Elder Anderson was sick for most of the week, so that cramped our style but the weekend came and we had some nice things happen.

Once Anderson got better we decided for a fresh start so we rearranged the apartment. I may have broken a bunch of interior decorating rules but the place looks dang cool and we got “tons of extra room for activities”.

Friday we finally got back to some good finding but the Easter break took people elsewhere and they were replaced by tourists… But on Saturday we talked to a guy from Bayern and told him we were talking about Easter and giving out a book, he said he didn’t really believe in God, so we told him he could try it out. Well he accepted the challenge… too bad he lives in Bayern, and didn’t give us his info. But who knows 😉

Sunday there was a baptism! The other Elders in our cozy little 4 man district baptized a girl from Kazakhstan who’s lived in Germany for the last 9 years or so. It was a really cool baptism, it was really a special day for her.

For someone who’s been searching for the truth she said she didn’t think she would find it right across the street. (She lives straight across from the church)

Perspective is always everything, right now is important, but the eternal prospective is the one that matters. Problems of life become smaller and smaller as we determine what we really want in life.

Elder Winkel

Today for P-day we met as a zone with a bunch of YSAs and played football, like real football, pigskin and all.

Not a bad week, Tuesday we were in Hamburg for zone training meeting, where we got to teach old and brand new missionaries in two classes 30 minutes a piece about memorizing the good word (scriptures and such) it was good, and I learned a lot as well.

In other news I received my German license, and have the joy of driving a beautiful 2013 Opel corsa… 0-60km in under 15 seconds. One could call it a dream, or other things… Haha

My wish this week is that we all love people a little more. Forgive the sinners! Help the stragglers! If we apply faith in Jesus Christ more to our lives, we can see why it’s more important that we start working on the dandelions in our own yard. The dandelions we see across the street won’t have as much of an effect on us, and we may come to point where we see that every house in the neighborhood has dandelions!

We all have our struggles, and know our short points. Not as often is it needed that others point them out to us or those around us. But the Lord wants to help us along the way.

The refiner’s fire is real, I’ve seen it on my mission as I’ve searched to come closer to Christ.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.

The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design

Thy dross to consume, thy dross to consume,

Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

For P-day today we went into the Forest, and the wandering stick I have came out of retirement. We also tracked a family of wild boars that we saw, which then led to us getting lost for an hour…

A couple highlights from this week – we found a guy in the area book, went by and he talked to us about how he read the Book of Mormon and how he thought it was good, and how humans are just slaves to aliens and that’s where the pyramids come from. Yeah, it took a quick 180°… but we made another appointment out with him not knowing what to expect. Turns out he’s a pretty interesting guy, he bounces a lot from topic to topic. I think he’s read everything that has come in his path. He believes very strongly that the Catholic Church isn’t true. He made it clear quite a few times… “Ja und der Krezzug…”(the crusades… luckily I learned the vocabulary thanks to Indiana Jones) well we figured out that we could throw the topic around and he wouldn’t notice either, “yeah the Holy Grail, if the Book of Mormon is true that means Christ visited the Americas…” We have another appointment, not really sure how much interest he has but we will see.

We visited a really cool member family this week, the wife cooked us some dang good lamb, and the husband invited us next week to go with him into the woods to chop trees, so it should be a good week. This week I thought a lot about personal progression, and what I found is that it really is amazing that we can progress and improve, seeing our progression is only half of our struggle, I believe those around can often see it better than we can. When we look to compliment others and move forward in faith, we can all come closer to reaching our goal of eternal life. Together.

Elder Winkel

Our area gets split by what use to be East and West.
Also a member tried to kiss me this week, luckily she was only 7…
We drove to Kiel on Tuesday for a zone conference.

This was a wild week, first off I’ll tell you about my new ward mission leader…

So he just got back from a Temple Mission in Finland, and I just got to know him a little better. He’s been an Area Seventy… twice. The Freiberg Temple Präsident, Germany Berlin Mission Präsident after the wall came down, a patriarch in Russia (speaks 7 languages), and was in the meeting with President Monson and Elder Nelson when they met with the DDR officials, to get missionaries through the wall and into East Germany. The man’s been sustained in conference like 5 times!!!!

So when he called me Sunday morning at 7:30 and said “You know we’re meeting at 8 o‘clock right?” (Apparently someone had told us) but I made the mistake of hesitating… Haha he immediately said “say YES elder” so I blurted out a YES! And we quickly finished getting ready and ran down stairs.

Our meeting was awesome, he pretty much gave us a mission president interview while talking about the work here. Afterwards we looked him up in gospel library, read his articles in the ensign, and his conversion story in a talk from Elder Packer. A loving man, I’m excited for his help.

We also had the wonderful experience to visit the Freiberg Temple with our recent convert (from the beginning of the year) the Magdeburg Elders also came and brought an investigator, and recent convert. Even though the Temple was closed you could still feel the spirit of the Lord’s House. The sisters in Freiberg gave us an amazing tour of the grounds, and made their first experience with the Temple a good one.

The “Year Mark” was celebrated in a great fashion with the one and only Elder Vellinga (from my MTC group)! We had an exchange so it worked out perfectly. For dinner that night we went to the nice restaurant on the river. The waiter took us to the VIP section… (or the no smoking room) and then they actually brought us complimentary champagne… once we smelled it we realized what it was and had the waiter take it back. Haha.

That night we were able to teach the branch in “ward council” together. We pumped them up with missionary work, and then shared what we’ve learned in the last year. A cool moment with a good friend of mine, and very special to reflect on what was learned in this last year. And what a year it has been, I want to laugh when I think of myself a year ago. I’ve been able to see how the Book of Mormon really brings people closer to Christ, for example: me.

The gospel brings the peace that the people need, I know that it is through Christ that we become better, and doing so, we will find and experience real joy.

27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14)

Elder Winkel??

This week we were able to go to the beautiful one and only city of Hannover! The place of dreams, city of courage, town of terrific, land of love… Yeah you get it, the place is awesome. But first we had to get there… So that meant that we had to get over to Köthen to catch the train, an early morning train, and we would have ended up sitting in Köthen forever, and Elder Illum and I didn’t want to do that, so we decided we’d ride our bikes and surprise the Elders there. It was about 22km and we didn’t have a map but we knew which direction it was in, and we wanted to make a sweet time lapse so we duct taped our iPads to our chests… haha but it was amazing just riding in the cool morning breeze through green fields and windmills.

Hannover was great, and I really enjoyed my interview with Präsident Fingerle, and it was different to do in German, but different isn’t always a bad thing. 😉 I’m excited for the plan he has, and it will continue the “crescendo” in our mission.

Now back to the city of Hannover. Ahh it was great to walk those streets again, I haven’t been able to visit since my first area, so it was cool to see it again. And to see it with Elder Vellinga, and Elder Braun, a couple of good friends from the original Hannover Zone.

At the end of the day we got back to Köthen, but luckily for us our train had fallen out that we were going to take our bikes on… But we at least we had the bikes! So in the dark we rode home. The day ended in about 50km of biking, because of a few wrong detours. But we enjoyed it!

Since I’ve started to work so much with personal study I decided to give a lesson on it in district meeting. The foundation of it, and the moving parts that make it come together to create a special spiritual experience, that readies us for personal revelation. I’ve noticed that there are 3 main types of scripture study: Reading, Studying, and Pondering. Pondering… now that’s a good one, that’s the one I focused on. Pondering was a new concept for me of a sort, to have a time to just sit and think, no music, no sports center, nothing. Just think about the things I read in the scriptures, and life in general.

I like what Joseph Smith said about pondering:

“The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man! If thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity–thou must commune with God”

         Now now now, that doesn’t mean we ponder that deep doctrine all the live-long day, but he does tell us how important the things pertaining to the gospel are, and that we really need the spirit to guide our understanding.

So a cool story….

My friend Elder Max Ferrin (S/O) down in Ghana sent a referral up north for us. He was out and about and some lady called them over asking if they were German, they said no, but she said that’s okay I want you to meet my German son! (Via Skype) so they Skyped the kid and told him some friends in Germany would contact him.

So we got the info, I called him up and he said he didn’t have any time… like every German. But then what do you know he calls me up a week later and says he wants to meet up. He lives up in Hamburg so I phoned the elders up gave them the address and they got in contact with him.

They texted me how it’s going, they said he’s a super cool guy, about 17 and interested in baptism because he was baptized when he was young but wants to choose for himself. Also something cool they said was they could see his potential to go on a mission. He’s already planning on coming to institute and church. The Elders were super excited, I’m sure it was an answer to their prayers.

I know the Lord provides a way for His children, PONDER this week about how He’s provided a way for you. Because either big or small He has. I know it.

Elder Winkel ??

I realized I’ve been in almost every major city in my mission and know my way around a little bit from Berlin, Hannover, Chemnitz, Leipzig, Hamburg (only there once), Magdeburg etc. just need Dresden.