Elijah!, Get Thee Hence Elijah!!

Received October 22, 2012 Sometimes on a mission one is tempted to feel as did Elijah when he said, "It is enough!" Not that your desire is to die as was his, but the thought of going home is ever present in your mind. I love listening to Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's Elijah (Elias in German) because sometimes I can relate; not to mention it has a wonderful bass-baritone part which I will someday be able to sing. The oratorio relates the story of the prophet Elijah from the Book of Kings in the Bible and Mendelssohn put amazing music to the text which is pulled (with few exceptions) directly from the Bible with passages from both the Old and New Testaments. Who couldn't like the two magnificent tenor arias "If with all your hearts" and "Then shall the righteous shine forth" (my personal favorite) and the lovely mezzo soprano aria "Oh rest in the Lord". These songs have given me a lot of comfort on my mission and sometimes just play through my head all day long (maybe because of their catchiness, Felix wrote them that way) and in any case sometimes, like I said before, I find myself relating a little to Elijah. Luckily though, he knows what's up. "For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed but thy kindness shall not depart from me, neither shall the covenant of thy peace be removed." Such are the character Elijah's words (quoting Isaiah 54:10) just before he is taken away into heaven. I know that it is true. I've been wondering when something would start happening in Ravensburg, and this week seemed to show us that it is possible. It all started on Monday evening. We were invited by our landlord to speak at a meeting of a group of which he is a part. Don't laugh when I say that it was a meeting of the Druid Order. Nothing crazy, just a bunch of old men. We had the opportunity to talk to them about the church and what we believe. It was really well received. We were asked a relatively difficult question which dealt with the Official Declaration 2 for those who know what that is. For those that don't, it deals with the announcement that all worthy male members of the church could recieve the priesthood. I answered as well as I could and I was not "confounded" for which I am very grateful. I think that the presentation really opened the eyes of some of the members of the group. On Wednesday we had our first "blitz" and we decided to do tracting in an area that we had never been to before. It ended up being very fruitful and we found 9 potential investigators and gave out three copies of the Book of Mormon in just two hours. We never would have been able to cover that much ground in two hours by ourselves so it really was a success. As the aria mentioned above by the mezzo states, "Wait patiently for Him and he shall give thee thy heart's desire." It's true. Later on in the week we even got a self referral from mormon.org and we will be contacting it soon. On Saturday and Sunday we went on over to Augsburg because an investigator got baptized from Ingolstadt who Elder Pope taught. Sunday morning was a broadcast of President Monson who was in Germany for the past couple weeks. He was actually in Munich the day before but we couldn't get there in time. The meeting in Munich was held in the Herkulessaal which is known by classical music lovers as one of Deutsche Grammophon's favorite recording locations. I found that out later on and I was a little sad that I couldn't go, but ok. This was a really good week, but we really need to get some more investigators. Pray for the missionaries. I hope that everyone has a great week. If anyone should have a special request for something from Germany, I will be considering requests. Bis zum nächste mol, gua! Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüßßßß!!!!!!