Monday, August 18, 2014

Email - August 18, 2014

 This week was straight up rockin. Like if you could take the looks of Heidelberg, and turn that into a week, that was this week.  You guys, this week was solid. And we got to see a lot of the fruits of it at the end of the week as well. Yesterday in church we had 10 investigators at sacrament meeting! 10! We were seriously blown away! Especially considering that we were one of only three areas in the whole zone who had any investigators at church! It has been such a solid week.

 We had Jason Kuechler with us all week again, and he went home Sunday morning, and it´s so weird to have it just back to Elder Henderson and me. We have only had like 5 days together, just us two. We´ve always either been on splits, or had Jason always with us! But it was great. We had a lot of awesome experiences with Jason, (and not so awesome, which he loved) and he is so excited for missionary work. He is actually texting me right now about how our last lesson went that we taught an hour ago! He wants to help out any way he can, and wants to come back out with us for another 2 weeks after he gets back from youth conference in Austria! If his mom lets him go again, we´ll gladly take him. :)

 On Saturday we had 9 appointments, and it was insane. We had to pull up Elder Jensen (the beatboxer) from Karlsruhe so that we had four missionaries in total and could split so that we could schaff them all! Elder Jensen was with us the day before as well, when we had our Spanish finding day! I sadly wasn´t there for the whole thing, because I was teaching an investigator, Jerry, at a member´s home, but I joined in later! For the first little while, the companionships split up and all went with Spanish speaking members to visit less actives, inactives, potential investigators, and former investigators. Through that, we found 3 new investigators and an inactive family to work with, and the sisters found 2 new investigators! After that was a street display, where we had to signs up saying ¨Habla Espanol? Nosotros tambien!¨ and another sign that said ¨Donde hay fe, hay amor. Donde hay amor, hay paz. Donde hay paz está Dios y donde está Dios no falta nada.¨ Don´t think I did all of that! That was a recently returned missionary from Spain! But it was great. All in all, a big success. There´s a lot we could have done better to make it run more smoothly, but we´re planning on making this a monthly activity for the Spanish branch, so we´ve got time to practice!

 The Spanish craze kinda led me astray the other day though. Jason and I were coming home from an appointment, and we drove by a corn maze that said ¨Spanish Night! 20:00-02:00¨ and we thought, sick! Awesome place to find Spanish speakers. So we got out at the next stop and walked back, but absolutely no one was there, and it was 8 o´clock. But we thought we heard voices through the maze, so we started to walked through it! But we found no one, and eventually just got lost in the maze, so we cheated and walked through the corn until we found the road again and walked home. Haha, darn. We were sure there were people to be found there, maybe next time!

 There were so many highlights to this week, but because of time, I´ll just pick one. We´re teaching a young single adult named Kristine. She always had a belief in God, and then a few years ago she decided she needed to find out which ¨God¨ she should be believing in. Through some amazing experiences, she came to know that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are who she is looking for in her life. And since then, she has been on an extensive search to find them and where they are, and through her friends who are here in this ward, we have met her and started teaching her. She´s who we met with today, not too long ago. After our last lesson, we gave her 2 Nephi 29 to read. And she did. And she showed up today really impressed with it. So impressed, that we spent the whole lesson time just talking about what she read. She loves it. And today, she was telling us how a verse of scripture in there couldn´t have been written by Joseph Smith, because that problem didn´t apply back then. Only today, in the "last days" that it was talking about. And as she said that, the spirit was so strong, and all of us felt it, and you could see it physically affect her when she realized she had just given testimony and the spirit had borne record of it. It took her aback, and then she said "so that´s what a testimony feels like…" and now she´s realized something different here. Something "in our eyes" that makes her feel like she can achieve her dreams and become better. She loves it, and is so excited to keep meeting in the future. She told us today that her search in this church needs to become more extensive and deeper, like Enos, so that she can feel that testimony experience again. It was such an amazing feeling to have an investigator bearing testimony to ME for once. The work is real. Don´t underestimate the power of your testimony.

 Well, I´ve gotta run, but I hope that you all have a great great great week! It´s starting to get colder over here, but the work is just getting hotter and hotter. Keep doing what you all do, and I can´t wait to hear about it next week!  You all are wonderful, and let that light shine that´s in your eyes! I always thought that was the cheesiest thing in the world, but so many investigators tell me it´s a real thing, so it must be! I love you all, and can´t wait to hear from you soon!

 Alles Liebe,

 - Elder McGinn

 P.S. there was a hands-up, stands-up competition this past week at FHE, and I'm still the king. So don´t feel bad for all those times you all lost. :)

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