3 Month Mark!

This is my animal hat.My companion has one like it except his is a jaguar.  That's the key board that I play every night, Brother G gave it to us.

For P day we went to Zoologischer Garten and checked out some shops.  My companion and I both bought German Soccer Jerseys and had our names put on them.  We also went to this second hand shop and my companion got this hideous tie, that he thinks looks beautiful!  It looks just like a tablecloth!  We also bought these pretty cool animal hats that give us more comp unity! ha ha

We had a tough time finding this week.  We did have a good conversation with a Muslim.  They are generally pretty stubborn about what they believe.  All they say is, Well the Koran this and the Koran that.  He said he would read the Book of Mormon if we would read the Koran.  We obviously can't read the Koran, but he said he would look up our church.  Great, another person who will google Mormons and see the stuff about polygamy and that.  We also talked to an Atheist.  He talked himself into believing there is a God while we were talking to him... But no interest in the church.

Our deaf investigator took us to a cafe and then ordered coffee for us.  He then wrote,"Why are you not drinking your coffee?"  Then I pulled out the Word of Wisdom pamphlet and he started laughing.  He thought it was hilarious for some reason.  So he brought his tablet and he has just about every single app there is about the LDS church.  It was awesome!  He is definitely interested in the church.  We are now trying to find someone who speaks German Sign Language.  He pulled up a Jehovah's Witness video in sign language.  He asked why we didn't have one.

Monday, we had a lesson with Brother H. It was a great lesson, we talked about the Book of Mormon and the importance of it.  It did get side tracked when he brought up the topic of abortion and birth control.  Anyways, we brought it back on track and read Moroni 10:3-5.  He loved that scripture.  He was like,"Wait you can pray and God will tell you this book is true?"  We were surprised he had never been taught that because it is one of the first things you teach.  He even marked the page.  Then we read the intro and he loved that too.  It was a great lesson filled with the spirit.

Brother G!  Well obviously he didn't get baptised  on Saturday!  We went and had a lesson with him on Thursday.  The first 45 min of the lesson was just nonsense!  He was talking the whole time about why he couldn't be baptised.  Stuff like, "Well what if I become less active when I'm older?"  "Look at that member they are less active now" and other little excuses that really didn't make sense.  Finally, we were like," Look those reasons aren't reasons, You know you need to be baptised, so do it!"  Then he was like, "Okay, yeah let's pray."  It actually turned into a good lesson other than the first half, which was a train wreck. :

Sunday, we had 2 investigators show up...Brother H and Brother G! It was great.  (Editors note: Both of these brothers have been investigating for years.  One is married to a Buddhist and the other is married to a Muslim.  The spouses are not interested in the church) After church there was a baptism for an 8 yr old African.  It was really cool and it reminded me of my baptism when I was 8.  After the baptism they served African food.  It was good!  There were fried bananas, but they didn't taste like a banana, kind of like a potato.  And we also had this African bean stuff with meat.  I had a few plates of it!

That's my week!  We just established contact with a couple of other investigators so hopefully we will have more lessons this week.  Today for Pday we are going to Museum Island, which is world famous.  I'm pretty excited, they are all different things so it should be interesting.

Oh I almost forgot, last night we went to this member's house and she pulled up this website to search last names.  There was page after page of Spangenbergs. All of them are in Germany.  We were able to find Pete's Grandparents in Germany, it  was way cool.

We should be getting Ipads next month hopefully.  If that happens, then we will probably do emails later in the day from the church, so you won't have to wake up early in the night.

Love,
Elder Spangenberg

7th Week in Berlin

Us at the Banhoff before Sister Stacey got transferred to Bremehaven

(Sister Stacey, Sister Titensor, Elder Fowler, and me)

Great week but not the best numbers!

My German is a lot better and I can understand people when they speak.  This past week there was a leadership meeting and I attended because my companion is a district leader.  The whole meeting was in German and I understood the whole thing.  It was great!

I'm playing the piano everyday and I am trying a new hymn each time. I play in Priesthood every week.  I'm really enjoying it.

Me and my companion gave ourselves haircuts because we didn't want to waste Pday time on it. So we buzzed our heads. haha It doesn't look that bad actually and we won't have to get another haircut in like 2 months!

On Pday we went to the museum called, The Story of Berlin.  It was amazing, the best museum I've ever been to.  It had all of Berlin's history.  At the end we got to go down into a cold war bomb bunker and that was a really cool experience.  It was huge and could hold 3,000 people.

Tuesday was transfer day.  My companionship didn't change but the sisters did,  so we went with the sisters to Hauptbanhoff (train exchange place) and helped with their luggage.  The sister here that was transfered had 2 bags that each weighed over 70 pounds!   We helped all the missionaries there.  So we were at Hauptbanhoff for most of the day.

Wednesday, we went to the mission office building because my companion had a package and a sister had 2 in our district, so we spent most of the day traveling.  We also needed new Book of Mormons in German.  So we stuffed our bags with them and we got to ride in the new mission car on the way back to the train station.  It was pretty cool.

  My companion had a birthday and I took him out for Sushi at a Sushi Bar! His Grandma sent him a package and put a sports page from the newspaper in it.  That was way fun...a lot had changed!

Thursday, we met with Br. G.  It was a great lesson, however, he still has doubts about baptism.  Like how he doesn't have a calling now and we explained you can't have a calling until you are a member and he knows that, but he still brings it up.  We gave him the best lesson we have ever done, but it still didn't erase his doubts.  We got him to think about some things so that was good.

Friday, we went finding and didn't get any new investigators.  We did talk to some really cool people.

Saturday, we decided to meet with Br. G again.  It was a good lesson again.  However, he still kept going back to his doubts. so baptism isn't going to happen this week.  He did say he knows this church is true and he wants to be baptized, but he won't do it. It's hard and frustrating.

Sunday, we went to a really cool members house.  They are British so they have the best accent.  It was nice to talk in English with them.  We had knodel which is my favorite German food.  It's like a potato ball with wheat in it.
 Also, on Sunday, this man walks into church saying he needs money and assistance to get back home.  He proceeded to tell us a sad story about how he is being persecuted here and how he wants to go back home.  Europe is still rascist a little bit.  Africans are not treated the same here, it's pretty sad.  So we sent him to a place to get help and hopefully everything works out for him.

Well that's my week.  Transfer week is always a little different so hopefully we'll have better numbers this next week.  Hey, I did better on the pictures, Mom.  Even pictures with me in them!

Love,
Elder Spangenberg

The missionaries at a member's house for Family Home Evening

Me any my Companion on the train with Fred, a recent convert.  He is really cool.
 

Ist Transfer Complete!

Grant and Elder Fowler at the Internet Cafe emailing on Pday!

Saturday was the 6th Saturday, which meant Transfer Calls!  We had to stay in our apartment for forever because we aren't supposed to leave before they came, and the APs were 3 hours late with them.  Me and my companion are staying!  One sister in Spandau is leaving and one is staying and training a new missionary.  After that we had a normal Saturday doing service.

We went on companion exchanges twice so I was in a different area for 2 days.  It was fun, we taught one investigator, who of course read up on the internet, and learned about polygamy and Joseph Smith having more than one wife.  So that was hard but now she's on baptismal date so Yeah for the Glienicke Elders!

After that was mission tour and we had Elder Kopischke and his wife came to talk to us.  He is in the Presidency of the Seventy and was President of the Germany Berlin Mission ten years ago.  He is from Germany and he talked about faith.  It was during this lunch that President Kosak told me in front of the other missionaries that he was very proud of me and what our companionship is doing. That was nice to hear!!  I'm sad he is leaving in July.  We did hear about the new Mission President being also from Southern Germany.

Sunday, we went to a members house to eat and he works with a Spangenberg, so that's cool!  Somehow we have to be related because it's not that common of a name, even in Germany.

We did a ton of book work and long story short, we have over 70 former investigators we are going by to establish contact.  So yeah, big things are happening in Spandau!

Lesson learned for the week: (Editors note: Grant was asked about something he learned during the week.  This was his response:)  I had been praying to find more investigators this week because most of ours were gone.  We weren't able to go finding that much because I was in a different area for 2 days and had mission tour.  However, on Sunday we went to church and halfway through sacrament, the usher pulled us aside and said, some man just walked in the church he had never seen before.  The man ended up being deaf, but we were able to communicate to him through writing and now he is a new investigator.  So I learned the Lord really does answer our prayers and he helps us!

Editors note: Grant was asked about what was hard on his mission.  This was his response:  Everything!  Language especially, talking to random people is pretty hard too, Adjusting to missionary life is way hard also.  It's a lot harder than I thought!  However, it's also very rewarding.

Love,
Elder Spangenberg

My First Commitment for Baptism!

  We only had 1 teaching appointment this week because everyone else was busy.  However, that teaching appt was great!  It was with Brother G.  We committed him to baptism in 3 weeks!!!!  It was amazing, our lesson was perfect, we helped him make a plan to prepare for baptism.  He came to church this week and the Bishop gave him a calling that day to be the usher at the door.  You could tell he enjoyed doing that.  After church he stayed and talked with some of the members.  Usually he just hurries and leaves.  So we are very excited for his Baptism on the 24th of January!!  We text him a good scripture everyday and talk to him every week, he has really progressed.  Our lessons went from 1 hour and 30 min  for the first lesson, then 1 hour, then the last lesson was 45 minutes.  It was better than any of the other lessons that we have had! (Editors note: Grant has said this about him in other letters: He is a really nice man in his late 50's and he has a wife and kid.  He is the school master, so his job is to take care of the school and his house is actually on the school grounds.  He loves to serve people and has been an investigator for 10 years so he knows literally everything.  He said he feels the Holy Ghost when the missionaries meet with him.  At first he talked the whole time in the lesson and you'd have to interrupt him to say something.  Now he listens to what we say and the lessons are shorter.)

This week was New Years.  The Germans really celebrate it!  We had a rule that we had to be home by 6:00 p.m. on New Year's Eve because everyone drinks and lights off fireworks, so it's not safe to be out on the street after 6.  They have this firework which is 1/8 the power of dynamite.  That's totally illegal in America, anyways they just buy those things and throw them and they sound like a bomb, it's so intense.  The first one I heard I dropped to the ground because I thought it was a bomb, NO JOKE THAT IS TRUE!  We had a normal day of tracting, then the fireworks started around 4:00 p.m. so we decided it would be best if we went to our apartment.  It was so loud.  I took a great video of the fireworks.  It literally sounded like World War 3 was happening!  All you heard was: Boom, Boom,Boom all night long! Some people were still lighting them off in the morning.  The next day when we went out, the streets and the sidewalks were covered with fireworks and gravel.  Germans don't use rock salt for snow, they just pour gravel on the streets, yeah it's good cause you don't slip, but then the snow melts and there is a ton of gravel on the sidewalks that get in your shoe and they don't clean it up.  At the end of the day I have to empty my shoes cause there is so much gravel in them.

This week was my one month mark in Germany, and man, time has flown by!   Last week for Pday, we went to see the city and boy that was a mistake!  There were so many tourists from all over.  I have never seen so many people in my life at something.  There was literally a line to get a picture by the Brandenburg Gate.  We went to the Berliner Dom.  It was so huge, we got in free because we were missionaries!

This week for Pday we went with a member and an investigator to the Sachenhosen Concentration Camp.  That was amazing.  The feeling you get there is indescribable.  It was huge, I don't know what to compare it to besides more than 3 or 4 football fields.  Most of the buildings got demolished but the foundations are still there.  They still had some ovens where they would burn the bodies. There is a sign by the camp that tells about the death march.  After that we went to a Thai Restaurant with the Sister's Investigator (the Sister Missionaries came with us).  It was way good, everyone knows him because he used to be a monk for Buddhism.  But anyways, he is quite possibly the nicest man I have ever met in my life.

It turns out mushrooms are very good and I like them a lot! Just like I like veggies!  It truly is a miracle.
I miss everyone!  I'm still loving Germany.  My German keeps getting better and better each day!
Love,
Elder Spangenberg

 This is just outside of the Concentration Camp, it translates to "Memorial"

 This is the star that a Jewish prisoner would wear on their clothes, this is an actual one that was used.

 Bottle found with a message inside.

 What the message said

 The gate to enter the camp.  It translates to "Work makes Free""

 Poster about the Assassination attempt of Hitler by the Camp

 A poster outside of the camp

 Model of the camp.  It is huge, bigger than anything I've ever seen before.  We saw less than a quarter of it because the rest of it was demolished or it was mostly housing for guards.

 Memorial for the different groups who were persecuted at the camp.  Each triangle is a different group.

 The ovens where the dead prisoners would be cremated.

 This is the neutral zone. The sign says you will be shot without warning if you are here.

 Sign for the memorial of the Death March

 This is where they would take prisoners (mostly Dutch) and shoot them in that room.

 Where the Prisoner Ashes are buried

This is one of the work sites.  There were 50 of these.

Christmas Week

Fresh Snow Right Outside my Apartment

Today it snowed a good 5 inches, I couldn't believe it.  Yesterday was probably the coldest day I have ever witnessed in my life, everything was frozen.  Today for Pday we are visiting the city and seeing the Holocaust Memorial for all the murdered jews. So that should be interesting.  We are also going inside the Berliner Dom, which is a huge church looking building.  Then to the Rittersport Factory and getting a ton of chocolate.  They sell 6 pounds for 6 Euros, which is a great deal.  Look for chocolate in the mail!

This past Christmas week we didn't find and talk to people because there was no one to talk to because they were all inside.  Christmas Eve was great.  We went to a members house and played the game, Settlers of Catan, which  I have played with my family in Utah.  It was fun to play that game again.  I ended up winning of course.  Then on Christmas day we went to the Doudous'.  He is our Ward Mission Leader.  He is fairly young, about 23, and just returned from his mission to England in like April, so he is awesome.  We went over to his Mom and his house.  They cooked Turkey Routcol and Knodel(dumplings).  It was really good.  After that I talked to my family for 40 minutes. It felt very short but it was good.  So good to see your faces and hear your voices on Skype!  I had a wonderful Christmas and it was so great to see everyone in my family.  Everyone looks great and healthy.  I'll see you again in 5 months!

The 26th was our Pday, but a member signed up to have us for lunch.  We went over to the Richters and it was good.  They are an older couple and that invites us over often.  We have been going over there every other week.  We usually sit at the table for an hour just talking.  This time they cooked pizza.  One pizza they cooked had ketchup, Rotcoul, Wurst, and Cheese.  It actually tasted pretty good.  After that we were so tired, my companion and I went back to the apartment to take a 30 min nap and  then go out and go shopping for the rest of Pday.  But we were so exhausted from the week, it ended up being a 3 hour nap.

We did teach a couple of lessons this week! One of our investigators Brother R. was a referral from the church office.  We met with him and he came and said, "I already know everything about your church, that's not why I came".  He said he believes and knows our church is true, however he has strong opposition from his family.  His friends and family are Muslim and they think he is going crazy and will not accept him.  He has to hide his Book of Mormon from his family, and he has no friends in the church.  He asked us what he should do, and we asked if he prays.  He said he does when he can come to church.  He then asked if he could come on the 26th and pray in this church.  We then said, "You don't have to be in a church to pray."  At that point he was surprised, he didn't know that!  We gave a lesson about prayer.  At one point there was a good silence for about a minute and you could feel the spirit so strong in that lesson.  He said he wants to be baptized and he would try praying everyday, now that he knew he could.

Our second new investigator, Brother A was the older man we found on the street.  He forgot our first appointment but we called him and he showed up right on time to this one.  He has golden written all over him!  Golden means "ready" in missionary language.  So yeah, he is in his 60s and was a Protestant and is way cool.  He talked about how he believes it was no coincidence we found him.  He said the day we found him he had a voice say to him, "Hey those 2 nicely dressed young men are going to talk to you, pay attention to what they say to you."  He described the voice as a whisper and then said that he thinks it was God saying that to him.  SO that was amazing.  We know that it was definately the voice of the Holy Ghost.

We didn't teach him too much doctrine because it was the first lesson.  He complimented us on our dress and said we always look so nice.  He even saw our watches and my companion's watch is a square touch screen ipod nano.  He was like,"Wow, the missionaries even have ipods for their watches, Wow what a church!"   He is an architect and he builds American Houses in Germany.  The houses here are so different and small compared to the U.S..  He showed us some pictures of the houses he built that would be huge compared to German houses but normal compared to U.S. houses.  He also gave us a cookie mix.  We are now pretty good friends.  He told us some good places to eat at and to go see.  He even said that one Pday he is going to take us and show us some places in Berlin.  So hopefully he thinks we are normal people like him, and we will stay in contact.

On Sunday we had church.  A cool story is that one of the sisters investigator's Mom came to church.  She drinks, smokes, and uses drugs.  She had her kids taken from her because she isn't able to care for them.  So she came to church for the first time and nobody knew who she was.  The spirit touched her so strong you could tell.  She would always nod and be like, "Oh veah um hum, yes" to the talks that were given.  After that the sisters got her number and now she is an investigator.  The sister that sat next to her said that she smelled so bad and smelled like smoke, but she still came.  So that was a cool story worth sharing.
After church we had a dinner appt at a members house.  Br. Silva picked on me so much because my German isn't that good.  His German isn't that good either, it's just that he likes picking on people who don't speak German as well as he does.  He is from Brazil.  But he is awesome and really funny.  Then we had a meeting with the mission leader.  Just before the meeting started we got a call from the zone leaders saying that a dad of one of the investigators in the different area called the missionaries and said he is committing suicide.  He lives in our area.  The Zone Leaders told us to go to the man's house and see if we could help him.  Then the AP's called and said NOT to go, that the Mission President doesn't want the missionaries involved, so we didn't go. The man called the missionaries again asking if they were coming over and instead, the police went over.  Hopefully everything went good.
Elder Spangenberg

This is the letter the Mission President posted on the Germany Berlin Mission Blog

Dear Missionaries,

What is Christmas about? There have been many great and wonderful people, even religious teachers who have taught men how to live, but there has been but ONE Messiah, ONE Christ, the ONE Annointed, even Jesus Christ.
I testify of Him, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father in the flesh. He is the Savior, the Messiah. He made the Atonement for our sins and opened the Resurrection.
This is what Christmas is about.
Those of us who know the plan of happiness, know what Christmas really is all about!
When we were children we were more "Believing is Seeing". Then, unfortunately, we leave often the Christmas of childhood disillusioned. It is easy thereafter to feel that "Seeing is believing."
When we're fixed on that, we do not have the hope of ever again finding Christmas as it once was and as it ought to be, because it works the other way around: "Believing is seeing."
See in Moroni 7:41-48.

President Boyd K. Packer taught, "If you would see what you get in exchange for giving up the childish illusion of Christmas, you could look forward to the greatest of all discoveries. No matter what your age, you can find and can keep that "little-kid" feeling about Christmas."

(Hence, we don't need toys in the mission field - we're disciples and find joy in helping others to come unto Christ and in sports and in Germany chocolate :))

Therefore I would like to suggest that we all read the Christmas story in the second chapter of Luke EVERY DAY this WEEK. It will take a minute and a half to read. It might take a minute more to ponder on it - but FIND YOURSELF IN THE STORY as Angels who proclaim, as Shepherds who take care, as Wise Men who seek after the true meaning of happiness, as Sheep who follow the Master, as ... FIND YOURSELF.
The Christmas story does not end there. It is only the beginning. With Christmas and because of it we have Easter. When we, as adults, accept a new status as children of our God, our Father, we may humble ourselves and believe again and in so doing begin to see that in exchange for the fanciful poetry of The Night Before Christmas comes the miracle of the first Christmas that grows in every season.
The whole account—from Bethlehem to Calvary—is the Christmas story, and it takes simple, childlike faith to find that out.
Missionaries, use your time wisely. Show it to investigators and members whose errand you're.
If there is no finding time, WATCH the "Work of Salvation" DVD you have in your apartment, PREPARE your "My Family" pamphlet for further usage in finding and teaching, MASTER scriptures we want in the mission, etc.
This is a time of preparation, this is a time of listening and teaching, this is a time in CRESCENDO.

We love you and wish you a Merry Christmas!! He is the Gift!
           

It's Begining to look a lot like Christmas!

Today is my 2 month mark from the start of my mission!  Wow time has flown by, I still remember when I got dropped off at the MTC.

Everybody here is preparing for Christmas.  They love it so much they have 3 days for it and the city shuts down.  Everything is closed and nobody is on the street.  We are going to a member's house for all 3 days of Christmas, so that's good.  We did get to check out the market in Spandau.  It is the biggest Christmas Market in Germany.  It was huge and we kept asking ourselves,"When is this going to end?"  It was street after street full of Christmas Markets!

We had a lesson with Br. G and he made a ton of progress.  He said he will make a baptism date when his daughter enjoys coming to church and knows why he is baptized.  So that was great to hear and she usually comes to church and in the past has enjoyed it.  

We had a few appointments fall through but a couple of them were because they forgot and we set up another one this week so that is good.  We didn't find any new investigators but we did meet this really cool African on the street.  He said he was moving back to Africa but he would come back later next year and would call us when he got back to Germany.  He was really nice and spoke English, thank goodness!

We did receive 2 referrals this week which is awesome.  My companion and I believe part of it was us trying so hard to find people and it not working out.  One man just called the church headquarters and said he wanted to meet with the missionaries ASAP.  We called him and he is from Saudi Arabia and he speaks English.  He said he wants to meet with us soon and wants his brother there too.  We are excited to meet with them and it sounds like they are very interested in the Gospel.

Our second referral is a man from Serbia.  He lives right by us but he traveled almost an hour to go to the church in another area.  He just walked in the church and said he wanted to meet with the missionaries! We called him but couldn't understand him and thought he said to call next week.  Last night we received a call and it was his friend saying he wants to meet tomorrow and asked where we could meet.  We told him there was a church by his house and he was surprised and excited.  So today we have 3 meetings, it's crazy!  My companion and I have never had a day like this.  My companion has also never received a referral either, so we are both very excited. They both sound interested in the Gospel so that is different from our other investigators who have been investigators for 7 or 8 years!

For Pday, we missed our train to go to Potsdam because of having to find a McDonalds.  The Germans don't believe in public restrooms, its the worst!  The only ones are at McDonalds!  After missing our train, we decided to go to Potsdamer Platz instead. Its a huge city with stores everywhere.  We went to a Nike store, Sony Center, and a Lego store.  It was huge with 2 stories full of legos and they had bins full of specific replacement parts.

 After that we went to this old church that got bombed during WWII.  It is in the center of the city and it very cool looking.  It is called the Gedachnis Kirche and it looks awesome.  They left it how it stood after the war.  It is an amazing site to see.  Then we went to the Mall of Berlin.  It is the Biggest Mall in Europe, it's 3 stories tall and has 2 buildings that attach.  There were so many stores we spent forever just walking through it, we got lost in it.  That's how big it is!  After that the weather got bad so we had to go to our apartment.

The weather here is terrible, it rains every day.  That's the worst for this reason....Nobody will talk to you if it is raining and it gives them an excuse to ignore you.

Me and my companion did make cookies from scratch!  We also made chocolate covered pretzels. We are giving them to our investigators and members in the ward.  We are pretty proud of them. They tasted amazing.  I'm gonna gain so much weight..I've already gained 5 kilos (about 10 pounds) but I can't help myself the food is sooo good!

Elder Spangenberg   

Huge Nutcracker

Christmas market

Santa

Spandau Rathaus lit up with stars at night

Our Christmas tree we made!

Our home made Chocolate Pretzels!

Thigh of a Doner Beast!

Falkensee neighborhood