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