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