25.10.2004

hey friends! great week, huh? i agree. The weather has been perfect.. wonderful fall weather! the leaves are falling off the trees, it´s been cold and windy, but not bitter cold. my legs hurt. lots of walking this last week- lots to do. but it´s a good kind of hurt... The bike problems continue to escalate. my ´Tret-Anlage´, or pedalling mechanism on my bike, has fallen apart. the Liahona bikes are designed to be ridden thousands of kilometers by missionaries, but the only problem is, no ball bearings are tough enough to last that long. the gears on my front pedals are stripped too, and i figure i need the bike 2 more months, and then i can sell it to another missionary for more if it´s repaired and in good condition. to make a long story short, the bike is taking way longer to repair than we thought, and it will set me back 95 bucks, which is more than i have. i first accepted to get it fixed after the place that offered me the best price and said i could pay with credit card, but they turned out charging me double what they said, and when i went to pay, they said, óh, we take all credit cards but those´. i can hardly afford that, and it was for sure not worth it, but these guys are tough, and its either pay or leave the bike with them. tough choice. oh, well. you win some, you lose some. this one hurts, though, because our mission doesnt help one penny with bike problems- missionaries have to pay out of their own pocket. thursday we had two elders out of Hannover come visit- Elder Wächtler and Elder KiniKini. One is a big German kid from Bavaria, and the other is the quietest kid i´ve ever met, of Samoan descent, born in Alaska and raised in Utah. A funny companionship- but we had tons of fun. elder Wächtler is one of my favorite missionaries- he is a genius with cars.. knows everything. i worked with him almost all day, and learned a lot. he has a hilarious accent and a great attitude about missionary work. Last saturday we had a streed display in Stadthagen. The missionaries from all around arrived at the train station at ten in the morning, only to hear that the two elders in Stadthagen had to make an emergency trip to Hamburg, and that we had to do it without them. It was an adventure, to be sure, because nobody had been in the city before, and we all had to walk to the downtown, and people were asking where the church was, and we didnt know. hilarious, but we helped a lot of people. We sang again, and it was a wonderful time. Friday we went to Diepholz, a tiny town that´s a 2 hour train ride away. We spent a day with a family on our ward, and they had company from america that didnt speak Gerlan, so it was good to hang out with him. he is a 17 year old kid from Utah named Jon. It was funny hearing his opinions of Germany, basically the same things i thought 2 years ago but am totally used to now. We took a walk through a Moor, which is basically a big swamp. Germans like taking walks, as a way to unwind and slow down. i think we americans did it wrong... we were making jokes and playing around and finding cool stuff, like boy scouts on a hike. One can hardly blame us, but our hosts were surprised that we didnt walk in a straight line, quietly and pondering the deeper meaning of things around us, like that soggy stump. At least some of us had fun, and we had a wonderful discussion and i learned a lot about Moors. Mmkay, this week is probably the last week my companion and i will be together. shame- we get along really well. I dont include in my letters usually the doors we do, the people we talk to on the street, etc., mainly because that is only the planting of the seeds, but i promise i will let you know when the first ones start to sprout. life is wonderful. Christ loves us. peace out, and have a good week!

18.10.2004

Hey friends! My future wife got prettier again this week. Freezing rain is no fun.. and the zipper on my only jacket is busted- won´t zip. only 2 months left.... i learned this week that it´s very important to listen to the still, small whisperings of the Holy Ghost. Monday, as i was riding my bike to go shopping, i got the feeling that i should put air in my tires, as they were looking a little low. i shrugged it off, and that evening i forgot about it. tuesday afternoon, i hit a curb. The telltale SSSSSssss... from behind me put me instantly in a wonderful mood. luckily we didnt have an appointment. walking bikes home from where we were took an hour. we only had one bike repair kit in the apartment, and it only had one patch in it. it took a half hour just to wrestle the tire off the rim... i thought i wasnt doing it right, but we just dont have the right tools in the apartment. it took 2 guys and three screwdrivers to finally claim victory over the stupid thing. and we all know how dirty bike tires are.. mine especially. i took off my white (no longer white) dress shirt, and went back for round 2. upon closer inspection of the hole, there were actually two holes, next to each other, where i hit the curb. shame. we dug around and found one single extra patch under a bed. a miracle? anyway, we patched the two holes and waited a half hour, and then filled up the tube a little to see if it was airtight. it was, good. we then got to work wrestling the tube back in the tire. my rubber tire was made for a German bike, according to the bike shop guy, and the metal rim came with the bike, which is made in america. since in America we measure in Inches, and here they use Centimeters, the rim was just barely too big for the tire. We wrestled for another 15 minutes, and i cut my hand. Just when we were about to get it, i heard a small ´ssssss....´ from inside the tire. i had poked it with my screwdriver. you should´ve seen me, i was shouting for joy! we didnt have any more patches, and all the stores close early, so we gave up for the night. the next day, we walked the 1/2 hour to the city, bought a bike repair kit, and walked back. we patched the hole, (now three patches on an otherwise new tube) and rammed the tire back into the rim. Can you believe the same thing happened? i was trying to pry the tire back into the rim with a screwdriver, ´SSSSsss..`. i love that sound. we took it out again and patched it again. it says on the patches we have to wait at least 45 minutes before patches, so there wasnt much to do except study. finally, with four patches on the tire, we stuck it once more on the rim. the hole where the nozzle for the pump is didnt fit exactly, so we kind of had to coax it into place with a screwdriver. guess what? `Ssssss,,,`. we poked another hole. to make a long story short, we finally got it fixed. i´m thinking of opening a bicycle shop when i get home. Last Saturday we had a street display in Hameln. i dont know if the name means anything, but there is a story about a Pied Piper from Hameln. he plays his pipe to rid the town of rats, and they all follow him and are led out of the city. then the piper comes back to pick up his pay (where we get the phrase ´pay the piper´) and the town doesnt pay him, so he plays his pipe again and all the children of the town get up and follow him, and he leads them out of the city. bye, kids. anyway, this town is beautiful, and they have a man who walks around the city and plays his pipe, so tourists can take pictures. turns out he´s an American! he´s a cool guy, and he´s always in newspaper articles all over the world. Last night we were invited by a friend to a Baptist Church service. they were having a ´missionary day´ where the members report all the missions that the congregation has led during the year. the congegration was big, about 500 people, and as we were talking with a few of them afterward, all except one or two of them are russian-born! The Baptist church isn´t so big here, but apparently it is in Russia, and as the Russians immigrate to Germany, they have a church here, too. the service was all in German, except for a few special musical numbers. i love the Russian language, and it was wonderful to hear about their efforts to bring the knowledge of Christ in the war-stricken lands of the former Soviet Union. they were all wonderful people, and my companion and i were pleasantly surprised. too often, when we are invited to visit a church and people find out that we are missionaries, they ask us to leave. i find it a shame, but these people were all very nice and polite to us. i have a fever. i still feel fine, but my temperature is over 100, and i dont feel quite right. so far, so good though. tomorrow is a meeting in Hannover again- i love that city! hm.. it looks like its going to rain again. bring it on! i know how important this work is, and i plan on redoubling my efforts on the ´home stretch´. i just wish i could see some fruits.. it still feels like all we do in Minden is plant seeds. maybe that´ll change. have a good week, and i wish you Alles Gute!

11.10.2004

hey friends!hope you had a good week! mine was somewhat slow. about half the city has been sick recently, and we were no exception. i managed to dodge the bullet, but my comp was put under for about 4 days with a really nasty flu. it was okay being sick at home, because there is always TV, Computer, friends, and stuff like that. but here on a mission, it´s totally no fun because you just sit in the apartment and stare at the wall or read. needless to say, i read a lot. learned a lot too. a few new german words, like Konkurrenz and Einwandfrei. read the Acts of the Apostles again.. good book. my comp gets cranky when he´s sick. i guess we all do. hm.. i dunno what else to say, really. our one really good contact, Almida, called us last week while Elder Sharon was sick and told us that it had been fun, but her pastor said she couldnt meet with us anymore. it was like a punch in the face! oh, well. everyone has their free agency. i will just use mine to go find some more people who need help, and help them. i hope you all have a wonderful week.. i really do. only the best! be happy!!

4.10.2004

hey friends! hope you had a good week! Last weekend was General Conference from the church, which means the Prophet and the Apostles speak to us. it happens every 6 months, and that means it is my 4th and last time seeing it in Germany. it was wonderful! i took over 20 pages of notes from all the talks and now my wrist hurts. i could go on and on, but those of you who watched know how wonderful it is, and those of you who didnt probably arent too interested, suffice to say it was for me a wonderfully uplifting experience! And yes, i do know Dieter Uchtdorf, and yes, i do know David Bednar. i have shaken hands with both of them, and they are wonderful men. this last week we were quite busy with our normal misisonary work, and on top of that our ward asked us to help them upgrade the member lists. each ward has a list of all the members, and their addresses, birthdays, etc. even though not all the people who are baptised come to church. in fact, there are many who havent been sen in ten, twenty, fifty years, and iot´s important to have it all up-to-date, who lives where, whi is still alive, etc. we´ve been all over the city this last week looking up lost members without phone numbers, and we still have a ways to go. but it is a good feeling, that´s for sure. we met again with the posse of young people agaiun this week. this time there werent as many, so we were able to, without distraction, talk mainly about the church for the greater part of 2 hours! we watched the DVD, introduction to the church, and talked a lot about genealogy and temples. we´ll see how it keeps on going. my comp and i still get along fine. he is a pretty goofy kid, a bit of a nerd, but we have learned a lot from each other and he keeps me in line. he also makes really yummy fried eggs and potatoes every other morning.. mmmm... okay. i guess that´s it. we are going to have to be travelling a lot this month, Bielefeld, Hildesheim, Osnabrück, Hannover, Celle, Nienburg, Lübbecke, Stadthagen, Hameln... and we are trying to save already so we will be able to afford it. i guess these city names don´t mean much to you, but i love them so much... i gotta make the most of my time left. 2 1/2 months, people seem to remind me more and more. i hope you all have a wonderful week, and i will pray for each of you. peace out!