Macedonians, accordions, and a whoooole lot of walking!

So in December Elder Bretzing and I went tracting and we spent an entire day in a town called Coswig. Not a single person in this town wanted anything to do with us. One lady finally let us in to her apartment, but she couldn't speak German.  She managed to tell us that her husband CAN speak German, so we gave her our card and we went home. I wrote the address and the name down in my planner and we forgot about it... (I know that's terrible!)

 

Last week after our appointment with Raju in that same little town, I remembered (actually the Spirit reminded me) that same apartment building that Elder Bretzing and I had once visited. We went back and spoke with the husband of the woman we had talked to but he was running out of the door to take his sick daughter to the doctor. We gave him the extra Book of Mormon we had and told him we would come back. When we went back, we were able to talk to him and we found out that he is from Macedonia, and that he had been waiting to find out the truth! He had already started reading in the Book of Mormon that we had given him and before we could talk about who we even were and that we wanted to teach him he was asking us if we could come back and talk about the book! We have two lessons scheduled with the Salioski family this week, and I'm super excited! They are such a cool family! They have a 19 year old daughter named Nadia, a 5 year old named Alissya, a one year old named Muhammad and he is super cute and funny.

We also had two more people come to our English class, and they were not Cops! (what a relief!) They can both play the accordion and they said that they will teach me how, so now I'm super excited for our next English class!

By the way, this week I think we walked a marathon!

 

Thank you for your awesome scriptures that you shared with me, and thank you for the prayers!

Love,  Elder Schmalz

 

 

New Companion, Threats, and of course Missionary Work!

This week has been the longest and weirdest week ever! It started off with having to drop Elder Bretzing off at the train station in Dresden, and that was hard. 12 weeks is a long time to spend with a person, but luckily Elder Bretzing was awesome and we became really close so it's good I guess that it was hard to say goodbye. I then spent all of Tuesday with my two German zone leaders and I was able to clearly communicate the entire time with them so that was cool. I also picked up Elder Weber!

Elder Weber is from Highland, Utah and he went to Lone Peak Highschool, so we will be able to talk a lot about Utah for a while haha! He also loves to go running....... Yeah (sarcasm) but in all seriousness, he seems awesome and I can't wait to get to work :)

One of the things we do here in Meissen to help find new investigators is teach a free English class at the church. We recently took a break for the holidays and we were going to be started up again this week, so Elder Bretzing and I went around Meissen and the surrounding towns and we were putting up flyers. Without even realizing, we put up one of our flyers right across the street from a company that teaches English for €190 ($220) a class.... whoops

My first day with Elder Weber we recieved a phone call in perfect English (super weird, we never hear English) asking about our English course, and if I was the teacher, what time and where, and how to spell my name?..... Then they went into a whole thing about how we are breaking the law by offering a free class and that if we continue they will take action......

Luckily their claims are false and we as missionaries are recognized by the goverment of Germany as teachers and eccliastical leaders and we have the licences to prove it.

So don't be surprised if in my next email you are hearing about the police showing up at the church and asking us a bunch of questions. hahaha!

We met with Raju this week and gave him a baptismal calendar and scheduled out all of the lessons with him before his baptism. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and I'm super excited for him and his family!

That's pretty much all that has happened this past week.

I'm super excited for this next week and for what it will bring.

 

You should all go and read the Book of Mormon and find your favorite verse and then send it to me next week!:)

 

Love Elder Gavin Schmalz

 

Transfers! Temple! and some Awesome Lessons!

This last week has been crazy! We received our transfer calls and I'm staying in Meissen! Elder Bretzing is heading to Berlin to be a district leader! (stud status!) It will be sad to say goodbye to my new friend. My new comps name is Elder Weber and from what I hear, he is really cool, so I am really excited! I will pick him up in a couple days when I drop Elder Bretzing off at the train station.

We also had the awesome opportunity to go to the Freiberg temple this week before it closes for a year and a half, and can I just say it was just like going home for a few hours. Even though everything was in German, it felt just like going home. It was super cool and I am super grateful that I could have that awesome and spiritual experience. Going to the temple also gave me some time to think about my grandparents who passed away this week in 2013. I have been so focused on being a missionary to really let the sad thoughts creep into me, but I am glad that I had that time to think about them and to really see how they changed my life and I know that they are here still. I will see them again, I know this. Now I can focus back on the work I get to do here in Meissen.

We taught a lesson to one our investigators about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. He is notorious for changing the subject or just talking about anything and everything with the two Americans. It's really hard because he likes to talk about science or news and I don't know anything sciencey or newsy in German... so this time we really prepared and I said a prayer that we would be able to teach him a complete lesson. We went in and he started right away talking about this Asian thing that he had read about that helps you live longer and feel better... (so random?) but we then were able to talk to him about the word of wisdom and told him that we would teach about it next lesson, but this lesson we wanted to teach him about something that would strengthen his spirit and help him feel better, and that is coming to church! He shut up (in the nicest way possible) and he didn't change the subject or chat about random things, he just started to participate in the lesson and really started asking cool and good questions and you could see that he was really learning and understanding. H said that he will come to church next Sunday!!!

So pretty much this week I learned to not let my emotions or frustrations get in the way and to just let the Spirit take the lead, and when you do that, you really see change. You have to change your attitude to see anything else change.

Another great week, and I can't wait for the next one!!

 

This week the snow melted because we were hit with a tropical heat wave in the middle of January, and the Elbe River is threatening to flood Meissen.

On the bright side, we were able to hike to the spot in Germany where President Monson dedicated all of Germany for the preaching of the gospel. It was so beautiful! It is in a town called Radebuel, and it's in my area.

Sylvester (new years) in Deutschland

So New Years in Germany is a time of drinking and of illegal military grade Polish fireworks!

For missionaries, its a time of spiritual reflection, goal setting, and hiding inside from the drunk Germans with illegal explosives!

 

We were able to start off this new year with an awesome lesson with Raju and his family. Teaching Raju is very hard because he is Indian and can only speak Hindi and like 10 words of German. We have a translator but she is on vacation. We can still teach him without her, it just takes a long time:)

This last week we wanted to teach him about the ten commandments but he decided he wanted to show us a video of his dad being cremated in India (super interesting but a little off topic) so we decided to show him a video too. A video of a baptism! We then testified of the plan of salvation and the blessings that come from following the example of Jesus Christ. His response...  "I want to be made clean by God....next week please" so we set him a date in February so he can prepare:). That was really cool and the Spirit was so strong, its crazy that when the Spirit is there, language barriers don't matter.

We also had a cool experience as elder Bretzing was buying a Capri Sun in the vending machine (he loves them) and out of pure luck or maybe not, two Capri Suns came out. He turned to give it to me but before he could hand it off a little girl on our platform (we are at the train station) asked if she could have it, so we gave it to her and we started talking to her and her mom. We came to find out that they had talked to the missionaries in the past in Meißen and even gave them their phone number but they never called, so we gave them our phone number and they were really excited to meet with us. It was then that I remembered that that morning I had put an extra buch of mormon in my bag and I asked her if she had heard of it. She said no and asked where she could get one, so I gladly gave her my extra and she got on her train:). The greatest thing of all is that her name is Frau Deutsch.... Mrs. German!

So yes, this week was a week of new beginnings and new investigators! A week where I gained an even stronger testimony of this awesome work that I get to take part in! This church is true! I can say that without a doubt in my heart!

 

I'm so sorry that I'm really bad at writing with my grammar and spelling and stuff,  but keep in mind that I'm learning a new language and new grammar rules and I'm using a 15 year old German keyboard. At least that's my excuse.

 

Love Elder Schmalz