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.