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