June 7, 2010
Looks like the gloomy weather has let up and summer is finally here. As excited as I am for the change, I'm remembering how unpleasant it is to be in a bike area in the middle of summer. Especially when you spend a whole day riding out to the outskirts of your area to contact potential investigators. But hey, I signed up for this kinda stuff, so all I can do really is just enjoy the journey and savor this precious time on my mission that seems to be winding down faster and faster.
My "second" first transfer in Schweinfurt is almost over, and come July 1st, I will officially be a missionary in the Germany Frankfurt mission. As for the near future, I know I'll be staying in Schweinfurt and am just fine with that. As for what happens after Schweinfurt, I guess I'll just have to buy the ticket, and take the ride.
This week brought us some success, some frustration, and for me, one big realization that the time is flying by, and has been for awhile for that matter, faster than I've been able to fathom. On Tuesday, Elder Schwitters and Elder Nichols met with Annie Locarino, a less active member we have been working with (I was on companion exchange in Würzburg with my ole buddy Elder Wilcoxson). Her Boyfriend Clyde was there and started asking questions about the gospel. Elder Schwitters answered his questions and asked him if he had interest in learning more about what we teach and what we believe. Clyde responded very positively and we'll start teaching him this coming week. I had the opportunity to meet him a couple of weeks ago and can already see the great potential he has in accepting the restored gospel.
Our appointment with Herr Ledermann this week was fairly rough. We were very straight forward with him, as we had planned, told him that there can only be one true church, and that he must accept all of what we teach him, or none of it, but it seemed that there was just no getting through to him. The man is living in denial, and for the past year, since I last met with him, has been wallowing in his own justifications for having a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon while remaining in the Catholic Church to the point where he can twist anything we say, or teach directly from the scriptures, to fit his agenda. As frustrating as it was to get to the point of argument with him for almost an hour and a half, it is good that he now knows where we stand, and that our goal of teaching him is to baptize him, and most importantly, that we do all we do and say all we say because we love him. Teaching him for the next little while will be a real test of my patience and perseverance, but I know that this man has come too far to stop where he is. How he will get pack this big spiritual wall he's run into is a mystery to me, but I just gotta believe that if I do my part, then the Lord can work miracles in this man's life.
We announced our new member program in Sacrament meeting yesterday, and already have a bunch of appointments with the members. We're hoping that what we do with the great members of this ward over the coming weeks will help us to build good relationships with them and bring forth fruits for the missionary work here. As the great members here bore their testimonies yesterday, I realized that this ward deserves great missionaries that will help them to bring about miracles here. My greatest desire is to become THAT missionary.
Hope you all have a great week! Take care!
-Andy
It's been a pretty solid week here in
We had a great lesson this week with Herr Bomas, a former investigator with whom the Elders before Schwitters and I had lost contact. He was more open and willing to try out what we teach than anyone I've met with for quite awhile. We made out what we call 3x4's with him, where we'll be meeting with him 3 times a week for 4 weeks, and also asked him if he would be baptized if he discovered for himself that what we teach is true, to which he positively and openly replied yes. This man has as good a chance to be baptized as anyone I've met with, and Elder Schwitters and I are both really excited to see what the Lord does with him.
On a less inspiring but interesting enough to mention note, I've had two bike accidents in the past two weeks. But I must say, I'm pretty proud of myself for going almost a year and a half on the mission without having a bike accident. Anyway, the first one was on companion exchange with Elder Wilcoxson (an ole buddy from the MTC) in Würzburg. How it all went down was, I was riding Wilcoxson's companion's bike, which has really thin wheels, and got the front wheel caught in the track of the street trolley and ended up flipping over the top of the bike and rolling about 20 feet in downtown Würzburg in front of the entire city. The funny thing was, I was wearing a jacket, yet my shirt was completely dirty, but nothing hit my tie.
My second accident happened this week. We were cruisin' down a large steep hill and I started coming up on an older lady on her bike that I could tell was about to veer right in front of me to turn into her house. If it weren't for the car coming up the hill at the same time, I would have just been able to veer around her, but there wasn't enough room and enough time to stop, so I ended up just barely clipping her and sending here crashing over her bike on to the road. Luckily she wasn't seriously injured at all and was super nice about the whole thing. In any case I was able to check another box on the "Typical Missionary Experiences" list.
This week we'll be seeing the Condie's for the last time on the mission. They'll be visiting our Zone one last time before the change over to the
Have a great week and stay classy!
-Andy
June 21, 2010
Dear Sisters and Elders in the great Nürnberg Zone,
Greetings from wet, but ever so green München! I hope you’ve had a successful weekend and are ready for a new transfer, which, beginning
With love and appreciation,
Well here I am on my second to last day in the Germany Munich/Austria Mission. As every missionary in every mission would say I'm sure, I've had the opportunity for the past year and a half to serve in the best mission in the world! It's been quite the adventure, from lots of success to times of almost no success, from great companions to...well....great companions that gave me a lot to learn and think about, and always something of eternal significance to do and learn. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the new Frankfurt Mission now, and even more grateful for the opportunity to be in Schweinfurt for at least the next nine weeks. When I came on my mission I thought that a lot of weaknesses I have would vanish rather quickly, but as it turns out, it hasn't quite worked out that way. I find myself still working on those weaknesses at a point where I thought I would be much, much further in my personal progress. Through my frustrations, however, I've realized that the atonement has made me realize that I don't need to be perfect in order to be a worthy representative of Jesus Christ. As Nephi said, "I know in whom I have trusted." The Saviors ultimate sacrifice has taken on a new meaning for me on my mission, allowing me to overcome things I never thought I'd be able to overcome and giving me the strength to bear witness of him and his restored gospel.
As Jim Morrison once said, "No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." Right now for me is the dawn of a new beginning, in a new mission, and the last fourth of my mission. I am more determined than ever to make this last six months the BEST six months of my mission. I hope you all back home now how much I love you and pray for you always. Take care and have a great week!
-Andy
July 5, 2010
As of last week I am now officially a Missionary in the Germany Frankfurt mission. For the past months I've been sitting around talking about how ready I am for the change, how I've been there done that, but now that it's actually happened I'm finding that it's quite a bit more stressful for me than I thought it would be. On Friday we met in Nuremberg with President and Sister Ninow. I think it's a rather obvious thing to say, but they are definitely not the Condie's. President Ninow was a pretty big business man for the Huntsman Corporation, and it shows in his style as a mission President. A couple of times, Elder Schwitters kinda leaned over and said to each other, "Hey, do we have Donald Trump for a mission president now or what?" Despite the total difference being something I was completely unprepared for, I'm very excited to be working with President Ninow for these last six months of my mission. He and Sister Ninow have a great energy for this work, which is probably what I need to "keep it up" in the last hump so to speak. The poor things have taken parts of three other missions into theirs, and are in the process of combining four mission cultures into one. I really like their approach, however, which consists of starting from the ground up, learning from each other and building a whole new mission culture. Amidst all the headaches of dealing with new procedures, feeling like a greeny again, and possibly being transferred out of the only place in the mission where I know anybody, I'm still sure that the Lord always puts us where we need to be.
As of now, however, I'm still in Schweinfurt. The longer I'm here the more I grow to love this ward. Being away from one's family is a heck of a lot easier when he has an amazing ward family and feels loved and taken care of. Yesterday in Fast and testimony meeting, as I listened to the touching testimonies of members that I know very well and have a deep love for, I was reminded once again of the great gift that the Lord has given me in allowing me to serve in Schweinfurt. This ward deserves a Missionary that will give them his best, and it is my greatest hearts desire to be that missionary as long as I'm here.
Hope you all have a great week. 'till next time!
-Andy
July 12, 2010
Hope your week hasn't even been close to as stressful as mine. I can't remember the last time a week has gone by this slow for me. I think within the past few days I've developed a tumor, a hernia, a couple of ulcers, and was not too far away from having a complete mental and physical collapse...OK it might not be as bad as all that, but fetch...I was stressed. Now let me explain to ya why.
The Frankfurt mission transfer cycle is three weeks later than the Munich mission, so before the switch we were all told that we wouldn't be touched by it and have a nine week transfer as opposed to the usual six week transfer. Well, as we should have guessed, President Ninow had something else in mind. After having our Nürnberg zone under his watch for two weeks, President Ninow decided he was going to mix things up right away in order to integrate this mission fast. According to my good buddy Elder Bailey, still one of the Zone Leaders here, informed me that President Ninow is more than a little unhappy with our performance as a zone, the two biggest problems, according to him, being disobedience and "faith to find." Our area was even specifically mentioned due to our low numbers over the past two weeks. At this point everything was still speculation, but what we did know was that the chances of Elder Schwitters or I being transferred from Schweinfurt was very likely. As you all may remember, my last tenure in Schweinfurt was ended abruptly by a mid-transfer change, and the thought of that happening again, especially after all the work Elder Schwitters and I have been doing to build great relationships with this ward, was nauseating. It was this news that made the week inch along as we tried to do what we could to have at least a last good week before the transfer call came.
In our old mission, transfer calls came on Sunday morning. In the Frankfurt mission, however, transfer calls come Saturday night, which I soon discovered leaves me in stress all day anticipating the call that could drastically change the next few months of my mission. And sure enough, after hours of nauseating stress, our phone rang at 9:15 Saturday evening...but it wasn't a transfer call...it was Elder Wilcoxson, our District Leader, informing us that we wouldn't be getting transfer calls until Sunday evening...which meant another entire day of waiting with stressful anticipation, on top of going to church and not being able to tell the ward anything except, "We might be transferred so in case I don't see a again, bye, but if I'm still here we'll see ya in couple days at our appointment." By yesterday evening though, at the urge of Elder Schwitters, who can handle transfers much better than me, I was much calmer as I ceased pacing the floors and just sat, breathed, relaxed, and found great solace in the scriptures. I read a lot of comforting verses from Doctrine and Covenants, which strengthened my testimony once again that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God (there's no other way that the words I read could be so comforting if they weren't revelation from God). As 10:30 finally hit with no phone call, we thought for a second that we might be in the clear and that by some miracle we would be together for another transfer. We decided to call Elder Bailey to make sure that calls were done before we went to bed, however, he quickly informed us that, not only were they still making calls, but that we should expect one. My false sense of security faded quickly and sure enough we received a call from the assistants 15 minutes later. To my great relief, I discovered that I would be staying in Schweinfurt and receiving Elder Craighead as my new companion, a "hardcore ex-zone leader" who will be going home after our transfer together. Elder Schwitters is heading up north to Wuppertal, and needless to say is not too happy about it. Elder Jenkins, the assistant, asked us to be honest in our feelings about the change and we told him that it wouldn't have been our first choice, but we do know that whatever happens is the Lord's will.
I'm so grateful to my father in heaven for letting me stay here to further the work in Schweinfurt. I'm still a little stressed about being as under the radar as I think I'll be for the next six weeks, but I also know that all will be well if I just do what the Lord has sent me here to do. I can't quite find the words to describe my feelings of lingering stress mixed with a new calm and vigor for my assignment over the next six weeks, but for anyone that does want to know exactly how I feel at this moment, look up the song Alive by Pearl Jam. I think It would sum 'em up pretty good.
Love you all. You are in my prayers as always, and I humbly ask that you keep me in yours as well. Take care and keep on truckin'!
-Andy
