4th of July? I don't even know what that means anymore...

Well, I don't really know what to say, this past week flew by incredibly rapidly. It was a really weird week as well, seeing as we switched nearly our entire P-day (except the time allotted us for e-mails so that you wouldn't freak out and worry about me when no e-mail came on Monday) till Tuesday.

It was incredibly unique, because it was the first P-day that we (except for the Hunsakers and Sister Sonumura and Sister Holmgren) could all be together. We needed to change it because of Interviews on Monday with President Miles. So we were all going to go to Neuschwannstein. Sadly Sister Scoggin and Sister Smith (in case I haven't mentioned it already, she is missionary from Grandma and Grandpa Marks' ward) had to back out last minute. Sadly, so it was just us, the AP's and the Office Elders. But we had a blast. Elder Hemsley, Elder Müller, and I wore our Lederhosen. Which actually caused us some interesting problems... I got asked 9 times from random people if they could take their picture with me. I don't know why.  Elder Hemsley and Müller didn't get asked but maybe once or twice, I however, 9 times (in the space of the hour and a half that we were there). I don't get it.

The same thing happens to me with beggers, or street displays from different organizations, they will nearly run my companion over to get to me and ask me for money, some sort of participaption in something, or in this case pictures... Anyway, it was rather interesting, and it took us longer to get there and back than it probably would have otherwise have taken. Memo to self, don't wear Lederhosen to Neuschwannstein as a missionary, and when not a missionary, charge money. ;-)

That was a lot of fun though. The castle, though it be not that old, is really beautiful, and is located in a very beautiful location. I keep trying to post pictures, but this computer doesn't like my camera, so I can't... sorry. I will need to do it next week. 

But then we came back and did an Exchange with the Zone Leaders. I got to work with Elder Gochnour again. :-) Elder Gochnour was my district leader for the last transfer in Vienna, and we went on an exchange then which was a blast. He was trained by Elder Young, my MTC companion, one transfer after I started training Elder Robins. I love Elder Gochnour he is a really good missionary. We had a stellar exchange, we tried to go by on one of our potentials and started to talk to everyone we could see, and we found 5 people who wanted to hear our message, 5 people within 40 minutes! That was unbelievable. 

And some of them were REALLY cool. One girl, originally from Russia went on foreign exchange to Utah. She talked about how at first she absolutely hated it. No Alcohol, no partying (to her expectations etc.) But toward the end she really loved it. She said she felt something special there. She came back and has since stopped drinking alcohol and smoking (she was on exchange 7 years ago). And as we were talking to her, she told us that she was getting that same feeling that she had when she was in Utah again, a really good feeling that she liked. I then bore testimony of the spirit, and told her that if she came to church and other activities that she could feel that same feeling more often, and told her we would like to talk to her about how she can feel that feeling all the time. She was really excited. It was cool. :-) She lives in the Zone Leaders area, and so they will teach her. But I am still very excited for her. :-) 

Wednesday was also cool. In order to break the day up a bit, we decided to have our personal and companionship study, and then go out for a few hours, coming back in the dead part of the afternoon for language study and lunch. I decided to go by on someone, who lived on the most northern part of Munich, which was far away, so I was worried that it would be a waste, but I decided to go anyway. So we did. We make it up there and walk to his house (he didn't live too far away.) But talked to someone on the way who wanted to meet  with the missionaries. :-) 

We get to Osuma, a man from Ghana, who let us right in. We had a really great lesson, and he let us know of some other people from Ghana who would perhaps also like to hear our message, and we talked to them and will meet with them on Wednesday with Osuma again. :-) So within that one trip we found 4 people who want to talk to missionaries, and had a really good lesson. And I thought that it was stupid. I am glad I listened to the prompting I had. I didn't even recognize it as a prompting until all that happened and then I realized that it wasn't just me that decided to just go there, I had without recognizing it been led there. We found a number of people and happened to go at a time that this man was home. That was really neat.

The next 3 days in a row were pretty much service filled. We had planned to paint Ruth's balcony (Ruth is an 88 year old German lady, who speaks amazing english and comes to our ward). Well, I wasn't aware of it, but she was supposed to go to the hospital for 6 days and had left the morning. So a member of the ward met us there and showed us what Ruth wanted to be done, gave us the roller and the paint (sadly that is all we got, not pan for the paint and no paint brush just a roller and the paint) and the keys to the apartment. Which actually has been a huge advantage, because the first day was the morning after it rained, and the patio was wet. We dried it off, but it still wasn't quite suitable for painting, so we would have to come back the next day and paint it. 

Then we got a call from Tenzin, who needed help helping Ralph again. Ralph needed to paint his whole apartment before he left (he moved to Baden baden, as I mentioned) so we went and helped him paint it. Tenzin said that we were only painting the kitchen and the bedroom, and that it would only take 1 hour or so ( Mind you, Tenzin also said this about the all day moving project last time) so of course we are painting the whole apartment, and it takes up all of that day and the several hours the next day. (Yeah, all of our appointments fell out again this week... Diligence, patience and endurance, that is Elder Curtis and I are learning right now).

But It was really good, we finished at 12 the next day, helped him clean it up really fast so that he could go to Baden Baden, grab his things and be in Frankfurt that night to do a live theather show. He was INCREDIBLY grateful. If we didn't go he would have never made it in time. I had already given him a book of mormon and noticed it sitting in the front seat of the car, I assume he has started to read it already. He took us to a quick lunch, which was AMAZING. And then had to go, but before he did, he is like, I have a question which is really on my soul at the moment, and I want ask it. Elder Curtis and I were excited for it to be some big question about God or something. Then he started off saying how his mom had always taught him to not be rude and or impolite, at which point I figured it had something to do with our church, which is normal there are a lot of false ideas about our church. But then he caught us off guard when he asked, "may I please give you some money?" We obviously can't take any money, and we told him that, and made that clear. He sighed and said, alright, then you must come to the Black forest sometime and be my guest in Baden Baden. I totally plan on taking him up on that offer sometime. It will need to be after my mission, but I just got offered to come and stay with a well known German actor at his home in the black forest area of Germany. :-) 

After leaving there we went to paint Ruth's balcony. That took longer then we expected and we didn't end up getting home till 7 that night to do studies and eat dinner. The next day we were invited to go back out to Deggendorf to help clean up out there. The stake just out of our mission was going and wanted our missionaries to come. It was a last minute thing, so a lot of our missionaries couldn't make it. Munich 1 was one of them. Elder Mochon wanted to go, and I really wanting to stay and actually do some missionary work ( not that service isn't missionary work, but I really wanted (as strange as it sounds) to be in a shirt and tie again talking to people about the gospel), so I got it authorized for Elder Thomas and I to stay in Munich and do missionary work and Elder Curtis and Mochon to go to Degggendorf. We had also a grate exchange and found a number of people and had a good time. :-) 

Things are still going good.We are hoping and praying for a better week then the last. Always moving foward and doing what we can. :-) Haha, 4th July came and passed and I barely even noticed it. We sang "The Star Spangled Banner" as the hymn for companionship study, but other than that nothing was really done to celebrate it. Go figure, when you are in Germany you can't necessarily expect to celebrate an American holiday. :-) 

Anyway, I wish you all a great week!

love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen