Final Photos

As many of you know, Elder Fisher arrived home in December from his mission.  Here are a few last photos of his last days in Germany and his first days at home.

Preparing to go to the Frieberg Temple

Last picture with President and Sister Fingerle

Mission accomplished! December 2016 finsihers

Arriving home....
Elder Fisher's plane was delayed in Germany which caused a missed connection in Chicago.
We are grateful to United Airlines for arranging a new flight so it was ready for him when he reached Chicago.
And we are grateful to the kind stranger at the Chicago airport who lent Elder Fisher his cell phone so he could call
with the new flight information.
After 23 hours of travelling, he finally arrived at 10 pm.

Elder Fisher meeting "Flat Elder Fisher"

These 3 friends served missions at the same time and they all arrived home within 4 days of each other.

Lauenburg, Hamburg, Luneburg, Frieberg

September 26, 2016

   Sounds like you had quite a full week! I hope you were able to enjoy it as well. I can hardly believe how old my niece and nephew are becoming, they will be completely different people when I get home I think.

   We are both staying in Lauenburg and the work is going good, almost all of our appointments this past week fell out though, so that was sad.

   We ate at two houses this week and both of them made us chili for the food. Another member we met with gave us American chocolate cake which actually tasted American and was super good. Other than that, we did not have any eating appointments.

   For P-day today, I will be visiting Hamburg and doing a little bit of sight-seeing there. Other than that, I do not have any plans.  The farm house I took a picture of was in a really small village with like 500 residence and I do not remember the name. The church in the pictures was in a place called Lüneburg in our area, which is also where we bought the Reese’s Pieces.  There is a store there that has a lot of American things that they sell there but it is still a German store.

   We are able to go to the Frieberg Temple when we have a new convert, a reactivated person come with us, and we are able to tour the temple with an investigator as well.

   Elder Gerlach’s (his missionary trainer/1^st companion in Germany) plans for when he gets back are to go on a date to General Conference and then after that he will be going to BYU Provo and studying there.

   That is too bad that Brother H_____ passed away, he was like a grandpa to me, or at least I felt like that. However I know he has a great work to do on the other side now and that he is no longer in pain.

   Scripture of the week: Helaman 3:26 “And it came to pass that the work of the Lord did prosper unto the baptizing and uniting to the church of God, many souls, yea, even tens of thousands.”

   Quote of the week: Spencer W. Kimball “A year ago now I was in Japan and Korea, and … I seemed to envision a great movement when there would be thousands of local men prepared and anxious and strong to go abroad. … I seemed to envision again Mexican youth and Latins from Central and South America in great numbers qualifying themselves for missionary service within their own country and then finally in other lands until the army of the Lord’s missionaries would cover the earth as the waters cover the mighty deep.” (April 1974)

Love you and hope that you have a great week and everything.

Love,

Elder Fisher

Missionary Work is Sprinting Forward and Dedication of the Frieberg Temple.

September 10, 2016

Germany this past week was a little bit rainy, but still very good. Germans do not celebrate Labor Day the same day as us, but there is something called “der Tag der Arbeit” which literally translated means the day of work and that is the first of May.  On P-days since we do not have permission to use a car so today we are just going to go and get an ice cream cone today and relax a little bit and get mentally prepared for the week. I am so excited that I can be in the service of the Lord!

The work is not only going forward but it is sprinting forwards! We were so busy this past week we could hardly believe it.  We met with 11 different people and served a few people as well!  We are still working with the two boys that are part of the part member family, they are really good!  This coming week it was also extremely busy. Our area is huge and it could very well be the largest in the mission, looking at a map (mom note: we’re not sure if he means his own teaching area or his mission zone area).

As part of my personal study, I am starting to read Jesus the Christ  in German.

The highlight of the week though was attending the dedication of the Freiberg temple this past weekend. The cultural celebration was on Saturday and was organized by my old mission president, President Kosak, I also saw youth participating in it that were in previous wards I have served in. A young woman from my first Ward on the mission had a saxophone solo during it as well! It was so cool!! Also President Uchtdorf spoke German the whole weekend as well and that was also awesome. At the dedication, Elder Bednar spoke in German as well, because he served in Germany and he has kept his language up all these years too! It was an amazing experience I shall never forget and to see what all this temple meant for the world at that time and I am so grateful to have served a mission at this exact time to see the dedication of the temple in Freiberg!!

(more blogs to see on the dedication of the Frieberg temple: Germany Berlin Mission 2015-2018 (this is the official mission page and has pictures) , The Adventures of Sister Darton--a sister missionary who was in Frieberg, Freiberg Temple Rededication--this is by a senior couple--who included pictures of the cultural celebration and dedication.  

Scripture of the week: 1 Corinthians 13:2 “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”

Quote of the week: D. Todd Christofferson "The perfect, divine expression of fatherhood is our Heavenly Father. His character and attributes include abundant goodness and perfect love."

That is all that I have for the week, I love you and hope that you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Spencer Fisher

Transferred! and thoughts on Bad Bentheim

December 7, 2015

   They done put me in a new area. I have been transferred to Braunschweig in the Hannover stake.  It is a little east of Hannover. The ward has about 130 members and it sounds like the ward is pretty good, too. I have heard that it is one of the best wards to serve in, in the entire mission so that is pretty cool I guess.

   There is not too much that has happened this week but it has been a good week and I will be sending pictures today (mom note: the pictures did not happen but I’m sure they will happen next week—it was probably hectic with packing to move)

   This week we did not visit any place for a conference or anything, but we are spending the day with our district today because one elder is finished with his mission.  When a missionary leaves to go home, they leave on Monday now and they meet with the mission president in Freiberg (where the temple is located) so we are staying with the other elder until tomorrow afternoon.

   What I have loved most about being in Bad Bentheim are a few things, first is that the ward is so small it feels like you are part of the ward and you help everyone too, the other thing is that it is all farmland and a lot of our service projects were farm work and other things of that nature.

   We have shared the new Christmas video with almost every member in the ward.

You asked what the most Christmas-y thing that I have seen this week and the most Christmas-y thing I have seen this week is a Christmas market. I actually got to try shaorma this week and that was really good too.

   The past week I have studied the very first chapters in Alma so that was pretty good. It is always interesting to read about how Alma truly leaves everything to go and preach to the people.  If I had to choose one Christ-like attribute to work on this week it would be humility.

   I was thinking about how you have the sister missionaries in your ward now and how it would be pretty funny if I have an experience like Lindsay Anne had with Elder Dale at BYU-Idaho-- where the sister recognizes me from the pictures at home. (mom note: a family story—we had a missionary serving in our ward for a long time and he got to know the families really well. During this time our daughter was at BYU-Idaho.  After the elder went home, he also attended BYU-Idaho—and ended up in the same class as our daughter—and recognized her from the pictures on our wall.  Elder Dale introduced our daughter to her future husband)

   Scripture for the week Alma 5:12 "And according to his faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold I say unto you that this is all true."

   Quote of the week is "You just had to love him [President Spencer W. Kimball]" President Thomas S. Monson.

   I do not really have too much to say but it has been a really good week.   I love you and pray for you and the rest of the family every day. I hope that you have a great week. Love you.

Love

Elder Spencer 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)