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