January 30th

Hello Family!
This week was awesome, we are being so blessed right now with
basically everything. We have our transfers coming up this week,
crazy how fast these six weeks went. There hasn´t really been
anything new, we´re basically working our hardest, and ruining our
shoes, I have to repair my shoes again today. This week was actually
pretty different, the last couple of weeks we have been finding tons
of families to teach, this last week, we found everyone else tons of
investigators to teach. There are some sisters in our district that
teach people that can only speak English, we found them 4 families and
3 other people, and then the other set of Elders, we found them a
family and a man from Ghana. We´re getting more and more people to
talk to us, it´s awesome.
Elder H is doing great, he´s really learning how to do
everything really quick, this next transfer I could see him easily
getting a younger companion that actually needs to rely on him (His
German is already basically perfect) by the way, not sure if I told
you, Dutch is VERY similar to German and English. Elder Hall randomly
has moments where he only speaks Dutch, I can still understand most of
what he is saying haha.
I haven´t gotten any packages yet, but, that´s because they are
all most likely at the office, so, I should get them on Transfer Day
=) Thanks for all that you do for me, I really appreciate it!
Elder Collings

January 23rd

Hello Family!
    Man, it sounds like you were, or still are, having a blast in
Costa Rica.  How come now that I went on a mission you´re going on all
of these trips all over the World? haha. 

     This week was awesome, most
of our appointments fell out, so we got to have time to find new
investigators, and we did =)  We got 4 new investigators this week,
and we have lessons planned out with 3 other families. I´ll tell
you a kinda weird story about how we found one of our investigators
haha. 

     So, it started like 2 weeks ago.  Elder H and I had just
finished getting something from the bank, we started to leave, and
this lady asked us to help her get her Kinderwagon down the steps.  We
helped her out and then started to talk about her baby, and about the 

family.  We gave her a 'Proclamation on the Family' pamphlet and she
got really excited.  She wouldn´t give us her number, but, she asked
us if our number was in there because she might want to call us.  We
told her it was, and then walked away and didn´t think much more about
it.  Then, about 30 minutes later, we got on a bus to go to an
appointment.  As we got off, we saw that she had been in the bus, and
got off at the same stop.  We had to cross the street to get to our
lesson, but, we may or may not have payed really close attention to
where she went, haha.  She ended up going into a big complex of houses
right across the street from where our lesson was, so, we decided we
would do some doors in that neighborhood and possibly find her.
 

     2 Weeks later, we had been dooring that area and we were almost
done.  We had already found 3 new families there so we were super
happy that we decided to work there.  We doored this one guy named
T, he said he didn´t have much time because he had to take care of
his new baby, he then invited us in to see his new son.  The baby was
3 weeks old.  We talked to him about the family and made out an
appointment to meet with him.  We met with him last night, and his
wife is the lady that we met at the bank 2 weeks before!  Both of them
want to learn and are super awesome.  So, basically stalking is a
missionary tactic.

    Another cool story, we met an awesome family a couple of weeks
ago.  We had already had a lesson with the Father before and he said
he wanted us to meet with his whole family, but, he was always SO
busy, it was hard to make an appointment out.  We went by on him
randomly this week to see if we could catch the family at home.  We
could hear someone on the phone, but, they wouldn´t answer the door.
We were getting ready to leave, when Elder H dropped his umbrella
on the door.  It was SO loud.  The Father heard it, opened to door,
let us in, and then finished his phone call with his mom in Africa
haha.

    Things are going great out here, we want to start baptizing
people, but, whenever we get someone to say they want to get baptized,
they can´t ever get over an addiction to whatever.   Luckily
none of our new investigators have those problems haha.  Thanks for
your love and support, you´re awesome!
 
Elder Collings

January 16th

Hello Family!
    It was basically another super awesome week.  This week we worked
really hard on meeting with all of the families that we found last
week.  We were able to make out lessons every day, however, almost
every single one of them fell out haha.  We are still in daily contact
with everyone, things just keep coming up to prevent us from meeting
with these people.  This week we´ll of course be able to meet with all
of them and basically have super awesome epic stuff happen =)
    The last 4 weeks our District has been focusing on finding;
Basically the area of Offenbach was finding an average of 3.5 new
investigators a week, and then the other two companionships were
finding 1 investigator a transfer (6 weeks)  So.... we obviously
needed to work on that.  Basically this week everyone did super
awesome, the sisters found 5 new investigators and the Elders in Hanau
had found 2 families doing doors and then another random family called
them up and said they wanted to learn more.    The entire district is
doing super awesome.
    Elder H is doing great, it´s not like I am training him at all,
his German is fantastic, he knows all of the lessons, he can basically
do everything. The goal of the new training program is to train the
new Elder to be a Trainer in 12 weeks, I told President in an interview
that Elder H could be a trainer easily at the end of 6 weeks.
President then interviewed Elder H and told him to prepare to be a
trainer by the end of this next transfer haha.  Elder H is way
nervous, but, he´s a super awesome missionary so he should expect some
awesome opportunities to stretch and grow.
    We´ve got an investigator we have been meeting with since I got
here in Offenbach.  He had a baptismal date
previously... actually 2.  The only reason he isn´t baptized is
because he smokes.  That seems to be the problem out here, everyone
smokes and can´t give it up.  He lies and tells us that
he doesn´t smoke anymore.  He came to church this week, and he said he
needed to use the bathroom.  We then watched as he went outside to use
the bathroom.... He then came inside and sat a row away from us all by
himself.  When we talked to him afterward, we could see a pack of
cigarrettes in his front pocket.... We told him we know he smokes, and
then he said he just holds on to cigarrettes for others in case they
need them.  We told him he´s a liar haha, and then he said he´s a
Doctor and knows that smoking is bad and wouldn´t do it.  He keeps
asking us when he can get baptized, and all he needs to do is give up
smoking... kinda hard to help him quit smoking when he says he doesn´t
have a problem with it though.
    The work out here is going awesome, we have had so much success
the last couple of weeks, I´m way excited to see how it continues to
grow, our Branch President was talking to us about the Ward Mission
plan, he said that last year they had set a goal of 4 baptisms in the
Ward.  They had had one (Pepper) and then he asked us how many people
we are meeting with right now that want to be baptized, we told him 3
(Wolfgang, Norbert, Frau K.) He then asked how many fallen
out baptisms we have had, we told him 8 haha.  He said that for the
next year he set a goal for 12 baptisms, but, if Elder H and I stay
together, he said we better have 12 before we leave.  It´s way
possible too, we are teaching SO many families, we just need to really
help them on their way and make sure they get lots of friends in the
Ward.
    Anyway, everything is going awesome, thanks for your love and support!
Elder Collings

Focusing on Finding

Hey Family!
    This week was super duper awesome!  We have been focusing on
finding a lot because the zone isn´t doing too good with it, and....
it´s doing great!  We found a new Family every day haha.  We´ve got SO
many people we can teach now it is awesome.  There´s a chapter in
Preach my Gospel all about finding, and the first thing it talks about
is developing faith to find.  We basically just changed our
expectations a little and almost everyone we talked to listened, and a
couple of people every day said they wanted to learn more.   We got 5
new investigators last week, and we are set up to get 5 more today,
and then 3 more on Tuesday, and then 3 more and Wednesday  and those
were all people found last week... we should of course find more this
week =P
    So, basically everything is going great.  We´re excited to meet
with these new people and get them progressing super well. 

    This week we were going by on a referral that wasn´t home haha.
After we rang the door and nobody answered, we turned around and saw
an old lady walking her dog.  Elder H went up and talked to her but
she ignored him and kept walking away.  Then her little dog came
running up to me.  I love dogs so I pet it and talked to her for a
little bit.  We then turned the conversation to the gospel and ended
up teaching her the Restoration.  When we asked her if she wanted to
learn more she said she wasn´t sure.  Then she told us some of the
things that had just happened with her that were rough and then she
said something awesome.  She said that we were lucky that we even got
to talk to her, she said the only reason she was outside was because
her dog kept whining to go outside, she said the dog normally just
goes to the bathroom really quick, but this time it just kept walking.
 She said she was getting ready to turn around and go home when Elder
H talked to her.  She said that when he talked to her she felt a
Force.  She decided to keep walking away, but, then her dog wouldn´t
let her because it was playing with me haha.  She said that maybe the
dog was inspired... we agreed haha.  She still wouldn´t make out a
time for us to meet though.  She said next time we see each other we
could meet.  So, the next day we decided to go to the same area to go
by on our Referral.  Just as we were getting ready to leave, we saw
that lady again.  We talked to her again, and this time she showed us
where she lived and said that we could come by sometime.  We are way
excited to meet this lady,  (I have tried to write the following
sentence 7 times now but I don´t know how to write it correctly in
English....) she seems to keep being led to us and so.... of course
we´re excited!
   Anyway, I´m doing great, thanks for your love and support!
Elder Collings

A Companion from the Netherlands

Hey Family!
    So guess what?  I have got a companion now!  His name is Elder
H. and he is from the Netherlands.  They speak Dutch down there, so
I asked him about "The Best 2 Years," and how their Dutch was, he said it
was absolutely TERRIBLE.  But, it turns out Dutch is a mix of German
and English, their grammar is more like ours,  and a lot of the words
are similar to German.  So, when he speaks Dutch I can understand a
little tiny bit.  It´s pretty awesome.  He is a very hard worker and
so I´m way excited for this next transfer.
    We´ve actually been blessed with a bunch of success already.  We
have gotten 2 families of 4 so far, and come back into contact with 2
other families we had been teaching.  Things are going very well and
I´m way excited.
    So, not much else has happened, everything is just going awesome.
I should have a bunch of other success stories to share next time =)

Elder Collings