Week of May 2 from Prenzlau

Hello Family and Friends,

Well Transfer Number 4 comes to a close and a new one begins. This last week went like most other ones in Prenzlau, only a bit more on the drastic side. Normally the week starts out solid and progressivley gets more and more hard and time consuming.  This week, the week started out absolutely AMAZING and ended up absolutely devastating. Ha, i really wish i could have written this email on like Wednesday, because i was stoked out of my mind, but oh well, it´s a rollercoaster sometimes.

So it all happened Sunday night last week. We had just had a couple really rough weeks and were feeling kinda discouraged, and i was really really frustrated. So we decided to have a super week this week. Tons of work, and only German 24/7.  Well, Tuesday rolled around and we had just the most amazing experiences ever.  We got a message from this one lady who lives a little ways away in a small dorf, she met with the missionaries once before and is way way way cool! The appointment was WAY spiritual and the spirit was  way strong. I felt really strongly to commit her to baptism, so i did it, and she totally accepted. Her baptism date is the 14 of June, and she was way excited.

Then we hopped up on a train to Neu Brandenburg because one of the ZL´s wanted to tausch with me, he´s a way cool Elder from Sardinia. He´s way tiny, but was a World Master Kung Fu artist. Haha, it was crazy the next morning when we were working out he showed me his pushup routine... INSANE. Pushups on fists, pushups on wrists with the back of your hand on the ground (I mildly injured myself in that attempt) then pushups while doing a handstand (didnt even try) then pushups, starting with five fingertips, the after 5 he lifts a finger up, until he is eventually doing it with just his thumb, haha and then he does the same thing on one hand. 5 Pushups on ONE THUMB... ridiculous. But ya, learned some crazy cool stuff from him, and we worked our tails off that day. We were a bit late coming back to prenzlau because someone committed suicide on the train tracks and the train in front of us ran over him, it took 45 minutes to get back going again, (actually happens more than you´d think here) but ya, and then we had another appointment with a fairly new investigator.  We taught a 2nd lesson, POS, and when we were talking about the spirit world he asked the money question... "where am i going"  We explained that it depends on what we do here, and that same familiar prompting i felt ealier that day came back, and he was committed to be baptized on the 11th of June. So ya, pretty much one of the most blessed days of my mission, President couldn´t believe it when i had to call him a second time to report a baptisimal date, it was amazing.

We continued through the week working hard and speaking German, we made out some way good appointments and ended up with 4 new investigators, which is mind boggling for Prenzlau, i really dont think that´s ever happened here before, or in a long time at least, and it was just way awesome.  Then Friday, things kinda fizzled out again and we were left with nothing to do and no one to meet with, i HATE that feeling of looking at your planner and just seeing a blank white sheet of paper... worst feeling EVER.  But ya, Saturday morning we had transfer conference call, and well, my companion is leaving amazingly. He stayed a really short time here in Prenzlau. Anyways, i will be getting a new Senior companion, and for the 3rd time in a row, it is his first time ever being a Senior companion. He´s been out on his mission about 1 year and a couple months, and will be coming up here from a littler program in Berlin.  I was kinda shocked because i had heard a lot of hype about things getting shaken up a lot, but i cant allow myself to be to surprised i guess. I´ve heard a lot of interesting things about my new companion though, and lets just say, i´m anxious to see what he´s like.

Well now for the fireball that came at the end of the week. Both of our investigators who were so excited to be baptized, pulled a no-show at church... it´s not tooo bad i suppose, i mean we met with both of them multiple times and they know they have to come to church to be baptized, and they both wanna be baptized, so hopefully we´ll find a way to get them there, but i was just really really devastated not to see them at church. We´ll keep meeting with them however, and hopefully we´ll get them there. There was however, like a record number of people at church, (since i´ve been here anyway) and it was only fitting, because i had to conduct a sacrament meeting, and naturally there should be as many people as possible there so that i can more effectively embarrass myself. Oh and also it´s only fitting i should have to make a bunch of announcments and read two letters from the Area Presidency and District Presidency... oh how fun it is to be humbled. Ha, no, it actually wasnt too bad, a little different, but it wasnt too big of a deal at all. 

Well anyways that´s kinda it for now with me, I really hope we can get these people back on track here, and i´m still trying not to lose my sanity here, next week will be a big one for sure. I hope everyone has a wonderful week back home! Thanks for everything!

Herzliche Grüße,

Elder Ott