Transfer 16 of 16

Hey Everyone,

I didn't have time to write an email this week, so I'm using
Elder Awerkamp's. This email is through his perspective. I didn't
write it. Just a quick update on my personal end, Elder Awerkamp is
going home this Thursday and my new companion is getting here on
Tuesday. We will be in a drit for a bit. His name is Elder Smith. I
don't know him at all. He is somewhat newer on the mission. Anyway:

Monday we went to Rothenburg. Way pretty. I recommend it to everyone.
That evening we met with Roslan. Our lesson went pretty well. He told
us he didn't want to get baptized till he was able to keep the
commandments, which is way awesome. He asked us to work with him to
help him and we had an awesome lesson going through and figuring what
things cause him to drink tea and smoke and figured out how to avoid
those things and what other options he can turn to for them.

Tuesday we met with Auras' who actually had their friends over for
dinner as well. Cool thing, those friends were actually there when
Elder Butler, Elder Peatross, and I met with them my first day in
Erlangen, and they totally remembered me. We shared a really cool
object lesson about trust God and having faith. It was great.

Thursday was my last zone training. Ewwwww. That was pretty bitter
sweet. I got to help with a musical number then I gave my testimony
along with Elder Morris and Elder Leppert who are both leaving as
well. The really ironic thing was the theme of the zone training was
the first six weeks of the twelve week program and it marked my one
week mark. It was really cool to get pumped up about the work for one
last time in Germany. (Gotta put that qualifier in there).

That evening we met with Bishops family and did service and had a BBQ.
Man, I love this Ward. They are so awesome. We were talking with
Bishops oldest so Janek, who is preparing for a mission and already is
a super awesome missionary. He and Arian hang out a lot and are like
each other's spiritual wingmen. Supporting each other in good choices.

Saturday we had a sweet street display. We found a way cool display
stand in the basement of the church so we set that up, along with a
big banner, and a table of BOMs we had about 10 missionaries there as
well. Way cool. What I found pretty amusing is that although I've been
doing this quite a while now and my Germans pretty good, (by no means
perfect, but you know, good) the same thing as has happened most of my
mission happened: I talked to people, had good conversations, but
couldn't give out a Book of Mormon. Then some dude walked up and asked
if he could have it. Hey, works right? Turns out he's a former and he
said he would call once he had a chance to read. Score! We had a
really successful street display.

Then we visited Bru Schlembach. He's doing really well with quitting
smoking and is reading a lot more in the Book of Mormon. He's so nice,
he's way sad I'm going. But we finally were able to find a ride to get
him to church. He was so dang happy. I love to see people so excited
about church. A lot of people said they would come this week, none of
them did, but Bru Schlembach definitely more than made up for it.

Some really crappy news is that Roslan been acting really weird
lately, he told he does want to meet anymore and that it's just too
hard to find out which of all the church's is true. It's really weird
and not like him. Hopefully we can figure out what's up though he's
kind of avoiding us right now. So that kind of blows.

Have a great week!

Love you all,
Elder Grow

Ehhh - Rough Week

Hi All,

So...yeah. The week started out pretty good and then it hit the fan on Saturday.

This last Monday was a heck of a lot of fun! The Sisters and us went up to Bamberg. The Elders in Bayreuth came with us. All of us went up there in Lederhosen, except for Sister Hansen. She doesn't have any and didn't feel like wearing her Dirndl. We also went up there with a member named Andy from our ward. He showed us around and just laughed at us when he realized that we were all getting dressed up to go up there. He doesn't have any either. Bamberg was way cool though! The city was practically not touched during the war. They only had like 3% of their city destroyed. Virtually nothing. It was super pretty! It was really fun to just look around and wander through the city and some paths and the Dome there. We took a lot of photos while we were there.

Tuesday we met with Arian again. It was fun. He tried to teach us how to do this way cool way hard dance thing that he learned. He then told us that he had a problem he wanted to talk with us about. He said that there is the camping party thing in a week and that all of his friends are going to it, but he didn't really want to because he knew what would probably be there and he did not want to be in a situation like that. He explained more and asked us what we though. We already knew what he should do, and so did he, but we didn't want to tell him what to do. We made a chart and made him write down all the pros and cons of going to the party/staying home instead. Because he already wanted to stay home, so he easily threw up a lot of 'pros' for that and a lot more 'cons' for going to the campout. He then came to the decision of staying home and partying it up at his house alone while his family leaves to go on vacation and stuff. Another plus is that his girlfriend is also not going to the camping thing, so he will be able to see her throughout the week before she leaves with her family on vacation for a while. Win win.

Thursday we met with Roslan at the church and taught him the rest of the commandments. He accepted everything; tithing, chastity, fasting, word of wisdom, and all. The lesson was way good and he was super stoked for his baptism on the next Thursday!

Friday we visited with Beate and we celebrated the birthday of her daughter, Fabiana, who came back from Utah to visit. It was way fun. It was nice to finally meet her because she left Erlangen to go study in Utah shortly before I got here in January. She had lots of friends there and none of them were Mormons. There were actually two Americans there. One of them has only been living in Germany since May. I have no idea how she even got to know these people, but it was fun to talk with them. They were super cool. I miss America!

Saturday was...well....could've been better. We got a text from Roslan as we were on our way to meet with our less active who was working on giving up smoking. Roslan wanted to talk to us if we got the chance. We called him ASAP and he told us that he didn't want to be baptized. We were super taken off guard because ever since we set a date with him, he was super excited and pumped for it. He didn't sound like himself. He was super solemn and monotone. He told us that there were two reasons why. The first one being that he smoked a cigarette and drank a cup of tea. He was super depressed on that because he has been trying super hard to stop. He only smokes like 3 cigs a week because he is a social smoker, but it's still hard. The second thing was that he feels like he hasn't gotten a good enough answer yet that the church is true. He feels like it's good and right, but he said he needs to feel it more. Totally understandable. He said there was also more to it but we are going to be talking with him about it today after Pday in person. We then get to Bruder Schlembach's place. We met with him for a while and he told us that he smoked more cigarettes than normal the last week. That was also really sad. We shared a thought about scripture study and about how that will help give him more strength and determination. We spent a little extra time with him because he finds it sad that we always have to go pretty soon afterwards. Truth is, we meet for like 45 minutes and then our bus comes, and if we miss it then it comes an hour later. We decided to miss a bus so that we could spend time with him. It was worth it.

That was about it for the week. Roslan's baptism is falling out for a little while until he feels ready to do it. He will make it for sure :)

Have a great week!

Elder Grow