Back Home on Lake Constance!!!
Wow! I don't know where to start. Monday, I took my last
P-day and made sure everything was in order for when I left. We had a lesson
that night with Benjamin, and it went really well. We had a good District
Meeting on Tuesday, my last one in Munich :-( The Hunsakers took a picture, and
I will forward it on in a moment. Wednesday was good, we met with Tenzin in the
morning to say goodbye. The Munich 2 sisters were there as well (since Sister
Scoggin was also leaving). The next appointment was supposed to be at the
church, but it fell out. Then later that night we met with Bastian and Nicole
for the last time. :-( I am going to miss them a lot.
Thursday I took the long way to Ravensburg. I went from
Munich, through Ulm to Stuttgart, then Stuttgart back through Ulm to
Ravensburg. Elder Kingery met me at Hauptbahnhof Munich, then we picked up our
Hawaiian companion at Stuttgart. Ok, so he isn't native Hawaiian, he has lived
there for 5 years though. It is so funny to contact people with him, one
because he is still really new and his German has a way to go, and 2 when ever
he says hi or bye he does the shaka, (the Hawaiian hand gesture that people
usually associate with "Aloha") It's really funny, its totally out of
habit so there isn't much he can do at this point :-).
It is so weird and cool at the same time to be in
Ravensburg. It feels like a dream. I still can't believe it. We have a lot of
work to do however. We currently have... 0 real investigators, and no
potentials (that haven't already been contacted like 3 times over). I think
this is pretty much the story of my mission so far, Get to an area, nothing,
leave it better than I found it. :-)
I mentioned that this past week was shaping
up really well for Munich 4 when I left, well they were able to set 2
additional baptismal dates! I am very happy for that. Anyway, Ravensburg, like
I mentioned is a branch. A small one. We have on our roster more than 80
members, but average attendance is around 15 per week. Yesterday, other than
the branch presidency and us, there were maybe 8 or 9 people there. All
sisters. Yup, The branch presidency and us made up the entire priesthood body.
And we usually make up 80 percent of the priesthood body. We (the Elders)
prepare, bless and pass the sacrament every week. We meet in the third story of
a warehouse like building. It is quite the unique experience. We have a lot of
work to do. This branch has almost been shut down a number of times. With the
exception of the most recent Branch president (the one just before Elder
Buchanan) (who was from Switzerland) all the other branch presidents have gone
completely inactive. One of them after, who was somewhat new to the church at
that time lost his wife tragically and went off the deep end, so to say, and
was excommunicated.
Anyway, so we have ALOT of work ahead of us, but I am SO
EXCITED. Elders Kingery and Wasden are excited and hard working, which is so
wonderful. :-) We had a really great weekly
planning session, and have decided we are going to focus on re activating less
actives. Well, the ones that we can get to on bikes anyway (I will get to that
in a moment). One of our goals this transfer can be summed up with a picture,
which I don't have right this second, but we took a picture of the chapel and
hope to have the phrase "No empty chairs" written underneath it, and
have that hanging in our apartment.
Back in Munich, just before I left, Elder
Müller and I organized a German class because we were in an English speaking ward.
Getting here I brought up the idea of creating and English class. Which we are
currently planning and getting ready to go. But I have already found quite a
number of people that are interested. :-) Elder Kingery also had the idea to do
a service day, and entire day devoted to serving the members and less actives.
Last year just after I left Dornbirn the Elders that were in Ravensburg,
weren't the most hard working, and there were days they just hung out in the
apartment. That hurt the relations between the missionaries and the ward a bit.
In fact the first member I met, I asked if there was anything we could do and
she just said, please just be a hard working missionary. It's kind of sad when
the main concern about a new missionary to the ward is if he will be hard
working or not.
The first full day here, we spent trying to meet up with
less actives, none of whom were home. But we found 4 people while walking
around (I will come back to that too) all day. :-) That was great, 2 of which
are really cool. Courtney and Rockelle who are both from America, but are
living in Germany. Courtney is huge, and is playing as the quarterback for the
professional football team here in Ravensburg (Ravensburg Razerbacks). HE came
up to us and talked to us saying that he has met missionaries all over the
place and they are always really friendly, so he gave us his information and
said that he would like to have us over for dinner sometime and that if there was
anything that we need, he was more than willing to help. :-)
Its really
interesting, we seem to have gotten quite the tie in with the Ravensburg
Razerbacks recently. Just before I came, the Missionaries met the Coach of the
team who is actually a member of the church, that we didn't know about. He
talked a lot about how good his time was when he was active, but he wouldn't
give them any information about where he lived. But there is also a less active
member who played for the team, and we seem to have contact in a number of
other ways.
The next day we went to Singen, for the District Leader
training meeting. It was an hour train ride, which was much better than I had
expected (and much easier than any of the other District Leaders some of who
spent 3 hours on the train). Anyway that was great. Elder Chapman, and my old
companion from Vienna is the new Zone Leader here, which has given us a chance
to talk a lot. Elder Davies is also one of the district leaders here! (A
really good friend of mine here in the mission field). We missed our train
connection back home, which allowed us to find a family for the new sisters in
Singen. Which was cool, because they up till that point were having a hard
couple of days finding people.
Sunday was neat, we walked to the church early to prepare
the sacrament, and prepare for the meeting. Attendance was low, like I
mentioned earlier, and 2 of them (both Americans that were here for a study
abroad) gave their farewell talks (yes in English, they were translated by
Sister Hoffman). So that was cool. They did a lot while they were here. Because
the branch and attendance is so low, church is only 2 hours right now. Every
other week it alternates, between Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief society. We have no youth and no primary,
most the active members are grandparents, whose children are in active. Like I
said, a lot of work to be done. :-)
But on really awesome news, we made contact with a man
who hasn't been to church since 1960 and he invited us to come back today! And
then we went by on a friend of a less active lady who had once come to church
but since then the missionaries couldn't contact. And she is incredible!! She
invited us right in, sat us down, gave us home made Filipino cake, and got us
some drinks, despite preparing dinner for family and a huge amount of friends
who were coming over any minute for a party. She told us that she had a LOT of
interest in our church, and her daughter as well. Even her husband (who is
German) has interest, but that they have been really busy. It was really
cool, then all her friends came and they were getting ready to eat. Mercedes,
who we came to visit, told us that we could stay, but we didn't want to intrude
(since we just randomly showed up on her doorstep (none of us having seen her
before)).
But we got a chance to talk to her sister and some of her friends (All the women there were from the Philippians married to German men). Many of
them have interest. But because of vacation time, most of them will be going to
the Philippians for the next 5 weeks... And the ones who weren't necessarily
interested have interest in the English class. :-) That was SO COOL! I am so
excited. We have a lot to do, but SO MUCH POTENTIAL.
I am way excited to work with the Buchanans and get going!
This Branch hasn't had a baptism in 2 years or so. We have one lady, Marriot
who is ready to be baptized, and wants to be, but is just really busy, and we
need to set a new date with her. But then there is Mercedes, who we will also
most likely set a date with on August 12th when we go back and visit her and
her family. :-) (that is the earliest she can meet).
So I mentioned earlier that this area used to be a car area
and that when the Ehepaar (couple) came, they took the car and we got bus tickets. Well
this area (as of 2 transfers ago) was changed to a bike area. So we have bikes
now and no public transit. (Not that it was really good anyway...). But we are
now 3 here. And there are only 2 bikes... so we were thinking about buying a
rope and a skate board so that the third Elder could sit and ride everywhere,
but then we decided that wouldn't be fair for the Elder on the bike having to
pull him ;-).
So I talked to President Miles instead, and we are going to rent
a bike for this transfer :-). Because we haven't had one for the past few
days,we have walked EVERYWHERE. One time we walked an hour and a half straight
from the first person to the second. So we will hopefully have 3 bikes by
tomorrow and won't need to spend so much time walking places (its good because
then we can contact, but it really limits what we can accomplish).
So just like my brother in Texas, I will be riding a bike
everywhere. What makes biking even more fun is that Ravensburg is entirely
hills. There isn't much flat ground at all... some of the hills are really long
and steep too (suddenly those stairs in Plochingen don't sound too bad
anymore... ;-)).
Anyway, I am thrilled to be here and to spread the gospel
and work hard. I am so grateful for this chance that I have to serve here. I
want you all to know, that I know that this church is the true church of God.
That it was restored, as promised, through a prophet of God to the earth. I
know that Joseph Smith was that prophet. I know that he was called and ordained
of God. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, that he atoned for
our sins, and provided a way for us to repent and to come back to God one day.
And I am so grateful for the chance I have, to be here in this part of the
world and tell people about it. :-)
I wish you all a fantastic week!
Love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen
P.S.
Talking to Elder Chapman about Vienna, 2 people that we
found together in Vienna have baptismal dates!!!! Andy I called on the
phone and met with twice, then he got busy and couldn't meet for a month or so,
and the other we found on the street, he was friend of a member, and will
hopefully be baptized sometime in the next few months!! They are also working 2
companionships in that area now. So Wien 5 has 3 baptismal dates from people
that Elder Chapman and I found/ taught. And Munich 4 currently has 3 baptismal
dates from people that Elder Curtis, Evans and I found. :-) I am so happy, I
can't even bring it correctly into words. It has been such a huge blessing, and
though I may not see all of them get baptized, I am so happy to have had my
part (no matter how small) in this work. :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment