Pictures and a Golden Investigator

Hello Family!

     

    This week was awesome, we had our last zone conference with President Ninnow, we get a new mission President in like 2 days.  It will be cool to see what changes happen with a new mission President, I have no idea what to expect, so, I guess I´ll just have to wait and see haha.

    We worked way hard this week and found a couple of new people to teach, and then we dropped one of them haha.  So, we found one new investigator this week, with TONS of potential investigators.  We also have had a guy that has come to Church every week for the last 2 months, and has been going to institute and stuff.  He has never wanted to meet with the missionaries, but, he wants to meet with us now.  He actually basically asked,"Hey, can I learn the baptism lessons?"  So, he has been reading in the Book of Mormon already and basically knows everything, we just need to make sure he knows everything, we are planning on baptizing him next Saturday.  It was quite a surprise haha.

    We also had a way weird, but super awesome lesson.  It was mostly awesome.  The only reason it was weird was because one of the first things we saw when we came into this guys house was 'Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith' sitting on his table.  His name is Samuel Leavitt, he comes from America, his wife is German.  They got into genealogy really big a little while ago and found out that a bunch of their ancestors are LDS.  So, they started learning all about the Church, I´m not going to lie, I think he knew more about the history of the Church than I did.  He even kinda challenged me on something, he said,"I bet my ancestors were Mormon before your ancestors were Mormon."  I think he might have us beat haha.  He and his wife were really open with everything and they both said that they wanted to learn more, they both said that they had absolutely nothing against the Church.  The wife spoke more bad about her Catholic Church than the LDS Church, and the man has never belonged to a Church.  The man actually stood up in front of a huge committee of just about every church in Europe, he was a translator for this committee, and he asked why the Mormon religion wasn´t part of the committee (The committee was attempting to find a way to join all of their religions into one big religion....kinda weird)  The head of the committee stood up and said they would never do work with our religion because "They don´t believe in the Bible."  Samuel Leavitt then called him out and basically put him in his place haha.  He actually had about 5 stories like that, he says he hates it when people spread lies and most the lies are about our Church so he calls people out on them. 

    So, we were pretty excited to meet with them, we asked for a return appointment and they said the first of August, we asked if we could have one before that since it was like forever away and then we found out they are traveling to America.  They are visiting Carthage, Nauvoo, Winter Quarters, and Salt Lake City haha.  Their family history is basically all in our religion so they decided to plan a trip and check it all out, they know all of the stories to these places already, dates and everything, pretty amazing.  So, we won´t get to meet with them for a long time, but, that´s okay haha.  Pretty cool investigators right?

    That´s just about everything haha,   I´m having a blast in Würzburg, I´m happy and doing great, thanks for all that you guys do!

Elder Collings

To fill a chapel...

Hello Family!

I just had my first week in Würzburg, and I really like it,
it´s not really doing super good right now, but, we can change that
haha.  This area has had some, not so obedient missionaries in it for
over the last year, so the members of the Ward either don´t trust the
missionaries at all, or they invite us over to play with the kids, and
expect us to stay like 5 hours instead of only an hour.  Apparently
some of the other Elders would spend 7 hours with some of the families
just talking and playing with the kids, so, some of the families
really liked the missionaries because they were friendly, but, they
weren´t really working with the family, only hanging out to pass the
time.  So, yeah, there´s a lot of work we can do here.

Even though there´s a lot to do, we´re going to have a lot of
success haha, I can just tell.  Right now we don´t really have a lot
of investigators, but, we are working WAY hard.  In the 4 days I have
been here we have found over 20 potential investigators which is
awesome, and we found this one guy named Abbey who is now an
investigator.  We gave him an introductory lesson, kinda just setting
expectations and stuff; we are now meeting with him three times a
week, and he already said he would get baptized once he felt like it
was good.  We set a goal for him to get this answer in 3 weeks, he
said he believed he can do it, so, we´re basically way excited for
him.

We then stopped by a lady, Frau DeWolf, we saw that she had been
taught a while ago but was super hard to get a hold of, she lived like
2 streets down from Abbey, so we decided to stop by.  She was there,
we shared a spiritual thought and she had some tears come into her
eyes, she said it amazes her how much faith we have.  She apologized
for being so hard to get a hold of and then made a lesson out for us
which was pretty nice haha.

So those 2 people are way cool, but, it´s also way cool because we
have a list of about 6 people that said they want to meet with us, we
just need to find a time.  So, basically Würzburg is ready, we just
have to work way hard, which is how it should be haha.

So, I have no idea how to spell this guys name, but, President
Kapischke (Kuh-Pish-Kuh) the area President, came to Würzburg right
after the last General Conference, he didn´t tell the Bishop or
anything, he just showed up.  He stood up to talk to everyone and he
then made a way cool promise, he said that if all of the Members would
put out the effort and try to share the Gospel, the entire Chapel
would be overflowing within a year.  So, that means in a year they
could have over 200 new people in the chapel.  Elder Chambers and I
were way excited when we heard this, but, the Ward hasn´t taken it to
heart, and nobody has tried to set goals or do anything different.

So, we decided we are going to meet with all the members to get
some goals going, and we  also decided we should prepare ourselves, so
we did something pretty cool.  We actually read this story, an Elder
and His companion had a fast, they fasted to know the things they
should change to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost,
they wrote down everything they were prompted to change, some of them
were big things, other things they thought were silly and dumb, but
then wrote them down anyway.  They then set a goal to never do these
things, and as they did this, they noticed their desires changed, and
well, they basically became super awesome missionaries and had a lot
of miracles haha.  So, Elder Chambers and I set a similar goal, we
know that there are people who are prepared for us.... at least a
chapel full haha, we just have to make sure we are prepared to receive
them, God won´t send his Children to 2 missionaries who are going to
mess up.  So we are preparing ourselves the best we can!

Thanks for everything you do for me, I´m happy and having a blast
in Germany, the German is coming a lot, not perfect, but not getting
worse haha

Elder Collings

Transferred to Würzburg

Hello Family!

   So, this week was way super awesome.  Like I said last week, we dropped like almost all of our investigators because they weren´t progressing, but, we found 2 AMAZING investigators this week.  In 3 days, we taught one of them 3 times.  So, one of them is named Herr.. or Mister Dietrich, he studied and taught the bible for like 30 years.  At one point in his life, he saw the missionaries and spoke to them for a while, and then invited them to teach his class for 30 minutes.  So, we started teaching him, and he was really interested in the Apostasy and how it all happened.  So, we made like, the most amazing apostasy outline I have ever seen in my life (I´m quite proud of it haha) we gave him scripture references and everything.  He was so happy when he saw it, he wanted to start studying it right then (during our lessons he writes almost everything down and then studies it).  He then asked about Doctrine and Covenants, and when he found out what that was he got SO excited.  He was like "So, the Book of Mormon is another book about the Doctrine of Christ, and the Doctrine and Covenants is modern revelation on how the Church should be organized?" We said yeah and explained some things, then he took my Book of Mormon because it has Doctrine and Covenants and he instantly started to read it, he was SO excited, it was like a little kid at Christmas haha.  Then he ended up turning to the Articles of Faith.  He read all of them aloud, and when he saw something he really liked, he would turn around to his wife and read it extra loud 2 or 3 times haha.  At the end of our lesson we invited him to Church and he said "I want to go just to tell them that you two have almost convinced me to change religions".  So, basically Herr Dietrich is super awesome haha.

   Then, we contacted another guy, Erol, on the street.  He´s the guy that we taught 3 times in 3 days.  He is so honest and open.  When he was younger he didn´t want to get baptized into the same church as his family because he didn´t really think it was right.  He ended up getting baptized but he said it didn´t mean anything, he just did it.  Erol really wants to do what is right, when we asked him to pray, he said,"There are so many bad things that are happening in the world, I normally don´t pray because I don´t want to occupy God´s time when others need it.  I don´t really have anything I really need right now, only small things that aren´t too important."  Then, one of the ward members that we had with us, who also teaches Kindergarten, talked about how she loves it when the kids come and ask for help for all the little things.  She said that she wants to help the kids as much as she can, whatever it is, and when they don´t ask for help and she can tell they could use help, it makes her sad.  She then said that´s exactly how our Father in Heaven is.  He wants to help us, He loves us and He wants to help us with everything, what´s important for us is important for Him.  Erol loved it and agreed to pray haha.

    So, Coburg is doing way awesome, unfortunately, I am being transfered to another area.  Elder Johnson is staying in Coburg, and he is training a new Elder.  I am going to Würzburg with Elder Chambers.  Elder Chambers has been out only 6 weeks longer than me, so, we are a pretty young companionship haha.  I was in Würzburg like 4 weeks ago with another Elder, and they had no investigators when I was there, so, we are going to be working really hard so that we can be blessed with success =)

   This week, I also got to give my very first talk in Germany.  I didn´t want to just write everything out and read it.... but, if I wanted to talk about one subject for 10 minutes I kinda had too haha.  I can speak German for 10 minutes, but, my vocabulary isn´t good enough to expound on things.  So, that was fun, I think that I said most of the stuff right, I didn´t see any wierd looks from members, and nobody laughed, so I think it went good haha.  I saved the talk so I can go back later and see how my German has improved.  I wrote a talk in the MTC, which I never ended up having to give, and I wrote it in a small notebook.  My last day in the MTC I decided I didn´t want the notebook, so I put it in a "Free Bin"  someone from my district ended up taking it with them to Germany.  That Elder was in my District this last transfer, so he showed me the notebook and I got to read my first written out talk, it was pretty terrible haha.  It was actually so terrible that it made no sense at all.  And, at the time I was pretty proud of it haha.  So, it´s cool to see how I am learning, even though it doesn´t really seem like I am.

   I´m glad you all had a good time on the vacation.  Germany is way awesome and has TONS of history.  That´s also way cool that you saw Coburg.  It´s way beautiful, I think my favorite part is Markt Platz, that´s the place right down the road from where I live (Probably where you guys were standing when you saw me) with the statue in the middle and all of the buildings around.  It´s way cool, and they have something new there almost every day (last night from 10-1 they had a band playing...really loud) I read that Con-Man and Mom saw me, I will not lie, if you guys were 10 minutes later, I probably would have run into all of you haha.  We were just getting ready to leave and go to a lesson when the Klingel rang haha.

    Anyway, I´m way happy, and having fun in Germany!

Elder Collings

Markt Platz

Steve's apartment

A letter from Steve's trainer

Liebe Familie Collings!

Hi! I'm Elder Mayle, Elder Collings' first companion in the field. I thought I'd write you a letter to let you know how he's doing.

I LOVED working with your son. He is a fantastic missionary, and I'm excited to see how he grows spiritually through his mission (since I'm not much older than him on my mission). He's a really funny guy, and a very hard worker. He was on fire the entire time I was with him. He loves street contacting more than anyone else I've met on the mission. He almost loves it more than he loves Doner. I hope he told you about Doner. And even though he struggled with the language at the beginning, he was fantastic at bearing his testimony at the right time. He always spoke from the heart, and I can tell that he loves Christ and is prepared to serve him for the next year and a half.

In my three months with Elder Collings, I learned a lot, and he claims he's learned a lot from me. I did what I could to be a good example, and rest assured that your son/ brother has been an example to me. I'm training another missionary this transfer, and I'm planning on becoming an even better missionary and applying what I have learned from my former companion.

I know that this Gospel is true, and that only through faith in Christ, repentance, and partaking of the sacrament, and keeping our covenants can we return to live with our Heavenly Father and Brother.

Elder Mayle

Scripture: Doctrine and Covenants 58:2-4

In the news

Hello Family!

    It was another fun week in Germany!  Thanks for the package, we ate everything in like.... 10 minutes haha, and I´m glad I can cut my own hair again, haircuts here are way expensive!  It was also cool to see Tera, I 
haven´t seen her in like forever.  She came at the same time mail normally comes, so I just thought it was going to be another normal guy, when I saw Tera was there I was surprised!

    That´s cool that you guys are traveling all over Europe now that I left the house haha.  What parts of Germany have you visited?  You said it was way beautiful, so you must have not gone up in my first area.  Every city up there was pretty run down and gross haha. I think my favorite town I have seen so far is Würzberg, it´s not a huge town, but it´s got like 5 huge churches and a castle and a river and it looks like something you would see out of an old movie, it´s way awesome.  

   Last week was pretty crazy, we dropped 5 investigators because they were not progressing, and one of our investigators decided he liked his Girlfriend more than the gospel, and she said he can´t meet with us, so we lost him, and he was willing to be baptized as soon as he got an answer that this church was true.  We also had another guy that would´t accept that the Book of Mormon was scripture.  Last week we had like a way awesome lesson with him, talking about Jesus Christ, we used the Bible and the Book of Mormon.  This guy felt the spirit way strong and ended up giving like a 10 minute closing prayer for us.  But, the next time we met with him, as soon as we brought out the Book of Mormon he freaked out and said he wouldn´t accept it as scripture.  We reminded him what he felt last time and that we had used it, but he denied it, he said we only used the Bible because the Bible is the only true word of God.... So, our teaching pool is now quite small.  That´s okay though, because now we have more time to find the people that the Lord has prepared to receive the gospel =)

     This week could end up being my last week in Coburg, I hope it´s not, but, it could be, transfer calls come on Saturday.  The ward here is way awesome.  The entire ward has a goal (Each person individually)  to bring someone with them to Church, member, or nonmember, every Sunday for the rest of this month.  Everyone fasted for it last Sunday, and, two of the families brought people to Church the very first Sunday.  It was cool because one of the Families is like brand new to the Church.  The Mom was baptized 4 months ago, the son about 9 and the daughter almost 2 years.  They brought 2 people with them, and then our Branch President brought someone with them.  Hopefully they got the rest of the ward motivated!  Elder Johnson and I are meeting with every member in the Ward this month (If we both stay) to help them with this goal.

    Anyway, everything is going good, and I am happy.  Enjoy the rest of your vacation!

Elder Collings

I had the opportunity to participate in a Mormon Helping Hands service project.  Here is the Newspaper Article, I don´t think you´ll understand much of it, but it says Elder Collings, and you can understand that haha. 


(Steve is in a red shirt and is in two pictures below.)

Until next week!

 Hello Family!

 So, I know one of the missionaries serving in Tera´s ward, his name is Elder Schwendiman and I was actually in the MTC with him, and he was my first split in Germany.  There is only one Church in between Coburg and Tera´s ward, but there are no missionaries there.  Apparantly there is some apostate stuff that goes on there, so missionaries visit once a month or something like that.  I honestly don´t have any Idea what´s going on down there, but, the missionaries don´t go there.

    This week I had the opportunity to serve from Monday-Thursday with Elder Siebert.  My companion was at a leadership training for the week, so I was in Würzburg for most of the week.  Elder Siebert was born here in Germany, and doesn´t really speak any English, so it was fun.  His area is pretty rough right now, they don´t really have any investigators so it was contacting all day.  Würzberg is actually way awesome, I think over half of the people we talked to were Tourists, which kinda made things hard haha.  There´s a whole bunch of awesome buildings in this town, and it is just super awesome, I can´t really explain it, you´ll just have to go and check it out!  The coolest thing about serving with Elder Siebert was that he could actually understand my German haha.  I could understand most of what he said too, so I was quite happy with the progress I have made in about 6 months =)

    The rest of my week was of course back in Coburg.  We had 15 appointments made out in the little time that we had, but 8 of them fell through, 3 of them yesterday.  it would have been so cool if all of them went through, but, they didn´t, so that´s that haha.  We actually met with this guy yesterday named G2, he has a real name but apparantly it is way super hard to say, so he tells us to just say G2.  This kid is so super busy, he is 22 and going to school out here.  When we went in his appartment he had piles of paper all over the place and he said he hadn´t slept like at all the last month. I don´t really know how to explain it, but, you could just tell he hadn´t slept and he was freaking out about tests and stuff, he was like... wired, he was super jumpy and he would repeat stuff like 50 times, it was kinda crazy.  But, the wierdest thing was when we talked to him about prayer, we found out he has a "God" in his room.  He is Hindu, and his "God" that his Mother gave him is a little porcelien frog that sits on a towel on his shelf... Apparently every now and then, when he feels like it, he prays to his "God"... "But not a lot because I am super busy with school and I don´t have the time to pray to God or anything, but that is my God and when I pray he is the one that I pray to and my Mother gave it to be but I don´t really pray to it much because I don´t pray man, I don´t pray."  We heard that like 50 times.  It´s weird how some people choose to worship something they created. 

    Other than that, we saw a couple of random, cool miracles this week.  The coolest one was we were on a train coming back from Grub Am Forst going to Coburg,  this guy comes into our Cart and says, "Come with me."  We followed him, then like 2 carts later he said "I´m American"  that was nice to know, but I still had no clue what the heck was going on.  Then a couple of carts later he said "I´m a member."  We sat down by  him and his wife, apparently he had served in Coburg 4 years before, and he was coming back to visit because Coburg was his favorite place.  We talked about a lot of random stuff, and then we left to go do some work.  So later that evening we had an appointment at our Church.  When we got there, this couple was there.  Apparantly the Hotel they were going to use doesn´t exist anymore, and Hotels are not too common in Germany, so they remembered we said we had an appointment at 8:00 at the Church, so they had been waiting there for us so they could use the computer.

    They used the computer and were able to find a place to sleep, but as Elder Johnson and I thought about it, they were way blessed to have seen us so that they would know when to go to the Church and find a place to sleep.  Earlier that day, we were in Bad Staffelstein, and we had like 6 minutes before our Train left to Grub Am Forst, we were going to just stay, but, we randomly decided to run and catch the train.  We ran as fast as we could, and it was not fun, I´ll tell you that haha, but, we barely made our train.  And then, the couple was way lucky that they saw us when the train went by because we were back in a small corner checking out other train times for stuff.  So we decided they must be living right... otherwise they would have had to sleep in a park or something like that because there are like no hotels out here.

    Anyway, the work is going good out here, I´m having fun and enjoying it out here.  I actually have a talk in Church on the 12th, so that will be fun haha. 

Bis nächste woche!

Elder Collings