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

March 26, 2012

Hello my mother, first off, here is my new address is

Elder Andrew Terry

Alpine Mission

Vereinweg 10a

Bern 3012

Switzerland

            Now on to the other questions, for the new elders in Wetzikon, one of them is Elder Gashler, and he had been in Wetzikon already on a austausch, so no problems there. I met him at Zürich train station and gave him the keys, and talked to him for a while. I also called them on Tuesday and talked to both of the missionaries coming in, and we have the area book, which has a record of everything we do, and I left tons of notes, so everything went well. And second question, Elder Sanderson has already been in Bern for one transfer, so we didn`t white wash in. I met him at Zürich train station and we went to Bern. It takes about 56 minutes with a train :) so actually my shortest transfer distance. And our trip to Lichtenstein, we also met Elder Esplin and his companion there, and we went the 6 of us. We actually didn`t plan it out so well so we got there late so we didn`t have time to see much, but I took some pictures. Pretty much we just saw the cool building, looked at the prince’s castle on the hill, got our passports stamped, and went back. Nothing out of the ordinary or exciting, sorry.

            Anyways, my week was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!! First of all, I am working with Elder Sanderson again, and he is awesome. Second of all, there was a baptism in Bern on Saturday, and that was amazingly cool, and 3rd but not last, Pedro got baptized in Wetzikon on Sunday, and we went back to see it, and it was SO cool! Pedro is so awesome, as you will see in the pictures. Anyways, the work is a lot of fun here in Bern. We have already had so many funny experiences.

            First of all, on Friday we were ringing doors and the bottom of an apartment building and a man came down the stairs, opened the door and said "Mormonen?" and then closed it and started walking up the stairs. Then he turned around and opened the door again and said, "If you ring the top floor again I will be really mad" then he closed the door and walked up the stairs. So we kept ringing doors, and a few minutes later the guy threw water out of his window to try and hit us. Luckily we were standing underneath the overhang for the door and we didn`t get wet. But we were laughing so hard.

            Then that same day we were talking to a man, and he told us that Joseph Smith is a free mason and a Satanist, and we gave him the first lesson pamphlet and told him he should find out what Joseph Smith really did, and he took the pamphlet and flipped through it. Then he came to the part about the restoration of the priesthood and there is a picture of the 3 apostles giving Joseph Smith the priesthood, and he looked at the picture, and then said "There must be some kind of subliminal messaging in this" and he starts turning the picture around looking for "subliminal messages". When he couldn`t find anything he closed the pamphlet and said, "I couldn`t find any, but there must be some subliminal messaging in there." He was a funny guy, but didn`t want to meet with us, sadly. We have found quite a few people though that we will start teaching soon, and this morning we got to go on an adventure.

            We went with the member in charge of public relations in Bern to a university in Freibourg, which is in the French part of Switzerland, outside of our mission. Don`t worry, we had permission from Pres. Miles. We went there to give a presentation about baptism to a class there on the university about religious initiation rites. We also answered questions, and at the end we handed out Books of Mormon. Of the 20 students 10 of them took Books of Mormon, so that was really cool. I think that is about everything I have to talk about this week, I haven`t taken any pictures of Bern yet, but probably today, so I will send those next week. And I wish you the best week ever! I love you!

Liebe

Elder Terry

Pedro's Baptism

Bodensee

Lichtenstein

District missionaries

March 18, 2012

BERN?!?!?!

Dear world,
 

Well, as you can most definitely tell from my subject line, I have been transferred. I will be going to Bern! And I will be working with my MTC companion, Elder Sanderson! Awesome huh? And we will be serving as zone leaders. I guess if you don`t get it right the first time then sometimes you get to try again, right? Anyways, it will be an exciting change.

Now to answer your questions, yes, our refrigerator is really small. I took a picture of it already, and I will send it to you. We only go shopping once a week, and I drink maybe 2 or 3 liters of milk a week. Not nearly enough, but as much as I can given the circumstances.  
                Well last Monday we went to Lichtenstein, my favorite country in the world. Then on Wednesday we had a leadership training, which was a great meeting, and then P……. was interviewed by President Miles, and he passed! YESSSSSS! He is doing so great. It really is amazing. He met with Bishop Uchtdorf on Sunday and everything is ready for his baptism next Sunday. Sadly I won`t be serving in Wetzikon any more, but I will be there for his baptism, which is awesome. We met with P…… a couple times this week, and we have been introducing him to members, and everything is going perfect so far. It is really cool. Anyways, that was most definitely the highlight of my week, and since we are both being transferred we have a lot of work to do to get everything ready for the new missionaries to come. But it is awesome. I love being on a mission, it is the best. I know that the church is true, and that God truly knows and loves every single one of us.

Liebe
Elder Terry

March 12, 2012

Once again in Austria!!!

                Hahaha no, I didn`t get transferred, we will find that out on Friday, but I am writing you from the beautiful city of Dornbirn, Austria!!!! We are going to Lichtenstein later, we are just doing emails in Dornbirn.

                This week was really a great week. We have been working a lot with P……. He is doing great and making tons of progress. He will meet with Pres. Miles on Wednesday, and man I am pumped. P…… is really awesome and has totally changed his life. He came to church yesterday and that was really cool as well. And Pedro has been having a great effect on Helene, the investigator who he is renting a room from. She came to church yesterday, and told us that she wants to be baptized this year. So that is great! She has been investigating the church for like 8 years, so :) joy!

                And R…… came to church as well, which was a little bit of a surprise, but he came late and left early. AHHHH sometimes I want to just go crazy with that man. If he would come to church on time and stay the entire time, then I know he would feel the spirit, but he just refuses to do that. But this week will most likely be our last appointment with him for a while. We also had a great ward council where we talked about some new plans that we want to start, and it went really well. AND, we found a cool new member yesterday! He was sitting at the bus stop, and was looking at me weird, so I waved at him, and went over and started talking to him. Turns out he is from Ghana and is a member of the church. That is awesome, and we are excited to meet with him and help him return to the church. He has been living in Switzerland for about 3 months, so it was good we found him. Other great things this week.... I worked with Elder Sullivan on austausch on Friday, and that was exciting. Anyways, sorry but we don`t have a lot of time, so that is it for this week. BUT the church is true, and the book is blue! Enjoy spring, and get ready for General Conference!!!!!!!!

Liebe

Elder Terry 

March 5, 2012

              This week was super awesomely good. We will start with the super awesomeness first. P........, our baptismal candidate, is making progress at light speed. He has now stopped drinking and smoking completely, nothing for the last 9 days, and he is totally going to be ready for his baptism on the 25 of March. We are excited.  We watched part of a talk from President Monson yesterday with him, and after it was done he turned to us and said "Isn`t it great to be part of the living church of the living God?" he also watched the CES fireside yesterday all on his own. He is such a stud. 

                We also did the stop smoking workshop with a man named R........... He is from Serbia, is about 60 years old, and has been smoking since he was 9. He came to the workshop but as we were going through the steps he kept saying that he would start doing them tomorrow, that he just needed to smoke one more time. Finally I just closed the book and told him that the steps wouldn`t work at all unless he committed to living them right now. He did so, and today is the seventh day he has gone without smoking. ( Well at least hopefully, I talked to him yesterday, and he had not smoked yet) The other cool things are that we had 7 less active members come to church yesterday!!!! Yeah! And two of them bore really great testimony. It was so cool. 
                About the C......... well we aren`t really sure what happened. We called to make out an appointment and they said they were busy for the next 2 weeks. Then we went by to invite them to church and the mom wasn`t home and the kids told us to just call her, which is not normal. So we did that and L........, the daughter, told us that they had to go to their church this week. It is definitely a sticky situation. So please keep praying for them. Something is definitely weird, but we trust in the Lord, and know that he is the True Shepherd, and he will keep watch over all of his sheep. But of course, prayers are both encouraged and desperately needed. 

                 Anyways, another exciting thing, we had an austausch with Ebnat, and I was going to work with Elder Bauerfeind in Ebnats area, but then Elder Sullivan called me. Unfortunately Elder Alston had a really bad fever, and they were supposed to go to zone leader council in München. They called Pres. Miles and he told Elder Sullivan to come alone, but that Elder Alston needed people to take care of him. So we ended up spending the day with Elder Alston. My first day inside because of sickness :( oh well, Elder Alston definitely needed some help, and it was a good opportunity to serve him. Elder Bauerfeind was pretty sick as well, so it was good that he also had the opportunity to rest. 

                      But another cool story, so Saturday we  were cleaning the church, and all of the sudden a car pulls up and an old man gets out and walks towards the building, I went and started talking to him, and another member came with me. Turns out that he is a member, but hasn`t been active in the last 40 years. He isn`t on our ward list. His name is Bru. S..............., and he is 76 years old. He joined the church when he was about 20, but after 8 years went inactive because of tithing. But he came back to the church because his wife had a stroke a year before, and since then she can`t speak, and has stopped believing on God. It was really sad to see how much this was hurting this Brother, so we offered to come visit him right after we were done cleaning. Which we did. We had a really great appointment, and it just really showed me how everyone has that need for the gospel, and sooner or later they will come back. Like the prodigal son they will remember the blessing of their former life and seek to return. I am so grateful for a Loving Heavenly Father who is always willing to take us back, if we will but confess our sins and forsake them. I know that it is possible to find that perfect brightness of hope that we all seek through the atonement of Jesus Christ. He truly can give us the beauty of eternal life for the ashes of our mortal experiences. I love Him!

Liebe
Elder Terry