October 7, 2013 Hamburg

 Hey family!

     Jeremy I'm proud of you for making the step you did. Guess you'll be home when I get back eh? I'm excited to see you again. Mom, Dad, please let Grandma know I wish her a “Gute Besserung” (Get Well)! That whole accident just sounded really painful. I'm glad she's doing okay.

     This week sped by on by again. On Monday/Tuesday I was able to go on exchange with a District Leader. We stayed in Hamburg and had a really busy day. He was so excited to see how Elder McK. and I talk to people and how we find people, so I made sure we had some time to do just that. It didn't take him to long to realize that he had been doing exactly what we were doing the whole time. Ha-ha!  The only difference was our attitude and how we dealt with those who didn't want to listen. Those that don't want to listen to us, we don't beg them to stay and hear us out. We wish them a good day and moved on to find those elite that God has prepared for us. Elder McK. and I know that they're out there and that Heavenly Father will put them in our paths.

     We've been focusing on the atonement in our mission and it's really helped us with our missionary work. We also had a lesson given to us in Berlin on Friday about Missionary Repentance. We internalized it and brought it into our apartment and introduced it to the other 2 Elders who lived with us. We got a red piece of paper and wrote “HAMBURG UMKEHR” at the top. (Hamburg Repentance) and made a list of things we noticed that we want to change and do better on in the apartment. We have 16 things written down and things have improved a lot already! I've also notice how it's helped us each personally apply the atonement more in our lives because we prayed afterwards for the support to be able to change. It's also unified us more with each other.

     Two miracles happened this week. S. told us that the Book of  Mormon leads her to believe in God. We taught her how to read it and she read from 1 Ne. 3 to 1 Ne. 19 in 3 days. She loves it and said she needs to read it through at least twice. One for the story, and one for her personally where she can apply what she learns into her life.

     Second miracle, is that after the wonderful General Conference on Saturday night (the first Saturday session), on our way home a lady asked us if our church is in English. We told her about General Conference and she said, “Oh I was in Utah and saw the temple!” We invited her to come the next day for General Conference and she came! She saw the Saturday afternoon session and loved it! We will now be meeting with her twice a week and she's coming to church on Sunday again!

     I'm grateful for the atonement in my life and for the power I receive from it daily. These days out here aren't easy. But they're good. From my study of Isaiah this time through the Book of Mormon, I tied what he says together with Nephi. In Lehi's dream he sees people walk away from the tree after partaking of the fruit because they were ashamed of those mocking him. Isaiah talks a lot about the atonement of Jesus Christ and about how we should be proud of being his followers. He says that though we might feel as though we're roads for people to walk on, or that we are persecuted beyond what we can handle, Jesus Christ will lift us up and carry us on His shoulders. He will take our burden from us and those that persecute us, He will separate from us. The message that I got from it this time through is be proud of having a Savior who is more powerful than ALL things. Nephi had hard times, but he never lost sight of his Savior, and knew the rewards of obedience and faith. This is one of the reasons why he loved Isaiah so much.

I hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Luening