Weekly Update

Sorry this is a bit late, today has been pretty weird. We ended up going to the Botanical Gardens/Zoo in Stuttgart today, mainly because my companion has never been to a Zoo. It was incredibly pretty, Its a one of a kind in Europe and one of only a few in the world. It was originally built to be a private garden/ residence for the king of Schwabenland, but now its a beautiful park. There is a Castle in it too, but we weren't able to go see it because it isn't open on Mondays ( but if you want to see pictures of it, just google Wilhelma Zoo in Stuttgart). I took roughly 160 pictures there, so you won't be lacking anything ( my camera died, so I can't send home any just yet). We spent a little more time there today then I wanted ( hence the reason for the late e-mail) but it was worth it in the end. 


Things have been going really well here, This past weekend was marvelous! But it didn't start out that way. So on Wednesday we got a referral from Church HQ of someone who lives in Kirchheim who anmelden on www.mormon.org and was requesting a Book of Mormon. So we made plans to give one to him on Thursday evening. Thursday was rough. There is a saying, or a parable of sorts about missionary work here; It goes like this: There are 2 people working a Garden, One of them spends all day sowing and harvesting plants, the other pushes a giant bolder around the perimeter of the garden all day long. Both work very hard and at the end of the day the are both exhausted, but the one who pushed to bolder in circles didn't do much. We felt like we had spent the day pushing a bolder. Everything fell through and no one wanted to listen ( I partly blame the weather, it was a GORGEOUS day on thursday) Sitting at the train station, we were exhausted and wanted the day to come to an end. Our referral lived a block away from the train station, so we planned enough time to go down to Kirchheim, give him his book, come home, eat dinner and go to bed. We take the train to Kirchheim ( a 25 minute train ride there) and go and klingel his door. The name on the door was "Pfarrer Obermann" Pfarrer means Pastor; he was a pastor for a local church. We thought " oh great, he is only going to want to bible bash with us" ( this wouldn't be the first time that someone went through the trouble of finding us, just to bash us). Anyway to our great surprise, he came to the door and was excited to see us, he was like jumping up and down with excitement to get his hands on a Book of Mormon. We gladly gave it to him. He said that he was busy for the next 30 minutes, but if we could wait he really wanted to talk to us about it. We said that would be fine, and that we would come back in 30 minutes. As previously mention Germans really dislike missionaries knocking at their door. The only thing they hate worse than that, is when missionaries knock on their door after the sun goes down. Well the sun had gone done, there wasn't anyone on the street, and we were stuck for 30 minutes. Which means that we only had one option, we were going to go door-ing after dark in the small city of Kirchheim. To our utter amazement 3 out of the 7 doors we knocked on actually had interest and we gave away a few Book of Mormons! We were dumbfounded! That kind of success doesn't not happen in Germany. Kirchheim! of all places! So as you can very well imagine we have already made plans to return to our new favorite proselyting area ;-). 


Anyway one thing I neglected to mention was that because were going to be in Kirchheim waiting to talk to Pfarrer Oberman, we knew that we weren't going to have time for dinner anymore. We had planned just enough time to come down give him the book talk for maybe 20 minutes or so, then return home for dinner ( we eat dinner at 8.00 PM here, then plan, then have an hour of personal time). So we had just assumed we would skip dinner again tonight ( BEFORE PEOPLE PANIC, THIS IS NOT A COMMON OCCURRENCE!) but it does happen occasionally. We came back an knocked on his door at roughly 7:55 P.M. He answered and welcomed us in, his wife was making dinner, and he told us that he doesn't let guests interfere with dinner, so we assumed we would talk to him for a bit, then he and his wife would have dinner and we would leave. Walking in to the main room, I glanced into the kitchen and noticed that the table was set for 4 people, I thought that to be peculiar, but assumed that they were having guests, so I didn't think anything of it. But after about 20 minutes of talking with him ( mainly just getting to know him ( he has a really interesting history)) his wife called us for dinner. We assumed this meant that we were leaving, but to our utter amazement, he invited us to join him for dinner! We had never met him before, and they had no idea we were coming! ( Or any clue that we weren't going to be able to eat dinner.) His reasoning was: "two young missionaries far away from home can appreciate a delicious home-cooked meal that they don't need to prepare or buy". So we joined them for dinner, and it was wonderful. They are an incredibly kind family. It turns out that he had served on the military base and had a colleague who was a member of our church, so he wanted to know more. Long story short through the meal, and tracting earlier, we gained a few new investigators, and didn't starve that night :-) It just goes to show that the Lord will take care of anyone who tries to do what is right. :-)


That was Thursday, on Friday Elder Blogett ( who actually was a professor of Linguistics at SUU) gave a presentation in Esslingen on the scattering of the 12 tribes of Israel. THAT WAS AMAZING! Completely in German, and yet I understood all of it! He used Linguistics to show the evolution of European languages, as well as who was scattered where and when. So in the presentation I learned the entire history of the English and German languages their origins etc. As well as the 4 times that the house of Israel was scattered! Its crazy! So long story short, Latin, English and German come from Hebrew ( well I am not 100% sure if Latin came from Hebrew, but it had a MAJOR Hebrew influence). And there are some really cool similarities for example:


The Hebrew word: Pader means Father. Scholars have noted that there are only 6 basic changes between Hebrew and English/German 2 are involved with this word: 1) P over time became an "F" in Englisch. 2) "d" became "dh" which in English was pronounced ( and later spelled) as "th" substituting those in directly, you get the word "Father". And those who know Spanish will recognize the word Padre´ anyone notice a similarity?! Yeah it blew my mind. This is why So many European Languages seem similar, they all came from a Hebrew background, but as Israel was scattered and time went on, became different languages! 
He showed that with so many words! It was so fascinating! And then he talked about symbols and things of the different tribes, and often times on the coat of arms of a state, or country you can seen which tribes settled it. For example one of the symbols of Judah was a cross, for Emphraim it was a cross tilted to look like an "x" you will noticed that the British flag has both of those symbols, which means that it was founded under a Judaic and Emphramaic influence. Even the Great Seal of the United States of America has symbolism. The original Country had 13 states, and there are technically 13 tribes of Israel ( because Joseph had two sons). So the seal has 13 clouds, and 13 fires, representing the Israel exodus from Egypt, they were led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. HOW COOL IS THAT!! Oh my, it was awesome! Also, something really cool, most scholars think that Moses led the children of Israel out of bondage around the year 1492 BC. In 1492 AD Columbus discovered america, which allowed for many to escape a "spiritual or religious" bondage. It was a spectacular presentation.


And then on Sunday we ate one of the members houses, and while talking at dinner, she told me tht I speak "Akzentfrei" meaning accent free, or free of an accent. I gave her a puzzled look, because I thought there was no way that I, having only been here for 4 weeks, could possibly be speaking without and accent. See my expression, she said " well you have an accent, it just is much better than the other american missionaries". That made my weekend! I was told by a German native that I speak mostly accent free. Which made me feel really good, because I have been really working hard on my pronunciations lately. Speaking of which, right now I am trying to master the German "r" sound, they roll their "r" but its not with your tongue against your teeth, like they do with Spanish. Instead it is your uvula vibrating of the back of your tongue, and it is incredibly hard to do, I still can't do it. Maybe if I nod my head really fast... nope it didn't work, but I will keep trying! :-)


Things are going well here, there are naturally hard times, but things always seem to work out one way or another. There are a few investigators who could easily be baptized, they have kept all of our commitments, are in harmony with all the commandments or God, believe the Book of Mormon is true, everything! They just don't quite feel ready for baptism yet... But we will keep working. Hopefully we can set up a new baptismal date for Frau Schmid ( she is still trying to quit smoking, and is very close to doing so.) but once she does that, we should be good to go! Anyway, I hope all is well at home! Does Josh like his new room? After all that work, I hope he does. Speaking of Josh, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ( In 2 days :-) ). For your present, I decided to give you my room, my laptop and my car! ;-) In all honesty though, I would send you a gift, but most things in here are German ( Go figure...)  ( I was actually tempted to send you this golf book that I found, but you wouldn't understand it anyway :-) ) But if you can think of anything you want me to send you, I would be more than happy to do so! 


I love you all, 
Elder Ryan Christensen