February 4, 2013, Kiel

Hallo Familie Lüning!

   I'm excited that Charlene has sent her papers away, and that Jeremy is going to the temple in a month! That's so great how everything is moving right along.

   I feel this week went a little too fast. I also don't have too much to tell...and not a lot of time because we're having our Zone P-day today.

   I'll give you a quick update on what's been happening. So our investigator L, has been making progress. He keeps meeting with us and has been coming to English and German classes, and FHE on Mondays. We didn't get the chance to teach him lessons as much as we wanted to, because WE'VE been too busy. It's funny; - usually our investigators are too busy to meet with us...but not this week. But anyways, he's still making progress.

   V is doing really well. He didn't make it to church this week because he injured his foot, but we taught him the Word of Wisdom, and he set a goal to stop smoking in 2 weeks to be able to get baptized in 3 weeks. It's really exciting. He's just beaming with so much light, now that he's stopped drinking for so long. He's also reading and studying the scriptures daily, and praying daily too. You can really see the difference the gospel makes in a person.

   I also met this really awesome person. His name is E, and he's about 26 years old. He's a totally faithful strong Christian, and was a referral from the Sister missionaries in Bremenhaffen. They met him and gave him a Book of Mormon, and he was coming up here for work (he's a sailor) and wanted to learn more. We met with him and he told us about his past. He was in a bad group of people, and had a rough childhood. He hated his parents and got into the drug scene. He's been to jail before, and the girlfriend he had cheated on him, and left him for someone else. He was always full of hate and always felt abandoned. He then met a girl who was Christian, and saw how different she was. One night he prayed in front of his bed on his knees, and the next morning he was full of love. He said he took that as a sign that God is there and started on his journey to change his life. He read the Bible and started going to different churches. He basically knows the Bible off by heart now, and has such an amazing love for Jesus Christ and God. He met the Sister missionaries and wanted to know more about the Book of Mormon. He said he's read in it quite a bit, but said he's scared to find out that it's true, because that means that he gave his whole life to God, but God in return only gave him half the truth. We talked for 2 hours and the whole lesson went around in circles. I have such a huge love for him, but the lesson was terrible! We all decided we'd meet again, and he emailed me and apologized, and said he really wants to meet again and find out if it is true. It was a really cool experience though, to see how much a person has changed from such terrible past. He's married now to Christian who prayed to find out if she should marry him or a different guy. They said they both got the same answer and got married. He said his life would be nothing without Christ and that he's just trying to find out truths and follow his feelings to see if there is more that God has to offer him. It was really cool meeting him. (He's German).

 On Wednesday I went on a “Tausch” (missionary exchange) with Delingsdorf missionaries. It was fun and knocked on some doors and ended up getting 3 referrals from people who didn't have too much interest but liked what we were doing. We also had a discussion at the door for about 20 minutes with a lady - we talked to her about prayer. We taught her the first lesson, and gave her the church website address to give to her 36 year old daughter who might be more interested. It was cool.

   We also did a couple service projects. We helped a member move, and painted inside their house. Then last night we were at a newly married couple’s apartment for dinner. They are both 25 years old.  After dinner another member couple (who are getting married in March) came by and joined us. It was a lot of fun and it was cool to see how excited they are for the wedding, ha-ha. They are awesome members!

  Otherwise, not too much happened this week. I'd love to go into more detail about everything but I don't have the time for it! I love you guys and hope you have a good week! Thanks for taking the time to e-mail me, even though it was so late at night for you. I love you guys!

 Bis nächtste Woche, tschüß!

Elder Luening