April 29,2013

dear family,

well not much time this week to write because in the middle of doing emails our plan today just got mixed around. dotn worry i will explain. but long story short, less time to write haha.

this week was good. slow and suckish but good. we had 2 or 3 of our investigators drop us...sad day :( but no biggy. the lord is with us and all will be good. so monday we had some fun with the bergedorf elders at the church and then we had a tuasch. i was with elder linderman in lauenburg and elder G went with von neida to bergedorf. elder linderman and i went to an appointment that night with an innactive and it went well. he explained that he ahs two sides of his constantly tearing himself apart because we wants to do good and he knows the church is true but the other side has al his sins and addictions and such. we tried to explain that thats natural and that well..." the natural man is an enemy to god" its the truth and so we just have to make the decision which side to follow and which not to follow. it made sense in my ehad and i wanted him to enderstand to but he was to emotional to get any points accross. we talked about when we follow chirst and not follow the natural man then after this life we will have relief from this "two sidedness" and he seemed a little better. na ja, we will see what happens. we played phase ten with him for the next two horus...LOL. this man loves phase ten. so funny. tuesday we  jsut doored a lot and had our appointment at the end of the day fall out. no biggy. we tausched back and it was a good day. we cleaned the crap out of our car because the next day we were getting inspected. it reminded me of being at home cleaning my car and listening to music. well different music on the mission but still. good stuff. wednesday we woke up at 5 am to drive to bergedorf and pick up the eldes there, then we drove to hamburg for zone sport!!!! so much funplaying hockey at 6 am in the morning. we were about 45 kminutes into it and i was running for the ball and trying to defend against another elder, i got the ball out of the corner i was in and then tried to run in the other dirrection...well to much weight and to fast in one direction and then changing directions that fast...well i fell, and hard LOL. i rolled my ankle and hard to. i felt some popps and heard something. well i was out the rest of the day.  so we were in hamburg for a leadership training so that elder G could attend and iw as supposed to work in hamburg with the dlers there. but with my ankle i couldnt walk all around hamburg so i jsut sat outside of the meeting and studied all day. boring but it was good. and actually after the lunch break they had president invited me to also attend the training which was cool. so after the meeting we drove to bergedorf to get crutches from them because of my ankle. and then we had some meetings at the end of the day. thursday i was on crutches the entire day. we had an appointment or two but they all fell out. so we did some doors as well as going by contacts and such. it went well. we met many new people and we met an innactive who is really nice. the one who loves trains. i think i told dad already about that.m it was super sunny and warm that day to. awesome day...except for the crutches. friday we did some service by helping some people move. well i didnt do anything :) elder G did all the work. haha. then we doored and had an appointment with walter. at walters i got a cane from him. score!!!! the crutches in europe are weird and my foot wasnt so bad that i needed them. so i took one of his like 8 canes. he was glad to give it to me. i look more stylish now with a cane. LOL. i also bought an ace bandage for my ankle so with the two its not so bad. we then ahd appointments fall out and one of investigators tschuss us. but no big deal. not letting that get us down! saturday we had our transfer calls!!!
 both elder G and i are staying together. but news for the area. we are getting sisters in lüneburg as well as bergedorf. the elders are leavign adn giving the city to sisters. so cool. so we are going from a district of 4 elders to 4 sisters and 2 elders LOL. im super excited for it all. we then did dooring and had a couple appointments that went through. good stuff. sunday we traveled to hamburg for stake conference where a seventy from france came and talked to us as well as president and sister kosak spoke. relaly good talks. we had a good eating appointment and sunday was good. 

so the reason i ahve no tiem is because an elder jsut called me telling me elder g and i have to go down to lüneburg at 18:00 today and help furnish the sisters appartment. out of the blue. we have been wondering if they needed our help but they never asked...until the day of LOL. so now we have to end our tiem in hamburg early to get down to lüneburg on time. crazy. good stuff though. we are going to go play hockey in hamburg and hopefully i can go buy a new backpack now. dont worry abnout ym ankle. witht he ace bandage i cn walk without a cane or anythign today. and minimal pain. so i will probably jsut play goaly and sit around. sucks but oh well. dont want to injure it again. keep an eye on the mission blog. when i showed pres my cane he jsut busted up laughing and took a picture of me. he will probably put it on the blog.

love you all laods and untilnext week,

elder ustach

Fun In the Sun

the planetarium at stadt park and the zone

 walking down a cool path.

sketchy dock this in the elbe. i was scarred to walk that close tow ater 

stadt park

eating outside!!!! it was nice

chilling in the car

serious funny pic

funny funny pic

cool red sunrise. i was blinded by the red light when is tood up one moprning coming through the window. cool stuff. and yes...its did rain that day. " red sky in the monring...sailors fair warning" ya well it works. lol.

April 22,2013

hello family,

well this week was awesome! we did a lot and talked to a lot of people and it was warm this week!!! hooray!!!  

well monday we went to hamburg and played football in city park as well as some soccer. when we played football we had quite the crowd watching...a random guy or couple stopped to watch once or twice :) lol. wierd americans playing an unknown sport. haha. then we just went home and talked to people on the streets on monday. we talked to a nice british couple on the train who were there for a birthday. really cool. fun to talk to them in english. tuesday we  tried to get an oil change but it failed because they told us we only can get an oil change every year or 30000 kilometers. thats insane!!! i was appaled at that especially because i worked at jiffy lube. but still. once a year oil change?!?!?! crazy. we did a lot of doors and suich on tuesday and we met with our friend walter. he is not doing well. he fell the other day and he was in extreme pain but would not go to the doctor. wednesday we did some doors in lüneburg and then went to an eating appointment with an old single lady in the ward. we took some members along so that we could visit the alone member. really cool lady. jsut old and doesnt do much which makes her sad :( we then had english class, which nobody showed up to. that made us sad but we palyed ping pong for a while and then went to our weekly missionary ward leader meeting. thursday we had a nice brunch with a member family and then we doored a while and then tried to go by some contacts but it didnt work. nobody was home :( we then did some more doors in another city and we met a ton of people! it was awesome. actually the entire week was good because we met so many new people. thursday night we did an exhcnage with the zone leaders.  friday we had a good tausch. we walked the streets in geestacht and met some cool people and actually met an investigator walking the streets. it was cool. we then did some more doors and then picked up a member for a joint teach. we had our appointment with mona. i think i already explained mona, but she is really cool. totally awesome. our appointment went well and we just taught her all about life before this life as well as the creation and adam and eve. our joint teach went a little deep but thats ok. we then switched back and elder G and i went by an innactive and had a good lesson with him. saturday we talked to some people on the streets in schwarzenbek and then we had a really good eating appointment with familie brahn. that was awesome. then we met with walter again because he wanted us to come back and give him a blessing. the one he refused on tuesday. so we came over and talked and taught the plan of salvationa nd gave him a blessing. good stuff. we then just had weekls planning. sunday was good. church was good. we got called up to give our testimonies and explain a little about how the work is going in sacrament meeting. it went well. i was excited actually even though it was spur of the moment. the talks were really good both by the bishop and the stake presidents councelor. good day at church.m we then had a good eating appointment by the familie waterböhs. cool family. they fed us chili. loved it. we then went by some contacts and they were actually home and we taught one lesson and made out a ton of appointments for this week. it was awesome. tons of kids out playing on the streets.

germany is a totally different polace when it warms up. uin the winter everyone is cold and boring. now that its warm everyone is outside and palying and ahving fun. good stuff.

i love that its warming up. its jsut a happier time and we are all very excited for the work. im not sure if i told you but we are getting sisters in lüneburg so now we will have 4 missionaries in this ward. 

thats it for this week. some good pics this week. we had fun in the car lol.

elder ustach

Letter # 39

family,
well this week was awesome!!! we have seen the lords hand in all that we did this week. he realy does prepare people as i will explain. so this week.  i looked for a enw backpack, beacuse mine is starting to fall apart (after 4-5 years) and i really want a geramn brand one that a lot of elders have. deuter. good brand. coo, packs and stuff. well i thought they would be through the roof expensive but the one i want is only like 45 euro. not bad at all. considering some of the ones elders buy are near 100 or more euro. we went back and elder G and i had lesson with an innactive. that went well. tuesday we went and picked up a member for a joint teach but it fell through so we went and had lunch with him. while we had lunch ( he made us hangarian pancakes) there were some kids outside playing basketball. the memebr told us to go outside and play with them. he may have been joking but when we were done we went outside and palyed with them. its so funny to see kids or anyones reaction when you tell them your from america and then want to play basketball with them....because all americans are good at basketball...i guess. lol. so we played for 30 minutes and talked to them a little. they were 13 and 15 and cool kids. we got back in the car and i looked down...i ripped my suit pants...that didnt make me happy. right on the seem. kind of funny. we then went to another city to do doors and we had two really good lessons. one with a man who at first wanted to give the BoM back to us and didnt want anything to do with it, but then we had a good lessona dn he agreed to read more in it and such. another is with a family from south america or somewhere. they speak english, spanish and german. cool family. it basically was a two hour Q and A though. we cant teach anything because he talks to much and has to many questions. funny guy.that night i fixed my pants and they are still good. a sloppy sew job but i got it done and they work lol.

wednesday we had zone training meeting. we woke up at 4 am to catch a train to hamburg so we could play sport at 6 am and then take showers there after sport and start our training. great day. we had fun and learned a lot. we then just did normal finding and such the rest of the day as well as meeting with our ward mission leader. thursday we started with doors and we met with our eternal friend. walter. then we met with an inactive family who let us in without an appointment and were excited to see us. cool stuff. good meeting witht hem as well. they havent been to church in 2 years but are ready to come back. we then met with our young friend nils. i think i mentioned him in another email. but he took us to a really nice restauraunt in the middle of innenstadt lüneburg. really nice. he used to work there so the chef/boss came out to us and was really nice and it was just loads of fun. friday was probably the best day this week. the night before i ahd no clue what would happen and was not ready for the day. but i prayed so hard for help that the day would work out. idk hopw but it would. and well, it worked! the lord really answers your prayers. its a wonderful thing. we found a new gator in hohnstorf. she is young and really cool. and really interested in the BoM. then we had an appointment fall out but then we had an amazing appointment with mona. well mona is awesome!!! she is from egypt. she is about 35 or so and single with 5 kids. she moved to germany 15 years ago with her man and about 10 years ago they split. she used to be muslim but she hated how they treated muslims and such and so she prayed about it and she had a dream/vision of "a man in a white robe and long white hair" (christ). he told her not to worry and all will be alright. as well as some other things. then right before we met her she had difficult things in her life and she prayed and she had another dream/vision of mary. who told her she will egt an answer soon. well two days later we knocked on her door!!!!. so cool. she is truely prepared by the lord. this was our second lesson with her and in the middle of us reading james 1:5 she gets a phone call. she answers and ends. then she was really sad becuase she explained that she ahd this really good and calm feeling when shew as reading and we were discussing and then the phone call ruined it. well it was amazing to see how she recognized the hols ghost without us even explaining anything about him before hand. then we were discussing something else...i cant remmber and someone came to the door. afterwards she came back and told us she was having that smae feelign right before that person came and now it was gone. i really get annoyed with satan and his influence in the world to ruin the beautiful moments. didnt matter though. mona agreed to be baptised in the comming months and we are really excited for her. the rest of friday was also really good. we went and switched companions again so that elder G and lindermann could go to bielafeld on saturday. 

saturday we had absolutely nothing. but we still had fun riding our bikes around (i have no valid drivers liscense right now, it expired becaus of my visa) so we were with our bikes. we had a full day of finding and we found a really cool and very spiritual guy. cool stuff. saturday night elder G and L got back to late to exchange back so elder V stayed the night again. sunday we exchanged back and elder G and i had a great time at church. we also ahd a wondefrul lesson with nils. he is so cool. he told us of the story of his sister dieing and how he said a little prayer and he felt calmness, no answetr to his question"why did she die?" but he felt calmness. we had a wonderful lesson and he is really making progress. he prayed for us at the end of the lesson eventhough he doesnt really believe in god and hanst prayed for about 10 years. cool stuff.

alright i think thats enough for this email. i love you all. until next time.

elder ustach 

mom, that article you sent me about aprenting...well i finally got that article to the woman it was for. and she read it alst night. this morning she texted us this wonderful sms about how grateful she was for the article we gave her. i told her it was from you :)

Adam Having Fun

having fun in the snow and the playground

one of the pages of my "tschuus" book from elder popp. elder popp is legendary in his tschiis book entries and he went all out on mine. this page specifically plays "girls jsut want to ahve fun" when it opens up. ROFL. when i get home i will show you my tschuus book to you all.

Letter # 38

Family,

Well this week has been interesting. lots of fallen out appointments but thats ok. we learned a lot this week. were motivated so much and had lots of fun. so monday we had zone sport where we tore it up with hockey for almost three hours. then we ahd two fallen out appointments but thats ok because we missed our train coming back from hamburg so we would have missed them anyway. tuesday we had to fix our car for the lights because both of our headlights were out...LOL. how did we drive at night? with our brights. dont worry we know it was stupid and dangerouse and we tried our hardest to not be out past sundown before we got it fixed anyway. but twice we got stuck a 15 minute drive away from home to late so that was not fun but we got home safely with our brights on the whole way. luckily not to many drivers were on the road. we then did many doors in geestacht. we did over 115 doors in 2 hours or so. loads of fun. we got maybe two return apps  our of it. which ios actually not a bad percentage for two hours of work. then we had more callen out appointments and so we did contacts and met an innactive we had never met before and made out an appointment with another innactive we had never met before. wednesday was zo-co. but before that we woke up at 4 am to catch a train to hamburg bright and early to paly zone sport before the conference. unfortunatly only 6 of us showed up so it was 3 on 3 hockey for 2 and a hlaf straight hours starting at like 6:20 am. fun stuff. we then all showered and went to backery together. then we ahd zone conference where amazingly all of us stayed awake. the zone conference was amazing. sister kosak showed us a film of two missionaries in the car lip singing a song in the car. SOOOO funny. you should look it up. the song it an LDS song adn kind of country to it. the two elders have scarfs on and are totally funyn together. i ahve no clue what its called or what the song was so i cant tell you. maybe just look up funny elders singing on youtube. we got back from zone conference and had our appointments fall out and so we jsut walked the streets and talk to people. fun stuff. thursday we had a companion study with a member int he ward. he taught us so much about missionary work. he is so cool. he speaks perfect english as wella s hungarian and then he is german so he speaks that to. he went to hungary on his mission and he is like 25 now i think. so he trained us on all he learned on his mission. we did role plays and such to practice what he taucght us adn everything. it was great. then we had district finding in bergedorf. that went really well. first person elder von neida and i talked to was totally open and listened to us and we talked to her for like 20-30 minutes on the street. cool lady. she told us she would go home and pray about us and ask the lord if we were worth meeting with and then she guarenteed she would call us oin friday telling us what her answer was. cool lady. there were other reasons for going to bergedorf rather than just doing finding. elder popp was going to be in hamburg for those couple of days and he said he kight ahve time to visit with his father. i sent him an email telling him i would be in the area of hamburg for those hours but he never came. made me sad. that means i wont see him until i get home. oh well. later that day we met with walter and then did some more contacts and such. friday we chummed a lot (putting cards in mailboxes) and then all 6 of our appointments fell out so we went and talked to people on the street and went by less actives and more contacts. it was alright but toal bummer all of our lessons fell through. really slow day to because friday was a holiday in germany. saturday was good. we did a lot ofcontacts. we went by every contact we had in geestacht so that took a while. it was also a slow day. but we did meet a cool lady who is "muslim" but then she believes in christ and mary and just about everything. she is super open we just need to channel her faith of "everything" down to our church and so we need to teach her the restorationa nd hopefully she likes it. sunday was good. we wrode our bikes to church to pick up an investigator and bring him along but he slept in ebcause of the time change so we got to church without an investigator and many members asking us why we didnt ahve a car today and thenw e explained and then they asked where the investigator was and then we explained that to. crazy stuff. we then had a really good eating appointment with a cool family abotu to send a daughter out on a mission. my vote or "call" is temple square. i almost guarentee she will go there. there are reasons why but i wont explain. then we did more chumming and weekly planning and that was it. thats my week. loads of fun right? haha. really slow week but this week looks much more promising. im excited to have some fun this week and see a lot of sucess.

i love you all loads and i hope to talk to you all next week :) well i will but i hope to see emails from you all next week. lol.

elder ustach

Letter # 37

family and friends,

well this week ahs sure been interesting. we started the week with snow and cold, it warmed up and then last night we got another foot or so of snow :( real sad. but all is good. the week was good and bad. we had lots of fun this week with service, but number wise and progress with our investigators it didnt go so well. daily reports now, monday, was zone sport. loads of fun. but not much else. we missed our train going home so we got back late. LOL. tuesday we found a bunch. did a lot of doors. we met with a gator named sam but he doesnt have interest anymore so we might drop him. tuesday we went on exchanges. i was with elder von nieda. so cool. we also had a member with us for a poretion of the day and he is so cool. he is 24 and loads of fun. he is a great teacher to so that was a big help is teaching some people. we had fun on exhcnages to. he wants to go into archeology. so he is all over that. interesting kid. we had laods of fun. wednesday we had distrcit meeting and then we met with a member. he is so cool.  they own a farm and live in a little dorf. way cool couple. so we go there for lunch and it was good. we had fricadellen. good stuff. then he proceeded to show us his sheep. his 4 horned sheep. they are the same sheep from jacob in the bible. creepy looking things but then there were lambs there that were born from tuesday. so cute.  then he showed us his wagons. wierd right? well br liebieck restores and builds old wagons. like wagons across the plains and such. it is his hobby but to the extreme, he has a ginormous building just full of wagons and wheels and parts and stuff. he built and sold 17 WAGONS!!!!! and sent them to america and now there are in a museum in utah. crazy. then he showed us the rest of his stuff. it was like being on an episode of american pickers. just mountains of stuff in a ginourmous warehouse of a place. insane. he ahd old mootrcycles and an old DDR car that still runs. then we showed us his coin collection. OMG. he has way to many coins. insane. he has coins from way old and from all over the world!!!! he showed us all of them to. haha. we spent an hour searching through them all. crazy stuff. so funny. then he went on to explain the trip he went on in 1997 that was the "great treck" to symbolise the trek of the pioniers. aparently its every 50 years. cool stuff. he then told us about food storage and that we need to tell our parents to take it seriously and get ready because " a storm is comign" he said. interesting no? anyway such a cool guy. his wife is the nicest german lady ever. such a cool day being there. thrusday we went to hamburg where elder gochnour ahd training while i walked around hamburg with elder briner. so funny. he passed out english fliers for enlgish class. elder briner passed out his entire stack...i passed out zero! rediculous. then we talk to people on the street about the gospel...nobody listens to briner but everyone talks to me. lol. so i cant be a salesman but i can talk to people about the gospel. so funny. oh and i got a german compliment!!!!!!!!!! so stokes. my german doesnt suck after all. some lady we were talking to asked us where we were from and asked me if iw as from germany. we told her we were from america and she was shocked. bonus points and total moral booster on the german!!! so cool. that whole day was so cool because elder briner is probably the most humerous and awesome elder in the mission. so funny. good day. friday was normal. we ahd fallen out appointments and not much esle other than finding. then at the end of the day we did service at a farm for a member family. they are familie gluck. so cool. they have 7 daughters and 2 sons. right now 4 daughters live at home and the rest are gone. so only the dad is there to do work. yes the women do work but not as mucha s his sons could have done. so we were there to help. we split wood for about an hour and a half. br gluck lead us to a pile of wood taller than me and about 20 feet wide and then he handed me a sledge hammer and asked if i was familiar with a hammer. i answered "naturlich!!!" and he handed me a metal spike or two and said go at it. so for the next hour and a half we have ear protection on and i split basically tree trunks. the wood was to big for his saw and so i was splitting trees in half and then the branches and such br gluck grabbs and splits with his saw. but the bigf stuff im all alone there splitting with spikes and a hammer. then br bluck grabs it and slices it up on his HUGE saw that he was then elder gochnour throws it into a pile. i got the short end of the stick on this job because at the end i could hold onto anything. my grip was gone after swinging a sledge  hammer for 90 minutes. we then helped him move hay for his sheep and then went in for dinner. when we were at dinner i was shaking when i tried to eat my dinner because of how exhausted i was. ridiculous. so funny though. good workout, i must say. nobody said anythign either about me shaking. thats good. i cant look weak in front of his daughters. im sure they could have done the same thing i did for 3 hours and ahd no problem. well mayxbe not but still. would ahve been embarassing to ahve them see that. today my hands still hurt from friday. sad stuff. but all is good. next time im prepared for it. and i will switch off with elder gochnour so we are both wiped out.

saturday was normal. we did more service at another emmbers house cutting down trees and splitting them and such. this time another member showed up who was a gardener so he cut them down witht he saw and cut the big parts up. elder gochnour and i went in with trimmers and cut the branches and collected them all. and piled everything up. loads of fun. sunday was good. we met with a cool family for lunch.ask candice about her email f0or details on their two year old son that we ahd fun with.

thats really it for the week. its freezing cold again and lots of snow. we need to leave son to go to hamburg for zone sport to play dodgeballa nd hockey. hopefully all goes well there and nobody gets hurt :) i hope all is well at home and your all having fun wherever you are. i love you all and alles gute.

bis später

elder ustach

sorry no pics this week. the computere just shut off on me and we need to go. next week about 200 pics or so. loads of them :)

Letter #36

Liebe Familie,
wow this week was good. just a quick day to day, monday we went to minature wunderland. it took about two hours or more and we rushed through it!. i took over 400 pics!!!! crazy. then we had a FHE with a family and all was good. tuesday we had a big day planned that crashed a burned. very disapointing but still good. we planned to have lunch with a member and meet one of his friends then take him on a joint teach to a very promising lesson. well we had lunch (very fancy restauraunt) but the friend was busy. then we went to the members mothers burial site and had a nice peaceful time at the friedhof. then we took him to our lessona nd the woman wasnt there. very dissapointing. then we had a lesson with one of our baptisimal dates but he ditched us because we didnt have time. our other lessons also fell out so we did a lot of doors that day and we actually found a really cool young guy who we are going back today to visit. we had a great dinner and lesson with a part member family which was way cool. wednesday we had DCM and then i went to hamburg on  exchanges. all the appointments there fell out but that was ok because we then went and talked to people on the streets of hamburg for about 4 hours with it being about 15 degrees or so. so warm and so nice. didnt need a jacket or anything. sun was shining and it was beautiful. we walked around the city park talking to people. that was so nice. thursday i went back and had a good lesson with a man from the carribean. elder gochnour was sick so we chilled a lot and he took a 3 hour napö. slow day but all was good. friday wemet a really cool older german man who let us in and proceeded to give us drink and showed us pistures of his ski trips in utah and in italy. so funny. we talked to this man for an hour and a half. insane. he finally brought it back to religion at the end but he doesnt really ahve interest but he respects us. so it was a nice hour and a half break but nothing came of it. oh well. cool to see his pictures and such a nice man. then we went and played squash with a member and his friend. it was super cheap and we had a blast. they were expecting us to suck becuase we were american and elders who dont play squash...well they were surpirsed. both elder gochnour and i have played raquetball (ver similiar) back in college so we demolished them.  the match with his friend was really close but i still won. elder gochnour was still a little sick so we didnt do to well. saturday we ahd the baptism. it went really well and mirco, the man being baptised, is so funny and made the whole thing hilarious and fun. it was a great experience and my first "official" baptism. elder baker (elder gochnours former comp) baptised mirco. he came from leipzig and they left their apatment at 4 am that morning to get there in time. it started to snow on saturday to which was depressing. three days before it was so warm. sunday we wake up to about 6 inches of snow. and its still snowing outisde. church was really good and really cold. the wind was insane. we ahd a great eating appointment. the daughter of this family is about to turn 19 and going to go on a mission. way cool family. they plan to visit america in 3 years or so. way cool. continued to snow all day and then today we woke up to about another 6 inches on our car and everything from sunday had turned into ice. so we had a couple inches of ice and 6 inches of snow on everything. awesome!!! luckily the germans are good at clearing roads so driving is not a problem, however i do feel unsafe sometimes when elder gochnour drives and brakes or turns to hard when its icy and snowy. 

the most amazing random peice of info this week...i bought the winnie the pooh on cd. in german!!! so cool. its the "big adventure" but its in germana nd its only the words. super cheap and it helps our german. so funny. im going to buy more so i can listen to the lion king, tarzan, atlantis, toy story, and a bunch more. so cool. i learn a lot of words from them to and the y are entertaining haha.

ok alles gut. until next week. sorry this week was short and not much "chat" like mom said but i need to go soon to catch a train to go play some more dodge ball and hockey. woohoo. love you all

elder ustach