schwarzenberg!

Well this week has definetly been an intersting one. With an area that is basically nowhere. no investigators except for like a few wishy washy ones and then the area being just a mess, we have a lot of work to do. i will just explain the week.

So monday was the last p-day in berlin. it was great! we got burritos with the sisters and wichian. one of their gators. we then went to the zoo!!! i have been waiting 7 months to go to the berlin zoo and it was so cool. i love the zoo. we saw so many cool animals and had a lot of fun. we then had some fallen out appointments so we just went home to pack and elder jon could sleep because he was still a little sick.

tuesday we went to the bahnhof and met other missionaries there. took some pics and then elder jon and some other elders and sisters put me on a train. elder jon almost got stuck on it with me. haha. the sisters and elder jon all ran along the train waving as i was leaving. i got a compartment seat which was nice. the train was super empty. i just wrote letters the entire time. to anxious to sleep. I finally arrived in leipzig to find the zone leaders, one of them being my old friend from the mtc. elder whitehad. then sister jensen and i got on a train to zwickau. there we met our companions and then we all got on another train to shwarzenberg. a long day and it was only 3 in the afternoon. we got home and organized and shopped and then went to ward mission councel. It was really good. we have a super old ward mission leader, but he is supportive and an assistant who is an RM of 2 years. really cool guy. We have good chances to work with him. 

wednesday was district meeting. i met the district which was cool. its deffinetly a lot different than my last district. this one is very ...odd. jsut odd missionaries in it. haha. We had lunch together and then E homan and i went home to study and then went finding in AUE. that is where we live. very cool city. they have a soccer team there. im going to get some fan stuff from them. The stadium is right next to our house. We had no luck as we talked to people on the street but it was fun. i got to know the city really well. that night we had FHE at the church which was a blast. just a bunch of old people. lots of fun. 

thursday we had just a lot of time finding the entire day. we went out to a city called schneeberg. or "snowy mountain" in english. its a cool town up in the higher mountains. well, higher than aue. they have a huge church there. 

friday was good, we had weekly planning which went well and then we went to visit an innactive and also to go to english class. a member bought us döners because we helped him clean the church. that was nice. 

saturday was bockau day. we went to a small town called bockau and went dooring. after that we went to sosa. you should really look at a map and see all the towns we go to in a week and how small they are. haha. we had fun and got some good pictures of the hills and mountians. we had our first session of conference that night. it was great. we had to watch it in german though.

sunday was conference day! we were at the church the entire day and at a members house for food. it was a great day. 

well the area is like lauenburg becuase of all the tiny towns all over the plac. they are all spread out because they used to all be old mining towns. we are in the area of germany called "erzgeberge". This is where all the handmade wooden stuff comes from. its a very old and traditional part of germany. a lot of stories of dragons and knioghts and stuff here. the reason its called schwarzenberg is because back in the day a dragon would always come to the town and burn everything. all of the hills and  town. finally a mighty knight killed the dragon, but now the rocks are black...seriously. the rocks are black. hence "schwarzenberg" or in english "black mountain". cool stuff. they have some cool train stuff here as well so i am excited. just tons of hills and valleys here. i will definetly lose weight. we walk so much. just up and down HUGE hills all day. we run 3 days a week as well, also up and down hills. my calves will be huge after 18 weeks here. haha. 

love you all

The Week

Family and Freinds,

This will be short because i dont have any time. The week was good. One story for this week. A man came to the church on thursday. we were outside with the sisters waiting for people to show up. nobody came. but then at the end this man came and he is so cool. he is from italy and he has been here for 4 months. he was actually looking for the jehovahs witnesses, but then he found us (way better). well he said he would come to church and he did! so awesome! he is meeting with us this week!

to many things to write and absolutely no time. i will write my big email first next week so as to have enough time for it. i love you all. i am doing fine.great actually. i will let you know where i get transferred to next week.

Elder Ustach

Good Week

Hello :)

Well the week has been great. No, br greb did not accept a baptisimal date, but he fasted and prayed about it with us on saturday and he really enjoyed church on sunday. we are making real progress with him and we are not letting him be distracted or start talking himself in circles again. Elder Jo is really good with him to, even if he cannot understand all that he says. It is great. We will have an apointment tomorrow about baptism and hopefully make out a date for the 30th of march :)

Monday, well you heard all about taht already, 

tuesday we had some contact work and a fallen out appointmnet. 

wednesday we had zone training meeting. it went great! i learned a lot about how i need to improve my teaching skills and such. 

thursday we had some service where we carried 30 year old coal out of a basement into a trailer. crazy stuff. we were sneezing black stuff out of our nose for the res of the day LOL. we then had our gesprächskreis where we had br greb there. this is where we agreed on fasting together and he was really excited about it. 

friday we did planning and met with herr ferch. he is so cool. we talked a lot about the pan of salvation and he wants specific answers to questions like "whats happens to the women and children who are murdered in africa because they are christian?" stuff like that. he just needs to get it through his head that chirt is merciful and so is god and all will work out in the end and it does not matter what happens, the point is to find the truth and pray about it and stick to it and hope for the best and have faith taht god is there and will figure it all out. we tried to explain that to him, but it didnt go as well as planned. next time will be better.  we also ate with familie troeger. the are so cool. the husband is not a member, but he was a chef for the german navy and he was also a chef for the american armed forces while the were here in berlin. we ate well! LOL. it was great. we had frickadellin. (i spelt that wrong) and some good vegitables. we also met with br greschke and frau fleischer.

saturday we did service for br dein. that was a blast! we cut down a 30-40 foot tree. br dein got on a ladder and cut branches off and then wedug around the tree and ut the roots with the chain saw and then tugged and pulled and pushed and shoved until he finall fell over. It was stupid. the biggest root was diretly below the tree, the one we could not get to. after 3 ours we got it down. awesome! we also ate lunch with br eichelbaum. he is doing well. we then met with a  woman, frau bernu...but she did not let us in. so we taught her really quick at her door. we even had a joint teach so it was super awkward because the member couldnt do much. i just talked for ike 5 minutes and we left. super wierd. 

sunday was great. we had br geb at church, fabian, and frau fleischer. and good news with frau fleischer! she can be baptised. she is a little handicapped and so she has a person who is in charge of her, who has until now, not allowed her to be baptised. but she ahs cahnged her mind and she can now be baptised!we now have a lot of work to do to get her ready for baptism. 

the sisters have a baptism this sunday and it will be great. we are super excited to be there for it. so is the ward. 

the week was great. it was warm. spring is defiently here!

thank you for all that you do. unti next week.

Elder Ustach

A warmer Week

Hello everyone! :)

Wow has this week gone by so fast. It is amazing how time just flies by as the time of my mission gets shorter. weird. so to start this email here is a copied section that i wrote to president kosak telling him of the miracles and tender mercies this week.

The tender mercies of the lord are wonderful. This week has been great and i have truly seen the lords hand, not directly, but in small and simple ways through his tender mercies. i was on exchange twice this week, once with edler hansen, and once with elder Hein. elder h is such an example in all that he does and before we went finding, in the car he said such a wonderful prayer to ask the lord for help. and what happened...well we didnt find anyone but the conversations that we had and the spirit that we felt as we spoke to people on the street was amazing. we literaly (not literally) saw a womans heart softened as we spoke to her. she started out as an unreligious person, then a few minutes later she "kind of believed that there was a god" then at the end she accepted the commitment to pray and ask god about what we spoke about was true. she was so amazing. the spirit is so powerful, we just need to get out of his way to let him change these people. also with elder Hein, the day was not going so well. we were finding and talking and talking and talking to a lot of people. well one area had absolutely noone. the other area was also not working. i had the feeling that we were just in the wrong place. the lord intended us to be somewhere else. so we werent sure. i said a prayer on the bus in my head to have him lead us to the right place. as we walked we met a few people, but still not much. then our 1 appointment for the day fell out as we knocked on his door. now we only had 1 hour left before the end of the exchange. what to do...so we decide to go to the nearest largest street and talk to everyone. before we go, i suggest to elder Hein that we say a prayer, having the memory of elder Hansens prayer in my head and remembering how well it helped, and he said that it would be a good idea. i say a quick prayer and we go. Not to many people on the street, but as we go we meet a large man, very scarry man with tattoos and piercings with a pitbull dog. i talk to him about the purpose of life and he just stops and opens up to us. he is a very nice man and wants to meet with us. we had a very good and effective conversation on the street where we testified of christ and his sacrifice for us and why he died for us. it was great. then just 20 meters later Elder He stops to talk to a man at a bus stop (something i dont normally do) and this man is a christian from iran who just moved to berlin looking for a church! this was saturday night and he said he would come the next day . he was very excited! (unfortunatly he didnt come, but we have his number). we then had many more wonderful conversations on the street in that hour. it was wonderful.

So that is the awesomeness of wednesday and saturday. the spirit was so strong this week and i loved it.

Monday, we got elder jo a hair cut, that was an adventure, lol. We then did all the sites in berlin. we hit the brandenburg gate, jewish memorial, berliner dom, rechstag building (goverenment building of germany), alexander platz. we did it all! it was great! we also ran into some sisters that i knew. cool stuff.

tuesday we did service which was great, then an appointment with daniel. he is having issues with his family and testimony, so we are there to support him and help him as he needs it. we also helped him with his "invention" that he is working on. We then went to br eichelbaums...no food this time but we helped him move a bunch of furniture out of his apartment and throw it all away at the dump. that was fun. We then had an appointment fall out with a new gator, so we went out to a street and di oyms with no to much sucess.

wednesday we had all of our study and then district meeting. The AP´s came and participated. that was loads of fun. we then started an exchange with the AP´s. 

thursday we had diesnt by an innactive member. he is really old and sick and has two apartments...yes two, full of musical electronic equipment. and he is moving now to a placewhere people can take care of him. we helped clear out his basement which was full of coal...yes coal. his apartment is so old and he has lived there for so long that his apartment is still full of coal from back in the day that they needed it to heat their apartments. so we carried coal and stuff up stairs and into a trailer and that was fun.  we then ahd a great appointment with hans ferch...(elder wilde do you remember him?) it was such a great appointment on the plan of salvation. we then had our open door thing at the church. it went well with br greb there and wichian. 

Friday we had weekly planning and ward mission meeting. we planned for the baptism of elisha, a gator of the sisters. he is 9 years old. the ward dropped the ball on getting him baptised as he was 8 so the sisters had to teach him and stuff. we started our exchange that night with glienicke.

saturday i was with elder he. he is only 9 days on the mission but a beast of an elder. he has no fear. he is awesome. our day is basically usmmarized in the text above.

sunday we had church which was great. elder jonhston and i gave our testimonies. we then had a great eating appointment and then a day of studying and are book work. 

today we went to the funeral of a members mother. br tesla. he is so cool.we were there with the sisters and 3 other members. it was such a weird funeral, but it was good. we then tried to go to the zitadelle, but it costs money...i guess we just snuck in the last 2 times i have been there. LOL. 

thats the week i love you all and hope you all have a great week where ever you are :)

Elder Ustach