Warm Weather

Hello all my children, glad to have you back this week. 

So this week wasn't too bad. 

We met with a really nice couple from Iraq, who didn't have much time, but we got to squeeze a little bit about the Book of Mormon in and Joseph Smith and they invited us back so that was pretty sweet. 

That same day, we were finding and a guy invited us in that had met with the missionaries a few years earlier. He was very Muslim and basically gave us a 40 minute lecture about why we need to convert to Islam, so we just got to chill for a while and drink some juice and bear a small testimony and thank him, haha. He was pretty nice though. OH and he offered us weed, which was quite nice of him...

Anyways, we were pretty successful this week, but I can't think of much to report. We met with Franzina, an awesome German girl who is for sure ready to be baptized, and it was a really good, but they're super busy so we can't come back for like 4 weeks haha. 

I was on splits with Elder Wehrend this week. He's a super cool elder from Stuttgart, Germany, so I got some good German practice in haha. He's super crazy but insanely chill so we had a good Tausch. 

Also on Saturday we went to Leer to have a district finding activity, and that was super fun to get some time finding with the other members of my amazing district.

Me on splits with German missionary, Elder Wehrend

On Friday, we got a random call from this random number, but I didn't feel the phone vibrate, because we were out finding. Then we had a text from the same number saying, "hey missionaries, please call ___" so we called the number and it was some dude who said he's from Canada and wanted to come check out the church. So we were pretty excited, thought it was some kind of golden investigator or something, but nah this guy was much cooler. His name is Sadesh Dodd-Dowloat and he lives some place in Canada. All I can remember is that he said he used to live in Toronto, aka the 6. Toronto is freaking dope. 

Anyways, he just wanted to check out the ward building and talk to us for a little, because he's here for work and needs some help figuring things out. We had a good little basically "home teaching-type" lesson and then we left him with the Stewarts for a ward party. The next day, he took us to Pizza Hut for dinner so that was super nice of him, he's a sick dude. 

Also, I found out one of the missionaries serving in his home ward, was one of my good friends from the MTC, Elder Nakamoto, from Japan haha. The kid's a legend. 

But then church on Sunday was pretty cool, everyone thought he was an investigator, so they were being extra nice for him which was cool Hahahah. I did translating for him too, because he doesn't speak any German so that was cool. 

Us with our new Canadian best friend

But yeah, tomorrow should be good, because we have a street display plus interviews with President Fingerle! I'm super grateful for the chance we get to meet with him so often. He's a legend. 

Today I was reading in Matthew 20, about the parable of the vineyard, where the Lord of the vineyard hires workers every couple hours, all until the very end, where the last workers only had to work an hour or so. When it was time to get paid, the Lord gave them each 1 penny, no matter how long or short they worked. Some of the laborers who had worked for 12 hours began to be irritated that they were getting paid the same as someone who worked for 1 hour, but this parable has nothing to do with workers doing yard work, it is Christ teaching about eternal life, and the compassion and patience of God. 

I read, along with this, a talk from Elder Holland in the Ensign from 2012, which had some really interesting points. Just like the laborer, he touched on how one of God's favorite things about being God must be being merciful to people, especially those who weren't expecting it, and might not have thought they deserved it. He then talks about how it does not matter how far away we are from Him or how many mistakes we've made, we're never too far away from the love and mercy of God. "His concern is for the faith at which you finally arrive, not the hour of the day in which you got there."

Anyways I hope you all have a great week!! 

Enjoy conference, and look out for my man Elder Sabine speaking!!

Cute Leer ships

Elder Johnson

Germany Berlin Mission

Bürgerstraße 61

Oldenburg 26123

Germany