Glück Auf!

Very good week, it went by very fast and surprisingly enough I have been everywhere in our area… pretty much, the 3 major cities, and a handful of villages in the area. Its small but it’s good that I could get to know the area quick.

How we managed to accomplish this feat of traveling all over, was we went by every less active on the ward list. We simply went by and left a little note with our info, letting them know if they need our help we are here! And then this week we are going to drive around with a member and try and actually meet with them. Hopefully we can make some good contact.

We went to a little city to do some contacting and we came across a black dog, an actual nice one too! He followed us all around, as happy as could be! It reminded me of my friend Mark down in Chile that has a dog follow them, the missionaries there had called it “dog black” due to lack of speaking English, so… we called him “dog black”! The whole time walking around “Kommt folget mir dog black!”. I’m sure we’ll see him next time we go back.

On Saturday we traveled to Magdeburg to have a very special tour arranged by the senior couple in our district of the giant church there. One of the only building not destroyed because of bombing raids (Magdeburg had military factories). It was a really cool experience because it was given by the Dome chairman, who is actually from New York. It was an amazing building made by people with great faith, many working on it knew they wouldn’t live to see it finished.

I couldn’t help but think of our temples, especially some of the first ones in the latter-days. So much went into them, the early members literally gave all they had to complete them, so that they could receive those blessings. I don’t understand everything about temples, but I do know that they really are a place of refuge, and place of peace. And I really miss it. But as a mission we have a new focus on the temple, unfortunately both temples will be closed in Germany from September till spring of next year, but I’m really excited for the new plan we have to get recent converts to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.

Our mission now has “temple square missionaries” in Freiberg, where tours will be given by the missionaries there to those that are interested in it. Also as missionaries we are now allowed to travel to the temple once a month (paying our own way) if we bring a less active, investigator or recent convert to take these tours, and help them to understand more about it. Because our Goal is not baptism, but it is for our brothers and sister to have the blessing of the temple. This week look, remember, and find the blessing of the temple.

Elder Winkel

Wednesday night off to Kothen for the night, for Berlin in the morning! Mission tour! Ja wohl!

Elder Vellinga was a friend of mine in the MTC! He’s now my district leader! Elder and Sister Hilton got us hooked up to have a special tour of the Magdeburg Dome Tower, not very many people get to see it amazing!