Alle Jahre Wieder

Received December 3, 3012 I just want to say how much I love the German Christmas carols. There are many songs that we know in America too: O Tannenbaum (Oh Christmas Tree), Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (Lo how a rose er blooming), Stille Nacht (Silent Night). However, there are so many that I have learned this week. Since I bought a book of songs for the Christmas party (which is on Saturday) I have spent a little bit of time everyday not just learning the songs that I need to sing in the party, but also just exploring the world of song that has opened up to me. O Jesulein zart, Es kommt ein Schiff geladen, Macht hoch die Tür, Es wird scho glei dumpa, Leise rieselt der Schnee, etc. I think that it is amazing how many songs have been written in memory of the birth of Christ. The German people were then and still are (at least partially) a people that know how to celebrate Christmas and it all stems from their love for God and His Son. With the breaking of the dawn of the Christmas season we received more snow....yay. I woke up one morning and looked outside to see a nice thick coat of that white stuff from heaven laying neatly spread across the ground. Looking out at the snow from the inside is wonderful. Then you go out and it's freezing! It will get worse though. It's only been a few degrees (celcius) below zero so far, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens. It's just time to break out the coats, sweaters, long underwear, extra socks, scarves, and anything that gets you warm. It's too bad my ninja-like reflexes are slowed down by all this clothing. This week I really wanted to go to the Christmas market in Ravensburg for some reason. It was really cold already and pretty late and dark and we had planned to just eat dinner, but we went out just to check it out real quickly. I happened that there was a group of German Scouts (Pfadfinder) who had a booth there. As we were walking by a girl in the troop stopped us and we talked to her for a little while. I told her about how I did scouting in America and she recognized us from the bus the other day. I guess she had seen us and wondered what we were doing in Germany. We told her about the church and she seemed genuinely interested in finding out more. She took a card and said that she would look at the website for the church. I'm glad that things like that happen so often in Ravensburg. We can knock on a million doors and we don't find anybody that has interest but random instances like that happen to us all the time. Heavenly Father looks out for us to make sure that we don't get too discouraged. Well, that's all for now folks. We'll have plenty of time to talk about this stuff in a few weeks and I don't want to spend forever on the computer. Have a great week and smile, it does wonders. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüßßßßßßßß!!!!!

Es weihnachtet scho ond i han nonet was kriegt...

Received November 26, 2012 All around one can see the hints of the holiday of holidays. Lights are being strung in the trees, a 16 m tall Christmas tree was flown by helicopter into St. Gallen the other day, all the shops are advertising their Christmas season specials, the list goes on. No one in the world takes Christmas so seriously as does the German-speaking world. Let's not forget though what the whole season is about: Christ. We as a mission have decided to read the gospels by the end of the year and it is an excellent way of remembering what this season is all about. This week we began to organize the Christmas party in Ravensburg. It will be mostly Christmas themed stories interspersed among musical numbers. They're using me to the fullest before I go, that's for sure. The coolest part is that I will be singing a number of songs that are straight up GERMAN songs that we never hear in America. Sis. Trautmann has enough faith in me that I will learn them though. Last P-day we were in a train that took us to Friedrichshafen and what should have taken only about 20 minutes lasted almost 2 hours. About a mile outside of Meckenbeuren we stopped in the woods and the driver came on the intercom to say that we "ran over" a kid. Everyone was wondering if they heard that right and we weren't sure what was going on. We sat there as it got darker and as the police and fire department showed up. In the end we started back up and got to Friedrichshafen. We found out later that the kid had laid down in between the tracks and then ran away after the train was gone. They couldn't find him until way later that night. He apparently wasn't really hurt or at least not badly. That goes into the book of craziest experiences on a train in Germany. It's already pretty big for me. Maybe I should publish it.... We had another finding day blitz in Ravensburg and we found a lady from Kenya who is married to a German. She and her husband sounded pretty interested in the Book of Mormon when we brought it to them on Sunday. We couldn't make out another appointment, but we expect to be hearing from them again. The Sampsons took us to dinner at McDonalds on Thanksgiving a little bit spontaneously and I got chicken nuggets (that's like turkey.....right.....?). As Elder Sampson always says, "It's not about the food, it's the association." I agree. This was a good week and it flew by like dust in the wind. It's hard to even remember sometimes what I did earlier that day. Aber, wir schreiten voran! Gel? Habt eine schöne Woche und haltet stets in Erinnerung einfach glücklich zu sein. Schaut mal was daraus wird. Bis zum nächsten mal, tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüßßßßßßßßßßßß!!!!

Lass mich in Ravensburg sterben...

Received November 19, 2012 This week was pretty crazy. We went all the way to St. Gallen to have a Zone Training meeting with the Zone Leaders. That was fun because we got to ride the ferry across Bodensee. It is a pretty long ride (40 minutes) and when we got to the other side you could tell that we were in Switzerland. Luckily we saw our friends the Kreuzlingen Elders there and we rode our train together to St. Gallen. One of the Elders who is German actually asked me where I come from when I was speaking German with them. He couldn't tell that I was an American because I don't speak with an American accent. It's important to note that I don't speak like a German and everyone can hear that, but I am proud of my accent-free German. Yes! The meeting was great but after it was over we got to all separate into companionships with other Elders and contact in St. Gallen. I was with Elder Nielsen of Denmark and we found a guy that took a Book of Mormon and gave us his information. It was a successful 50 minutes. Of course, the highlight of this week was our concert on Saturday. We needed to practice on Friday and everything went really well. We had to get the piano up on the stage in the chapel, but that wasn't too difficult with me and my Tongan companion. Pianos are never easy to move, but it made it up there. The actual concert on Saturday was really fun. There were 27 people there and 7 of them were non-members; you can't beat that kind of percentage. The best part was that the members instantly started talking to the guests before and after the concert. All the songs went pretty well and we all had a great time. The highlight of the concert was the "spirituals" section where everyone was moving along and having fun. It was awesome. The concert accomplished it's purpose and it brought people into the church and they had a good time too. I can't ask for more than that. I will be staying in Ravensburg until the bitter end (hence the subject line) and I'm excited to be here. We've even already been invited over to members for Christmas Eve. I love it here. Well, that's all for now folks. Habt eine gute Woche gel'! Bisch zum nächschte mol! Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüßßßßßßßßle!

Surprising?, Not Really...

Received November 12, 2012 This week we began a little campaign to find go visit several members of the church with whom there is pretty much no contact. They live in many different places in our area and there was a bit of travelling involved. We found out that many of these people don't even live there anymore. Surprising? Not really. We did find that there are several that do still live where the Branch List says that they do, but we haven't been able to get in and talk to any of them yet. Moral of the story is: Check your ward lists once in a while. If you haven't heard from some people in a while, you might want to go check on them. These are our friends and also children of Heavenly Father. On a more interesting note, we had Stake Conference this week in a large conference center in Weinfelden Switzerland. The way there for us was pretty crazy. We took the ferry across Bodensee and then drove in the direction of Weinfelden. It's a pretty obscure little place, although not too small. Our way there took us quite literally over the river and through the woods. It was pretty fun, but we took some crazy little roads through people's farms and saw lots of crops and cows. Once in Weinfelden we got to the conference and saw all of the people there. There were a lot of people at the conference. Swiss people are just in general very well put together and always look good. The music was provided by a youth choir and they had soloists and even two violinists. That's quite an accomplishment for a european stake to be able to put together that many young people for a choir especially when they all live so far from each other. There were some great speakers. I also had the opportunity to speak with some returned missionaries from Switzerland that used to serve in my mission who I haven't seen in a while. They're doing great. I don't really have a lot more to say about this week. The work keeps moving forward slowly but surely. Pray for the missionaries here and in all the world that we can find the people that are searching for the truth. Have a great week. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüßßßßßßß!!!!!

Alle Seelen ruhn in Frieden

Received November 5, 2012 So this week...not too shabby. In case anyone is wondering, Halloween is nowhere near as popular here in Germany as it is in America. Their "scary" night is Walpurgisnacht and their dress up day is Fasching (or Fassnet) both of which are in Spring and so there really wasn't a ton going on for Halloween. We did go home a little early because it didn't make sense anymore to be outside and people were starting to look at us weirdly (more so than normal). There are some people that go trick or treating, but relatively few and the rest are just party animals looking for any reason to go out and drink. Maybe some were going to the Zombie Rave that had been advertised the whole week. The big holiday is actually the 1st of November where they celebrate Allerheiligen. That meant that there was NOTHING going on all day on Thursday. Everything was closed and there was nobody on the street. They don' t mess around with their holidays here. Of course the day after Allerheiligen is Allerseelen. Schubert fans have this holiday to thank for the stunningly beautiful and yet simple song Litanei(hence the subject line). The whole point of me writing this is that we have finally made up the list of songs that we will be singing in the concert on the 17th. I will be singing a bunch of songs. Here they are: This is the Christ Jesus is my Shepherd Der Tod und das Mädchen Litanei Ich grolle nicht O Isis und Osiris Go down Moses and last but not least Old Man River Pretty crazy selection, eh? Well, those were the ones we decided on. They're all things that sit well in my voice and like I said before, the whole purpose is to just get people to bring their friends so that they can see the church. I'm no headliner. I'm just the voice with a name tag. It will be a ton of fun and I'm really looking forward to it. On the investigator front things are starting to look up. On Wednesday we had another finding day. We had planned to just stay in Ravensburg, but on a whim we decided to go to Friedrichshafen. We exchanged companions for the couple of hours and Elder Robins and I at first just talked to people on the street. It didn't take too long to realize that it wasn't really bringing anything, so we went and found the first apartments that we could find. I decided to go to the ones behind the building right on the street and in that building we found two couples who had interest in talking with us. We taught one couple right there and then set up an appointment for today for the other. Today we went to that couple and they took two Books of Mormon, one in Arabic and the other in German. On Friday I wasn't feeling too awesome after planning for the next week and I wasn't really excited to go out. I then told myself that we would just go and contact this guy that we found on the first finding day and then we could go home and I could just rest. Well, that's when the Lord likes to do funny stuff to you. We ended up getting there and it had just barely started raining and I'm thinking, "That's just what we needed." We rang the doorbell and the wife of the man came to the door. She called her husband and he let us into their kitchen. She joined us too and they said at the end that we could come back. This week was great to say the least. Well, I think that's enough for right now. It's going great right now and I hope that it's going great for all of you too. Have a fun week. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüßßßßßßßßß!!!!!

Ok, who ordered the snow????

Received October 29, 2012 Yes friends, I am ever so joyful to announce that the first snow of the year landed on Saturday in the morning. (Can't you just smell the sarcasm dripping off of that statement?) We were off helping a family on Saturday with their warehouse and then the snow just started coming down. It was pretty much freezing cold all day (duh, it was snowing) and it was no warmer in the warehouse. We got a lot done though. It snowed a lot on Sunday too and it was really not fun. After church on Sunday we were invited with the Sampsons to go to the Trautmann family. Sis. Trautmann also studied voice when she was younger and we have been asked to put together a "little" program of mostly classical music for a concert in November. The music will include all kinds of things. There will be piano solos from Sis. Sampson interspersed throughout the program and Sis. Trautmann and I will be singing a few songs together but mostly solos ranging from church music and spirituals to the works of the great Germanic masters Mozart, Händel, Schubert, Schumann, and Mendelssohn. It should be a pretty cool concert as long as my voice is in shape on that day. I can say that it all sounded really awesome yesterday as we were going through it all. It is all for a good cause, because we are trying to use this as an opportunity to invite people to come to the church and see what we are all about. There's a good chance that there will be several non-members that will attend and it's always great to see people come to the church who are friends of the members. We had another blitz in Dornbirn this week. We separated after interviews with the President in Winterthur on Wednesday and I went off to Dornbirn with Elder Robins. Much to our dismay, as the bus pulled away from the church that would take us to the train station, we discovered that Elder Robins did not have the cell phone. It was safely in the pocket of Elder Tanner who was well on his way back to Ravensburg with Elder Pope and the Sampsons. So there we were on our way back to Dornbirn with no way of contacting anyone. We survived and we eventually got back together the next day, but it sure would have been nice for us to be able to communicate with people on that day. We ended up using a land line at the church to call them and decide when we would get back together and how on the next day. We went and contacted a little that night and even found a couple potential investigators in only about an hour and a half one of which I believe became a new investigator yesterday when they met with him. This week will be here in Ravensburg again and we look forward to finding some new people. I've realized that I haven't said too much about Elder Pope. He is fairly new on his mission. Ravensburg is his second area after spending his first three transfers in Ingolstadt. He is part Tongan and he and I get along really well. We understand each other pretty well too. He comes from Missouri near Independence. He already wants to meet my family, which seems to be a common thread with all of my companions so far. I told him that he needs to come visit and then he can eat some of mom's cooking. He's excited. I think that is all for this week. I hope that everyone has a great time this week in all that they do. I also hope that it's nowhere near as cold where you are as it is where I am. Until next time, Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß!!!!!!!!!!!

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!!!!!!