December 17, 2012

        Hello Family!

    Things are going pretty super awesome.  I don´t really have my own area, I work in 5 areas haha.  And all 5 areas are doing pretty good.  We seem to always have lots and lots of success when we are on splits.    I was on a split in Schweinfurt and we found 2 new people, and taught 5 lessons, I was then in Bayreut, and in one hour we got 4 numbers and made out an appointment with someone else, it was amazing, but, by the end of the week, all of the companionships were kinda bumbed, because that doesn´t happen with their own companion.  That even happens here in Bamberg, we have been finding TONS of people to teach, but, the missionaries don´t seem to teach anyone.  So.... that´s pretty annoying, President told me he wanted me to work with all of the companionships and show them how to work. When I am there, it doesn´t seem like I need to show them everything, but, when I´m not there, they don´t seem to have any success, does that mean they aren´t working when I'm there?  No idea haha.  Anyway, I´ve just been making plans on how to get them to see success by themselves, got a couple more weeks to help them!

    This week we had the opportunity to teach an excommunicated member.  He studied Theology, and basically knows everything, he can read Greek, and Hebrew, and he is a free mason.  He was offended, and left the church.  Now, he spends his free time searching for ways to prove that the church is wrong.  We got to hear him speak for 40 minutes non-stop, throwing off dates and scriptures and facts about why the church isn´t true.  Then we asked what church he belonged to now.  He said he´s catholic.  So........ I asked him what made his church true, and he said it was the oldest haha.  This guy has been so twisted by his anger he doesn´t even know what he believes anymore.  He was always searching for ways to bring our church down, and he accepted a church that was commonly accepted in society.  It was completely obvious that he no longer was looking to do the will of God, he accepted what brought social acceptance, and then looked for ways to turn words and statements from past Prophets to prove they weren´t really called of God.  I told him he was acting like the (I don´t know how to spell this) Pharisees at the time of Christ, and he should accept that the only perfect person who ever lived was our Savior Jesus Christ, and he then said the prophets of old never made any mistakes, and all we needed was in the bible........So, I read Ex 33:11 with him, then John 1:18 and then John 6:46 and asked if man can see God.  Then read John 3:22 and John 4:2 and asked if Jesus baptized, and then we read Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9 and asked if the others heard a voice.  We then told him again he needed to accept that people make mistakes, and that he can choose to forgive  and come back.  But, he ignored everything we said and said it was time to eat.....  It was sad to see that he was so closed up, that he would just search for faults in the Church and the Leaders.

    Anyway, there was quite a bit of snow.... like 4 inches, but, now it has all melted and it´s raining again haha, so I´m super warm, my socks are just always wet.  My old pair of shoes still has holes in them.... and my new pair does too.  I don´t want to use money on a new pair of shoes either haha, just have a few more weeks.  

 

   Thanks for everything!

Elder Collings                             

                    

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