Missionary Work plus Food and Cars in Halle--March 23, 2015

We received two great letters today which have been combined for this blog.
Note: if the word is in purple, it contains a link to a web page with more information. 

   “The ward I am in is the Halle Ward but it has giant boundaries, one family travels an hour to get to church by train every Sunday because they live so far away. Most of the members live pretty local though. There are about 60-80 active members in the ward and one family makes up about a quarter of the ward.

   When we ate at the members’ home last Sunday, they asked me a lot about LA—and you wanted to know the types of questions.  They asked things like: how far away was the beach? or did you see any gang fights? or how cold did it get? They were also disappointed when I told them I didn't go to school in California but went to Idaho for college.

   We are allowed to see stuff on P-Days and are actually encouraged to help us understand the culture better and help us prepare mentally for the next week. There is a Handel museum (the famous composer) and there is a chocolate factory I think we are going to next week.

   We eat cereal in the mornings for the most part but the cereal here tastes better I think. We have more lunch stuff than any other meal.  We usually have some sort of wurst for that with potatoes or rice or soup. (Mom note: according to the German food guide, Germany has over 1500 types of wurst). I haven't seen a döner with yogurt on it but it is like ordering at a fast food restaurant and I just say normal Döner. They have lamb, and onion, mixed vegetables, and all on the flat bread. It is really good.

   The autos in Germany are mostly European made (a lot of Volkswagons) but there are a lot of Fords, too, and I have seen two or three Chevy's. It is really cool seeing all the cars that they talk about on the British car show I watched actually (Mom note: he’s talking about Top Gear).

   I haven't seen any buildings from West Germany to compare to yet, but I think some of the buildings from this area (the former East Germany) that were built during that time period have a very communist look. 

   The people are nice for the most part and I love seeing and talking to so many people all day.  This week we did a lot of finding and, because we did, we walked by a lot of INTERESTING people that stopped us and started talking to us about the Book of Mormon and other stuff that concerned the world. One said everyone needs to just eat together and drink together and be happy and all I could think about was the scripture "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." He was an interesting person.

   We found a few people this week but haven't really been able to meet with them yet. The sisters in our district have a baptism this week so we are trying to get less actives and investigators to come to that but it is in Leipzig so it is a little hard for some people to get to Leipzig (mom note--it's about a half-hour train ride away).

   It is great here in Halle and I think that the key to missionary work is to stay positive and always strive to help other so we can do our part to build the kingdom of God. Like this week, we set up two service opportunities with people so that they might become new investigators or their hearts may be softened for the next set of missionaries. It is interesting in the field. I feel like we have to think in the moment how can I help but also think of the long term how can this benefit the person in the long term and who else will this effect-- like if an investigator gets baptized and goes to the temple and then does 100 family names within the next three years that is 101 (including the living person doing the ordinances)people that have had ordinances done and the opportunity to partake of salvation.

Quote of the week: "The Kingdom of God or nothing"-President John Taylor

My scripture for the week is actually a song and it is the translation of "I Believe in Christ" from German to English: 

"Christ is my Lord, and my king

I sing to him, I give him exact praise and thanks

I want Him with me my whole life long,

Christ is my Lord, the greatest son

He came to earth to live,

The sick he healed and stood from death,

I praise his name while I walk"

It isn't a perfect translation but I like how it says "Christ is my Lord" more because it has more assurance and is bolder which is what members of the church should be saying and proclaiming to the world:  "Christ IS my Lord"

Love

Elder Fisher