Baptism! Goodbyes! and The City Of Luck!

So after 16 weeks of teaching through language barriers and stressing, it has happened. 

Raju Patel was baptized! It came together perfectly, even though we had no baptismal clothes or water in the font until a couple hours before the service. Now the Meissen Branch has a brand new member and I'm so grateful that I got to meet and teach this man and his family! I then had to say goodbye to him right after because tomorrow I'm on a train to my new area...Glückstadt. It's all the way in the most northern part of Germany, to serve with Elder Garner!

Glück means luck or fortune, so I'm on my way to the City of Luck! So that's some exciting news!

This week has just been so awesome, and I'm super excited for this next week!

 

From the words of my good Friend Raju Patel "I Know this church is true" (but he says it in half Hindi half German!:) I also know this Church is true and I'm so grateful I have this opportunity to share it, and to see this gospel in action! :)

 

 

New Carpets, Zone Training Meeting , and an Upcoming Baptism!

So this week has been a week of moving furniture and living out of one room! The mission office decided that our apartment was due for new carpets, so this last week we moved all of our furniture into our bigger study room and have been living there. That was stressful! Then we received the news last night that we have to move all of our stuff into our tiny bedroom and live there for a week! YAAAAAA!   <----------- super sarcastic.

 

 

Okay, I'm done whining!

 

Now I'm going to tell you about the good stuff that happened this last week.

We had an awesome zone training meeting and we had interviews with president, so that was super exciting and really fun! Right now our zone is working non stop and they are really seeing success.

 

Dresden Zone

The biggest good news of all!!!!!  

 

Raju Patel not only made us delicious vegetarian Indian food but he also accepted the invitation to be baptized this coming Sunday! please keep him in your prayers, he really needs it.

This week has been fantastic and this coming week will be even better.

 

 

Disease, deportation , and a dang cool experience on exchange

First off... I got a Haircut!

 

This week our investigator on baptismal date got super sick and we had to move the date of his baptism to the first week in March. So sad. We are going to give him a blessing this week in hopes that he will feel better soon. It sure seems that all of our investigators are getting sick and keep canceling appointments due to sickness. What is going around? We have been trying our hardest to meet with people this week but things just kept going bad.

 

We were able to teach the Salioski Family the 1st lesson two weeks ago and they loved it! They are super prepared and we were planning on inviting them to baptism this week and we were sure that they would say yes........ but... we called them on Tuesday to meet again and we received some really sad news. It turns out that our Macedonian family are not just super prepared to receive the restored gospel but also....illegal immigrants and are getting deported this week... So that is not exactly great news.

 

On a brighter side, I got to go on exchange this week with Elder Nielson, a missionary from Delta Utah who is going home in two weeks. We had an awesome experience as we were opening our mouths "talking to everyone we pass" and had been out in the snow for 3 hours talking to people and just kept getting rejected and yelled at by people when we saw a old man walking down the road and we decided to go and talk to him. We went up and just said hello and he was so happy to see us he said  "what you are doing is so good!" and " I knew you were servants of God before you even talked to me", so we talked to him for a while and we asked him how he had such a strong testimony. He told us about his experience as a younger man where he found out for himself that he was a child of God and that we are all children of God. This man had such a strong testimony and he was not ashamed to share it. In fact, as we sat and talked he said he wanted to sing us a song from his church and he sang to us softly and started crying in the middle of a busy road. He then read our name tags and saw  Kirche Jesu Christi Der Heiligen Der Letzen Tage

He said he had never heard of our church before and he would definitely be interested in learning more about it in his home town in Austria. He then grabbed us and bore his testimony about our work that we are doing and he hugged us and gave us his blessing and then he tottered on down the street. 

Elder Nielson and I just sat there in shock for probably 5 minutes. I know that that sounds like such a weird and random experience but the spirit was so strong and that man strengthened my testimony! 

This week has been a great week! It has been a really hard and sad week, but I have learned so much in the last 7 days and I can't wait for this next week!:)

I really just love being a missionary!

 

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

 

The Volger Family

P-Day at Moritzburg

So today we went to an awesome castle in the middle of a lake called Schloss Moritzburg, it was really cool! Sadly they did not allow pictures inside, so I took some pictures of the outside cause they can't stop me...rebel status! We also wrote some helpful websites in the guestbook!

Last night we got probably a foot of snow, and it's about time! 

Its kind of hard trying to tell you what happened in the last three days since I just emailed last Friday, but we taught some awesome lessons and we found a new potential investigator!

 




Elder Bretzing



Cinderella Lost Her Slipper



And it does not fit me :(

 

And here is a picture of the family we spent Christmas with, they are pretty awesome!

 

Christmas 2014

So this last week was Christmas, as you all know and I spent it:

Singing in a senior home!

Watching German children open presents!

Eating a ton of awesome food!

Learning and growing closer to my Savior! and

Teaching lessons and finding new investigators!

Christmas is my favorite holiday, I absolutely love it!

I can honestly say that this Christmas has been the best one of my life! I love being here in Germany and I love doing this awesome work. Hopefully next week I will get all my pictures and I can show you how awesome my Christmas was.

I hope you all had an awesome Christmas!

 

I found out that I will get to go to the Freiberg Temple I think the first week of January before it is closed for renovation :) and I am so excited.  I might still be in Germany when they re-dedicate it!

 

Skyping home was so fun:) and mom, I will start taking more pictures of myself.

Christmas Eve

Here are some pictures of our awesome Christmas Eve with the Volger clan (with opa and oma ortleib and also steffi). He is our branch president. We spent the night caroling at the alteheim (retirement home), and went to dinner at their home. This is what our dinner table looked like, and after dinner we all got gathered around and some of the members of the family prepared something for us to listen too. We got to hear stories about Christmas in the DDR time, and that was really cool.

 



P-Day Is Friday This Week...

but highlights from this past week were....

 

1. A huge gust of wind attacked me and blew my magnetic name tag into the river... identity theft by mother nature.

2. I spoke German (not exactly new).

3. We taught some Germans how to make Mexican food and sloppy joes to great success.

4. Oh and four new investigators!! (and you all thought I wasn't working)

 

So, you will hear more from me on this Friday!

 

Fröhliche Weihnachten! Merry Christmas!

Remember the reason for the season

 

-Elder Gavin Schmalz

Week Seven? Is it, I've lost count

So this week I turned 19 but that wasn't the biggest thing that happened this week.

On the 13th we woke up to a phone call from our mission president and we were told to be in Berlin by 3:00. It took five hours of train rides and walking through cities we didn't know but we made it to Berlin. The whole reason for the call and the rush to get to the City was some sad news. Elder Bretzing found out that his dad had passed away in a car accident on the 12th... My birthday.

He was able to Skype his family for a few hours and that helped him to decide to stay on his mission.

Elder Bretzing is a stud. Can you all keep him in your prayers this week? You can also shoot him an email to tell him how awesome he is! His Email is Matthew.bretzing@myldsmail.net

While my companion was Skyping with his family, the office Elders gave me a tour of Berlin and I got to see all of the sights. Loved it! When we got back, President asked me to help him give Elder Bretzing a blessing, the spirit was soooo strong. Yesterday we got driven back to Meissen by President Kosak and he went to church with us.

It's weeks like this that make me really appreciate the gospel of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation.

We can live with our families again and that is why I am here in Germany. To help share that amazing truth with everyone I meet.

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! Thank you for the love and the support also!:)

 

Here are some pictures...

 

The Beautiful German Countryside

Weihnachtmarkt

My Birthday Haul

I bought myself a hat with deer fighting on it (pretty legit) and a Michael Buble Christmas cd.

The ward made me a cookie cake and gave me some chocolate and this really cool limited edition Meißner Weihnachts Käse (Meissen Christmas cheese) cause they know that I love cheese.

Elder Bretzing gave me a mug with a bunch of bears on it. (super cool)

and I opened my birthday cards! So awesome! I absolutely loved reading what everyone said 

and thank you for the birthday and thanksgiving cards in the mail:)

Here is our Christmas Tree!

 

 

 

 

Dresden, Leipzig, and Chemnitz December Zone Conference and Christmas Packages

Week Six

Another awesome week in the land of Germany!

This week my companion got something called a witches bullet. Its pretty much where a muscle gets so cold that it tightens and pinches your nerve and it lasts for 3-5 days, so that was an adventure. He woke up and he couldn't even move and half his body was numb, he got the witches bullet right in the lower back and he was immobilized for a day and a half!  This threw off our whole week, not only did we lose a day of proselyting but he cant carry any weight so I have twice as many books!
But I did learn two things... 

#1 Don't get cold in Germany.

#2 That this really is Gods work! 

 Although we had some set backs this week and even with my companions back problem, we still worked as hard as we could to share the gospel and we still found success!

While my companion was sick, I had the opportunity to clean and work on the area book and make some phone calls (super fun!), and while doing so I found two investigators from two or three years ago that had slipped through the cracks and stopped receiving lessons (most likely because of transfers) and we called them and set up appointments with both of them. They both are still really interested in the church and didn't know how to contact missionaries again. We are meeting with them this week and I'm pretty sure its going to be Awesome!

I just want you all to know that this church is true! I know that without a doubt in my mind. and I promise that if you earnestly seek to know that for yourself, that you will receive a testimony of it also!

Thank you so much for the birthday wishes! I will probably tell you more about my birthday adventures that are coming up next week!

Have a Great 3rd Advent

 

Love, Elder Schmalz

Week Five

Helige Kuh!

Germany is really cold!

This week has been a week full of canceled appointments and a drunk guy who insists my name is Eddie!

In Germany they celebrate the 4 advents. They are the four Sundays proceeding Christmas and they are a huge deal.  This Sunday was 1st advent and I was asked to sing in sacrament meeting for the branch and the mission president and his family so that was really cool! Also because of first advent almost all our appointments fell out and we spent a majority of this week tracting.... which Germans don't like at all, especially during Christmas/advent time.

It was still a great week! We found a new investigator named Michael , who needs help building his house, so we have a new person to teach and we get to learn about construction! We also helped the Weidlich family move. Rolf is Frau Weidlichs ex boyfriend and he likes alcohol..... a lot. He was put in charge of watching the children.....(worst idea in the whole world) he let them run into the street and climb on stuff and all and did a terrible job, so I ended babysitting a drunk man who was babysitting a bunch of kids. Super fun! He, in his drunken state thought my name tag said Eddie Schmalz and called me that for the whole 4 hours of moving and continues to call me that when he sees me on the street with all of his drunken friends so that is funny!

So yeah, super good week!

I hope you were all able to watch the video "He is the Gift", it is really good! I want to invite you all to think about what Christmas really actually means and what you can give to others.

I love you and I hope everything is going okay at home.
 

Love "Eddie" Gavin Schmalz

This week we will be looking forward to receiving a video of Eddie Schmalz eating the hottest currywurst ever. It has been described as "friggen hot"!

We also learned that he might get to Skype to us on Christmas thanks to some kind members in his area. Oh, I hope so. Keeping my fingers and toes crossed...

Pictures!

After searching and searching, a computer was finally found in East Germany that is compatible with Elder Schmalz's camera! Oh, happy day! Here are some sights of Meissen and Dresden.


Albrechtsburg and Cathedral in Meissen



Frauenkirche



The Opera House in Dresden



The Freiberg Temple

Week Four

On Wednesday we got on a train to Elsterwerda (a 2 hour trip) so that we could go and teach the Chege family (the Africans that I talked about last week) to find out if they wanted to be baptized.

When we got to Elsterwerda we had an hour to do some street finding. (walking around talking to people or doing doors) We found absolutely no one. All doors were slammed in our faces and we received some disgusted looks from everyone, a pretty normal day hahah. We did see a guy walking his dog and we had ten more minutes until we had to be to our appointment so we went up and talked to him.  At first he was very nice and talked to us, but then he went crazy and tried to prove to us that God isn't real and that even if there was a God then he hated us.... and he went off for like 5 minutes and finally I, being impatient and honestly done listening to him interrupted him and said "well I know there is a God and you can know too.... I like your dog have a nice day" and then I turned around and started walking to the Chege home because we were now late.... Elder Bretzing was so angry at the guy and wanted to go back and argue some more, but he realized we had a lesson and he needed to quickly refocus. 

After all that we went through the Cheges then told us that they hadn't prayed and that they don't understand why we need to be baptized again....... as they said this I looked at Elder Bretzing with a face of just utter terror (we didn't plan for this)! I gathered myself and said a quick prayer and hardcore preached the restoration to this African minister. I actually felt bad after (for like one second then I realized the Spirit told me to do it) all he could say after was "my soul is so confused" and "but it makes so much sense and it feels right" We then told him to actually pray about it and we invited him to our branch Christmas party. As we left he grabbed me by the shoulder and said "you are my brother" (my life is complete) and then offered a prayer asking God to "protect us the servants of the Lord from the powers of the Devil and the acts of evil men".  That was my cool spiritual but not so spiritual experience.

I cannot believe that I have been in Germany for a month! That is insane!

Everything is going great. My German is actually coming along little by little. It's so sad that I'm not going to be having a Thanksgiving this year, but hey, I'm doing the work of the Lord and that is awesome!

Thank you so much for the love and support. Be watching out for the new video coming out on lds.org this Friday. It is SUPER good!

The church is true and I miss all of you!

 

Love Elder Schmalz

 

Other tidbits we've learned from our individual letters this week...

 

His branch president owns a crematorium and Gav and his companion went into his work the other day to meet with him. He saw real dead bodies being prepared for cremation. The smell was pretty hard for him to deal with.

 

All this new physical activity is starting to effect his physic. He has had to take a pair of pants in to be altered and is in need of a new belt because he is out of belt holes. He is wanting to buy a new European suite now that he is lean and mean. Hopefully that's what Santa will bring him :)

 

He teaches an English class every week and loves it.

 

He eats A LOT of chocolate. Most the pastries are apple flavored. And he loves the food.  

 

 

Dresden Zone Training Meeting

 

When a mom has a son in East Germany, she has to beg, borrow, and steal pictures of her boy :)

So thankful that I caught a glimpse of Elder Schmalz on the Berlin Germany Mission Blog today. Even though I can only see his cute face, this made me so happy!

Week Three

So this week we met with the Chege family, they are from Kenya and requested we bring 12 Swahili Book of Mormons to our lesson! Apparently, Clovis the father had received a Book of Mormon from some missionaries last year, then never talked to them again, but he has read the Book of Mormon and has a testimony that it is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and he decided to preach the Book of Mormon to everyone he knew, so pretty much Clovis is awesome! He and his wife Rachel are so cool and they have two little girls named Princess and Success.......I though he was kidding but he was serious... The bonus of all of this is that we get to teach them in English!  Hallelujah!

The lesson was pretty much just us answering questions about the church including what the priesthood was and why only men could have it? Is our church sexist? What age can a child be baptized? Those are all good questions, right? And we tried our best to answer them with the Spirit. It was so nice to understand everything and to actually help them, and the spirit was so strong in our lesson. Near the end our the lesson I really felt like I should bear my testimony about all of the things we had talked about and invite them to baptism. I did exactly that, and it was so cool!

Clovis answered me with "I never make a decision this big without asking God first" and we said that that is great and asked him if he would pray to know if baptism was right for him. He said he would, but if he didn't get an answer he wouldn't meet with us again....... So this week is going to be a week of prayer and fasting for us!:)

Its things like this experience that make being here so cool! I know that it is why I am here. I am so excited to be here and to be able to testify of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that it is true!

Okay, so on to Germany and my new life here...

It's so weird when I walk outside and it is opposite of what it is at home. Instead of seeing  a beautiful white temple on the hills framed with mountains, I see huge black cathedrals rising out of the fog. It's going to take a while to get used to this! I have grown to love seeing the temple so much. This week I got to go on exchange with one of the Freiberg elders. Freiberg is where the temple is and it was so nice to be able to see it! I found out that next month I will get to go to the temple so I'm looking forward and so excited for that!

Funny story. While we where on exchange we were approached by a very drunk man. As he got closer he pointed directly at me and said "I know who you are.....you are the secret service! You have ruined my life!". All of this was in English so I could understand him perfectly. He continued to tell us a story about how the communist secret service (us) made him an alcoholic and that we were going to go to Hell for what we had done to the world?!! I was so very confused and was trying not  to laugh. He was very drunk and couldn't stand up straight or talk very clearly. He then grabbed my shoulder and said "I want to show you guys something" but he was no longer angry and had apparently switched personalities mid sentence. He showed us a building that he believed was built by the Free Masons and now was occupied by the Illuminati? He then shook our hands and walked away. Yeah, that was a good day for journal writing! haha

It hasn't gotten cold here yet which is really surprising. I still go out just in a white shirt and tie for most of the day, Elder Bretzing wears like two coats and a scarf, he is from California after all. I'm excited for it to snow, and so excited for Christmas. I hear Christmas in Germany will be incredible. They have started setting up the Christmas market in Dresden and the Christmas tree is the biggest Christmas tree I have ever seen! I wish that I could send pictures...  I will figure that out this week
one way or another. I might just have to get some pictures developed and send them snail mail. All the computers are ancient here in East Germany and it's hard to upload anything on these things.

So yeah, those where the highlights of my week. I'm doing great! Thank you so much for all your love and support!