March 5, 2012

Hey, it´s starting to get warm again =)
    This week has been super awesome, it´s been lke 16 grad all week,
it feels like heaven.  I had the opportunity to go to the temple
today, it´s always awesome to go in and feel the spirit there, it´s
even cooler to have it all in German haha.  I had the opportunity of
doing the work for someone from the Netherlands, the town wasn´t too
far away from where Elder H comes from, but, I guess everything in
the Netherlands is close haha.  I´m not going to lie, it´s hard to
think back on what has happened this last week, I feel like I was
writing an e-mail yesterday and nothing has happened, but, like tons
of stuff has happened!  We had a way super awesome zone conference,
one of the main things President Schwarz talked about how the members
need to be more friendly with our Investigators when they come too
church.  He said that compared to the rest of Europe we need like 3X as
many people at Church per baptism.  He then talked about how in
Portugal whenever someone comes to Church, at least 10 people stand up
and go greet the person and then sit with them in the back.  He said
it didn´t matter if it was in the middle of a talk or a prayer, they
always had 10 people ready.  He then talked about how the Gospel is
for the individual, and it is our job to make sure every investigator
that comes in knows that they are accepted and that they are with
Saints.  He then committed us all to give this idea to the Wards and
tell them to do it
    I was basically feeling super pumped and excited to share this
wonderful story with our Ward, I imagined it would be the thing to
turn Offenbach around and baptize more than 1 person every other year
haha, I guess I was expecting angels and hallelujahs and stuff.  So,
we had Ward Council tha same night,  I was so excited.  Once it was
our turn to talk about the missionary work, we told them about the new
investigators we had, and the progress of others, and then the ward
asked what they could do to help. We told them that none of our
investigators knows any of them, and that when they come to Church
they get a few hello´s, but, they don´t really have friends, so, we
then told them the Portugal story and how President wants us all to do
that and how it would change the missionary work as we know it.  I was
expecting praises, but I think we could compare it more to the "Stoning
of Steven" haha.  They were not happy with me.  For the next 30 minutes
the Ward council took turns telling us how if we wanted the
investigators to have friends, they need to come at least 15 minutes
early to Sacrament, and then we need to walk them up to each of the
members and introduce them.  It wasn´t exactly what I thought was
going to happen haha.  So..... after that, they didn´t give us anymore
time to talk about other things we wanted to do with the Ward, they
just moved on.  We´re now expecting a surprise visit from the Stake
President and President Schwartz in the next couple of weeks.
    Other than that little experience, things are going awesome.  My
first week here in Offenbach with Elder H (#1), we found about 4
different Families, and then lost contact with all of them, but, this
last week we came in contact with all of them again haha.  We saw 2 of
them randomly on the street, they invited us to come back and said
they had been expecting us, and then we just stopped by the other 2
and they invited us in and asked where we had been the last 5 months
haha.  It was way awesome and I´m excited to teach them again.  We
also have been teaching these 5 Romanian brothers, all of them said
they know the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a
prophet.  They also believed that their Church was true though.  They
said the only thing their Church lacked was the Book of Mormon haha.
We told them if they took the Book of Mormon to their Pastor, he would
say it came from the Devil and Burn it.  Then they said,"If he said
that, we´d just tell him to read it!  He would know it was true if he
read it."  On Friday we finally got them to understand the whole one
true Church thing, but, now they are going to Romania for the next 3
weeks haha.  They were all praying for a baptismal date too.  We gave
their address to the missionaries there, so hopefully they still meet
with the missionaries and go to Church in Romania =)
    We also had something way funny happen.  I don´t know if I ever
told you this, but, about 13 weeks ago back with Elder Z, we had
a Family of 6 come to Church, they were all Romanian.  I had given
them a card and pointed to where the Church was, and they came.  We
were pretty excited, so, we made out a time to meet with them.  We
went to teach them, and he talked about how his wife was a prophet and
how she could heal people.  We asked them what they expected from our
visits, and he told us a car 2,000€ and a Book of Mormon haha.  We
gave them the Book of Mormon and then told them the only thing we
could help them with was to get an answer from God through the Holy
Ghost to know  how to enjoy all of the blessings that he has prepared
for us.  Then he asked where he had to go to get a car haha.  So, we
told them we couldn´t help them, but, if they ever wanted to receive
divine revelation to call us.  Well, this family showed up to Church
again.  This time they asked if they could have a house, a car, and
2,000€ haha.  Our Branch president said I´m not allowed to give Church
tours to anymore romanians (We´ve had a couple of other random guys
come in begging for money).  But then the funniest thing was that
after they met with the Branch President and asked him for all this
stuff, they walked outside, got in a car, and then got out and started
looking at another car.  They put something on the windshield and
drove away.  So, first of all they had a car already.  And then the
card they left said that they were interested in buying this other car
that they´d pay in cash and would do it at anytime of the day haha.
    Anyway, things are going great, thanks for everything you do for me!
Elder Collings