Tansfered ;(

Well, as you can see by the title, I am getting transferred. I found out on Saturday.  We are so bummed.  I leave Tuesday morning to go to Erlangen.  No, it is not nearby.  It is a while away.  It is near Nuremberg.  I am so sad.  You have no idea.  I have been in my current area for three months.  It sounds long but that is really not long at all.  People will stay in one area for 4 1/2 - 7 months before they get transferred.  I do not want to go at all!  I found out right after we had a lesson with an investigator and set a baptismal date.  I am not necessarily upset that I will be missing a baptism, I am just upset that I have to leave this area and the people that are here.  I love these members and investigators with all my heart!  Ah man.  It hurt so bad giving my good-bye testimony in church yesterday.  I have that same feeling in my gut now as I did when I was leaving to the MTC.  Not fun.  I called President Stoddard and told him about the baptismal date and he was super happy! I then told him that I found out that I was getting transferred away.  I asked him if I really need to go.  I told him that I did not feel like it was my time to go just yet, like my job wasn't complete here.  After expressing my concerns to him, he told me that he did not want to transfer me at all.  He said he was super proud of the work that was going on there and did not want to separate us at all.  He said that Friday night, he had a last minute feeling from the Spirit that somebody needed to come down to Langen for a bit.  I asked him if I could stay in a drit (I don't even know if 'drit' is English or German. It means staying in a group of 3).  He said it was possible, but they would need to close Erlangen if they did that.  I told him that we probably would not want to do that.  I was crushed inside, but I told him, "President, if this is what the Spirit told you, then I will go and do what I need to do in Erlangen."  "Elder," he replied, "You are a great man. Thank you so much for being understanding. You will be very blessed because of this."  I figured that God has asked many other people to do many other things that were difficult, but each time somebody obeyed his command, they were blessed. God sees the big picture and knows what is best.  I am sure I will have a great experience in my new area, I am just sad to have to leave here. 

But other than that, things are going great!  We met with our new investigator from Ecuador.  We taught the first lesson again because last time we only did a tiny part of it.  It went really well! We did an excellent job at teaching together and using the Spirit.  It was really cool!  We invited him to be baptized.  He was so close to saying yes, he just said that he wanted to learn a little bit more.  Understandable.  We tried to make a new appointment with him and he asked about Saturday night.  We told him that we already had an appointment. We then realized that the Family we had an appointment with was from Colombia and that it would be great to have members involved, especially if they can speak Spanish.  We ate a huge chunk of pig that was slow roasting in some marinade for 36 hours.  It was unbelievably good!  Oh my gosh!  We had our appointment with him there about the Plan of Salvation.  It also went really well.  We were able to set a baptismal date with him for the 6th of February.  I am super excited for him! I am sure he will be baptized!

We also met with our other investigator, Imad.  We taught him repentance and it went really well!  Today we will find out if he got a new job or not by the Post.  I hope he gets this job, because if he does, he will be better off financially and he will also be able to come to church finally!  We are going to try to say bye to him today.  I have seen him make so much progress.  I was there since day one.  It is amazing how much progress he has made!  It is sad to see him go, but I am sure he will be in good hands. 

Sunday we used a lot of time to go to members and to say goodbye to them.  It sucked, but it was better than not being able to say bye.  One family wants me to let them know when I am going home so that they can come to the testimony meeting that is held for the missionaries leaving the mission in Frankfurt.  So hopefully I will see them again!

Love you guys! Have a great one!

Elder Grow

Rough Week 1-11-2016

Hey!   This week was, well, it could've been better. The baptisms for this weekend fell out on Wednesday because their preacher and family and friends found out about it and they talked them out of it
essentially.  What Joseph Smith said is true, that e closer one comes to God and Christ, the more intense the Adversary works to stop the individual. We are still going to stay in contact with them. I think that they just need a stronger testimony. I am convinced that they will be baptized sometime soon. They are super great and they can feel the Spirit so easily. I talked a little bit about it last week, but Mona lost her glasses and can't read now, so we went to a shop on Friday and we found some magnifying glasses for her to use. They are super neat! We heard from them that it works for her. Hopefully she will see the glasses and still think about who gave them to her and she will remember to read when she can.

We also got a new investigator this week named Pablicio. He is from Ecuador. We first met him about 2 months ago. We finally were able to meet with him after all the holidays. We had a great first lesson and we invited him to be baptized. He said he needs to read the Book of Mormon first before he can say yes(or course), but he said he would if he gets an answer that it is true. He believes what there was an apostasy after Christ and his Apostles died and that the First Vision with Joseph Smith makes sense because the truth had to come back somehow. We have another appointment set up with him for this Wednesday. We are excited to start working with him.

On Saturday, we met with the Bethäuser family. The father is not yet a member but he believes everything. He has been close to the church for the past 20 years. He is so cool! He actually reminds me a lot of a good friend of mine. He is just stuck in the mindset that if he is going to be a member, then he is going to have to do it right. It is a great mindset but it is hindering him from coming to church because he feels like he needs to be a better person to come. This man is not a bad person. He is one of the nicest guys I know. He likes his beer but is not an alcoholic and he smokes. That's it. He has set goals for this year to stop smoking and to start reading the Book of Mormon again and more often. He has made remarkable progress with his smoking goal. It is incredible! I am super proud of him. If any of you guys have struggled with smoking and have some tips on how to quit or how to make quitting easier, then feel free to let share them with me. I would love to share them with Bruder Bethäuser. We want to work with this family more, simply to bring the spirit into the home more often so that we can strengthen his testimony and to help them be a stronger unit. We had a lesson with them about family home evening. I would say that it went. Really well. We shared Alma 56:47. We told them that the Stripling Warriors were delivered because of their faith on what their mothers taught them. We also said that one could also say that not only did the mothers teach the children, but also the fathers. We then tied that into family home evening.

Sunday was also really good. We got two of our investigators to church.  During sacrament meeting, Bishop Schauperl included some Ward statistics, progress, big events of the year, and goals for the next as part of his talk. As he was talking about some statistics, he started to choke up a bit. I was curious to hear what he was about to say that caused him to choke up, so I listened a little bit more intently. He then started to talk about the missionaries from the Ward who were gone, his oldest son being among them. It struck me as I realized the love that he has for his kid who was gone. They were probably buddies! Dad, Mom, I hope you two don't tear up or start choking up too often when you talk about me. I'll be back before you know it! I miss you guys just as much, if not more, than you guys miss me. I can't wait to come home and see you guys in person again. I am so excited to spend time with you all and to make of for them time I missed out on!

Yep, this week was really sad because of the fallen out baptism, but some good things did happen this week though. I love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Grow

A New Year!

This week has been pretty good!

I am kinda getting to that mission age where people are asking me if I have seen any change in myself so far from my mission. It's hard to tell because I am with myself 24/7. If I did, I hope it is for the better.

We have made a ton of progress with our investigators. Our Muslim investigator believes in Christ, so he is now technically a Christian now. He is still looking for a new job so that he can come to church with us. His baptism for the 30th is still standing fast. We had the feeling that we should talk with him again about the Book of Mormon and about why it is so important. He ended up asking how the book will change the world. We ended up saying that maybe the book itself won't change the entire world, but it can change one's entire life and prepare people for when Christ comes again to change the world. He was fascinated with the fact that Christ would be coming back again. We talked a little bit about the millennium and about the missionary work that will be going on. We said that there will be an opportunity for everyone to accept the gospel and to accept Christ. He then looked at us with a smile, chuckled and said, "Ok. Then I will join you guys and do it with ya." It was so out of the blue, but it was great! We are both super stoked for Imad. 

We also met with Mona and Christin. They're getting baptized this Saturday!  We met with them and got through half of the Plan of Salvation with them. We came back two days later to finish it off but plans changed. They had some questions that they needed to find answers too and we helped them with that. One question was pretty intense.  Mona, the mother, told us that she had a dream about 10 days ago of Jesus standing on a high house with his arms stretched out. She said that she and Christin could not figure out what it meant. We were talking about it for about 10 minutes or so. At the end, Mona says that she thinks that the dream meant that she should trust in the Lord and go forward with her decision to be baptized and to have no fear. I am so jealous! I want to see Jesus in a dream too! I just think that it is so cool that the Lord prepares people in so many different ways, whether it is a dream or a chat about the Millennium. Who would have known? We invited Mona and Christin to come to church with us the next day and they said of course they'd come. They ended up not making it because Mona started to have really bad Asthma that morning.  It was a bummer because we wanted to teach them somethings so that they could be prepared for their baptismal interview on Tuesday and for their baptism on the 9th. We gave them a call and said that we might have to move the baptism back a week just so that we will for sure have time to cover everything that we need to. The two of them did not take that too well. They said that they can still get baptized on the 9th and that there has got to be a way that we could do it. We ended up making a battle plan right there over the phone in order to make January 9th possible.  I am super excited for the two! Elder Kitchen will be baptizing Mona and I will be baptizing Christin. It isn't every day that the companionship will be dressed in white. Please pray that everything will go well for these two and that Imad will be successful in finding a new job.

That was the main stuff for the week! I love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Grow