Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Gift of Tongues!

We found 3 new investigators this week so now we have some people to teach.  We ate at Mr. Woos again with a member.  It's a Chinese buffet and this time they had really exotic food.  I had Kangaroo and shark meat, it tasted really good.  My companion was a daredevil and decided to try the squid, he definitely regrets that, haha.

  But most of our week was finding and dooring.  We had 2 appointments with the Memetovich Family.  I gave him a priesthood blessing in German.  I was really nervous first, but then I realized I shouldn't be nervous about it and gave him one.  So they might be going back to Serbia this week.  They only received 4 more days in Germany, so if you could pray for his family and that everything will be okay then that would be great!

 We helped so many people with directions.  Everybody thinks we work for Deutsche Bahn (German Trains) because they wear suits, so they always ask us for directions.  One guy we talked to was totally drunk, but he took our card, so hopefully he will call us.

 We biked like 30 km on Saturday and our legs were so sore after that!  We helped another family move into the ward.  Our ward is actually pretty big now, it's over 100 active memebers!  Also on Saturday, we saw some guy just jump out of the bushes after doing drugs.  It was pretty weird.

The German is coming alone.  I am trying to learn at least 2 new words everyday.  I know that the gift of tongues is real, I can't believe I can speak German after less than a year.  It's really cool when people ask you how long you studied German and you say only since I've been on my mission(8 months) and they are like, "What, no way!"

I know this church is true.  I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.  I know that God loves us and knows us.  I know that Christ suffered for our sins and that when we believe and have faith in him, we can return to live with him again.

Elder Spangenberg

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Our District






 For PDay, we took a boat cruise, it was really cool.  It rained halfway through, but I still got some good photos.

 Notice the locks on the "Lock Bridge"


Thursday, June 25, 2015

Bike Crash and Ground Zero

This was the last week of the 5 week transfer.  Next week the new Mission President arrives. I fell while riding my bike on Pday and scrapped up my hand and knee pretty bad, but it feels a lot better now, so don't worry.

Tuesday was an awesome day! We went by a referral we got from church headquarters and it was a family from Spain.  The Mom can't speak German that well, but she is a member and was baptized in Honduras.  She wants us to teach her kids about God!  Then we called some investigators to set up an appointment and disaster struck.....This week we got choosed (must be a German word??) by 3 of our investigators.  Two of them were progressing at some point.  We were both pretty disappointed, but then we realized sometimes that happens and now we have to start all over again from ground zero and build up.

The rest of the week my companion was pretty sick, so as a result of that our apartment looks really clean now....(does that mean Grant cleaned???)  I was also in Lubeck this week with Elder Headley.  He is kind of a health person, so we ate spinach with noodles.  It didn't taste that good..but other than that the exchange was good!

On Saturday, we went around and visited the less actives with our ward mission leader.  He drove us around and we tried to see if we could make contact with them.  One of the less actives we visited was Schwester Kremer.  She came out to greet us from her house and we immediately started talking.  She was so nice.  She talked about music and my companion and I said that we play the piano, and she said we had to come into her house and play for her.  So we did, I played church hymns cause that's all I know and my companion played the only song he has memorized as well.  We immediately formed a great friendship.  We invited her to come to church and she said she would come!  Then our ward mission leader took us out for ice cream and a doner(like a gyro), it was a great day.

On Sunday, Schwester Kremer came!  She was totally crying during sacrament, it was so cool!  Then we had our investigator class, and the two girls from Utah were there with two German boys.  Apparently they met them at a party in the week and they invited them to come to church.  What great missionaries, haha, flirt to convert!  But one of the boys really thought during class and he thanked the teacher after class!

So transfer calls are this week and me and my companion are staying together.  No surprise there...But my new zone leader is Elder Morton!!!! I'm so excited!!I can't wait to see him and go on exchanges with him.  He is still my favorite companion.

Poor Anna, I remember when I got my wisdom teeth pulled out.  I don't remember it hurting that bad.  All I remember is you making me eat food, that I would just throw up later...don't worry I forgive you Mom, haha.  
Tell Lincoln to keep working at the piano, it really helps in mission work....like Schwester Kremer coming to church for the first time in a long time because of our friendship through music.

I know that Christ is really there for us.  If you haven't seen the "Because He Lives"video, I invite you to.  I know that through Christ we can overcome our difficulties and challenges.
Elder Spangenberg

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Picture of Mattern Family


Elder Spangenberg with the Mattern Family.
They were the Mission President of the Alpine Mission in 2007.  They have a special love for the missionaries and are so good to us.  They invite us to eat with them often!

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Fallen out Appointments and Grainy Brown Sugar!

Hello Everybody!
This was an interesting week.!  For Pday we actually helped a member apply to travel to America,   He already has a passport,  but he needed something else.  Then we went to Hamburg and checked out the city.  We also received a media referral and we tried to contact them, but they weren't home.

  Tuesday, we had an eating appointment with the members that we do emails at.  It was good food except for the fact that it was vegetarian.  They were having vegetarian week last week, and I can't think of anything worse than that, haha.  We are too far from the church to do emails at, so we do them at their house. We had our appointment fall out that night so we went dooring and found a contact.  I also tried to make cookies, but they didn't turn out that well because the brown sugar here is a lot different from the brown sugar in America.  Here it is very grainy, just like sugar and it doesn't stick together or is very moist.  So now I am on a mission to find some good brown sugar.

 Wednesday, my companion had a leadership meeting in Hamburg so we were there for most of the day.  I said Goodbye to Presdent Kosak then too.  Then we had another appointment fall out.

We also had District meeting this week.  It was a really good District meeting, one of the Zone Leaders gave a lesson about the Priesthood and it was very good.  Then we had the opportunity to  go on exchanges with the Zone Leaders.  I went with Elder Pinyon, he is actually from Australia, and we stayed here in Delingsdorf.  He is also the elder that gave the lesson about the Priesthood.  We had an eating appointment with the member from Iran who is also going to America in a couple of weeks.  He cooked us authentic Persian food and it was really good!  We also had a pull up competition. I could do 5, yeah I have gotten weak, haha.

Saturday we played soccer with the members.  I scored another goal!  2 weeks in a row, haha!  Then we went finding in Hamburg.  We found a new investigator through the "Because He Lives" video.  We just asked this guy if we could show him a video of Jesus and he was like,"Yeah, why not" and then after it he had interest to meet and talk about Jesus.  He is Muslim, but not for long!

Sunday was really cool.  First off there were visitors from Utah!  They were relatives of the LDS President, President Howard W.Hunter.  They have relatives that live in our ward.  So we had a class in English and one of the members told us his story of when he grew up.  It was very sad because he had an abusive father and his parents didn't really care.  But the missionaries really helped him and now he is really strong in the Gospel.  Then after church there was a baptism for one of the children in the ward!  And of course lots of food followed.  Then we finally did weekly planning.

We have big plans for the next week.  It is also the last week of the transfer.  There are only 5 weeks this time, not 6.  Me and my comp are pretty sure we are staying together, but who knows. Have a great week!
Elder Spangenberg

Monday, June 8, 2015

Last Hamburg Zone Conference with President Kosak. Elder Adler and wife also attending. (This is half of the mission)

Elder Spangenberg is on the 3rd row back, 3rd person from the right.


As a goodbye present, President Kosak drew a charcoal sketch of Joseph Smith for us!  He gave us each a laminated copy of it.   He often talks about Joseph Smith, as MY PROPHET and has a great love and testimony him.



Phone call from the Past Area and Believing Blood!

Hello Everybody,

This week we had a cool lesson with a new investigator. She is from Hungary but her English is really good.    She doesn't have much interest in joining the church because she isn't that committed at the moment.  She did ask us if she could give us money or food, so that was funny.  She asked, "What would happen if I was to give you 100 Euros?"   I do believe in the future she will open up and be taught again.

We also had another good lesson with our investigator named Andre.  He has some questions about our church, and he has even read in the Book of Mormon.  This week we are meeting him at our church for a lesson!

Wednesday, we had Zone Conference in Hamburg.  Elder and Sister Adler from the 70s were there.  It was also President Kosak's last Zone Conference, which was sad.  At the end we sang, "God be with you till we meet again".  Lots of people were crying.
I went on an exchange and stayed in Delingsdorf and was with a missionary from Lubeck.  We had 2 amazing appointments with members.  The first one was especially great.  It turns out the Mom went on an exchange to Bountiful, UT when she was a teenager, and the father liked swimming when he was younger.  In fact, breaststoke was his favorite stroke!  It was so cool, I got to know them really well and we had a good spiritual thought. The Ipads are gold!!  They make you think so much about the content in them.

Now for the best news of all!  Elder Morton called me yesterday.  At first, I was like what the heck, why is Spandau calling me, what have I done??  But he sounded all happy when I talked to him.  He called to tell me that Herr Marankovich got baptized yesterday!  That was the investigator that I found in Spandau. ( I found him on the street and had a prompting to go back and talk to him.)  He also said that his wife also wants to be baptized and his extended family is now taking lessons from missionaries in another area in Berlin!  The feeling that I felt on that phone call was indescribable, I just felt so good, knowing that I helped someone find the Gospel and now his whole family wants the blessings from it.  I also got to talk to Herr Merankovich on the phone and he sounded so happy!  It was just amazing, literally a once in a lifetime experience.

I know that Jesus and God loves us.  I know Jesus Christ suffered for all of our sins, faults, troubles, and also for the hurt we feel from others.  I know of the power of the Atonement, I have seen that in my life, and especially on my mission.  I know I am not perfect, but I try my best and I know Jesus will make up for the rest.  I love you all!

Elder Spangenberg

Mom's note: One year ago Grant was just opening his call to serve his mission in Germany.  I asked him how his mission is different than what he thought it would be.  His response:  "I didn't think a mission would be hard at all."
I asked him how "he" is different than a year ago.  His response: "Well I feel like I have changed a ton.  I didn't really prepare that well to serve a mission and I kind of regret that.  I wasn't that good about reading my scriptures and praying, so it's hard to figure out how I had a testimony before I came, but I figured that out as I read my Patriarchal Blessing.  It says that I have been blessed with believing blood!  So I never doubted the church was true, I always knew that.  I always had a huge testimony of Joseph Smith, but other things like the Atonement, I developed a testimony for on my mission, and it's still growing."
He concludes by saying,"Mom, thanks for always pushing me to do my best and never settling for anything less."

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Herr Marankovich's Baptism

These pictures were taken from Elder Williams Blog.


 Elder Morton, Herr Marankovich, Elder Williams, and unknown man
Herr Marankovich's Family with the Elders

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Delingsdorf Church


My companion and I were really sick this week.  We both had fevers and the worst congestion.  But now we feel a little better.   Most of the zone has gotten sick lately. We spent Pday at the church downloading Mormon Messages for our Ipads.
Tuesday we found 2 new investigators and also had a couple of fallen out appointments.  We called our investigators and set up appointments with them.

Wednesday, we helped a family in our ward move.  They are going on vacation to Portugal and will be back in 9 months.  What a vacation!  We also had an appointment with a less active member at a Chinese buffet.  It was interesting.  She brought  her dog there, and you could tell she goes there quite a few times during the week.  She told us about her conversion story and it was really cool.  She has come to church a couple of times while I have been here.

We also had an awesome appointment with a new investigator named Andre.  He told us the story of how he met us.  One day he said a prayer to God asking if he was there.  Well turns out, that same day the Jehovas Witness knocked on his door, and we talked to him on the street that day as well.  He said he will read and pray about the Book of Mormon.  We are really excited about him, he is the most normal investigator I have ever met.

Another thing about the Jdubs,(Jehovas Witness) they are now meeting with one of our past current investigators.  They have the advantage too because our investigator doesn't speak German very well, he speaks Serbian.  And the Jdubs are speaking to him in Serbian.  But he said the Book of Mormon is true.
Thursday, we were both feeling very sick.  We had a member appointment with the Matern family.  They were the Mission Presidents in the Alpine Mission in 2007 to 2010.  It was good, they opened up about their son.  They said he left the church and now they are trying to get him to join it again.  My companion is so good at talking to members for hours upon hours, but it makes it so we have a good relationship with the members.

Friday, I had my last interview with President Kosak.  He talked about Abraham needing to learn something about Abraham. He is so cool, I love President so much!  You can really tell he cares for us. I am sad he is leaving, but he said the new president is one of his good friends and that he is really cool also.

Saturday and Sunday we had Stake Conference.  Saturday's session was very long, they had 5 speakers talking about the exact same thing.  Then Elder Adler spoke for 40 minutes.  He said he never prepares a talk, its always different.  After, we traveled from Neumunster to Kiel and got permission from the APs to have a sleep over at Kiel with the Zone Leaders.  So we got to ride in a mission car, which was cool and we brought ice cream to an elder who was feeling sick.

Then on Sunday, we had Stake Conference in the Kieler Schloss.  President and Sister Kosak spoke.  President spoke about how he trusts the missionaries in the mission and it seemed like he was talking more to the missionaries than the members.  Elder Adler also spoke, and this time he spoke about his Patriarchal Blessing and how they are from God.   We road back home with a member and had mexican food.  Then we came back and did studies for the first time in 3 days.  It was nice to do personal study again.  Lately, I have been focusing on the atonement.  I have found some really great talks about the atonement.

My skin is actually getting better, I bought some stuff at a store, it's pretty expensive but it works really well.  I also switched razors to a non electric one, I like it a lot better.  Now I have to shave everyday and the electric one doesn't quite get the job done.  Oh yeah, another thing I weigh 200 pounds now, like seriously.  My stomach doesn't look any bigger though.  I think I have just filled in my body, haha.  As a result of that, 2 of my shirt sleeves ripped this week!!

We took a break from writing emails and had spinach and potatoes with a member family.  It tasted so good.  I know it's amazing....I like spinach!  We get to check emails daily on our Ipads, we just can't respond to them until Pday.  Have a great week.
Elder Spangenberg