Wednesday, November 26, 2014

5th Week at the MTC!

One more week till Deutschland!

This week was a good week at the MTC!

We had a really cool experience with our real investigator. He didn't know the Book of Mormon was true so we shared our testimony of it and talked a lot about it. He said he still didn't know and we asked him to read and he said he would try. Anyways that night as we were returning from dinner we saw him on a bench in the dark with a flashlight reading the Book of Mormon! It was sooooo cool to see him reading it for the first time.
Our other investigators are doing good too.

This week I gave my first priesthood blessing! One of the sister in my zone wasn't feeling great about serving a mission and was having some trouble at the mtc. She asked me to give her a blessing I did and it was amazing the spirit in the room when I gave it was so strong I cried after and so did some of the other people in the room.

I got my travel itinerary and I'm in charge of all the missionaries at the airport that are going to Berlin so that's a pretty tough task haha. Especially since some of them have never flown on an airplane before. We fly to Seattle then the Amsterdam then Berlin it's a really cool flight we go over Greenland and Iceland so I'm excited!

This week we are going to have 2 general authorites speak at the mtc. Last night elder Oaks did and he talked a lot about how it's the lord's time not ours and how we shouldn't be silly and goofy but that we still should express ourselves in a good way. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and there's a huge program planned. Another general authority is coming for thanksgiving and supposedly that's elder bednar! I can't wait to hear what he has to say he always says good talks that people will quote for a lifetime. Also on thanksgiving the mtc is making 350,000 (yes that number is correct) bags of food for less fortunate kids and families by having all the missionaries come together and make about 60 bags each it's going to be really cool and we also watch a movie that day and supposedly it's Meet the Mormons so hopefully it is that.

Anyways I'm doing still really good at the MTC I've only gained 4 pounds which is surprising cause I eat way more than anyone else and they've gained over 10. No mischief this week we decided to finish our stay here strong. The German is going very well I'm surprised and happy! Love you all!
Elder Spangenberg

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

4th Week at the MTC!

Hello!

This week has been very good!  First of all we committed one of our investigators to baptism.  It was really cool!  This was only his 5th lesson and he was drunk when we first came, and he slept the whole time so we progressed a lot.  It was really cool the spirit in the room when I asked him to be baptized was amazing.  We weren't planning on having him commit that lesson, but I felt that I should ask him and it turned out great!

Also our other 2 investigators also went to church including the real investigator.  He thought church was really cool, and not as weird as he thought it would be, so that was good.

The German is actually coming along well.  I'm very surprised I can hold a conversation in German now.  It's amazing what the gift of tongues can do.  Our teachers don't even talk in English anymore and we can understand 90% of what they're saying.

I love our main teacher, his name is Brother Jones.  He just returned from his mission to the German speaking Alpine mission in August.  He's really cool and helps us all a lot and is fun.  We all love it when he talks in what's called Weinerish.  It's the accent that the Swiss and Austrian people speak with and it sounds so funny.

                                    These are the German Speakers at the MTC.
Some of the Russian missionaries on our floor locked themselves out of their room.  SO instead of doing the easy way of going to the front desk for a key,  we attempt to help them break in their room through the ceiling.  We were in the process when our branch president walks through the doors to our resident hall.  He sees my companion's arm in the ceiling and about 25 missionaries surrounding us.  Luckily, he didn't get mad at us though so that's good, he just said,"I have a better idea".

I'm playing the piano in Sacrament next week.  All singing is done in German.  The tunes are a little different.  I am practicing piano every other day.  Thanks for sending me with the German Hymn book.

On Sunday, I have meetings all morning because I am the District Leader.  Then we have Priesthood Meeting and then Sacrament Meeting.  My companions and I are also in charge of preparing sacrament and assigning people to bless and pass it.  After sacrament we go on a temple walk.  Then finally we have a fireside and then it's bed time.

I figured out we fly to Seattle, then to Amsterdam, then to Berlin on December 2nd.  I'll let you know the time we fly out.
Love,
Elder Spangenberg

Friday, November 14, 2014

Handwritten Letter!

Hello!

Well lucky me I got assigned to give a talk on this Sunday....in GERMAN. I thought that bearing my testimony last Sunday would give me immunity cause only 1 elder and 1 sister talk each SUnday.  SO that means only 5 elders out of the 17 will give a talk at the MTC.    The district President said that he liked my testimony in German and asked me to talk first.  SO I have a lot to prepare this week.

I'm the only elder that plays the piano, so I have to have 2 songs every week to play.  That means I am practicing the piano a lot.

I love you all,
Elder Spangenberg

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

3rd Week at the MTC!

Well I'm almost halfway done with my MTC stay. I've loved it so far. Me and my companions are trying to talk in German with each other and that's pretty tough. We have fun by trying to find cool sounding German words like Krankenwagon and Ganseblumchen which is ambulance and daisy. we had some really great devotionals this week that I really liked. One sister spoke and she spoke with this very heavy German accent that sounded way awesome. My companions and I are practicing are German accents all you do is talk really loud and clear when you speak it's pretty fun haha.

I got called as District leader this week so my new name is ein Fuhrer which is leader and it's also what everybody called Hitler haha. Now the language is starting to get really tough German has all these weird rules for things that make no sense in english and nothing is a direct translation. I always say something like was Seight ist es which is what time is it? and my teacher would be like no no no Germans say what hour is it or something like that so it's very confusing. we had something called TRC which is where we teach members who can speak German we taught this  returned missionary and she talked so fast it was so hard to understand a word she said. And that's how German talk so that's gonna take some time to get used to that.

I just want to share one of the Devotionals that someone spoke cause it was one of the best talks I've heard. The guy that spoke was Bishop Davies he was actually born in bountiful, Utah!! Anyways he talked about it's just to compare things in like which is so true! But what I really like is he talked about how he chose to go on a mission. He said he was praying one day to go and he had a dream that night, in the dream he was driving down Beck Street when he saw a couple over on the side of the rode he stopped to help them. He remembered what they look like he remember hearing the holy ghost say in his dream if you will listen to what this couple has to say you will be blessed your entire life because of it. He woke up after that. Then he decided to turn his papers in he got called to the Paraguay Argentina mission. As he was stepping off the plane he saw the couple in his dreams greeting him to start his mission. That couple turned out to be his mission president and he decided from that point he would obey everything they would tell him to do and he did.

 He also talked about how he was in charge of picking out land for temples to be built on and he talked about how it's a miracle how Temples are built especially the canadian one right after 9/11. It made me think about President Utchdorfs talked during the Ogden temple redidication when he talked about the Germany Freiburg temple being built and how that was a miracle it was built because they built it before the Berlin Wall came down. Anyways I thought I would just share the main parts of his talk. I love it hear and love hearing from everybody hope everything is going well.
Elder Spangenberg

Friday, November 7, 2014

2nd Week at the MTC!

Hello Family and Friends,

Well the second week was a little bit tougher than the first.  It was also a sad week because one of the elders in my district went home so now I am in a tri companionship.  One of my companions is going to the Frankfurt mission and the other will go with me to Berlin.   Two of the Elders in the Germany zone went home so now there are 24 missionaries going to Germany which is relatively small compared to the last group that had about 50.  Half are Elders and half are Sisters.


Anyways this weeks we started studying language a lot more.  For those of you that don't know German, it's very confusing compared to English.  How you say sentences is different depending on how many verbs are in the sentence.  So if I were to say "I know the church is true" in German that would be "Ich Wisse die Kirche Wahr ist" which translates in English to  "I know the church true is" so it's very confusing and hard.  With that said I know for a fact the gift of tongues is true.  I bore my testimony on Fast Sunday in German, without any notes or anything! SO the language is going very well.


We are teaching full lessons in German.  We have 2 investigators who really aren't investigators they are just our teachers disguised as someone else.  But they are pretty hard to teach one of them was supposed to be drunk when we were teaching him so it was very hard, he wouldn't let us in for like 10 minutes. It was good practice because that's likely gonna happen in Germany.  However, we have a real investigator which isn't common.  The last missionaries gave us their investigator who is not LDS.  The only problem is we only know how to say gospel words so our investigator asked us "what do you like to do in your spare time?"  Me and my companions were like..."uh "preach my gospel" in german cause we didn't know what else to say that would make sense, so he was like,"Oh well I guess that's cool"...  So we have got some things to work on!!!


AN interesting fact is that in almost every devotional Germany is mentioned!  We had another devotional Tuesday night and the speaker told a cool story about the holocast and mentioned a man who ended up saving more jews than anyone in the concentration camp by bribing the guards.  The man grew up and always wanted to become a business man, he took a chance at a company not doing so well.  He ended up succeeding greatly from that company and when he left it he had to have 2 dump trucks to carry all the money out because he had so much.  Then the war happened and he saved tons of jews from the creamatoriums.  After the war he said this,"Oh how many more I could have saved.  This car right here could be 2 more people, my coat 1 more, my house many more".  I really liked that story, it taught me to give everything you have and to have no regrets after your mission.


I saw Keaton Ashby a lot.  He will be a great missionary.  His companion seemed really cool as well.  He left this week for Halifax.


My companion and I got to go off campus and take a shuttle and help a missionary get a perscription.  We loved that and joked that the "real world still does exist".


We went last Wednesday to the temple and did a session, it was really cool.  The temple actually has a separate section just for missionaries like missionary clothing and missionary locker rooms.  Laundry went great...all you do is put your laundry in the washer and press whites, colors, or dark colors!!!


My companion was a skateboarder.  He is legit!  He got sponsored to travel to championships across the U.S..  He also owns a helmet making company and sold helmets for like $300.  He's way cool.


I love the alarm clock; I wake up on time every morning!  I am trying to learn 30 german words a day and it has really helped.  My teacher says I am working very hard and he can see me progressing because of it.
Love,
Elder Spangenberg