Finding Legit People

Hey Family!
    This week was pretty dang awesome just like every other week.
Wolfgang is preparing himself for Baptism, he bore his testimony to us
on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration the other night, he also
told us that he found out his niece is married to a member of our
Church.  He felt comforted knowing that he wasn´t "Alone".   He´s
basically awesome, we are meeting with him every day this week, and
taking him on a temple tour this Saturday, and he also gets to see
someone else's baptism on Saturday and then on Sunday he gets to hear
from President Uchtdorf =)  We´ve got a killed week planned for him
haha.
    We also met an awesome family this week.  Vladamir and his wife (I
can´t pronounce her name) and then they have a one year old daughter
Miya, and the wife is pregnant.  Basically they are progressing super
well.  They invited us over for dinner tonight, we´re hoping by the
end of the week to have a baptismal commitment with them =)  We also
have another lesson planned out with this guy named Veca.  We haven´t
met with him yet, but he also has a wife and several kids.  He seemed
way interested when we talked to him, he showed us where he lived and
called us up yesterday to schedule an appointment, so.... we´re
naturally excited =)
     The work is going well in Offenbach we´re finding legit people
and seeing lots of progress!  I haven´t been sending any pictures
because I haven´t really taken any... Offenbach is a really ugly place
haha, but.... when I take some I´ll send them to ya =)  Thanks for
everything you do, you´re awesome!
 
Elder Collings

Another Baptism

Hello Family!

    Thanks for the package, I live like 10 minutes from the office,
so, they brought it over to me right when it came.  This week was
awesome, we set a baptismal date with Wolfgang.  He is way
super excited.  When we asked him if he wanted to be baptized, he told
us that he definitely wanted to, he said that he thought he had to
do something special before he could be baptized.  He pulled out his
calendar and asked when he could get baptized. We told him whenever he
wanted, so, he picked out November the 12th.  After that he asked to
go and stand in the Baptismal Font.  He stood in there and then looked
around and said, "3 weeks and I´ll be a member of the Chuch of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints."  He was so happy. Right after that,
Pepper called us.  She´s the one that was baptized like 4 weeks ago.
She said she wanted to meet Wolfgang, so she came over to the Church
and talked to him for like 45 minutes.  He told her how he was worried
he wouldn´t be able to give up smoking (He used to smoke a couple of
packs a day, now he only smokes 1 cigarette a day) Pepper told him
that he could easily do it, she told him how she used to smoke
Marijuana with her friends every week and she said that as long as he
read and prayed every day he would be able to stop smoking.  It was
way cool to see them talk to one another.  Pepper also told us that
she´s planning on going on a mission.  She said that every time she
thinks about it, it just feels right, so she scheduled a meeting with
our Branch President to see what she needs to do to prepare to be a
missionary.  It´s so cool seeing how much the gospel has changed both
of their lives.
   Other than that awesome experience, not much happened this week.
It´s starting to get cold... and I hate the cold, so, I guess
we need to find a bunch of investigators so that we teach the entire
winter haha.  The work is going well here, thanks for everything that you

have done for me!  I´m doing awesome and having a blast!

Elder Collings

Preaching to a Preacher

Hello Family!

     Things are going very good in Offenbach.  We have a couple of way
cool investigators that we are excited about, one of them really likes
me so he has bought me a couple of gifts =) We have talked with him a
lot about baptism and we´re pretty sure he will accept the committment
any day now.  He came to a baptism and made so many friends with the
members, it was awesome.  

We also had a way cool experience.  So,basically Elder H and I were 

just walking home from an eating
appointment with our Ward Mission Leader, we were crossing a street,
and I saw this guy walking.  I told Elder H we were going to talk
to him, there was really no reason, I just felt like saying it haha.
We spoke to him, and... basically he is awesome. This guy is a
preacher, he has been to a bunch of places all over the world
preaching stuff.  He told us that he had seen our Church in every
place that he had preached.  We started telling him about our Church,
and he started to get really excited.  He was asking what we did
around here to have success because he wasn´t having any, so, we told
him a few things and then we ended up  telling him about the gospel of
Christ, Faith, Repentence, Baptism, Holy Ghost, and right after we
told him that he just looked at us and yelled, "That´s the way it´s
supposed to BE brother!"  We then took him to the Church, he really
liked it, and then he started asking different questions, "So what
would I need to do to start a ministry for this Mormon Church?"

    We decided to show him the Restoration movie, and we had a lot of
technical problems.  So, I had him read Moroni 10:3-5 while Elder
H tried to fix it up.  I then asked him what he thought about it
and he said something like this, "So what I gotta do is pray to the
almighty one if I really want to know if this holy scripture is true
and then through the divine grace and glory of the holy one´s holy
spirit I will know if this is true."  I figured he understood it
pretty well, so then I told him that if he was really a christian, and
if he really beleived in Christ, if he read a certain Chapter in the
Book of Mormon and prayed about it, he would know it was holy
scripture.  So, I had him read 3 Nephi 11.  After that he was so loud,
he went on about how it had to come from God because it spoke so much
about Jesus.  Then, we got the movie working.  At the end of the
movie, he was so happy, he yelled and hollerd some pretty funny stuff,
but, I can´t really remember it all.  Then at the end, I told him that
we wouldn´t be the ones teaching him, we teach the German speaking
people in Offenbach, and there are 2 sisters who teach the English
speaking people.  So, I asked him if he wanted to talk to them right
now.  He said yes.  I called them up and explained what had just
happened, so, they talked to him.  He asked them what he had to do to
get baptized in this Church, when they could meet so he could learn
everything in the Book of Mormon, and how long it would take before he
could go and start his ministry in Africa somewhere haha.  He kept
yelling, "Those African people are RELIGIOUS!  They breathe Faith!
They walk by Faith!  They basically are faith!"

    Then, while we were walking home, he showed us a video of him in
Honduras preaching.  He was preaching about dispensations of all
things.  He said, "These people didn´t know that a dispensation is
when a prophet is on the Earth!"  Then I reminded him that there are
prophets on the Earth right now.  And then I told him he was living in
a dispensation.  Then he yelled, "I KNOW brotha!  The last
dispensation!"
    So, this guy is basically way cool, but...... We won´t be teaching
him haha.  Other than that, this week was pretty normal.  But, things
are going well, I´m happy and enjoying the work!

Elder Collings

Just rocking the mission

Hello Family!   

      This week was pretty dang awesome.  Our Baptismal date with Steffan fell out, not because we doesn´t want to get baptized or anything, but, because he got in a car wreck.... But, he still wants to be baptized, we just need to meet with him, so, yeah that´s on hold.  Then our other Baptismal date, Sister K, has been sick the last week.  She hates taking medicine, so, when she got sick, she didn´t take her pills.  Then, she got sicker, so they gave her other pills...and she didn´t want to take those either... now she´s really sick and decided she better take these pills that they gave her.  So.... we haven´t met with her this last week either haha.  She´s like way old, and not doing too well with health.... we need her to get better so we can meet with her and let her see why she should get baptized now instead of waiting.... but, can´t do much about that yet haha.  Norbert is doing good.  He wants to get baptized still and believes our Church is true.  We also had a couple of termines with this guy named Wolfgang.  He has had a bunch of spiritual experiences and has talked to us a bunch about baptism.  Basically he already believes everything is true, he just wants to get a spiritual confirmation through a personal prayer.  He said that all of his spiritual experiences have been with us, he wants to have one of them alone before he sets a fest date.  He´s doing way good, and has met a bunch of people in the Ward.  He has come to Church the last 2 weeks and told us he plans on coming back.  The other person we are way excited about is Rilana.  She prayed about the Book of Mormon and said she knows it´s true, we made out a meeting... and then she got sick haha.  So..... we´re waiting for her to get better.

    Other than that, nothing has really changed. (I've cut out this paragraph, Steve is really struggling with his companion, I don't want to publish the problems, but prayers in his direction would be appreciated.)

    Although that is difficult, I am happy and doing well.  We are still seeing miracles out here, especially in our zone.  Our zone set 5 baptismal dates last week and is basically just rocking the mission.  Thanks for all that you do!

 

Elder Collings

A week of miracles

Hello Family!

    Well, this week was probably the legitest week so far since I got out here, and I´m not even joking.  Basically this week was awesome =)  And basically, I have nothing but good to write.  I don´t really know where to start, but, I guess I´ll start out with a story; so, basically Elder H is the worst bike rider I have ever seen in my life.  From the very first week I told him he shouldn´t ride in the middle of the road because it makes people mad, and I told him he shouldn´t ride in the middle of the road going the wrong way on a one way street.  But, Elder H is one of those people that just really doesn´t have a care in the world, so, he did it anyway.  He almost got hit by 2 cars, and this week... He did get hit by a car.  It was on that one way street that I always told him not to ride in the road on.  Another car turned onto the one way street, they only looked to the right to see if another car was coming, there was nobody there, so, they pulled out onto the road right as Elder H rode in front of them.  Elder H was perfectly fine, but, he scratched up the car a lot and put a couple of little dents in it.  The worst news about it was that the car he hit was a brand new Jaguar, they are even more expensive in Germany.  Elder H was 100% at fault and our President isn´t sure if our insurance covers that accident, so......He might be paying for it.  The guy took it to a shop already, and the estimated cost is 2,000€-2,500€.  I tried to warn him before, he just never listened.

    Anyway, this week was not super awesome because my companion got hit by a car, it was super awesome because we set 2 more baptismal dates =)  The first one was with that lady that I found in the contacts list on the phone.  Basically I called all of the people we didn´t know and she said she wanted to meet with us and be baptized.  We met with her for the first time, she´s way legit, she already planned out her baptism and sent geneology work into the temple to get her parents sealed together, and she wants to be sealed to her family.  The only thing, is that she is 84 years old and not in the best of health.  She wants to tell her entire family in person that she is joining our Church, but, she won´t be meeting with them until Christmas.  So, he baptism is scheduled for January.  We don´t even know if she is going to live that long haha.  So, we are meeting with her and seeing if he can help her decide to do it a little faster, but, she will get baptized either way =)

    The next guy that we set a baptismal date with was actually this morning... about 4 hours ago.  We found him by going through the area book of old investigators and calling everyone up to see who had interest.  The missionaries stopped meeting with him because he was really busy all the time.  He never lost interest.  When the missionaries stopped meeting with him, he started investigating other Churches.... when he investigated one religion, for some reason they thought that he worked for the NSA.  He said that he didn´t, they didn´t beleive him, so they hooked him up to a lie detector haha.  That obviously didn´t go down well with him, so, he stopped investigating them and said he was going to sue them, but, they forked over 800€ instead so now he just sends anit-information against that religion to everyone he knows (He asked us to give some of the information to President Monson haha)  He wasn´t really a super legit investigator, but, he came to General Conference, felt the spirit, and now he wants to be baptized.  He asked a ton of questions this morning, and he is 100% okay with everything, except, he is worried about tithing.  He said that he is in debt right now and that he doesn´t have a lot of money... if any.  And the economy in Germany isn´t looking too good.  He said he wants to join our Church really bad, but, he doesn´t want to join it if he can´t keep a sacred commandment.  So he said if he can´t afford to pay tithing he would rather not get baptized, so that he can still be good friends with the Church... Obviously there´s a little misunderstanding in here, but, we´ll help him overcome his concern and he said that for now the date we set for him is good =)

    We also had 2 other miracles happen.  We had 2 lessons fall through one night (Same night Elder H ended up getting hit)  As we walked outside of the Church from the second missed appointment, we contacted this guy right outside of the Church.  We invited him inside.  We showed him the Church and he loved it.  We showed him the Restoration and he felt the spirit.  He wants to find out if what we are sharing is true, and he said he wants it to be true.  He came to General Conference and loved it.  He has read in the Book of Mormon and said that it always makes him feel good when he reads.  He is basically way legit, we meet with him tonight, and we are planning on setting another baptismal date =)

    At conference one of our members, Sister Höch brought her neice along.   (Sister Höch has a way cool conversion story, she saw an angel!)  Anyway, basically Sister Höch is the most missionary minded member I have ever seen.  She brought her Neice with, her neice really enjoyed conference and felt the spirit.  She told me she believes that our Church is true, she has been reading in the Book of Mormon regularly for the last couple of weeks and praying with her Aunt.  We invited her to pray alone to know if the Book of Mormon is true, and we are planning on also inviting her to baptism very soon =)

    Things are definitely going well in Offenbach, I´ve never seen so much success.  We had a zone conference not too long ago, and President Schwartz showed about 4 different prophecies of Germany.  All of them basically said that the day will come when Germany will be opened up to the Gospel, and a work greater than any other on the planet will go forth.  President Schwartz said the time is now.  Basically 3 weeks ago our entire mission had a total of 20 baptismal dates, as of today, our zone alone (There are 6 zones) has 14 baptismal dates!  The other zones haven´t exploded in the same way, but, they will =)  Everyone said Germany was a tough mission before I came out here, but.... I am still seeing a lot of success, I think people are just coming out with the wrong expectations in mind.  Ever since I decided to look for Baptisms instead of just a good street contact, we are finding baptisms, and that seems to be the same story with the other Elders here in the zone.

    Everything is going awesome, I´m excited for this next transfer, just like every transfer haha.  Hopefully I can write so many success stories every week, and hopefully next week I can write about some more baptisms =)  And by the way, you should pray for our baptismal dates:  Sister Koch, Steffen, Brother Hoffmann.  And we actually had to delay Steffen´s baptismal date because he got in a car wreck....... but he´s okay and still wants to be baptized =)

 

Elder Collings