Aufwiedersehen Prenzlau?

PSYCHE!!!!

Hey there ya´ll, had a pretty exciting week this week, culminating with the most anti-climatic transfer call ever haha. But i´ll leave that a cliff hanger right now and write about it later...

So had another week of intense travel this week, but i´ve always said that the best way to enjoy your time in Prenzlau is to be somewhere outside of Prenzlau.:)  The first part of the week went pretty normal up until Wednesday. We had a cooking contest for district meeting which was epic, and the P-town elders (©MC) pulled off a big win with our rockin cinamon rolls. Booyahh! We used our home court advantage and baked them fresh before district meeting.;) Afterwards i hopped into the ZL´s Opel with my favorite ZL and we headed up to Neu Brandenburg for a day, we had TONS of fun together and saw TONS of success, but the main reason we were up there was so i could conduct a couple baptismal interviews. They went really really well, both were well prepared and were baptised yesterday. I promised them i´d come so it was fun to see a couple baptisms. One of them even thanked me during her testimony afterwards for making it such a spiritual experience, so that was a little pat on the back that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.:) Overall though it was a great Tausch and i really enjoyed having a missionary i could talk to about things. (he knows a lot of missionaries i know, and my comp is so young he hardly knows anyone)  So we had a good time together.:)

The next day we took the train back and i walked straight from the train to our car and drove down to Eberswalde to Tausch there. We had a really good day there as well which was topped off by a way cool appointment with a guy where i challenged him to be baptised and he accepted! Haha so i´m 6 for 6 on my commitments to acceptance ratio.:D It was way cool though and the Spirit was strong. It´s hard though because both the Elders down there struggle with the language and this guy speaks a heavy Berlinerish accent that´s hard for them to understand, i just hope the language barrier doesnt prove to be too big. We had a good Tausch (exchange) down there though and saw lots of success.

We then got on a train and headed back from Eberswalde back to the largest city in the Prenzlau area (twice as big as Prenzlau) Schwedt an der Oder where we did our weekly work and got back to Prenzlau later that evening. We´ve been doing a lot of doors lately in towns where the missionaries havent been able to get to without a car and it´s been very refreshing. Havent seen much success yet, but it´s just a thrill to talk to people who havent been approached multiple times by the missionaries who actually give you the light of day to talk to them for at least 5 seconds.:D

Saturday was transfer call morning. We had the ceremonial steak and eggs breakfast, followed by my rendition of "Welcome Welcome Transfercall Morning" (you have to say transfer call morning really fast... then it works) And it began. Haha so unfortunately President started with our Zone though and within 30 seconds of the 22 minute call we heard "and Prenzlau Elders stay the same"  It was way lame!!! I mean, i didnt have my hopes up i would be going, but i like to at least enjoy the anitcipation for a couple minutes!!! Oh well, overall it was way lame, but the branch here was way happier than i thought they would be. A few of the members even called to see if i was going or not, which i´ve never experienced before, so that was a nice morale boost. This means over half my mission now will have been spent in Prezlau... i dont know what to say about that. A few missionaries called to offer their condolences, but overall somehow i wasnt overly sad. We just got back in contact with our baptismal date this week and he was way excited... asking questions on what he needed to do after he was baptised and stuff, so i´m way excited to be able to see his baptism go through here and try and get a couple more going. It´s definitely a very very hard thing to be in the hole of the mission for 4 transfers (a fourth of my time in germany) but i´m not here to see pretty areas or be strengthened and fed by solid wards, i´m here to baptise and invite people to come unto Christ, and where better to do that than in a place with no members right? Overall it will be a good transfer i think, and it will only be 5 weeks long (the mission is trying to merge the Preston England MTC schedule with the Provo one) so there´s a little hope.:)

Sunday was good too, i spoke with a District Presidency member about revelation, and our talks merged together perfectly. I felt really good about that talk though, i learned a TON preparing it and arguably even more when i was giving it from the pulpit. It´s weird how i seem to learn more giving talks as i actually give them, i guess that´s what happens when you have half hour time slots haha. I shed a few tears as well as i talked about how my brother was facing one of the biggest decisions of his life, and how i constantly pray that it will be a revelatory experience for him, and how i would honestly give anything and everything i have right now to be there with him, which makes me tear up as a write this right now... but i really hope he finds the inspiration he seeks and needs. Well anyways, afterwards we ran up to Neu Brandenburg on the Autobahn, quick story about that, so there was a tour bus full of kids (my assumption is it was a trouble youth bus, why is forthcoming) but i was bump drafting off of them to save some gas and i was going to slingshot past them at the next bend (maneuvors i learned from my Uncle Craig while drving to Disneyland once) when all the sudden i saw the curtains part in the back and this guy drop his pants and moon us against the window... it was pretty disturbing. But how many people can say they´ve been mooned on the Autobahn eh? Well, ya, anyways the baptisms were way good and i enjoyed hanging out with one of the ZL´s who´s leaving tomorrow for my dream city Dresden.

But ya, overall it was a good week. The baptism is back on track and i´m excited to finish strong here in Prenzlau.  It´s hard, but possible, and i cant help but think the end has to be in sight.:) Have a wonderful week back home, i miss and love you all.

-Elder Ott