Awesome Week...like all of the others.

Hello Family!

This week was awesome just like all of the others ha ha. We met with one of our Investigators, Victor, he is about 22 years old, 6´4" has a huge mo-hawk which makes him look like he´s over 7´ tall, he has like 20 piercings in each ear, which he did himself, with safety pins, and he wears huge leather boots and chains and he´s basically got the whole punk rocker thing going on. We were surprised to see that in 2 weeks he had read half of the Book of Mormon and he had also prayed for the first time and said he felt real peaceful. We ended up a soft baptismal commitment out of him, he said that if he got an answer about the Book of Mormon, he would be baptized.

We then met with another guy named Paul Bell. He has been meeting with the missionaries for years and never made any progress. He was in the Army and just decided to stay here in Germany because he likes it... sometimes. The previous week we had given him a reading calendar for the Book of Mormon, when we met with him he was actually like 5 days ahead of what we had committed him to read. He said that the Book of Mormon is so interesting that when he reads it he can´t put it down, he wants to read more and more. He then told us some questions that he had... and then he answered them himself ha ha. He said one of the things he had noticed was a lot of the stuff that he had read talked about baptism, he said his first thoughts were we just wanted him to get baptized and he was pretty mad, but then he kept reading and the thought came to him that what he was reading was important. So he really started to pay attention to what he was reading and he realized we gave him these chapters because they really tell about the teachings of Christ. He then brought up baptism and said our Church is really good and he thinks it MIGHT be the Church for him. He is going to come to Church for the first time next week and we are way excited to keep helping him come closer to Christ.

We then met with another guy named Mauricio. Mauricio is about 20, he comes from Columbia and is going to school here in Coburg. Elder Johnson told me that Mauricio wasn´t really interested and in fact he had said at one point that he would never read the Book of Mormon and it was impossible for there to be a Holy Ghost, but, he has a 16 year old friend that seems way interested, but, his 16 year old friend wasn´t there. It was way cool though, we read The Living Christ with him, we then read some scriptures about Christ and kinda skimmed through his life in the scriptures. Right as we started reading some of the scriptures of Christ in the Book of Mormon, we could tell that the spirit was hitting him way strong. We bore testimony of Christ and the Book of Mormon testifying of Him, and then Mauricio was quiet for like 10 minutes, he didn´t say a word. He ended up saying a 10 minute closing prayer which was super awesome and then he even wanted to stay and talk to us for another 20 minutes. He felt the spirit way strong and we are excited to meet with him again, and hopefully he will bring his other friend also ha ha.

And then we had a lesson with Herr Mulack. He loves us so much. He always gives us a TON of food and he´s just super awesome. He lives in a HUGE house and has like 3 cars which is not common in Germany, and he lives a way good life. He had told us once he knows we (Elder Johnson and I) are on the right path because we are always so happy and help him out, and all of these random reasons. He then said he knew he was on the wrong path because his life is like a roller coaster. So, we brought a recent convert with us, she shared her conversion story, she then said the things she had to do to really know the Church was true. We then started reading out of Alma 32 to show how he can develop faith and find out what we are sharing really is true. He then said, "I am going to be honest, I do not want to change anything. I have everything I need, I don´t need anymore cars, I have a wife and kids, I have a nice house, there is absolutely nothing I need." We talked about how he had said he knew he was on the wrong path and he said, "I know I am on the wrong path, you guys have found the right path for you, but that doesn´t mean it is the right path for me." So, he basically didn´t want to change anything, he isn´t willing to read in the Book of Mormon because, "It is too hard to understand" and he won´t come to Church because he just doesn´t want too.

This guy is like so cool though, and he loves us and wants us to come and speak with him more, but, we are supposed to go and teach the people who are ready to accept the gospel, and he told us he isn´t going to change a thing, he just really likes us because we´re good people. It´s weird how some people just won´t do anything. I can´t really explain it, but this guy is such a good guy -one time, he said he wanted to give us a ride home, we weren´t really sure if he could since he wasn´t a member, so we said no, and then in his prayer he said, "Father please allow me to take the missionaries home, and if it isn´t your will let the missionaries know, but if it´s okay, I want to give them a ride." He then said at the end of the prayer, so, can I take you home? We decided it was okay ha ha- and it doesn´t make sense that he can see that what we are sharing is good, he knows that it is right but he won´t try it out because he has everything he needs. So... yeah, that guy is awesome, but, sadly we will only be meeting with him every couple of weeks now to see when he is ready to progress, he actually told us, "You two are not allowed to leave Coburg without coming and talking to me first. I really enjoy speaking with you, so you have to promise." Hopefully later on he realizes he really is missing something in his life and he´ll turn to the Church!

So, things are going way good here in Coburg, I am actually on a 4 day split starting tomorrow, so there will be no missionaries in Coburg for most of the week. We only have 3 days in Coburg, but, we have 15 lessons planned out which is super cool, we are hoping they will all go through!

Happy Birthday, well, unbirthday Dad! I will sing you a lovely song that you will not understand =)

Hura! Geburtstag, Freudentag! (Weird tongue click thingy) Jeder singt mit, weil er dich mag. (Another weird tongue click thingy) Bist gewachsen ein gutes Stück: (I think the last weird tongue click thingy) Zum Geburtstag viel Glück!

That´s awesome that Conman is doing high-jump, do plyometrics, it really helps =) One of the Elders that was in the MTC with me saw that I could touch the rim on a basketball hoop and he asked me what I did to be able to jump so high, so I told him it was plyometrics, he has been doing it ever since I showed him how to do them, he now jumps 7" higher than before and it has only been about 5 months, so you should do it, it really helps! Maybe you can beat my record, I have no idea how high it is, but on my phone, if that is still around in the house, there is a picture of me next to these weird blue things stacked almost to my shoulder. We were doing standing jumps in gym and had a competition and I was able to jump over that, or, you can find Trevor Howard, I jumped over him a couple of times at the Goodworth´s gym ha ha.

So the address for me here in Coburg is Kleinerosengasse 1 94560 which means small rose ally, and my address in Krefeld was Rosenstrasse which meant rose street, which is kinda weird, and I have no idea why I am even telling you that haha. By the way, what is the town Tera is living in? And what ward does she go to?

It´s good to hear everything is going great, I´m doing good out here, I have only spoken German with my companion for 3 weeks now and it has helped a TON, I went on a split with an Elder that was in my District at the MTC. I was surprised to see that he hadn´t really been studying German and he hadn´t really been participating in the lessons so his German had not improved. He could understand a ton more, but he could not speak. So, it motivated me to speak more, I can understand a lot, but, I need to keep speaking so that I can clearly share my thoughts.

Anyway life is great out here and I´m happy.

Elder Collings