Elder Glenn Johnson: Livin' the Dream in Berlin, Germany: Fidget Winner

Alright sons, you're in for a treat this week as you can already tell from the subject line of this email.

This week was quite a legendary one, if I dare say the least. On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to take a train out to.....you guessed it....BERLIN. Yes, I go to Berlin a lot, but it's fun just about every time. This time it was strictly for mission purposes, as there was a Persian investigator in the Tiergarten Ward that wanted to meet Elder Oliver (my companion). So we received permission, and went down there to teach a lesson with him. You might be thinking to yourself, "Wait, didn’t Elder Mehr, the trainer for Elder Johnson, get transferred there?", and you'd happen to be exactly right. Along with getting to travel down to one of the biggest cities in Europe, I got to see my beautiful father in the flesh and bone and long hair. The investigator also didn't show up, so that was a little lame and pointless hahaha.

Me and My Boy

Chillin' at the Tiergarten Ward with Elder Mehr (sent to Elder Johnson's mom, from Elder Mehr today...)

We had a normal amount of people at church on Sunday, little change than last week, so that was nice. Actually, a man who previously served here 7 years ago came back with his wife and visited on Sunday. It was nice to get to have a good ole American conversation with some fellow citizens of the greatest country on earth. That's a W coming back to visit this branch though, 10/10 would visit this branch after the mission.

You're now getting to the point of the letter where you ask yourself, "This isn't sounding as legendary as it was talked up to be." well…you're right. BUT I will now move on to the coolest part of this week. On Tuesday, we were on our way back home from our trip into Berlin, and we got on a bus and saw a father with his two kids sitting there. They were obviously not from Germany, but the kids had something great in their hands—a fidget spinner. Naturally, I sit across from them and pull my own personal fidget spinner out. The kids begin to bump their dad, to get his attention that I have one too.

"Do you want to see a trick?" I ask them, and with their confusing nods of approval, I begin to show them I trick I taught myself, where I throw the spinner from one hand to another without stopping the spin. Now that I basically had them kneeling at my feet, I hit them with the best question on the planet, "Where are you guys from?", and my legends were from Syria. The father hits me back with the same question, only to become more interested until he hit us with the golden question, "What are you guys doing here in Germany?" Boom. The question that'll bring you eternal salvation.

I then went on to explain why we're here, what we do, and that is to serve others and invite them to come closer to Christ. After explaining all this, we had missed our stop by about 6 stops, so we quickly exchanged Facebook information and got on our way before we got too far away.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had left my fidget spinner on the bus as we scrambled to get connected on Facebook. Too late to run and catch the bus, we pressed forward to get home. The next day, we shoot my legend a Facebook message to ask if we can come over sometime to teach them, and he flat out invites us to come over to drink some tea and coffee. We then found a day we could do it, but he changed his mind and straight up invited us over for dinner on Saturday. Of course we are not going to decline an offer to eat some Arabic food. Seriously, Arabic food is sooo good. He also sent me a picture of my fidget spinner that he picked up off the bus for me.

Then comes Saturday, and we had the greatest Arabic dinner with them, it was amazing. We also taught them most of the 1st lesson, and they seemed super interested! All in all, it was a super great time and I can say without a doubt that this was a miracle. One of the best parts of missionary work is being so front line to so many miracles, love it.

My legend, Elder Oliver, bought 200€ worth of minecraft legos today, so I'd say I'm pretty proud.