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

July 16, 2012

Hey!   So remember how I told you I´d be going on a split in an area that has been dead for a way super long time?  Well, we went there and had a TON of success.  We found a new family and some random guy that was atheist until we convinced him to not be haha.  I put a picture of a lady, she´s the mom of the family we found.  She has 3 little kids, they are all super awesome, and her husband drives down every week to Stuttgart for work.  She´s basically super awesome and prepared, she read the introduction to the Book of Mormon, and her first response was, "I need to read this book and pray about it as soon as I can.  Is it okay if I compare what I read with the Bible too?"  She said the Missionaries could come and visit her every day.  The other guy we found, told us right away there was no God because he had never seen a God.   So, we asked him if he had a mom.  We then asked him if he loved his mom.  We then told him to prove to us that he really had love for his mom.  All he could do was talk about his love for his mom, so we told him we didn´t believe him that he loved his mom.  Then we explained to him, he knew without a shadow of doubt that he loved his mom, but, he couldn´t prove it, give evidence of it, or even really describe it.  He knew for himself through experience.  We then told him he could do the same thing with God, because we had done it, and we knew that God was there without any doubt.  This guy put his beer down and told us to sit next to him and teach him some more haha.  So, it was a good split =)

    This week we also  accomplished the goal from President Schwartz to teach 20 lessons in a week.  He said if we teach 20 lessons a week, we will double baptisms.  We have had weeks of 18, 19 and 17 lessons,  but this week we got to 20.  It was a great way to end the transfer.  We had our 20th lesson on Sunday.  We have been teaching this Muslim named Mohammed from Africa.  He is actually the leader of one of their Mosques  (where they go to pray).  Every time we have taught him, he has invited about 10 of his friends to come and listen to us.  This time he brought some friends that weren´t too friendly, and wanted to argue with us.  Mohammed  said, "They say there is a new Prophet!  Let them teach us this, it´s important!  We need to hear what they have to say, so be quiet!"  

    Oh yeah, I found out I am staying in Düsseldorf with Elder H another transfer.  I´m so glad I get to stay here longer, and this will be the longest I think I have ever been with one guy (Already been with him like 3 months, and now I have 6 more weeks to go)  Love the guy to death, but that´s a long time.  Anyway, we´re having a lot of success, and seeing miracles so it´s all good!  This transfer my trainer goes home!  And Elder Ha (the Elder I trained) is now training!  Elder M called  up (He was my trainer) and we talked for like 40 minutes last night about Krefeld and everything that happened. 

    Things are going great in Düsseldorf!  We are having lots of success and seeing lots of miracles!

Thanks for everything!

Elder Collings 

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