Letter # 27

Family,

Well it finally has snowed here in germany and real snow. it started thursday night and it snowed all day friday and then off and on saturday, none sunday but now a little bit. Really cool. It got down toa round -10 last night is what we heard. so thats like around 10 ° F or so. cool stuff. its about 2-3 inches of snow is all but its sticking and like none of it is melting. its really cold outside all day so it doesnt melt.

ok well tuesday was a little boring, we went by some contacts and we planned on going to guben but it didnt work. so tuesday was kind of a dud. then wednesday we wake up bright and early and catch a train to gorlitz for district meeting. first time meeting the senior couple there. they are sister and elder baumen. way cool. really nice. elderbaumen speaks german and sister baumen cant speak a single word of it LOL. she is way funny though. elder baumen served in germany on his mission. he is older than dad though so he wouldnt have served at the same time. Right after district meeting elder carter and i stay there and teach an inactive with the baumens. we play a game and have a good time. then we go by some contacts in gorlitz and such and teach some more people. this really old couple who are inactive let us right in and were happy to see us. the guy played guitarre for us and sang for us. so funny to see an 80 year old man or older play the guitar like a pro and sing. so cool. taht night we got to visit another member. way cool dude. he is patriarch lehman. he is like 90 years old. crazy. he is way cool. he is the first patriarch for eastern germany. he was set apart by president monson!!! if you look on page ...84 i think in president monsons book it ahs a picture of president monson is germany with two other guys. well the guy on the right is the guy i met and talked to. way cool. maybe go to desseret book and check it out LOL.

Friday wewent to...dang i cant remember and i forgot my planner. oh well. saturday was a district finding activity in spremberg. we found a lot of people actually and itwas loads of fun! elder taylor and i ran across the street to talk to this one guy. it was a random idea by elder taylor to do this, but we taught him a little about the BoM and elder popp and i have an appointment on thursday becuase of it. so cool. sunday, edler popp gave his talk and it went great. we talked to a bunch of memebrs and we have an eating appointment everyday of the week this week. insane!!! we went grocery shopping earlier and we bought like basically nothing. so funny.

well thats it for the week. some notes. i helped an old lady cross the street again!!! woohoo. so good. Elder popp is excited to come to balloon fiesta and said he would be happy to come. only problem is rememebring. he says he wants to keep in touch when he gets home so i can remind him over email when octobert gets close. oh and he siad he would come if you came to his home coming. i need to get an exact date for it but he said he would enjoy having you guys there. you guys could make aa trip out of it and enjoy vegas.  Oh did you guys see the enw mission map and print it out? we got somenew zones and some changed.

oh so elder carter has these things called "click heat" they are the coolest thing ever. basicallyreusable hand warmers. hard to explain but look it up and if they arent to expensive send me some please!!!!!!

oh and i have a talk next sunday in church. wish me luck LOL. thats it for now. love you all loads and have fun this week!

elder ustach

Temple Hopping

We went temple hopping on the sunday we were in Utah, 12 temples in less than 8 hours. Julie and Candice took pictures at most (some were underconstruction or to far to take pictures with). 

Logan, Brigam City,Ogden, Bountiful, Salt Lake,Oquirrh Mountain, Jordan River, Draper, Mount Timpanogos, Provo, Provo City , Payson

Pictures!!!!!!!!!!

my desk with all the candy and food we got from memebrs lol. there is more on the ground next to me desk.

the crew acting cool in church. LOL

the first day of the year and im on a train before 7 am!!!

another shot of the ipad mini gigantic posters in hamburg bahnhof.

apple has taken over the hanburg hanhof!!!!! ipad minis everywhere!!!!

 playing with legos lol

i built a tower of legos :)

elder popp stole my camera LOL

our luggage on the train, pain in the butt to travel with.

our massive water tower in the middle of town

elder popp on the ost awkward kids playground thing we ahve ever seen HAHA

me and the water tower. sorry im not smiling. i wasnt sure if elder popp had taken the picutre of not yet LOL.

cool metal sculptures in a store we found. really cool.

pic of us walking to innenstadt in spremberg. the ones looking back are elder carter and sister neukamm.

cool picture of snow and spremberg

Candice this one is for you!!!! cool yarn out on the street. very cool colors.

my planner with candice and nick on it. i plan to put family members who have birthdays that trasnfer always on one side of my planner. so this one has nick and candice. :)

elder popp and fuller acting cool. elder popp in his super man onsey haha

christmas night and we all got in random pajamas and santa hats and took a group picture. it was hilarious. but thats my outfit. that is elder claytons robe LOL.  

im touching poland!!! i forgot to tell you i did this. when i was in gorlitz i touched poland. didnt actually go into poland becuase that not allowed on the mission...but i thouched it.

im kissing a building in poland!! kind of cool picture. and also a cool building

hereis julie's wish...well one of her wishes. elder ustach snow angle!!!

the storm is coming!!!!

 trying to catch snow flakes. they were HUGE!!!!

cool pic of train tracks in forst.

pic of elder carter, elder popp the next door down and elder taylopr the last door. you cant really see him :(

cool picture of elder popp in front of a church in spremberg

a better picture of me as santa

cool picture of elder popp in front of a church in spremberg

The Newest Ustach

Moose

Letter # 26 First Week in Forst!!!

Family,

  Ok well this week has been insane. i will just jump right into it. so tuesday we traveled. and it was so cool because the munzers (our branch president and his wife) came to see us off. it was so cool. they waited on the platform until our train left. thats how much they loved us. They waited until we left which was so cool. yes they had to be there to pick up their son, but that was later and they woke up super early to see us off. it was cool. So we are off. we first go to bremen where we meet the elders there by accident because one of them is being transfered. Then we were off to hamburg where we met more elders because they were waiting for some new elders to arrive there. then we went to...dang i cant remember. but then off to berlin where we met the AP's and got our new phone and our keys. Then off to cottbus where we met the sisters. and then off to forst. we finally got there and it was about a 20 minute walk (normally 10 minutes but with luggage it sucked) to our apartment and then up three flights of stairs and all of our luggage weighed about a ton each. it was horrible. elder popp literally had weights in his to work out with. LOL. finally  there we crashed and tried to organize some stuff. we called some people and told them we were there in forst. Then we get a call from a member saying he is at bahnhof waiting for us. we told him we were already home and so he said he is coming to us becuase he wants to meet us. so they finally arrive and they bring with them 4 bags of groceries. It was so cool. they come in and fill our fridge and cabinets with food. it was so cool. They really do love the elders here. We figure out they are normal members. not the branch president...not our ward mission leader...not anything, just normal members. so cool. they make sure we are ok that night and then invite us over for lunch tomorrow. Finally everything is calmed downa nd we crash for the night, not for to long though because then we wake up early to catch a train to cottbus where we meet the sisters again and then we go to gorlitz for district meeting. District meeting was good and all was fun. i got to see elder carter from ym golden group which was cool. that made me excited. Then we came back and jsut chummed and explored forst and our other areas. we went to the one emmebrs house and had amazing spaghetti and got interviewed. our interview will be in the next branch newspaper. It ws cool. Oh dad the guy we met with, he is a crazy model car and truck finatic and its the same scale as HO. i told him my hobby was model trains and he flipped and went crazy about the hamburg model RR and everything and then i told him of your set up in the basement and such and he got so excited. it was so funny. i thought he also did trains but then after dinner he showed me and it was a room full of cars and trucks. one of the walls was entirely filled with them. it was cool. after dinner we went to our ward mission leaders house and had a meeting with him. the entire time between these appointments and such we are being driven around by another member who is in charge of our apartment who came earlier that day and did our luandry for us and made sure the apartment was up to shape and what not. crazy.

 

thursday was back to work now that the carziness settled down. we went out to spremberg where we chummed and did some work. friday we went to guben and did some work there. saturday we tried to go to guben again but ran out of time and ahd to come back. we worked in forst on saturday. sunday was normal. we both got up in fast and testimony meeting and introduced ourselves and what not. it was cool. as soon as sacrament was over we ahd about 5 mothers come up and ask us if we ahd an eating appointment that day. so we accepted the first one because we were hoping we would get at least one invite becuase we didnt have any food at home and we got 5 LOL. the rest of church was good. we went to our eating appointment with the family who the father is in charge of our apartment. so we met him already. he ahs a collection of bibles and he ahs over 150 bibles!!! his oldest one is from middle 1400's!!! crazy. he buys a lot on ebay he says and has them in multiple languages. he ahs one that is italien and german in the same book! really cool.

 

so some info on forst. really small and really ghetto, we were walking down one street yesterday and found this abandonded really HUGE building, just recently abandonded though because the windows were still intact. really creepy. the entire city is like that. a lot of run down old buildings. half the city is faling apart. the bahnhof has only like 1 platform and only 1 train that runs hourly to cottbus. just really ghetto. i will take pictures this week and send them. there is a huge water tower in the center of town which is cool to see. we are right on the border but no street actually crosses the border in forst. the border is a river so it would require a bridge and there are no bridges in forst to go over the river. kind of funny. we are not allowed to go to poland anyway so ya.

 

the ward here is amazing!!! it ahs about 80-90 members. all of them are super active,. the reason they arent a ward is because most of the people on the ward list are active. so instead of there being over 300 people on the list and about 40 being active. they have like 120 on their list and 80-90 are active. crazy perecntage of active memebrs. really funny. our goal is to baptise 35 people so they can become a ward. crazy thing, according to our records there ahs not been a baptism in over 10 years in forst...kind of sad. but witht he size of the city and such it makes sense. The ward loves the elders here and we found the eating calendar for about 5 months ago and im not joking...an eating appointment everyday. we dont ahve one everyday yet but we are working on it LOL.

 

ok random notes, I am close enough to the temple now so we are going as a district on february first. We are with the cottbus sisters a lot. we have p-day with them because we dont have an internet cafe in forst and there are no computers we can use at the church. Our apartment is alrger than the one in oldenburg and actually really clean. our washer is on its last leg and we are informing the office asap on that so we dont have to go without a washer when it dies, but all is good: with how small the area is we ahve met miltiple members at stores and such in forst. it is so funny tosee their faces because there ahsnt been elders here for a while. so when they see us they freak out and get all excited. so funny. we met two working at stores and then ran into our 2nd councelor in the presidency and his wife at another store. so cool.

 

so i wont get my package until the 15th, i will email you about that in two weeks from today. also still no football and i ahve called the oldenburg elders multiple times to check as well as get some stuff we left there.

 

So it has rained everyday since we have been here in forst. and mostly all day to. its a little depressing but we are pushing through it. i am super bummed out. i left my umbrella back in oldenburg. it was the perfect size to fit in my backpack and was sturdy enough to fight the wind. i bought a new one for like 3 euro but tis super whimpy and i dont like it. i want mine back but im ot sure if the elders in oldenburg will send it or just keep it. i really want it back though. also our area geographically makes no sense at all so we are emailing president about it and seeing what he says about what we are supposed to do about it. we shall see.

 

well thats all for now love you all laods and i will talk to you next week.

 

elder ustach

New

Kirche Jesu Christi

Elder Adam Ustach

Hermann Strasse 6

03149 Forst(Lausitz)

Germany

Letter# 25

Family,

well this week was interesting. bad stuff first. elder popp was sick a couple morning this week so some of our morning pland sucked and then being in more than half the day really makes you depressed so the rest of those days werent good. we had about 13 fallen out appointments this week. but hey, it happens. we also lost contact with one of our investigators who was on baptisimal date. so ya. but its all good.

this week we also had zo co and so our tuesday and wednesday sucked missionary work wise, even though the days were good. it didnt help our numbers or our investigators. but all is good.

well tuesday was one of the days we was a little sick so we stayed in most of the say and then we had an appointment with s nd that went really well. he is so cool. then we got on the train to hamburg and that night was crazy. 8 elder in one apparetment. some elders from another city were also spending the night and this is a 4 man appartment to begin with. so it was crazy. wednesday, we woke up super early and played basketball at the church before the conference. they have showers at the church so we all showered there. it was fun. the conference went well. but the food was good and then all the packages came in. the van was packed from floor to cieling and nothing for me :( made me sad because i was expecting a package, but oh well. i already had one the week before so i wasnt to sad. lol. so as everysone opened packages nad chilled i sat there and almost fell asleep lol. finally we left and got back to oldenburg. long day.

thursday was nothing special. tons of fallen out appointments and elder popp was sick this morning so we were in most of the day. its all good. no big deal. fraiday we had weekly planning and were in a lot as well and we had 3 more fallen out appointments that day. but cool thing, we met this one buy on the street. he stopped us and started talking to us in really bad english. we started to talk to him in german and he got a big msile on his face and got excited, it was so cool. we ha da big conversation about the book of mormon, about america, about misisons, and about the church and jesus christ. he was way cool. i have heard so many stories of elder being stopped by people and i have alway had the attitude that if we atleast walk arou nd and dont talk to anyone then the lord will eventually help someone to find us. no one can see us or talk to us oif we are in the appartment all day, so on rough days when you atleast go out and walk around. maybe we dont talk to many people but atleast we are out and about that someone will come up and talk to us. well it finally happened and it was so cool. that night as well we went caroling. i have pictures of it. our entire district went carroling in the christmas market and downtown area. it was super embarrassing at first but as we went and got over the nervousness and being embarrassed it was SUPER fun and really funny. we passed out probably around 40-50 DVD of joy to the world films. it was cool.

saturday was normal but then at 4 we had the christmas partys for our ward. it was really boreing at points but at others it was fun. we played musical chairs with everyone watching. it had a spiritual message to it so that was cool. then people sang and had skits for us and sang some more. we ahd this christmas quiz which was way hard. then all 4 of us elder were supposed to sing, but they skipped over us. then it was my turn. at the end i was supposed to change and run in in the middle of the primary singing a song and intereupot them as santa. well i was super nervous and wasnt sure what to do, but i said screw it adn just burst into the chapel with my bell clingling and shouting ho ho ho and merry christmas (in german) they stopped and i was supposed to pass out presents in my sack to the kids. the names were on them but the problem was i dont know the kids in the ward by name and so it was super embarrassing to have to ask people who the anme was and then give it to them adn then pull out another present. look at the name and then ask again and then give it to them. it was a little awkward but super fun. as i finished and my bag was empty i clingled my bell again and left. i dressed out and sat outside until it was over. as it ended a little kid came out with his parent and was yelling for santa and asking me where he went and if i saw him go anywhere. it was super cute and really funny. everyone was happy with how it went and the branch pres and his councelor who calle dme as santa were really happy and thought it went well. the councelor couldnt stop laughing at me because of how weird i was as santa but it was funny to everyone and when i left he told me i did a good job and he was happy with how it went. so ya, thats me being santa LOL.  

sunday was awesome. we had 2 appointents fall out on us, but the eating appointment we had was sooooo cool. it was with a family that has 4 kids and 3 of them are american citizens. they wer all born in the 5 years they lived in america. we talked to them about utah, and costco, and american people,. all the kids speka english adn german and the dad speaks english like an american. his wife has perfect english to but with a slight accent. we asked how they do it and the mom speaks mostly german with them and the dad english. way cool. the oldest is like 6 or 7 and all 3 of them speak better german than we do and the 7 year old has the same english as we do!!! its crazy. lol. it was so much fun though. 

ok well thats really it. oh wait...spiritual thought. read ehter 12 and hebrews 11. both of them are all about faith and its amazing the miracles brought by faith. also ehter 12 has 2 really good scriptures in it. both of which are scriptures mastery. ether 12:6 and ehter 12:27. both really good.  also, parents!!!! im talking to you about your kids. rememebr to praise in public and punish in private. even christ did this. remember the story of the woman who was brought before christ because she had comitted adultry. they ask him what should be done. you know the story and he tells them that any of them without sin will cast the first stone. they all leave and then finally he talks to the woman. same thing with your kids. if christ did it so can you. he waited until all were gone to talk to her and "judge" her i guess you could say. same with parents and kids. it does nothing and sometimes has the opposite effect when you punish in public in front of their friends or others. it is best to do this in private when you can discuss and talk about what happened nad how it can fixed...ok im done with giving advice. lol

ok well thats it for this week. i will email next week and then in 8 days we can skype!!! woohoo.  love you all laods and have a great week :)

elder ustach