February 27, 2012

            Well I am doing emails a little bit earlier because we are going to play ping pong today with Elder Sullivan and Elder Alston. It will be fun. And I was wondering, have you got the package I sent? Because there is a present for Riker for his birthday, so hopefully it gets there before March 1.
            Well, this week was awesome! It was great. We will start with the highlights.
Highlight number 1. We went to the temple :) yes the temple is the very best thing ever! I love it. And Elder Sullivan and I realized that we haven`t gone to the temple on our mission without each other. 11 times and counting! Awesome right?
            Well next highlight. We had a sweet broadcasted Stake Conference where Elder Nelson and Pres. Eyring spoke to us. That was really cool. I know that they are prophets.
            Then the next highlight is that we set a baptismal date with P…….. He is the investigator that came to church last week. He really wants to change his life and come closer to Christ, and he is awesome. So that is way cool.
            The C…….. are doing good. We had them invited to a family home evening with members on Monday, but the mom was tired and sick, so she didn`t come. And then they were busy for the rest of the week, so we weren`t able to meet with them. Which means we will definitely have to move the baptismal date, but it will be good because it gives us a lot more time to work with the mom, and to see what we can do to help her out. So keep her in your prayers. An angel that speaks tegrainish would be great. hahaha just a joke. kinda...
            Hahaha anyways, other exciting news this week. We had district meeting with Pres. Miles on Friday. It was way cool. He told us about how our mission now includes part of Italy. HAHAHA 5 countries! Our mission is the best! And the church is true! I love you

Liebe
Elder Terry

February 20. 2012

Elder Terry's one year mark

Elder Terry with Elders Sullivan and Bauerfeind

Wetzikon District

Lake Constance

               

Grützi mit anon!

               Anyways the past week has been an adventure. On Monday we met with G………. He is a less active member from Mongolia. He is super funny, and we had family home evening with him and his family again. That was cool.  Tuesday we had an interesting lesson with P……., our Jehovah’s Witness investigator. We talked about the plan of salvation for like the 100 millionth time, and she can`t deny that it all makes sense, she just can`t understand the "why?" part of the plan. Both Elder Williams and I had the feeling that it was time to tell her about exaltation and eternal progression. Unfortunately we didn`t really have time last time, so now we know our theme for our next lesson. It will definitely be interesting. 
                Anyways, the situation with the C……. has pretty much stalled. We couldn`t meet this week because they had visitors over, and they weren`t able to come to church. We talked with Pres. Miles about it and Bishop Uchtdorf, and we are going to most likely wait and see if we can`t baptize them all together as a family. We have a family home evening with them tonight, so hopefully we can help them out tonight. R……, our investigator who stubbornly refuses to make progress, came to church again yesterday! YES! The fourth time in like 6 years! That was way cool. Our other fun experiences of the week are that P……, an investigator from Portugal, came to church as well. We have been able to meet a couple of times with him last week, and he is understanding things really well. I am excited for him!
                We also finally met with P…….. again, our Jewish investigator. We talked with him about why he became a Jew, because before he was Christian, and he told us that it was because he couldn`t understand the trinity. We explained a little bit about that and what we believe, but it was more of a "us listening to him" appointment and we didn`t have the chance to explain too much. But he is coming to our English class on Wednesday, so we will talk to him about that then. 
                Well..... I hope that you have a great week! We most definitely will have one here! I love you!

Liebe
Elder Terry

February 13, 2012

Forgive all the comments in this letter. Apparently Elder Terry has succumbed to the missionary habit of shorter letters the longer you are out on your mission.  I'm sure part of that is due to him staying in one area longer than 6 weeks so he doesn't have to keep telling us about the new area and the new people every other month.  Today they did a field trip into Germany and he didn't have a lot of time to mail, although his siblings informed me that they got pretty long letters from him today. :) Gwenna

Hola mi amigos und amigas!

(For those of you who are wondering, Elder Terry is NOT on a Spanish speaking mission.  No wonder I’m not learning any German! He makes me laugh with all his Spanish, except the “und” which is German.)
            This week was awesomely interesting. First part of news. We set a baptismal date with the children from the C……., for the 11 of March. The ward is kinda’ worried though because they don`t feel the kids have a testimony, they just want to come to church to hang out, and they are worried about the mom not supporting them. (The mom doesn’t attend church with the kids and because she is an immigrant from Africa she doesn’t speak German well so she isn’t understanding the lessons or the BoM) It is a rough situation. So we aren`t sure what exactly we will be doing. Hopefully we will be able to prepare the mom to be baptized as well. That would be the best option. So we definitely will be praying and working towards that.

            Other then that we met with a less active sister from Peru, and she invited her non-member cousin and a colleague to come and eat with us. We had a good lesson, and gave them the Book of Mormon. It was cool. We also met with a few less active members this week. Pretty much we are focusing on the C……., and we really need to find some new investigators.

            We went to Constance ( or Konstanz-which is a little over an hour away from Wetzikon according to mapquest) today because that is the closest part of Germany, and it is right next to the Bodensee (which according to Wikipedia is the third largest lake in Central Europe. It’s situated in Germany, Austria and Switzerland). I will send pictures next week because I forgot my cable. But it was cool, and while we were taking pictures we found a guy sitting on the bench and we talked to him for a while and gave him the Book of Mormon as well as our card. He was super cool. Anyways, sorry this week apparently is a blur because I can`t remember it, I guess that is what happens once you have been out for a year. Anyways, I love you all, have a great week!

Liebe
Elder Terry

February 6, 2012

            Well this week has been busy. I got your one year mark package, thanks so much, it was awesome. And my first year out has been good. But it could have been better. But that is what the future is for. My favorite memory.... too hard to say, but my goals for the next year... well my major goal is to baptize 5 people. I had no baptisms in the first year of my mission, and it is time for me to trust a little bit more in the Lord, and to expect miracles. Anyways, about our week this week...

            First of all we had transfer calls, neither Elder Williams or I will be transferred. We will get to stay in Wetzikon for another transfer together!!!! So that is way cool. I won`t be district leader anymore, which means I will finally have time to write in my journal, and to focus more on our area. I am looking forward to this coming transfer.
            On Wednesday we had a mission tour with Pres. Kopischke. Holy cow that guy is inspired. He is so cool. He started the meeting by saying that the entire restoration started with Joseph Smith’s questions, and that questions invite revelation. He had us write down questions, and promised us that the answers would come during the meeting, and that if that worked we would use that to invite investigators to church. That we should have investigators come to church with questions so that they can receive revelation. The meeting was super cool. It got me super pumped up to do missionary work.
            This week the Wetzkion ward grew a lot. We found 2 members that weren`t on the ward list. The first is a super active guy from Portugal who just moved here and was looking for the church. The second was a way less active guy that I talked to on the train. He is from Brazil and has been living here for 4 years, but hasn`t gone to church in a long time. So that was cool to find them. Also this week we met with the C…… family again. The kids are doing great, and they want to be baptized, but the mom doesn`t really understand that our church is different. But we will most likely be setting a date for baptism for the children this week. R…. hasn`t made much progress. He told us that he couldn`t come to church this week because he wanted to go to the reformed church again. And he is not really reading, so we aren`t sure what more we can do for him. Most likely we will have to set him to the side for a while. Anyways, also this week has been pretty cold. Like it hasn`t been above -7 C, pretty much all of last week, which is super exciting :) we survived the cold though, no problem.
            Well that is all for new stuff this week, this next week is going to be awesome, and I hope it is awesome for you as well. Take Elder Kopishke`s challenge, and attend church this week with a question in mind, I know you will get answers because, as Elder Kopishke said, it works for me every time. Questions are the best. I love all of you, and have a super awesome week!
Liebe
Elder Terry