The Laughing Place

Hello my Klingelings,

Let's quit the small talk and get straight to it. Solid week, 10/10 would redo it. We had 3 eating appointments again, seriously so sick. This branch is insanely legendary. We had a great ole German lunch with a less active brother in our branch, and had a great spiritual thought/discussion with him on how you can feel the Spirit.

is this the Space Needle?

To be completely brutally honest, this week was quite normal. Not too much to report. We had the confirmation of Andreas on Sunday, and that was amazing! He's seriously awesome, and now we're working on getting him the priesthood and going to the temple with him! I just realized the other day that Andreas is the German name for Andrew. Pretty neat.

Skyping my family was of course a pain, but I bore through it. Ha, just another joke for you all--it was quite prodigious. They are all very good at laughing at me, and for that I respect them highly. Also my nephew was saying whole sentences to me and that threw me off. Last time I talked to him he still thought that R2D2 and BB8 were the same thing. Glad he learned some common knowledge.

my lovely fam

I had a pretty great week, even though there's not too much to show from it. We stay super busy here, and our next week is also crazy busy and that is sweet. We are eating with Sister Jaserick again Thursday, one of my favorite German cooks (except for Sister Linda Stewart), she's great.

I also beat Elder Noland in Chess this week and that was a nice victory, felt like I needed to share that with you. Speaking of Chess, did you guys know it's known as a sport in Germany? Cool stuff.

Speaking of cool, I was just thinking about Disneyland and the best ride there—Splash Mountain. Seriously, it doesn't get much better than a log ride with a big drop. Anyways, I was thinking about the story to that ride. I don't remember exactly the story of Brer Bear, (Brer Fox) and Brer Rabbit (even though my mom has told it like 1,000 times), but I remember that one of them (Brer Rabbit) is trying to get to "The Laughing Place" where he can have a good time and have fun laughing and what not, and on his way everyone is saying like my dude it’s time to turn around, you're getting yourself in trouble you don't want to go there. That happens throughout the ride, and towards the climax (also known as the best part of the ride), you are pulled up the last big hill where you're told you’re making a terrible mistake and you need to turn back. Nevertheless, you make it to the top and there's the light of the day and the park and everything and, of course, the falling down to the bottom. Once you're to the bottom, you're greeted with many welcomes Bentheim other characters and everyone sings "zip-a-dee doo-da, zip-a-dee ay, my, oh my, what a wonderful day plenty of sunshine heading my way" and other tunes similar to that.

I was just reminiscing on this wonderful ride today, and realized how that can be applied to the Gospel and this church. Like our whole lives we try to get to this state of Celestial happiness and eternal salvation (or also known as the laughing place), and we are always told by others not of our faith or even in our faith that we need to turn back, it's not worth it and we're being dumb going this way. Then we will have times where we are super tried where we are going up this hill of just people against us or things tempting us to "turn back" but we need to push through to the top so that we can see that light. Sometimes you won't be able to see that light at the top until you're there, and you have to believe that you're doing the right thing so that once you make it down that steep wet fall, you will be embraced by your loved ones who knew you could do it.

Yes, I just related a Disneyland Ride to a Gospel principle. Someone go to Disneyland for me, thank you. 

Berlin sightseeing P-day Pictures from earlier today

on top of the Empire State Building (notice the Berliner
dome in the background)

"my dude, striken Sie ein Pose" - a sentence i hope to never hear again

always with the surprise selfies from this kid

I hope you all have a beautiful splendid week.

Elder Glenn Johnson

Kirche Jesu Christi

Plauer Straße 11d

Brandenburg an der Havel 14770

Deutschland

„Und ich bin der Teufel"

Welcome, my Täuflings,

I hope this collection of letters on a pixelated screen finds you well. It is a pleasure to be here.

This week was quite a crazy, busy, and stressful one over here in Brandenburg. We had a baptism!!!! Yes, you read that correctly. Someone, taught by Elder Glenn Johnson himself, allowed himself to be baptized. The service was Sunday, and it was great. We had a great amount of members there, and it was great to experience Andreas receiving this great ordinance. Getting up to that point, not the easiest might I say.

Baptism of Andreas 7.5.2017

We also had three eating appointments this week, which is amazing. The branch here loves us, not too sure why, but I'll roll with it. At one of them, I was asked to give a blessing to a sick Sister in our branch, both sick as in ill and sick as in cool. But it was my first German blessing, so naturally I had some fear, but all went well fortunately. 

Saturday was quite insane, we started off in a city called Tüplitz, where we ran 6.2 kilometers in a race that the missionaries always participate in. It was quite the run, I'm quite surprised I am still alive to tell the story. Elder Mehr would've loved it. But then we had three more meetings that day until 9pm, so it was pretty packed.

We also had interviews this week which, as usual, were great. Andreas was also interviewed by President that day, so that was also pretty good. We got lost in Berlin after though, and ended up being there for a little while longer than we were planning on.....

Interviews with the President and Andreas

The baptism was great!! I played the piano and gave a talk on the Holy Ghost, and Elder Noland was the baptizer. It was a really great experience and wonderful to see the impact this ordinance makes on the lives of others. This actually brings me to explaining the subject line. When we were at our apartment planning the baptism, Elder Noland wanted to say, "and I'll be the baptizer," but since he is speaking only German right now, he meant to say, „und ich bin der Täufer." BUT if you'd like a good laugh at what he actually said to me, go ahead and google translate the subject line. It's worth it, trust me.

When we were riding home with Andreas from the baptism, I asked him how he likes our branch. After explaining to him what a branch is, he said something I really liked. He said, "it feels like I've found my family." I really liked that, and how our church really is a big family. As we try to love one another like ourselves, we will really find eachother to actually be our family.

Here are some pictures from P-day sightseeing earlier today.

Brandenburg Tor

Part of the Berlin Wall

Jewish Memorial in Berlin

I hope you all have a wonderful week, and we will see us next week.

Elder Glenn Johnson

Kirche Jesu Christi

Plauer Straße 11d

Brandenburg an der Havel 14770

Deutschland

Purple Swag

Probably one of my favorite things about the West would be the word "Moin".

Rumor had it that nobody here in Brandenburg (or East Germany in general) said, "Moin," to each other (Moin is a friendly greeting for the cooler Germans). Elder Noland had never heard of it before, and assured me that nobody here says it. So far, I have successfully got: 2 people in Berlin, 1 man in Potsdam, and a lady in Brandenburg to say, "Moin," back to me.

A letter that I read last week told about a good friend of mine, namely Elder Mehr, witnessed a real live moose. Annaberg is truly an odd place. He wrote about it in his previous weekly letter, but I found it especially ironic/funny though, because some people at home called me moose.

You know, I'd say Brandenburg is pretty awesome. The time goes by really fast here and we're always busy with something. I like it. The branch is quite small but I like it, and they are all super friendly and loving. I guess I could compare it to an average Mormon family in Utah or Gilbert. I recently was asked to be the branch pianist, because they had heard about me from the Oldenburg branch and how soothing I played, and because nobody else in the branch plays.

Four different times this week, we were mistaken for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Two in particular were quite humorous. The first time was when we went by a contact in a city called Rathenow. When we were leaving his house, there was a dude going in who saw us and mumbled to himself something like, "That’s right, Jehovah’s Witnesses, get out of this building." I had to stop him in his tracks, and assure him that we weren't from that church, but that we are Mormons. And he said no (for my friends who speak German, he used the word, "doch" about 7-8 times). He promised us that we are Jehovah’s Witnesses and I then again explained that we are different religions . He wouldn't accept the fact that we weren't Jehovah’s Witnesses, so I threw a Book of Mormon at him. Unfortunately I didn't actually throw a Book of Mormon at him, because that's not respectful. 

My Legend and Me

That same day we heard some guys, in the street train we were on, talking in English about us. One said to stay away from us because the Jehovah’s Witnesses are bad. I also heard one of them talking about someone having their birthday party on the beach in California, but turns out he was just talking about some guy named Mickey. But anyways when we got out at the same stop I used my fluency in English to ask them where they were from. One was from Sweden and the rest were Germans speaking English. Then they asked us what we were doing here. I explained about the Church and missionaries, and he apologized for calling us Jehovah’s Witnesses.

On Saturday evening as we were heading back to our house, a group of drunk young women/men passed by and they started furiously complimenting us--it was wonderful. They kept screaming that we were beautiful in our ties and shirts, it was quite the experience.

Really though, Brandenburg is great. It has been going well with Andreas, our friend getting prepared for baptism. He will have his baptismal interview this Friday, and when he passes, we will have his baptism on Sunday! I'm really excited to get to experience this and see him make this covenant of baptism! He has really changed his life because of this Gospel, and you can really notice the change the Gospel has brought to his life.

But other than that, our week was just filled with appointments and service and being missionaries. Life is great as a missionary, and we get to go to Berlin on Friday for our own interviews with my boy, President Fingerle.

On two separate occasions this week, we woke up to find our apartment door was completely wide open. I'm not sure if someone's messing with us or if this place is haunted, or maybe we just have a bunch of homeless people who sleep over every now and then. In that case it's legal. We've decided to keep one person up to take "shifts" so that one of us is always watching—we'll see how well it works.

Oh yes, last Saturday as we were walking home, we walked by a big huge Catholic Church called St. Catherine's, I believe. It was dark, and as we walked by this church, we could hear the organ being played in there. The organist was playing some great classical music and we decided just to stand next to it and just listen for a little while. It was quite the experience. It's not very often where you can be walking in the middle of Germany and just stop next to a huge church and listen to some beautiful organ music. I will try to get a picture of this church next week for you all—my deepest condolences.

To end, I'd like to just say how much I love this Gospel! It's seriously such a blessing, to be able to give up 2 full years of my life just to serve the Lord. Tomorrow (Tuesday, the 2nd) is my 6 month mark already. That's crazy, I feel like just yesterday. I was with Elder Mehr when he hit his 6 months. It's seriously so great to be able to see all the blessings that come from missionary work and being able to study from and teach from the scriptures so often! I hope you are all heeding to the words of President Monson and reading in the Book of Mormon every day—it works.

Old Town Hall By Our House

Russian Memorial in Rathenow

Is there a more pure picture on the planet? (Besides the picture of the corgi and a rainbow behind it)

You are all wonderful and I wish you all the best in your endeavors this coming week. We will talk next week.

Elder Glenn Johnson

Kirche Jesu Christi

Plauer Straße 11d

Brandenburg an der Havel 14770

Deutschland

Service and Delays

Hallo!

The moment you have all been waiting for, I have made it alive to Brandenburg! It took about 5 hours and 2 missed trains, but it worked. When I got on my first train to Bremen, it randomly stopped on the tracks for about 15 minutes, which delayed us and ended up delaying my connecting train.

Once I went and talked to the information desk for the next train to Hannover, I found out that that train was 25 minutes late too. I finally got on (with my 3 bags of everything I own for 2 years) and headed towards Hannover.

Of course I was stressed because I knew this train being delayed would result in missing my train to Berlin. Once I got to Hannover, though, the train I needed was also delayed by 30 minutes. I was relieved and waited for that train. When I finally made it to Berlin, nobody was there to pick me up. I ended up waiting for about 15 minutes for them to find me, because the other missionaries had no idea where I'd be.

our legacy left in Oldenburg: hot cheetos (me), cholula sauce (my father, Elder Mehr), and coke (my grandfather, Elder Powell)

The first thing we did when I got there was service. We went to Neukölln to a place that helps a lot of refugees get integrated into society and feel at home. Elder Noland, my new comp, and I did mostly painting. There was a DJ there, but unfortunately no starbursts going around.

Before I left Oldenburg, my week started off pretty legendary on Tuesday. We went to Amjad’s and he made us pizza which was amazing, I had my last soccer time with my boys there, that was always freaking fun. But, Nils met us at Mom's Diner that night and we both partook of the Shrek. Man, it was tough I'll tell ya. I had just eaten pizza and then played soccer, but nonetheless I prevailed and finished the Shrek. Definitely worth the 25€, 700 grams of meat, and hours of stomach pain.

I don't know which is more beautiful: the Shrek, or Nils

Thursday, the first thing in the morning, we went with a couple brothers in our ward to an elderly man’s house, and helped him move. We had to take everything out of his house and take and put it into his new house. It took from 8am-3pm. Wasn't too bad, except for the bathroom--because his cat had “diarrhea” all over the place (and the keyboard), and apparently they think his cat has cancer. It was pretty interesting though for sure. Later we ate with two elderly ladies in our ward who were pretty cool.

On Friday we had a lesson with Andreas! He had a baptismal date for this coming Saturday, but now it's pushed back a week because the ward can't do this Saturday. But, he's still cool with it. We taught him the law of chastity, which was the first time I've ever taught it in German, but it went pretty well. He said he'd follow it haha. He's a pretty cool dude. We taught him again on Sunday. We had a “joint teach” to help us teach tithing which is tougher, especially in German, but it went super well. This week we have to teach him a few more things, and then he's ready for his baptismal interview.

On Friday we also did a service thing we do every Friday called, “Tafel.” It's another benefit for refugees, where we give them a ton of food for just 2€. All the stores around the area donate their basically expired food and stuff and we help give it out to them. I would call people's numbers out to come get their food, I felt pretty powerful haha. But it was pretty fun and we got to take some food home too lol. So yes, we have been doing a ton of service lately hahaha, but it’s not too bad.

Saturday, we had a German class with this Persian investigator that we have. He speaks Persian, zero English, and zero German. Haha it was pretty fun though, because I got to practice my Persian with him. I just said a bunch of random words, and didn't understand a word he was saying to me but it was fun. We taught him a little bit and I wrote down a couple sentences in Persian for him to translate in German for homework so we'll see how that goes. We also had district meeting in Potsdam. The district is pretty cool, kind of weird having 2 sisters in the district, though, lol.

Sunday was church, naturally. Our branch is freaking tiny, there's only about 15 people who come regularly haha. They had about 45 minutes of priesthood/relief society first, and then a 45 minute sacrament meeting, if even that haha. It was so short, I was really confused why everyone was leaving. But the people in the branch I've met so far seem pretty cool. Then we ate with a pretty cool family, had our lesson with Andreas, and I finally had the time to unpack all my stuff.

So far I’m loving it here in Brandenburg!! Oldenburg will be missed auf jeden Fall, but life goes on.

Have a wonderful week. We see us.

NEW ADDRESS:

Elder Glenn Johnson

Kirche Jesu Christi

Plauer Straße 11d

Brandenburg an der Havel 14770

Deutschland

goodbye to my second favorite district leader ever (Elder Pruett, you took the W on this one)

my favorite American missionary in this mission, Elder Wehrend

Tschüß, moose

ELDER SEEGMÜLLER THE GERMAN

my son David, legend

Bruder Lehmann, my dude, can play a good game of football

Frohe Ostern / Transfers

My people, 

It is great to be writing to you all once again. To begin this rollercoaster of an email, I feel the need to tell you all that I'm being transferred to Brandenburg! It is a city near Berlin, and I'm pretty pumped. My son Elder Seegmüller, the German one, was trained there. My new comp is Elder Noland and he is one transfer less than me on the mission, so I'm greenie breaking for the third time in a row! 

I'm pretty excited to see a new area, that's for sure. I'm hoping the weather will be a little warmer there too (if you feel me). It's in the Berlin zone, which means we get to go anywhere in Berlin on our pdays, that will be super sick. Where in Berlin will I go first?

McDonald's?  Mac's Kebap? President Fingerle's house? Any of those attractions would make for a solid pday.

Anyways, on to my week. Tuesday, our sweet wonderful neubekehrt (new convert) Nils, accompanied us to visit some less/non active members of our branch. That was pretty not too bad, we didn't get any lessons taught, just 2 set up appointments for later in the week. Nils is an absolute legend though, he will be dearly missed. He was a champ for coming with us and seeing what a mission is like, when you don't get much success after a long day of work.

Looking back on this week I'm realizing how uneventful it was haha. Thursday was a pretty busy day not gonna lie. We started off going to search for a Serbian family that lived in a village thing pretty far away from us. We took a bus and then walked for like a half hour and got pretty lost haha. But it wasn't in vain, we found probably one of the cutest parts of Oldenburg I've ever seen, that was sick. But since we got lost, we had to get back to our next appointment so we didn't get to find the family. Thank the heavens for the Stewarts, they found us with their handy GPS, and were dolls and picked us up to take us to our next appointment. We met with a less active, he's a legend.

Then we had English class right after that, which is always a great deal of fun. Right after, we had 2 more appointments that we needed to get to. After getting all the way over there, they both cancelled on us, which sucked haha. Here's a part of that cute Oldenburg spot I was telling you about.

Beautiful Oldenburg

Friday we met with Amjad again! He's seriously a legend. We had a wonderful lesson about the commandments and all that good stuff.

Oh yes I have Facebook now!! I'm sure a few of you noticed, pretty crazy. Not too much to report on that except I'm pretty excited to work online to help the work go smoother! Oh also, my best friends the Stewarts brought me over some leaving gifts, because they go home at the end of this transfer (this Wednesday)!!

Hot Cheetos and Cholula--My Favorite!

I just need to mention the Diamondbacks. They're playing good this year so far--of course when I'm gone. That is all.

Saturday I did some more Facebook work and we cleaned a lot of the day. The apartment is looking lots better. Then, after hours of agonizing waiting, we finally got our transfer calls from, “Mr. Show Some Respect” (Elder Lex). He told me that I will be going to Brandenburg, I just about lost it, I was so nervous. Turned out good though, I'm super excited!!! I will for sure miss Oldenburg, and the branch is amazing. Gonna be crazy serving in East Germany, if you can't tell I'm pretty excited though.

Fischer Family from the Oldenburg Branch--I'm gonna miss them!

My Boys from the Berlin Doner

Elder Johnson

Germany Berlin Mission

Plauer Straße 11d
Brandenburg an der Havel

Germany 14770

Legends

​

Hello my little Flüchtlings. I hope you all had a fantastic week.

On Tuesday, I got to go on Tausch with the one and only, Elder C. My son is a legend, and it was quite a good Tausch. We went to a member’s house there and I let myself the hair be cut (that is the way "getting a haircut" is described in the German grammar system.) I find it quite cute-- a direct quote from the legend Elder Allen. She did quite well though, considering she's 3/4 blind. That wasn't true, her eyes are fully functioning. We went to some random village and did some finding there, which was great. We showed the Easter video (The Prince of Peace) to a very nice woman, and she found it beautiful. We also talked to a kind fella who was speaking something us missionaries (and the rest of anyone else in the world who speaks German) call "Platt Deutsch". This is a dialect of German mainly spoken in northwestern parts of Germany, like forever ago though. This was the first person I've ever talked to that spoke Platt. I couldn't understand like a word he was saying, my son Elder Colemere obviously couldn't, so I translated for him. Just kidding, we both struggled a little bit, but I bet it was a good conversation. All in all, it was a pretty nice Tausch, 10/10 would Tausch again. Oh, and my legend Elder Wehrend left me some flowers and a note for when I got back to Oldenburg.

Note left by Elder Wehrend (MTC companion)

We got to have a double zone conference in Hannover on Wednesday. That was pretty fun, we learned a lot of stuff like usual. President Fingerle is still a legend. The meeting was focused a lot on using Facebook. Apparently somebody thought it was a good idea to put the Germany Berlin mission on the Facebook program. We are the first German mission, and second European mission to have Facebook, it will be pretty interesting. So far to me it sounds pretty lame, mostly because they said no FarmVille. I'm pretty bummed about that, hopefully they change their minds about that.

On Thursday, guess who we found. Stretch? No, that was Monday. For real we saw Stretch on Monday, I got a video of him doing some weird stuff, being Stretch and all, that was crazy. I wonder sometimes if he ever goes home at night after terrorizing people all day, or like does he have pets that he just like yells at all day? Naja Mal schauen (rip). Anyways, we found my son AMJAD!! Apparently he just didn't have any minutes on his phone, so he couldn't call us or text us so we got his email now so we don't have to worry that he got kidnapped or something not as extreme. He's doing wonderful, for those of you wondering. He put on the most legendary jacket so here he is being his usual legend self.

 ​

We found Amjad!

Friday was pretty legendary. The day was a pretty normal Friday, but then my best friends (the Stewarts) came and picked us up and we drove to a city called Varel for the best thing that's happened to me in a while. We went to a buffet at a fish restaurant by the harbor. It was quite lecker, although I was a little afraid at first, because fish is probably one of the grossest things on this earth. But then we found out it was a buffet, and they didn't just have fish. I'm talking spare ribs, meatballs, schnitzel, everything an American could ever dream of. But, Sister Stewart used her mother powers, and made me get at least one thing of fish. I was quite surprised, I was a fan of the fish. No idea what it was, but it was pretty good. I also got these things that looked like onion rings, but apparently they were squids. Yes, mom you're reading this correctly, I did eat fish on my own will. It was a super nice restaurant and a very nice time was had.

Awesome Buffet Dinner with the Stewarts

Then Saturday, we had another harvest day in the mission, where we harvest as many people in the day as we can. Our whole district came down to Oldenburg to celebrate (harvest with us). It was a really good time, I enjoyed it quite well. On my time with Elder Wehrend, we met this dude who's super into Legos, and it was a very fun conversation. We talked with him for like 45 minutes about tons of stuff (including Jesus). It was great. Then when I was with Elder Seegmüller (he's German), we talked to one of the chilliest couple of people ever. It was my legend Umut, and his friend Rieka. They were so chill, we talked to them for a long time too, it was nice. Later that day, I got a call from the Farsi group leader in our mission, telling me that I have been officially put in the Farsi program. I received a ton of files for learning Farsi, and all I learned from it is that متشکرم means thank you, and it's pronounced "merci" like the way to say thank you in French. Interesting stuff.

I have been studying towards the end of Matthew this past week, perfect timing for Easter because I get to read all about Christ's crucifixion, the resurrection and all that good stuff. One of my favorite parts has always been when Christ doesn't think He can handle it anymore, so He asks His father, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine be done." When I was studying this, I read a quote that I really liked. It talked about trials, and when we need help with them. It said stuff about when we are in a trial(s), should we be asking God to change it and get us out of the tough times, or should we be asking God for His help to endure through it? I liked that question, it put me into deep thought for sure. 

Anyways, there's my week. I hope you are all doing fantastic, and by this time next week I will know whether I'm staying in Oldenburg or getting transferred, so I will talk to you legends next week!

ارشد جُنسان

​
Elder Johnson

Germany Berlin Mission

Bürgerstraße 61

Oldenburg 26123
Germany

​Land near Wilhemshaven

Hanover and Oldenburg Zone Conference

Elder Glenn Johnson is 5 people left of the center of Christ picture wearing his favorite blue suit. (in Hanover, Germany)