Dear Family,
Wow, -24 at night and -18 during the
day?! O, CANADA! It's been warm here in Hamburg compared to that. It only gets
down to about 5°C during the day time. I'm kinda glad it doesn't get that
cold, but something I do miss is the snow. We don't have snow on the ground
yet! We had a wind storm on Wednesday and then it snowed a little bit, but it
was more like hail. So we're hoping for a white Christmas, maybe it'll snow
soon J
Well let me tell you how things have been going
here in Hamburg lately. Let’s start with our new converts. H. is amazing. He
cooked us African food again, and is now working on reading the sacrament
prayer in German so that he can do it one day on Sunday. He's also getting to
know the ward more and more and making family connections which are awesome.
He's so solid, comes to church every Sunday and loves studying with us and his home
teachers every week. We had the ward Christmas party on Saturday and he
came, stayed afterwards to clean up, and then ended up cleaning the whole church
building with Bishop Back because no one had done it yet. He's seriously
the best African, ha-ha. He's so funny. Brother Stephens is also doing really, really well. We taught him this week about
Patriarchal blessings and after the lesson asked him if he would like something
like that. He said 'Elder Lüning, I'm over-ready!’ Ha-ha, he told me to talk to
the bishop and get him set up with one. It still amazes me every time I
see him that he's 73years old. He doesn't seem that old or act like it at all ha-ha.
He's super active and the members love him a lot. He bears his testimony to us every
time of how grateful he is to have found the Church of Jesus Christ. He's also
preparing to go to the temple to do baptisms. Oh, and he's now a home teacher
and whenever we visit him he stuffs us with pancakes, lol. We also met
with C. this week and he's starting to change his life around again. He went to
church on Sunday in Delingsdorf which was a big step since he hasn't been to
church since two weeks after his baptism. He's still living with his girlfriend
but also at his mom’s place and said by the end of the month he'll know if
they'll break up or not. He said she's keeping him away from the church and
that something has to change. He's going to meet more regularly with us again
since the hand off to the Delingsdorf Elder's didn't work at all. They didn't
visit him regularly when we handed him off to them which was too bad. But his
heart is back in it and we'll help him!
The members in this ward are so awesome! I love
them so much, and now that Christmas is around the corner I feel even closer to
them than ever. We really have a lot of support from our ward and we're seeing
miracles every day. Last week we talked to a student on the street who had
interest and then about 4 or 5 days later I made out an appointment with her.
She came to the church and we gave her a church tour, told her a little bit
about our standards and how the church is organized and how it runs. We then
taught her the Restoration and she loved it! She asked questions about the word
of wisdom and chastity and eternal marriage, and soaked everything up. We
didn't go into too much detail of course but she loved everything we said.
She's German, and married to a Muslim from Iran, and really open to learn more
about our church and religion so we'll be meeting again this week. She also
loved our sense of humour and how we had personal testimonies of what we
taught. It was a blessing finding her just from talking with everyone we saw
for 20mins of finding time that we had. We also got in contact with an old
investigator who wants to change his life around and is very serious now. His
names I. We're looking forward to helping him. Then there are a couple more
people we're teaching and helping get closer to baptism.
I'm stuck on Sunday being my absolute favourite
day of the week. I feel it’s the most spiritual and happiest day that I have in
the week. It's a time to reflect on the week and see how it went and remember
where the Lord has helped me and others through me. I feel a lot of weight on
myself in leading the area, and the zone,
ha-ha, and helping Elder Cannon learn everything that he needs to do, but I'm
still happy all the time, no matter what!
Ha-ha. I always think of Christ calming the storm and think of it
as him calming my storms. Whenever I have a ton of stuff going on and it is
chaotic, I can call upon Him and there's peace. One of the assistants asked me
why I'm so chill or relaxed and happy all the time, and I said it's because I'm
Canadian ha-ha. But I think it's really just a gift that I've been blessed with
that comes from the Gospel and doing what's right.
Mom, thanks for the email. Sounds like
your busy like always ha-ha. But it's impressive to see how you're rejuvenated
with strength through just little spiritual moments of rest. It's a blessing.
Dad, thanks for your example and for the way
you raised me. I was at the Panitsch's for lunch yesterday and they showed me a
video of the day that you and Mom drove down to Salt Lake to spend one day with
them. They are still so impressed by that act of kindness and have a lot of
respect and love for you and Mom.
Charlene, I'm excited that she was baptized!
Keep working hard! I know member work can be a bit slow at the start, but once
they love you and trust you it changes everything. Then you can start role
playing with them and help them do their own missionary work by going after
less actives and friends. J
Jeremy, I hope you had a great week and I hope
you're enjoying the snow! I'm not sure how much it snows in Italy, ha-ha, so
enjoy the last year of it! J
Kass, I hope things are going well with the
job, you didn't tell me your mailing address so I guess you won't get the
tinsel in time for Christmas since it takes like 3 weeks to get to you. Too bad...but
there's always another year I guess. J
Have a great week everyone and stay healthy and
strong!
Love, Elder Lüning
p.s. Oliver Back and his wife but St. Nikolaus in front of our
door! They're so awesome! J
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