Over 20 weeks here now... that just hit me the other day as i was sitting in a meeting with the branch president after church on Sunday and saw another District Conference coming up on our agenda... I was totally here for the last District Confrence... haha will it ever end?
Naja, who knows? Another week has come and gone in P-town, we worked hard, struggled mightily, but in the end when you look back you just cant help but see some miracles.:)
First miracle happened on Tuesday, so we had just come back from a few hours of doors and street contacting to have an appointment with a prospective new investigator in Prenzlau. I was really surprised when she answered the door with our card in her hand as she said "i hurried home just to be here when you got here." I was freaking out, like "this doesnt happen, she´s excited to meet with us" haha then she said, "I never ever wanted to meet with you guys, and never will, and i wanted to make sure i gave you this card back, please never come back" Haha... downer. So anyways, we decided to street contact our way down to an old investigator. As we were going over what we wanted to talk about with her, we decided we were not going to offer a baptismal committment this time... we have talked about it so much it´s become more of a plea than an invitation. So we started teaching about how we find peace in a life based on following the word of God, the whole time trying to fight the impression to commit her to baptism, well, finally i gave in and posed an actual firm commitment, and well, she surprised us and accepted! It was pretty cool. I would have never thought i would have seen 4 people accept a baptismal committment in my time here in Prenzlau, but somehow it happened.
The next day we finally met with our new investigator again, the guard from the refugee house. That was kinda a downer as well. He basically said he put my birth date into a his astrology program on his computer at home (he´s big into astrology and horoscopes and all that) and he basically said that it warned him that i have a gift of converting people to my causes, even if they personally dont want to be converted. So basically he said he didnt trust us talking to him about Mormonism any more because he thinks i would somehow "trick convert" him... i can honestly say i have never experienced that before. So ya, basically thus we see how Satan works with people through Heathen belief systems. He says he still loves us though, and will keep reading in the BOM, but that he will never be a Mormon. "Maybe in my next cycle of development after this life" he said... too bad, i dont think he knows how true that statement probably is haha.
After he, for all purposes, dropped us, it was pretty hard. The next day though, we were up in Paselwalk doing a bit of finding, when the oddest thing happened. So basically, i parked the car, got out of the car, and talked to the first lady i saw on the street, and she said "yes, i would love to talk to you, why dont you come up, my house is right across the street" I kinda had to do that really hard blinking thing to make sure i wasnt asleep haha. I´ve had walk-ins before, but never with the absolute very first person i´ve talked to!? Well she´s an older more fragile lady, her house was full of dolls and knitted things, haha but then all of the sudden, i beheld a really tiny heart picture frame with the picture of a man in it. He was about 7 feet tall, his eyes were white, and he was wearing a leather overcoat. It was totally the Undertaker from WWF! Haha, i LOVE the Undertaker. So we had an instant connection. Basically our small talk at the beginning of the lesson consisted of favorite wrestlers and the technique of the Undertaker. Haha, back home my bf Elder Hatch and i would always play wrestling games, and i was always the Undertaker and he was always his brother Kain. Haha, who knew that was maybe preparing me to connect with this little old german lady who loves WWF wrestling haha. That was, honestly said, probably the LAST thing in the world i expected!
Well, the rest of the week was really hard. Lots of haters out here. Hardest part was probably when the cool family we were teaching in Templin dropped us, that really stung a bit. Definitely one of those more downer weeks when nothing seems to be going your way. Hopefully this week is a bit better though. Got ZoCo in Berlin Tuesday, probably an Exchange later in the week. We bought a district sand volleyball last week though, so now we can play sand volleyball on P-days, which stokes me out of my mind, but of course, it´s rainy today. Haha, i dont mind it though because it was scorching a couple days ago and i wanted to die. But ya, should be a hard, but good week.
Certainly remains to me an honor to labor in the Lord´s vineyard this last time. I was studying Jacob 5 the other day in German. It just hits me so hard every time how the Lord says multiple times "what more could i have done for my vineyard" He sends instructions, has capable servants, he even works in the vineyard himself! But still, so many of the trees refuse to be tame and yield fruit. It pains him to the point where he even weeps over his vineyard. That´s a great parable, and insight into the Lord´s view of his work. Make sure to yield good fruit this week ya´ll! Love you all so much, have an awesome week! :)
-Elder Ott
No comments:
Post a Comment