Last Transfer!

Zone Training Meeting

Transfers happened!  I am staying and getting Elder Jensen.  I have heard he is a quiet guy, from Utah, and was a beekeeper at home.   He has been out for almost a year and was trained by Elder Stott. 

 My current companion, Elder Williams, is getting transfered after being here for 6 months.  

We taught our one investigator AND he came to church!  He really likes church.  We also ran into some mean people this week doing doors.  One guy told us he'd sic his dogs on us if we didn't leave.  Yeah, just normal German hospitality to missionaries! 

 But really things are going good.  I made friends with a less active who now texts me all the sports scores and we are going to play wheelchair basketball next week because his daughter is in a wheelchair and she plays basketball, so they invited us to go!  We are super excited for that!  

Elder Spangenberg

Hog Time!

                                        This is a boar I found in a neighbor's yard.

Wow, time goes by fast!  I don't have many more of these to write!

This week we received a ton of referrals.  By a ton, I mean like 4, which is actually quite a bit if you aren't serving stateside.  We have tried to contact all of them, but only managed to get a hold of one.

So this guy just sent a letter to the church last week saying he wanted us to come by.  Now the letter was kind of interesting in the way he describes himself.  So we were kind of worried, but he is actually really cool.  He is definitely not all the way there, but this guy has a ton of interest in the church.  The problem is that he met with the Jehovah's Witnesses as well, so some of their beliefs are mixed up with ours in his head, but we are working on that!

We had another lesson with an investigator that we have been meeting with for a while.  The problem is that she doesn't want to do anything and hasn't been keeping any of her commitments.  So we have to stop meeting with her.  It's sad, but if she doesn't keep her commitment, then it's not worth our time to meet with her.

Other than that, we went dooring just about the whole week.  We have a district goal to get a least 15 rejections everyday before we head home, even if it's dinner time.  It's kind of like reverse psychology, but it actually works pretty well.  It helps us see how many people we talk to and gives us motivation to keep going despite the "Nos" we get.

Other than that, some meeting here and there and lots of driving!  We found other people throughout the week and we are looking at a very busy week coming up!

Elder Spangenberg

Service with a smile!

I don't have a lot of time this week because we have district Pday today.  Most of the week was helping people move and doing service.  We were so tired after carrying so many dressers up three flights of stairs!

I was sick a couple of days this week.  But the highlight was definitely the Freiberg Temple dedication.  Elder Uchtdorf and Elder Bednar spoke German.  Well Elder Bednar mostly read German, but it was still cool.  Of course, it was too far to go to in person (8 hours) so we watched it with other church members.

I did kind of a challenge this week that I had read about, to write a list of 100 things that you are thankful for.  It really helped me to think of everything.  I'm trying not to complain.  I have an interview with President Fingerle this week.

Have a Great week!
Elder Spangenberg

 Duck with an Afro!

We found Mexico!

North German Beaches!

 Moin moon!
This week was a pretty good one!  We found a family and they are super awesome and really interested.   We actually knocked on their house about 2 weeks ago and we exchanged phone numbers after finding out  that the Mom actually was best friends with a member when they were both younger and she went to primary activities with her and church as well.  So we called her this week and made an appointment.  Her son and daughter were there too.  They are 15 and 16 years old.  Her husband was at work, but it was a great lesson.  The kids even said they wanted to come to church again and the mom was like yeah, your guy's church is much better than ours.  At yours anyone can speak and it's much more lively.  The mom has knee surgery this week, but we are going to meet again in a week or so.  They said they would read in the Book of Mormon and pray about it too!  Hopefully  everything goes well for them.  We taught another investigator but it mostly involved my companion fixing her computer.

Most of this week was actually service, but that's okay because service is good too, and Jesus served lots of people while he was on the earth.  Most of our service was preparing for our ward party which was a huge success!  We went Watt Wandern (German word) in another huge tourist city Busum.  There is no translation for that, but in the beaches by the North Sea, the tide recedes really far.  Because of that, when the tide is out, you can walk across kilometers of "Watt".  It is a typical North German thing and lots of people were there.  We brought a football with us as well and tried to teach all the kids how to play, but Germans don't really understand how to throw one.   There were a ton of less actives there (5) but that's a lot cause this branch is tiny.  We dug up a big worm which was kinda freaky but also kinda cool and all the kids had a blast there!  Plus we had a barbecue afterwards and I ate so much steak and good food.

In case you are wondering, we actually went to 2 beaches this week.  The St. Peter Ording Beach is one of the most famous beaches in Germany.  Wow that was gorgeous!  And the second one was in Busum, another really popular one.  Sadly, it's not beach weather soon but we might go up to one in Busum on a PDay because it's close.  This week we have Stacey, the polish lady who feeds us so much food.  I will let you know how it goes.  Have a good week everybody!
Elder Spangenberg