Man, this whole month and transfer have gone by in a blur.
Wow. Well, the amount of dry cleaning that I need to accomplish this week is
significantly less than that of last week, which means the week was a success
;-)
It really was a great week though, hard, as they usually
are, but great. Monday, just before leaving the apartment to go to our
appointment we got a text which cancelled it. Ok. Awesome, so instead we decide
to walk out to visit the Weißenrieders, Mercedes (mother of the family) has
been to church a few times and has really liked it, we just haven't been able
to make out an appointment with them, and they just got back from a 3 week
vacation. So we walk there and talk to people as we go. We walk all the way
there (probably a good Kilometer at least), Mercedes wasn't home so we turn
around and walk back. We had some great conversations though which was awesome,
then we got the bikes and bike to the Buchanans to give President Buchanan a
blessing, which I always enjoy doing.
Tuesday we got up at 5:45 so that we could buy a train ticket
and leave at 7 to go and do an exchange with the Zone Leaders, Elder Chapman
and I stayed in Ravensburg and had WAY to much fun. Elder Chapman, is the same
one that was with me in Wien.
We were supposed to meet a Filipino lady at the
internet shop at 3. She ended up getting there early, and went for a walk. We
arrive at 3, and wait five minutes, and because of the bar next door playing a
ton of rock music, we decided to go walk around and talk to people. She must
have arrived just shortly after that, and because we were talking to someone we
didn't notice, and we came back at about 3.15 only to be told by the man at the
front desk that she had been here and left. :-(
At that point in time, we got
the bikes and rode to West Stadt. Poor Elder Chapman. West Stadt is at the top
of a LONG and STEEP hill. I made it up just fine, seeing as I have ridden up
that hill 20+ times by now, but it wasn't so easy for him. We gave sister Pabel
a blessing, and went to stop by on this Filipino lady (she lived up in that
area). We went by, she let us right in, and we talked to her for 20 minutes (we only intended to be there for 5, share a thought, say a prayer and make out
an appointment where we could bring a someone with us, but she likes to talk....
a lot.) Anyway, we said the prayer and I made out a time to return
tomorrow afternoon to meet with her. That was great. Nothing really overly
exciting happened on the exchange, we went to Markdorf to visit with the Micov
family but they couldn't meet :-( So we spent some time contacting people there
and then came back home. But it was a blast being with Elder Chapman again,
sharing stories and things. It was a lot of fun.
Wednesday, after we exchanged back we met with Atta at our
church building, he is from Iraq but can speak fairly decent German. We had a
good conversation with him, and we invited him to come to church, which he did
on sunday! :-)
Thursday was completely full. We did our studies, had lunch
then biked up to Baienfurt to meet with Lother (the less active who was
baptized 40 years ago but has since been in active and no one knew about him)
We had a much better conversation with him this time, gave him a Book of Mormon
and will probably stop by in a week or so to see how he is doing. So that was
in Baienfurt.
Then we went back to the apartment and called a few people before
biking up to Grünkraut to meet with Courtney. That was awesome. The bike up
there is nearly entirely up hill, one hill being INCREDIBLY STEEP. That was
hard, especially since my bike refused to shift down to the 1st gear (on the
front, the back worked just fine), I ended up not making it up the hill. But
we bike all the way there and had dinner with him. He is American, (the
quarterback for the Razorbacks that I mentioned to you before) from Virginia.
He talked to us on the street, and invited us to come have dinner with him and
his wife (who sadly wasn't there, she went back home to help out a cousin who
was in a very rough situation). That was so awesome with him. He has a strong
testimony of Jesus Christ and we had a very open conversation.
He made us a
dish which he calls "Big dude food". It was good, Tortellini, which
was added to some tomatoe sauce and cheese baked into a casserole. Really simple
and easy. :-) But good. It was great, the food, the atmosphere the conversation
everything. He trusts us a lot, and asked us questions that he might not have
otherwise asked, and yeah. I have said it a lot, but good, spiritual, open, fun
conversation with him. I am excited to go back and talk with him more. We gave
him a Book of Mormon and he was excited to read in it. During the conversation
we talked about faith, and we invited him to read Alma 32. He is very open to
talk more and has really wanted to talk more about Christ, but hasn't had
anyone really to do it with.
Then we biked all the way to the church for
Gemeinde Rat. We made it in just under 25 minutes ( taking into account that we
were stuck at lights for about 5 minutes of that) WE WERE FLYING. It takes
about 30 minutes with a car, and we made it in 25 with a bike ( granted we
don't have to worry about a speed limits in the bike lanes) It was down hill
the whole way. :-)
We had a neat experience at Gemeinde Rat as well. Over my
time here, we have tried to take the opportunity and tell as many people as
possible about the miracles and all the cool things that we see (that was
pretty much my entire talk that I gave last Sunday). People have slowly been
getting more excited about missionary work. Its been wonderful to see. At
Gemeinde Rat we did the same, and then one of the members started talking about
her Granddaughter how she wanted to be baptized, but wanted her dad to baptize
her (who is inactive at the moment) she (Sister Trautman) had been talking to
her (Jasmin) about it, and wants sister Trautman wants Jasmin to baptized
by her Grandpa, and what more Sister Trautman really pushed strongly that we
teach her instead of her going to Young Womens (Sister Trautman is the Young
Womens leader, and Jasmin is the girl of young women age in the ward) she said
that it would be better for her to be taught by us than learn some of the young
women things at this point in time, because she can't do much with it at home.
She asked us three times and recommend that we teach her (we said yes of
course) but, that kind of thing hasn't happened in the past.
The missionaries
for a long while have not had a good relationship with the ward and it has been
hard. But now they are so much more open to us, we have become apart of the
ward, We mentioned that we had a lesson the next day and needed a way to get
there (the Buchanans couldn't drive us) and Brother Trautman was THRILLED. He
showed up early to pick us up, we arrived well before the appointment (he was
speeding) and had to wait a bit, but he was way excited to come with us. THIS
HASN'T HAPPENED AT ALL IN A VERY LONG TIME. Years probably. The appointment
fell through last minute, but that didn't lessen the excitement at all. That
has been the largest blessing by far of serving here, is witnessing this
change, even from when I arrived till now (though I was not the beginning of
it (I count the beginning when Elder Hyatt was transferred here and then the
Buchanans). It has made huge strides!
And though we are frustrated at every
corner because with every attempt at trying to meet with people (Satan has a
huge grasp here right now, it makes it hard. We have lost so many of our
investigators to anti Mormon literature, friends and others who say things
about us completely false, every single time we find someone cool we hit a dead
end one way or another). But we are making steady progress, step by step, and
are seeing miracles with every step. It is truly like a sunrise, slow and stead
we are seeing light finally come back. It will be awhile before it's noon day,
but we are well on our way. We still have a long way to go, but we are
seeing a change in the branch, the members feelings toward missionaries, and
the success we are having with investigators. It is miraculous. (Note later: Jasmin,
got in an argument with her mother and as of right now is not allowed to have
anything to do with the church... I told you, Satan has a good grasp, and we
have a ways to go...) But we are continually moving forward with everything that
we can, and doing everything that we can do, and I know we will be blessed,
someday Satan's grasp will be broken, and we will have a flood of people ready
to join the church.
It is to that goal that we are working. And we will not
stop. It takes patience, humility and work, but no unhallowed hand will stop
this work from progressing. Of that I am convinced. I know it. Having
Atta come to church was the first step, he is the first investigator to come to
church in who knows how long. Other opportunities are opening up, and even if
they come to some end, through them we will find new ones. I know this Church
is true, I know that we are lead by a living prophet today, because a Boy with
a question stepped into a grove of trees, and started a sunrise of truth
throughout the earth. I am so grateful to have a part in the sunrise, as we
constantly move forward line upon line, here a little and there a little.
I wish you all a fantastic week!
love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen
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