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

May 21, 2012

This week was a super awesome week of miracles.  I don´t know if I told you about that family from Macedonia that we have been teaching, but they all want to be baptized =)  We met with them last week to see what they thought about Church, the husband, Bekhirl said that as he walked into the chapel he felt like he knew the people already even though he had never met them.  He then told us how much he loves the Book of Mormon.  He used to be Muslim, and he would study the Koran every day.  He said he never really felt anything special about it, he just found it interesting, so he decided to read the Bible.  That was the first time he actually felt something special.  He then decided Christianity was true and Islam was not.  He said now whenever he reads the Book of Mormon, he just has a feeling come over his whole entire body.  He reads for hours non stop, he is already through Alma and we´ve only known him a couple of weeks.  We read about the Waters of Mormon with him and asked him what his thoughts were, or if  he had any questions.  His only question was, "When, when should I be baptized?"  We told him he had to quit smoking first, he said that ever since he had been meeting with us, he has started to quit, he is already down to 5 cigarettes a day, he was at 3 packs.  He told us, "If it wasn´t for the cigarettes, I would be baptized right now!"  So, all 7 of them want to be baptized as soon as the father quits smoking =)

    We also had a super awesome time at Church this week.  There was a lady that got baptized a year ago, she had her very first talk on Sunday.  She was so excited, she made out invitations for 30 of her friends, and about 15 came!  We had about 30 non members in total in our sacrament meeting last Sunday, it was absolutely amazing.  The ward is getting so excited, maybe we can get them to go out and do some doors haha.  Jake Howard just sent me a letter and said the members in Argentina knock on doors, I´m so jealous haha.  So........ things are going super duper good and I am having a blast!

    Thanks for all of your love and support!
Elder Collings

May 14, 2012

Thought I´d send you all some pictures =)  I kinda talked to ya like yesterday, I could tell you couldn´t really understand me haha, your interpretations of my speaking was pretty off most the time but whatever haha.  I don´t know what was wrong with the phone, Elder H used the same phone and his family understood him perfectly but......yeah =)

    Everything is great just like I told you yesterday, we´re tearing it up, teaching tons of people, finding tons of people and really seeing a lot of miracles, I´ll keep this one short and actually answer some old e-mails I guess haha =)

 

Love ya´ll lots!

Eler Collings

 

 

May 7, 2012

You know, it´s pretty weird starting all of my letters, I never really know what to say other than this week was awesome haha, but.... it´s totally true every time =)  This week was awesome.  It has been way fun working out here with Elder H, we have already seen a bunch of success, and things are getting better and better every day, Düsseldorf is now completely turned around and is having tons of success again.  We had the opportunity to ride a train down to Frankfurt for a Leadership Training, almost all of my old companions are Zone Leaders; Elder A from the MTC, Elder J my second Companion, Elder Ch my Third companion and then of Course Elder H my current companion.  President shared a lot of the impressions and feelings that he has had for where this mission is going, he put up 5 numbers, 150, 20, 10, 5, 1.  The 150 is a goal he set for 150 Young single adult Baptisms this year in the mission, 20 is how many lessons he wants us to get in a week, 10 is the number of new investigators he sees us getting each week, 5 is how many people he wants prepared for an investigator before they come to church and 1 is all about focusing on the individual.  Each one of those actually comes from different prophecies that have been given, Elder Perry said he was thoroughly convinced that if we were teaching 20 lessons a week baptisms would double, re-activations would double and we would have "Real Growth."  President Kopischke came and gave his own little prophecy and said that if we internalized the first principles of finding, and got a good attitude, we would find 10 new investigators a week, 5 is something president Schwartz has been prompted to tell us, and 1 is about something Elder Bednar said.  He told a story about when he was in BYU Idaho as the... I can´t think of the position name haha, the dude on top =)  they had a fireside on a Sunday and there were 250 people.  BYU Idaho has 12,000 students.  Elder Bednar challenged them at the end, he said that an apostle will teach according to the preparedness of the group he is speaking to.  He invited them to prepare themselves, dress up in the best attire they had, and then invite 5 people to do the same, but, to invite those 5 to invite 4 and those 4 to invite 3... so on.  Tuesday came and over 12,000 people were there all in suits.  He said at the end this principle of focusing on the 1 will touch 1,000s.

    So.... we decided we had better get to that haha.  This last week we actually had over 20 lessons made out.... but only about 13 went through.  So we are going to do our best to really set an example for the rest of the Zone and show them that these super crazy high goals are possible.  Just so you know, the zone right now averages 4 lessons per companionship, and .67 new investigators per week per companionship.  Much work is to be done haha.

       We had a couple of super awesome miracles this week too.  So, one that was way cool actually has 2 sides.  So, we have 2 sisters in our area also.   They were crossing a street and passed by this kid.  They were all the way to the other end when one of the sisters felt like they should talk to him, so they turned around and just ran at him yelling excuse me.  She didn´t really know what to say so she just said God loves you.  The kid said that was really wierd haha.  But he then started to cry and said he had planned on killing himself that day because he did not feel any love of God.  He had gone to a Catholic church to pray but felt nothing so he figured there was no God and saw no point in living anymore.  The sisters made out an appointment and we were there so we could start teaching him.  It was one of the most spiritual lessons ever, he started to tear up a couple of times and of course the sisters cried haha.  It went way good and we´re meeting again on Wednesday. 

    After Church we were talking to some members.  One of them asked about an old investigator and said that this investigator had had a baptismal date and came to church every week for like 6 months.  We had no idea who it was, so the member said he would send him a text message.  Later that day this  random person called us up, it was that guy the member had been talking about.  He said that he wanted to come back, but this time he wanted to be serious.  So we´re meeting him again on Wednesday also. 

    We have an investigator named Siegfried F.  He has been slowly making progress but he has always had a hard time coming to church.  He has a lot of financial problems so he sleeps terribly and he has a hard time waking up.  We taught him about why church is important, it was a way awesome lesson, but afterwards he showed no greater desire to come to church.  On Saturday we called him up to ask if he would be coming, he said that if he wakes up in time he will, but he is not setting an alarm..... we went ahead and called up a bunch of members to pray for him so that he would make it.  Sacrament meeting started and he wasn´t there, but then right after the opening prayer, he walked in =)  It was so awesome, and the members got way excited too because they had prayed for him to come.

    There was also this way super drunk guy and girl that we talked to the other day, they didn´t really know what was going on... but they sure liked us for some reason.  They kept asking about what we do as missionaries and then they would tell us how much they liked that and respected it.  They went on forever about how terrible the world was and told us how wonderful it is that we have faith, anyway that was just kinda weird, but, our bus ended up coming we got in but quickly found out it was the wrong bus, the right bus was directly behind it.  We got out and that drunk guy had no idea what was going on, he thought the driver kicked us out because we were missionaries, he started yelling, "They are talking about faith!  They are talking about faith!  That is discrimination what you are doing! Discrimination!"  We got in the right bus and he put his head in the window and told us we didn´t have to take that, we could call the police haha.

    Anyway, I am doing great, thanks for all of your love and support!
Elder Collings

April 30 back to work!

Man, this week was awesome haha.  So, I was with Elder C until Thursday, and Elder K stayed with us a couple of days (His name in German means Cancer)  They were both going home.  We didn´t really get to get out and do much work or anything because Elder C still had a TON of stuff to pack and we had to do some other things to prepare him to go home.  But the last 2 days were way awesome because Elder K only speaks German, he is from Switzerland.  It got me used to only speaking German again, so, now with my new companion we are only speaking German again haha.  On transfer day, the Office bought the wrong tickets for some of the Elders, so when I sent Elder C and Elder K away on a train, I ended up alone for a couple of hours haha.  It was funny to think about, before my mission I wouldn´t care or anything, but, I´ve been out for over a year and always had someone right next to me, it was way super weird being alone for a couple of hours haha.

    Now I am serving with Elder Ho, I put a picture up there for ya, he´s the one in the apron.  He´s way awesome, I knew him in the MTC.  He just barely finished training, and Elder Ha, the Elder I just trained is actually going up to serve with his old companion, so my Son is serving with his Son, and the Dads come together haha.  Elder Ho is way awesome, he´s a solid worker and great at basically everything, it´ll be fun to serve with him.

   This week we had a street preach.  A bunch of Elders and Sisters and some members got together in a town called Wuppertal to sing, play some music and talk to people on the street.  About 10 minutes into it, some police came up to us and told us we weren´t allowed to do that because it was disturbing people in the City-Hall.... The City-Hall isn´t open on Saturday and there was a band right next to us being like 5X as loud... but, whatever.  It was awesome to finally get to work way hard, the last couple of weeks I haven´t had so much time to work.  We also got a random call right before that, my 1st zone leader, Elder A, called up.  He is in a group that studies around Europe from BYU.  He was visiting Düsseldorf for the weekend, so he came to the Street Preach.  He is also the one that trained my Trainer, so technically I am  his Grandson.  We actually went up and talked to people on the street together, it was cool because last time I couldn´t say a word haha. 

    Now that we can finally get out and do lots of work, its been awesome to see the miracles again haha.  On Saturday, we ended up making 7 lessons out for this coming week, and we found a family of 8 from Macedonia.  We taught the family yesterday and we get to meet with them again today.  No idea how old the mom and dad are, but their kids are 17,15,13,11, 9 and 2. They are way awesome, and they like basketball, so I´m going to bring them to the Church and play some ball with them all =)  

    The work is going great and I´m having a blast!  So mother´s day is in 2 weeks!  Guess we should start planning everything right now then.  If you call at 11.00 your time then that would be great, my address is:

Elder

Karl-Anton Str.18

40211 Düsseldorf

Germany

    Thanks for everything, you´re all awesome!

Elder Collings

April 16th and 23rd

April 16th

 

Wow, this was probably the slowest week on my mission haha.  Elder C was sick the WHOLE week.  He threw up a TON and was basically just feeling terrible the whole week.  He lost all appetite and ended up only eating 1.5 bananas and half a yogurt and a couple of mouthfulls of food in 4 days.  He has lost 15 pounds, but, now he is doing better =)  I can´t really say anything happened last week haha, I just read, ate and worked out all day every day, not much else I could have done.  This is Elder C´s very last week in Germany, luckily he is feeling much better, we´ll be getting some calls this week to find out who I will be working with this next transfer. 

    I don´t know if I told you how this area was when I came in, but, it was basically as dead as every other area I have been moved into, this last week we weren´t able to teach anyone because of the sickness, but, last night we made a ton of calls to get this last week going good.  We are expecting more than 20 lessons =) it was a way big change in just 5 weeks.

    Anyway, I´m doing great, thanks for everything, I´ll get ya some sweet pictures next week!

Elder Collings

 

 

 

 April 23rd

Hey Family!

    This week was pretty awesome.  It was actually pretty weird haha.  Elder C leaves this week, so he has been packing, doing paper work, and saying goodbye to all of the members and people he has met.  So this last week we met with TONS of people.  We also had a couple of awesome miracles.  There have actually been 2 people baptized the last 2 weeks by the sisters in this ward, and one of the ladies that was baptized loves doing missionary work.  She asked if she could go out and do doors with the sisters.  She can´t speak any German, but she really wanted to do her best to tell people about the gospel.  They sat on a train and some guy apparently smiled at them.  This girl looked at the sisters and said, "He smiled over at us.... I´m going to give him a card"  so she just walked over and tried to say something in German and give him a card, he actually spoke English and gave them his number haha.  So he came to the baptism on Saturday and we got to meet him.  He is like 6 foot 4, like 220 pounds, and it´s like solid muscle haha.  He worked for the special forces in Egypt for a long time.  He is way open and told us he knows Christianity is the truth (He was born and raised Muslim)  He liked the baptism, came to Church the next day, and wants to learn more.  Our Mission President came to  our ward and talked to him.  A is way nice and said he would love to help with anything possible, apparently he has a bunch of connections, so people can travel easily to Egypt and stuff.  President Schwartz asked him what talents he had to see how he could help out, A said, "Well..... I don´t think you need anyone killed, but, I can do that"  He laughed a bunch, but.... I believe it haha.  So, we´ll be meeting with him Tuesday, I´m excited =)

    We also had a great lesson right before the Baptism with Herr F.  We found him a little while  ago and haven´t met with him too much.  But we taught him about prayer and scripture study and it was an AMAZING lesson.  At the end he offered a kneeling prayer and in his prayer he told God that he thinks he has found the right path for his life.  Then at Church our members were super awesome and nice and talked to both of them for about an hour after all of the meetings.  I´m way excited =)  We have been seeing a lot of cool miracles, we had a random guy come up to us and basically say he loved coming to church 5 years ago and now wants to learn more, but now he´s married with a kid.  So, good things will be happening in Düsseldorf =)

    I am doing great, I´ve only been working in Düsseldorf 5 weeks, and one week was spent in the house haha, but I´m excited to take it over.  My new companion is also a new Zone Leader, it will be his first transfer as a zone leader.  I actually already know him from the MTC, he is VERY quiet, but a spiritual giant.  It will be fun to work with him.  Things are going great and I´m having a blast.

    Thanks for everything you do!
Elder Collings

April 10th FINALLY!

Hey Family!

    Wow, it was a crazy week.  We basically were way busy every day, until Saturday came around.  We had a split last Monday, were in Frankfurt on Tuesday and Wednesday, another Split Thursday and another split Friday.  To make it even more crazy, none of the travel plans really worked out well, so the earliest we got to bed was around midnight, and we  had to wake up around 5 every day.  It was super crazy, and it had its toll, Elder C got sick =(  He has been sick since Saturday.  They say he has a virus and could be out of it until Friday.  The doctor said to take it easy and don´t leave the house for more than an hour.  So, he has been sleeping, throwing up, etc. all day, and I have just been trying to keep myself busy.  But, things are good haha.  I don´t really know what I will do the rest of the week..... But, I´ll figure it out. 

    Although we were really busy the whole week, we were still blessed with much success.  We found 4 more people to teach and got some of the other areas really excited.  We actually even got interviewed by these 2 guys in Iran who have a youtube channel haha.  Anyway, I am doing great, hopefully I don´t get sick.  Gotta go now before Elder C throws up!

 

Love ya lots!

Elder Collings