What are you saying ?!?!?!?!?!?!

Received June 25, 2012 The subject line very precisely defines the feelings that I had this week when I was in Zürich on exchange with the Zone Leaders. I had a lot of moments where I really was wondering what in the world the people were saying. We even went to a member family and they didn't even spare us that much. I now admit, the Swiss dialect is the most crazy thing ever. The only issue I had with the exchange was that I had to spend about 50 Franc to get all the tickets I needed for the two day exchange. It's a good thing that we sent in the tickets for reimbursements as soon as possible. It was nice to meet some of the awesome people that the Schwammendigen (Zürich) Elders are teaching. Here in Bad Säckingen we have been doing a lot of dooring. We went to one street where we had two successive conversations at the door that lasted about 20 minutes each. One was a really cool guy from Iraq who is Aramaic and was willing to read the Book of Mormon. He asked right at the beginning if we were Jehovahs Witnesses. We said no and he said "Are you sure? Because if you are, so help me..." He was really funny and spoke really good English since he actually lived for a while in California. He was really open to what we had to offer and he even said that next time we meet we should bring a bunch of Books of Mormon for his friends. Today we are going to Schaffhausen to check out Rhein Falls. They are the biggest in Europe I think. It will be really cool. I don't have a lot of time left to write so I will tell you all more next week. Have a nice week and don't do anything that I wouldn't do. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüß!

Gruezi Wohl!!!

Received June 18, 2012 Servus! Gruezi mitenand! Gruß Gott! There are more greetings, but I can't list them all. This week has not been bad. We spent a lot of time traveling this week. On Tuesday I got to go to Schaffhausen to have a meeting with the other District Leaders and the Zone Leaders. Elder Daybell is the DL in Freiburg and so I got to see him there too. We even rode the last 30 minutes of the train ride together. In Schaffhausen the church is in a little house on the hill above the train station. It was funny walking into the quaint little Swiss house and thinking that the members meet there every week for church. We also travel to Singen every week for District Meeting and so do the Elders in Schwenningen. I will also be having another meeting in Schaffhausen this week and we will be having Interviews with the mission president in Schwenningen later this month. Above all though, I will be going to Munich next month for the Great District Leader Counsel. In short, I will be traveling a lot this transfer. This week we met with one of our investigators Manuel (who is a horse whisperer) and he is really cool. He seems to already understand a lot of what we are telling him. I think he will be baptized, if not now at some point in the future. We also had an interesting day yesterday. A very large section of the main road that we travel every day along the Rhein in the city of Laufenburg was closed for an event. We needed to find a way to get to someone that was on that road, so we took a back road and hoped that we would get there. We parked the car and then started off on foot to reach the place and decided to knock on a few doors. In only about 20 minutes we found 3 potential investigators, which is not very common here. We never would have been in that area had we not been forced by the road closure to find a different way. I guess we just get led to the places where people are who are ready to hear the gospel. For mother's sake, yes we have had a couple of eating appointments already and it has been really good to get to know these people. We went on a hike this week with the Elders Quorum. At the top of the hill there was a bench and Bruder Titz sat down next to some people and started playing with their dog. He just started talking to them really casually and got into a conversation about us missionaries and what we were doing here in Switzerland. In the end he actually got their information and is going to send them a Book of Mormon. It was really cool. I didn't understand too much of what he said because a lot was in dialect, but it was cool to see him at work. He is a really good member missionary. Well, I hope that everyone has a great week. I know we will. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüß!

Schwarzwald !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Received June 11, 2012 As the subject line indicates, I am coming to you from the Black Forest. This is one of the craziest landscapes I've had so far. There are a lot of trees here in my new area and it is way cool to be in a car (in some ways). I am right on the border of Switzerland and our city sits on the Rhein river. I have now been in an area that touches every large river in the mission, namely the Rhein, the Donau, and the Neckar. There's also the Inn, but it's not quite as cool. We work in both Germany and Switzerland and it's always a joy to go through the border and get stopped by the police. They're harmless though. The dialect is not too crazy, because it's not really all that different, but once you get to real Swiss people, you can forget about it. We met the Stake President on Sunday and he was really really Swiss and when he was talking to the members, it was ridiculous. This week we got a couple new investigators and they are pretty cool too. We are able to cover a lot of area with a car, but we can only drive 2000 kilometers a month. I fear that I will gain weight here, but I hope not. It seems that the members don't invite us over to eat too much here, so we'll have to change that. It's hard to get a really good relationship with the members when we never get into their homes. We want to inspire them to share the gospel with their friends and that's why we really come over. For those who need to know/haven't written me in a while, my new address is: Elder Andrew Neumayer Kirche Jesu Christi Uhlandstr. 24 79713 Bad Säckingen Germany My new companions are way cool. One is a Canadian from Medicine Hat. The other is from Orem. We get along pretty well already and we drive around listening to classical music in the car. It's awesome!!! I'm oldest in the companionship, but I think that we all rely pretty well on each other to do our work. I'm excited for this transfer. This week I read in the Book of Mormon about when Jesus comes to the Americas. It's an awesome story. I realized this time reading that it must have been a such an amazing moment to see Christ coming out of heaven and then to suddenly realize that everything that they had ever heard from the prophets and from their parents was really true. I could almost feel as if I was standing there with them. It is hard to really imagine what it was like, but it will be just as special when He comes again. I hope when that day comes that we will all be able to come and meet Him as he shows Himself to the whole world. Just something to think about. I hope everyone has a great week, I will. Tschüüüüüüüüüüß!

The Stats

Received June 4, 2012 12th Transfer 8th & 9th Companions: Elders Chapman and Thompson 6th Area: Bad Säckingen 5th Zone: Zürich 5th & 6th Dialect: Badisch / Allemanisch 1 Very Confused Missionary That's right folks, I'm going to be transferred to Bad Säckingen which is on the German border of Switzerland. It's on the South end of the Schwarzwald and from what I hear it's very green. I will be working there in a trio for the second time on my mission. We will have a car, but I won't be driving. I will also be serving as District Leader for the first time on my mission and I will also be Senior Companion for the first time. Lots of new stuff for this transfer. Unfortunately, that means that I have to leave Waiblingen and any packages (mom) will have to wait until I know my new address. To Darrell Babidge: Yes I got the email about DFD and was thankful for the little article. There is going to be a letter coming your way soon. To Emily Bateman and Carli Downs: Toi Toi in the Mikado. I don't really have a lot to report about this week. We had some good lessons with Anna Savi and also with Heinz Naumann. I think Anna is really beginning to make progress because she's starting to see the advantage of having the church in her life. She is always very happy when she leaves church and I think that she sees the joy that it has brought to her life. With Heinz I tried to explain in as precise a way as possible where the Bible comes from and who wrote it (he has questions and we answer them). We also got a last little meeting with Frau Lang in even though her son was there from New York and she didn't have too much time. She finally gave us her phone number and now we will be able to contact her for real and not have to just go by randomly. I will miss Waiblingen, but I am also way excited for Bad Säckingen. I will be sending a package as soon as possible home to you. There may not be much of anything cool in there, just stuff that I can't carry around anymore. Have a great week and be good examples to all. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüßle!!!!!!

You Report to the Zone Leaders

Received May 28, 2012 I think this might be the only week on my mission where all we had was 1 lesson. That's kinda embarrassing to report to the Zone Leaders, but you have to report. That's not good at all, but we know why it went so badly. It can be summarized in one word: Planning. You really do have to work everything out way beforehand if it is in your power to do so. Otherwise, things like this happen. I really don't know what will be happening next transfer. We get phone calls on Friday to find out what is going on. That means that I will know by next week what is going on in the next transfer. I'll tell you about this week though. We had a Zone Game Day on P-Day where we played board and card games together. After 6pm Elder Lentföhr and I went on an exchange and I went to Tübingen where we pretty much only had time to go back and teach their American investigator Sarah. She is way cool and has read a lot of the Book of Mormon already and is even working on getting baptized. The next day was Zone Conference and we went back to Stuttgart in the morning. The conference was great and we all had a great time learning from the President and his Assistants. The next day we went to Helmrich's house for lunch. Their son was visiting from Wien and he is the Bishop in the Vienna 2nd Ward. He said that Dr. Vincent will actually be coming to visit soon and I told him to say hello for me. A couple of days later we had our second great finding day. It was a little bit of a disappointment since this time we only found 1 potential investigator. If anyone has any ideas on how to get the people to actually meet with us, I'm open for ideas. We have some really good talks with them but no one wants to give us their information. On Sunday we had our 1 lesson with Frau Lang of Backnang. It was really great and she once again admitted that we are right and that what she reads in the Book of Mormon is true, now she just needs to get to church. On the way back we met an American man in the train who's name is Greg L. May. He is a singer and way cool. I'm not sure if he's famous or not, but he is meeting with the International Ward Elders and he knows that the church is true, he just doesn't realize it yet. Well, I have to go now and write President. I hope that everyone has a great day/week. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüß!

Requiem Aeternam

Received May 21, 2012 Thank you for your condolences at the passing away of a very important person in my life, namely the Great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I will be honoring his memory this week in whatever way I can without annoying my companion to much (secret is, he actually likes DFD). Let us all honor him by looking up something that he sang on Youtube. My suggestions would be Es blinkt der Tau or (my personal favorite) the recording of him singing Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen with Karl Böhm at the baton. Two truly fantastic recordings of the master. Now he's singing on the other side with Schubert and Brahms at the piano, lovely! Well this week was great here in Waiblingen. We have been getting the area going a little bit because the people have been showing up again. We got to give a church tour to Frau Lang who loved it and was really interested. She said that she will really have to come to church so she can see how it is on Sunday. We got to have a lesson with Heinz with a joint teach. Bru. Kiefer came with us and Heinz really made a lot of progress because he is starting to understand a lot better (thanks to Bru. Kiefer and his German). We also got Anna Savi to finally come to church again and she is already good friends with Schws. Müller and Arning. We also had a Ward Picnic where she was able to interact with the Ward. It was awesome! This week we have Zone Conference and another finding day. It will be a great week. I hope that everyone has a great week. Tschüüüüüüüüüß!

The Great Day of Finding und Muzzas Day

Received May 14, 2012 So the finding day was on Thursday and it was one of the hottest days of the year so far. It was about 30° Cel and I had forgotten how hot that is in a white shirt. After almost 9 hours of talking to everybody in Bad Cannstatt, Waiblingen, and Winnenden we got 3 people. However, 4 other people took Books of Mormon. We really did try hard. I think this finding day was really meant to show us what we could do better. The mission got 533 potential investigators. Stuttgart Zone actually led the way with over 100. On Sunday I got to call and it was great to hear everyone actually speaking. We called from Fichtenberg which is the furthest city in our area and takes an hour by train to reach. Schw. Schuller had pity on us because no one invited us for lunch after church and so we went out there "on the fly". We had a great time with them and even played some games. This morning we left the apartment at 9 to go to the elderly Schw. Geyer who played piano as I sang along. This time we sang through a book of bass songs and arias and a bunch of songs from musicals (My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, West Side Story, Oklahoma). It was great to sing with her and it always makes her so happy to have someone to make music with. She reminds me a lot of Barbara at BYU. I heard from Darrell today that the beloved BYU Opera Program will be once again renewing their title of the "BYU Mozart Troupe" as they will be performing Cosi this year for the fall opera. I must say.....I SAW THAT ONE COMING!!!!!!!! I already knew that they wanted to do that one. Why else would Dr. Vincent start talking about it in Opera Workshop if he didn't want to do it the next time he had a chance? One time when we had just finished Hoffmann in my first semester Dr. Vincent started talking about how much he loved the dialogue between Papageno and Tamino in the first act. Then what happened the next fall? When I sat in on OW the semester before I left he was talking about how much he loved the comedy in Cosi, but he had already decided to celebrate Menotti with one of his operas the next fall. Then what happened???? I rest my case. My Book of Mormon message of the week will be simply, if you have not read the article by Elder David A. Bednar in the last Ensign go read it. If you already have, go read it again. It was wonderfully written. That's all I have to say. Well, this will be a fun week I'm sure. I hope everyone has a great time with whatever they have to do this week. Have fun! Tschüüüüüüüüüüüß!