Elder Tage Rex: Germany Frankfurt Mission

 I didn't quite catch that last part. This week went by so fast. Not even sure exactly what happened, but it was good.  All of the trains in the beautiful city of Wesel are not running for the next month, so we take super slow buses whenever we need to get somewhere else, which is pretty often. It sounds bad, and yeah it's not great but maybe It'll help me get better at finding people on buses, because that's not my favorite thing to do.  We had our first exchange! I prefer the German word "Austausch". There's a whole slew of German words that are just part of our English lingo with other missionaries and it's great. So my companion and I split up, and I went to the beautiful city of Krefeld with Elder Manning, our district leader. We took our bikes on the way there, and one of the street trains was soooo full. We had two bikes, one guy in a giant electric wheelchair, 3 grandmas, and 3 ladies with strollers, all in the entrance part of the train. Just ...

Why do people think that German sounds angry? It really isn't at all- people just talk louder in German for some reason.  I've also noticed that when whole cherries are put into a dessert, they don't usually remove the pits. It's like navigating a minefield.  I met one of our friends named Marita, and she is super awesome. She has 2 kids, and was recently divorced so she has felt very alone and it's been really hard for her. She has found happiness and peace from praying and coming to church though, and we invited her to pray about baptism! Our lesson with her this week was the first one that felt like I actually was involved, and not just listening. We were really worried about teaching our friends Eicke and Sophie about the Word of Wisdom, because sometimes they would take smoke breaks during our lessons. But they actually took it really well and they said everything made sense, so that was a Wunder. They even came to church for the first time and had a great expe...

  The Beginning.  And so it began. I don't have much time, so I'm going to try to go day by day on this one. Dawn of the first day: We landed in Frankfurt! It was crazy to see English be the subtitles this time, and not another language. We met the mission president, and drove to the church building. I tried mayonaise for the first time. We had interviews and a couple meetings, and then we were paired to go street contacting for a lil while for the first time. So a random missionary picked me and we went on the streets of germany to find people to talk to about The Gospel. after a few people who ignored us, somebody took interest in a conversation (in english, he was from Africa). He bible bashed us for over 30 minutes haha. hardly got 2 words in the whole time too. It was a good experience though, and he wasn't mean he simply believed that we had no idea who Jesus Christ was. I think if he knew how much we sacrificed to be here, he would at least have respected us. The peo...

  "I wouldn't stay here for longer than 2 minutes and 35 seconds if I were you. We're having the walls and ceilings removed" A mission is the closest thing we have in life to a reset button. maybe the science is possible. I'm probably in Germany by the time this email gets to you precious souls who have followed me thus far. I cant even begin to explain how I feel right now, as I sit on an airplane knowing that the next place I'll be is the mission field. So many feelings of excitement yet anxeity. The joy of knowing I'll finally arrive in the place I've been called to labor, but it means letting go of everything I've learned to be comfortable with. The MTC has taught me so much, but it's hardly even the tip of the iceberg of my journey thus far. This will be the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life, and I want to embrace it.  To the weak, he asks to come, recieve my strength, and they lift the world. To the broken, he asks to come,...

 

 Ich höre, dass ein neuer Held in der Stadt ist. Herausfordern Sie mich, wenn Sie riskieren"  Sorry if my emails begin to require more and more google translate interactions every week. We made a pledge the other day to only speak German for the rest of our MTC experience, so it is getting applied a lot! I'm only allowed to speak English if somebody specifically asks me to, but otherwise my companion has to translate for me. It's been challenging, but also really fun. There's so many funny words in German that are just a good time to use. It's amazing how central love is to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Everything in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and everything the savior teaches can all be drawn back to having love for one another, and that God loves and knows each of us individually. Through Every single difficulty or challenge (herausforderung auf deutsch) we must surmount in life, if we can simply remember that we have a heavenly father who loves us, not only is...