It's Transfer Time!! Auf Wiedersehen Annaberg! Hallo Bad Bentheim!!

August 3, 2015

I am being transferred across the country and will be going to the other corner of the mission to a place called Bad Bentheim which is next to the Holland border (mom note--it's about 8 miles from the border of the Netherlands--if you can look on a map, Elder Fisher is basically doing a diagonal move across the mission--he's going from southeast to northwest) The place I am going to is actually a branch and I do not really know anything about it yet.  My companion here in Annaberg will be staying and will be training a new missionary.

The new mission president is all about focusing on the temple and he will be doing a lot more stuff in Freiberg now because that is where the temple is at in our mission. Also he is HUGE with member missionary work and he always says, “Do not invite the one, invite all your friends to hear the gospel”. The mission has a totally different feel to it now I think but it is really cool.

The Annaberg ward does do a lot of activities but the specific activities are not printed out for people to see.  However, they happen every week and everyone knows about it. They do all kinds of things for ward activities. They do not have Young Single Adult (YSA) wards in Germany but there are stake YSA activities and institutes in the bigger cities.

You asked what a “cliff hanger” lesson was.  The cliff hanger idea is when we finish the first lesson and then at the end have a huge lead in into the Plan of Salvation or other gospel topic and then say we don’t have time today to talk about this though so could we come back again to explain because this it is a large part of our church.

The iPads are useful but still it is a trial and error kinda deal right so we are still trying to figure it out. We can show Mormon messages now in lessons and have much more material for lessons on hand to use since we have these iPads. For instance, we have the Liahona, general conference talks, pamphlets, and scriptures in every published language almost.

We usually aren’t able to do too much if we meet someone who doesn’t speak German or English but we can use Google translate if we have wi-fi with our iPads.  But we did get to translate for someone this week-- There is this family in our Annaberg ward whose son lives in America.  Their family came to visit and the son’s wife and daughter do not speak German. We translated for them and we got to talk to people in English which I really haven't been able to do in three months--other than at missionary conferences with other missionaries.

As for interesting people this week, we were dooring this one street and the last person whose doorbell we rang, come down and said that we should have learned last time (have never seen this man before) and said he forbade us from coming back last time (not legal to do) so that was a funny experience to have.

When we go shopping, we buy everything at once (at the grocery store) but we might go to a bakery a few times a week to get a dessert or bread or something.

My favorite thing that I ate this week was grill meat with homemade French fries and a broccoli cheese soup. It was amazing. (mom note: I’m assuming someone made this for them—Elder Fisher’s cooking abilities do not include soup).

Scripture for the week is Ether 12: 37 "And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me: If they have not charity it mattereth not unto thee, thou hast been faithful; wherefore, thy garments shall be made clean. And because thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father."

Quote of the week: "In distinguishing communism from the United Order, President David O. McKay said that communism is Satan’s counterfeit for the gospel plan, and that it is an avowed enemy of the God of the land. Communism is the greatest anti-Christ power in the world today and therefore the greatest menace not only to our peace but to our preservation as a free people. By the extent to which we tolerate it, accommodate ourselves to it, permit ourselves to be encircled by its tentacles and drawn to it, to that extent we forfeit the protection of the God of this land." 

Love you and hope you have a good week.

Love,

Elder Fisher

Thinking in German, New Investigators, and the Best Ward in Germany

June 27, 2015

A member of Elder Fisher' ward
in a club uniform

   Sounds like you had a good week and that you have been keeping busy with everything.   I also have sent pictures this week in a separate email.

   I have had a good week this week and it has been a good transfer.  The transfer calls will be this Saturday and transfers are next Tuesday. I do not think I will be transferred but I really have no idea what will happen.  I can’t believe my birthday is in 3 transfers. It is weird I will be 19 in just a little over 4 months!!!! I am getting old.

   We were able to meet with our investigator this week and it was good.  He has interest in learning the gospel but he studies lots of other religions and we are looking for a way to help him keep him focused and to want to read and study.  We think that "cliff hanger" idea of teaching might be a good idea.  We also found three new investigators this week.  They are super nice people from Syria.  They said that they will read the Book of Mormon and they are really trying to learn from us I think. We already had one lesson with them and it went really well.

Elder Fisher sent proof to his mom that
he was actually eating fruit!

  What I like about Annaberg is the ward--it is probably one of the best wards in Germany or our mission so I have heard. The members are super nice and trying to always help us. This week we ate at a members’ house and they made beef steaks for us because they said that was very American and that pork steaks are the normal steaks that they eat.  I was really grateful for that food, it was so good.  We didn't do anything to celebrate Pioneer Day here but there are plenty of other things that the ward does to celebrate the random things that happened in history.

Elder Fisher bought a nutcracker--and it has
a place of honor with his German language study cards

  At our last zone conference, the sister missionaries serving in Halle (my last area) told me the weather in Halle has been hot and rainy.

   The language is coming well---I think in German usually before I think in English most of the time now--it is really interesting but freaky at the same time.

  I study a lot from Ensigns in my free time (20 minutes in morning, lunch break, dinner break, and after 9:30) and a lot of articles are concerning education and/or written by people highly educated, and it has helped me to realize the value of an education and makes me have a desire to have a goal of a Ph.D. some day. It is interesting what a mission helps me realize.

Playground rules:
No soccer (football)
No dogs
No bike riding
....and can anyone guess the last one??

  Mission life is good, a little trying at times but nothing a prayer and rethinking of my purpose can't fix.  I am trying to be a better person everyday.  My district leader gave a quote the other week which is: "hard happens...awful is optional" and then said that he hasn't had a day on the mission which he didn't enjoy, and I think I can honestly say the same thing because there is always a small miracle or a thing I read that makes the day or everything worth it.

   Scripture for the week Ether 12:26: "And when I had said this, the Lord spake unto me, saying: Fools mock, but they shall mourn; and my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness;"

  Quote of the week: "Whate'er thou art, do well thine part" David O. McKay

   Next time I email you, I will be in my 5th transfer and Connor will be 3 years old. That is weird. Time goes by so fast it is ridiculous. I love you and wish you the best.  I hope that you have a great week and enjoy the summer weather before it gets cold again.

Love

Elder Fisher

Zone Conference, Service, and Pioneers

July 13, 2015

   Zone conference was good.  I learned a lot but it is too much to type in an email to be completely honest.  My new mission president is super nice and he has two of his daughters living with him too. He also has really cool ideas for doing member missionary work which is really cool.  We weren't able to find any new investigators this week. In Annaberg-Buchholz, almost everyone knows the missionaries so finding new investigators here is a little more difficult but we still try. We go to other cities, too, and not all of the people there know who the missionaries are.

   No one has signed up for service because of the service poster yet but I was figuring it would take some time to get some people to sign up--also half the ward is on vacation right now so that is another reason they aren’t signing up but people in our ward will for sure sign up though; they love it when missionaries are around them.   However, we did get to do some service.  Last Saturday, there was an Open House at our church building (like every Saturday) and this car pulls up and out comes the married couple that serves in Freiburg.  They said there was going to be a Young Single Adult (18-30 year olds) activity in our building and that they needed a little bit of help with it. So we set up tables and chairs and cut fruit for the people. They gave us free food for helping, too. It is actually really cool because this married couple’s actual calling is the remodeling and documenting the remodeling of the Freiburg temple. So they talked to us about the construction of the temple, what they had to do, and how they received the actual calling as well. It was really cool talking to them about all that.

At the entrance to Martin's Cove.
Elder Fisher's 4th great-grandfather was
in the Martin Handcart Company

  (Mom note: The next part is in response questions about Pioneers, Pioneer Day, and a family trip we took.  Last summer Elder Fisher went with his parents and one of his brothers on a Pioneer/family history trip—we traveled to Salt Lake to visit Temple Square and “This is the Place” park, Fort Bridger, Martin’s Cove, and Fort Casper/Upper Crossing of the Platte river) 

At the beginning of the hike to Martin's Cove
Lots of sagebrush!!

   I remember the trip all right, we saw lots of sage brush between all that traveling that we did. I am not sure if the Germans celebrate pioneer day--I do not think that they do though, at least in East Germany. I am not sure if there were any German pioneers at that time. I am sure there were but I just don’t really know. A lot of the German members here move to the USA for one reason or another. A member in my ward here has 7 siblings in his family and all live in America and his parents live there, too.

Martin's Cove--the Pioneers sought shelter from
the winter storms in this location.

   For my personal study time, for the next while, I will be studying Book of Mormon while thinking of missionary work and I read Ensign articles about how to become a better teacher, too. Sometimes I study scriptures listed under a hymn or something like that but it isn't as common for me to study that way. For my German vocabulary study, I do not take a vocab card with me every day but when we have a 30 minute bus ride or something I read a page in my dictionary and try to work on the words that are a little more useful than the other ones.

   Scripture for the week is Alma 21:16  "And they went forth whithersoever they were led by the Spirit of the Lord, preaching the word of God in every synagogue of the Amalekites, or in every assembly of the Lamanites where they could be admitted." the first part I related to the transfer call at the end of each transfer only theirs was a little more direct from their source.

…Quote for the week "there will be hundreds of stakes in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland."-Spencer W. Kimball. This quote inspired me to help change Germany as much as I am able/allowed to.

  

 I am taking pictures but not as much as I was. I will send pictures next week.

Love you and have a great week.

Elder Fisher

Leipzig Nord, Leipzig Süd, and Dresden Zone Conference
We were able to spot Elder Fisher (hint: you might need to enlarge the picture)

Teaching, Learning German, and a new Mission President

July 6, 2015

This week has been a good week here in Germany and we had lots of time for finding this past week. We taught a lesson to a less active member this week.  We have been trying to work with this person.  We taught the plan of salvation and the man really understood the plan of salvation he said.  When we meet with him, he tries to get to the lesson we have prepared as soon as possible when we get there now.  He seems to enjoy our visits and teaching strategy. It was really cool to see.

My favorite lesson to teach is the first lesson in Preach My Gospel because I think that it has the information that really sets us apart from other churches

We do not have regular service in the community going. We set up something with our GML (ward mission leader) where we took a picture in our service clothes and with tools, and put the pictures on a paper where the members in the ward can sign up have the missionaries over to do service at either their house or a friend’s house so hopefully we will start having service opportunities.  We usually see the bishop and GML (ward mission leader) quite a bit and in Germany usually the ward is made up of 1-2 families that are all related to each other somehow so we see everyone pretty regularly. The ward has people that play the piano so the missionaries don’t play the piano for the ward.

We are having zone conference this week and we will meet our new mission president. I am excited. My new mission president worked for Church Education System I think, but I’m not too sure about that.  We heard about President Packer’s death because we got a text Saturday.  It was a little hard to keep working after that but we kept going.

My German language learning is good and there is definitely a difference from May to now, I am always improving. I still learn lots of German and notice continual improvement.  My companion, Elder Tingey understands the language principles well (his mom is a German and his dad is a German professor) but sometimes his accent is really hard for me to. His German is better than mine but I’m not sure how big the gap is because I know my German isn’t anywhere close to perfect.

In my area we use public transport and walk everywhere just like my last area. In East Germany, they have lots of little markets and stuff because it is still very much like the old German with the manners and customs of former East Germany which I really like. They do also have a few stores which are like a Walmart or something but there are more of the smaller stores than the bigger ones.

Those are really interesting stories about how my great-grandparents came to live in California. Interesting how things work out the way they do.

I was glad to hear that you and the high priests are still making those pancakes for everyone at the 4^th of July breakfast. I have one question I was curious about too because members have asked me and if you could really research into it that would be great. Can firefighters in America be colorblind? I thought yes but I wasn't entirely sure.

         Quote of the week Joseph B. Wirthlin "Come what may, and love it"

Scripture of the week Alma 10:7 “As I was journeying to see a very near kindred, behold an angel of the Lord appeared unto me and said: Amulek, return to thine own house, for thou shalt feed a prophet of the Lord; yea, a holy man, who is a chosen man of God; for he has fasted many days because of the sins of this people, and he is an hungered, and thou shalt receive him into thy house and feed him, and he shall bless thee and thy house; and the blessing of the Lord shall rest upon thee and thy house.”

Hope you have a great week and that you have fun with little Miss Audrey when you babysit.

   Love,

Elder Fisher

Finding, Investigators, and a New Mission President

June 29, 2105

    I am doing great!!I will be honest and say that the past five weeks have been hard with the work but this week was one of the more successful weeks I have had on my mission so far!!!   We were able to enjoy the blessings from heaven to help us see progress in the work. This Sunday we thought we weren't going to see one of our investigators at church because we called him and didn't answer. However, half way through priesthood meeting we got a call and it was him!!!! He said he wanted to come to church today but needed someone to pick him up and he came!!!! We ended up having two investigators at church this past Sunday. It was so exciting and then we had two unplanned lessons yesterday with people we have been trying to meet with for a while. It was a good day.   We have also been able to make a lot of contacts this week.

    

   One interesting finding story happened this week. At the end of this one day, we were finding (talking to people to find those who were interested in learning about the gospel) at 8:45 at night and usually nobody is outside but we saw one person so we went and talked to her.  We had a 15 minute conversation about the Book of Mormon on the street and she was interested.  She didn't really want the Book of Mormon but said if we see her on the streets again to go and talk to her again so I call that a success.

    

   The ward is good for a German ward in East Germany. The have the family history program in another ward building and I do not really know much else about family history stuff that is going on here.

    

   Last P-day we ate cookies and kinda stayed at the church.  I played piano a little bit and we usually have our email time at the church now with our iPads.  I am liking the food here and you asked about some of my favorites.  A few foods I remember are Berliner (dessert), Knödel (main dish really good especially with small muchrooms), Snitzel(german iconic thing), and that is all I can think of right now. And the kraut has never tasted better.

    I think President Kosak has been a great mission president and you can just feel his love when he talks with someone. He isn't afraid of chastising a missionary but at the same time he would rather work with the missionary than send them home. We have zone conference next week to meet our new mission president.  (Mom note—The Germany Berlin mission will be getting a new mission president this Wednesday, July 1, 2015. President Kosak and his wife have served as for the last 3 years.  If you want to see more about the mission, they have had a blog for the last three years at http://germanyberlinmission2012-15.blogspot.com/  One of my favorite blog posts is on http://germanyberlinmission2012-15.blogspot.com/2015/04/04-15-missionary-training-as-disciples.html  There are pictures from a mission conference and there is a video clip at the end with all the missionaries singing.

    We do not really celebrate 4th of July here but we will do something in the companionship so we can still feel a little American.

    Right now, I am studying the Book of Mormon and how scriptures relate to missionary work and it is really interesting.  This week’s scripture is from the Bible-- 1 Peter 4:8 footnote included "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity preventeth the multitude of sins."

    Quote for the week Gordon B. Hinckley "The woman you marry is taking a terrible chance on you." I heard that this week and thought it was funny and since I won't be thinking about marriage for a while I do not find it insulting.

    I hope you have a good week and I love the pictures you are sending. Do you have any more stories from grandma and grandpa about their parents? Those are fun to read. I hope you have a good week and keep cool in the hot weather. I love you and I am thankful for how much you have helped me in my life and how much you care about me

Love you!!

Elder Fisher

Five months and a visit to a 500 year old church

June 22, 2015

    I realized that I hit my sixth month mark next month and it made me realize how fast everything is going here in Germany. I have almost been out for 1/4 of my mission now. That is crazy. I found that really just getting lost in the work helps me to lose track of time and then I look back and it is 5 months into my mission!!!!

    I have lasted through another transfer which is pretty exciting and my companion and I are staying together for another transfer (about 6 weeks) which I am pretty excited about. This week, we had two companion exchanges because this transfer we have had a lot of stuff to do and it was only a 5 week transfer and not a six week transfer (like it usually is) so I was in a different area for 2 days because of that but it was a fun time

    This past week my companion and I didn't know what we should teach the new converts in our ward so we decided to pray about it and I suggested that we write the topic down on two different pieces of paper and show the papers to each other.  I wrote prayer and he wrote Holy Ghost which go well together and we finished planning the lesson from there. We showed up to the appointment and the man said he wanted us to see a film and it was an LDS church film about prayer and the Holy Ghost!!! It was so awesome and then we talked about experiences that we have had with prayer and the blessing that come from prayer. It was a really cool lesson and was totally guided by the Spirit.

   I am having a good time here, though, and the ward is great.  The ward has a choir but we always forget to plan for it so we have only been once but we want to go and participate a little bit more and try building relationships with ward members.  We have people we are working with right now but they just need a little push to get their gears in motion so it can be a little challenging at times but nothing too hard. Since we are close to the Czech border, we do meet people from there but the people that are Czechs really do not speak German. We have met and talked with someone that was from Moldova.  We haven't found any community service activities in the area but we are looking and trying to find stuff.

   Annaberg-Buchholz does have a markt platz, a little smaller but I like it a little more less crowded and more relaxed. They have a lot of wood work stuff here and the “holz” in Bucholz actually means is wood, so a lot of craftmanship. This area is kinda the redneck area of Germany I think.

   We have all types of fruits here. Cherries, raspberries, peaches, oranges, strawberries, and some other types of berries. A lot of them are with the desserts though. I love sauerkraut and rotkohl (a sweet & sour red cabbage) so much and I could probably eat that stuff every single day I just cannot get enough of it!!!.

   We visited an old church last P-day and it was interesting and different.  Different religion and way of remembering Jesus Christ. I think they had 30 or so pictures of the Savior on the cross and sculptures too, but still interesting. (mom note: it was St. Anne's church in Annaberg-Buchholz which was built in 1499)

A photo from St. Anne's  --Link to more photos

Since last week’s rain storm, I keep an umbrella on me all the time now which is very handy.

   Scripture for the week is Alma 29:1 "O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!"

I hope you have a good week!

Love you!!!

Elder Fisher