Yes Mom, and I continue to feel more and more like an old man of a missionary. I'm the oldest missionary (by like 5 months) in my district of 8 of us and 3rd oldest in the zone of 22 missionaries. It's sad to hear that your missionary efforts aren't having the same effect they did at first Mom, that's something we experience fairly often as well. We have a great, spiritual first lesson with an investigator and then afterwards the fire somehow dies, whether through anti-mormon stuff or hostile family members or friends. We can do our best, but we can't force anyone to do anything. Boy Lisa, sounds like you really like getting sick! Hmm, it also sounds like Savyahna is going to be all grown up by the time I see her again. Andy, either you go on so many dates that they aren't worth mentioning in your weekly highlights...or you had no contact with the ladies this week. I'll hope for the best. Keep up the good work Joey, make sure that those orcs don't eat too much pizza. Dad, it's interesting to think how even if one temple in Provo gets closed down there's another one in the same city...probably hard for members around here to believe. For a while there was no open Temple in the whole Country, and if I'm not mistaken Germany is the only Country in Europe with 2 temples. By the way, it looks like we'll probably do skype at about 7:00 PM here, so 11 AM over there. Let me know if that works for yall.
Well this week was pretty solid. On Wednesday we went to Zwickau so that Elder Christoffersen (a missionary, sadly not the Apostle) wouldn't have to wait alone for his new companion. So we did some finding which was pretty fun. It was the first time in a while that I had done finding in a city with actual people walking the streets...yeah Werdau isn't the most busy town in the world haha. Then it was time to say farewell to Elder Anderson (sadly, again, a missionary and not the Apostle), who is now safe and sound back in 'Merica. The only problem was...he had the keys to the Zwickau apartment with him. He had gone with another "finisher" Elder to pick up his stuff from the apartment, and then forgot to give the keys back to the Zwickau Elders. Which meant that Elder Christoffersen couldn't get into the apartment to get his suitcases, so he missed his train and had to wait several hours for the new Zwickau Elders to get there so he could grab his stuff and go to his new area. Yeah...about every time me and Elder Christoffersen are together we manage to have some adventure: missing a bus, driving too far in a bus, losing the keys, etc.
Anywho, my new companion got into Zwickau early afternoon and we took a train back to Werdau. His name is Elder Hunt. He's been in Germany about 4 months now and is from Logan, Utah. He's pretty awesome. I'm getting more and more convinced that God's really starting to hasten the work, because all the newer missionaries that I've met lately have been crazy good missionaries. Elder Hunt has a fire and excitement in him that isn't all too common 'round these parts. It's going to be a great transfer. We're also speaking 24/7 German this transfer, which is pretty fun.
On Friday we had a leadership schooling thing in Leipzig and a couple missionaries talked about the importance of having a vision. That we don't simply wander aimlessly around the streets talking to people, but that we go out with goals and with a purpose, praying specifically and acting in faith in order to achieve said goals. It's so simple to just go through the motions, setting goals with little thought, going outside for a few hours, talking to some people and then coming back home. But in order to have success we need to have faith and hope that God truly is preparing people for the message; we need to involve God in everything we do. Then we will have more success, not only in terms of people to teach but in personal growth and progress as well. Working with a younger, excited missionary has helped me a lot to see that in the last few days.
My time's about up, but FROHE WEIHNACHTEN! The days fly by so fast, it's crazy. Have fun and don't forget to #LightTheWorld!
Elder Larsen
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