1 Year!!!!!

Me eating a mega doner.  This thing was literally the biggest piece of food I have ever eaten.  Me and my companion have made a goal to try all of the doner shops in Nienberg.  2 down and about 10 to go.  I love doners!

Wow it's crazy to believe that I have been out for a year already!!  To celebrate it we went out with the Gills to a restaurant.  It was really good.  I got a double burger and it was so big that I had to cut it because my mouth wasn't big enough.  Talk about a burger.

Well once again I am scrunched on time, but this week was awesome.  We did great work this week.  We found 4 new investigators and we accomplished our goal of having 3 progressing investigators by the end of the month, which is pretty good from starting with nothing at the beginning.  There was also a new record set for church attendance this week, which was 22!  Our chapel was almost full!!  That's pretty much our week.  We have busy days coming this next week and we are both working hard to see some success in this area, but it was really nice to accomplish our goal.  We had transfer calls as well and we are both staying just like predicted.

Mom, I did go to the Doctor about my skin and he gave me a prescription.  Its been really cold but my coat I bought is really warm and everything is good.  It's a different cold here, it's a humid cold and I hate it.

 Yes, we are the only missionaries here; us and the senior couple, the Gills.  We live about a 7 minute bike ride from them.  We are moving apartments and we are trying to move by them because they live in a nice area and have a way nice apartment.  We speak both German and English with them.  Sister Gill grew up in Germany so she speaks German, but Elder Gill can't speak German very well but he tries, and Sister Gill switches off what she speaks.  She sometimes talks about not having anything in Berlin when she was growing up.  Yeah, they have family coming for Christmas.

My organ playing is coming..I can play 2 songs with pedals.  The rest of the time I don't play with pedals.  Lincoln, easy hymns to start with are: Sweet Hour of Prayer, Come Follow Me, and Redeemer of Israel.

Everything is good!  Have a great week!
Elder Spangenberg

         

Year Mark is this Week!

Sorry but I don't have much time, but this week was really good.  We were given flu shots by a Russian that was great.  It didn't hurt at all and then my arm was sore for couple of days.  Also we had interviews with the Mission President this week.

  The work is moving forward in the area and we found 3 new investigators this week!  One of them is this really cool older man.  He gave us really good cake and we talked about our religion and America.  We have another appointment with him next week and we are both really excited for that.  Since we had to start from literally ground zero we have just been finding and trying to keep the people that we find.

We were with the Gills everyday and Sister Gill has sewn every one of my pants by now but they love serving the missionaries.  I think I will be here a while. The Gills and I joke that I'll just be here for a year, then they will drive me to the mission office with them cause we end at the same time!  But hopefully I'm not here for that long.

Elder Larsen and I are working out and I have also gotten a lot stronger and leaner.
 This week we are in Hanover for a couple of meetings.  I love Hanover, it is such a cool city.  Also my year mark is this week.  Elder Larsen and I are gonna make it big.  Sorry, but no photos this week.  I hope you all have a great week.

Elder Spangenberg

German humor!

 We saw this on a house we almost doored.  It translates to: We don't want to buy anything, we don't want to donate anything and we don't want to change our religion.  So Don't ring on our door!  I thought that was funny and totally German.

Well things this week are good, but the branch is getting smaller and smaller every week.  We did a street display this week and that was really successful.  We handed out about 15 Book of Mormons in just 2 hours, so we saw great results from that.  We also saw, Meet the Mormons in German which was different but good.  This time I understood what the people were saying in German during the candy bomber part!  haha
We watched General Conference in German but I understood it all, it's amazing to think that I can speak German after less than a year in Germany!

Well, I finally figured out what everyone was meaning by the pondering scripture thing.  We watched the Sunday Evening session of conference on Sunday.  I thought it was really good.  Me and my companion have decided to ponder Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Our branch sings awful, like quiet squealing geese.  One of the songs I was playing had 5 verses so I got to the fourth verse and thought we were done.  As a pianist you don't pay attention to what verse you are on, you only pay attention to the notes.  I tried to depict what words they were singing to determine what verse they were on.  Well like I said before, the branch sings so bad and quiet, I couldn't tell what words they were singing so I stopped, thinking that we were done.  The conductor even sat down, which is Elder Gill, so I think he also got confused, haha.  One the the members was like, "Don't we have one more?  I was like oh, "Uh Entschuldigung", which means,"Whoops sorry", and we played the last verse.  It was kind of funny.  I think I am going to have to sing as I play the organ now...

We went by a less active who lives in the complete boonies, but it was good. She is really shy and doesn't talk much.  We showed her a talk on her I Pad and then asked what she liked about it.  She was like yeah, I could hear it well, that was good.   So yeah we have a ways to go.

We went by another less active.  He invited us in and I didn't feel good about it, but we still went it.  Well, turns out he believes in teleportation and weird stuff;  like other spirits and he said his spirit separated from his body while he was asleep and yeah all sorts of things.  He believes that Christ is reincarnated on the earth and he said he talked to one tree.  He also drinks coffee because it helps him to see spirits or something.  He had us do these two things where we move our feet weird and yeah wasn't good.  I was feeling we needed to leave and right when I got the chance I took it.  Before we left, he said let's end with a prayer, so he said the weirdest prayer I have ever heard.  We are probably not visiting that man for a while.   Elder Larsen wants to go back, but that's not gonna happen anytime soon.

We might be getting a new apartment, we will see.  This week we get our flu shots(wish me luck).  We also have interviews with the Mission President.  He is trying to do them every month (with 240 missionaries) bless his heart.

Mom, thanks for the organ videos!  They were like gold.  I can almost play that song in the video on the organ.  (I video taped our piano teacher giving him a lesson playing a sacrament hymn on the organ)

It has been so cold these past couple of days.  Yeah the Gills are great.  We do something together pretty much everyday.  She has sewed a couple of holes in my pants and they are taking me to the dermatologist later this week.

This is the Schmidt dog.  It is a really funny pug.  It had to wear a cushion around it's neck because it was biting its tail.  I thought it was so funny.  The man holding the dog is our progressing investigator. He is doing really good, he doesn't smoke anything compared to what he used to.  He only smokes when his wife is around because she still smokes and doesn't really want to give it up.

Elder Spangenberg

Conference Week

 

Elder Larsen, Sister El Sayed and Elder Spangenberg.

We are teaching her the temple lessons.  She is so nice and comes to church when she can order the wheelchair vehicle to pick her up.  She is going to the LDS Temple in Holland with a lady from the ward the middle of October.  She is ready and so excited.  We had a very spiritual lesson with her about the plan of salvation. and the spirit was so strong. 

This was a great week.  For Pday we went to Hanover and that was really cool.  It's a pretty big city and there is lots to see.  We went of exchanges with the district leader this week.  Me and Elder Wallis, the District Leader's companion, stayed here in Nienburg.  We taught And and his wife.  They are our progressing investigators.  We introduced the 15 step program to stop smoking, and so far it is going better.  They have been smoking less each day which is good.  It would do their body harm for them to go from 30 cigarettes to none.  So we are working with them on that.

We did some member work this week.  We visited a really shy member  with the couple missionaries, that didn't go well.  She just sat there and didn't say a word, so next time we will go with not so many people.  But she is really nice, we just need to work on becoming friends with her first.

Well the AP's wouldn't let us have a sleepover in Stadthagen with the elders there, so we just went to the couple missionary's house.  It was awesome! Like I say every week, they are so nice.  We had some good food and it was just a great time.  I feel like they are my grandparents now. I go home the same day as the Gills, November 1st!  They are from Taylorsville, Utah.  We didn't get to see the Sunday Evening session because of the time difference, but we are watching it next week.

I liked the talk given Saturday morning by Elder Lawrence about the Holy Ghost and how he can give us help is all dimensions of life, not just gospel help.  Sometimes the Holy Ghost can tell us to change something about our behavior or actions.  Elder Eyring's talk was really good too,  He always has a really cool story about his family to go along with every one of his talks.  Elder Holland's talk was a perfect comparison about the atonement that I have never really thought of.  It made me realize how much my mother and Christ love me.  Those are just a few of my favorites but they were all really good.

I'm getting to be quite the cook.  Elder Larsen is really easy going so he doesn't care what we eat as long as it tastes good.  I usually do the cooking cause he says I can cook good.  I've come a long ways; at the beginning I asked Elder Fowler how to boil pasta! haha We buy our food together and I'm eating a lot healthier now.  I eat 1 apple, I banana, and a carrot everyday now.

Have a great week!
Elder Spangenberg

A rather large hole in my sock!