January 31 from Kiel

Liebe Familie und Freunde,

 

   Well i honestly have nothing in mind to write at the moment... i´ll try though i guess? So many things happen out here though and it´s all so complex, it´s just a brain jam in my head.  First off though, haha i have to talk about the food this week. I dont think i´ve ever had to be so creative with food in my life. You see I lost my wallet last week with about 100€ and all my debit cards, haha and Elder B´s money ran out, so we had an interesting week. By friday i was just baking slices of cheese because we were out of meat and bread, and all we had left in the fridge was ketchup and cookie dough. So basically we survived off cheese and cookies this week, oh and jello. Haha we dont know why but we had like TONS of jello packets in the apartment. Jello breakfasts get old REALLY fast though, like two spoonfuls fast haha. It was fun though, luckily we´ve been having lots of eating appointments lately, and the Döner laden right next to the apartment was having a huge 4 year anniversary sale, and we´re already chill with them, so we were getting döner stuff for pocket change haha. Our money gets in on friday, so we have just enough eating appointments and money from our recycling to get us through the week we hope. Threw a day or two of fasting in, and it helps all the more.:) It´s been fun though, i´ll be super happy when we get our MSF money though for sure.

    So it´s a good thing i´ve been gaining a better perspective on things lately, because technically, this Sunday was worst than the last one. We had a few good lessons though that helped dull the pain, but it still hurt. We had 7 commitments for church, 0 showed, and ya J is offended now and wont come to church. He has been begging to talk with bishop because he says he has lots of "problems" he needs to discuss. Twice bishop has promised to meet with in, and twice bishop kinda stood him up. Bishop said he´d call him and set up a time to go over and meet with him, 3 weeks he hasnt called, he also invited him to the Ward Mission Leaders house to a little party, but never talked to him there. And to put the cherry on the cake, the ZL´s went over on miles in the car and we couldnt get out to him this week. So when i called to talk to him to apologize and see how everything was going, and if he´d come to church tomorrow, he was MAD. It was the worst.  We´re really hoping we can smooth it all over with him this week though. Also, one of the other new converts just started meeting with the JW´s, and it´s basically a show down now between the 2 churches for her. It´s not going well. We set the goal for 30 baptisms in the ward this year last week though, even though we got 6 last year, and i am actually 100% behind it, but something´s got to change in the ward for it to happen. Moral of the story... HELP THE MISSIONARIES at home. Believe me people, it might seem weird and awkward to go out with the missionaries, but after 15 minutes you´re used to it and i promise you, you will feel a unique spirit when you help them. Great blessings await those involved in the work.

     Now, i won´t share any more of my frustrations, i´m going to talk about the good now.:)  The B familie didnt come to church, but when we went over last night they apologized profusely and swore on everything they had they´d come next week haha. We´re starting to kinda play the "it´s Elder B´s last Sunday" card with all of our investigators, so that will be good when they come. Also the P familie promised to come next week as well, and we decided if the mother backs out again but the kids who are old enough still want to go, we´re picking them up anyway.  We also have a few other investigators who say they want to be there for Elder B´s last Sunday as well, so hopefully it will all work well. We were talking the other night, and it is so clear that at SOME point we HAVE to break through the ice. We feel that everything´s been working against us and the tables will turn at some point. They HAVE to! It´s Elder B´s last week of his amazing mission, and we just have to see something happen. We are planning on hopefully having 4 people on date for baptism by the end of this week, so hopefully we´ll see it happen. We have faith, we really do.  That´s about it though for our investigators, i cant think of what else to write. Oh we found a new investigator though. She used to be addicted to drugs, and we still think she is, she´s way cool with us though and she thinks she can talk to animals. Which sadly isnt a new concept for me because JZ talks to animals as well. He also believes he can speak with us telopathically and says he has a conversation with us every day... but ya... so goes it here haha. Our new investigator is hard though because the animals have taken over the apartment. She lives with her boyfriend who just sits there and shoots up and watches Phineas and Ferb all day. It´s sad. We are helping here redo her apartment though and turn her life around. We decided we have to teach her in the Church though, the Spirit just cant be in that Wohnung.  

        Anyway, i´ll wrap it up here with a little funny thing. So as it turns out, there´s over 300,000 JW´s here in Germany.(more than us) And it´s seriously like a Jedi v Sith battle, no joke. But ya, so we found out a place where a bunch of them always stand and street displays (it´s actually funny, they stand there holding signs, or they walk around with them because they arent legally allowed to approach people because they arent recognized as a valid church) but ya they are always in this one spot. So long story short, we found our new favorite place to do street contacting.:) We actually have licenses to street contact here, so it´s fun to kind of chase the JW´s off in certain areas. Sometimes they approach us with just little jabbing questions though and it´s so much fun to talk with them! My personal favorite is when they come up to you with their whole "How was Nephi a prophet if he was a murder" Haha, Genesis my friend, Moses killed an Egyptian and literally hid the body in the sand. The whole JW shuffle is always fun, usually fruitless, but always fun.  There little one liner questions are always interesting, it makes ya happy to have a completely true church.

       Well anywho, i hópe you all have had a wonderful week back home, thanks for all the letters and love. Have a great week!

 

Alles Gute,

 

Elder Ott

January 24 from Kiel

Moin to tha moin to ya,

    Hallo all of you, how´s it hanging? Hopefully you are all doing wonderful.:) Well i´m doing wonderful also, but let´s just say i have a lot of mixed emotions about this week.  This was kind of a roller coaster week, lot´s of ups and downs for sure. We taught the most lessons we´ve ever tought though which is good, but it was still like 7 lessons less than we were planning. SOOOOO many stupid fallen out appointments!!! I dont understand!!! We make out an appointment with you for tomorrow, we leave a card with our number and the date and time of the appointment on it, then we show up and your no where to be found! Or you look in the eye hole and see us and then we can hear you walk away from the door! (that happened twice this week)  Bleh! Just tell us you dont have any interest! Haha save us a 20 minute bus ride and be straight up with us... okay that was my vent for this week, we wasted a lot of time going to fallen out appointments, it´s INCREDIBLY frustrating. Anyways, but ya, we still taught a lot of people this week, a lot of Iraqies actually, but they just got the book and said they would call us, they didnt want to set up return appointments. We did find a new family though, a single mom and 3 little children, they were really fun and are pretty solid. Overall though i think we only got that mom and one other new investigator this week. 

   Saturday we had to go on splits with the ZL´s because they are having some serious problems with each other.  It was the LONGEST day of my life. I really really hate having to do exchanges when your program is doing really well and you love your comp, it´s the worst. Anyways, i went into the ZL´s program with the Elder who´s been causing the problems i guess... man it was bad. We had a lot of appointments and it was going really well, them a bunch fell out and we had 4 straight hours of street finding time. Now normally, i actually enjoy a bit of street finding time, it´s fun to talk with lots of different people and get in a few cool conversations, but wow, this Elder... WOW. Haha he was like insulting people and stuff haha. It was bad. It was honestly humiliating. He stopped a single mom who was in a hurry with 3 kids, one crying, and tried to talk about eternal families. She of course said she was sorry, but had no time, and then he just said "wow, you dont want an eternal family... you must really love your kids"... wow... i just stood there with my mouth wide open. It was really really sad.  I guess he´s gotten beat up on his mission a few times, i can see how. You´ve really got to have love out here, without charity NOTHING works. Some missionaries i guess just think if people wont listen then they are just close minded and stupid, it´s sad, it makes everything gloomy and sad. Just LOVE PEOPLE. Anyways.. that´s another vent, sorry that´s two already, that was a really bad day, i´m certainly glad to be back with my companion.:)

    So as you might have been able to tell this week was a very long and hard one, lots of cool little miracles, but a lot of hardships as well. That was all leading up to Sunday though, which was supposed to be like the best day EVER! We had planned on having 7 investigators there at church, and J was scheduled to meet with the bishop to get cleared to be re baptised next week. It was supposed to be the BEST. But... ya... the P family cancelled, there goes 5, and the other 2 (who are kind of at a make it or break it point) didnt show, and we are probably going to have to say goodbye to them this week. And on top of it all, bishop forgot about his interview he said he´d do with J and booked some other things. (J´s been waiting for 2 weeks to do this interview) It was very sad. J´s wife is stuck in the Cameroon because they cant prove they´re married and they need bishops help to do it, and on top of it all, we cant find his membership record and so he needs to be rebaptised. He lives a half an hour from the church too, so it´s hard to have contact with him and he was very very sad because he had really been looking forward to meeting with bishop. Ha, it just was not a good day. We had two WAY solid appointments after church too that fell out too, and well, haha i was about in tears by the end of the day. It´s hard sometimes, when you fast and pray and want something so bad, only to see it go up in flames, but what can you do i guess? Just keep on going i suppose. Focusing on trying to be thankful for the good.

     Overall though, i think i´ve said this before, it´s hard to be discouraged when you know you´re doing what your´re supposed to be doing. That doesnt necessarily mean you wont feel frustrated by the language, or sorrow when you have to say goodbye to people, or sad when you see people making wrong decisions, all those emotions are still there, but you dont really have to ever feel discouraged. There´s always another day ahead of you. Now there´s a lesson i´m starting to learn haha.:)

   Well anyways, i hope everything is going well for all of you back home.  I miss and think about you guys a lot. Have a wonderful week and remember, the church is true!

Herzliche Grüße,

Elder Ott

January 17 from Kiel

Hallo lieber familie und freunde,

    Well well well, this week´s email will most definitely be shorter than last weeks, haha, but it was still an amazing week none the less. We also have appointments today... lame kinda... but it´s a good problem to have when you have to have appointments during your p day i suppose.

    The weather here has been like the best EVER this past week, it has been like the perfect temperature, ha like 10 degrees c and it feels like we should be sun bathing, we dont even have to wear coats or anything, it´s been way nice.  The one downside though is that it has been raining a lot, which isnt really too bad because i mean i love the rain, ha but as a missionary it´s a bit of a hassle. The main problem is that i had to find out the hard way my backpack is absolutely 0% water proof haha, i didnt loose too much stuff, but did take a few losses. It´s a good thing i just got some scripture cases though or that could´ve been devastating haha. But i´ve got it rigged up to where it works seemingly good now.  Street contacting is a lot more effective too when you have a big umbrella for the person you´re talking with to stand under. We found a way old huge umbrella in our apartment, an "apartment special" as we call them and it was pretty fun. Elder B kept hitting me with it though when we were walking and right before people were opening doors, so i eventually took it and threw it off a 13 story building.... ya that´s right, i dont mess around haha. I was careful though, i threw it into a fenced off garbage area. Now he has to use the sister's old nasty brown flower umbrella in our apartment haha. He shouldn´t have kept hitting me, i told him i would destroy it. But ya anyways... i still dont feel bad.:)

  So our investigators are all doing well, this next sunday is going to be HUGE. We have i think 7 planning on coming to church, which is like money. Sundays are like gamedays here, you practice and tune up all week for the big dance on sunday. Herr K said he was going to come last week, but pulled a no show. We have to go back over this week and figure out what´s up, but other than that he has been progressing. Ha, he is one of the most perverse men i have ever met though. Last lesson he was asking the most perverse questions and making the nastiest jokes, ha Elder B said that was definitely one of the more intense law of Chastity discussions you can have out here, it´s only fitting that it would have to be that way for my first one. Definitely learned some new German words, ha let´s put it that way. But that aside though, he read and says he is going to take the challenge to find out if these things are true, so he´s making progress. He wants to meet our members and see what they´re like, so we´ll keep working.  The P familie are doing wonderful too. They are all coming to Church this week and we are really excited to see them. Our last visit was really good, and we took them over some cookies and promised them more if they really came to church haha. Chocolated Cookies are of very strong influence here in Germany as Elder B has taught me. We met with most of our other investigators too and had some solid lessons. Right now our main focus is the P Familie though.  We also found another huge family last night and had an awesome lesson. Two solid families in your teaching pool is a very rare but awesome thing here in Germany. This new family is called the B familie. The parents arent married and are Gypsies with 6 children together. At first we just got in the door with the father and he was very open, we set up a return appointment and came back to teach his family, but it was obvious it was going to be hard to teach with the spirit there. He has some tiny kids all over the place with PSPs and GameBoys and the big Screen TV was on, just a lot of distractions. His wife wasnt interested at all either. But as we started talking he opened up and shared some big problems with us, and luckily we had an AMAZING member with us on a joint teach who knew how to handle everything perfectly. He´s been having some legal problems and our member has studied law and offered to clear everything up for free. The wife overheard everything and was astonished at how nice we were and really that just opened the door. The husband cant read a word which is going to make it hard, but we're planning on how we can work with him. They speak okay german, but it is VERY slurred and VERY fast and i dont understand most anything they say, haha so my job is to play with and entertain the children and then bear testimony at the end, which i am more that happy to do.:)  Our joint teach, Bro H, is soooo amazing though, haha and he was like the only one who could understand what they were trying to say. But ya, it´s definitely a project and a half. Got to get them married, legalized, off alcohol, and cigarettes, and a few other things, but they said they are willing to do all those things if we will help them, so here we go.:)  Overall though, even though 78% of our appointments have fallen out the past 2 weeks, we have seen crazy growth.

     J is also doing great. We met with him and set a re baptism date for the 30th and he is way happy and excited to do everything. He was at church again is just solid as a rock. We´ve been building a good relationship and it´s way fun to joke around with him. I said the closing prayer in sacrament meeting and he was BLOWN away, haha he was like "you can speak German!?" "how can you speak good English and German!?" He cant really speak either haha and he says when we combine our two minds we´ll make one German one haha. He´s way cool though, and he invited me over for Fufu whenever i´d like.:)  His biggest worry right now is that his wife is stock in the Cameroon and it really weighs his mind down. Our project now is proving he is married to her and financing her trip here. It will be a long process, but he really loves her and would give anything to be with her again. Anyways, she wants to get baptised too in our church when she gets here, ha and their two kids, so hopefully we can get her here.:) It will be cool if he winds up getting re baptised too, even though we talked with president saturday and apparently according to the new handbook we might just be able to change his records, but ya we will still see.

     Speaking of Pres, we had our zone meeting last saturday up here in Kiel. President interviews us once every 2 transfers at zone meeting. (Zone conference is every other transfer and is 2 zones combined) Haha i think my interview lasted one minute though, but Elder B says that just means he trusts me, so that´s good? It´s too bad, i´d like to know him more, but i mean he´s got like 200 Elders haha so i understand. I think my total time in interviews one my entire mission will be around 10 mins ha. Elder V's was like 20 mins though haha, i know how that is, interviewing him, he sure can talk. It´s good though, he was definitely ministered to.:)

     Well i dont know what else to talk about, not a whole lot of crazy things this week, just another solid week. Elder B and i talked last night though and we really feel like we´re just hovering at around 211 degrees and need just that next 1 to start to boil. Hopefully we can find it this week.

    Have a wonderful week all! The Church is true my friends, i discover that every day out here. Love ya all and have a great week!

Viele Grüße,

Elder Ott

P.S. Paco to Berlin!!? Sickest thing ever! Gotta work my tail off and become a Trainer now.:)

Pictures!

Adam with his Jamaican friend, Luckie.



Adam's companion, Elder B, at an old church.



"I always wanted to live somewhere cold!"

From Kiel January 10

Hallo!

Well.... mensch.... ha i dont even know where to start this week. Ha i really dont. I should get a call home after a week like this.:)  Well anyway, i´ll just cut to the good stuff i guess? Ya, so i was saying how last week we found a place called Mettenhoff where we decided we´d start working more, haha well we officially have "The Mettenhoff Project" up and running.  So anywho, i think we are at round about 250 doors in to it, that´s actually not to much, but man we are seeing success. Haha so anyways, i´m dragging this on, WE HAVE 11 NEW SOLID INVESTIGATORS. Ha 11! it was a weak of miracles for us. We started this week off fasting that we could find people and bam, 11 new investigators. I dont know what other missions are like, but that´s HUGE here. The ZL´s got 5 too which is an amazing week, so anyways, the AP´s were getting all excited and things are looking to be getting really good here really quick. It is truly amazing to me how when we fast and pray in faith, we ALWAYS see little miracles every day.  But anyways, i will go ahead and introduce them for you because they NEED your prayers.

   First comes probably our most exciting bunch, the Famiilie P! Ha man are they cool. We doored into them and their mom said she didnt have too much interest, but that her kids have been thinking a lot about religion lately and are asking questions she has no answer to... $$$... so she invited us over gladly and man this family is the Coolest! They are from Spain, there are 4 kids and then just the mom. I is the oldest, she is 17, and she is honestly looking for the Truth right now.  S is 12, and she is a sweetheart, we also think she has a crush on Elder B,  J is 10 and is way awesome, and R is 9 and is like the coolest 9 year old ever. He translates for us when the girls start talking in Spanish about us and it´s a riot. Theay are a beautiful family, and it is completely obvious how much this Gospel will bless them. They are going to make a change, and they know it. The mom is on board too, so there´s 5. Really really cool.:)

   Next we have Herr K. He is this big old Polish guy who has a penthouse at the very top of one of the Mettenhoff appartments with a sick patio and a way awesome view of the city. He is a big smoker and drink a lot and stuff, but haha he is soooo cool. He was raised Catholic and his whole family are Catholic Priest´s. He ran in to a Catholic priest at a whore house though and well, that was that, he does not approve of the Catholic church at all. But he really finds are story interesting and says he will see if this book is true. It´s funny too, some how we ran into him out and about every day for the next 4 days after teaching him, haha, the last time he saw us in his car and pulled over and said "Mensch, ihr sind immer noch unterwegs!? Habt ihr keine personliche leben!" Haha it was hilarious. "You guys are just always going! Dont you have personal lives!"  He´s way cool. He´s obviously got some problems, but ya, that´s why we´re here.:)

  Then we have K. He´s an arabic guy from Lebanon, he is WAY cool. He has had some HUGE problems lately and said he needs answers and is way glad we called. His German is not very good, but we have a way cool JTE (young single adult auf English?) , haha and he´s from stinking Nazareth! How cool is that! He was born in Nazareth! Anyway, ya so we have a nice Arabic joint teach thing going.:)

  Then we have J and his Saxon friend.  He´s a polish man the sisters gave a BOM too but when they left he kinda fell through the cracks. Haha he is a hoot, he LOVES America and always tries to speak English with us. Haha he calls Elder B Bob and man he´s funny. He said he has read the BOM all through, but we were a bit skeptical, ha but he recited the ENTIRE story to us, like better then i could. His friend is a "Saxon" as he says and has like a 2 foot long Nordic braided beard thing. He loves America too, and is completely fascinated with Indians. Ha and Elder B is one fourth Cherokee, so he´s enthralled with him. He is mostly just intrested in Indian drugs though, him and Jersey think Indians are the smartest people ever. They both are coming to our weekly English class and we´ll be teaching them. They both say they dont need a church, but they are interested. Haha J calls about every day when he´s just plastered drunk and we have the FUNNIEST conversations. Last night he called and said, "ya know Bob, i just have a hard time believing Nephi sailed to amercia" We asked him if he thought God was all powerful and took that whole approach and then Elder B told him he should just ask God himself, to which he said, "you´re a wise man Bob, you are a true Indian, i like you american boys, there´s something special about you, maybe you will convert me" haha it was really cool/funny.

   Then Herr D. Elder B found him on splits with a member, they asked him what his purpose in life was and he hung his head and said that was an answer he´d like to find. We tought him with our Senior missionaries and he related his whole story. His wife of 15 years left him right before the holidays and he said his life has been just a mess. He stopped drinking a few months ago and is trying to do better, but just one blow comes after another. We tought him about Christ and his loving atonement for him, then introduced him to the BOM. It was a special feeling looking in to his eyes and reciting the first vision. He is a pained soul looking for something. He said he´s skeptical about our message, but will pray and look for an answer.

  Finally we have Herr A who we tought last night. Haha man he is cool. He is another Arabic with poor German, but he mixes his poor German with his poor English and we communicate somehow. He straight from Bahgdad Iraq and is way awesome. He has a family of 6 and they are all way cool. He only allows us to talk with him right now, but he his hilarious and way cool. It´s really weir, all the Iraqies here are like the coolest most fun, open people ever. Elder B says it´s like that everywhere here though with them. Anyways, we had to wait for him to finish his evening prayer... awkward... but we had a great conversation about the BOM and our religious views... and Osama Bin Laden... and Sadam Hussein... but come on, he´s from Bahgdad! Anyways, he is way cool and he´s coming to Enlgish now with his kids. He´s not to interested in our church but says he´ll read our book and keep talking with us. Haha he wears like the legit Islam robes and everything, it´s way cool! He was watching soccer with arabic commentators, haha they both had like the checkered head things and everything, it was something else haha. I asked him if he played soccer when he was younger and he said, "no no no, Basketball was always my love, i was a Playmaker! A real Playmaker i tell ya! But my father said Basketball was stupid and he never gave me a chance!" Haha, so instantly we had a lot to talk about. He loved my basketball pictures, he is just awesome.

  Well anyway, there they are, the Lord´s elect. We are so happy to have the chance to help them. But the thing is, that´s not even the coolest thing that happened this week, it get´s better.

  The other day we made out a termin with a black man from Nigeria, ha dodged a few cars and got him.:) Anyways, we made an appointment for Tuesday. Tuesday came and i took a member with me on splits and we hopped on the autobahn and drove about a half an hour Northeast to Eckenförder where he lives. (our area is huge) The drive was gorgeous, the snow is already like all gone, and the countryside is beautiful. And the autobahn is fun.:) Anways.... we got out there and followed the Navi out to the address he gave us. After a few minutes of driving out into the barren woods i was starting to get a little freaked out. It was night time and way dark and creepy... and a full moon... but we came to a old big like mansion house thing. I got out and went up to the door to check the klingel for his name, but i couldnt find a klingel anywhere, i started checking all the doors and could see anything. As i walk back to the car to re check the address two guys came out, one with a lamp, the other with a shovel. They started yelling at us in German and telling us we had better get back in our car and drive away as fast as we could or we´d be in big trouble. Haha my joint teach was 17 and scared out of his mind. Anyways, total gift of tongues moment, i started reasoning with them and explaing we were looking for a Jerry Meyer (Thats what we thought he said his name was) and they said i was lying and that we were out there snooping around last night and they were calling the police. I promised them i wasnt and that they wouldnt see me again and if they did, then they should call the police. Anyways, long story short, it was way cool to speak German in an intense sitution like that. We headed back out and found J´s house outside the woods. We started teaching him a first lesson and he stopped us and said, "you know i´m already baptised in your church" I of course thought to myself "ya right" ha but he pulled out a note from the missionaries who baptised him and everything and it was obivious he was telling the truth! What are the chances!  He said he had just got German citizenship and hasnt been able to find the church out here for 15 years or so, and that "by the power of a perfect God, you found me!" He has and AMMMMAAAZZING story. He was sentenced to death in Nigeria and was on death row for 3 years in prison, where all he did was read the bible and pray. He said God appeared to him in a dream and promised him he would not die, but "live to proclaim My word"  Shortly before his execution a revolt in Nigeria broke out and he was released from his false imprisionment. He sought Asylum here in Germany and found the church in the Asylum house. He was baptised in 1991 but was transferred around so much he lost connection with the church. He came last week and is SO excited and happy to have found "his church" He sings and dances, haha and you should here his prayers! He like yells, it´s awesome! The thing however with him though, is he was baptised under a false name because he was scared to give out his real one, we met with the bishop last week though and he is going to be re baptised, so we´re starting the process with that again. Going through all the lessons and all and hopefully here in a couple weeks we´ll have him ready to be baptised, perfectly, just as he was ment to be. Amazing story. "i was wondering around like a blind man, and YOU found me!" he said. Simply amazing.

  Well anyways, it was a long email this week, but a lot of things happened as you can see haha. I gots to go now, but i hope you all know that God is real and he will bless us when we seek to do his will and follow him in faith. He is always there, waiting for the oppurtunity to bless His children who are ready to be blessed. Love you all, have a great week.

Herzliche Grüße,

Elder Ott

P.S.  Also, new German postage for international mail dropped 1€ at the start of the year!

P.P.S The church is true :)

From Kiel January 3

Hallo!

Hallo again from the promised land of Germany.:)  Have i mentioned yet how much i love it here? I think i´ve neglected that the past few letters, but yes, I LOVE IT HERE.

I think a big reason i´m saying that is because is just read that Elder Hatch will be stopping by Frankfurt it sounds like and i´m sad that he has to land here and then leave, pity, he should just stay.:) That´s way cool though, and i´m excited for him.

So as i´ve probably said in the past couple letters, these last couple weeks have been pretty bad. People have been way busy and we cant seem to meet with anyone. Our progressing investigators also all took big steps back this last week and it´s been frustrating. It´s going to be hard this week, but we are going to have to be really really straight up with them, and i hope we wont have to, but we might even have to kinda say goodbye. We´ve really been praying and searching for the best way to improve our program and the answer was absolutely clear, FIND MORE PEOPLE.  We are doing tons tons tons more doors now too at this dorf of Kiel called Mettenhoff, but we call it the promised land.:) It´s basicalls this little town that consists only of HUGE skyscraper apartments. Some about 20 floors. But we really know something special is there. But anyways, what i´m trying to say is that ya it will be hard having to stop meeting with some of our investigators as regularily, but a lot more hard if we hadn´t of been making appointment after appointment the past three days! Holy Cow! I dont know what happened but on Sunday we were just on fire. Very first contact of the entire day was like way solid. Long story short... we have about 15 new people we´re meeting with this week and it has potential to be filled with miracles, we are extremely excited and humbled. We will be having to do lots of splits as it turns out too, so we are going to hopefully be doubling our output, it´s going to be awesome.  Elder B has some goals he wants to reach before he goes, and i won´t fail him.  So ya, thanks family for all the prayers and fasting, something has been going right the past couple days.:)

So we have a new ´ZL in town now that Elder S got transfered to Hannover. His name is Elder P, haha and he´s the ONE elder in our entire mission that doesnt speak any English, haha like Zero. He is like the most in your face like hard working missionary i´ve ever seen. He did a lot of boxing and street fighting before he came here, so that tells you something right there haha. He like yells his prayers and is just like... i dont know... intense. Haha i was honestly a little scared at first, exchanging with him and all, but he´s a total goofball, and i´m not always the most stern person so we´ve forged quite a relationship.:) We were at an eating appointment haha with a way cool member and as i was just talking with her i felt his sock start stroking my leg, i thought for sure it was Elder B so i punched him under the table when she go up to get something, then suddenly i felt it again and it was obvious it was Elder P, haha so i surprised him and snatched his sock and he started fighting to get free and man, i almost had his sock off! Haha it would have been funny. But ya he´s loved me ever since. The other ZL is kind of "above me" or something so he doesnt talk to me much, so it´s cool to have one who i´m buddies with, even with a little language barrier.:)  It helps my german a lot too, ha even though he doesnt speak the best high german, (the swiss speak swiss german and no one can understand it, it´s really like a whole different language) haha so ya he´s learning high german as well. He speaks great though to be honest. So ya, it´s been fun.

Speaking of Speaking in German, i got up in front of our ward for the first time last sunday. Ha that was an adventure. I was trying to think of what kind of joke or something i could use, ha then i just thought "ya i should probably just try to speak german... that would be funny" haha and it was. Overall it went well though. It´s cool to just open your mouth and find words there. It was a neat experience.

We tought the Signs of the Second Coming in our investigator class, all i can say is i´m almost glad our investigators bailed on us ha. We had it all planned out to be nice and simple, but the second somebody raises there hand it just crashes haha. But ya, not a whole lot of people there, it was still a good class though. One of my favorite MTC quotes though came from Elder Ballard "Complexity is of the Devil."  I was listening to MoTab, because that´s what we listen to here, except when we work out, then it´s a little Sons of Provo, haha anyway i really loved this song called `Simple Gifts`  The last verse said " Tis a gift to be Joyful, Tis a gift to be Free, tis a gift tis a gift tis the simple gift to be, and when you find your soul filled with pure delight, the gift to be simple has led you aright" then the corus "learn true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shan´t be ashamed, and when you find yourself in the place just right, the gift to be simple has led you aright"  I really just loved those lyrics, it really is a gift to be simple. :)  It´s one i hope to improve.:)

Well there´s a lot that happened this week, New Years is like a war here in Germany, there´s no such thing as illegal fireworks haha, EVERYTHING goes! and the fire station is right across from our house so we were up till about 4am. Our neighbors were having a party nextdoor as well that was pretty loud. It´s cool though, like everyone is just out on the streets shooting fireworks, the sky is just constantly lit up. Insane. Anyway, ya lot´s of stuff happened this week, but i cant think of a whole lot else. We set up an appointment with a Frau Akon this week and i was way excited.  AKON! We takin over. But it turned out to be a Turkish family, the klingel was just wrong, but ya oh well.:)  Hope you all have a great week! The church is true! Share it!

Herzliche Grüße,

Elder Ott

From Kiel December 27

Frohe Weinachten!

     Sooooooo, i´ve been here for a transfer now, wow, it´s Elder B's last transfer and i´m already feeling sad. Weird how time flies, i´m going to work my tail of for him before he leaves, we both set that we can baptise before he leaves the field. Well this is weird writing because i just talked with my family two days ago... but ya i will search for something somewhat informative to convey.

   So this weeks number stunk, good thing it´s not really a numbers game out here because we would have lost last week. But we did have a coulple really cool lessons. We tought a man we found over in the more or less ´slums´ the other day. He seemed to be kind of like your typical Muslim Turken which are everywhere over there, aside from his mustasche, which was absolutely spectacular, anyways haha, turns out he lived in turkey and was almost beaten to death after forsaking the Muslim religion, we saw pictures that where in a news artical and it was bad, but anyway since then he has traveled the whole world searching for a religion, India, Napal, Africa, everywhere but just hasnt found what he´s looking for. He says he´s leaned towards Christianity and that´s why we said we had a free book that testifies of him he was interested. Anyway we had a great lesson, and at the end he told us it all makes sense and he felt something special from us, he said he would have the book thoroughly studied in 10 days and then we could come back, haha so we´ll see, very cool though, he speaks like 6 languages and is very intelligent.

  Oh we also FINALLY contacted E, the young polish lady i contacted my very first day here haha, she answered the door right out of the shower which was really weird, so obviously we didnt go in and teach, but we made a solid return appointment and i´m excited, she is really really sweet and hopefully she´ll have the heart one needs to accept our message.

 Oh ya, so Christmas was this last week actually now that i remember, or Weinachts here in Germany. Here in Germany Christmas Eve is the big holiday and then you have 1st Christmas day and 2nd Christmas day, overall it was a very lovely weekend. Our Gemeinde here is was solid and we were taken in every day.  You know you´re in Germany by the way when you´re eating Brautwurst and Potato Salad with cabbage for Christmas dinner haha.  Overall though i´m just really releaved it´s all over now and am ready to get back to a normal missionary life, until new years that is when we´re commanded to be in our apartments and not go outside. I love the members and doing member lessons and everything, but i´m here to teach people and i would rather be out the on the street, so ya, im glad it´s over.:) It was great to talk to the family too and here those familiar voices, that was by far my favorite present this year, i would have traded everything else i got and more for that. Christmas morning was definitely weird though, waking up with just you and your companion to the sound of fog horns from the harbor and the church bells from all the old churches, and those darn seagulls that chill around our house sometimes. Very beautiful, cold day though.:)

Well sorry to be so short this week, my brain is just full of other things right now, and after we´re done here we get to go teach our Buddhist investigator and set up a date to go to meditation with her haha and for her to come to our church and then we get to go contacting again finally! So i´m a bit anxious to get going. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and know that i love you all. Viel Lieb und Grüß von Kiel, und Alles Gute

-Elder Ott