December 3, 2012

Hello Family!

    This was a pretty cool week, so, I think I already told you I wasn´t going to be able to work in Bamberg like at all during the week because I need to go on so many splits, well.... those Elders  called and said that they were sick the day of our split, so I had a lot of time to work in Bamberg!  It was way awesome, we have been seeing tons of Miracles here, we are teaching about 8 students now at the University, we´re teaching someone from Mexico, Slovakia, Canada, America, India and Camaroon, and then some Germans of course.  We´re hoping to get them all to institute this week (Normally only 2 people come to institute, so it would be super having more investigators than members haha)  

    I got to work with some Elders in Bayreuth this week, that area is the closest area to where Tera lives other than her Church, and it has been closed most of my mission because of some apostasy stuff haha.  The Elders that are working there now are way super awesome, we had so much success in a little time.  We were at some student apartments knocking on doors, and in less than an hour, we got 7 numbers, made out about 3 appointments and even taught one guy for about 20 minutes.  Basically things are going super here =)

   Anyway, we´ll still be able to talk on Christmas, I´m excited, hopefully you can understand me this time!  Thanks for everything!

Elder Collings

November 26, 2012

Hello Family!

    So, I´m in the new Distrikt now, and I´m pretty excited.  We are already up to a super great start.  I got there Thursday evening, and Elder M and his old companion had had a rough week.  They had only taught 2 lessons.  We worked way hard the last couple of days of the week, and we found 4 new investigators, taught 8 lessons and even set up about 10 lessons for this coming week.  We were so blessed, we turned this place around in just 3 days haha.  There is a family that has been taught for the last year or so, the husband was baptized a year ago, and the wife and 4 kids haven´t cared too much about the Church.  Apparently the last couple of weeks, the family has really started making progress.  The wife and her daughter came to church on Sunday and really enjoyed it, they stayed for all 3 hours.  We should be meeting with them a couple of times this week, we´ll see if we can get them baptized before I leave =)

    The Distrikt is really cool, there are a lot of young Elders.  One of them is Elder G, as I was in Düsseldorf, he was in the Stake and came to institute every week, so I had gotten to know him way good, in the picture, he´s the guy that has his arm around me and looks a little creepy.  It was just a bad picture though haha, he´s a way awesome guy.  All of the Elders seem excited to work and get stuff done, they just don´t really know how.  Most of them don´t have any investigators.  One companionship doesn´t really want to do anything, and they apparently stay inside most of the time.  I tried to make a split with them, and they said they didn´t want to.  So.... we´ll probably have to be the mean guys and surprise them at the door for a split (they´re serving in my old area of Würzburg so I know that place good haha)  So there are a few problems, but not too many.

    I´m doing way good actually, I´m like super bummed to leave Düsseldorf still, but I have a lot of stuff to do here in Bamberg.  I will basically never be home, President has asked me to work a lot with the other Missionaries, so I am actually going to be on splits 4 of the days of the week, and then the other 3 days I am working here in Bamberg.  Hopefully we can help the others see some sweet success too! 

    Anyway, everything is going super duper, I´m happy and excited!  Thanks for everything that you do!

Elder Collings

November 19, 2012

 I got transfered =(  haha.  Sadly, it happened, but.... it happens haha.  I´m going down to Bamberg, that´s over by where Tera lives.  President said he had a special assignment for my last transfer, it will be tough haha.  So, President said it has become "cool" to be trunky in this District.  Trunky basically means they are unmotivated and distracted.  So, President combined 2 Districts and another Area into one super huge district.  So, my district has Bamberg, Schweinfurt, Coburg, Würzburg and Bayreuth.  President said I should have a lot of travel time, and I should help the missionaries to get focused again.  It will be fun.

    I´m basically super sad to be leaving, we had a super week to end the transfer.  We taught 16 lessons, found 6 new people, and had 6 people come to church.  It was hard giving my testimony on Sunday, I just had so many feelings come up haha, it was more emotional than my farewell... I didn´t really feel anything then haha.  But anyway, that´s just kinda how it is haha.

    So the place I´m going to isn´t nearly as big as Düsseldorf, so, I´m going to take out some money and buy a nice suit, mine are 100% destroyed.  It will actually be cheap compared to America, less than $ 200 but, if that´s okay, I´m going to do it while I have some stores to do it.  Things are going super, thanks for everything!

Elder Collings

November 12, 2012

Hey Family!

    I´m doing super good!  This week we were basically all over the place, but, we had a great week.  We ended it off even better, we found a Romanian Family of 10!  We´re bringing all of them to the Church this evening.  So, this is the last week of the Transfer, we get the Transfer Calls on Saturday.  If I stay, that means Düsseldorf is my last area, (I really hope I stay) I only have one more transfer to go.  This Ward is just so awesome, we got a call from one of the members Friday morning, she asked where our address was, and she came and gave us 3 bags full of food!  There wasn´t any special reason, she just decided to do it.  We also got invited by a couple of other members to come and teach their friends, and on Sunday, we taught one of the friends of a member.  Isn´t that just awesome?

    So, we have been praying for this lady named Heidi S for the last 2 weeks, we fasted for her too.  The member has been talking a lot with her about the Gospel, and she said that she would come to church that day.  The member said her friend is really shy, and really closed up with her feelings.  She wanted us to all pray way hard that her friend would feel the Spirit.  The friend came for all 3 hours, and every topic that was spoken about was just perfect for her.  Everything was about learning to follow the Spirit, or how to feel the Spirit, or preparing ourselves so that we can feel the Spirit.  When we met with her after the meetings, she said that she loved everything, and even believed it was all true.  We taught her about the Restoration, and what that meant, and then we sang her the song, Oh how lovely was the Morning.  Afterward, this lady asked us if we would give her a blessing to help her find God, and know what to do.  She asked me to give her a blessing, and when it was done, she just sat there and said, she felt wonderful.  She said she felt super good and peaceful.  After that, the other member (Not the friend, the guy we brought along) said that he had been going through some health problems the last while, and asked us to give him a blessing of the sick.  So, this lady got a blessing of comfort and counsel, and she also saw a blessing of the sick.  It was basically a super lesson =)  

    So, things are going super awesome, I get to say goodbye to my MTC group this week, they are all leaving me =(  But I´m super excited for this coming week!  Thanks for everything.

Elder Collings

November 5, 2012

  Hey Family!
        So, I kinda gotta keep this like super duper short, only have about 10 minutes!  Anyway, we had a super week and got to visit most of the Distrikt Meetings in the Zone.  I was way super impressed with how amazing the Missionaries of this zone are.  They are doing their best and helping so many people.  We had a super amazing day at Church.  The Ward was in a way super good mood, and there was a constant flow of people to give their testimonies.  After the meeting, our Bishop asked if he could meet with us really quick.  We met with him, and he gave us 10 names of inactive members he wants us to start working with.  We´ve been asking for that stuff since I got here, and we finally got it! 
    I´m doing like super great, and I get to go back to Frankfurt this week, and to Aachen, and to Köln.  I´ll be going everywhere again, so this will basically fly by like all of the others haha.  Thanks for everything you do for me!
Elder Collings

October 29, 2012

Man, this week just flew by!  So, this week we had Zone Conference, and 4 Splits and a Church activity, it went by in the Blink of an eye.  So, I guess I can just start out with Monday evening.  We had made out an appointment with a chinese girl for monday night, I had spoken with her a little about the restoration, and she was interested enough to make out an appointment.  We showed up to the appointment, and it started out okay and everything, but...... then she got like way super creepy.  She talked about this temple that she visits, and the people, "Can see you behind!  And not just your behind, they can see your everything!"  I actually laughed when she said that, and told her that sounds a little revealing haha.  She talked a lot about the end of the world, and out of body experiences, and evil spirits haunting her, and she invited us to come to her temple to experience it all... so, great way to start the week... but, after that, we prayed with her, and started walking away, and we ran into President Schwartz and Elder Schütze from the 70.  We got to speak with them for a while, it was way awesome.

    The next day we had Zone Conference, and Elder Schütze took a liking to using me as an example for everything haha.  But, he spoke a lot about how the Missionaries need to help the Members to find people to teach.  At this point, in our Mission we rarely ever get referrals from members, I think I have only gotten a couple since I have been in germany, so he told us we need to share stories of success that the members can accomplish too.  He said, it is always great to talk about the miracle contact on the street, but, if we talk about the conversation on the bus where you got a number, and they later became an investigator, the members can relate to it more and be moved to do it themselves.  I thought it was a great thing to bring up, because most of the missionaries don´t talk to people in the Buses anyway haha, when I go on splits, the missionaries seem astonished when I just have a conversation with the person I´m sitting next to.  Hopefully that will get the Members more involved, and the missionaries more excited!

    So, I kinda need to tell ya´ll something.  You´re probably wondering why i´m taking so long to send in my application to BYU, and why i´m procrastinating.  Well, i´ve actually had everything done for over a month, but, I keep having thoughts about coming back to Germany to study.  I personally wouldn´t think twice about studying here, because the people are nicer in America, living conditions are better, jobs are easier to find, the schooling is better, and the weather is much nicer haha, but I just keep having these thoughts come up that I should study here.  So...... I´m still praying about it and everything, but could you possibly help me find out what opportunities there are to study in Germany?  Probably a big shock, but, I gotta say it eventually =D

    Anyway, now that I got that out in the air, can I just say this Ward is super amazing, i´ve never felt so welcomed, or loved.  Members invite me to sit next to them now, they bring us food, and every week they invite us over.  The ward has really opened up to us.  We had a member come up to us on Sunday after Stake Conference, she said that she had been praying and had a very strong feeling that we should start teaching her husband the missionary lessons.  Her husband has always been against the Church, it took her 20 years to get baptized because of him!  But, she feels that his heart has been softened, and she is going to invite us over next week to share out testimonies of the Book of Mormon.  This same member also told her friend about how much missionaries had helped her, so her friend asked if we could come and teach her what we believed, and give her a priesthood blessing.  We then had another member call us up and said they hand a friend from Sri Lanka that wants to learn more, and we had another friend ask us if we could give a church tour to about 30 of his friends on the 18th of November (Happy birthday KK =D  )  Isn´t that incredible?  I´ve never had so many referrals from Members haha.

    This week I was on a split with a brand new Elder, I told him we were going to go and work on the University.  We have a member who is studying there, so I had planned on going by on her, praying with her real quick, and then do some work in the student houses by her.  When we got the the door, I told him that it was a potential investigator  that understands English.  He started to talk to her, and then I saw an actual Potential Investigator that was in Utah for a foreign exchange thing, she visited church every week, and wanted to learn more.  I started to talk to her, and I heard the Elder speaking, "I´m missionary from the Mormon church, and I talk about the book of Mormon, ever heard of that?"  She told him she had read the entire thing, the Elder got pretty excited and asked if she wanted to maybe learn more, and she told him she was already baptized and invited him in.  He was way super confused and didn´t know what was going on, but he turned to me and told me she wanted us to go up and teach her more haha.   We prayed with her, and ended up finding 3 people that had been in America on foreign exchange and met the church, and we made out a couple of awesome appointments, we got a total of 3 new investigators so far.  

    Anway, i´m doing well, it was pretty strange going to the testimony meeting and seeing all of my MTC group give their last testimony, i´m the only one that extended.  Things are going great though, and I´m loving the work!

    Thanks for all of your love and support, and thanks for the Present!

Elder Collings

October 22, 2012

  Hey!  We had a super amazing week!  This week, we got to do the zone training meeting again, I feel like i´m always at some sort of meeting haha, but, it went way super good!  In our zone, we have a TON of super young missionaries, 11 of the 22 missionaries have been out 3 months or less!  I think this zone gets blessed with all of the best missionaries too =)  Every single one of them is a good example, and a leader.  We focused on the things that were taught at MLC a couple of weeks ago, finding people to teach, working with members, and using Preach my Gospel.  We asigned (I´ve tried to spell that word like 5 times, and it always looks wrong...whatever) some Elders to teach us these concepts, and to lead us in Role Plays, we divided into four groups and had workshops, and then all came together and discussed it with a testimony meeting.  It went amazing.  At the end, everyone was openly sharing their Testimony, and it was all on things that they had just learned at the meeting.  I´m proud of how far this zone has come haha.

        We got to hear from President Monson again this week.  He was visiting Frankfurt, and they sent everything through satellite to us to watch.  We filled up the entire Church,  almost every room was full.  It was great to see so many Saints come to see the Prophet.  Sadly none of our Investigators came!  We had 4 Families say that they would be coming no matter what, but, they didn´t come at all.  That sure is annoying.  

        Our Mission is getting pounded by general authorities, on Tuesday, so, tomorrow, we have our Zone Conference (See what I mean about always having meetings?) and Elder Manfred Schütze  from the 70 is coming to speak to us.  I´m way super excited, I get to sit up on the stand with him =)  I´m pretty giddy haha.  Normally we know what is going on for Zone Conference, and we plan a portion of it with President Schwartz, however, Elder Schütze is just doing his own thing, and nobody knows what to expect!  So, i´m excited!

       I´m doing super great, thanks for all of your love and support!

Elder Collings

October 15, 2012

This was a super crazy week, I don´t even know where to begin.  Anyway, it was transfers, so, a bunch of Missionaries went home.  I knew most of them from the MTC (They are a group older than me) so we went ahead and had a sleep over haha.  There were 2 Elders from the MTC over, and Elder Johnson.  It was crazy seeing them go, Elder Bullard, one of the ones that left, was in my first District while I was in Krefeld, and Elder Johnson was my second comp.  Guess I´m just getting old.
   We also got to go and see President Monson in Hamburg.  We filled up a small sport stadium, someone said there was 5,000 people there, I don´t think there was that much, but, there was definately a lot haha.  At the end of Presidents´ talk, he took time to play with the little kids that came running up to him, and he even gave a couple of them blessings.  He gave a blessing to the Daughter of a less active member in our ward.  The member came to Church yesterday, and said that was the best day of her life.  She couldn´t understand the blessing, but she could feel it. 
        Anyway, things are going great, President Monson is in Germany for the rest of the week, so we should receive extra blessings from him =)  Thanks for everything!
Elder Collings

October 8, 2012

    Well, it´s official, my shoes are dead haha.  I´ve repaired them 3 times now, but, this time when I went to see how much it would cost to get them repaired they told me 70€, there were big tears in the leather, and the sole was falling off of one of them, and the top leather  part that holds it together was tearing off of both of them, so, I guess I say Tschüß haha.
    We had a super week, I found out I still get to stay in Düsseldorf, and I´ll be staying with Elder Ripplinger.  This is my 2nd to last transfer, so, hopefully I´ll get to stay until the end =)  We were expecting about 10 people to come to General Conference this week, if there was ever a week for our investigators to come to church, it was this week, we had meetings Saturday at 6 p.m. Sunday at 11, 2 and 6.  Only one ended up coming, so, I was way disappointed, but what was taught was super amazing! =)
    I got to go to Friedrichsdorf for the Leadership council, and the stake was having a choir practice, and a bunch of the Offenbach members were there!  I got to speak with a bunch of them, it was awesome.  They have really turned around out there, I don´t know if you remember, but, 8 months ago I asked them if they would just greet people a little more during a Ward Council, and they all freaked out for like 30 minutes and it was a terrible memory haha.  Well, now they have set goals for everyone to feel welcome in the Ward, and they are also having a 4 Month fast for the Missionary work.  They have been blessed with 4 Baptisms in the Ward since then, and Pepper (The girl we baptized) is a ward missionary now going on Joint Teaches every week.  She is also preparing to go and serve a mission =)  I got to call her up and talk to her for a while also.  I took the phone from the Offenbach Elders and called up some of the old investigators that I met with, Wolfgang  was the only one that answered, he isn´t doing good, he has cancer and isn´t happy.  I asked him if he still wanted to come to Church and be baptized, he said he did, but he was nervous to come back after being gone so long, and he also apparently looks creepy, his teeth have fallen out, his medicine gave him a massive rash on his face that left some scars.  Anyway, it was good to speak with him.
    Things are going great out here, we went ahead and planned out street displays for the next 2 months.  We want to get the Ward more involved in the Missionary Work, and that will be a great way to do it!  We also planned out everything we are going to have to do in the next 6 weeks, and I think we actually have a little less than what we had last transfer haha.  We only have 11 Splits instead of 12, and only 1 trip to Frankfurt instead of 2.  Basically the coolest thing that will be happening though, is this coming Saturday; President Monson is coming to visit Germany, and we got permission to leave the Mission, ride to Hamburg and hear him speak.  I´m way super stoked!
    Anywho, that´s basically everything!  Thanks for everything, have a super week!
Elder Collings

October 1, 2012

Things are going super great!  So... I didn´t realize this until earlier this week, but my birthday is on a Saturday.  We decided we are going to baptized someone on my birthday haha.  We Challenged 5 of our investigators so far to be baptized on that day, and all of them are working towards it.  The only problem is that they don´t come to Church, but, this week 3 of them came!  The Abagiu family from Romania made it to church and they loved it.  They said that they are excited to come back next week =)  That would be the best birthday present ever haha.

    Anyway, this week we worked way super hard throughout the entire week and didn´t really see much success, until Sunday.  On Sunday, we had the Abagius come to Church, and we also met with 3 new investigators, Janna, Laurent and Achmed.  Janna is from Spain, Laurent is from Camaroon and Achmed is from Israel.  They are all way super awesome, Janna is looking for faith, she lost it, Laurent feels lost in Germany because nobody has high standards, and Achmed no longer believes in God. They are all looking for something, and we can totally give them some answers =)

    This week I also got to work with some missionaries that have been having a hard time.  The missionaries are working in Mönchengladbach (That is where my first split was in Germany)  Elder M is going home next week, and Elder W is just a stud of a missionary.  The Goal of the split was to get some people for them to teach, and show Elder W that he can have success in his own town.  I got to work with him, and we taught 2 people on the street, made out 4 other appointments and got 5 numbers from people, it was such a miracle.  We found some super legit people, and I´m excited to see how it goes with them.

    Other than that, things are just going fine!  Thanks for all of your love and support!

Elder Collings

Sept 23, 2012

Hey!  This week was basically a crazy roller coaster week.  We started the week out with tons of super legit investigators, and all of them were making good progress, and we ended the week with only a few investigators, crazy how often that happens haha.  So.... basically we are almost starting off from scratch, we are only teaching 2 families right now, luckily they are both way super awesome and already invited me to spend Christmas with them haha. 
    The people we are teaching are the Abagius from Romania, and the Mensahs from Ghana.  Basically both of these families believe everything we say.  They take it in as the truth.  Whenever the do have a small problem, like with the Word of Wisdom, all we have to do is ask if they believe in Joseph Smith.  We then tell them, Joseph Smith revealed this, so if you believe in Joseph Smith and that he was called of God, you can believe that staying away from Coffee will bless you.  And then they agree.  The only trouble that we have with them both, is getting them to church.  Hopefully we can get them coming soon! =)
    I set a goal this week, I decided I wanted to know the scriptures better, so, I set a goal to memorize 2 scriptures a day, but, I found myself memorizing 3 a day, and today I memorized 4.  I have been memorizing all of the Scriptures in the Preach my Gospel Lessons that they have you study to understand the lessons better.  Hopefully I don´t get lazy and I keep it up haha. 
   Anyway, this week was basically a normal week working hard and stuff.  Anyway, that´s basically everything, have a great week and thanks for everything!
Elder Collings

September 9, 2012

This week was super awesome.  It was actually way crazy busy too, I was all over the Mission haha.  I was in Frankfurt, Dortmund, Bergisch Gladbach, Köln, Wuppertal and Solingen.  We had a couple of conferences with President and also a few splits.  We also had a huge street display in Bergisch Gladbach.  We´ve been organizing it with the Stake for the last 2 months, it didn´t end up how we wanted it (We wanted a huge Projector showing movies, or Mormon messages) but, we were able to still bring a TV and have some movies play, and also get a bunch of pictures up.  We gave out over 50 copies of the Book of Mormon in 5 languages and hundreds of other material.  The Elders in that area got 15 new people that want to learn more, and we also found an inactive member that wants to meet with them.  It ended up going way good.
    Other than that, I´m super tired haha, I almost fell asleep in Church like 10 times, I think I need to get to bed on time, I tend to talk too long on the phone with the other missionaries, so 10:30 comes by and we still have reports to fill out.  But, things are going great =)  We´ve been doing this new workout an Elder Brought from home.  They call it the P90x Ab Ripper, I don´t know if that´s just a funny name, or if that´s what it´s really called, but whatever it is, I like it haha.  Basically I´ll have washboard abs pretty soon =P  Elder R and I have been trying to be more healthy, I love my junk food, and my workouts lately have either been going and dribbling a basketball, or sitting on the floor and shooting a basketball haha.  We decided to get something more effective.
    I´m doing super good, and I am excited for this next week, this week I´ll have another companion.  His name is Greg W, he is from Speyer.  Out here, a lot of the people who have gone on missions do "Mini missions".  They call up President and ask if they can serve a mini mission for a week.  This guy called up, and president said he could come and work with us for a week, it´ll be cool to work with him.
    Well, that´s basically it, well not really, thousands of stuff happen, I´m just really lazy with writing it all down haha. Thanks for everything that you do for me!
Elder Collings

September 3, 2012

Hey!  Sorry, I have to kinda keep this one short, we have a bunch of Reports that we need to send to President Schwartz and the Stake Presidents.  I got my new companion, his name is Elder R.  He has been out as long as I had been out when I got here, so, I have been out 4 transfers longer than him.  He´s basically a stud and it´s a blast to work with him.  Elder H was way sad to leave, I think in the end I brought out the good side of him, I sent you a picture of it =)  I don´t know why all of my companions have been so weird haha.  Anyway, Elder H was the most serious person I´ve ever met, so I am very proud of that picture.
    Anyway, we had a miracle happen this week!  We have been teaching these 2 brother from Africa, Steven and Boateng.  They have been making good progress, anyway, last week Boateng cut his thumb at work.  It wasn´t anything way bad, but, it was a decent cut.  We didn´t think much about it.  2 Days later, we came by, and his thumb had swollen to like the size of his wrist!  The skin looked really weird, and cracked, and he was in a ton of pain.  He hadn´t left his bed in 2 days, except to see the doctor once.  We took the opportunity to teach him about the Priesthood and about blessings.  He asked if we would give him one, and so we did.  The next day we called up, and he said his thumb was fine!  He was going around and doing all of his normal things!  We haven´t had a chance to go and see him yet, but we have talked with him and his 2 brothers and they all say his thumb healed overnight.  The Church is true haha.
    So, things are going great, this week I will be working in Frankfurt, Köln, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Duisburg and Düsseldorf haha.  We have a HUGE street Display planned out in Köln.  All the 22 missionaries of our zone will be there, we´ll have a street display with computers and a projector.  The members will be there too.  We´ll do that for about 3 hours, and then every missionary is going to go on a split with a member and work with the member in the city for 4 hours.  The stake president said he wants to do something like that once every month!  I´m way excited to see how that goes.
    Thanks for all of your love and support =)
Elder Collings

August 27, 2012

Hey!  I´m staying in Düsseldorf =)  Elder H is getting transferred, and I get to train another Zone Leader.  Things have been going great out here, we had a ward barbecue, and we got 3 of our investigators to come.  They enjoyed it so much, they all came to Church for the first time!  We also had a kid (he´s 14) just randomly show up with his father.  The dad visited our church 40 years ago, but didn´t really like it.  His son is really interested in religion, so the father said he should come check our church out.  The kid had a blast and wants to come back again!  It was a way good way to end the week, especially since the middle of the week was pretty rough haha.
       Anyway, I´m excited to stay here and keep working hard!  Thanks for everything!
Elder Collings

August 20, 2012

    Alrighty, it was another great week, and now it´s the last week of the transfer!  Man, they go by way fast, and it just hit me that I only have 3 of them left!  Never really thought about that until we visited a district meeting this week, one of the Elders made the comment that Elder H and I were the oldest companionship in the Zone, I didn´t believe it, but... it´s true haha, I´m kinda old on my mission, whatever. 
      I actually got to have the opportunity to work with a New Missionary, this elder is such a stud.  We went out and had more success in one day than they had had in an entire week.  We found lots of new people, taught a bunch of lessons, and gave out about 15 copies of the Book of Mormon.  It was super amazing.
    I don´t know if I ever told you about Bettine, but, Elder H and I talked to her on the street about 4 months ago.  When we talked to her, she told us she was atheist.  We bore testimony and did the whole missionary thing, and she agreed to meet up with us.  We taught her a couple of times, and then gave her to the Sisters because it is so hard for us to find members to come teach with us (can´t meet with women alone).  Anyway, she believes in God now, she´s been coming to Church every week for the last 2 months, and now she´s a super awesome member!  We are actually planning a fireside where converts share their testimonies, and stories of how they met the Church, and she said she would love to take some time to share her story.
    Well, I´m excited to see what happens for transfers!  I´ve been here about 5 months, Elder H has been here about 4, there´s no knowing what will happen haha.
Thanks for everything!
Elder Collings

August 13, 2012

      I was way super excited this week because we were able to go to the temple and have  HUGE leadership council with president Schwartz.  He invited all of the District Leaders also to come.   President asked each zone to take 10 minutes to talk about what the zone has done to meet the goals of the mission, and what the plans are for the future. 
     Other than that, everything was super legit!  I just finished reading the Book of Mormon in German, I can understand about 97% of the words, and I think I know the German scriptures better than the English scriptures haha. I have actually only been studying in German since I served with Elder S.  President said most of the missionaries' German in this mission is terrible, so, he invited everyone to read through the Book of Mormon in German, marking all references to Christ, everything Christ, or our Father in Heaven says, and all Christlike attributes.  I just barely finished, and now I´m going to do it again before December, I´m pretty excited. 
    I got to work in Krefeld again this week with a brand new missionary.  He has only been out for 4 weeks, he´s being trained by Elder J (I served with him in Coburg).  It was so cool.  It was just like my Zone Leader split when I was a golden haha.  We ended up having TONS of success.  We found a new family, and set a baptismal date with a lady.  It was just a great feeling to be in my home town again =)
     Anyway, we´ve got a super busy week ahead of us, I´ll be working in 4 different areas this week!  Thanks for everything you do for me!
Elder Collings

August 6, 2012

Woohoo, another great week!  I´m not sure if I have told you about all of the goals of the mission, but, the goals are that we baptized 150 YSA´s this year, teach 20 lessons a week, find 10 new investigators a week and then focus on working with young single adults.  Well, this zone was basically like... dead 5 months ago, but, we have been focusing on the things President Schwartz has asked us too, and know our zone is leading the mission!  By a long shot.  We are tripling how many lessons we were teaching, quadrupling the people found, and this last week, 5 baptismal dates were set!  We had interviews with President this week, and he said he wanted me to report to all of the District Leaders and Zone Leaders in this meeting we have on Thursday where we were, where we are, and what we did to go there.  About 2 months ago, we made like TONS of plans for what we could do to help this zone out, and, it worked!  So, the zone is tearing it up!
    This week we had some amazing miracles, we met with an inactive lady, who happened to be a referral from a random person on the street, we got to know her real quick and then left.  At the end of the week, she had been trying to call us, but, she couldn´t for some reason, so, she somehow got the number for another companionship, and called them, and told them to tell us that she wanted to meet with us.  We went and met with her again, and she had her sister with her.  She said that her sister has been going through a way hard time, a divorce, her kid is in jail, someone broke into her house and beat her up, she lost her job.... and more, she said that in this time she didn´t know where to go, she had no friends, and none of her family was helping her.  Then, this inactive member just happened to call her up and tell her about the missionaries and how much the missionaries helped her.  The Sister came to visit the member and asked if she could meet with us.  When we were talking to her, she talked about how she just had all of these troubles and how she wanted them to go away and she wanted to be reborn.  We read in Alma 7 with her where it talks about the atonement and baptism, and uses the nifty phrase of being reborn.  She read that and started crying and said it was an answer from God that we are the true church and how she can be happy again.  We set a baptismal date with her in the first lesson, but, she lives in Köln, so, the Elders there will help her the rest of the way.  By the way, that family is from Macedonia too, I don´t know why, but almost all of the people I have been finding and teaching come from the ex-Yugoslavia territories or Africa..... whatever.
    We also were teaching a black guy called Stanly.  We taught him, and he said that he really wanted to learn more, but, he had to go to Stuttgart.  He said he would be there for almost the whole week, but, after, he would love to learn more.  A couple of days later, we got a call from Stanley.  He asked if we still remembered him.  He then asked where the Church was, and when we could meet.  We told him, and then he said, "Good, I´m glad the church is there, I would really like to join your church."  We were way excited and set up a time to meet with, and then we found out he doesn´t live in Düsseldorf either which is why it was always hard to meet with him.  So, we gave him to the Elders in Duisburg, and he is praying about a baptismal date right now.
    There was a baptism in the Ward last week from an excommunicated member.  We were able to get 3 investigators there.  It was so funny, I asked 2 of the investigators if they wanted to get closer to see the baptism, and they didn´t understand, he asked, "You want me to go and get baptized now? Okay."  He started to get up to go and get into the font haha!  His brother was just laughing at him.  They all really ended up enjoying the baptism, and one of our investigators, the one that was going to go in and get baptized right then, told us he wanted to get baptized in 5 weeks.  So, basically, we were hearing about baptism the entire week haha.
    We also managed to meet the goal of 20 lessons again.  We were supposed to be home Sunday at 8 for call-ins.  We had an appointment at 7.30 and that was going to be the 20th.  We went to the lesson, and he wasn´t there!  We ran to a corner, said a quick prayer, doored a house, and found a new family =)  The Lord blessed us to meet that goal and find an amazing family from Iran.
     Thanks for all of your love and support!  Things are going great, and getting better and better!
Elder Collings

July 30, 2012

Hey!  So, I kinda gotta keep this one short, but.... We basically rocked this place and stuff.  We saw the numbers for the entire mission this last week, and we found out that this zone was the worst zone in the mission 6 months ago, but now it is seeing more success than any other zone =) That was awesome.  We´re excited to see how things continue to go up.

    This week we also go to go on a split with an area that has been struggling.  I worked with an Elder that is brand new on his mission.  We went outside and basically saw miracles the entire day.  We had 3 lessons, found new investigators, we even found an inactive member.  The inactive member was riding by on a scooter, saw us and then had a feeling like he should talk to us.  He turned around and chased us down and said he wanted to talk. 

    At the end of that split we had a service project for an elderly lady.   I was moving one of her huge doors.  I had taken it out into the hall, and then I accidentally bumped one of the glass covers that go around the light fixtures on the ceiling.  The cover fell off the ceiling and broke on my hard head.  This thing was actually big, and heavy, and it did not feel really nice haha.  The top of my head started bleeding pretty bad, it was going down my face and I looked hard core like Rambo haha.  Anyway, now I have a massive scab on the top of my head.

    We also had a zone training meeting this week.  We planned a 3 hour training meeting where we could work on the things our zone needed.  It went good.  At the end, we had a testimony meeting.  A bunch of the Elders gave testimony of the things that we had talked about during this meeting. 

    Other than that, everything is going super good.  We´re seeing lots of success, teaching, preaching and working like missionaries do.  Thanks for everything!

Elder Collings

July 23, 2012

Well, I got sick for the first time this week haha.  Tuesday Morning, I woke up and just felt a little funny, but just shrugged it off and figured I was just more tired than normal, but, I ended up getting pretty darn sick.  That day we had 5 appointments made out, the first one went great and I was feeling fine.  We then ran to a second appointment, we were teaching a family from Africa.  They were all just so loud and so excited I left that place with such a huge headache.  Oh yeah, I forgot to say we had eaten some raw fish in between the first 2 lessons.... Then after the second we decided to take a lunch break, I had a Döner with some french fries, and that´s when I realized I was really getting sick haha.   I felt drained, had a headache, and my stomach was going wild.  We had another lesson, this was with a less active member.  He has some psychological problems, so he gets nervous really easily.  His apartment is a disaster.  I can´t even describe how terrible it is.  We went there and started helping him clean, 30 minutes into it I had to sit down and just relax a little.  We finished there and then went to a meeting with our Bishop.  They had prepared some food for us.  I took about 2 bites and I was ready to die!  I couldn´t eat anymore and I thought I´d throw up, but, I didn´t.  We then got a ride to the church, we had a lesson planned for there and a service project cleaning the Church.  I was just feeling terrible, so I took a nap on a couch the entire time haha.  At about 7 they were all done, so we walked home and I tried to sleep.  My stomach and my head hurt so bad I couldn´t sleep.  I finally fell asleep after midnight, but only for a short time.  I then woke up just soaking wet with sweat!  My clothes were soaking, my mattress, my blankets even my pillow!  I thought that was pretty nasty, so, I was obliged to get up and take a quick shower and sleep somewhere else.  And, that´s kind of how the rest of the week went, except with a lot of toilet time added to that.  Actually, by Friday the headaches had gone away, and the stomach ache wasn´t too bad, so, we actually would go out and work around the apartment and then run to the toilet every now and then haha.  Not too pleasant.
    We did have some success though!  The very end of the week, we went on a split to another area that has been dead for ever.  They just got a new missionary in there that is pretty excited to work.  The 2 Elders are young, and excited.  We worked with them for a day and had a ton of success!   And for the first time in about a year they found new investigators (we found 2 on the split) and for the first time in about 2 years they had an investigator in Church!  It was so cool to see success there.  The missionaries are now more excited than ever and ready to work some miracles.
    So, that was basically everything, sick the whole week with a split at the end.  I´m feeling much better now and I´m excited to get out and work hard again!
Thanks for everything!
Elder Collings

July 16, 2012

Hey!   So remember how I told you I´d be going on a split in an area that has been dead for a way super long time?  Well, we went there and had a TON of success.  We found a new family and some random guy that was atheist until we convinced him to not be haha.  I put a picture of a lady, she´s the mom of the family we found.  She has 3 little kids, they are all super awesome, and her husband drives down every week to Stuttgart for work.  She´s basically super awesome and prepared, she read the introduction to the Book of Mormon, and her first response was, "I need to read this book and pray about it as soon as I can.  Is it okay if I compare what I read with the Bible too?"  She said the Missionaries could come and visit her every day.  The other guy we found, told us right away there was no God because he had never seen a God.   So, we asked him if he had a mom.  We then asked him if he loved his mom.  We then told him to prove to us that he really had love for his mom.  All he could do was talk about his love for his mom, so we told him we didn´t believe him that he loved his mom.  Then we explained to him, he knew without a shadow of doubt that he loved his mom, but, he couldn´t prove it, give evidence of it, or even really describe it.  He knew for himself through experience.  We then told him he could do the same thing with God, because we had done it, and we knew that God was there without any doubt.  This guy put his beer down and told us to sit next to him and teach him some more haha.  So, it was a good split =)

    This week we also  accomplished the goal from President Schwartz to teach 20 lessons in a week.  He said if we teach 20 lessons a week, we will double baptisms.  We have had weeks of 18, 19 and 17 lessons,  but this week we got to 20.  It was a great way to end the transfer.  We had our 20th lesson on Sunday.  We have been teaching this Muslim named Mohammed from Africa.  He is actually the leader of one of their Mosques  (where they go to pray).  Every time we have taught him, he has invited about 10 of his friends to come and listen to us.  This time he brought some friends that weren´t too friendly, and wanted to argue with us.  Mohammed  said, "They say there is a new Prophet!  Let them teach us this, it´s important!  We need to hear what they have to say, so be quiet!"  

    Oh yeah, I found out I am staying in Düsseldorf with Elder H another transfer.  I´m so glad I get to stay here longer, and this will be the longest I think I have ever been with one guy (Already been with him like 3 months, and now I have 6 more weeks to go)  Love the guy to death, but that´s a long time.  Anyway, we´re having a lot of success, and seeing miracles so it´s all good!  This transfer my trainer goes home!  And Elder Ha (the Elder I trained) is now training!  Elder M called  up (He was my trainer) and we talked for like 40 minutes last night about Krefeld and everything that happened. 

    Things are going great in Düsseldorf!  We are having lots of success and seeing lots of miracles!

Thanks for everything!

Elder Collings 

July 9, 2012

Hey!  This week went way super good.  We were in Frankfurt for 2 days for another leadership training, and we found out we get to do a zone training thing every month for about 5 hours.  Now we get to bring the entire zone together once a month and teach them  how to teach, find, and learn in Preach my Gospel.  President said it´s a great opportunity to give the Elders "Best practice".  We actually found out this week that Düsseldorf is leading the mission with finding new investigators!  I knew we were finding a lot, but, we are like WAY higher than the rest of the mission.  The mission average is .92 new investigators ever week, and we are at 4.5 new investigators a week.  That was pretty awesome, we just gotta get some baptisms now haha.
    We found a way cool kid this week, his name is Philip.  I´ll send a picture of him.  He comes from Nigeria and he has a TON of faith in Jesus.  He can barely read the Book of Mormon, but, he likes what he understands so much, he called us and said he wanted us to come by every night to teach him more about it.  We went by and read with him... and I don´t really know what he understands when he reads because he reads so bad... but, he feels it´s good.  We´re really excited to be able to teach him!
    This week will be pretty awesome, we have 2 splits.  One of them we´ll be giving the baptismal interview to someone, and then the other one I´ll be working up in an area that has only had 4 lessons in the last 4 months.  We´ll see how that goes haha.  I´m excited to get up there and see what´s going on, I was looking through the numbers for the last 3 years, and this area had been teaching TONS of people less than a year ago.  I´ll just have to help them  jump start things I guess haha. 
    This last week I got to work with Elder J again.  Elder J was my second companion in Coburg.  We worked in Krefeld, my first city!  He has been serving there the last 5 weeks.  On our split we found 3 new investigators and made out about 5 lessons and got 4 peoples numbers.  We got to work way hard, it was cool to get to work with him again.  He´s still just a solid worker and only speaks German to everyone.  Transfer calls come this week, hopefully I get to stay longer in Düsseldorf, I guess we´ll find out on Saturday! 
    Thanks for everything you do for me!
Elder Collings

July 1, 2012

I have no idea how to describe this week, but, it was kinda heart breaking, and amazing, and depressing and awesome all at the same time.  So, there was a baptism in Düsseldorf this Saturday for a kid in the primary.  We invited tons of people to come, among them was the Family from Macedonia (they found out they don´t have to leave until the 4th of July)  The Baptism started and the parents of the Macedonian Family showed up, the kids had to stay and take care of things, they have like 50 family members visiting them since they are leaving.  Right after the baptism, the wife and the husband came up to me in tears and asked if they could be baptized right then also.  I had to tell them no.  Then they asked if they could get baptized before they left to Macedonia, I had to say no again.  They both cried for a long time, and then went into the chapel for the confirmation of this kid.  After the whole thing was done, they were both feeling really sad.  They had everything prepared for them here; we offered to go with them to help them get married, offered a program to help him quit smoking, and even came by every Sunday to bring them to Church.  The husband still has a problem with smoking, they didn´t do anything to see what possibilities they had of getting married, and they didn´t regularly make it to the Church meetings.  So... that was like way sad.  And then, we went by to meet with them and help them pack up their things.  They had just gotten back from meeting with a lawyer, and they found out they are getting no financial support once they leave Germany.  So, that means, as of the 4th of July, they will be homeless, without any money, job, family, or friends.  So, now they are even more super stressed out, a family of 8 can´t just go live on the street, so they have no idea what to do.  The father has been thinking about running away and staying illegal.  We called up President Schwartz to tell him what´s going on, and see if the Church can offer any help, so... now I get to write a letter to the Area Presidency explaining everything.  Pretty crazy right?  Anyway.... I really hope we can find something out for this family, I feel like they´re a part of my family now haha.
    So, other than that, all of our investigators also told us they don´t want to meet anymore haha.  We had an amazing lesson with the Family from Turkey, and the husband said he would be willing to be baptized.  All of them said they had had a great feeling in the church, and one of the brothers said he feels a power when he reads in the Book of Mormon.  After we explained everything for baptism, the Husband was good to go, but, then the wife said she would never let herself be baptized and she has a problem with her husband or any of her children being baptized.  So, we told them they could come and see a baptism on Saturday and then they could all pray together to ask if it was the right thing to do.  They all said they wanted to come.  Then Friday night they called up and spoke way super fast and said that they weren´t going to be able to make it and hung up.  We thought maybe they were just busy, but, that´s not what it was.  On Sunday we went by because they didn´t make it to Church, the kids were playing outside and were still way awesome, so, we thought it was probably no big deal, then, when we walked upstairs the dad was not too polite and said that they have no time anymore and shut the door on our faces.  So... they´re gone, then another family called us up and said that the Church is too far away for them to ever convert or meet with us again (20 minutes away) then someone else called us up and said we are too extreme and then hung up.  Then another Family moved.  And then another one just hangs up when we call.  So..... it´s time to build up Düsseldorf again haha.
    We also had some great things happen.  A while ago we found a girl on the street that said she was atheist and that she could never join a church because they are so corrupt, but decided to meet with us, we then gave her over to the sisters and she decided she wants to be baptized, and she asked me to baptize her =)  So, on the 14th of July I´ll get to baptized B, she came to Church on Sunday and told everyone she is basically already a member and just went around talking to everyone getting to know them.  There is also another girl we found, I don´t know if I told you about her, but we had been talking to her for a little while about America and stuff, and then we told her about the Book of Mormon and she started to cry and said she had prayed to find the truth.  Well, the sisters just started meeting with her, and apparently she cried a ton and felt the spirit way strong when they told her about the restoration.  Today we also had some cool things happen, it´s p-day so we aren´t even like talking to people on the street, but, we got 2 people's numbers in 20 minutes.  We were waiting for a bus, and a guy from England came up to us and said  he had been to our Church before and wants to learn more, so, he gave us his number and said to call him.  Then, right after that, a guy looked at my name tag way weird so I asked if he had seen us before, and he told us that he got a blessing 10 years ago from 2 Elders in Munster.  He said ever since then things have been going way good for him.  So, he gave us his number and address.  Pretty good way to start the week right?
    So, things are still going good in Düsseldorf, sadly we lost a lot of people, but... it happens, we´ll just go find some better ones haha.  Things are going great, thanks for all of your prayers!

Elder Collings

June 25, 2012

Wow, it´s crazy out here haha.  This week we basically did amazing, but, it was also way sad.  The Macedonian Family, Familie B has to leave this week.  We visited with them on Saturday at 8.30 in the evening to talk to them about how they can get in contact with the Church in Macedonia and gave them the address and phone number for the missionaries.  We then told them about church and how it was their very last week and how we´d love to see them and how I was giving talk haha.  They said that they would come no matter what.  We told them they had said that the last 3 weeks, so we asked them what might come between church.  They said nothing and that we shouldn´t worry... They didn´t make it =(  If they can´t make it to church here and they live only 10 minutes away, what are they going to do in Macedonia where they live possibly hours away?  So... sadly they won´t be baptized here in Germany, but, they still want to be baptized and I think they will someday, I just don´t get to see it =(
    But other than that everything was amazing, we had 16 Investigators in Church (A Family of 5, a Family of 7, and a family of 4) It was their first time in the Church, and I had been randomly asked to give a talk on Love for 15 minutes, so I got to let everyone know from the podium that we had lots of visitors haha.  But they all liked it and want to come back!
    So, I put some pictures up, the First one is a new family we found.  His name is J, he is from Serbia, he´s 21, his wife is 19, and they have 3 kids, 2.5 year old, 1 yr old, and 1 month.  They are way super cool, and he already introduced us to his family members, so this week we will start teaching his aunt's family and his cousin's family.  The other picture is just a district meeting we visited and then the last one was a split I had with Elder O, my old District Leader.  He was my District Leader about a year ago.  Elder Owens was way excited to get out and do some work.  Right at the end of the day, it started raining WAY hard.  I had an umbrella, but the wind blew so hard, it broke!  So, we were without an umbrella, it was pouring, and for some reason, nobody wanted to talk to us on the street haha.  So, we found a place under a building to hide for a couple of minutes until the rain let down.
    We had a pretty cool experience this week.  We were on a split, and we talked to this girl.  At first we were just kinda joking around and talking.  Then we talked about the Book of Mormon and told her it had the truth in it.  She then started to cry uncontrollably.  She said 2 days before, she had visited a friends wedding.  She said how happy they were and then saw how unhappy she was.  She said she prayed that she could find some truth.  She then said she believed we were an answer to her prayer.  She kept crying for like 5 minutes and then she gave us her number and everything.  The Elder that I was with felt that talking to people on the street was a waste of time.  I think that showed him it wasn´t, and now the Sisters in Düsseldorf are teaching another amazing girl.  I don´t know if I told you, but we also found a lady named B a while ago.  She was athiest, but prayed in the train right before we talked to her.  She started learning everything and trying it out, and wants to be baptized in 2 weeks.  We saw her last week and she thanked us for talking to her and said it was the best thing of her life.  Amazing right!

     Anyway, things are going super, thanks for everything!
Elder Collings

June 18, 2012

Alright, so this week was basically super crazy!  We were in Frankfurt Wednesday and Thursday for our Leadership Training, and it was super amazing!  Basically President is inspired haha.  We talked a lot about how we can support the individual areas to reach their full potential.   We had a great Zone Conference and everyone left pretty pumped to do some work.
    We also had a special fast this week, and then another day of finding.  Elder H and I worked way hard through the day and saw no success, until the very last 2 hours.  A week ago we had talked to a couple on the street, they made out an appointment with us, and wrote down their address and everything, so we thought.  We started preparing for this day of finding, and where this lesson had been made out, all we saw was a name.  They had not left their number or address.  We figured they really didn´t have interest and just planned like it never happened.  At the end of the day, we got a call, it was the lady!  She asked where we were.  We told her she gave us no number, so, she told us where she lived and told us to come.  She ended up living just 2 houses down from where we were.  We went and taught her and her husband, and feasted on raw meat haha, there´s a meat spread out here, it´s just raw meat and people love it.  Anyway, that was way cool and surprised us.  Then, as we were going outside, we talked to these 2 guys right in front of the house.  They both had interest, and invited us in to teach them.  We taught them, and at the end, he asked when we had church and said he wanted to come.  And he did.  He came with his brother.  And then after that, we left the building again, and talked to a guy from Poland.  I think all we said was that we were talking about Jesus.  He then said we should sit down and talk to him.  We taught him on a bench and then he gave us his number and told us to call him.  So, the day ended way strong, we ended up finding 4 new investigators, teaching 4 lessons and finding 7 more potential investigators.  We are meeting with another new family tonight, who we had found on this day.  Basically it was a day of wonders.
    It´s not looking good for the family from Macedonia.  They didn´t come to Church this week, and the husband is still smoking.  All of the kids are super legit and prepared for church, but the parents always sleep in.  We had to move the baptismal date.  They also didn´t show up to the appointment to talk about marriage.  They apparently went to the wrong street and couldn´t find it anywhere.  The lady that had went to help them was furious and said that they didn´t really want help, she said they are lazy and don´t do anything and can´t be trusted and now she refuses to help them.  Now they either have to do everything alone, or we do it.  So.... yeah... now we get to take them and find out all of the legal stuff, crazy right?   I can´t help but think about what Enoch said when he got his calling, he didn´t feel like he was worthy for it, then the Lord gave him all of these promises and blessings, and at the end he said, "Walk with me."  That´s kinda what we do as missionaries, we walk with people through the path of repentance so that they can really come unto Christ.  We´ll be meeting with them tonight, and we get to set all the plans to get them married, come back to church again, and finally get baptized!
    So, those were the stories of the week!  I´m doing great, and loving the work out here.  We now have over 20 investigators we are teaching, and most of them are families, hopefully we´ll have another 6 new investigators tonight!  Thanks for your love and support!

Elder Collings

June 11, 2012

Hello Family!

    Basically we pretty much had an amazing week =)  So, President Schwartz has given us all the goal to teach 20 lessons a week, find 10 new invstigators a week, and to Baptized one Young Single adult before the end of the year.  This week we worked our tails off and almost did it!  We ended up teaching 17 lessons and finding 9 new investigators.  I put a picture of 8 of them, I forgot to get a picture with the last one.  The picture of the huge family was a miracle.  They are the Y Family.  It was on Transfer day, and we had another Elder with us who was waiting for his companion to come in from Frankfurt.  We were walking down the street, my companion was on the phone, the other Elder was talking to some guy on the corner, and I was just kinda sitting there lookin around.  A car drove by, and then stopped and backed up to me.  This guy rolled down his window and asked if we had a bible.  I told him we didn´t but we had something better, more scripture.  He said that he wanted it, and gave us his address.  The next day, we went by and he let us in instanstly.  His name is E, his wifes name is D, and then he has a 15 year old son, A, and a 10 year old son M.  They come from Turkey.  They say they are muslim... but, they don´t beleive it at all haha.  He is really interested in learning about Christians, he asked for a Bible, because the only bibles they have in Turkey have been messed with.  The people have added verses in them that prophecy about Mohammed (Their Last Prophet that received the revelation for the Koran).  He wanted to know what we really believe.  We told them everything and he was way super excited and invited us back.  We came back the next time, and he told us he had already read about 40 pages in the Book of Mormon, and he really likes it!  Then before we started, the wife said she was going to cook us dinner before we shared anything.  So we ate this amazing Turkish meal.  Right as we finished eating, he had called his Brother to come and learn more.  His brother came and brought his wife and his 16 year old son.  We got to teach all of them about the Restoration, and we are meeting with them again this next week!  So, now we have another huge family we get to help =)

    The picture of the black guy is also a cool story.  I talked to him in the bus about 2 months ago and gave him a Book of Mormon.  He gave me his phone number, and I had called him a couple of times, but we could never really make anything out.  I kinda forgot about him..... but then he just randomly called us up this last week.  He said he really wanted to meet with us.  We met with him on the street, and he brought a friend with him.  We taught both of them and they were way super excited and said they want to meet again.  The friend actually knows the bible REALLY good.  He kept pulling out all of these random scriptures to strengthen his point on things while we were talking.  We´re way excited to keep meeting with them too!

    This week we also got a new zone!   9 missionaries left, and 10 came in.  There was a Sister here, Sister B, I was actually in the MTC with her.  She served here in Düsseldorf her first  6 months, then left, and came back her last six months, so I´ve seen her basically my whole mission.  She had served in Düsseldorf for over a year so it will be a huge change with her being gone. And then all of the new Elders are super legit so we´re expecting miracles haha.

    One of the areas was white washed, meaning both of the elders were taken out, and 2 new elders were put in.  The 2 Elders that were put in, were sent to Krefeld, my first area, and one of the Elders was Elder J, my second companion that taught me German.  He has 2 more transfers left on his mission, and President asked him to come down here and be a District Leader.  I´m way excited to get to work with him again.  He is pretty worried with the work; his first day there, he said TONS of people just yelled at them and told them to leave, and 6 people actually ran them out of the apartment buildings they were in.  Sounds like things haven´t really changed since I left haha.  They are going to do way good down there.  Transfers were actually way crazy, 4 Elders ended up sending their bags to another city on accident haha.  We also managed to make a train 45 minutes late because it took so long to transfer all of the bags, but, at least they got here =) 

    Today the Family B (Macedonian Family) is going with a member to see what they can do to get married!  They should actually be there right now!  I hope they figure something out.  They all still want to be baptized, and they tell everybody  about it haha.  This last week we went over with a member to teach about prayer.  We taught about it and at the end we asked if anyone had any questions.  The husband said he prays many times every day; before reading, after reading, when he wakes up, with his wife and for the food, but that he was missing something.  I was pretty nervous what he was going to say, and then he said that every now and then he gets a warm feeling when he prays.  When he gets that, he knows that the Holy Ghost is comforting him, but, he doesn´t always get that when he prays.  He then said, "I need to be baptized so that I can always have the Holy Ghost to comfort me and tell me what to do."  We haven´t even taught him about the Gift of the Holy Ghost, but he already knows he needs to be baptized to be able to experience his influence every time he prays.  He then bore his testimony to us and the member that he wanted to get baptized.  This family is legit haha.

    Anyway, things are going great, thanks for everything you do for me!

Elder Collings

 

 

June 4, 2012

Wow, you only have one more child at home to get rid of haha.  I can only imagine how quiet it is getting!  This week was super awesome, as a Zone we had more success than we have had in the last 4 months.  It was a good end to the Transfer.  We ended up losing half of our zone for transfers.  I know all of the new Elders coming in and they are all way super awesome, I´m way excited to see the changes that come.  Elder H and I decided we are basically going to just tear this place up with righteousness and stuff haha.  We set a goal to teach 120 discussions in the next 6 weeks, we should also have at least 7 baptisms haha.

    The Familie B is the family of Macedonians that wants to be baptized, today they are meeting with a member to see what has to be done for them to get married.  We met with this member on Wednesday to discuss everything that is going on, the problems that they have is that they may need to leave the country in 2 months, they can´t legally get married, and they all want to be baptized.  Our member asked what their biggest concern was, the father said his biggest concern was to get married so that they can be baptized, perfect answer right?  One of these days I´m going to have to take the time to write out their story so that you can really see all of the miracles and how prepared this family is.  

    This week we also had a WAY amazing lesson with that family, we were on a split, I was working with one of the other  missionaries.  The family was feeling a little down because they didn´t think it was possible for them to get married, so we decided we were just going to read in the scriptures with them instead of teach something.  We started reading and the spirit was just super strong.  Everyone in the room could feel it... and then I looked out the window.... There were 2 pigeons like trying to kill each other!  It was so violent, like, I didn´t know birds could be so ferocious.  And it was only like 3 feet away from the mom´s and dad´s heads!  They had no idea what was going on, and then I totally did something stupid, I nudged my companion and told him to look at what was happening haha.  Right as he looked, one of the birds jumped on the other one, and they fell off the balcony.  So, I decided I should probably try to focus again haha, then , like 10 minutes later, I looked out again and they were fighting again!  They just kept coming back and pecking each other, and clawing!  We were right at the prayer at this point, so I wasn´t distracted for too much at the end haha.

   

    Anyway, things are going great!  I´m way excited to be able to be out here and spread the Gospel!

Elder Collings

May 29 2012

Hey this week was pretty spectacular with a lot of other crazy stuff that happened haha.  So remember that family that wants to be baptized?  They all made it to Church this week, we met with the Family again yesterday and they said it was wonderful and can´t wait to come back again.  There is a problem though!  They all want to be baptized, the Husband has gone without smoking the last 3 days so Word of Wisdom is not really a problem, but, they are not married to each other.  Normally that wouldn´t really be too bad, they can just go get married, but, the Husband has no citizenship anywhere in the World.  He was born and raised in Yugoslavia, after all of the Wars and everything and after they all separated into their own countries, he was left without being a citizen anywhere.  He found his wife when he was 18, had the traditional wedding in Macedonia (They invite all immediate neighbors and family)  and had a good time.  Then they went to get the paper that says they were married, the people looked at his papers and said he can´t get married.  He has been with his wife for 20 years now and has tried several times to get married, but they have no idea what they can do.  We sent a letter to President Schwartz, he also didn´t know what to do, so he sent it further to the area Presidency, one of the counselors replied that they also didn´t know what to do, so... we just gotta wait.  This family is like so legit, the Father told us yesterday that it was his greatest desire to get baptized.  I really hope we can figure something out!

    This week we also had the opportunity to fast for finding, and then have a day after just full of finding.  We went out, and in the zone we found more investigators in one day than we have ever found in a single week.  The story was the same in the mission, we found 50% more investigators in one day than we normally find in an entire week.  It was way awesome. 

  

    Anyway, things are going great, this will be the last week of the transfer, that means next week 5 missionaries will be going home from their missions in this zone, and we will basically have a totally new zone.  I´m excited to see how everything turns out.

 

Thanks for everything, you´re all awesome!
Elder Collins

May 21, 2012

This week was a super awesome week of miracles.  I don´t know if I told you about that family from Macedonia that we have been teaching, but they all want to be baptized =)  We met with them last week to see what they thought about Church, the husband, Bekhirl said that as he walked into the chapel he felt like he knew the people already even though he had never met them.  He then told us how much he loves the Book of Mormon.  He used to be Muslim, and he would study the Koran every day.  He said he never really felt anything special about it, he just found it interesting, so he decided to read the Bible.  That was the first time he actually felt something special.  He then decided Christianity was true and Islam was not.  He said now whenever he reads the Book of Mormon, he just has a feeling come over his whole entire body.  He reads for hours non stop, he is already through Alma and we´ve only known him a couple of weeks.  We read about the Waters of Mormon with him and asked him what his thoughts were, or if  he had any questions.  His only question was, "When, when should I be baptized?"  We told him he had to quit smoking first, he said that ever since he had been meeting with us, he has started to quit, he is already down to 5 cigarettes a day, he was at 3 packs.  He told us, "If it wasn´t for the cigarettes, I would be baptized right now!"  So, all 7 of them want to be baptized as soon as the father quits smoking =)

    We also had a super awesome time at Church this week.  There was a lady that got baptized a year ago, she had her very first talk on Sunday.  She was so excited, she made out invitations for 30 of her friends, and about 15 came!  We had about 30 non members in total in our sacrament meeting last Sunday, it was absolutely amazing.  The ward is getting so excited, maybe we can get them to go out and do some doors haha.  Jake Howard just sent me a letter and said the members in Argentina knock on doors, I´m so jealous haha.  So........ things are going super duper good and I am having a blast!

    Thanks for all of your love and support!
Elder Collings

May 14, 2012

Thought I´d send you all some pictures =)  I kinda talked to ya like yesterday, I could tell you couldn´t really understand me haha, your interpretations of my speaking was pretty off most the time but whatever haha.  I don´t know what was wrong with the phone, Elder H used the same phone and his family understood him perfectly but......yeah =)

    Everything is great just like I told you yesterday, we´re tearing it up, teaching tons of people, finding tons of people and really seeing a lot of miracles, I´ll keep this one short and actually answer some old e-mails I guess haha =)

 

Love ya´ll lots!

Eler Collings

 

 

May 7, 2012

You know, it´s pretty weird starting all of my letters, I never really know what to say other than this week was awesome haha, but.... it´s totally true every time =)  This week was awesome.  It has been way fun working out here with Elder H, we have already seen a bunch of success, and things are getting better and better every day, Düsseldorf is now completely turned around and is having tons of success again.  We had the opportunity to ride a train down to Frankfurt for a Leadership Training, almost all of my old companions are Zone Leaders; Elder A from the MTC, Elder J my second Companion, Elder Ch my Third companion and then of Course Elder H my current companion.  President shared a lot of the impressions and feelings that he has had for where this mission is going, he put up 5 numbers, 150, 20, 10, 5, 1.  The 150 is a goal he set for 150 Young single adult Baptisms this year in the mission, 20 is how many lessons he wants us to get in a week, 10 is the number of new investigators he sees us getting each week, 5 is how many people he wants prepared for an investigator before they come to church and 1 is all about focusing on the individual.  Each one of those actually comes from different prophecies that have been given, Elder Perry said he was thoroughly convinced that if we were teaching 20 lessons a week baptisms would double, re-activations would double and we would have "Real Growth."  President Kopischke came and gave his own little prophecy and said that if we internalized the first principles of finding, and got a good attitude, we would find 10 new investigators a week, 5 is something president Schwartz has been prompted to tell us, and 1 is about something Elder Bednar said.  He told a story about when he was in BYU Idaho as the... I can´t think of the position name haha, the dude on top =)  they had a fireside on a Sunday and there were 250 people.  BYU Idaho has 12,000 students.  Elder Bednar challenged them at the end, he said that an apostle will teach according to the preparedness of the group he is speaking to.  He invited them to prepare themselves, dress up in the best attire they had, and then invite 5 people to do the same, but, to invite those 5 to invite 4 and those 4 to invite 3... so on.  Tuesday came and over 12,000 people were there all in suits.  He said at the end this principle of focusing on the 1 will touch 1,000s.

    So.... we decided we had better get to that haha.  This last week we actually had over 20 lessons made out.... but only about 13 went through.  So we are going to do our best to really set an example for the rest of the Zone and show them that these super crazy high goals are possible.  Just so you know, the zone right now averages 4 lessons per companionship, and .67 new investigators per week per companionship.  Much work is to be done haha.

       We had a couple of super awesome miracles this week too.  So, one that was way cool actually has 2 sides.  So, we have 2 sisters in our area also.   They were crossing a street and passed by this kid.  They were all the way to the other end when one of the sisters felt like they should talk to him, so they turned around and just ran at him yelling excuse me.  She didn´t really know what to say so she just said God loves you.  The kid said that was really wierd haha.  But he then started to cry and said he had planned on killing himself that day because he did not feel any love of God.  He had gone to a Catholic church to pray but felt nothing so he figured there was no God and saw no point in living anymore.  The sisters made out an appointment and we were there so we could start teaching him.  It was one of the most spiritual lessons ever, he started to tear up a couple of times and of course the sisters cried haha.  It went way good and we´re meeting again on Wednesday. 

    After Church we were talking to some members.  One of them asked about an old investigator and said that this investigator had had a baptismal date and came to church every week for like 6 months.  We had no idea who it was, so the member said he would send him a text message.  Later that day this  random person called us up, it was that guy the member had been talking about.  He said that he wanted to come back, but this time he wanted to be serious.  So we´re meeting him again on Wednesday also. 

    We have an investigator named Siegfried F.  He has been slowly making progress but he has always had a hard time coming to church.  He has a lot of financial problems so he sleeps terribly and he has a hard time waking up.  We taught him about why church is important, it was a way awesome lesson, but afterwards he showed no greater desire to come to church.  On Saturday we called him up to ask if he would be coming, he said that if he wakes up in time he will, but he is not setting an alarm..... we went ahead and called up a bunch of members to pray for him so that he would make it.  Sacrament meeting started and he wasn´t there, but then right after the opening prayer, he walked in =)  It was so awesome, and the members got way excited too because they had prayed for him to come.

    There was also this way super drunk guy and girl that we talked to the other day, they didn´t really know what was going on... but they sure liked us for some reason.  They kept asking about what we do as missionaries and then they would tell us how much they liked that and respected it.  They went on forever about how terrible the world was and told us how wonderful it is that we have faith, anyway that was just kinda weird, but, our bus ended up coming we got in but quickly found out it was the wrong bus, the right bus was directly behind it.  We got out and that drunk guy had no idea what was going on, he thought the driver kicked us out because we were missionaries, he started yelling, "They are talking about faith!  They are talking about faith!  That is discrimination what you are doing! Discrimination!"  We got in the right bus and he put his head in the window and told us we didn´t have to take that, we could call the police haha.

    Anyway, I am doing great, thanks for all of your love and support!
Elder Collings