Monday, June 20, 2011

Week of June 20 from Prenzlau

Hey family, hey friends, how´re ya´ll doin?

Well another week down here in P-town, new comp has come, new leadership role is assumed, and the work goes forward!

Well we´ll start out with the new transfer which started on Tuesday. Sent my last companion on the train way up to Rendsburg, a beautiful city right next to can you guess where? KIEL!!!  But he´s way happy there so i´m happy for him. My new comp just arrived from the southern most part of the mission from the quaint town of Schwarzenberg where he began his mission. He´s a really young missionary, and he still has that golden work hard and have faith mentality, so it´s been a refreshing first week. We´ve seen lots of miracles and are living as consecrated as ever, and we´re comitted to only get better.  Anyway, he comes from Wyoming, and is actually just as old on his mission as i was when i came to Prenzlau, weird. The language has been the biggest barrier so far. We´re trying to speak lots of german together to boost his language skills a bit, and when we get to the point where he understands german, i think we´ll really take off.

The new DL assignment has also been a new thing as well. My evenings basically dont exist anymore because i´m always on the phone. I swear you have to call someone about something every night, and having to put together uplifting district meetings every week takes a bit more study time as well, but it all usually tends to get paid back in blessings i´ve come to find out, and there´s also plenty of other missionaries to rely on to help share the load. We have our once-every-12-week interviews with President this Friday in Neu Brandenburg too, so that will be a nice change of venue. We have a mission tour of a seventy July 5th coming up in Berlin as well.

Well the week this week has really consisted of teaching our investigators, then getting on the bikes, riding out to an obscure dorf, doing doors, making appointments, then biking all the way back out to the dorfs, having all the appointments fall out, then biking back to Prenzlau.  Seriously, SO MUCH BIKING. We made out an appointment with a man in Prenzlau from Mosambuique (shouldnt even try to spell that) and he gave us the name of where he lives and everything. As we ate lunch and looked on the map to see where he lives... we were like, "poop" 18 kilometers away uphill. Got all the way out there and he wasnt even home at the time we said we´d be there. But, for some reason i went to the wrong address first, but saw the same name he gave me on the house, so i rang and it turned out to be his son. After he told me where his father lives, we went and rang him, then came back and the son took the Book of Mormon and the Restoration film and said he´d give it to his dad, so it was a little miracle. Sadly he didnt really wanna meet with us at the moment, but hopefully later on they´ll call. Bottom line though,  Thursday, before it was 1pm, we had biked over 40 kilometers.  I really cant feel my legs. My seat got busted too, and so in an effort to be frugal, i bought the racing seat on sale at Marktkauf. I think it was on sale because the material they used to make it is probably equivilant to the hardness of a space shuttle tile, bleh, but yes my legs grow ever more beautiful. I really dont know what we´re going to do if these people start turning into solid investigators and need multiple visits per week, but we´ll cross that bridge when it comes to that.:)

Gave yet another talk this sunday as well. I talked about putting off the natural man and about how we do that when we truly become humble and submissive. We become more humble and submissive as we A-Strive to see things from an eternal perspective and B-Fill ourselves with charity as we serve others. As we strive to see things from an eternal perspective and acknowledge the reality of what Isaiah taught when he said "my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways, saith the Lord"  We become submissive. We are willing to have things "inflicted upon" us and begin to see the depths of humility and submissivness as we are called to pass through what we see as obstacles in which we may see no purpose. Also, as we strive to develop charity we become more humble, in that the more we learn to think of others, the less we are able to think of ourselves and thus be tempted by pride. Bottom line is, if our spirit doesnt control our body 100%, we wont be able to inherit the Kingdom of God, for "no flesh can inherit the Kingdom of God" Anyway, it seemed to go pretty well and i was able to convey myself in German without much trouble.:)

Overall though, really long and straining week, but that´s how it is every once in a while in missionary work. The blessing are there though, we just have to stay worthy of them and REALIZE THEM! The church is true, i find that out again and again. My testimony grows as i realize that I CAN DO HARD THINGS.:) Have a wonderful week! Love you all so much!

-Elder Ott

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