This was a WOW week!

Hey guys!

This last week flew by. We also earned ourselves a few new mission stories. 

It all started on Tuesday. We went out to some small town by bus to go and find an inactive member. We get there, have no luck at having them answer their door, so we move on. Later as we are taking the bus back, a cool bus driver guy from Greece picked us up. He talked to us as we were getting on the bus and we decided to sit up front so we could talk with him as he drove. He was a bro! He is Greek Orthodox and has a super fest believe on Christ. He asked lots of questions about us out of curiosity. He didn't have interest in meeting with us, but he loved talking about the Gospel and Jesus and stuff. He talked about the second coming and how he can't wait for that day to come so that Satan will be bound. It was really neat to just talk with him naturally about such subjects. People always think that religion separates people, but that's totally not true. We are all united in some way or another. It was cool to casually talk about Christ and stuff with someone of another faith and just be united with them. It was way sick. I also learned how to say 'Holy Ghost' in Greek.

Thursday we decide to find an inactive couple who lives out in the boonies who we just got a new address for. We take a bus out there for 50 minutes and then we realize that the next bus going back to where we came from came at 12:00 Midnight on Saturdays....... Why the....? Who makes a one way bus line? We figured we would figure something out afterwards, so we went to the person's house. We get there and realize that there is no name on their mailbox or doorbell. We rang twice but no one answered. We left a card for them with a note on it. We looked at our map and figured out where some other bus stops were. We found one that would come every 2 hours. There was literally nothing near this bus stop so we couldn't really go do much. We figured we would call a taxi to save time. We didn't have their number. We called some missionaries and a member and eventually found a phone number for a Taxi service. We thought it might be like €20 total. Nope. €22 each. We decided that it was not worth it/we did not have that kind of money. We then just resorted to waiting for the bus. The bus we found would take us to a train stop in the middle of nowhere, which would then take us to Nürnberg, which would then take us home. That was the plan. As the time came that the bus should come, one came but turned to a different stop nearby. We figured that there would be a different one coming that would come by our stop. Turns out, for one reason or another, the bus we wanted was going to that other stop because I guess something near ours was under construction. We missed our bus out of here. By this time we were pretty much dusting the dust off our feet and saying that we were never coming back here. I was kidding about the first part, but we really decided that we were never going up to Oberreichenbach again. We then realize that we will have to wait another two hours. We decided to go to the nearest ATM and pull out money for a taxi. Nearest one was only 500m away. The bank was closed for construction. The next closest one was 4.5km away. Forget that. Not even 30 minutes pass and another bus comes by. Our stop was it's end stop. We run over and ask the guy if he was driving anywhere else. "No," he said, "My route is over. I'm taking the bus back and going home. Where do you need to go?" We listed off a couple destinations that we would be ok with. He said that he was driving by one of them and he would take us by a stop with better connections. We were so thankful! We rode up front with him and just chatted. He talked about how that village's connections were just garbage and how one way bus lines are stupid. We agreed. He was also from Greece. He dropped us off at our stop and we thanked him a ton. We then waited for our next bus so we could get home and have dinner. We left to go to that city at 1:30pm and we got back home at 8:00pm. It was so annoying. We learned the lesson of always checking for a way back before you go somewhere small and new. 

Friday we went by an inactive man named Bruder Gonte. It took a while to get to him. Once we got there, we realized that he lived in a rest home. He is like 87. We ring his bell and he is surprised that we came to visit him. He buzzed us in and we went up to find his room. We got there and he answers the door in a wife beater and a diaper. He was also as thin as one can get. It was crazy! He was so happy that we came by. We brought us in and told us to sit down. We sat down at the foot of his giant king sized bed. We talked with him a bit as he tried to put some pants on. He was having a real struggle with it. We offered several times to help him but he said that he's not that old yet. We continue talking with him as he wrestles with his pants for 10 minutes. He finally did it and then we walked over the the living room with him. He is a super nice little apartment thing! It makes the Jamestown care center in Provo look terrible. We talked with him a bit about lots of different things. He shared a really crazy story that happened in his life time. He was living in Berlin at the time that the Russians were bombing the city. He was a young boy at the time. Him and his family ran into their cellar/bomb shelter and they heard bombs exploding all around. All of the sudden, a bomb crashes through their house and through the cellar and smacks the ground about 7 feet away from them and doesn't blow up. They were so shocked and terrified. "God was with us," he stated. He then told us how he moved around from city to city until he eventually ended up where he was at. Before we headed out, we asked him if we could say a prayer with him. He enthusiastically replied, "Yes! Of course you can!" He has Elder Hales say it. Afterwards, he looked me in the eyes and said, "Every step you take in this country, on this soil, does good for all mankind. I bless you that you will see success wherever you go and in what you do in this land. When you go home you will get a wife and have kids and a family of your own. You will be able to raise them in the Gospel and watch them grow up. By doing so, you will be so happy! Thank you so much for the work you are doing!" He then went on to bear his testimony about the Gospel. He then said, "In the name of Jesus Christ I leave this blessing with you. Amen." Elder Hales and I could not believe what just happened. It was just so unexpected and out of the blue. The Spirit was there and was like throwing books off the walls and flipping tables and hitting us with chairs. It was so cool! It's really not everyday that you have an old man prophesy things and pronounce blessings on you. We made an appointment and this upcoming Wednesday. He is such a cool guy! It is so sad that he can't make it to church. If he was physically able, he would always be there. Of all the less actives I've worked with, he is the one with the Strongest testimony. 

Saturday was really stinkin' hot. We were going to meet with a potential investigator, but we missed the second bus we needed to take and would be an hour late. We told her and she said that we could meet on Sunday at the same time because she has the entire day free. We then heaved back home, had dinner and went to visit Schwester Kornhäuser, another less active. She wasn't home, so we spent the last 45 minutes of our day contacting. We decided to walk to the church and back. As we did, we stopped a guy named Muhammed. He was super interested in what we had to say and we had a good chat with him. We made an appointment where we could bring a Book of Mormon to him. We will be doing that Tuesday. We continued all and we found Schwester Kornhäuser having a pick nick in a park that leads to the church. He was with some friends, one of which we met while we visited her in the past. We talked for a while and made an appointment for the future. It was cool that we ran into her as we were finding. 

Sunday we met with the potential investigator. Her name is Martha. She's from Mexico. We kinda just talked with her and told her what we do and asked if she had any questions about us or anything in general. She asked a lot of really good questions. We started to teach her the Plan of Salvation because her questions were going to be best answered in that context. It went really good! We didn't get all the way through the entire plan, but we made another appointment out for next Sunday where we can finish it. We gave her a couple chapters to read from the Book of Mormon so that she could have a head up on what will be talked about next time.

This is probably the longest email I've written in a long time hahaha! So yeah. This week was good. I liked it. Except for Thursday. Thursday sucked. Dumb busses. I hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Grow

 

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