Pinneberg Week #1

First and foremost I arrived in Pinneberg after 5 hours of train travel in safety!

My companion here in Pinneberg is Elder Partridge. He has been on his mission for about a year now, and he seems like a great missionary so far, and I am excited to be working with him.

Pinneberg is a really small city, but the ward here is actually one of the bigger wards that I've seen on my mission with a solid 60 members....and let me tell you, they are REALLY good at soccer, and I am not.....so lets just say that both my body and my pride are sore at the moment....but we get to play soccer once a week with the elders quorum so hopefully I will get a little better.

In the investigator department we are seriously lacking. We have no one to teach so we will be doing a lot of finding this week. Hopefully we will find someone who will want to accept the gospel.

We are meeting with quite a few less actives and new converts in the area and helping them, so we do have someone to help right now, but we need to find some new people.

I'm doing pretty good. Just adjusting to a new area and a new companion.

Thank you for the prayers and all the support!

Love, Elder Schmalz 

Goodbye Frankfurt! Hello Pinneberg!

Hallo friends and family! I hope that you had a great week and that so far you're having a good leap day. I have spent the day saying goodbye to people, eating a lot of food, and of course my least favorite thing.....packing! (one thing I will not miss about being a missionary is the frequent need to pack everything you own into two suitcases and then schlep them around all day)

So as you can tell by the activities I have done on this fine P-day, I have been transferred!

That is right, after 6 months in Frankfurt Oder it is finally time to pack up and move on.

And where will I be moving.... good question!

Oberst von Staufenberg 39 strasse

25421 Pinneberg

Germany

So yeah, if you are feeling like shooting a letter my way that is where you can reach me:)

Other than that news I don't really have much to talk about so I will share with you something from my studies this week, that being a poem.

" I met a stranger in the night, whose lamp had ceased to shine,

  I paused and let him light lamp from mine.

  

  A tempest sprang up later on, and shook the world about,

  And when he was gone my lamp was out.

  But back came to me the stranger--His lamp was glowing fine;

  

  He held the precious flame and lighted mine." 

                                                          -Lon Woodrum

This week has had me thinking about how grateful I am for the people in my life who have shared their lights with me. 

Whether it be my family or my friends,

My heart is full as I think of everything that I have been blessed with, In particular for the people who have been placed on my path. 

I would not be who I am right now with out the influence of my parents and my aunts and uncles or the guidance of a young mens leader or a friend.

So yeah you have no idea what you have done for me! Thank you for your support and your friendship.

I hope that you all know that if your light is ever wavering or if you need help, I am only an email or 7 months away. 

But more importantly our Savior is always there for you and for me, and His lamp is significantly more powerful and stronger than my own!

Thank you so much

Love, Elder Schmalz

Some goodbyes are hard

My goodbye present from my sweetest little friend in Germany, Eliza. She cried :(

Maik and Alin. Two of my favorite people!

District pics

Winter is still going strong in Frankfurt Order!

SICK Week

As you can see from the subject line....this week I was sick.

And I owe it all to riding public transportation in the dead of winter in the capital of Germany!
So yeah I caught myself a honker of a sinus infection and I was out for a solid day and a half...so that was a bummer:/ But hey I'm back in business!

This week has got me thinking a lot about the simple but profound truths that make up the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I try to teach these things at every opportunity, I practice teaching them in church and in district meetings, heck I even study how to teach them more effectively in a different language than my own... But even after all of that they still never cease to amaze me!

An example of one of these truths is prayer!

If you take a look at all of the progress that we as human beings have made... It is outstanding and a miracle in and of itself! We made the jump from riding horses to flying jet planes in a matter of a hundred years! 
We can communicate across the globe almost instantly with the help of the internet and apps like Skype or FaceTime! That is amazing!

But that amazing achievement is dwarfed in accomplishment and in wonder, by a simple prayer!
With prayer we can communicate with our Father in Heaven, The most powerful and all knowing person in the entire universe! In any situation and in any circumstance we are able to simply communicate with Him. The signal never gets lost....the internet is never slow. That is a miracle!


In the Bible and in the Book of Mormon we read of people who are seeking to see miracles. What we learn through the gospel of Jesus Christ is that a miracle is only ever a prayer away. I'm so thankful that we have prayer, and that our Heavenly Father wants us to pray! He wants to hear from us because he loves us. I know that He does!


So, thank you for your prayers on my behalf and for writing me!
I hope you all have a great week!

Love Elder Schmalz

Sehr Lange zeit und kein Kontakt und Ich bin schuld...

I would like to start off this email with some words of apology....
I'm sorry that I haven't emailed for a solid 3 maybe 4 weeks. I will
try to be better for the next 8 months!

Well I think in the last month a lot has happened....Including transfers!
I had the opportunity to stay here in Frankfurt Oder..
My new companions name is Elder Kilgrow, Elder Kilgrow is from San
Antonio Texas and is quite talented in playing a handful of musical
instruments and singing, so he will be doing that a lot here in
Frankfurt for our branch. He is about a year out on his mission and is super focused, capable,
and still has the excitement for missionary work, and for that I am exceedingly grateful!

Frankfurt Oder is a very interesting area. It is one of the smaller
congregations in our mission, with a whopping 8 members! So we are
really busting our butts trying to turn this area around. After 6
months of working here we are finally starting to to see some measurable success!
I am extremely thankful for my time that I am having here in Frankfurt
Oder! It is here where I am learning a lot about myself and even more
about my Savior and his work.
I'm really glad I'm having this period of time to learn and grow, because that means that the Lord hasn't given up on me yet:) He can still see my potential and He wants me to become better!
I know that it is through Jesus Christ our Savior that we can always
learn, grow, and find comfort.

Well on a more humorous note, we had something super random happen to
us this week....namely;

It was a Friday morning around 7:30..... I'm still rocking my PJs and
the bedhead when the door bell rang... And I in my blissful ignorance
(expecting a package from the German equivalent of the UPS man) buzzed
the person in, without first taking the time to talk and check.

I opened the door to sign for the package, to find not the UPS man but
rather two members of another worldwide church that also does door to
door tracting....... And their door approached sounded something like
this....(keep in mind I'm standing there with bedhead and pajamas)
They started with this:
"hello, are you one of the representatives of the Mormon church?"

And I answered with something like this....." Uuuuum yes?"

As you can probably guess our "super exhilarating" conversation then
took a turn for the worse....in the form of Bible bashing...or should
I say.....us telling them what we believe and then them arguing with
us.
And it ended with us not really agreeing and us bearing some hardcore
testimony. Now we are missing a restoration pamphlet and I didn't get
a package....but all in all I had a great day:)

Once again I'm sorry for not writing very regularly. I will try to do better.
Thank you for writing me and for the prayers.
Elder Schmalz