Trost

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This week was a lot of a learning week, yesterday we were in Hamburg for the multi-stake conference broadcast. We spent the night Saturday night, with my boys Adams and German and went out for dinner.

The rest of our week was filled with service and finding. We helped patch holes in a ceiling, we finished clearing out the flooded basement. I guess something funny this week was we were looking for a less active I’ve talked to 7 times and all of our appointments had fallen out… So we went by and I really wanted to knock on his door, not just ring the doorbell to the building. So to get in I just start dooring random people in the building and this dude comes out and tells us to get off the property (keep in mind we are outside in the middle of the city) so I try and explain that we are just looking for our friend, and he wouldn’t have any of it! He just kept telling us to get out. Haha.

I studied a lot about the life of Joseph smith, especially his trials, and he had many. I read in D&C 121-122, and I can’t even imagine how he and those that were with him felt during that time in Liberty jail. When one is so low that they must ask “o God where art thou?” is a time of great need. But God’s reply was

“peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;”

When I have been in moments as such, I can say that I have felt closer to the Lord, with the hope and faith that things will get better. To take the humble road that our Father in Heaven knows and wants what’s best for us.

“know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.”

Elder Winkel

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Grace

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So this week was filled with service and water… I guess because it rained a bunch this week and that we helped a member whose basement flooded.

Normally a basement flooding here isn’t that big of a deal because they don’t have basements or they are just really small, but this member happens to have a special American designed home with a HUGE basement being used a storage so we had our work cut out for us.

Wednesday we had a street display in Lüneburg where we talked about family history, the Book of Mormon, and whatever else we could think of. We had 4 other missionaries from Hamburg there so it made for some fun. In the end we found a new contact, and gave out a few Book of Mormons.

Friday was zone conference! We had Elder Adler from the seventy there, such a great guy. He talked a lot about how to be happier as missionaries with the doctrine of Christ. “If you don’t believe you can have joy… Repent”.

I’m grateful for prayer and the scriptures, something that one can always turn to in times of need.

Elder Winkel

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Hedgehog

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So we challenged our friend to pray about the Book of Mormon, this last week he let us know how it went… He was sitting out in his garden and he said “I prayed for a sign, because the Book of Mormon logically makes sense, it seems good. But is it a good book from man? Or is it from God?”
Well at that moment a small little hedgehog waddled out from under where he was sitting, stopped, and just looked at him. “I just looked at him and said, well you can’t be from the devil now could you.” Then the little guy waddled away. Haha.

Right now we’re making some goals for him to come to church.

Speaking of hedgehogs (Sister Wilson would get a kick outta this) we were driving out in the country side, when all of a sudden we came across a traffic jam. When we finally made our way forward, we noticed that it was just a little hedgehog taking his sweet time crossing the street, with all of these cars trying to carefully maneuver their way around him.

I’ve been thankful that we have been busy, being busy serving brings a great joy.

Elder Winkel

Typisch breakfast in the Middle East

Old man we helped in the woods’ dog “Barry”

Elder Behrndt had a birthday

Haircuts

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Wunderbar

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We had a miracle this week while we were street contacting. As we were walking a man standing in the doorway of a cafe gave me a weird look, waved us over and asked if we could talk with him for a couple minutes. He went on to explain that he is a member of the church and recently moved back to this part of Germany, he then showed us on his Facebook that the missionary that had baptized him, had just sent him the day before a link to the church website. Then a day later, he sees us walking down the street. He said he knows it was a sign from God and is ready to come back to church.

Thursday was our day of service… and was the sun wonderful. One could tell we got some sun, mostly because E. Anderson was looking like a red hot chili pepper by the end of the day. Pretty much from 10-7 we were pulling weeds, cutting grass, and fighting back the giant spiders in the wood pile we re-stacked. Man, I know those spider don’t have anything on the spiders in South America, but quantity is definitely worse than quality. Breeding like rabbits? Well rabbits can’t lay a trillion eggs in a woodpile.
Anyways one of ladies we did service for has an exchange student from Jordan living with her. I guess she thinks we’re pretty cool or something because she wants to make us some middle eastern food before Ramadan starts so that’ll be neat.

Elder Winkel

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KZ Neuengamme

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This last week we were pretty busy, service and such.

I was on exchange with Elder Adams and we had a blast, we went and met with a less active and had a good lesson with him, in the end we’re going to be meeting with him more often, and I may or may not be taking an old man camping in Utah next year…

I’m super grateful for my Mom 😉 I’m not a very mushy person but I love her! I read this week about the prodigal son, it talked a lot about the father embracing his son, but I’m sure there was also a mother worried sick waiting for him as well.

Progression is real and I think that has been a big point I’ve learned on my mission, one can improve, develop, and really see something more in life than just what’s in front of our eyes. A new perspective on things paints a beautiful picture of life, and honestly makes it more enjoyable. I’ve learned I really don’t need to fear as long as I’m living a life in crescendo.

Today we had the experience to visit a concentration camp, it was a very different place. Not really sure how to explain it.

Elder Winkel

Note: second photo (Hunter recreated his dad’s photo – he’s on the left – Berlin Germany Mission and Jerry is on the right – Little Rock Arkansas Mission around 27 years earlier)

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Month of May

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Right now my 4 elder district is just us and the Spanish program, so this week I was on exchanges with my amigo Elder Castillo from Nebraska! His family is from Mexico and he reminded me of my trainee Elder Burns (so he’s the best). We went and chopped some more wood for a member and got in some finding time before we went and finished the night with some nice burritos.

Saturday we went and had brunch with a member, who happened to invite a member from my first area. It was nice especially because when I met the dude I couldn’t speak pretty much any German, so I guess you could say it was nice to actually talk with him.

After we made the drive to Hamburg so we could practice for a musical number we’ll be singing at a zone conference. Well what do you know, I ran into a member from my second area! (S/O Sabrina) cool, cool. Afterwards I wanted some Burger King because we don’t really have that stuff out in the boonies, so we hurried and grabbed the “king of the month” made the drive back to our area so we could teach a lesson to our friend that reminded me of an old man elf in “Lord of the Rings”. He’s a really a cool guy and understands everything thing we teach him pretty well, but he also has a rough case of OCD, and has lived alone for a really long time.

But what’s cool is that before we were meeting with him he hadn’t really prayed for 50 years or so; now he prays often and has read half of the Book of Mormon. The man also understands it as well. Right now we’re just trying to figure out what we can do with him, his OCD is actually pretty severe, it can take him 10 minutes or so just to close the door, open close, lock re-lock, open close etc. Nevertheless it’s cool to see someone take a small step into the light of Christ and see how it changes them.

 

Elder Winkel

 

-Our investigator showed us a sweet pic of him and his old motorcycle, unfortunately he wrecked it and had to spend a couple years doing physical therapy…

-Hamburg

-Sabrina from Zwickau

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Wunder

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This week was the last week of our 40 day fast with the ward (different members fast on different days). We saw a couple days of miracles and it was really cool. On Thursday we went to the city of Swarzenbeck where we are teaching a man from Iraq how to speak German. His son has a rare heart problem and so he has to stay at home with his son and he can’t go to his German class so we agreed to come by once in a while and help them learn some simple German. A really great guy, he worked in a hospital back in Iraq and now has almost nothing, he has two sons: one is 11 and reminds you of my little brother and the other one with the heart problem is only seven. The 11 year old is such a funny kid. He loves American and he speaks a little bit of English and wants to practice only English with us.

Spent a lot of the day finding and we were able to give out four Book of Mormons in about an hour and a half’s time. Really cool, I’ve never experienced that before. This 40 day fasting has really strengthened my testimony of fasting because we really have seen miracles that simply don’t happen without the help of the Lord. On Friday we had some time in the city of Lüneburg to do some finding. With about an hour of time we were able to give out to Two more Book of Mormons and then later at the end of our time there we went to our friend at his antique store and we were able to give him one as well. Things are going fine, happy to be here.

Elder Winkel

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Stake Conference

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Last Monday we spent some time in Hamburg and we went and visited this park that’s got these giant swings, it was pretty cool. Right when we got there a guy came from the city to hook up the zip line (that you sit on). Well after tightening it all up he let us have a go at it, Elder Adams and I decided that if he pushed me it would make for more of a fun filled experience… So with the city worker watching from his van, I go speeding down this zip line that’s only a few feet off the ground, I went fast all right, as I hit the stop spring at the end I swooped up to the top of the cable and came down so hard that it snapped the rubber cord connected to the seat… which made for a pretty solid landing not on my feet. So the dude in his van got out and kind of scratched his head and put a new one on. I was holding a camera the whole time – I’ll try to send it with.

We did a lot of finding this week to continue on with our goals. Wednesday our goal was to give a Book of Mormon out, and so we went to the old GDR city of Boizenburg. We went by a member to see if they had any ideas, the family are converts of about 8 years and they are great, the husband is currently the Stake Clerk. We prayed together and then looked at a map, he had a good feeling about a street so we went and doored it to death and what do you know, we gave out a Book of Mormon.

The end of the week we went up and stayed with my boys up in Hamburg for Stake Conference, always great. Elder Adams made some killer German pancakes for breakfast as well.

Stake Conference was good, we had a couple seventy there and there is something special about when a man gives his testimony in broken German he learned years ago on his mission. Simple and from the heart.

Elder Winkel

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Barmherzigkeit

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We had an interesting day in the woods this week. Awhile back my companion and I did some doors on a street that we picked out with a member family and we came across a dude and the only way to describe him is a mix of the Underminer from “The Incredibles” and a bit of a spitting image of Radagast the Brown from “The Hobbit”.

And the man can’t hear/understand our German to save a life… But awhile back we gave him a Book of Mormon and told him to call us if he needed help picking up wood from the forest and such. So this week he randomly called us and needed our help. So we met over by his place and his “hardcore German old man” friend pulls up on a scooter and a random Russian guy pops out of nowhere and they all pile into his “Home Alone” van and we followed them 30 minutes deep into the woods. Well here comes the joke, a couple Germans, a couple Americans, and a Russian all go into the woods, how long does it take them with all their strong accents to agree on how to stack the wood in the trailer?

Well longer than it should have.

The two Germans started to really go at it, and we and the Russian guy had a nice laugh about it. And in the end we gave our info to the Russian dude and he said he’d be happy to meet with us.

Read a bit about Mormon this week – the man was observed as being “quick to observe”. I thought about what that meant to me, for me it is being “quick to observe the prompting of the spirit”. And that is not easy. This week we were about done with finding and parked the car and were about to go in and make some phone calls, when we felt like we should go walk around the last 15 minutes. In 15 minutes we saw only 1 person and gave out 1 Book of Mormon. How interesting how the spirit works, blessings will always follow.

Elder Winkel

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GC

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It wasn’t too busy of a week, but it was nice to finish off with General Conference. On Friday we had an exchange and I went with our German Elder Behrndt where we did some finding. We were able to give out a Book of Mormon to some atheist dude. The next day we drove up to Hamburg and exchanged back, and watched General Conference in the Stake Center. Afterwards we got some subway and spent the night with my beloved zone leaders Elder Adams and Bailey. And then Sunday morning we watched the priesthood session and then two hours later watched the Saturday afternoon session and then two hours later watched the Sunday morning Session. We ended up then spending another night with the zone leaders and today we took our P-day in Hamburg. Elder Anderson had a member that he baptized come visit us so we met him and went to the harbor in Hamburg, took the ferry and saw some cool stuff.

Conference was great! Always great to hear from the prophets and apostles. I love the central message of the gospel and how simple it is. All of our questions can be answered through the spirit and the Holy Ghost who is our teacher. It must not be over complicated. As you can imagine I thoroughly enjoyed President Utchdorf’s talk. The Germans didn’t really hear it, I guess the translators got thrown off or something, but for us watching it in English it was pretty gut.

Elder Winkel

  • GC
  • Elder Adams found a lost sheep

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