Almost Christmas

Family and Freinds,

 

Well the week was awesome! The ward blew it out of the water with our christmas party this week! Elder Wilde and I were so surprised that it went so well and we were just so happy. if the ward here did an activity like that once a month, we would have so many more people getting baptised and getting to know the church. So cool! It was also much warmer this week which was good and bad :) but we enjoyed it. Our "hoho-zo-co" was this week and that was amazing! We watched "17 miracles", which if you have not seen, i would recommend it! We also had some very good lessons and an awesome testimony meeting at the end. But the best of all was the music. We had 3 or 4 musical numbers. My favorite though was sister nielson as she sang "like an angel passing through my room". Have you all heard that song? if not go and listen to it! You sent me an album last year from motab for christmas and it has sicily or whoever she is singing that song on it. Its a great song and sister nielson just destroyed it. she has some pipes and it awesome! then halfway through the big meeting, atfer we ate, president gets his ipad out and shows us a video of that same sister and her companion (who beep boxes) rapping the "standards of excellence" HAHA. awsome stuff. so the week.

 

Monday we had rain andwe visited the castle here ion spandau. i got some good pictures of that. We then visited the christmas market again. not much esle to do in spandau, because we are to lazy to go deep into berlin and visit a museum or something. But maybe next week we will visit the video game museum!!!!! im so stoked for that. I will be a little kid in a candy store in that place. HAHA. We then visited some investigators and it was a good p-day.

 

Tuesday we did service again like we normally do. the sisters were late. It was a blast though. elder wilde and i got to carve some trees...hard to explain but he basically gave us some chizels and hammer and said to carve all the abrk off of some trees. cool stuff. We were then supposed to have GMK, but that fell out as we were driving home to change. so we then visited a man...who wasnt home. But that was ok, because that gave us time to go by some other people. We then visited a member who we had never really talked to much before. He is sooooo cool. He is not like normal members and actually has a very interesting view on the gospel. Still a cool guy though. He is a little old and gave us a lot of "life advice". it was helpful. We then had a fallen out appointment (3rd of the day) and so we went to familie simon. they are the coolest family ever and they just make anyone they meet a happy person. we had a really good lesson and spiritual thought on the meaning of christmas, Hopefully we will watch the "joy to the world" dvd on another day with them and they will invite a friend to their house. it was will be great.

 

Wednesday we had a member inspect our apartment...we passed. he also gave us a new lamp, because ours was broken. We then got picked up by a member to go to br greb and teach him. well we show up and he sint there and is super busy when we call him. so he canceled. bummer. But we went by some other contatcs and innactives with br krause (our joint teach). none of them were home but we got a lot of really good information about the ward the people we were visiting. he is an older member and so he knows a lot of people and their "stories". very helpful. We then go to family smith. well sis smith was home but br smith was not. so we cant go in. so we talk to her at the door and she had watched the restoration film. she liked it. unfortunatly we couldnt have a lesson but she is doing well. just stressed out with the holiday season. we hope to meet this week and help them out some more and get them to come to church. We then met another member at the major bus station and took a bus to visit an investigator. that lesson went ok. the member took control and taught his own lesson which was ok. but we have a lot of work to do with both of them haha. that night we taught ali. this lesson was one of the best for the week,. he was late and he said that before he came he had been sick for the apst couple days. then as he was thinking of coming to our appointment he gets better and comes. then our lesson went really well and he prayed at the end. it was a powerful prayer and at the end he said " i feel sick...i am sorry" interesting that he said that. he was apologizing for his prayer. but his prayer was awesome! and he think he said he was "sick" only because he doesnt know how to describe the spirit. it was a powerful lesson.

 

thursday we ahd our zone conference. the elders from hohenstein spent the night the night before and we all went to tiergarten. it was so great to see all my old friend and to see new people there. mom, elder s didnt give me your huf, but i gave him his hug from his mom. HAHA. he was confused so i guess his mom didnt say anything. or he doenst read his moms emails. but the conference was great. i got my package. thanks btw :) i also got to meet the new sister!!! her name is sister harris. she is from wisconsin and she is so funny. fresh from the mtc and byu german classes. lol. but her german is good. she just needs confidence and the accent down. german and wisconsin dont mix well. its funny. but she is so cool. so now we have 5 sisters in the district and 4 elders. the spandau sisters are in a drit (triple). cool stuff. we came home that night with so many packages and post from all 5 of us it was crazy. but we made it home. something from the zo-co that was really good that elder wilde reminded me of later was that at the last zo.co or i should say "mission tour" with elder k. he told us that we ( the missionaries in that room) were as strong as the pioneers were and that he would have been proud and honored to push a hand cart with us...ok cool compliment right? i didnt think much of it when he said it. but then on thursday we watched the mpovie 17 miracles and that just changedmy whole perspective on the pioneers and the hadncart companies. it was really cool to ahve a 70 tell us that. and it just took my companion and a movie to help me realize how great of a compliment it was. Sistewr j asked me after the conference if i cried during the movie. she being the one who cries at the drop of a hat and i always have a comment about it. so she asked me kind of jokingly because i never cry and dont usually show emotion and she is the complete opposite. i said " well i got teary eyed at one point, but i didnt cry" that stopped her dead in her tracks LOL. she was all " are you serious?!?" it was funny to see her reaction to that. she said that she went through two packages of tissues during the entire film. what a girl haha :) jk. it was a good movie though.

 

friday we had weekly planning and then an eating appointment with br e. he didnt stuff us with food that day thankfully. he is such a cool member and we love visiting him. We then went by some contacts and we met some cool people on the street. something we noticed with one girl that we talked to, was that missionaries are so impersonal a lot of the time. with this girl, it was a very personal conversation. at the beginning elder we starts and stops her on the street. as he is talking she kind of boringly looks away and looks at me with a kind of "what the heck is he talking aobut?" look. i was thinking, oh dang we got to save this. so super awkward as elder wilde stops talking, and she is kind of "ok, cool" and then i start talking and try to get to know her personally. hard to explain, but it was . but you know better and it was just getting to know her personally. her religious background and such. she started blushing half was through which was funny. it was really funny. afterwards she accepted our card and we got her name. no number but she will remember us. afterwards elder wilde turns to me and goes "what was that all about?!?" haha. i was completely oblivious to anything. i asked "what?"    "she was blushing and everything. what was that?" it was funny. i was just following the example of my zone leaders. as i was on an exchange with elder ashby, and we went finding, he gets to know his investigators and people on the street very well. instead of being a robot missionary he is very loose and it allows the people on the street to see us as normal people rather than robots in black suits and such. elders are just tos carred some times to let go of the structure of the "rules" and be a little more free and normal. well it worked for elder a and it worked for me. how many times do you tell people on the street your name and get to know them personally before giving them a 30 minute lesson on the book of mormon...let me tell you. a lot of missionaries dont. and so thats what i did. i was just a normal person with a purpose but i let her see who i was as a person before she got scarred away by the name tag and black suit. It was great. after our fidning we visited a member and his freind and had a good lesson. we then ahd some more fallen out appointments that day and that was it.

 

saturday we visited some gators in the mornning and then went to br greb again for a lesson. well this is where the week got even better. before the lesson we wanted to kind oteach a "hammer" lesson. that means that we wanted to kind of tell him "its this or that and you need to decide" rather than always being wishy washy and in the middle. but we ahd no clue how to do it without totally offending this man. so we go in having no clue whats going on and he starts talking. as he is talking i jsut get the feeling we need to teach the plan of salvation.br greb had for the past couple lessons showd interest in learning more about it, but we avoided it because it was a waste of time. well now came the point of, do i follow the spirit or our plan? well we followed the spirit and taught the second lesson. thank goodness elder wilde followed the flow of the conversation and we then taught the plan of salvation. and this time instead of a lesson where br greb talks the most, it was a two sided conversation and he had really god questions and really good comments. it was great! the spirit was so strong. it was a great time. After br g we went and picked up fr f to go to the christmas party. this is where the week gets even better.so many people were there!!! it was great!

 

 

sorry im running out of time. basically the week was great!" the party was a blast and everyone enjoyed themsevles. sorry for ending the email short. until next week.

 

elder ustach

Pics

Sorry I have not posted in a while I have been sick the past 2 months.
Enjoy the letters, C. Ustach

Guten tag!!

Hello again :)

Another general conference come and gone. sad day. but an awesome conference. my favorite quote "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith!" elder uchtdorf laying down the german hammer!!!! haha. watching GC is special as a missionary. you really focus and pay attention. they all seem to talk to you personally or to a gator of yours. its wonderful. this GC was just really powerful and great. i love it.

Well this week was good. we had a decent number of lessons and just a solid good week. So last monday was hitting up all the berlin sites. in my head that was 2 weeks ago but i guess i have not sent them to you yet. wierd. so ya we went to alexander platz to see the tv tower, the church there, rathaus, fountain, berliner tor, jewish memorial, us embassy, berliner dom, some other big building and the victory tower!. we did a lot all in one day. it was awesome! that night i met a gator for the first time. frau fleischer. she is slightly mentally handicapped but she is so cool. we teach her with that HUGE member guy. those two together are funny. 

tuesday we had anormal day and we had 3 lessons in 3 hours planned...key word is planned. the first one fell out and then the second one was good.the third was was actually not a lesson but a meeting with the sisters and the bishop. that meeting was awesome!!! our bishop is great!!! hedoes  SO MUCH!!!! unfortunatly he has the idea that gators must be perfect before baptism, and does not like when we invite nonperfect people to baptism....that is a bit of a problem becuase...nobody is perfect!!!! lol. but he is great.

wednesday we had a great district meeting. and i gave a lesson on focusing on the restoration in finding and using scriptures on the street, total fun! we then had a good lesson later that day with a man who the sisters found. he is waycool. hejust loves his daughter so much and will do anything for her. he told us that about 10 times in his lesson. a great guy. that night we traveled to glienicke to start an exchange! that was fun. so that night i was in glienicke. 

thursday was glienicke day. we had fun. we had a great lesson with a member who is from another ward but justmoved there and had never been to church there. so we went to fellowship him. that was great. we also had fun traveling a bunch to find contacts and going by them.i was with elder ames and he is a great missionary. he is just unsure of finding and not sure what to say sometimes. he is super smart though. awesome guy. that night we went back to spandau and the craziest thing happened!!! we got off the bus and waited for a bit for elder wilde and gerberding to come back. then aman came up to us who was trying to cross the street. he wasso druck he was about to fall over. i have heard of a trick to start moving in circles to make them fall over...but he was like 80 and had crutches so we were there holding him up rather than trying to make him fall over. he was so wasted though it was bad. he loves god. he told us about 20 times HAHA. then another crazy thing happened. as the other elders got there and out of no wherecars came zooming down the street and boxed in another car right in themiddle of this 3 lane street in front of rathaus. honking their horns and going crazy. we thought it was something serious because the way they drove and boxed this car in was really pro.but then we realized what it was...a turkish wedding!!!!! lol. they all got out of their cars. grabbed the bride and groom and cranked up the stereo of one car with turkish music and just danced in the middle of all their cars as traffic was backing up behind them. LOL. it was so cool. they had nice cars to. a lambo and a nice porsche. also an audi r8. it was cool. they left assoon as they showed up though. like 5 minutes later the street looked normaland ifyou had come you wouldnt have known what happened 20 seconds earlier. 

friday we had weekly planning and then a wierd lesson with a man who had interest but then his friend showed up and just totally againt religion at all. telling us that men are crazy and just prideful trying to call ourselves the children of a god. and then he told us he can prove everything "logically" so we ask a couple questions that he cant prove. his big one was the creation. which was funny becuase his proof that its science not god...he said. this is so funny. im translatting of course. "the world was created through coincidence. just coincidence. so obviously that proves there is no god because he doesnt do that"....what?he talked the whole time about logic and how he can prove everything through logic and then he says his ogical proof is "coincidence". i could not stop laughing on the inside. it was so funny and really dissapointing that this man was just so closed mindedand shutoff to anything we hadto say. we then talked about prophets and such, he saked who and where our prophet was. we told him and he just blew up about "h hes in america....ohhhh. now i get it....america" this guy was so special in his opinion. but thankfully our gaotr defended us and god and religion as a whole it was great!!!! he basically told his own friend that he was stupidand to stop beliiving in only what he could see. we were stoked afterwards about the gator, the friend made us a little annoyed but na ja. it was good anyway. we then had a fallen out appointment and a good lesson with frau fleischer again and this time with a br heusig. he is so cool!!!! probably the best joint tech ever. 

saturday we had a normal day and tried some people but no go and then we had GC that night.

sunday wasGC day. 6 hours in one day. we watched preisthood sunday morning, then saturday afternoon at 2. then sunday morning live at 6 pm here. it was great. we also had a potluck outside with all the member there. about 30 missioanries and like 40 members all outside eating each others food from their trunks and cars. it was great. 

thats the week :) i hope you all have a great week,  oh liebe grüße from the crazy man on the dogs at home haha. long story there. maybe another time. 

elder ustach

Fall has begun in Germany

Moin Moin!

The air is cold and the streets are wet. fall has begun in spandau and we are super excited...well i am. i was getting tired of the hot humid work. my white shirt sticking to me and at the end of the day having my shirt be no longer white because of all the sweat. ugggg. not its suits and jackets and scarfs and just loads of fun. no scarfs yet, not cold enough. but we are getting loads of rain and a little cooler temperatures. it makes it easier to sleep as well because we have no A\C anywhere.

This week, wel monday we just worked early and had a fallen out appointment. we then shopped and went home to have a movie night. both elder w and i were wiped out and we only have an hour and a half so we wentz home and cooked a pizza and watched some doctrine and covenants videos. really cool. brigham young was such a baller!!! "cut the thread that binds you to the prophet of the church...and drag yourselves to HELL!!!!!" intense. " whoes kingdom are you trying to build? the lords? or lyman johnsons?" man so cool. 

wednesday wehad a nice day of going by contacts and then having a lesson with a man who approached us at the city center. he is way cool.  we then had an exchange that afternoon. my first one as the leader. it was loads of fun. that night we made cake for our exchange treat and talked a bunch.

saturday we had a normal day but then probably the best lesson i have had in a long time. it is with a man named solomon. he is so cool. black guy who speaks german and english. cool guy. he wants to change his life and build his faith in christ. he has many legitimate questions that we can answer and he is just so cool. we taught about the atonement and how through chrsit we can change and start a new life. he seemed confused at first becuase he understood " christ died for us" as, that how come we still die then if he "died" for us. that made no sense to him. but we explaiend and it was great. at the end he asked US if we could give him a list of chapters or scriptures that he could have and when he is having a bad day or needs to build his faith he can read. it was so cool. 

sunday we had a good sacrament meeting and eating appointment. we had two fallen out appointments but that was ok because we needed to do weekly planning. at the end of the day we had a lesson with a family from nagola. cool family. such the cuttest little kids. typical cute black babies and todlers running around. so funny. 

now we are here. today we will hopefully visit some sights in the city and see how that goes. wish us lucka nd hopefully it doenst rain.

i love you and and have a great week :)

elder ustach

moin moin

i cant say moin moin anymore because im in the east, so i will say it in my emails :)

well i hope everyones week went well. a lot of rain i hear and that is great unless its flodding and then no good. 

this week was great. we did a lot of work and we can see the blessings from that hard work. i love it here in berlin. just yesterday we had stake conference and it was just so cool to see the whole berlin stake come together and fill the stake center to capacity and listen to the speakers. everone so happy and loying. it was great.

so this week. monday- well we went to the castle here in spandau after we did emails. its really cool! its on an island! talk about protected. this castle has like 50 foot walls all the way around it and its on an island that doesnt have a beach. so basically just a castle in the middle of water. cool stuff. hopefully i can sned pics this week. :)

tuesday- we left really early to go to tiergarten to go to a district leader meeting. it was a great meeting. but before we got there early, so we played some soccer basketball, basketball without using your hands or arms. it was a blast. finally everyone is there so we go in and have our meeting., the  zone leaders (one of which is elder scholes my former companion) are really awesome. we have some great goals for the zone and we will change berlin. we had a lesson on using the "work of salvation" dvd broadcast as spiritual thoughts and it was great. i learned a lot. afterwards we had lunch together at burger king and it was just nice to talk to old friends on the mission who are also district leaders here and it was a nice time. we then went home and started work on our over 170 potential and former investiogator list! we went to an area nad went by people. not much success so we went to the church for a lesson, but it fell out. so we had comp study which we ahdnt had earlier and then home. 

wednesday we had district meeting.the entire week i was to busy or just didnt know what to teach to plan my lesson, so wednesday morning i cram one together but i feel really good about it. the zone leaders joined us and our district meeting went really well. afterwards i didnt even say anything and elder wilde says "that was a good meeting" i was happy. we went a little long because we talked forever about rules and the specifics on them. we also had a really good "district rat" (district councel, or a time where we can ask questions and all give answers for prolblems with investigators or whatever). my lesson went really well. i talk how to ask questions and it was awesome. after the meeting we tried to visit a gator who was home but had no time. so we join everyone for district lunch and then go home for comp sutdy. we then go out and try by more of our contact list. we then have a good lesson at the church with one of those contacts. it was great. unfortunatly he is suuuuper strong and "fest" muslim. the nicest people ver, but not willing to change because they are to happy with what they have. after him we left for another appointment and we get there but the man isnt home. so we cant go in because we cant visit women alone. so we ask when her man would return and she said 30 minutes. well its already 8 pm. so we say, alright we might come back in 30 minutes. so we go by some more contacts and then come back and it was super late. we were worried the kids would be asleep and everything. but they were all awake. the dad was home. we talk them and got to know them. it was great. a quick 25 minute lesson and we were out the door at 9. so we hurried home to plan and go to bed. 

thursday- we had a slow morning and we watch the broadcast for part of ourt study. we then just go by contacts the entire day and then havbe a fallen out appointment and that was it. thursday was a dud.

friday- an amazing day. not everyone is ready for the gospel but there are people out there that are prepared and ready. well there are so many in berlin that you jsut have to sift through all the unprepared to find the elite (as it says somewhere in D&C). well friday morning after about 2 hours of OYM'S we find a man. it was interesting to because he looks rough and tough. i didnt want to talk to him. not because i was scarred but because i assume dhe was either high, or drunk, or just a bum. well i ahve the impression that i should talk to him and i kid of chasticed myself for judging this man. by the time i finish my thoughts he is already on us and about to walk bye. thankfull elder wilde talks to him. he have a wonderful conversation about god and christ and the purpose of life. why we are here and what we need to do. we make out an appointment for the next day. so that was great! it showed me never to judge, which i try not to do, and to talk to everyone because we dont know who is ready and who is not.  that day we also went out to an area in the forest that has houses in it instead of in the city with just apartment buildings. we go do doors ther.e it was nice. it reminded me of lauenburg. a nice little town, doors, and nice people. well we didnt have success but we had loads of fun and met a very nice man who wanted to give us something to drink. also a man who knows our church for our geneaology and uses it a lot, but does not like our gospela dn what we teach. so we invited him to church to visit our geneaology center. i also broke out my harmonica!!! elder wilde and i walked through the forest ( the quickest path to this dorf was through the forest) playing my harmonica. it was great. im working on praise to the man right now. hopefully i can learn it quickly. also a few christmas songs. its loads of fun. 

saturday we had a ton of appointments. so we start with boateng who is was cool and met the elders in italy but didnt really understand anything they taught and then moved here. now we are teaching him. its truly a miracle we found him becuase the elders in italy didnt pass on his records. or even tell us he moved here. so the sisters actually found him on the street and passed him onto us. then we had an appointment fall out which sucked, but then another one with this man that we met on friday...also fell out. he diodnt show up. but then we had an appointment with an innactive and that went well. friday night i had a cough and all day saturday it got worse. just a lot of stuff in my throat and i was feeling warm. so i just push through it on saturday and suck it up. i make it through the day but i am wiped out. so the last hour of the day we go to a grocery store and get a treat and go home and do some area book work to keep us inside and rest a little. 

sunday we get out the door super early to get to stake conference which was awesome. sooooo many missionaries!!!! just in this stake we have like probably 70 missionaries or more. this mission has over 270!!!!! poor president kosak, no wonder he is stressed all the time. haha. stake conference was good. afterwards we go home with the sisters and two members. we eat at her house and as she is about to open the door she asks "angst für hunde?" i was appalled she even asked that question. i say no adns he opens the door. two medium sized dogs just popp out and attack us. it was awesome!!!! the on was a spaz and the other (his mother) was more calm. well i just flipped out and couldnt stop my self from playing with them and wrestling with them. before the food was ready and we sat down to eat i was covered in dog hair!!! my suit was covered in dog hair i should say. i loved it. i would sit calmly with the mom dog and then the boy would come over and want to play and so i would wrestle him and get him to calm down and such. then go back to his mom and sit calmly and this process was done like 10 times. awesome! they were exactly like gus and bear just a lot smaller. the owner was worried i would get bitten because of how i was playing with them. i was like " haha, a dog...bite me? never." so she said well i cant say i didnt warn you. well we jsut had a blast. it was great. no bitting. some growling both from the dogs and me. but it was great. the meal was great to and the spiritual thought also.  afterwards we had an appointment that fell out. then another one that only the wife was home so we couldnt visit her. so we went home and we totally forgot to do weekly planning so we barely got that in last night. 

well thats my week. today was just cleaning and organizing the appartment. its now clean!! yay!

i hope you all have a wonderful week. stay dry with the rain and until next week.

elder ustach

the BIG CITY!!!

:)

WOW!!! berlin is isane. the last week was me running around like a chicken with my head cut off. CRAZY. sooooo many people!!! new mexico has less than 2 million and berlin has like 3 million? im being swamped here. but i love it!!! there is sooooo much to do. i want another 4 hours to the day. i will keep praying for that but i dont think it will happen.

so spadau is so cool. my district is way cool to. there are two sisters in my ward and area. ! they are all so great. the sisters in spandau have so much faith its ridiculous! the plan baptizing all of german by themselves!!! i love it. the ward here is cool. we have about 50-60 active. we are working on more. Our ward building is smack dab in the center of city. thats so wierd for me. haha. but cool. people just walk by and dont even care. its kind of interesting. one lady we met has even met with the missionaries many years ago and liked us, but lost contact.....the funniest thing was, we were 100 meters dow the road from our church!!!! we told her that and she was all "OHHHH thats YOUR church? oh how wonderful!!!" she was so funny. and super excited to see us.

the apartment is cool i guess. i was expecting better because its berling, but then again its berin so it must be small. well it is. its only one room, a small bathroom and a small kitchen. most apartments here i this missio are two or three rooms, a bathroom and kitchen. so its wierd to sleep, dress, study, and eat all in the same room. but then i look back at college and i did all of that plus more in a room even smaller than what i am i now. i didnt even have my own shower or bathroom. so naja. i love it. it keeps you motivated because your study stuff is right there as you wake up. i ust love spandau.

so this week, well monday was good. just a normal p-day plus packing.  tuesday we went to hambug and i got on a fancy ICE train. basically the fastest and nicest trains they have i germany. it was nice to not have to stop so man times and have a drunk guy sitting next to you. haha. it was just a straight shot from hamburg to berlin-spandau. cool stuff. in berlin i found my comp and some other missionaries. from there we ate lunch and helped other elders and sisters coming into berlin. we then just went by contacts the rest of the day. we also planned and i prepped my district meeting wednesday we had our first district meeting. we set some really good goals for the district and im excited. the work goes so much faster here. its crazy. we had district lunch and then we went by contacts and oym'd. we had an appointment fall out on us but all is good. we came home early that night to organize the appartment and so i can get my head on straight. its funny. i made a goal to hit the ground running when i got here. well i kind of had to, or else i would have made the area blow up in my epic failure. haha. you have to move fast and work fast to stay alive here. i love it.

thursday we had a great lesson with a recent convert who found the church online, ordered a book of mormon online and read it, all before he even met the missionaries. as we met the elders, he was already part of many mormon facebook groups and just a normal mormon guy. so funny. he is way cool. he wants to go to byu idaho to stud here in the new future. he also brought a friend along. so now he is doing the same. he is reading the BoM super fast, meets and loves to learn he comes to church when he has time (super busy) and is just super solid.  we had an appointment with him on saturday and he told us, i am doing all of this so i can have a better life and also for my future family. he said, he doesnt want his family to be like the one he has now, or like the other ones he sees in the world so he is investigating and searching for the best for his future family. what a great guy!

sunday we went to church and well we didnt have any gators show up. so i was dissapointed. but then after preisthood one shows up. he is a man we called three das before hand who was simple a former contact of other missionaries and he came to church! then another oe showed up. it was great. oh i forgot. so saturda night we had to plan our lesson for preisthood. so we didnt get to bed on time becuase earlier in the week we had no time to plan or study the theme. suck. so we teach the priesthood lesson and it went well! woohoo. then we go to the second hour or gospel principles. and it turns out the sisters didt prepare anything, our ward mission leader was gone, and nobody knew what the lesson was or who had preparred it....oh and im the only one of us 4 missionaries who has a manual with him. so i jsut say screw it and scan the lesson i the book and teach a second hour to all of the investigators and other people. it went well. we had 4 investigators and 2 members and 4 missionaries in that class. one of the gators couldnt speak german so one of the sisters translatted so she couldnt participate. it was an interesting hour, but elder wilde and i totally nailed it. the sisters were impressed with the lesson and said it was really good. also yesterday we had an appointment with a woman who we went by earlier in the week and made the appt out for sunday. well its wasnt very fest (german word. look it up. to hard to exlain). so i wasnt expecting it to go through. so we go and she is there! and she is excited to see us! and she lets us in and we have a wonderful first lesson! she has the opinion that we all need to figure out for ourselves the truth and that there is only one truth. she doenst like all the other churches because she went on the search a while ago to find the right one and she couldnt find it. she loves the old teachings of christ and nobody teaches\lives that anymore...expect for us :) we taught about authority and a it was just a solid lesson. she agreed to read in the BoM and it was awesome! we then made an appointment out for today and we just got finished with that appointment, a really solid lesson as well on the gospel of christ and it was great. he didnt agree to baptism but he is reall motivated to find out the truth so we invited him to read and pray. awesome week.

so this entire week i have been playing catch up. this area is the most unorganized area ever!! and i understand why. its because you have no time to get organized, but it needs to be organized or else you end up with what im dealing with right now. our area book is a total mess. there are about 3 copies of the same person becuase elders have met the same person multiple times not realizing that the already met the elders and the previous ones already created a teaching record. its insane. the apartment was also a mess and so this last week, this coming week and probably the one after that i will take every extra second i have to organize and clean everything we have. wish me luck.

well i hope this email is long enough. i love you loads. have fun this week. thanks for everything :)

elder ustach

Well hello

good morning from lauenburg!

this week has been brutal. all day everyday was doors. no real need for a play by play of just knocking on doors everyday lol. nothing exciting even like a dog attack or anything. so heres the week. monday was just lüneburg and elder marshall bought a suit, which we found out later that day was to big in one way and to small in another. haha. tuesday we were supposed to ahve a joint teach, but it fell out. so we drove ou member all the way out there for nothing. we drove him back and did doors. w did 172 doors that day or a little over 7 hours of doors. wednesday we had our district meeting which went well. i came a lesson on using scriptures. then we had an eating appointment\lesson with the mengels. they are suuuuper old and love the missioanries and just feed us but dont let us talk or anything. so funny. the rest of the day was doors. we did 125 doors on wednesday which was about 5 1/2 hours of doors. thursday we did nothing but doors until the end of the day when i gave my first baptisimal interview!!! that was the highlight of the week and a really spiritual experience. so solomon is from spain and his family are members, but he isnt. he only speaks spanish. his family has lived here for 1 1/2 years. so none of them speak amazing german. so the interview was done through his daughter who translatted from german to spanish. it was really cool. i would ask a question and he would explain his beliefs with enthusiasim and hand jestures to try and help me understand eventhough i dont know spanish and then his daughter would translate with much less enthusiasm and less words. it was really cool though becuase at one point as he was speaking i could really almost understand what he was telling me. the spirit was so strong at that particular point. it was super cool. my first interview and it was a very unique one. thursday we did 130 doors which was about 6 hours of doors. friday we did weekly planning and more doors. 172 again! which was about 6 hours ( we did a lot of apartment buildings that day). saturday we had an awesome ward party!!!! we celebrated 20 years of the lauenburg ward. it was great. they showed some videos that a member made of each bishop for the last 20 years. it was very funny. the kids just love us. if i could just work with the children all day instead of their lazy, busy, and boring parents, misionary work would be super easy. we also did a few doors that day. sunday was a great ward conference that we had denise and stephan (her boyfriend) come to. it was cool. the talks that were given were awesome. we also had an innactive come to church. church was good. we then had a good eating appointment who afterwards gave us a bowl of food for todays lunch. score!!! afterwards we had doors. only 3 hours of it but it was tough. ask julie for the details on that afternoon. haha. no bueno.

so you can see that this last week was very slow. but this week should be a lot better. we already have some appointments and we are excited for all the progress we should make. we are also doing service twice this week which is always fun. our transfer calls are on friday morning so we shall see if i go or stay. probably and hopefully go, but anything is possible. 

something i realized this week, when i come home my suitcases will be full of nothing but books. haha. i look at my desk and its just full of books. on it and next to it. church literature is just awesome and as a missionary i just cant find the time to read them all. bummer. 

well i love you all and i wish you a wonderful week. bis nächste Woche.

elder ustach

August 19, 2013

Well this week just blew by. i cant believe im already writing you again.

This week was good and just...idk really. haha. well monday we just chilled. elder m got a hiar cut and we met this super cool lady at the hair cut place. we were talking in english...its ok it was p day, and this lady was talking to her daughter about how we were americans. well i stopped and listened in on their conversation and smiled at the mom. she then asked where we were from and that lead to a like 40 minute conversation about america and who we were and everything. it made the time go by while we waited for elder marshalls turn for a hiar cut. german hair places are so funny and very bizarre. tuesday we did doors in the morning and i saw some clouds coming. i asked elder marshall if they were coming our way. he said, no no, they are going away. well 40 minutes later we get the most intense thunderstorm ever. normally no water hits our one window because it has a blacony over it. but it looked like someone had a fire hose and was just shooting it at our window. it was crazy. it lasted about 30 minutes and was gone. crazy stuff. after luncha dn this storm we went down to uelzen!!! super far away...yes elder gochnour we made it down to uelzen finally!! we met an innactive. cool guy. he is old and crazy. he is currently trying to build\streat his own political party. lol. there is a really tall tower in the city as well. well guess what, he owns it. and he has a printing press inside where he prints all of his political stuff. very cool. we made it home and then did some more doors. thursday we did some more doors. we also went to a city called bahlen!!!! lol. we went and talked to the bahlers of bahlen. rofl. we saw this city on our map and just had to go and door it out. well unfortunatly this dorf had nobody who would listen to us, so the bahlers of bahlen arent so bahler after all. haha. we then visited a family in boizenburg and it went well. good day. thursday we had just normal doors and a really boring day until we went to bergedorf where we had our district meeting and interviews with president. i love president and all that he teaches. he is so funny and just awesome. his wife is also great and she gave a lesson on repentantce which was really good. i love the german work "umkehr" it means to turn around. thats what you do when you repent you realize the wrong and turn around and turn away from the bad awesome! friday we just did more doors and then had a fallen out appointment but then we had an appointment with br bubolz. it went well. that night we also had a stake priesthood meeting. that went well and it was fun to go to hamburg for a little while. saturday was probably our best day. we had a good lesson with walter that day. we also met a new woman who wants a book of mormon in russian. cool stuff. sunday was also great. we had a man come to church randomly after meeting him for 5 minutes the week before. that was cool we also had a great meeting with nils. he is so cool and has so much potential. cool stuff.

sorry this email is short. not much to say and my mind is not focused at all lol.

love you all loads. until next week.

elder ustach

August 12, 2013

Dear Family,

well this week has been interesting. extremely slow and when you looka t our numbers we didnt do much, but we actually accomplished a lot. We were also blessed on sunday with a wonderful day after a week of fallen out appointments an no success. the weather has finally cooled off and that really amkes me happy because now i can sleep instead of lieing in my bed just sticking to my sheets because its so humid and hot. The ward this week also helped us a lot, or atleast we had more contact during the week than normal which was good.

Monday was cool. we visited neuegamme. this time was much less exciting. last time was really an adventure! this time was a lot of reading and learning.I liked both though. I learned a lot about what this place really is and what the specifics of it all were. like we have an idea of what a concentration camp is in our heads because of the war and stuff, but this time i learned a lot more about who came here, why, what did they do, why...etc. it was great. Tuesday we had a good day. we went to geestacht for doors, no luck, then we did doors in grünhof and that was so cool! we met an african lady who took a book of mormon and unfortunatly she has no time for a while, but we will met later. Then we did more doors and met the wife of the neu apostolic pastor. she says her husband would love to talk to us. haha. later than evenig we had an appointment fall out. so we went back to grünhof for more doors. well it was a mircale that the appointment fell out because we met the coolest lady. we approached her  as she was watering her garden. she was totally confused with us and waht we were doing, so we jsut gave her a card and expected to walk about, but then she read "mormon" on our card and came closer to us and told us she had a question for us. she was kind of hiding from her husband or something, idk, but she was very quiet and then asked what we were, what kind of a church we were. well we explained that we were missionaries and about the church a little. quickly what we beleived. she then told us that the reasons he asks is because she has a mother in our church in berlin. well she goes on to explain that she doesnt know her mother at all and that she was born in our church as a baby, but since then no contact with us. She got very emotional, im sure because she doesnt think about her mother at alla nd then we show up and bring back memories and or thoughts about her. When we were talking though the spirit was so strong, i just wanted to tell her all about eternal families and the plan of salvation, and just tell her everything right then adn there so she would beleive adn get to know her mom...ya, but she had no time. she asked for something to read or look at from our church. so we gave her a brochure and told her to visit our website to get more info. she wasnt really "excited" only because she was so shocked that she came in contact with our church again. it was cool to see. we will try going by today and see how her reading went.

Wednesday we had zone training meeting in hamburg. it went well. the lessons were really good. Getting to see our amazing zone adn all the new missionaries was very cool. i always enjoy hamburg as well so thats fun. later that day we visited a member in geestacht. it went well. also as we did doors that day we found a dog school that someone runes out of thair garage. well we only breeds and trains these "große schweizer sennenHunde" these mssive dogs that look like over sized beagels. they have the same markins and colors of a beagel anyway. so cool. the largest one was as big as elder marshall and he was ahead of me as we walked to the front door. well this dog came up to his belly button or higher on him so he was a little frightened. i just wanted to give them big hugs and wrestle with them or something. it reminded me so much of gus adn ebar. those big brutes. there were three of them when we walked to the doors and the owner was not happy that we walked onto his property, eventhough the gate was unlocked, there were no signs, or anything. dang germans. they need to get over themselves.

Thursday we traveled t bleckede for doors, as well as darsenow and brahlstorf. brahsltorf is way out there. we had time and just the desire to have an adventure se we picked a town was far away on our map that just looked tiny and we drove to it. well we found a couple who we sat down and talked to for about 45 minutes and have interest. so it was inspired to go out there. also this town, dad this is for you, has a train pass by about every 3-5 minutes or less. its so busy!!! we walked to the bahnhof just to look at it and bout every 2 minutes or so the speakers turn on and say "caution a train is coming on platform 1!" and then 20 seconds later a freight or passenger train just goes zooming by. 2 minutes later...repeat. so cool.

friday we did doors in geestacht and then did our weekly planning.  that night we got fed by the jägers. a very cool family and we had a very good discussion about the ward and the problems that it has and how we can work together to change it. she is the releif society pres and he is the second councelor in the bishopbric. so ya. good discussion. saturday we celebrated the birthday of a member in the morning and then did service at another members house. we then went to shwarzenbek to do doors and we then taught denis and her family. it went well. we figured out directly from her the reasons why she is not baptised and her story, instead of rather hearing it through the grapevine or from others. so that was good. we are just wating for her to get married so she can get baptised and they said they are planning on it within the next 6 months or so. cool stuff.

Sunday was our best day. church went well. we taught the gospel principles class which went well. i had a member yell at me because i corrected him on how he prays. he is a new member and i nicely mentioned that when we pray together we say "we" and "our" not "i" and "mine". well he didnt appreciate that and was real böse with me for no reason. i wasnt even the one to recognize the mistake. another member mentioned it and told me to be the one to correct him because i was the missionary...whatever. well during sacrament meeting we had a gator call and cancel on us...suck. so we went home, without an eating appointment and made a lunch that wasnt half bas, but we had no food....so a lunch with no food was hard to do. but i made it happen. getting creative and made pancakes with out eggs or milk. they tasted really good actually and were not super dense or anything. they could have been fluffier, but na ya. we then did doors in lauenburg where we met a really cool guy. an old white guy who is muslim....that makes no sense, so i asked why he was muslim, usually you dont ask that question because the only muslim people are arabic or from that part of the world so its clear why. but an old white guy...made ne sense. he said he liked in indonesia for a while and they "convinced" him that it was the truth. well i kind of laughed at that in my head (of course not out loud) and then taught him about prayer and how we can find the truth for ourselves. we gave him a brochure and he said he would come to church. we then met with sonja, a gator of ours and for the first 45 minutes we met with ehr husband as she cooked waffles in the kitchen. it was a really good lesson on the restoration and getting to know him better. we then ate and after we ate, he left and we taught her about the gospel of jesus christ. it was a double lesson eating appointment. cool stuff. haha.

that was my week really. not much else. this weke we have interviews with president which i am totally stoked about. i love talking with him. oh also a note from this week...i miss my dogs. i ran into those big beasts in grünhof and then we found a rotweiler puppy. so cute. reminded me of gus. which then made me sad and want my dogs. na gut. less than a year. its funny, elder popp asked me waht the first thing i was going to do when i got home. well obviously hug my family, but he said other than family, what is the first thing your going to do as you walk in the door of your house. my answer was, i am going to drop all of my stuff, runinto the backyard and play with my dogs until they are sick of me. haha. I cant wait. :)

well i love you all loads. have a great week. until next time :)

Elder Ustach

August 5,2013

hello everyone :)

Well this week was HOT!!!! we had many people take pitty on us as we did doors this week and one woman rejected us but then gave us each a flavored water. thats a big thing ehre because the bottles each cost 25 cents, so she basically jsut gave us 50 cents! lol. Other than the heat this weekw as good. we broke our streak of yeros for new investigators. it was cool.monday was nothign special. teusday we had doors and then a great meeting with an investigator we met a long time ago taht i found with elder gochnour. cool stuff. then more doors. we then had an appointment fall out so we had more doors. and at the beggining we had 4 hours. so we go to a street and look at the number...102. ok so there are 102 on just this street alone. so we start. At the end, the very last house we meet a woman who is catholic. she ahd a super cute little daughter and we taught ehr about the restoration. she was interested in what we ahd to say so we gave her a pamphlet and have an appointment next week. after tackling that huge street we call some people and then go downt he other side of it back to our car. 3 and a half hours alter we finish and go home. we did 149 doors that day.wednesday was chaos! we had district meeting and the lüneburg sisters missed their train...no problem we will start alter when they get here. so we jsut study for a bit. then as they get there they tell me they have 20 minutes before they have to leave again because 5 minutes before they got here, elder beasley (the office couple) called them and said to come back to lüneburg asap because he is dropping off their bikes. so we have a super fast district meeting and then they leave. they call in and we have a conference call district meeting to finish off the alst 30 minutes of it. it went really fast actually. so we then have district finding in lüneburg. so we go to the bahnhof,  thanks dad for the ipod because we listened to one of the interviews on it for an hour. it was great. we finally get to lüneburg but as we arive, the train stops right before the platform and we cant get off becuase we are about 100 feet short of it. so the conductor gets on and tells us the state police are on the platform and we cant do anything until they leave.....great. so finally we get off and meet up with the lüneburg sisters. we eat some lunch and get our bearings and figure out waht we are doing and then go finding. to add to this the bergedorf sisters have to be in hamburg by a certain time so we only had about 50 mintues to do district finding. not so much success but thats ok. everything happens for a reason and we went finding at that time for a reason. i dont know why but we did. haha. finally we made it abck home to lauenburg and had a lesson with an investigator. then that was our day. thursday we did doors, doors, and more doors. we had one lesson with carol which went really well. sis jäger was our joint teach and that was awesome! she is the relief soceity pres and that helped carol a lot to have another frau there to talk to instead of 2 young men.  friday we had an interesting lesson with a herr gremmes in shwarzenbek. he is way into the history and stuff of the bible. he says abraham was a military leader and led armies around the area he was in. something like that. he was using voabulary that was was over my head and i didnt care either because it ahd nothing to do with what we were talking about so it wasnt such a great lesson. we then had an appointment fall out so we did weekly planning. saturday we helped a member move (in less than an hour) one of the most organized moves i have ever seen, and they had a young man who was ripped and me to move all the heavy stuff which went really well. i ahte it when your moving something heavy and the person is strong enough but not cordinated enough to move things around corners or stuff like that. well this man (eric) and i were perfect and thought the exact same on how we manuvered things. it was great.  we then had a bbq at a members house and that afternoon elder marshall met walter!!! haha. it was a good meeting. afterwards we did doors. sunday we had a great fast and testimony meeting. half the ward was gone but almost more than that showed up as visitors because a baby was being blessed. it was cool. no investigators this week at church but na ja. thats life. we then had a great eating appointment with our bishop and then a 2 hour discussion on missionary work and such. we went through the entire ward list and discussed every member. it was awesome. we did doors later than evening.

today we are going to the concentration camp again because 3 of the 6 in our district are new and they havent seen it yet. so we are going to have a fun day in the sun. should be a great time. i love you all. have a great week. trust in the lord and he will direct your paths. its hard, but do it :)

elder ustach

TODAYS LETTER

well hello :)

This week has been a little crazy and extremely slow. but i am still whiped out which makes no sense. we did do doors everyday and all day, but still. somonday we had a normal day. we played soem darts in the absement of the church and some guy just walked in randomly to fill his water bottle. but he was nice enough to ask before he did it. we then had a going away appointment with the glücks witht he sisters. it was fun. We had some great spiritual thoughts and then br glüc gave a 20 minute talk on faith. it was great. We then picked some cherries for them. elder scholes and i hacked our way through 4 foot tall stinging neddle to get to the part of the tree we need to pick them at. i had shorts on. my legs were destroyed!!! tuesday we got to hamburg bright and early to send elder scholes away. i then was at hauptbahnhof until 1 when elder amrshall came. half of our entire zone was there ebcause half of them were getting transferred so we were all there and ahd a great time waiting for all of our new companions. elder marshall came and we then drove home.  we did some doors and unpacked and that was our day. i am having elder marshall drive this transfer because he needs to get to know the area just incase i get transferred this time. wednesday we had district meeting which was my first as district leader. it went well. the zone leaders were there which was fun. we set district goals and my lesson went well. i was happy with it. we then did doors the rest of the day until our appointment with a herr buhrmeister. he is cool. we basically did doors the entire day but then at the end of the day we were in one small town in the middle of nowhere and i see on our gps a skull and corssbones (our signal for innactive) and i was totally amazed because i had never heard of anyone living here. so i look and tis a family that i had been looking for for the past 2 transfers. so we decide to go by randomly. their son is outside and he invites us in. he is way cool . so he lets us in and lets his mom know. right then though his mom yells at her son to tell us to leave because she ahs no time. so he comes and tells us but we leave a card for him. we go and do some more doors and 5 doors in or so i get a call from a random number. it was the mother. her son wants us to come back and talk to them. so we come back and we have a great appointment with them. it was truly a blessing that we saw the family on our gps and another blessing that gandorin wanted to talk to us. it was great.friday we went to a district leader meeting in hamburg and that went well. we then did weekly planning. nothing special. more doors. saturday we did more doors. still not finding a single person who would tlak to us. we did have a spur of themoment meeting with carol though. it was great. bishop came along as a joint teach and it was a great lesson. we also met with the grabberts that night for what was supposed to eb a 15 minute quick lesson, that turned into br grabbert talking for over an hour. haha. sunday we had a great church. and a great eating appointment. i got a compliment from br warncke that i had really improved and that he had really recognized how much i ahd changed in the 5 transfers i have been ehre. that made me feel good :)

the entire week we have been listening tot he interviews on my ipod that dad put on them. they are so cool. we listened to an interview from a german and his story. it was so cool. really spiritual stuff listening to it in the car as we go. i love them thanks dad for that by the way. also the mormon messages. i watch them every night on my ipod. and the german book of mormon. everything on my ipod is awesome!!! i love it. thank you

ok thats it for this week. love you all and have a great week. no pictures because i didnt take any. explanation next week.

elder ustach

July 8,2013

well sorry but this will be short. no time to write. so this week was great. two things that stand out above the rest. we met one man on saturday morning that came to church on sudnay and is meeting with us later int he week. we prayed for him toc ome and he rode the 15 kilometers from the city of boizenburg to lauenburg to visit our church taht he had only heard about the other day fromt wo young men who were strangers. it was so cool. and the most amazing thing is...he is 84 years old!!!! an 84 year old man did that! amazing. we also did service for an innactive here ion the area who i dont really know.s he is way cool though. sch breckwoldt. she really loves us now and we will be meeting with her more often for sure. and her son is on a mission so that is cool. no clue why she is innactive but she also came to church which was awesome!!!

so today was great. the reason i ahve no time was because we were in hamburg the entire day touring around. we took a boat (approved by our mission pres) around the harbor. it was totally sweet. it was free to, well with our day card, ebcause technically its funded by the same people who do the buses and u-bahns. cools tuff. the sun was shining and it was great. we then went shopping and with my new info of getting to spend more money i realized i still had 150 euro to spend. i had no clue what to do with it. amybe a new suit? maybe a new fancy watch? a few knives would be cool...nope. we walk into a C&A to look at new suits for both of us. and then the sisters inform us that on the top floor (this place has 6 floors) they were selling german clothing so like lederhosen and dirndl (the classic german dress for women) so we went upstairs to check it out just for fun and we decide to try them on for a good picture together. well we liked them so much we both bought a pair of lederhosen!!! 100 euro. which is actually really cheap for that kind of stuff. it was so cool. the sisters got dressed in the dirndls and we got our lederhosen on and it was jsut awesome. we got someone to take a pic of us but no time right now to download and send it. it was so cool. so now i ahve a pair of lederhosen!!! woot!!!

well sorry for the messy writing and short email. no time. love you all and until next weel.

elder ustach

July 1 , 2013

Dear Family,

well this week has been interesting. not a whole lot has happened with investigators but we will soon be changing that. The weather has been nice to us lately and we have had clouds and rain. very nice. we just watched the broadcast from last week this morning for our study and we are so excited for it all. it makes me mad though that our bishop didnt decide to show the whole ward the broadcast and barely let us know about it, when its probably our ward and ward mission leader who need to watch it the most. haha. oh well. 

so this week on monday we had a suuuper chil p-day with naps and music and just chilling. tuesday we went finding in the morning and found a super cool young guy who talked to us at the door for over an hour!!! he came out and at first didnt like us and pulled out his phone and went to wikipedia to look at our church. i was thinking " oh great wikipedia...anyone can write stuff on there. it wont have the truth" but i was wrong. everything he read was true and he even surprised himself with what he read lol. he would take a BoM but we are meeting again this week.so cool. we then had lunch and went dooring again in bleckede and found another woman who we gave a BoM to and we will go back this week to check up on her. it was a great day. that night it just started pouring!!! and we went to the rodriguez familie for an eating appointment. we were expecting the kids to be there but they werent and so it was the two rodriguezs and also the branns. so only one member (sis rodriguez) and three non members. it was awesome. i think her br finally got to see that we are normal and not just robot missionaries becuase we had a great time there. it was great. then we also realized that sis rodriguez is the best joint teach on earth!!! we gave a spiritual thought at the end and she just went off at the end and expounded on it and related it to her husband and also the branns. it was so cool. wednesday we had district meeting and then we did service at the liebicks. we sheared more sheep!!!! it was so cool. we also cut off part of the horns of one of the sheep because he was poking himself in the chin with his own horn. it was cool. we jsut grabbed a saw and cut it off. fun stuff. i sheared a whole sheep, almost by myself. br liebick did the neck and head and let me go at it. i think mine turned out the best out of all of us. the sisters did a good job but wouldnt follow the body of the animal with the clippers so it was very mis shappen at the end. also with elder scholes. br liebick kept yelling at him...in german "follow the body!!! dont cut into the wool!!!" it was so funny. i was also the man to grab all the sheep. their son from america toldme i was the man in charge of grabbing them and just let me go at it. the sisters said it was funny because they gave me a pole with a hook on it to grab their back legs, i tried to use it once and then asked if i had to us it or if i could just grab the sheep with my hands. so i put the tool aside and just grabbed them. it was funny. the sisters thought it was so funny to see me there with this skinny little pole with my facial expression of " this is so stupid" and then i just didnt use it. it was a great service appointment and we had a blast. we also got to drive a tractor!!! so cool. i love farms haha. the rest of the day was finding and then ward mission meeting. thursday we had more service at the baumgartls and then we had a super long meeting with the sisters.

so on wednesday i was so bored and so frustrated with how slow the work was and our ward. so i was frustrated with myself and the ward. we asked our mission leader in the ward for the ward mission plan...he said "i dont know what it is or how to get it, talk to bishop"...are you kidding me!?!?!?! your the guy who is supposed to be our middle man witht he ward and be doing these things and you have no clue!!! i was pissed. so i decided to change it. so after our meeting with our ward mission leader, i talked to elder scholes about it and we talked well into the night about ideas and such and then we called the sisters for a sit down appointent at the church to further discuss it all. so on wednesday we did that and for 3 hours we sat there discussing the ward and how we can change the ward, area, ourselves, members, investigators, the whole shibang. it was great. then right then and there instead of just talking about it we did something. we called the bishop asap and set up an appointment with him to discuss it all with him and see how we can get the ball rolling. and thats what we did. it was great. 

friday i went on exchange in hamburg with the zone leaders. it was great. elder h and i were waiting for an investigator who was late and we decided to walk down the street to find him and talk to people. so we do that and no more than a quarter of a mile down the street we find two guys and gave out two BoM and then right after giving the second one out we find our investigator. it was so cool. that day was full of appointments and the spirit and it was just great. we switched back and elder scholes and i went home. saturday we had our meeting with the bishop. we were there for tow hours discussing our plans. and how we could make them a reality, how he could help us and what we could do. he was so happy to see us talking to him about it. bishop really supports us but he is bascally the only one in the ward and thats why we met. to get everyone else excited. we shall see how it all goes. he goes on vacation for 3 weeks this week so right after our meeting and excitement he leaves...bummer, but we will not keep moving forward. we will change this area slowly. also on saturday we helped a couple people move that were friend sof br bubolz as well as moving his apartment around and such. it was a good day. sunday we had church which was great, then ward lunch afterwards. it was awesome!!! then weekly planning because we forgot to do it earlier and then a few doors in boizenburg where we found a super cool athiest lady who took a book of mormon. great day.

so all is good here. still no package. the weather is good. we are healthy and happy. the lord is with us and we will keep moving forward and changing germany slowly. i love you all and have a great week :)

Elder Ustach

oh a quick thought for my family. you should go to the temple soon with a few more families. make it a big thing and grab like 4 families and prepare to have names and then all go together and do them. with more families you should have enough priesthood to fill all the positions and it would be a great thing to do. i really recomend it.