Date
September 6, 2019
Area
Cologne, Germany
Companion
Elder Hatch
Coming up on 6 weeks!
سلام! Transfer calls are this Sunday...and as of Tuesday I'll have been in Germany for 6 weeks! I love my trainer and I love the people we work with, and I'm really looking forwards to another transfer as a trainee.
Thursday night we got a call asking if I could play piano at a zone conference for the senior missionaries, which would have been fine except my German isn't the best so I thought they asked if I could play an intermediate hymn when they really asked if I could play a piano solo in the middle of the conference. So Friday morning we went to the church and I found out in the meeting that I would be playing a solo. Needless to say, the special musical number that I played was definitely not amazing. I was embarrassed, but all of the senior missionaries were so kind and just happy that I had tried. Afterwards we went to a dinner appointment with the Reißig family, and it was good. Brüder Reißig is a huge Elvis fan, and the president of the German Elvis Club, so talking with him is always so much fun.
Saturday we met with Joshua, someone who Elder Hatch actually found while he was serving in his first area. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and how we can live with our families forever, and it was amazing. His grandma had died recently, and it was cool to be able to talk to him and promise him that he can be with his family forever and see his grandma again.
Sunday was good. There was a couple of families here visiting who didn't speak German, so Elder Hatch and I had to translate sacrament meeting, and let me just say that testimony meetings are not easy to translate for. But thankfully, we didn't need to translate the stories perfectly to get the testimony across. The spirit works simply: a testimony can be as simple as saying "I know that God lives". That conveys the spirit.
Monday didn't feel all that productive because we had to go register with the city, which took a couple of hours in a combo city hall/DMV office, and then we had to go up to Düsseldorf to pay our fine from the week before so that was also fun.
Our zone has a goal this week to find 45 new people to teach, and we've already found 27!! On Tuesday we sent a lot of data privacy notices, and we ended up finding some people who want to meet with us and talk! Wednesday we met with a man from the Congo who we found through data privacy notices, and had a really good lesson with him about personal revelation. It's so cool knowing that as we pray, we can get personal guidance from God to know what is true.
Today was our district P day, and we ended up playing sand volleyball with a guy we met from Brazil named Marcelo. Marcelo has been living on the streets for the last little bit, and is not in a good spot in life right now...keep him in your prayers. We taught him about the Atonement and how it's possible for anybody to change, no matter what they've done in life. I know that that is true. I've met so many people just in these past six weeks whose lives have been made so much better through Christ. I know that He lives, and that He loves us.
تمام عشق من,
Elder Bartholomeusz