My time is very limited for this e-mail, but, this week was
very weird. Two back to back exchanges, a National holiday and General
Conference...
Monday, was a normal P-day, with the exception that I made
Mussaman curry for the Buchanans. :-) I found a little Asian shop here in
Ravensburg and have been in heaven ever since. This time it is legitimately a Massaman curry, as opposed to a red curry with similar contents. :-). It
wasn't the best curry that I have made, seeing as their stove is a bit more
efficient than ours and I overcooked it a bit... but It was still good and fun
to make. I still can't help but laugh how I come here to Germany on a German
speaking mission, and learn to make Thai food. Something about that just seems
ironic. I have learned how to make German food as well, and love German food,
but I guess since I still don't get Thai that often, I get way excited about
it... Weird I know. I have also come up with my own spaghetti Bolognese sauce.
I have really gotten in to cooking since I have been, and enjoy it WAY too
much, too bad as a missionary I can't make half the things that I want to make
because of lack of time...
Anyway, that was a random tangent, later that night we met
with Marko, who is from Croatia, he called us a few days earlier returning my
call that I had made about 2 months earlier. He is funny, I don't know if we
will be able to teach him however... he has a really short attention span. Its
fun though ;-).
Tuesday we had district meeting here, then I went to
Dornbirn on exchange. Long story short the exchange wasn't so good because we
had no time. It was WAY too short. We only had an 30 minutes that we could do
something before the English class they teach then we helped the other Elders
out with a lesson. During the 30 minutes how ever I saw someone who I met last
year and had given him a Book of Mormon. I talked to him for a good 10 minutes
or so, then he said "I have something for you" He went up stairs and
brought down a blanket still in packaging. He gave to me as a gift. That was
neat. One of the jobs he did was maintaining the machines to make these
blankets, they are worth nearly 50 Euro, but he gave it to me. That was really
neat. It was fun talking with him, and I hope the Elders will stop by every now
and again to see how he and his wife and kids are doing. He works from 4 am
till about 6 pm (two different Jobs) everyday, so he doesn't have much
time to meet with us sadly...Next morning we studied and exchanged back. :-(
Not what I wanted to do, but I couldn't change anything, from that exchange,
Elder Moon went with me back to Ravensburg and we had the second exchange. That
was a blast. Elder Moon went to Pleasant Grove High School, and though we didn't
know each other we have a lot of mutual friends and its fun working together.
We had a really really good rhythm working together in teaching and finding and
talked to 3 people who would like to meet with us more. :-) It was great.
Thursday was a German's unification day. TOTALLY KILLED OUR
WEEKEND. Holidays are taken very seriously here. Everything closes, and
everyone goes home and spends the day with their family. Something that I think
is really cool. But they don't like anything to disrupt that. So all the
appointments fell through, and we couldn't go door to door, 1) because that is
rude and doesn't reflect well on the church, and 2) we just get yelled at. But
there is no one on the street. Sweet. We decided to move Weekly Planning to
Thursday because it would be more effective. Then we went and left notes and
some less actives houses inviting them to Watch General Conference with
us.
Friday. Because Thursday was a holiday Friday became a
"Bruckentag" A day in which most people take off to be with there
families for an extended weekend. we had 4 appointments lined up that day. Meet
with Derick (member), Frau Kassner (potential), Justice and Christine, and Luhz
(new investigator as of last week). Derick went just fine. Frau Kassner fell
out, then we stopped by on a member in the area which no one had been able to
meet with for a long time, and she was there! She invited us in and we talked
with her for a bit, and made out an appointment to come back with the Buchanans
to visit her. That was a huge tender mercy. The appointment with Luhz also fell
out, but we will hopefully make that up some time this week.
Saturday was LOOOOONG. We spent 4 hours biking around in the
rain visiting every Investigator and Member we could to invite them all to
General Conference. We almost were able to meet with Sylvester, a friend of
Justice (Justice called us once from that phone, and I saved the number, and
later realized it belonged to someone else). But he didn't have time, but said
he would come to General Conference on Sunday. We obviously watched General
Conference that evening and really enjoyed it. :-)
Sunday, we biked around for 2 hours inviting others to watch
general conference before entering into a 6 hour back to back General
Conference Marathon. (Elder Buchanan's idea) Elder Wasden handled it well, but
I was BEAT. None of the people that we had talked to/invited came. They may
have watched it online, I hope so. I know one who was really excited about it,
and I am pretty sure that he watched it, but no one else sadly. .-(
But something really neat that happened that I want to
specifically mention (having already mentioned the story of talking to sister
Schmelz) was a cool story from Saturday night. Elder Wasden and I have decided
that every night (as long as it is before 9 pm) we would talked to 5 or so
people on the street or until 9, depending on what the plans were. That night
we got back to the apartment at 8.15 or so and had planned to eat dinner, so we
first went and walked around talking to people. There weren't very many, but we
tried anyway. It was a long day, I was tired, and a bit sad because things that
past few days were rough. I wanted to find someone. So I prayed for a miracle.
Just then a car drove past and pulled up near a sign to park. I walked past and
waved at the driver he waved back, but I didn't want to awkwardly stand there
and wait for him to get out, so I was just going to keep walking and talk to
someone else. When I got the feeling to turn around walk back and talk to him
anyway. He still wasn't out of his car but I did it anyway. As expected it was
a bit awkward, especially because he was parked somewhat illegally and I looked
like a Police officer... but once I cleared that up we had a neat conversation
with him and his wife.
They are from Cameroon and speak English really well. I
invited them to General Conference, they said they would come, we exchanged
phone numbers and that was it. Exactly what I wanted, to find someone that
night, and I prayed for it,and right there my prayer was answered. It was a
really neat. He couldn't make it after all, but we will go visit him around the
weekend hopefully and teach him a bit about the church :-).
I have said it before, but God really truly hears and
answers our Prayers. I know it. I have felt it, and seen it. He is there for
us, and wants to help us through the hard times. I am grateful to be here and
spread the gospel as a missionary!
I wish you all a great week!
love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen
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