September 16, 2023: Keep going keep going keep going

 It'll all be OK in the end

Sorry this email is coming out late, our mission president made history this week by giving us an extra half p-day on Saturday! I wasn't able to finish on Thursday so this'll have to do :) (he even let us sleep in and stuff ) it just might be extra long this week, and you'll get a treat next week with a shorter one.

On Thursday evening we had a lesson with a guy named Mike. He looks like a leprechaun, he just needs a green suit and a lil hat. He even sounds what you would imagine a german leprechaun sounds like. But he's really cool! It was over zoom, but I was able to contribute some thoughts in my broken German and it went really well. 

On Friday we were doing some street finding, and were on our way back, and found this couple from Greece, who speak Greek and everything! We were talking to them and had a great conversation- they don't really partake of any particular church but they are Christian and practice meditation to feel connected to God. We were able to draw a lot of connections, and they were super interested in the book of mormon and learning more! We couldn't find a Book of Mormon in Greek our dwelling but we asked some elders in our district and they just so happened to have one! We met up with the Frau again on Tuesday and told her about the restoration of the church and she was really into it. Were giving her the Greek book sometime soon, and I might say Greek is one of the coolest looking languages.

I visited the amazing Schwester Kluchen and she made tuna fish spaghetti. Actually not too bad! AND I ate my first whole salad. I'm sure my ancestors are "smiling down from evil heaven"

It's been mega hot this week, but it's finally cooling down hopefully. We had a bunch of storms the past 2 days so that was a nice reminder of home. I guess the heat was too. The only difference is Germans rarely have AC.

My comp finally got his phone fixed :)

We had a lesson on Saturday with a French guy who can only speak French, so we were going to teach him through Google translate. We got there though, and we couldn't find him. Eventually we saw him though, and he was actively running away from us. We tried to catch up to him but he disappeared into Innenstadt never to be seen again. So we did some street contacting instead. We received a text 2 hours later saying "I'm here". 

We've been meeting with a guy named Vedat who has been meeting with missionaries for 1.5 years, and he's already heard everything we have to teach him before. He won't come to church and we can't tell exactly what he wants from us so we just told him to pray about baptism, so he might have a goal in mind. Hopefully he does.

We had a few more lessons cancel on us on Saturday, so we did more street contacting. We met this guy who was pretty drunk, but he was really funny. He kept switching out of broken English and german with us, and was very interested in what in the world we were doing here. He kindly warned us that everybody you see here is a criminal, and not to stay out past 2 AM. I don't think that will be too much of a problem for the next 2 years. He did heartily invite us to a party though, and we *almost* went. 

On Sunday my companion Elder Koch gave a wonderful talk in church on the first great commandment, which is to love God. Unfortunately we had no friends show up though :(. I found myself understanding almost everything in the meetings we had on Sunday, which was awesome. I still can't understand very well when someone speaks directly to me though. Some of my comp's friends from another city came and visited though, and we ate lunch with them. Spaghetti with eggplants? Actually not bad at all. The two guys who visited were super cool. Natan is super smart, and Martin is super cool. He's part of a rock band and plays electric guitar! He was one of the first people I've met who actually listens to Radiohead and it was so fun to connect over that. Hopefully I see them again. 

On Monday we had 0 lessons planned whatsoever, so we did a whole lot of street contacting. We didn't find a whole lot of new people, but we did just happen to run into 2 people we hadn't seen in a long time, and we got to talk to them and set up appointments with them, which was awesome. Even if we don't find anybody new, the Lord still allows us to fulfill our purpose in ways we wont think of. 

We got home and returned to a text from our mission president saying that because we contacted every referral we recieved, and every missionary wrote him a letter this week, he is giving us an extra half p-day on saturday! (probably the day this letter gets out) I'm super excited. He said we can even sleep in and everything, which we can't even do on regular p-days. It'll be magical. 

We made a massive pan of Nudelschinken. And almost ate all of it. 

I look forward to eating Schoko-Musli every morning. It really is what I wake up for sometimes. 

We had a goal to get 50 LSIs this week (Love-Share-Invite someone we meet in public) and we already completed that by Tuesday, so that's awesome.

Seasonal allergies are still prominent across the Atlantic 

Had an incredible salami pizza on Wednesday with the district

I decided one day I'm going to talk to the Jehova Witnesses. We see them almost every day, and everything I hear about them is very interesting. We actually were going to have a lesson with one of them (we call it a battle) but he canceled on us last minute :( apparently last time they met it was pretty wild though. 

We had a lesson with the viking looking man Hanna, and he's just ready. Before we even started he was like "brothers would it be OK if I shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon with you?" And we were like yeah! We tried to get him a date to be baptized but for some reason he wants to do it next summer. We will work on that :)

For pday we went to the zoo! We saw snow leopards and a baby gorilla and tigers. It was a grand time. I decided ostriches are the closest thing we have to dinosaurs on earth.

We had 2 lessons planned that night, and both fell through. We really had a lot of lessons drop on us. So we went door knocking (klingeling), which hardly ever is effective in Germany because people are pretty private with their homes, but its always an interesting experience.

The Oma that lives beneath us give us random side quests sometimes. She had us help her with a window, and I like to think that we received 15XP, 3 relationship points and some fresh applesauce. This happens all the time though, we just help her with tasks and she gives us ice cream and stuff and it's completely random. So I call them side quests.

Yesterday (Friday) was insane. We had 3 appointments, all in different cities, but the busses wouldn't let us take our bikes. So we rode our bikes across entire cities and countrysides, and I think it was about 3.5 hours of biking. It was a beautiful ride, but it was so painful, and our legs are dead. But we come back stronger 

Many people here think we're out here just to convince people that our church is the true church. It's slightly different than that though. One of the biggest things we focus on when telling people our purpose and when teaching lessons, is that they need to find it for themselves. We can talk to someone for 10 hours every day, but none of it matters, and they won't be convinced until they come to know for themselves. Our mission is to invite others to come unto Christ, not necessarily convince them to come unto Christ. That's what the Holy Ghost does. Through prayer and scripture study we can feel the Holy Ghost, that peace, comfort and joy that it brings, and know that what we have learned is right and true. Before my mission I struggled from time to time to know if God was really there. But as I've been on my mission and truly studied his words and asked him, I know for a surety and can testify that he is real. It just takes that true desire and faith to know :)

Last week of the transfer ahead! We find out on Monday if we stay in or leave Wesel. 

Elder Tage Rex