10.12.2012

Today's date is the only thing that I can think of to title the e-mail. :-) I really don't know what to write about at all, so this may or may not be short. We shall see.

Jakiri is now auf Kur (on treatment), but the bishopric has worked it out so that he can come to all the church meetings! I am really happy about that, and so is he. Haha he is the only member of the church at this klinic, and everybody is asking him questions about the church. He says he is teaching and bearing testimony all day long. He said to me last night "I thought this place was supposed to be a place where I could rest!" But instead he is answering everyone's questions about Joseph Smith, and the church and belief all day long :-).

He felt (before the baptism, and still now) that he didn't know very much at all, and he is slowly figuring out that he still knows somethings. I gave him a Gospel Principles manual yesterday as well as a True to the Faith, to help him answer the questions and learn more things in his free time. :-) Apparently a lot of the other people there have a lot of interest in learning about the gospel. I am curious to see if any of them become investigators in the future. :-)

I got to see the Christmas Devotional yesterday! That was really neat. The talks were wonderful and so was the music. I really enjoyed it. Listening to it translated took the humor out of the jokes sadly (lacking the vocal intonations, and complete accuracy due to the translators) but I still really enjoyed it. Jakiri did as well, and so did Martin and Marion. Sadly Frau Zalka's son started feeling really sick and had a high fever, so she wasn't able to come and watch it with us in the church. But she said she was going to do it from the church website. 

Things are going well with Martin and Marion. We met with them this past week. And watched The Testaments. It was good, Martin liked it, we discovered that Marion cannot handle even the slightest bit of violence in films, so even that of the church made movie, was too much for her (and personally I think there was more violence in that movie than need be). :-(  But we were able to bring it back and focus on the idea of the movie, that the book of Mormon and the bible are both Testaments of Jesus Christ. That when Christ said "Other sheep I have that are not of this fold" he meant the Nephites (3 Nephi 15:21-24). And invited them to read 3 Nephi chapters 11 and 17 (we recommended reading more but suggested that they AT LEAST read those two) and then invited them to pray about it.

They will be coming to the ward Christmas party on Saturday but are too busy to meet otherwise. They seem to really be liking things though. Martin is really excited, Marion not so much. He knows a lot about the church. He has a triple combination and a few other things, and I asked him what else he had. His reply was: 

"you know how items on the church's online shop are fairly cheap?", 

"yeah"

"over the past 6 or 7 years, I have spent around 300 Euro buying things from there".

He has everything! All of the manuals that you can buy, everything. He has been reading the Liahona magazines for awhile and occasionally quotes things from them in our lessons! It's crazy. He is just waiting on Marion to be ready. I am excited for them. :-)

We had a bit of a funny experience this past week. We were invited to eat with Mutti Mittermayer again, and Martin Hayden came with us. After we were done he drove us home. Little did we know, but there had been a burglary in the area by two men wearing completely dark clothing. Well dark clothing just happens to be standard winter missionary attire. I was wearing my Black coat, Black Gloves, completely dressed in dark colors, and Elder Steed was as well.

The police had set up some checkpoints in the area. So we got stopped, and the policemen saw us and asked us to step out of car. Martin was driving so the officer started asking him questions where we were what we were doing etc. He told them that we were just visiting a member of the ward, and that he was driving the missionaries home. At which point he turned to me and asked "missionaries? "Yeah, we are missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ, we come and teach people about the his gospel, would you by chance have any interest in learning about it?".

No, I am not joking I really asked the police officer if he wanted to learn about the church. He told me no, and was somewhat silent. Then he let us go :-). 

Well that will do it for this week, nothing else overly exciting happened. I wish you a great week!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen