April 23, 2012

Servus Zäme Wohl!

                Hallo my family. First off, to answer your questions, yes we get the Liahonas in English, but I would really love my own personal copy of General Conference. It was just so good. And I created a study plan for how I want to study it :) and food wise Bern is very much the same as the rest of Switzerland ( don`t let any Berner people know that I said that) and we haven`t had any really eating appointments in the last transfer. But that is all better now. We got some :)

                And next question... the ward in Bern is cool. There are 4 families from America, or more specifically Utah. The bishop is Bischof Schär, he is really cool, but he is moving to America to go to medical school, so we will get a new bishop in 2 weeks. Then the gml or ward mission leader is bruder Südel, he is from Germany, and very German, but way awesome. The only young men are from an American family and the dad is YMP (Young Men’s President). There are A LOT of less active members, and we have started to visit them.

                More white shirts would be AWESOME! Especially short sleeve ones. Since I only had 4 of those, and you sent me one, so now five, but that makes it hard in the summer. And the ones I have now are really trashed. So yeah, I could use new shirts. And transferred.... nope, Elder Sanderson and I are staying in Bern. And there weren`t a lot of transfers, but there was one change. and guess what it is? Elder Sullivan is coming to Zollikofen, which means he is once again in my district! which is really ridiculous. Other news, Mothers Day, we have 40 minutes, and we can talk on Sunday. So let me know when it works by you and we will need to work that out. Anyways, on to the cool stuff........

THIS WEEK 
                Well this week was interesting. First of all, on Tuesday I went to Interlaken to do an austausch with Elder Schulzke. It was way good, we met with a couple of cool people, including the lady that used to live in Bern who moved to interlaken, who has a baptismal date, which was cool. Unfortunately it was rainy so no good pictures of Mönch Eiger and Jungfrau, sorry :( oh well. Other cool things, Elder Sanderson and I found a crazy German guy. We talked to him on the street about the purpose of life, and we gave him a card and the next day he called us and said he was at the church but it was locked. So we went there and met with him. He was super funny. It was really hard for me not to laugh, if the situation wasn`t so sad. He is homeless right now, because apparently a lawyer in Germany stole his grandmas fortune so he got no inheritance. But he studied as an engineer and supposedly with the whole BP oil spill of 2010, he emailed BP and told them  the solution to the problem and developed a device to plug the leak and a compound that can clean up the oil, and he went to Paris to meet with them and they stole all of his things. And he saw 9/11 in a vision before it happened . (btw that is a crazy European thing. Apparently every crazy person in Europe knew about 9/11 but no one would listen to them)  Anyways, we met with him the next day as well and he tried to sell us a place on a patent for airplane turbine filters, which he had drawn in a notebook, but they were just circles with cool designs, and we weren`t buying into it. He ended up getting mad at us because we wouldn`t let him sleep in the church. It is sad because we want to be able to help this people, but clearly just giving this guy money or letting him sleep in the church weren`t really responsible options. Difficult decisions.

                Anyways the rest of our week was awesome. S_______, the guy from Tibet, came to church again, as well as R_______. And we had a sweet Sunday School lesson on the gift of the Holy Ghost, and R________ was really affected by it. So hopefully we can invite her to be baptized this week. But that is about it for this week. I love you all, and I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the pathway to success, the formula of true happiness. There is a feeling of extreme satisfaction that comes as we wasted and wear out our lives in behalf of a cause of eternal significance. I know that the blessings and promises of the Lord will all be fulfilled, and so we trust on and hope on!

Liebe

Elder Terry

April 16, 2012

Hoi myne Familie!

                Wie gehts? Ich liebe euch!  This week was pretty awesomely awesome. For some reason the weather decided that it wanted to be cold again. So it has been rainy the past few days. But not even rain can stop the spreading of the gospel. So why was this week so good? Let me tell you.

                So first off Tuesday we had interviews with President Miles. It was great. My interview was pretty short, but it was good. We had to be there the entire time, and as Pres. Miles was interviewing people we taught the rest of the districts. It was really good. After the interviews we had austausches with the assistants. It was cool. Elder Ronna and I worked together, and all of our appointments fell out. So we went home quickly to pick up umbrellas, and Elder Ronna and I prayed that we would find someone who was prepared to accept our message. And then we went outside and started talking to people. As we were walking down the street we found a young man, who stopped to listen to us. He was pretty interested, but didn`t have much time and wouldn`t make out an appointment. But he said he had time right now. So we went with him to the University of Bern campus and found a table to sit at. He was super cool and had tons of questions, and Elder Ronna and I were able to testify that he can get answers to his questions. He didn`t want to give us his contact information, but he promised that he would call us in a few weeks. So we will definitely be praying for him.

                We also met this week with a cool Swiss lady named R_________. She is really open and came to church with us on Sunday, and really liked it. Also we went to Interlaken to give an baptismal interview to an investigator, and man, it is really beautiful there. Like ridiculous. I am going there on austausch tomorrow and will take pictures for you. And then there was the baptism from this investigator on Saturday. That was super cool as well. All and all it has just been a great week.

                Elder Sanderson and I have been having a lot of joy, mostly because of how awesome Elder Sanderson is. The work is going pretty well here. We are still on the search for "the elect", but hopefully we will be able to find a few this week. Friday is transfer calls, but we are pretty sure that we are both staying here. But we will see. We are still trying to teach the Tibetish guy, hopefully we can find a Tibetish dictionary today, if not, I might need you to google translate things into Tibetian for me :)

                Anyways, it is good to here that things are going well, that there was a good spring break, and that you are running super fast. You are going to run me into the dust when I get home. I love you!

Liebe

Elder Terry

April 9, 2012

Grütz ach!! ( hello is Bärn Deutsch)

                I hope your Easter was awesomely cool. I know mine was. But first let me tell you about this week. This week was ridiculous. So Monday we had a seemingly normal pday, and then on Tuesday we had district meeting and appointments with S________ and S_________, so cool investigators that have a baptismal date, but we aren`t sure if they will make it, as well as H__________, a really cool German guy that we are pumped about.

                Then Wednesday we had to leave at 11:30 so that we could be in München by 6pm for mission council. It was pretty cool. As we were walking through Zürich train station there was an old lady sitting on the bench, and I said "Hello!!!!" to her with all of the excitement that I could muster because she looked really down, she smiled back and we walked on. Then we got on our train to München and "Wala" she was there! Not sure she snuck past us, but we ended up sitting next to here and we talked with her and another older lady for the entire train ride, and at the end we gave them both Books of Mormon, which was cool.

                And then we had meetings with President Miles and the assistants Wednesday night and Thursday, and then Thursday night all of the district leaders in the whole mission came to München and the mission president and assistants and zone leaders taught the district leaders Thursday night and Friday, and we then left and got home at 10:30 Friday night. It was crazy. It was way cool but man, I had forgotten how tiring it is to try to learn things for that long. Good thing the world ends in December 2012 so I never have to go back to college :) oh and a side note for you mom, I played the piano for part of the meeting!

                Anyways, now we are here on Monday. We have a lot of appointments for this next week, it is going to be SUPER busy, but it will be good. A few of the miracles we experienced this week are :

              Saturday we were doing our weekly planning (for those of you versed in PMG, I know we are supposed to do it on Friday, but hey, we were in München, so we did it Saturday) and we decided we wanted a referral from a member. So we prayed for it. Then on Sunday a less active 23 year old girl referred her boyfriend to us :) YES! Man, prayer is just so awesome.

Then also yesterday, there is a member from Nigeria who lives in a refugee home, and he found a guy from Tibet who wants to learn about Jesus Christ. (I think I already told you about him) but he really wants to learn about Jesus. He is so cool! I am so excited for him. The work is really progressing here in Bern, and overall in our mission. I know that the people all around us really are children of God. He wants, more then anything, that they obtain eternal life. I am so grateful for the truths that we have, and that I get to share them. This work really is so great! There is nothing else that brings more joy! I love you all, and am so grateful for your wonderful examples. Thank you all!

Liebe

Elder Terry

April 2, 2012

Liebe geliebte Bekannten (dear beloved friend),

                This week was awesome! Obviously, because we had General Conference! General Conference was so good. I really loved Pres. Eyring’s talk on Saturday morning. Man he is so good. He just exudes humility, at least in my opinion. And man, I can`t lie, priesthood session was so awesome. Elder Bednar is a living Preach My Gospel. He is so cool. Anyways, hopefully all of you watched general conference as well, so I don`t need to talk too much about it.

                Now some stories, first of all, the funny ones. So on Friday Elder Sanderson and Elder Parker, (I was on austausch in Pratteln) met with one of our members, who is a refugee from Africa. As they were teaching him, a random refugee from Tibet came up to them and asked, "You teach me Jesus? You teach me prayer?" Unfortunately because of circumstances, they couldn`t teach him, but the member brought him to General Conference, which was really cool. Another cool story in conjection (is that spelled right? am I using it right? I can`t speak English) (I think he meant connection not conjection) with General Conference is that one of our investigators, who just moved to Interlaken, came to General Conference, and she had a great experience. She LOVED Pres. Monson, and after General Conference she told us she wanted to get baptized!!! JA WOHL!!!!!! That was cool. 

                As for the rest of the week, we had a baptism from Interlaken on Monday, and that was really cool. Then Tuesday we had an austausch with Zollikofen, and I got to work with Elder Jacob, my old companion. And we had an interesting experience and it goes well with the comic you sent us. There was a comic by Pat Bagley in the newspaper with two missionaries asking a woman what she knows about the Church and around her are words like “magic underwear”, ‘”the black curse”, “polygamy”, etc.  It came out just after all the stuff happened at BYU.  It was funny so I sent it to Andrew to enjoy.  The elders in Zollikofen found a family where the mom comes from California, and we met with them on Tuesday. And unfortunately I asked the question, "What questions do you have about our church?" and wow, everything possible came out. "Who do you think God the Father is?" "Is Satan Jesus` brother?" are just two examples. Let’s just say that this lady had chosen to inform her self about our church through what excommunicated former missionaries said was wrong with the church. But by the grace of God, with a lot of prayers, and A LOT of help, we survived the first round, and made out a return appointment. And they invited us to lunch :) The truth really is going forward and it can not be stopped.

                Thanks so much for the package. I loved it all, and I loved the recording. I will try to talk into it this week, and send it back next week. But we will see, this week is really busy. On Wednesday we are going to München for zone leader counsel. And we will be there for 3 days. Hopefully it will be good. Anyways, I love you, have a great Easter. The Church is True!

Liebe

Elder Terry