Good News!

Elder Fitch is better and we have permission to work!

This week I had the opportunity to go on exchange in a city called Celle. While on exchnage in Celle we were riding our bikes through a thunderstorm to get to an appointment, and as we were riding I saw this...

 

and the rain stopped just long enough for me to take a picture with it... I'm Famous!

 

All in all, it was a really good week but it was really uneventful so nothing much to report. Just happy to be out of the apartment.

 

Thank you all for everything!

 

Love, Elder A. Gavin Schmalz (The future car garage owner in Germany, because hey, I already have a sign) 

Week 2 in Hildesheim

So this week was...... Very long.

After taking Elder Fitch to the hospital once we were sentenced to do light work and to have him rest a lot. We were warned that if he participated in any hard labor or activities he would contact pneumonia.....
We tried to do our work as slowly as possible but our week ended with a trip to the emergency room...
Elder Fitch has pneumonia!
We are now not allowed to leave the apartment for any reason for the next 7 days. I did not attend church this week and will most likely be missing our zone conference where we get to meet our new mission president.
Other than that news we were able to meet with some really cool people this week before the sickness took my companion.

We taught a lesson to a group of Kurdish refugees, some of them are Muslim and others are atheist. Due to this mix of religious opinions, actually teaching anything was pretty hard. Every time we mentioned a point of the lesson they would just go off talking about their own opinions and we would lose the lesson. Eventually though we were able to pull it back to the restoration and Elder Fitch (what a stud!) bore an awesome testimony and I backed him up with my testimony, and then something super cool happened, for the first time in this whole little lesson we were able to take the reins and teach.
The only time they would listen to us is when we gave testimony about something we knew to be true. We ended up having a great time with them and we hope to meet with them again after our time of quarantine.

This experience with testimony is one of my favorite things to see as a missionary.

In pretty much any teaching situation where someone only wants to argue, the best thing to do is just bear your testimony. Almost (I use the word almost very loosely because sometimes people are just beside themselves and don't want to listen at all) every time you bear your testimony people will change, it may only be temporary and it may not be drastic enough for you to even notice but almost every time something changes. This is also something I think we can use in our own daily lives. When things start to get crazy or hard, we can turn to the things that we know and they can help us to focus on the things that matter and can bring us comfort and hope in those times of confusion and trouble.

Well, as I have sat inside for the last two weeks I have a lot of time to study and to just think about everything. I have come to the conclusion that we really are just so blessed!

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of the city but I have been in an apartment for another week!

Thank you for the support! And for the emails!

Have a great week!

Love Elder Gavin Schmalz 

 

 

PS. I really need a haircut but I can't get one due to my half dead companion, so forgive me for my long hair.

 

 

President & Sister Kosak welcoming President & Sister Fingerle

 

Goodbye Germany Berlin Mission-We Love You!

 

 

 The Best Three Years!

 

 

"We're home already-100 km South of Berlin. We left the office and had tears in the car.
  Needed to stop since we couldn't see anything anymore.
  The fight  for Christ continues.  

Love you forever!"

 

My New Mailing Address

LudolFingerstraße 9 

31137 Hildesheim

HILDESHEIM!!!

This Place is The Best!

Seriously though, the city is beautiful!

The members are great! 

I have a great companion!

We are going to rock Hildesheim this transfer!

But sadly, I wasnt able to go and take any pictures or to really talk to very many people because Elder Fitch contaracted bronchitis and so I have been stuck in the apartment for pretty much the entire week.

Next week I promise to write you a better more spiritual filling email with pictures, but this week it was just not in the cards. I am pretty sure I am headed to take Elder Fitch to the hospital...

Thank you for the emails and the prayers! You are all super awesome!

 

Love Elder Schmalz

Tchüss to the city of Glück and hello to the home of Hilde!

So my time in Itzehoe and Glückstadt is coming to a close.....tomorrow actually, and I'm off to a city called Hildesheim.

 

Leaving a place like Glückstadt is really hard! I have made some really good friends here and I have learned so much here, not only about missionary work but also about myself. At least my last week in Glückstadt was a good one. We had the awesome opportunity to do service at the World War Two memorial in Itzehoe. The bad part was that Elder O'Keefe got a gnarly tic in his arm and he is now on Lyme disease watch.

I also got to say goodbye to all of my friend that I have made here and we were able to finish the preparations for a music event that we are putting on in the church. All in all a really good week... other then the tic fiasco.

I'm so excited to move on to a new area and to see what I can learn and who I can help in Hildesheim!

Thank you for all of your support and for your emails!

Have a great week,
Elder Schmalz

 

My ward mission leader Bruder Ritter, and pretty much my best friend in the Gluckstadt ward



Schwester Schroder, a sweet 92 year old convert to the church

Zone Conference, Goodbyes, and Being Attacked by a Drunk Guy

This week was pretty awesome! It was a week of seeing old friends and companions and saying goodbye to the best mission president a missionary could ever ask for! It was also a week of dreams coming true... (which will be explained)

This week we traveled to Hamburg where half of the mission met to have our last zone conference with President and Sister Kosak. We had the opportunity to hear from them both and hear a couple of awesome musical numbers... A week earlier President Kosak had asked me to do a musical number, and then when I arrived at the conference he asked me to change what song I was singing..... so I sang  "We Thank Thee Oh God For A Prophet" after finishing President Kosak asked me to do it again... but then he sang with me and that was really cool!

 

Where's Elder Schmalz?

As a goodbye present, President Kosak did a sketch of Joseph Smith for us! How cool is that?

and now on to the part about dreams coming true... So when I was in the MTC I had a dream that I got attacked by a drunk guy......

 

This week we talked to a couple on the street and it was going awesome! We asked them if they wanted to see a video and they were more than willing to watch "Because of Him". Everything was going great and we were halfway through the video when out of nowhere this drunk guy walked up to us and tried to steal my IPad!

Elder O`Keefe distracted the drunk guy while I finished up talking to this couple about the video, and when I finished I turned around to see elder O'Keefe being held by the front of his shirt and the drunk guy winding up to punch him in the face!

That is not what I expected so I ran over and helped my companion out of the situation, but not without the drunk guy trying to attack again! Needless to say, we handled it and we are okay!

SO COOL!

This week was honestly just a great week and I learned so much! 

Something that has been on my mind this week is that Heavenly Father loves us!

He doesn't just love some of us. He loves ALL of us! 

He wants us to be the very best WE can be. He doesn't want everyone to be a President Kosak or for everyone to be a Elder O'Keefe. He wants me to be the very best Elder Schmalz I can be and He wants you to be the best YOU! We are all different and those differences are blessings. So yeah, just go be the best you that you can be and don't try to be someone else!

"If all the tools in your toolbox are hammers it is going to be hard to build a house!"

Thank you for all the love and support! Go have some awesome summer adventures!

 

Love Elder Schmalz