Spanisch...jetzt geht's los (here we go)

Yeah Mom, it kind of just depends on where you are. In Schwarzenberg there's no university in our entire area, so most of the people we talk to aren't really in that age-group of wandering around engrossed in their phones. The thing here is that just randomly talking to people you don't know is kind of against the culture, which makes it pretty hard to open people up to the idea of letting us teach them in their homes. I've never really tried it, Lisa, but supposedly gargling water is supposed to help you roll your r's. Looks like Savvvyanuh is turning into a little Heidi Junior. The weather here is also getting pretty decent Andy. Just make sure you don't get all adventured out before I get home bro, save some place cool for me. Well Joey, I don't seem to be intelligent enough to decipher your analogy about faith being like a little nut, or what makes you want to have a hamburger at ripples. I do understand the feeling though, Germany hasn't quite figured out hamburgers yet. Yeah Dad, I can't say I'm in agreement with your weather preference, I've had enough of cold weather for a while.

Leipzig and Temple Zones

Saturday evening I got the bittersweet news that I'm being transferred. Bitter because 6 weeks in an area is pretty much nothing and I'll miss Elder Christoffersen (he be da bomb) but sweet because it's time for round 2 in Berlin, woohoooo! I'll be serving in Tiergarten, which is the middle part of the Berlin Stake. If I remember right there are several Spanish speaking members in the ward, also my new companion Elder Castillo is from Mexico, so now I have no excuse to not learn Spanish. It'll probably be a bit of an adjustment going back to trainee status in terms of the language, but I should be able to learn a ton. And it'll be nice to be back in a big city 😎.

Anywho, it was a pretty good week. The missionary work is funny sometimes in that one day this week we rang doors for hours and no one had interest and then the next day after 5 minutes we found two potential investigators. Aside from that we've been taking the youth of the ward out to visit the old single members in the ward, which has been pretty radical. Since missionaries aren't allowed to visit single women alone there are some members that haven't been visited for a few years, so they were happy to see us. There was one lady who had to ride a bike 8 or 9 miles through the freezing cold every week to get to church when she was younger...I just had to walk like 300 feet or ride in a car...

We've noticed sadly that the preachers of other churches in our area aren't particularly fond of Mormons. Every day we run into some new prejudice or half truth. "Your Book of Mormon can't save you!"  "Mormons don't let people of other faiths into their church buildings."  "We believe on Jesus Christ and only Jesus Christ. Not on Mormon."  It's sad and frustrating sometimes when people just aren't open to discovering the truth. But there's a nice scripture I read this week in the New Testament, Matthew 10, where Jesus calls the 12 Apostles. "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved." Since the beginning of the earth there have always been people who mock and ridicule the disciples of God and I'm flattered to be worthy of being mocked for being a member of the Lord's church.

Yeah, it'll definitely be an adventure going back to good ol' Berlin. Have a good week, homies.

Elder Larsen