Monday 9 December 2013

November 18,2013 Hamburg


Dear Family,
   It's so great to hear from you all again! P-day is almost over, but it was a lot of fun. Sister Uhtermöhlen, bless her heart, gave us money to go to the Hagenbeck Tropen Aquarium! It was about €56 for the 4 of us. We didn't want to take the money from her but she insisted that we go visit it, have a good time, and then report to her with pictures about all the fun we had ha-ha. So that's what we did and man, that was a lot of fun. Saw some crocodiles, sharks, sting rays, weird bugs, and a lot of cool look'n fish! Ha-ha. And at the entrance there were lemurs that jump on you and eat carrots and stuff. It only took about 1.5 hours so it as a perfect p-day activity! I'm definitely going to write her a nice thank you note for that.

   It was nice to hear from all of you and to hear about your experiences that you had this last week. When you told me that my release information was emailed to you that made me feel weird. Times going so fast. For Christmas...I thought about it a bit, but you know I'm going to be home like 2 months later so there's no real point in getting me anything. Something that I do want is copies of the Christmas music that you would always play during advent J I'm totally getting into the Christmas spirit with all the German Christmas treats already out in the grocery stores! I've got Lebküchen un Spekulatius, and those Herzlebküchen, and Marzipan and oranges and Caro and fruit tea! I also have some German Christmas music, but I like the CD we have at home the most, lol. There are some songs I haven't found yet like the children one that sings 'eine Maa, eine Moo, eine teteretete'. If I got a copy of the CD I would “freu” myself! J That's about all I can think of. You don't need to send money either. I still have about €200 cash personal money, and I'm sure there's still something on my account. I don't spend money too often lol. BUT let me know if there's anything that you would like me to send home to you for Christmas! I can help stock you up on German stuff again. Just give me a shopping list and I can do it. That goes for all of you. If there's something special that you would like for Christmas let me know. I'll be sending home books and stuff soon to help get rid of some weight for my luggage. I've got a way cool 3 book combination of the Max und Moritz stories.

   So, I wanted to report on the FHE at the member’s house on Monday last week. It was a really nice experience. The wife’s sister showed up with her boyfriend and after dinner we taught them the message of the Restoration. It was really positive. They really liked it and took a Book of Mormon from us to read. After they left we talked about how it went with the husband and wife and they couldn't believe how powerful the message and the lesson was. The husband looked at us both and said 'Es war mir nie wirklich so bewußt, wie sie als missionare tatsäglich vertreter Christi sind. Heute abend habt ihr wirklich Jesus Christus repräsentiert.' (It was never really clear to me how you really are representatives of Christ. Tonight you really represented Jesus Christ.) J They loved it and thanked us for sharing that message. They didn't really expect that one since they told us anything on prayer and Christ ha-ha. We heard that and automatically thought hmm...RESTORATION! Lol. The sister and boyfriend left for holidays and said when they're back they want to have a FHE again and learn more.

   We ate African food with Henry, our convert. He made us some fufu and chicken and fish soup. We looked in the pot and there's a fish head in there and some cut up chicken legs, wings and back ha-ha. He made some fufu to go with it which is close to mashed potatoes but really sticky. You eat it with your hands by taking some fufu, dipping it in the soup and grabbing some meat with it and then shoving it in your mouth. It's so African and way good! Henry's like, eat the back Elder McK., it's very sweet! It was a lot of fun and he's such a great member. We've been visiting him every week since his baptism in August and he's doing so great. He passes the sacrament every Sunday and is now going to be practicing the prayer in German.

   I love the ward here and the city. It's awesome and the members are so nice to everyone. We're doing a missionary fireside on Saturday. We're introducing Mormonism by teaching the first lesson from Preach My Gospel. We've put fliers everywhere at the student housings and hope to see a lot of people come. It should be good and we're hoping to see new investigators from it. Also on Saturday our apartment is being renovated so we'll be in Altona for a week and have to move everything out on the same day...Saturday. It's going to be a busy but fast week.

   Opa bore strong testimony about how much he's loving the Book of Mormon, because he's learning a ton from it. He's read it before, but he's finding things that weren't in there the last time. He told us he's learned a lot so far. He's now in Alma! I love Oma and Opa a lot and their food reminds me of mom’s cooking! It's way good! They’re now on vacation for a month. I'm learning a ton from the scriptures too; it reminded me of how there's no end to learning, until we choose to stop!

   Dad, Thanks for sharing the spiritual thought! Did you find out more about your passport?
   Mom, thanks for the email last week. I printed it off because it was so long and read it throughout the week and liked how much you learned from your scriptures study and how it helped you throughout the day. Thanks for your testimony! 

  Charlene, full proselyting! Sounds exciting and I'm sure you'll love it. We'll find out about transfers on Friday during interviews because next week Tuesday is transfer day. So I'll find out what's happening here in Hamburg! I'm pretty positive that I'll be staying my last 2 transfers here. I'm just curious to see if Elder McK. will stay one more transfer here, making it his 5 transfer in this city, or if he'll leave and I get a new companion. We've been 3 transfers together so far so we'll see. It'll be surprising!

    Kass and Scott, Ich freue mich total dass es schon Schnee bei euch gibt! Ich hoffe dass er bleiben wird bis ich wenegstens zu Hause bin, dammit ich mich auch im Schnee vergnügen kann! Ich vermisse die Winteraktivitäten. Wie Snowshoeing, and snowboarding, and sledding haha. But I'm sure it will, it's Canada after all, lol.

  Jeremy, mom keeps telling us good things about you. Like you helped with moving, I'll be doing that this week too lol. Actually there's like 2 member families who are moving in the next couple weeks so we'll be helping a bit with that too. Good to hear you are ready to serve!
I love you all, and hope you have a good week. I thought I'd send a big email this time, since I couldn't for a while now, but could today!


Love Elder Lüning

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