White wash Chaos....

The first part of this past week flew by really fast, however after arriving in Munich its been incredibly long... 

So we arrive on Thursday, and its time to go to our apartment, I ask the office Elders if they have our Monats Kartes ( monthly Train tickets) they were like, 

oh... no we forgot, you will most likely need to buy your own tickets for the next few weeks. 

Alright, well what ticket do I need to buy? 

Thats a good question, I have no idea, we have a car... Try asking Munich 1.

Ok so we go to Munich 1,

" hey, do you know what ticket we need to buy?"

"Thats a good question, I don't think its the same as ours, try asking the Zone leaders,"

So we go to the Zone leaders," hey which ticket do we need to buy?"

"I don't know, you have to ask the Office Elders to see which ticket you are supposed to have..."

AH! Finally, we get things figured out and then I ask, ok so do we get a map so we know where we are going? 

"Oh, a map, yeah that would have been a good idea to get you guys... oops, we have a GPS in our car so we didn't really think to get you a map..."

Wonderful. We are in like the 2nd largest city in the mission, we have never been here before and have no Map. Perfect. 

We are staying with Munich 1, so they take us to our apartment. Its a nice apartment. We drop off our stuff, and then they have there plans, so they leave and go to where ever they were supposed to go. Then Elder Evans looks at me and says alright, so what do we do now? 

Street Contakting for the next 3 hours.

Ok, but where? 

I have no clue. Some where in Munich. Hopefully we don't get lost...

So we call Munich 1 and ask them where the best place is to go find people to go. (Oh yeah, the phone was brand new, and luckily I added Munich 1's phone number to the list, because it was the only number I had...) Elder Helbig said "go to Rosenheimerplatz."

"Where is that?" 

"right next to Ost bahnhof"

"ach so!, ok... where's Ost bahnhof?" :-)

It reminds or the Bill Cosby thing about Noah 

"Noah"

"What?!" 

"I want you to build an ark"

"Right, whats an Ark?

"... I want you to build it 300 cubits by 50 cubits by (100?) Cubits"

"Right, whats a cubit?"

Anyway They had a map of Munich on the wall, we found out where it was and I took pictures of the map. Then we went and contacted there for 30 minutes or so, but there was hardly anyone there, so we decided to go back and contact people in the area of the apartment, and help us get a feel for where we are. So we do that for 2 hours, and then go and Get a Döner, because they Munich 1 way underestimated the amount of food that the 4 of us would need to survive the weekend... Oh man, its been a party. 

Friday Munich 1 was going to help someone in there ward move, and there wasn't very many people that could come help, so we went and joined in, the member had estimated it would only take 2 hours, but it took us, including travel there and back 5 and a half hours. Despite having and additional 2 Elders there. It was fun though. Although they spoke ridicuously thick Bayerisch, despite being similar to Austrian, its still takes a full concentration to try and decifer what is being said. :-)

Anyway, we decided after that to go and try to locate our Church, since the office Elders knew what street it was on, but didn't know the number... I had been there back when I first arrived, and when I picked up Elder Robins, so I knew that it was around the area of Solln. So we located that on the map, and figured out which S-bahn went there and took it we arrived and  were eventually able to find it. For some reason, they put us in the Munich 1, which is on the complete opposite side of Munich, it's a 30 minute  assuming no delay) S-bahn ride, and then around 15 minute walk to get there. That's beside the point. We contacted everyone that we saw on the way there, and on the way back. No one wanted to listen. 

We go back to the train station and get on the next S-bahn, it was around 8 now, and we had planned to go pick up something for dinner and go home. We get on one end of the S-bahn, but it was full of a lot of drunk people, so we walk farther up and I take a seat across a Young Chinese girl. I start talking to her in German and than she says (in really good German by the way) I actually don't know that much German... but she spoke fluent English. 

We talked for awhile and found out that she just got here 4 months ago, and is studying Medicine here in Munich. She comes from China but to my utter shock was Catholic. There is a large community of Catholics in China. Who would have thought? We talked a bit about God and the Book of Mormon. We told her we give it out for free and she really wanted one. She had to get out, and she gave us her number. Haha, she asked us for ours, and with somewhat of a blank expression on my face I said " I have no clue what so ever, I got here yesterday, and this phone is brand new..." But yeah, she was really excited to get a book! I was so overwhelmed with joy because of that. We found someone who we can teach. I was so happy, I couldn't believe it. 

We got in contact with her again yesterday, and gave her the book. She was really excited. She also wanted to practice her English, so we invited her to the English class, which she was also really excited about. I have a lot of hope for her. She will come to the English course on Tuesday, and I hope to be able to talk to her more in the future about the book of Mormon. :-) I am excited. 

The other part of the assignment that I was mentioning, essentially the office Elders are so booked that they don't have enough time to teach everyone. So we are here to be essentially the full time missionaries in the ward. :-) They gave us an old Area book on Friday, which was a disaster really, and we spent 4 hours on Saturday reading through all the records, and putting the binder into order. Now we have a list of former investigators, and some potentials that they gave us. It will help us get a good start into things. So now it begins, we start to go by and visit everyone, contact on the way, recieve potentials from the whole Zone to teach.

I am so grateful to be here. As hard as it has been, I have been so blessed. We still don't have a map, but I have been blessed that after visiting somewhere once I can remember it, after only 3 days, I have a strong bearing here in the City, I know a lot of places and could get to them without a Map. All with the Lords help. So even though I was fighting a nervous breakdown upon first arriving  not having ANYTHING to get going, I have experienced the Lord's help and I know  that I am able to fufill this assignment here.

We still have a long way to go though. But I expect as before that the Lord with bless us, even though we may not know exactly where we are or going, he puts people into our path that are prepared. I am excited for these next few transfers here in Munich. :-) 

Anyway, this is quite the e-mail so I will leave it with that. I am still adjusting but I am having fun, and things are setting up quite nicely here. I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen