the only Turkish member in the Stake. We didn't have a whole lot of time, but we got to know him and will hopefully be able to meet with him more in the near future, he seems like a pretty awesome guy.
All but one of our appointments for this week ended up falling out, so we had quite a bit of time to do street contacting. The Lord times things pretty well; I just happened to be reading in Alma 26, where Ammon says that they taught people in their houses and on their streets and were cast out, spat upon, stoned and bound with cords. I can't yet relate to being stoned or bound with cords, but everything else sounded pretty familiar. With their initial lack of success and their bounty of afflictions, it may have been easy for the sons of Mosiah to lose hope, yet they trusted in the Lord's promises and ended up fulfilling one of the most successful missions in history. Though I'm not sure that we'll be able to bring as many thousands of Germans/Turks to repentance as Ammon and Aaron did, I do know that in one form or another the Lord will bless us with success when we are faithful and diligent in doing what we have been called to do.
Life is wunderbar, have a jolly old week!
Elder Larsen
Monday, August 29, 2016
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Iyi Gunler (Have a Nice Day)
Hi,
Kind of an interesting week 'round these parts. So on Friday at 5 we came to the church for a few minutes so that Elder Johnson could get in contact with an old investigator in Turkey, and left shortly afterwards. Well an hour and a half later the other Elders in Hildesheim came to have an appointment in the church and found that the church had been broken into. Someone had drilled a hole into the window to get it open and had scoured the church, apparently searching for money. Fortunately they didn't seem to find any and left without taking anything...in fact they seemed to have accidentally left about €2 worth of coins outside the door, so apparently in their attempt to rob the church they actually lost money. But anywho, since the 2 of us had only been in the foyer when we were there, we have no idea if the break-in happened before, during or after our visit...scary stuff. The police came to investigate, and since then not much has happened, everything is back in order and just as it was before.
Aside from that, nothing too exciting from this last week. We're starting to focus some of our time and effort in working with less active members, which is going pretty well. One needed help taking some things to the dump, and upon leaving he had us wait for a second as he went to talk to one of the female employees. We couldn't hear what they were saying, but she looked kind of embarrassed, pulled out her phone and talked to someone, then walked away. He came back and told us that he had asked her out on a date. He told us it's not typically normal to randomly walk up to someone and ask them on a date in Germany, and that he gets all kinds of reactions when he does it. Learn something new about German culture every day...anyway we were able to talk with him and commit him to start praying every day, a small but important step. It's a little difficult, as he is apparently completely at peace with his life and doesn't really feel a need to change, but we're gradually making progress.
That's about all I've got, love you all, have an awesome week!
Elder Larsen
Kind of an interesting week 'round these parts. So on Friday at 5 we came to the church for a few minutes so that Elder Johnson could get in contact with an old investigator in Turkey, and left shortly afterwards. Well an hour and a half later the other Elders in Hildesheim came to have an appointment in the church and found that the church had been broken into. Someone had drilled a hole into the window to get it open and had scoured the church, apparently searching for money. Fortunately they didn't seem to find any and left without taking anything...in fact they seemed to have accidentally left about €2 worth of coins outside the door, so apparently in their attempt to rob the church they actually lost money. But anywho, since the 2 of us had only been in the foyer when we were there, we have no idea if the break-in happened before, during or after our visit...scary stuff. The police came to investigate, and since then not much has happened, everything is back in order and just as it was before.
That's about all I've got, love you all, have an awesome week!
Elder Larsen
Monday, August 15, 2016
Turkce Bilmiyorum
Merhaba,
Yeah Mom, I had talked to Elder Johnson and he said that most people in the military would either be in the city where he had served or in the all-american military branch. That's crazy that they'll be moving here to Germany though, small world. Yep, my companion be from Murica Lisa. New Joyzee, to be precise. Yeah, trying too hard is something I've thought about a lot as well. Especially in a mission like Germany where our efforts aren't always immediately met with obvious success, there's the potential of getting discouraged or cynical. But if you just don't stress too much about it, put in the effort while being patient and faithful in the Lord's timing, things go a lot better. Don't worry Andy, I'll be back to take you down in ultimate soon enough. I gotta say though, during the one time so far that I've been able to play ultimate, despite us winning pretty solidly I wasn't quite feeling that competitive fire. But I'll get it back eventually. Thanks for the birthday wishes Steve! Things are going a bit slow with the Turks, but we're gradually pressing forward. You know Joey, sometimes I look back and wish that I had heard some of these stories before my mission, haha. I discovered pretty quick in the field that my expectations of a mission weren't incredibly accurate. Somehow I pictured the main difficulties being eating nasty food or missing video games or being chased by dogs or some nonsense like that. It's a whole lot more complex and meaningful than I had first thought. Sounds like a good week, Dad. So with all the stuff at the stake park, did you not spend as much time at the cabin this year at the hall reunion?
This week started off pretty solid. On p-day we went as a district to this sweet castle in our area, where we did some exploring and took some nice pictures. Afterwards that evening in our finding efforts I ended up getting us on the wrong bus, taking us to the opposite side of the city as where we wanted to work at. But we saw that there was a less active member in the area, so we decided to visit her. She opened the door and said she was busy right then but that she'd like to make out an appointment with us. A couple days later we had a little meeting with our Branch President where we mentioned that we had visited this lady, and he said that after years of trying to send members and missionaries to visit her, they hadn't been able to get an appointment. So I'd say that was something of a miracle. Funny how God can even take the things we see as mistakes and use them to fulfill his purposes.
In regards to our efforts in finding Turks, we seem to be running into some difficulties. Apparently Hildesheim has one of the biggest concentrations of Isis-sympathizers in the country, and in the last 4 weeks they've had 2 confrontations with the police. So not exactly the safest time to be proselyting around high populations of Muslims. Right now we're just talking mostly to Germans and trying to see if we can possibly spend some time during the week in Hannover, the area next to us, because there are also a lot of Turks there and it's also the ward with the only Turkish member in the stake. In the end though I think it'll just come down to being patient and waiting to see what the Lord has in store for us here.
Think that's about all I've got, I hope you guys have an awesome week! Love you!
Elder Larsen
Yeah Mom, I had talked to Elder Johnson and he said that most people in the military would either be in the city where he had served or in the all-american military branch. That's crazy that they'll be moving here to Germany though, small world. Yep, my companion be from Murica Lisa. New Joyzee, to be precise. Yeah, trying too hard is something I've thought about a lot as well. Especially in a mission like Germany where our efforts aren't always immediately met with obvious success, there's the potential of getting discouraged or cynical. But if you just don't stress too much about it, put in the effort while being patient and faithful in the Lord's timing, things go a lot better. Don't worry Andy, I'll be back to take you down in ultimate soon enough. I gotta say though, during the one time so far that I've been able to play ultimate, despite us winning pretty solidly I wasn't quite feeling that competitive fire. But I'll get it back eventually. Thanks for the birthday wishes Steve! Things are going a bit slow with the Turks, but we're gradually pressing forward. You know Joey, sometimes I look back and wish that I had heard some of these stories before my mission, haha. I discovered pretty quick in the field that my expectations of a mission weren't incredibly accurate. Somehow I pictured the main difficulties being eating nasty food or missing video games or being chased by dogs or some nonsense like that. It's a whole lot more complex and meaningful than I had first thought. Sounds like a good week, Dad. So with all the stuff at the stake park, did you not spend as much time at the cabin this year at the hall reunion?
This week started off pretty solid. On p-day we went as a district to this sweet castle in our area, where we did some exploring and took some nice pictures. Afterwards that evening in our finding efforts I ended up getting us on the wrong bus, taking us to the opposite side of the city as where we wanted to work at. But we saw that there was a less active member in the area, so we decided to visit her. She opened the door and said she was busy right then but that she'd like to make out an appointment with us. A couple days later we had a little meeting with our Branch President where we mentioned that we had visited this lady, and he said that after years of trying to send members and missionaries to visit her, they hadn't been able to get an appointment. So I'd say that was something of a miracle. Funny how God can even take the things we see as mistakes and use them to fulfill his purposes.In regards to our efforts in finding Turks, we seem to be running into some difficulties. Apparently Hildesheim has one of the biggest concentrations of Isis-sympathizers in the country, and in the last 4 weeks they've had 2 confrontations with the police. So not exactly the safest time to be proselyting around high populations of Muslims. Right now we're just talking mostly to Germans and trying to see if we can possibly spend some time during the week in Hannover, the area next to us, because there are also a lot of Turks there and it's also the ward with the only Turkish member in the stake. In the end though I think it'll just come down to being patient and waiting to see what the Lord has in store for us here.
Think that's about all I've got, I hope you guys have an awesome week! Love you!
Elder Larsen
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Turkish is a Delight
Yeah Mom, I'm pretty much famous. If only the people in Hildesheim were aware of it. Where did Brian and Stasia live in Turkey? I'll bet there's some Turkish missionary around these parts that knows them. Yikes, it doesn't even seem like that long ago that Tessa left on her mission. Now I'm almost to my year mark. Scary stuff. Well theoretically Lisa, I'd like to develop the gift of tongues to the point that we can talk to each other in German and Turkish and understand each other...but at the moment for the most part we speak in English. Yeah I've discovered that in the mission, where there are those missionaries who take pride in being disobedient, especially when despite their lack of obedience they see lots of success. Your comment seems pretty spot on having to trust in the Savior. Sometimes we need patience and faith to see the blessings that come from being obedient, even when they don't always appear immediately or when we want them to. Don't get my hopes up too much, Andy, because now I'm definitely expecting a juicy email for next week. I think the last real juicy email I got from you was your encounter with a certain returned sister missionary. Boy Heidi before you mentioned my birthday it hadn't really occurred to me that it's coming up in 10 days. I don't really feel like I'm ready to accept the age of 19, so I'll probably just stay 18 this year. Gotta say Joey, I've complained a bit about the cold summer here in Germany, but in comparison to the hottest summer in 100 years in Spain I think I'll stick with the cold side. Keep up the temple work Dad, sounds like pretty awesome stuff.
Well this week was kind of all over the place. On Wednesday we spent most of the day in Hamburg at a Zone Conference, where we were taught by Elder Charles of the Seventy. Lots of cool stuff there. A big thing that stuck out to me was trying harder to reach heavenward in finding situations; sometimes I get in the zone of just walking along, using the same approach and same questions, watching the minutes go by, rather than really focusing on loving the people and trying to see them as God sees them. I also got to see my bros from the mtc, Elders Fritz and Green, not to mention the one and only Elder Peatross! So that was pretty solid. Then on Saturday we went to Berlin where we had a language training meeting, since now I'm apparently learning Turkish...and I thought German was a difficult language. Anywho, there we learned some ways that we can work together as a companionship despite not being able to speak the same language during lessons.
We had had a couple appointments earlier in the week which ended up being me teaching the lesson and afterwards telling Elder Johnson what happened. Certainly wasn't the best strategy. Hopefully we'll be able to take what we've learned and change things up so we can actually help each other in lessons. We were able to find a Turkish lady who had been an investigator, who was born in Germany but learned Turkish from her parents. At this point that's kind of all we have right now in terms of Turkish investigators. We're just gonna have to be patient and try whatever we can to find those being prepared by the Lord. It's definitely a unique and stretching experience, neither of us know entirely what we're doing, haha. I have no experience talking to/finding Turks, and Elder Johnson has no experience with openly proselyting. Good thing the Lord is patient with us, with His help I think we'll eventually figure this stuff out :).
That's about all I've got for this week, keep on keeping on! Love you!
Elder Larsen
Well this week was kind of all over the place. On Wednesday we spent most of the day in Hamburg at a Zone Conference, where we were taught by Elder Charles of the Seventy. Lots of cool stuff there. A big thing that stuck out to me was trying harder to reach heavenward in finding situations; sometimes I get in the zone of just walking along, using the same approach and same questions, watching the minutes go by, rather than really focusing on loving the people and trying to see them as God sees them. I also got to see my bros from the mtc, Elders Fritz and Green, not to mention the one and only Elder Peatross! So that was pretty solid. Then on Saturday we went to Berlin where we had a language training meeting, since now I'm apparently learning Turkish...and I thought German was a difficult language. Anywho, there we learned some ways that we can work together as a companionship despite not being able to speak the same language during lessons.
We had had a couple appointments earlier in the week which ended up being me teaching the lesson and afterwards telling Elder Johnson what happened. Certainly wasn't the best strategy. Hopefully we'll be able to take what we've learned and change things up so we can actually help each other in lessons. We were able to find a Turkish lady who had been an investigator, who was born in Germany but learned Turkish from her parents. At this point that's kind of all we have right now in terms of Turkish investigators. We're just gonna have to be patient and try whatever we can to find those being prepared by the Lord. It's definitely a unique and stretching experience, neither of us know entirely what we're doing, haha. I have no experience talking to/finding Turks, and Elder Johnson has no experience with openly proselyting. Good thing the Lord is patient with us, with His help I think we'll eventually figure this stuff out :).That's about all I've got for this week, keep on keeping on! Love you!
Elder Larsen
Monday, August 1, 2016
Week 4 in Bremerhaven....Psych!
Yeah Mom, missionary work is certainly a roller coaster. You're so flippin awesome Mom, keep it up! Lisa, I gotta say I'm confused with these pictures. You seem to have sent me an old picture of Jake and a picture of some boy wearing Jake's superhero suit. Where's Zeke? Boy...I haven't even been out a year and I don't recognize my own nieces and nephews anymore. Hmm, you'll have to ask Joseph what inspired him to give that strange looking creature the name Jax. Andy I do hope you still remember your promise that if I get home and you have no wife or even a girlfriend that you'll split the cost with me to buy a 4 wheeler. I as well had a few Brats for din din this weekend. Unfortunately they don't seem to have them good ol' breakfast sausages here in Germany. Heidi, you mean you blew your opportunity at having a pet mouse? Wouard, you need to have Savvy and Abby send messages to ol' Jacob Zundel like "you're stinky" for me. Well Joey, I'd probably be mocking you too if I saw you talking to your phone. Good to hear that Marty Jake NZ are great. Al Vida zein!
So...funny story. Monday afternoon I get a random phone call from President Fingerle, who says he wants to see me in the Mission home in Berlin Wednesday morning with all my suitcases packed. As I start thinking of what I could possibly have done that would lead me to being sent home, he reassured me that I had done nothing wrong and that I would be receiving a "special assignment." When I asked for more information, he said that I'd learn more Wednesday morning. Well to make a long story short, over the course of Tuesday I had to pack everything up, say goodbye to members, investigators and good ol' Elder Rogers, then take a train to Berlin to overnight there...still having no idea who my new companion would be, where I'd be going or what the reason for this craziness was. Well Wednesday morning in the mission home, everything was finally revealed to me. So apparently a coup took place in Turkey, which after failing put the Country into a state of emergency. In order to escape potential danger and persecution and under the direction of the First Presidency, the 15 "volunteers" (they weren't allowed to call themselves missionaries in Turkey) left the country and came to the Berlin, Germany mission, as it has the largest concentration of Turkish people outside of Turkey. So I was assigned a new companion, Elder Johnson, who had served in Turkey for about 4 months and were then sent off to the Hildesheim area, which is in the same stake as Stadthagen, where I was just a month ago. Lots of crazy stuff.
Before leaving the mission home in Berlin, President Finglerle gave us some instructions and told us that the Turkish missionaries should focus on maintaining and improving their Turkish, and that our focus in our new areas was to find and teach Turkish people. Well, unfortunately a couple days after arriving in Hildesheim we ran into a couple obstacles. We had a meeting with the Bishop here, Bishop Jensen, who expressed quite clearly his disappointment and frustration at having a companionship that would be focused on the Turkish population, rather than Germans. His frustration was shared, in some degree, with the rest of the ward, including our ward mission leader. It's not like the ward is bad or mean or anything, but they've had a rough history with missionaries and just want things to go back to normal. Another obstacle we ran into was sickness. On Friday I started feeling a bit weird and on Saturday it developed into a fever which took me out for most of the day. Sunday it started getting better and today I'm shaking off what will hopefully be the last of it. This week we'll be able to put those things behind us and put our trust fully in the Lord. There's a reason he sent us here and there are people being prepared here to accept the Gospel, even, or perhaps especially, Turkish people.
Life is pretty crazy right now, but pretty great as well. I know that God's hand is in everything that happens, and that he has amazing things in store for each of us. I'm excited to see what miracles we'll experience; a German-speaking missionary together with a Turkish-speaking missionary, walking through the streets of a city in Germany looking for Turkish people...funny stuff. Hope you guys have a week as exciting as this one will be for me!
Love,
Elder Larsen
So...funny story. Monday afternoon I get a random phone call from President Fingerle, who says he wants to see me in the Mission home in Berlin Wednesday morning with all my suitcases packed. As I start thinking of what I could possibly have done that would lead me to being sent home, he reassured me that I had done nothing wrong and that I would be receiving a "special assignment." When I asked for more information, he said that I'd learn more Wednesday morning. Well to make a long story short, over the course of Tuesday I had to pack everything up, say goodbye to members, investigators and good ol' Elder Rogers, then take a train to Berlin to overnight there...still having no idea who my new companion would be, where I'd be going or what the reason for this craziness was. Well Wednesday morning in the mission home, everything was finally revealed to me. So apparently a coup took place in Turkey, which after failing put the Country into a state of emergency. In order to escape potential danger and persecution and under the direction of the First Presidency, the 15 "volunteers" (they weren't allowed to call themselves missionaries in Turkey) left the country and came to the Berlin, Germany mission, as it has the largest concentration of Turkish people outside of Turkey. So I was assigned a new companion, Elder Johnson, who had served in Turkey for about 4 months and were then sent off to the Hildesheim area, which is in the same stake as Stadthagen, where I was just a month ago. Lots of crazy stuff.
Before leaving the mission home in Berlin, President Finglerle gave us some instructions and told us that the Turkish missionaries should focus on maintaining and improving their Turkish, and that our focus in our new areas was to find and teach Turkish people. Well, unfortunately a couple days after arriving in Hildesheim we ran into a couple obstacles. We had a meeting with the Bishop here, Bishop Jensen, who expressed quite clearly his disappointment and frustration at having a companionship that would be focused on the Turkish population, rather than Germans. His frustration was shared, in some degree, with the rest of the ward, including our ward mission leader. It's not like the ward is bad or mean or anything, but they've had a rough history with missionaries and just want things to go back to normal. Another obstacle we ran into was sickness. On Friday I started feeling a bit weird and on Saturday it developed into a fever which took me out for most of the day. Sunday it started getting better and today I'm shaking off what will hopefully be the last of it. This week we'll be able to put those things behind us and put our trust fully in the Lord. There's a reason he sent us here and there are people being prepared here to accept the Gospel, even, or perhaps especially, Turkish people.
Life is pretty crazy right now, but pretty great as well. I know that God's hand is in everything that happens, and that he has amazing things in store for each of us. I'm excited to see what miracles we'll experience; a German-speaking missionary together with a Turkish-speaking missionary, walking through the streets of a city in Germany looking for Turkish people...funny stuff. Hope you guys have a week as exciting as this one will be for me!
Love,
Elder Larsen
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