This week we were able to go to the beautiful one and only city of Hannover! The place of dreams, city of courage, town of terrific, land of love… Yeah you get it, the place is awesome. But first we had to get there… So that meant that we had to get over to Köthen to catch the train, an early morning train, and we would have ended up sitting in Köthen forever, and Elder Illum and I didn’t want to do that, so we decided we’d ride our bikes and surprise the Elders there. It was about 22km and we didn’t have a map but we knew which direction it was in, and we wanted to make a sweet time lapse so we duct taped our iPads to our chests… haha but it was amazing just riding in the cool morning breeze through green fields and windmills.

Hannover was great, and I really enjoyed my interview with Präsident Fingerle, and it was different to do in German, but different isn’t always a bad thing. 😉 I’m excited for the plan he has, and it will continue the “crescendo” in our mission.

Now back to the city of Hannover. Ahh it was great to walk those streets again, I haven’t been able to visit since my first area, so it was cool to see it again. And to see it with Elder Vellinga, and Elder Braun, a couple of good friends from the original Hannover Zone.

At the end of the day we got back to Köthen, but luckily for us our train had fallen out that we were going to take our bikes on… But we at least we had the bikes! So in the dark we rode home. The day ended in about 50km of biking, because of a few wrong detours. But we enjoyed it!

Since I’ve started to work so much with personal study I decided to give a lesson on it in district meeting. The foundation of it, and the moving parts that make it come together to create a special spiritual experience, that readies us for personal revelation. I’ve noticed that there are 3 main types of scripture study: Reading, Studying, and Pondering. Pondering… now that’s a good one, that’s the one I focused on. Pondering was a new concept for me of a sort, to have a time to just sit and think, no music, no sports center, nothing. Just think about the things I read in the scriptures, and life in general.

I like what Joseph Smith said about pondering:

“The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man! If thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity–thou must commune with God”

         Now now now, that doesn’t mean we ponder that deep doctrine all the live-long day, but he does tell us how important the things pertaining to the gospel are, and that we really need the spirit to guide our understanding.

So a cool story….

My friend Elder Max Ferrin (S/O) down in Ghana sent a referral up north for us. He was out and about and some lady called them over asking if they were German, they said no, but she said that’s okay I want you to meet my German son! (Via Skype) so they Skyped the kid and told him some friends in Germany would contact him.

So we got the info, I called him up and he said he didn’t have any time… like every German. But then what do you know he calls me up a week later and says he wants to meet up. He lives up in Hamburg so I phoned the elders up gave them the address and they got in contact with him.

They texted me how it’s going, they said he’s a super cool guy, about 17 and interested in baptism because he was baptized when he was young but wants to choose for himself. Also something cool they said was they could see his potential to go on a mission. He’s already planning on coming to institute and church. The Elders were super excited, I’m sure it was an answer to their prayers.

I know the Lord provides a way for His children, PONDER this week about how He’s provided a way for you. Because either big or small He has. I know it.

Elder Winkel ??

I realized I’ve been in almost every major city in my mission and know my way around a little bit from Berlin, Hannover, Chemnitz, Leipzig, Hamburg (only there once), Magdeburg etc. just need Dresden.

Very good week, it went by very fast and surprisingly enough I have been everywhere in our area… pretty much, the 3 major cities, and a handful of villages in the area. Its small but it’s good that I could get to know the area quick.

How we managed to accomplish this feat of traveling all over, was we went by every less active on the ward list. We simply went by and left a little note with our info, letting them know if they need our help we are here! And then this week we are going to drive around with a member and try and actually meet with them. Hopefully we can make some good contact.

We went to a little city to do some contacting and we came across a black dog, an actual nice one too! He followed us all around, as happy as could be! It reminded me of my friend Mark down in Chile that has a dog follow them, the missionaries there had called it “dog black” due to lack of speaking English, so… we called him “dog black”! The whole time walking around “Kommt folget mir dog black!”. I’m sure we’ll see him next time we go back.

On Saturday we traveled to Magdeburg to have a very special tour arranged by the senior couple in our district of the giant church there. One of the only building not destroyed because of bombing raids (Magdeburg had military factories). It was a really cool experience because it was given by the Dome chairman, who is actually from New York. It was an amazing building made by people with great faith, many working on it knew they wouldn’t live to see it finished.

I couldn’t help but think of our temples, especially some of the first ones in the latter-days. So much went into them, the early members literally gave all they had to complete them, so that they could receive those blessings. I don’t understand everything about temples, but I do know that they really are a place of refuge, and place of peace. And I really miss it. But as a mission we have a new focus on the temple, unfortunately both temples will be closed in Germany from September till spring of next year, but I’m really excited for the new plan we have to get recent converts to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.

Our mission now has “temple square missionaries” in Freiberg, where tours will be given by the missionaries there to those that are interested in it. Also as missionaries we are now allowed to travel to the temple once a month (paying our own way) if we bring a less active, investigator or recent convert to take these tours, and help them to understand more about it. Because our Goal is not baptism, but it is for our brothers and sister to have the blessing of the temple. This week look, remember, and find the blessing of the temple.

 

Elder Winkel

Wednesday night off to Kothen for the night, for Berlin in the morning! Mission tour! Ja wohl!

Elder Vellinga was a friend of mine in the MTC! He’s now my district leader! Elder and Sister Hilton got us hooked up to have a special tour of the Magdeburg Dome Tower, not very many people get to see it amazing!