Monday, September 8, 2014

Email - September 8, 2014

Alright, I'm a little upset, and I gotta get it out instead of keeping it bottled up the whole time. I just barely left my backpack on a train, with my wallet, keys, and camera inside. Don't worry, Mom, I can get it back very easily, it's just the inconvenience that annoys me. And what makes it more inconvenient is that I leave Heidelberg....TOMORROW. Yep, I got transferred. We call that getting "ghosted", when you go to an area and spend only one transfer there, and then get transferred again. And normally it would be fine, but I got ghosted out of HEIDELBERG! The prettiest area in the mission. I'm a little upset, and plus me and Elder Henderson got along great. Awesome ward, beautiful area, solid investigators, hard working ward, all around effective missionary work. The funniest part: where am I getting transferred to...? Back to Frankfurt. Haha where I just came from. So that makes it sting a little less, because I absolutely love Frankfurt, and I'm thrilled to go back and have the opportunity to work with Pres. Stoddard. So it's bitter sweet, but this is bye bye Heidelberg. :(

 But at least we got to see the fruits of our labors in these super short six weeks! On Sunday, Charles was baptized, and he'll be confirmed a member of die Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tagen this coming Sunday. The baptism was amazing. It was after Sacrament meeting, which is the last hour here in Germany. We were getting a little stressed out, because the first hour had gone by, and we were halfway through the second by the time Charles showed up, we thought he was gonna sluff it! Ends up he was just coming with like half of his family, and they all had been preparing super delicious food for after the baptism! So it all worked out. But he looked great and felt great. Thanks to you Mom, and your years of lovingly nagging me, I jumped in to play the piano because no one else could. :) As we walked from the chapel to the font, Charles was crying because he was so happy. And after he was baptized, his family was crying because for the longest time, they thought Charles was a lost soul. They saw the bad influence that professional sports had on his lifestyle, and thought that he had forever turned his back on God. But the fact that he came back and was actually baptized and loves the Church makes them all now want to start investigating, because they have no idea how something could have changed Charles' mind and life from the road to fame to the road to faith. They said they'd all be there next week at church, and I hope they are. :)

 We spent a lot of time focusing on Charles this week, and to make a long story short, it all paid off. The rest of the week, we were doing exactly what you think we were! Meetings, lessons, and 5 different moves that we helped out at! By the end of the week, I decided I'm never going to move in my life, because it's a pain in the keester. But we were happy to help out. :) It was a solid last week here in Heidelberg.

 Random Topic: I heard from members in the ward that BYU DEMOLISHED Texas, and that Hill hurdled one of their players into the end zone!! He's gotta be in the Heisman talk now. Okay, sorry, back to my real world.

 This next week is going to be super busy as well. Because Elder Ballard is coming, the usual transfer day has been changed from Thursday, to Friday, when he will be speaking to us. And every single missionary in the mission will be meeting in Frankfurt to hear him speak. That's over 270 missionaries. That's gonna be one HOT chapel. I'm so excited though. And I might even have the opportunity to pick him up from the airport! But anyway, Elder Henderson and I leave for Frankfurt tomorrow night, so that we can be there to pick up the new goldens from the airport on Wednesday morning, and then we have to get things ready and prepared for the missionaries going home on Thursday, and then Elder Ballard is there and transfers happen on Friday, and then who knows about Saturday and Sunday. It's gonna be a super busy week! I'm pumped. And I'm back to having a car...yeah baby!

We gotta run, but it always makes me so happy to hear from you guys and exchange stories and highlights and lowlights from the week! I'm glad that everything is going good, and I'm pretty sure things won't change by next week (at least I hope they don't), but that doesn't give you any excuse not to write! I love you all, and I'll send you pictures next week once I retrieve my backpack.

 Die Kirche ist wahr, sowie das Buch Mormon und die entsprechende Lehre der Kirche. Gebt niemals auf, und bleibt dem Herrn und euren Kentnissen immer treu. Wie Elder Holland mal gesagt hat, wenn ihr schon eine geistige Bestätigung bekommen habt, es gilt noch. Ich habe es gern, euch alle und auch den Herrn als Missionar in Deutschland zu vertreten :)

 Macht's gut, euch! Tschau tschau for now.

 -- Elder McGinn

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