June 25, 2012 Forst

Hey!

So I haven’t got an email from you guys yet, but I'm not too worried about it. I'll check later today to see if you emailed me or not. (Probably around 5pm and then I'll print off the email and read it later tonight before I go to bed.) But if you don't send an email, don't worry! I won't be mad, haha. I'll just wait till next Monday.

So this week just seemed to fly by. We spent all day on Tuesday just doing finding. We had appointments with 2 investigators but both of them fell out so we basically just walked around and talked with everyone we could until English class at 6. We have decided on the days that we eat lunch at home we're going to go on a pasta and salad diet lol. Also instead of teaching English class, I go and practice a song in the choir, and Elder V teaches English by himself. After English class/choir we have volleyball. This is a lot of fun. Something we always look forward too.

 On Wednesday we had our 'Golden Tausch'. So Elder V went up to Gürlitz with Elder J (our DL), and Elder G (from my golden group) came down to Forst with me. We had the whole day planned out. We went to a member’s house for lunch, and then we had some contacts to check up on. They weren’t home so we did some finding until our appointment at 4. Lukas G (going on his mission next week Thursday) came on a joint teach with us. The investigator’s house didn't exist, or at least he didn’t live there so we were totally bummed out. I told Lukas he was free to go home if he wanted because all we were going to do is do more finding. But he wanted to come with us for an hour. It was way cool, we all took turns talking to people and we did a few doors. The weather sucked, it was rainy, but for some reason more people than usual stopped and talked to us. It was a lot of fun. Lukas is totally going to be a good missionary. He's not afraid to talk to anyone and has already done a few mini missions. He left afterwards, and we headed off to our next appointment. We taught the man the first lesson as best as we could, and it went really well. We sometimes had a hard time understanding him because we still have a lot of vocabulary to learn, but all in all it was a really good lesson. We gave him a Book of Mormon and explained it to him and set up another teaching appointment. We then did some more finding until our weekly appointment with Brother G (our Ward Mission Leader). We then went home and I thought a lot about the day. Elder Gibson said he was pretty nervous to do a "golden tausch"  (exchange) with me and was surprised it went so well. I was mostly just excited to see what it would be like, and even though some appointments fell through, I was able to figure out what to do instead. We understood everyone we talked to, and were able to teach 7 lessons. It was way cool and the Lord definitely blessed us.

On Thursday we switched back but didn't have much time to do anything. We went to choir at 600 PM and then we had a BBQ with a guy that comes to our English class. He's not a member so it was really cool that he invited us to his BBQ. We were trying to figure out how we would teach a lesson with him, his wife, and his brother, and sister in law. Elder V just asked them if they believed in God. They said they've been Baptist’s for 16 yrs. So we talked about our beliefs and everything. We were able to teach a “sick” (awesome) lesson with them before we went home, and they absolutely loved our company. It was way cool.

On Friday we had our last Zone conference with the President and Sister Pimental (Mission President). It was way crazy. We left at 6: 30 AM. Elder V and I didn't have enough money for the Zug, so the sisters had to buy our tickets. I have money now, but just didn’t have it then because my ricostats didn’t get deposited into my bank yet. But we made it there. There were so many new missionaries in the Dresden and Leipzig Zones from the last transfer. Brother and Sister Pimental gave such good “ Themas” (topics). They were really powerful and they're sad to leave. Brother Pimental talked about how you become a good boss. You start with yourself and boss yourself around into the person you want to be. And then every week you report to yourself and see how you did. It was a really spiritual and powerful zone conference and really uplifting. It was a long day and when we finally got home we were wiped out and ready for bed. President and Sister Kosak (new Mission President) will be at the next Zone Conference next week on July 6th. It is gonna be exciting.

Saturday we studied in the morning and then traveled out to Gürlitz for an “Austellung" (street display). It was a lot of fun. Elder O and I paired up and taught 3 “sick” lessons and handed out 2 Books of Mormon to some promising people. These 2 people that we met were actually “normal”! One was a man with a family and he asked a lot of questions. He then said he would like to take a Book of Mormon home. It was cool. The other was a lady who knew a bit about our church but didn't really know anything other than stuff she had heard. She wanted one too and we had a good lesson with her. We got home late and did some weekly planning and then hit our beds. We were so tired of trains, haha, - just because we've been traveling a lot this week. Wednesday to Saturday were all spent all traveling in one way or another.

Yesterday we went to church and a guy from England came to church with President V and his family. They knew each other about 10 years ago. This guy is going on a bicycle tour by himself all over Europe. He's 21 years old and said he's been traveling from England for 2 weeks now. He said that he just finds a field and camps overnight whenever he needs to. Or, he said, he has a lot of friends all over Europe, so he tries to plan his traveling so he can sleep a friend’s house. That is how he ran into the V family, haha. So he came into sacrament meeting, and can’t speak German, so Elder V translated all the meetings for him. He's not a member either so we taught him as we translated. It was way cool. He's such a cool guy and we were able to teach him in the evening while the soccer game was on. It was England verses Italy and he wanted to watch it so we went with him and taught him when we could. It was a really powerful lesson and he said it hit him pretty deep. We gave him a really small Book of Mormon to take with him on his travels and will see him on Tuesday at volleyball. England lost by the way, haha. Sucked for him, but “naja”, it happens. That reminds me, I was wondering if you guys were watching the Euro cup at all. Let me know.

Oh yeah, and it was L's mission farewell party so we went to that too, and visited for a while. He gave a good talk on Sunday about Alma the Younger and how it has helped him apply the atonement in his life. Sister  G., his mom, gave a talk about how impressed she is about young men going on missions. It was really emotional and it brought up a lot of memories about how I felt when I left. It’s definitely a hard choice but I’m so glad I’m out here. The days seem to be so long sometimes and mornings so hard to get out of bed. But I'm taking it a day at a time and definitely learning a lot from it.

I hope you all are doing well and that things are going good! I miss you and don't worry I’m doing well!

Love Elder Lüning!


*** Note:  Go to germanyberlinmission.blogspot.com  to see Elder Luening in the Dresden Zone Conference picture

June18,2012, Forst

"The field is white and ready to harvest...!"

Dear Family!

I was so happy that Brother B offered to call you guys, haha. I told him that it was my brother's birthday and also that it was Father’s Day. He asked if I was allowed to call home for Father’s Day and I told him I wasn't. He's, like, “Well your parents can speak German so why don’t I call them after we eat”. I thought he was joking but he was serious! Brother B isn't the Ward Mission Leader, our Ward Mission Leader is Brother G.

This week has definitely been tough. I'm not gonna lie, I’ve been exhausted every day this week because Elder V and I are really trying to get things going. We've been spending almost our whole days finding. We've been blessed to find at least one new person to teach every other day. We talk to everyone with the idea that we're going to teach them. So that if they don't have any interest, then at least they know something that we believe, and that will at least get them thinking about God and Jesus Christ a little more, and about the meaning of life. It is tough hearing almost the same thing from everyone we talk to. That there is no God because if there was he wouldn't let all these horrible things happen to people. What is he supposed to do? Come down and fix everything just so people can fall back into how they were before? There's a reason it doesn't work like that, and we see it in the Book of Mormon over and over again. Everyone we talk to, we find out what their dilemma about God is, and then try teach them something that we've figured out in our own life and then testify to them.

We've been getting out of Forst and did some finding in Döbern on Tuesday, which was a failure. And then on Thursday, we did finding in Güben for 6 hours, and managed to make 2 new appointments. People generally stop and listen to us in Güben because they haven't had an LDS church there for 45 years, so they have no idea who we are. It gives us reason to keep going back, and teach people there. So we go at least once a week, but I think we'll start going twice a week. We seem to see our miracles of finding people usually, right when we start our finding, or right before we go home. Seems like a blessing of leaving on time and staying out until we're done, even when we don't feel up to it.

Church yesterday got us a little 'trunky.' The whole topic today was about Eternal Families, but everyone that gave a talk, talked about Eternal Marriage. Elder V and I looked at each other and kept shaking our heads because all we could think of were the girls that we left at home. Elder V has 6 months of his mission left starting today. And I’m still kind of fresh on my mission so we were both lost in thoughts during the sacrament meeting. He was thinking about C, and I was thinking about R. We talked about it afterwards and decided that it was a good topic to hear, but also a bit bad to hear.

I'm learning a lot from this mission so far. How to cope with the days when we don't see much success and how to deal with the people who don't even say anything and keep walking when we approach them. We had a guy try to tell us that we were 'dumbkopfs' because we believed in God and were trying to teach people. It was so sad. We talked to him for about 10 minutes and then just left because it was a waste of time. Forst is tough to work in because its small, but we still seem to reach all of our weekly goals, and if we don't reach them we're getting awfully close. Transfer is halfway over, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be here for the next one. Elder V will probably move on to a different place, and I’ll be here for another 6 weeks...so 9 more weeks in total. Wow, that seems like a long time in this little place. But I'm excited for this week and excited for the people we will be teaching this week.

 I miss you guys at home. When Brother B was talking to dad on the phone, I was so thankful and so happy that he did that for me. It was funny how excited he was to talk to dad, haha. His son, J, goes on a mission next month.

I'm in the choir to sing a song for his farewell. Brother  G's son (ward mission leader), L, is also going on his mission in 2 weeks. Both of them are going to serve in England, but in different missions. They're so excited to go, and L is coming on a joint teach with me this week on Wednesday. Elder G, (from my golden group in the MTC) and I are going to go on 'Golden Taush' this week. We've both only been in Germany for 8 weeks and will be spending the whole day in Forst. We've got at least 3 appointments set up for lessons, so we'll see how well we do haha. It's a bit scary, cause we don't understand everything people say, but it’s exciting to see how well we'll do.

The members here are awesome. They are so nice all the time, and feed us as often as they can. Sometimes I get down and a bit discouraged, and miss everyone I left behind, but I guess that’s something that will always be there until I get home. I'm definitely learning to deal with things a lot better, and really relying on the savior. 'Angels speak through the power of the Holy Ghost.' 2 Nephi 32: 3. We've definitely got angels looking after us, and giving us the strength to do our best and keep each other going.

 I'm glad you had a good weekend and that the weather held out for you guys. The weather has been really random here in Frost. It'll be really sunny and then all of a sudden rainy. But,” naja”, we work in all kinds of weather, as all missionaries do! I'm glad that your graduation weekend was a success Jeremy, and that all you guys had a good time! I Love you all, and maybe one thing you could do for me is give R's mom a call and see how she's doing. I'm sure she'd appreciate it. They had a crazy month with moving into their new house, and also with traveling to Vancouver to have R's back examined. Maybe just chat with her mom for a bit and let them know that you guys and i are thinking of them.

 I miss you guys so much and thanks for everything. Don't worry too much about me, haha, I'm doing well

 
Love you guys always and praying for you every day!

Bis naechste Woche!  Elder Lüning

June 10, 2012, Forst

On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Christopher Luening

Wow! What a week. This week has definitely been a tough one for me and my companion. We did 3 hrs of tracting on Montag, 3 hrs on Dienstag in Dübern (30min bus ride away), 3 hrs on Mittwoch, 6 hrs in Güben on Donnerstag, 2 hrs on Freitag, and 5 1/2hrs in Forst on Samstag, and 3hrs Gestern (yesterday). So all together we did at least 25 hrs of finding. Walking around on foot, ha-ha. Elder V and I were completely focused this week and 'Locked In'. My body hurts and I’m so glad its P-day, hahaha!

So yeah, Tuesday Elder V and I went to Döbern, to check it out and see if there were people that we could find. It's about 30mins away by bus. So we got there and started talking to everyone that passed by us. We had an old contact that we wanted to go check on, so we picked that neighborhood to do some tracting. We met an old man on the way and taught him about the Book of Mormon. He said that he would like to read it so we set up a new appointment with him, and decided every Tuesday we're going be teaching there and doing finding. We checked up on the contact but his wife said he was out of town for a while. We spent a total of 3 hrs finding and didn't see any more success other than that first guy we talked to. I had a lot of time to think about what I read in 1 Nephi 17. If you get a chance to read it this week, do it, it’s really inspiring.
  On Wednesday, we had our District Meeting. It’s funny because the e-mail you just sent me dad was what our theme was on. Alma was so upset because he was trying his best and wasn’t seeing any success. But the Lord cared about him so much that he sent an angel to minister unto him. The Lord definitely blesses us with the people around us and with the spirit to keep on going hard throughout the day. Elder C and Elder O gave the theme. It was sweet. We take the train to Gürlitz with the Sister missionaries every Wednesday, because it’s cheaper for the church when we all travel together. So we got to know Sister N a little bit better. She's from Switzerland, so she's a bit nervous to speak in English still, but she and Sister M are getting along fine. We're gonna miss sister K though who left our District and is now serving in Dresden. We spent about 3 hrs doing finding and Elder V was locked in like crazy. We talked to everyone we saw and felt good the whole time even though we didn't see any success from it. It just felt good to know we did our best. We also checked up on Herr P. We set a day to meet with him and talk to him about baptism. He said he had a lot of questions about it and wants to prepare for the end of July when his date is. Definitely sweet to see that he wants to learn and that he's still reading in the Book of Mormon when he has time.
  On Thursday, we went to Guben at 7:30 AM. We walked around and talked to everyone we saw before our appointment with the young couple and their baby at the gas station. Well 9:30 AM came and they weren’t there. We waited around again for another 10 min and then Elder V asked “Is that them?”. We saw them walking with their stroller, crossing the street and walking towards us. We both looked at each other and said, “No way!” Haha! It was way cool. We gave them a brief explanation about the Book of Mormon and shared our testimony of it. They were excited to start reading it, but said that they didn’t want to give us their number or house address because they've had bad experiences doing so. They said that they would call us next Thursday and tell us if they have time to meet since the man works shift work and his schedule is always different. We were happy they showed up but a little bummed that we couldn’t set a firm return date. But we're praying for them. We did more tracting until 12:00 noon, and then stopped at another man’s house to deliver a Book of Mormon to him. He wasn’t home so we took a lunch break and then went back. He was there, and we were able to give him an explanation of the Book and bear our testimonies to him.  He wants us to come back. We then trecked around for a bit more and left at 3:30 PM. We met with Herr P but he wasn’t feeling well, so we set a new appointment with him. We then went home to do our morning studies that we didn’t have a chance to do. It was a long day and we were pretty exhausted, lol. But I read and studied 1 Nephi 18-20 and man, Nephi is a hero! I set a few goals, too. I want to get my 'basic missionary level' challenge, in my Golden Packet, signed off by my district leader by the end of this transfer. I think I can do it, but it’s going to take quite some work. I'm pretty motivated to get it done, though.
  On Friday, we did service at the Tafel, and had a good time with the people that work there. They definitely love it that we're back to help them now, since we haven’t been there for 3 weeks. We also had lunch with Brother and Sister G (Horst). They showed us their property and it’s so big. They are so nice and they love having us over. After we went tracting, and then went to our appointment on the bench across from the church. Herr P didn't show up but we found out that he got the time mixed up and waited for us for an hour. So we set an appointment for Saturday. We then had weekly planning, and hit the streets again for 3 hrs. We've been feeling so good and the Lord has been blessing us with motivation and with people to talk to. We often see people who even cross the street to avoid running into us, but we cross to meet them on the other side and talk with them anyways, haha. We're just ready to spend this whole transfer on finding so we can get some steady appointments and baptisms in Forst. My studies are going really well, too. German is coming along. Better every day.
 On Saturday, we left our residence and went to the park where there are 2 soccer fields. The Wards in Germany had their annual soccer tournament. Almost everyone there were members. We had permission to watch a bit but we weren't allowed to play in case we got injured. We talked with the new mission president and their wife, Brother and Sister K. We had a good talk and they remembered me from the MTC. We left to do some finding and then came back to have our lunch break. Then at 2:00 PM, we went to do more finding. We checked on all our contacts, but no luck. But we did meet up with Herr P and had a powerful lesson on Authority and Baptism. We invited him to come to church and he said he would only be able to make it from 9:30 AM to 11:30AM. We were stoked that he said he'd be there. We continued with our finding and ran into a man in his 50's riding a bike. We stopped him and talked to him about the purpose of life. We found out he has cancer and he’s wanting to hear about what we're teaching people. We set an appointment with him and are excited to teach him next week. We got home exhausted from the week. We did our studies and listened to the MTC address talk, given by Elder Holland - the same one that the missionaries in the Trail ward gave to me. At the end of his talk he says that he's always wondered why things are often so hard. Why in missionary work, when we do our absolute best and work the hardest we can, we often don't see any success. He said it’s because it’s supposed to be hard. We taste only a teaspoon of what the Savior did for us. And that Salvation was never meant to be easy, and that the Savior is living proof of that. I thought a lot about Nephi -  when his bow broke and how shocked he was when he found that his whole family was murmuring to the Lord.. Elder Holland said, How dare we complain about how tough we have it sometimes. They both seem to understand how much the Savior has paid for our salvation. Elder V and I really thought about that and looked at the week. We worked our absolute hardest this week and definitely saw success. Sometimes we think that we should have seen more, but we felt good about what we did accomplish.
  Sunday we went to church and had a powerful Sacrament Meeting. Three investigators showed up for church. A member invited one of them to listen to her talk. The spirit hit her like a wall and she broke down and cried from the first talk until the end of the meeting. She felt the spirit so strong. Herr P showed up and we were able to show him the Restoration film. We taught him about the restoration and we bore strong testimony to him. J was asked to bare his testimony in Spanish because there was a German man there that could translate from Spanish to German because he had served a Spanish speaking mission. He hung out with J the whole time at church and J was so grateful that he could speak in his own language for once and that he could understand everything that was going on at church. It was a big spiritual boost for him, something that he needed to get through the week of work. We had an eating appointment at Sister B’s. She is the lady that we ate 6 Klöse's with and almost died. This time we had to eat so much that afterwards we went home and rested because we were so sick, haha. It was bad. But "Missionare müssen alles aufessen". So once we recovered, we hit the streets for 3 hrs. We talked to quite a few people and when it was dead we did door to door tracting. I crossed the street we were on and talked to a guy in his 20's. He was chilling on his window sill listening to music, drinking a bit and smoking. He turned his music off and talked with us. He wanted a Book of Mormon, so we went back to our place grabbed one and came back. We told him what it was about. He then said, 'You guys will need to come back next week once I’ve read a bit and explain what I’ve read to me'. So we set an appointment next week and we're way excited to teach him. We taught 20 lessons this week and are excited for this week coming up. It was a tough week for me at the beginning to keep up my motivation. But something just clicked in Elder V and I and we were on fire this whole week. We're going to work hard until we leave, and know the Lord will bless us with success! The scriptures have been opening up to me more and more every time I read them. I'm able to liken them to my situations more and more, and things I didn’t understand before are made clear to me.

Yeah, the weather here has been pretty rainy too, lately. But we've only got soaked a few times, haha. It’s starting to warm up now, I think. Good to hear that you got your Firefighting training completed Jeremy! That'll definitely be a good experience, I'm excited for you. Happy Graduation next weekend by the way! Oh yeah, Jeremy I got a mission for you. I need you to get R's new mailing address for me. She just moved and she doesn’t have her internet hooked up yet and hasn't had time to get it to me. So when you can, maybe call her mom for it or talk to her at school, if you see her. That'ld be sweet cause I got a letter I need to send her mom.. Danke Shön  Also, I’m praying for you guys all the time and hope the Lord is blessing you. Thanks for keeping me updated about Sister S I'll definitely remember to pray for her. I Love you all and talk to you next week!
  
 Love Elder Lüning

p.s. I got my camera in the mail on Thursday! Thanks a bunch!! :)

June 4. 2012, Forst

Dear family!
    So, another week done and over with. It was good to hear from you and thanks for your e-mails. I've had an up and down week and it was a crazy hard week too.
On Monday we went to a few appointments that we had during the day and then at 5:30PM we went home and did our spring cleaning. We cleaned the whole apartment till about 10:00PM. It looks so good now but seemed to take forever.
   On Tuesday we traveled towards Gürlitz to do a District Austellung (street display). It was a lot of fun and we talked to a lot of people. We were able to make out a bunch of appointments and it was fun being able to do finding with other missionaries in our district. Oh yeah, another funny thing was that there were Jehovah Witnesses right beside us. Haha, Elder Js (our DL) thought it would be hilarious to put up our display right beside the Jehovah Witnesses and so that's what he did. He tried talking to them for a little bit but they didn't want to so we took off together and talked to everyone we could. Also, Elder G and I (the 2 goldens in the District) took off together and tried to place a Book of Mormon. It didn't work but we did talk to everyone we could using and understanding as much German as we could. It was a little nerve racking but definitely boosted our confidence when we realized we could listen and communicate with people without having our trainers beside us. It was pretty fun and got us excited for our finding day on Wednesday. We went home and J (Spanish member) came to volleyball and had a lot of fun playing with us. He said work has been crazy and that it's tough working around a lot of the workers. He said a guy threw his lunch on the ground today and J punched him. He said that the guy he hit got sent home and he was able to go back to work which he saw as a huge blessing. He called his workplace a 'Jungle'. Every single night everyone parties and drinks. He says its tough but he is thankful to be able to come to church activities that distract him a bit.
    On Wednesday Elder V and I prayed a lot and got really excited to find people. We had our District meeting in the morning and talked about the scripture in Alma where Alma was visited by and angel who told him to cheer up and be joyful. It was a really good Thema (theme). We then went home to a dinner appointment with Brother Dieter G. We had some soup and a really nice visit. I've never eaten at their place before and had a good time. We then went to an investigator's house with a member. We were able to teach her a lot about Jesus Christ and really get to know her. She is way cool and definitely a golden investigator. She recognized the spirit during our lesson and having a sister there from the ward was a huge help, too. Only sad thing is that her daughter is coming home to visit for 5 weeks and she said she won't meet with us again until her daughter leaves. We invited her to church but again she says she'll come if her daughter wants to. It was sad to hear, but we're excited to teach her again. We'll call her and check up on her once in a while. We then cancelled our evening appointment with our ward mission leader and used the 3hrs we had left to do our finding. We seriously spent 2hours "klingeling" (ringing)on apartment doors and 1hr tracting. All day we had been talking to everyone we saw as we went to appointments and now we were still doing it. At the apartments we were ringing on, I would keep ringing and talk to the people that answered and Elder V would talk to the people walking by. We literally talked to everyone we could and didn't set a single appointment. We didn't even manage to talk to anyone for more than 15seconds. It was painful. We got chewed out by some people from India. We got home that night and just looked at each other in disbelief. We just laughed because there was nothing else we could do. Elder V said 'Don't worry, we found Gold in ourselves, haha. Maybe we were the ones that were supposed to be taught by the Lord. It was disappointing but we did all that we could and felt good at least that we did everything we could.
     On Thursday we were pretty excited because we were going to a place called Güben (30min bus ride), a place that we had been to already and where everyone talked to us because they don't know us. We looked outside and saw some pretty dark and thick clouds and hoped it wouldn't rain on us, haha. We went to meet up with B (the other Kenyan) who was moving to Berlin today. Him and 3 women from Kenya invited us to eat some African food with them. We had a really good visit and shared a spiritual thought about Jesus Christ and the enabling power we can receive from the atonement. It was a really spiritual time that we shared with them and we then ran to make our bus on time. I prayed as we raced our bikes to the bus station that we woudn't miss our bus. We got there a minute before it left! We were so thankful. We picked a street in Güben to do some doors. Every house we knocked on people listened to us and thanked us for talking to them. We met a young family walking down the street and made an appointment with them. They are a young couple (prob 25yrs old) with a 7month old baby girl. We talked to them about families and they were really nice. We also talked to an old man riding his bike who stopped and listened to us. He said he wanted to meet with us again and for us to bring him a Book of Mormon so he could read it. It was sweet. We stayed in Güben talking to people from 3:30 to 7:30 PM. We got home and Edler V told me it was my turn to plan the day for tomorrow. We didn't have any appointments or anything so the day was all mine haha. We planned and then went to bed.
     On Friday we checked on all of our investigators and on some contacts. We were able to teach a lesson with Herr L who said he would come to church on Sunday but never showed up. Everyone else we checked on said it was a bad time to visit or didn't answer the door. We again talked to everyone we saw on the streets but no one had time. We still needed to get one more lesson before we went home early and did our weekly planning session. So we decided to stop at the church to see if anyone was there in hopes that we could share a lesson with a member. We got there and the youth were having their youth activity. It was called Maihnachten...Weihnachten (Christmas) in May. haha! But they messed up because it was June 1st. It was funny but they had the Christmas tree set up, and the Young Men's Leader was giving them a spiritual thought about the birth and mission of Christ. They were all sitting around a big table with candles and the Christmas treats that we always have for advent! They were excited to see us and wanted us to come and sit with them. So we did and we were able to share a lesson with them. The Weihnachtsman (St.Nick) came and gave a present to everyone that could recite an Article of Faith or show some sort of talent that they had. Elder V recited D&C 4 out of memory, and I was asked to sing a song. So I sang 'O du Fröliche'. We listened to music and had some laughs and then had to head home. It was way cool.
  On Saturday, we got up at 5:30 to head to the Freiberg temple! We stopped in Dresdon to listen to 'transfer calls'. Our District is staying the same for this next transfer except for Sister K who  is leaving to go serve in Dresdon and the sister from Dresdon is coming to serve with sister M. So we'll have a new sister in our District. Other than that we have another 6 weeks with the same Elders in our District which is way cool. The Freiberg temple was so nice! It was cool going through the sessions in the German language. I got a translating headset for English but listened to most of the session in German because I basically understood it all. The Freiberg temple is as small as the Spokane temple is. Only one session at a time. It was really nice. We also had a lot of fun on the train ride back to Dresdon. We ate at an all you can eat Chinese buffet and it was way good. We had some sushi and socialized a lot. We then made the journey home with the Sisters to Cottbus (2hrs), and then from Cottbus went to Forst (20mins) by ourselves. It was a good day and we were able to relax for an hour when we got home.
  On Sunday we met up with J at church again. He said he had a tough week and broke down twice during sacrament meeting. He told us he wanted to go back to Spain but at the same time has nothing to go home to. He's 36 and him and his wife are divorced. She has custody of their son while he goes around looking for work. He said 2 people at work tried to fight him on Saturday. He says he's really thinking about trying to find work somewhere else. We had a good lesson with him and read in the Book of Mormon with him. By the time church was over he said he was feeling a lot better and said he got the spiritual boost he was looking for. He's so thankful that we're there for him and help him come to activities and spend time in a different class with him. Elder V translated all the testimonies from members and also translated the Priesthood lesson for him. He said hes really thankful for us. We had and awesome lunch at a members house. It was with Brother and Sister V. We had a really good time with them and when we left, we had an hour to do some finding. It was pouring rain and we were trying to figure out what we would do. We pulled out the map and picked a street to do doors on. We were able to teach 2 lessons and set 2 appointments and managed to reach all of our goals for the week! It was awesome. We got completely soaked in our suits but we had a good time because people listened to our message and were really nice to us.
    Even though this week seemed really rough I'm definitely thankful for all the fun and the blessings we did receive. I've been reading a lot in the book Our Heritage and am amazed at the amount of faith the members had back then to serve missions. Its been a great example to me of how to just keep pressing forward when you don't see any success, and just keep your head up and look for the blessings you receive. Don't focus on the big ones that your expecting but focus on the ones that you are receiving everyday. Time seems to just keep moving forward. Thanks so much for your letters this week. Thanks, dad, for your testimony and mom for your letter! I don't think I'll be able to e-mail you back and forth because I just have enough time to write you this letter, lol. And it's probably like 3:00AM where you are when I send i,t haha. I'm glad you are all doing really good, I'm praying for you all the time and hope that the Lord is blessing you. I'm doing well and am loving the mission. Some days are tough but I just press through them. I love you and can't wait to see some pictures of this wedding!! You guys are awesome and don't worry about relaxing a little bit, haha. You deserve it!
 Bis naechste Woche,

 Love Elder Luening