Our car is fixed!

 This week was crazy.  We were all over the place.  We helped the elders in our district who were getting whitewashed carry all their bags, then we got our car from the shop.  I'm starting to drive now and at first it was scary because the roads are so narrow here, but now I'm getting the hang of it.  We also went  to Kiel for a street display with the Neumunster Elders and I got to see my old companion Elder Miller, and meet his trainee who is a pretty cool kid.

 Us and the Pinneberg Elders with a member in Pinneberg.  I served in Pinneberg not too long ago, so it was nice to be back.

We did meet with a couple of people this week.  One of them is a less active and his nonmember girlfriend.  They are a little hard to teach.  The man has a tumor and has challenges mentally.   But in the end he comes to church.  We have a lesson and he won't agree with everything we say.  Like scripture study is actually a commandment and that we should follow all the commandments.  Then we asked him what commandments he is going to work on this week, hoping he would remember scriptures.  He said..... the ten commandments...  But when we ask if he is coming to church, he always says, "auf jeden fall" which means, of course!

We were going by on less actives who live around a small town called Rendsburg.  We went by this guys brother first, and he was like. "what the heck, why do you keep coming?"  And long story short, he is probably going to take out his records, yeah pretty sad, but surprisingly he was really nice.  We explained that the Rendsburg Branch closed a year ago and that's why we went by on him to tell him about it.  We also went by on the guys brother and talked with him too.  We knocked on his door and talked on his doorstep about things, then we asked him what he does and he said his job, then he was like, "But I have a hobby and it's collecting and selling Star Wars toys."  So we were like, "Cool, can we see them?"  He says, yeah sure, he first shows us a display case full of them and I've gotta be honest right here, cause I've never seen Star Wars.  Like I've seen parts of certain movies, but never the whole thing, so I was kinds lost lol!  And then he starts telling us how much some them sell for and some little tiny figure sold for $7,000! What the heck!  Then he opens up a room and it's full of them and at that point he's like, "Well it's a little more than a hobby."  But the guy was so chill, he even has a John Stockton jersey!  Sadly we didn't see that.  We talked with him a while about religion, he's way smart.  Gee its kinda sad, some people in Europe actually think about religion and they are so smart, but they have to have logical proof for everything.  He kept talking about upgrading religion, for example changing the church to conform to society more.  At the end we invitied him to pick up a Book of Mormon and read in it, which he hasn't done since he was a kid.  He said in October his Dad will be there and his Dad is a member, so we will see him again hopefully.

Well I'm out of time again.  We need to plan a lesson for FHE tonight.  The bottom pictures are of Husum, it's a huge tourist city and really pretty.

Elder Spangenberg

Wacken

Zone Conference with Area Seventy Elder Charles and his wife.  He taught in Berlin and Hamburg.  This is the Hamburg Zone Conference.

We met with probably the most famous investigator up here in the north.  She is Polish and she loves to cook food for the missionaries.  The bad thing was that me and Elder Glissmeyer were in Hamburg just before because he had a doctor appointment and we decided to eat there.  So we weren't really that hungry.  The other elders that were with us each weigh about 130 pounds so neither of them can eat that much.  I'm happy to say that we did finish th soup and all the polish dish that she made.  But that was probably the most food I have ate in my life!  She is a really nice lady and funny fact is that she absolutely loves Cuba.  She goes there once a year.  This time she brought back a shirt of the Cuba Rebel for my companion.  It looks pretty funny but it's pretty much a shirt supporting communism, so he needs to be selective when to wear it! 

Stacey and Elder Glissmeyer, he goes home this transfer and we had a killer exchange!

We have driven everywhere for appointment, exchanges, and all that.  However, bad news for the car...my companion ran into a smile pole and it totally bent the axel to our car in in the auto repair for  a week.  That was sad.  We did get to go to Wacken.  For those of you who don't know, its a little town of less than 2,000 people.  But it's also home to the world biggest outdoor heavy metal concert.  75,000 people come to this place every year, it's nuts, everyone knows about it.  It had been going on for 24 years now and tickets for next year are all sold out.  So we had to stop in a shop and get some t-shirts there.

 We taught a couple of people this week.  One of them is really making progress and we are working on getting him to do the basics, ya know, scripture study, prayer, and coming to church.  Church was fun this week...nobody was there and I gave a talk and played the organ.  We also did a lot of service for some members and afterwards they fed us some good German food.

Elder Spangenberg

                                 This is the Berlin Zone that I was in a month ago.

I got Blitzed!

 Me next to a Lamborghini tractor.  Yes,  they exist, who would have thought!

Craziest mission week so far!  On Monday, we went to Berlin with other missionaries and were having a great Pday.  We were at the Berliner Dom, which is a ginormous church, just chilling there when the phone rings.  My companion pulls out the phone and turns out, our Mission President was calling!  We were outside on top of the dome looking at the city and it was super loud.  So my companion told President that we would call him back and President said, "Okay, just do it within the next 30 minutes.  I'm freaking out at this point thinking of all the possibilities that it could be because you don't get a call everyday from President Fingerle, so it must be pretty important.  So we rush out of the building and my companion calls him back and he talks with him for like 5 minutes.  My companion saying, "okay, yeah, I guess" with the most surprised look on his face.  I'm about ready to pee my pants at this moment.  Then he finally gets off and is like, "Well I can't tell anyone but my companion", so we go over in the trees and this is what he tells me, "Both of us have to be in the mission home at 8 a.m. on Thursday.  You need to bring your suitcases, but I'm coming back.  We will be meeting our new companions there."  "Oh, and we aren't allowed to tell anybody."  Like literally, I have never been more confused, disappointed, or sad in my entire life.  I had only been at this new place for less than 3 weeks!

 So after that we go get ice cream (I was needing a little cheering up!), then the AP's call and they are like, "Elder Spangenberg, are you ready for your transfer call?"  I say, "What the heck is going on?"  They said that I will be going to Heide and they can't tell me why and that's pretty much it!!  I couldn't believe what they just said, that means that I will be going back to the Neumunster Zone for my 4th time!  It felt like a total joke because Heide is the only Ward or Branch in this zone that I have not been to the church or the apartment!  I think I might as well just live up there, because I can't get out!

So yeah, I had like 2 days to pack and I pretty much just threw everything in my suitcases and then whatever else I had I just put in plastic bags.  Because Heide has a car!!  Yay!! My first area with a car.  I didn't have to ride the train from Berlin to Hamburg with all my suitcases for like the 4th time!  It's actually ironic because the office has been nagging me all the time about finishing my driving record papers and I've kind of just not worried about it because, one I've never had a car, and two I go home in 3 months, why bother.

I did say goodbye to some close members.  I hated to leave Frankfort Odor.  We met with the Egyptian family the night before I left and that was great.  They fed us Egyptian food again and they were so nice made everything great. But I promised them I would come back after the mission and visit them!

This is Ola.  She and her husband are members from Egypt and also teach Arabic to some missionaries learning it.  They are definitely some of my favorite members!


Thursday, we went into Berlin and stayed overnight with the elders for like the 5th time in 3 weeks.  I said goodbye to Elder Thompson and then I met my new companion, Elder Williams and we had a 4 and a half hour drive to Heide.  Road Trip!  Heide is pronounced High-duh.

This area is actually pretty cool.  I'm gonna be honest, I have heard this place is literally the worst area in the mission, but that was when they didn't have a car.  We literally just drive around and knock on doors the whole day, which sounds awful, but it's great because it's so peaceful and beautiful and the area is gigantic!  The dorfs (cities) are so small, the biggest town in our area is 20,000 and we live in Heide, which is 18,000. (Microscopic compared to Berlin!)  The branch here is super nice!  We all ate together on Sunday, so I met all the members pretty quick.  It was really funny cause they walk into church and they are like, "Wait, you aren't the other missionary, what happened?"  So we had to explain to the 40 members what happened, because the missionaries weren't allowed to tell the ward before they left.

Quickly, this is what happened.  In Turkey a civil war is going on so they took out those missionaries and brought all 15 of them to Berlin Germany.  This is because Germany has the second highest Turkish population in the world.  They are not anticipating it to be a long time.  My old companion was studying Arabic and my new companion's companion was studying Turkish so these missionaries were asked to be companions with the Turkish Elders.  The reason for the secrecy was because it needed to be announced by the LDS church newsroom before we let it out.

My new companion is from Arizona and actually went to the same high school as Elder Miller, one of my last comps.  He goes home one transfer after me so we are like one of the oldest companionship's on the mission.  He also loves dub step and electronic music, which I know nothing about but he is "culturing" me about it, lol.
Have a great week!

Elder Spangenberg