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