Augusburg, Germany, Week 2, PDay - 9/16/2013

I believe Elder Martinez is in the train station.

I wonder if he bought a pair of lederhosen. Maybe the dresses for his sisters?

Here is the same sight at night



This may be a tower that catches Elder Martinez' eyes as he looks out his window.

Apartment living as an Elder

Atleast he has a matching livingroom set.



I can honestly say that the weeks go by even faster in the field then they did in the MTC. It seems like just barley yesterday that I was here in this same internet Cafe and was writing about what was going on my first week in the field. Honestly the days just kind of seem to all roll together in one big jumble. So, I need to look at my daily planner and remember what I did this past week.

let’s see,  Monday, after I got done writing my emails to everybody about my week, we got a call from a member that is originally from China and has lived in Augsburg for a long time now. She called us and said that she had a friend that really wanted a lesson and to know more about the gospel. So we had to cut our P-day short and go talk to this man. We met at our great new church, and we met with this man. This man was also from China and his Name was Ding. He spoke absolutely no German only Chinese. So the Sister that gave the referral had to translate all that we told her in German into Chinese. Let’s just say that it did take us a little while to get all of our points and message across. But I did witness my first golden investigator. We taught him the first three lessons and he has already committed to be baptized. The sisters in our area are also meeting with him and teaching him as well. He could very well be my first baptism. He gets interviewed for baptism next week. I will let you know when his date for baptism is. All this is happening so fast that it really does not seem real. The only problem with all of this is that he lives in a different area not in the Augsburg area where we postulate and teach. So we cannot teach him as an investigator for our area. It kind of sucks that way, but none the less he travels three hours twice a week to meet with us and talk with us because the only person that can speak Chinese in our hole zone is the sister that referred him. I know blessings will come for his sacrifice for coming and learning more about the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh and I also gave away my first Chinese book of Mormon as well that day. Who would have thought I would have given a Chinese B.O.M in Germany? Not me that’s for sure.

Tuesday was my first district meeting and there we as a district just discussed things that are going on in our district this coming week. Mostly we get together and talk about stories and about other things. After that we spent the rest of the day finding and teaching people.

Wednesday, more of that finding and teaching people if we can.

Thursday, we spent most of the morning doing my visa requirements for Germany, really it was sitting in an office and giving them papers. Not that exciting but after we finished that we took our weekly ride out to Dillingen to teach John, Moses, and Godwin. We call them the brothers simply because they are always together. They are recent members and we are simply going over all the lessons again also teaching him lesson five.

Friday, we had our weekly fireside where we tell ward members to come to the church for a fireside and they are encouraged to bring their friends. It is a good time to talk to the members and to also get referrals for potential investigators. It’s a good time.

Saturday, was good day. We did a day long finding day in Ingolstadt, and there we did that for the elders in that area. All the district comes together to try and find potential investigators for the elders in that area. It was a good day and we talked to a lot of people. We did both dooring and street contacting, we were not able to find any solid investigators or get any contact information but we did have several good conversations. Most of them were with Roman Catholics and they simply just wanted to know what we believed. Not really investigators. Most people here are born catholic and will try to stay catholic.

Sundays are always one of our busiest days. A lot of talking to members, setting up dinner appointments for that week and also try to set up joint teachings for the week as well. Never before has a Sunday gone by as fast as this one has this week.

So that’s a quick rundown of the week that I have had and some of the things that I was able to do and the people I was able to teach. We are working with alot of potential investigators and hopefully, with all the lessons we have set up, they can become investigators and eventually become progressing. The only hard thing is that sometimes you work hard to talk to everybody and yet when you look at the numbers for that day alot of the times its zero all the way down, maybe you get one or two people that are interested but most of the time they aren’t. So the numbers don’t represent the work very well. But you just keep moving forward and eventually you will find that one person that needs the gospel.

Another thing that I learned this week is that the mission office does not send my mail to me from the mission office. It stays there until the next zone or training meeting, For us that is in about two more weeks. So more than likely, yes I have received your letters, but I do not have them. For that purpose here is my address of my apartment so the mail will come straight to me.

Kirche Jesu Christi HLT

Elder Martinez

Schwibbogenplatz 2F

D-86153 Augsburg

Germany

That is the address of my apartment; the mail will come to my mailbox. Well it’s another email session said and done, and until the next time, Elder Martinez.

P.S. Remember that you always walk with me, and you always will.