New Year’s

For New Year’s, we went to a members house and made pizza! That was way fun, then we got dropped off at our apartment at 9 and tried to go to bed…. but fireworks here go ALL night, I can only imagine how it is in the big cities like Berlin! The next morning was rough! We went outside to find nobody anywhere, and just fireworks and alcohol bottles everywhere, EVERYWHERE. So we decided to just pick up trash for a few hours, a lady came up to us and looked really confused “are you just picking up trash?” yeah. Then she asked if we had an extra bag that she could use as she walked home so we gave her one!

We took a bus about an hour out to a town called Lübbecke, at the bus station from Minden we met a guy named K****. He is from a country on the Red Sea. When he was a teenager he got arrested for fighting the government and spent a year in prison, then 3 months in solitary confinement where he was only fed 1 piece of bread a day… he said when you begged for more food they would come in with rifles and shoot at the ceiling. Then a couple years ago (he’s like 28 now) his mom paid to smuggle him out of the country by boat, the boat capsized and most of his friends died. He was then rescued by the Italian navy, and later made his way to Germany. He told us that God has saved his life for a reason. He’s been in Germany for a year now and is saving money for his family so they can come here eventually. He told us all this on the bus ride to Lübbecke where he lives in immigrant housing. We asked him about his living conditions and he said he doesn’t think about it much because complaining about it won’t help the situation. He said we could meet later in 2 weeks, and he loves to meet with people like us because we give him moral support! We taught him about the BofM and he said when we come that we can bring him a copy! He was a way cool guy!

This week we’re going to Hamburg for mission tour! About 1/3 of the mission will be there so that is going to be awesome! And next week is transfer calls so we will see what happens. Elder O’Keefe has been in Minden for 6 months! So…

Congrats to Kevin for getting Engaged! I wish them the best!

Love Elder Winkel