11/17/14

This week was great! We had so many miracles! First off I wanted to tell you all about B****, a recent convert as from a year ago.

B**** is from Liberia, his entire family was murdered and he was put on a boat to Italy all when he was 14, he spent a couple years there, learned Italian. He was then deported to Germany. When he got here he had extreme depression and went to a hospital and tried to pay them to end his life. He was then put in an asylum for a couple weeks. When he got out the missionaries found him. One of which was Elder Schofield (who I’ll tell more about later) they taught him the gospel and it literally saved his life. He’s now 18 years old. So what B**** does now is he shares the Gospel with EVERYONE he meets. Yesterday he brought a man named James, James has only known B**** for 2 weeks, and he learned about the Book of Mormon 2 weeks ago, from B****! He is always willing to share the happiness that the gospel has brought him! He’s a great example to me.

Things still aren’t easy for him though, because he’s an immigrant he has to live in an immigrant house, where the immigrants stay up late smoking and drinking. He’s never bothered them about it, and even bought ear plugs so he could sleep. A couple days ago he was making a phone call at 11 o’clock in the morning and the guys there got mad at him. He apologized and tried to be quieter, then they came and smashed his phone against the wall and started choking him. He ran out of the house and called the police, which made them even madder, so in the end he had to move. Hopefully this new place is better for him. He’s trying to get work right now but immigrants aren’t allowed to work so that can be hard to find. Hopefully things can get better for him! He’s a great guy, and apparently he’s really good at ping pong! At ward game night he’s challenged me! So hopefully it goes well! haha. Ping pong is really big in the ward (ward of old people)! Ping pong is the closest thing I’ll find to a sport here in my area … but that’s OK!

On Friday we had a surprise exchange!  I took a train and went to Bielefeld. There I got to be with Elder Schofield for a day! He was the one who baptized B**** the year before! He goes home in 3 weeks, which he was quite upset about. He really doesn’t want to go home and leave his mission, which is great! We went and visited 2 guys, one plays video games all day, and doesn’t have much person hygiene. But I was quick to judge and I felt bad about that. He’s a Diabetic and is losing the feeling in his feet so it’s hard for him to get around. And he has an incredible testimony of tithing, and also loves to share the gospel! He told his blind friend about the gospel and his friend listened to the Book of Mormon twice in 2 weeks! And came to church yesterday! The testimony of others is amazing!

The other man we went and visited we had to take a train, 2 buses, and walk 2 miles to a care center in the middle of nowhere. He’s pretty old and quite a big guy and can’t walk around really, and he has some other health problems. He left the church years ago because he was offended by someone. But he realized that the church is what brings true happiness in this life and in the next. So in the visit we read a chapter from the Book of Mormon, and just talked to him. I love just visiting people. I don’t understand much but I know it means a lot to them that we come and meet with them.

I’m proud to be a missionary. I get to help and administer to our Heavenly Father’s children, and our brothers and sisters. I hope that this week you all can look for someone to share your testimony with. I love you all and am excited for next week!

Elder Winkel

11/3/14

Well a lot has happened in the last week. After tons of hours on planes and trains I finally got to the city of Minden. The ward has about 30 people that come regularly, and the closest missionaries are 30 minutes away by train, so we have a lot of area to cover!

The last baptism that happened in my area was about a year ago, so that’s going to change! In the last 4 days we have found 3 investigators, so that’s way big! We have 23 in our teaching pool, but only 2 we are considering progressing investigators. We technically have 1 committed to baptism, but we have not been able to get a hold of them for a couple weeks so we will see (this was all before I came). But I’m way excited to teach our 3 new investigators! One of them we met on the street and was surprised that we are here for 2 years without being paid, and was really interested in where the BofM came from, so he asked us if we would walk down the street with him to his house so he could check his work schedule, and find a time when we could come over! So cool!

Also this week I had the wunderbar opportunity to eat at Sister N’s house…… She joined the church 20 years ago, but also hasn’t been to church for about 20 years…. But how she claims to make up for it is by feeding the missionaries 2-3 times a month, and she’s been doing that for about 20 years…….. The food CAN be good sometimes, but you can always count on it to be super unhealthy…. This week we had rice, vegetables, and chocolate pudding. Seems harmless right? Wrong. She basically boils the vegetables, and rice in melted butter….. And the homemade pudding she replaced all the milk that’s supposed to go into it, and just puts butter…. and she won’t let you leave till the ALL the food is gone….. I felt very fat that day.

The food here is amazing for breakfast we eat this cereal that’s just chocolate squares filled with Nutella! It’s so good! And we’re always eating amazing bread, meats, and cheese! My comp has gained 40 pounds, but we just started to run every morning so we will see what happens! My companion is Elder O’Keefe from Pleasant Grove! He’s way cool! So way weird how my first 2 companions were in the same stake! My apartment is cool but it’s gone through a lot of Elders! It feels and kind of looks like the apartment in the best two years!

The ward is a bit hard to work with they are basically 2 families that make up most of the ward, and they are all really old. They are all pretty stubborn about missionary work. It’s also hard because it gets dark here at about 5:30 so we can’t proselyte very long, I heard by December it should be getting dark at about 4… So the winter solstice will be nice.

Ward council was also weird one of the main people in charge is this old man that was excommunicated a long time ago, but won’t come back for some reason, but he loves going to church and missionary work so I guess that’s good.

German is rough but it will get better!

Love you all!

-Elder Winkel

 

The one sunset pic you can see the 1000 year old monument to one of the first emperor of Germany pretty chill.