Jul 30, 2012, Hannover

Dear Family,

Hey, yeah, totally give Chris my email address; that would be good!! Wow, sounds like you guys had an intense week! Well, before I start replying to your message let me write you about my week so far...

So this week has been crazy hard for Elder W and me. We had so many investigator lessons and appointments planned out for the week, and they all fell through. We didn't get a chance to teach a single investigator, and actually one of them Tschüssed (good-bye, don’t want you to come by any more) us. So, yeah, that was so dumb. We had so much blank time in our planners and we had no idea what to do with it. We tried to stop by on members, but all the ones we visited weren't home or had moved. So, since we were there we tracted the doors in the area but with not too much luck. We were able to set up a few new appointments but they seemed kind of sketchy. We basically door approached blocks every single day, and talked to everyone we could. We would set new appointments but weren't able to teach too many lessons. Elder W got so frustrated on Friday because he said he didn't get it. Why would the Lord bless us with so many golden appointments and then have them all fall through. He's like yeah, it’s the agency of the person but why wouldn't we even get 1 chance to teach them again. We went back to the apartment and prayed and tried to plan something for the day. Even while we were doing doors a couple times this week we had to stop and sit down somewhere so we could pray for strength to push through the day.

   It seemed like a very long week, haha, and it reminded me of “The District 2”. The zone leaders in our apartment have 3 people on baptismal dates right now, and we're struggling to get things built up and find people to teach. I seem to stay pretty patient through the whole thing though because this is exactly what I saw in Forst. I'm just not a big fan of doing doors for 2 1/2hrs every day, lol. But it is what it is, and I love my personal study and being able to apply what I learn throughout the day.

  I love talking with people here in Hannover. Usually everyone listens to you and you can get into some really good conversations. The weather has been really warm too, I think on Wednesday it was 30 Celsius. I've been loving being able to feel some warmth on my face. Right now its Rahmadan for Muslims, so whenever we talk to someone who looks like they’re from the middle east they say they can't talk to us because their fasting for a month 4:30am to 9:30pm. Also we're not allowed to teach Muslims anymore if their planning on going back because in some places they put Muslims who are baptized Christians to death.

  Last Monday we went to a concentration camp. It's called Bergen-Belsen Memorial. It was pretty depressing being there and seeing all the things that happened in the camps. Not something I think I want to do again while I’m out here but definitely something I was glad that I did. We went there as a big group: 4 Sister missionaries and 6 Elders altogether. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone and being able to enjoy the P-day together.

On the way back we took a bus and a lady sitting in on the seat next to me talked to me about the weather and then what I’m doing. I was able to teach her about what we did and got her info from her so that the sister missionaries in Cela could teach her. It was my first time making an appointment on the bus, haha. She was really interested though; it was cool. The German here is so much easier to understand. Elder W and I are speaking 9am-9pm German every day except P-day. It has been helping me out so much. I've made flash cards and every time that we are on a train or a subway train I run through my words and try to use them throughout the day. It’s been helping me learn a lot faster.

 The members here are awesome. Oooh! That reminds me; I had lunch with a family yesterday on Sunday. Their names are the M's. It was Brother Stephen M and his girlfriend and his mother Antje M. He's active in the church again here and is planning on marrying his girlfriend in the temple. She got baptised almost a year ago, but is waiting for her current husband to sign the divorce papers so that she can marry Stephen. They've been dating for almost 3 or 4 years now. Antje M said that her husband, Gunter M passed away 2 years ago. She said that she knows Dad and his family really well. Stephen was best friends with Uncle Jan and that his dad and Opa worked together building a garden house once. Also Antje said that she taught dad in seminary or something. Haha, they thought it was so cool that I'm serving in Hannover and that they got to meet me! Apparently Antje M is really good friends with Oma and Opa. They couldn't believe that I belonged to that family and they kept saying over and over 'what a small world' haha it was totally “wahnsinnig” (crazy)!

  Anyways the last couple days we've been going to the student Wohnheims (residence halls). We were able to teach two people from China. They didn't know anything about God or Jesus Christ. So we basically taught them from scratch and we had to simplify everything down to its easiest form. It was tricky but a huge learning experience. They didn't know anything from the bible, only that they've seen pictures of Jesus before but don't know anything about it.

  We're hoping that this week goes a lot better and that we'll see more success this week. I'm going to send you my memory card so that you can load the pictures I’ve been taking onto the computer and then you can mail it back to me. I have 3 other memory cards I can use in the meantime.

I'm doing well and I'm having fun here in Hannover. I've learned a lot of patience and Elder W and I get along great. We support each other and have fun when we're working, he's a good Elder and he works hard. About 2 or 3 times a night we end up having wrestling matches in our apartment, haha. It’s hilarious and we all have fun together so it gets all our stress out once our day is over.

  Anyways thanks for the email and keeping me up to date with everything! I hope you guys keep enjoying your summer. I don't have much time to email anymore and this week wasn’t too incredibly exciting, so I hope next week is a bit better haha. But my head is up and the work goes on. Let everyone know I’m thinking of them and that they are in my prayers!

   Love Elder Lüning