Week of August 15 from Prenzlau

Halli hallo once again dear friends and family!

Still alive and kicken in P-town Deutschland, had quite a week this week, not sure how i´d describe it, but naja it was definitely a rewarding one... in the end anyway.

So basically our week went a little something like this, Monday... EVERY appointment fell out, Tuesday EVERY appointment fell out, we did have Zone Conference though (surprised that didnt fall out) Wednesday EVERY appointment fell out, Thursday FIRST APPOINTMENT we ate lunch with a the parents of the branch president in Templin, way cool, the father is not a member, so that´s an awesome opportunity at completing a family, but ya, afterwards everything else fell out.:) So basically Friday rolls around and we hadnt taught a single investigator all week! Not the most encouraging situation, because when appointments fall out that means that you basically have to go do another extra hour of "finding time" added on to the hours you already have planned. Sew basically we knocked on doors all week long.:) Friday though, we finally got in with a new investigator, 2 actually, then with 3 saturday, and two more sunday so that saved the week.

Tuesday´s Zone conference was super super cool, lots of little changes in the program. Sister Pimentel also gave an awesome thema based on the story of my ancestor Joseph A. Ott and it was a really cool experience. The big talk though was the taking away of the Ballard system. The ballard system is this, you get one ballard for talking to 10 extra people a day, 10 when your comp talks to ten extra a day, and then the third ballard comes when you make an appointment out. So you have the possibility of getting 21 a week. Ballards are basically how missionaries judge other missionaries and it´s aweful. For example, it was SUPER easy to make out appointments in Kiel, but here, you can talk to EVERYONE you see the ENTIRE day long and not even get into a conversation. So, you have all these missionaries who havent been in rough programs, whispering behind your back "he only gets like 16 ballards a week" and it´s super frustrating. It´s kinda like you're talking with people just to get a time and a place to meet so you can get your ballard instead of because you want find interested people. So anyway, that system got tweeked a bit so it´s a little better, and now i dont have this crushing burden of i have to make out an appointment today or else, haha it´s still there a bit, but hopefully we can focus on finding for the right reasons now. Prenzlau has really changed my whole perspective on numbers, even though to my absolute amazement, and concern, we actually stay above average in most categories.

Anywho, that was good, Saturday we had our mid transfer transfer-call. President said "and in the prenzlau district....(super long pause) no changes!" Haha so it was kinda a little adrenaline rush for nothing.

Our main focus right now is taking new investigators, which we´ve been finding a couple every week, and turning them into progressing investigators. It seems like most everyone who meets with us are just really nice people who love to talk about america, it´s super hard to get them to actually investigate the church though!

Past couple days have been kind of interesting. So basically there´s a political party very active here in our region, call the NPD. The NPD is literally the reformed Nazi party... yes it still exsits. It´s pretty shocking seeing some of their campaign stuff. "no more foreigners!" and all this stuff. One guy we are teaching in a city just north of us is from Chile, and some guys broke into his apartment and wrecked up all his stuff. They just had a big celebration because it´s like the 50 year mark since the Wall went up, and the NPD and Communist parties had these t-shirts and signs and stuff and they said "thank you for the 28 years of protection" with picture of soldiers with guns in front of the Brandenburger gate. Latest poll said that in the city right above us, the NPD have 20% of the votes, pretty crazy. They´re very anti american. I say that because we got thrown in to an interesting situation this last week up there. It was actually with a communist, so it´s different, haha but basically this guy tried to bash it out with us about how vile american was, pretty crazy stuff he was saying. It´s been weird kinda being in the middle of the big political frenzy lately.

Anywho, as said it was a long, hard week. Still dont have any progressing investigators, but we´re looking for them! Got to take a ride in the branch pres´s brand new Audi... WOW. That was a lot of fun. The german cars are something else, that´s for sure. But anyways, Sunday was very uplifting and was a great day leading into p-day today. It will be interesting to see what next week brings!

Have a wonderful week back home... love and miss you all so much!

-Elder Ott

Week of August 8 from Prenzlau

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

Week of August 1 from Prenzlau

Wow... that´s all i can really say after a week like this´n WOW.

So we had a pretty good week this week.:)  Haha, i suppose i´ll set up the background by the one really sad thing that happened this week. So we were way excited to have our baptismal date "back on track" So the Elders met with him while i was gone, and apparently when he asked what he needed to do after he was baptised, they went ahead with teaching about Temples, work for the dead, and the Word of Wisdom. Ya, so his appointment fell out and when we went by he acted like he had never even known us and said he wont be baptised. After we left, he called me and said he was sorry, but we just had way too much deep stuff and he felt way overwhelmed, i tried to explain that we could go slower, i mean we had only met 3 times, but anyways, he´s gone now. That was a sucker punch to the gonads for sure. It was really sad and frustrating for me. I mean, it´s never the missionaries fault when an investigator drops out, but it really just stinks when you arent there for the last appointment.:( But, ya, it was just making us more humble and ready for a week of crazy miracles.:D

So we´ll fast forward to Wednesday. District meeting. So it´s early in the transfer and i wanted to do something to spice up the district, and well, so there´s a non active member here who was given the missionaries 2 nasty dark chocolate bars per week here for a long long time, and well, noone eats them, so basically we have a TON of chocolate and nothing to do with it. Sooo, i decided that as a district we would be building a temple with it.:D I got the dimensions for King Solomon´s temple from the Bible, using one litte square as a cubit, but it ended up being way too big, so we´re just going to build a normal temple.:)  It was a big surprise though, and i had a cloth over it and everything, so we sang "how firm a foundation" and then i unveiled it. The response was hilarious. It was basically exaclty how i imagine it went when the Kirtland Temple was announced. At first there were shouts of joy and excitement, but then came the murmuring "how shall we construct a temple?" "i dont even know how to work with chocolate" "How is it possible" So i put on my best Brigham Young impression and pulled out the old quote "I dont know how, i just know that as we remain diligent in our efforts, a way will be provided" I was going to pull out 1 Nephi 17:50-51 as Nephi built his ship... but we just left it at that. The construction is actually going very well... i´ll have to send pictures.

But yes, then Wednesday we drove down to visit the branch president and his family in Templin, which is unreachable without a car, thus the missionaries had not been there in years. They were so excited to be able to have us there! We grilled, ate, then we gave a spiritual thought from 1 Nephi 17:50-51, replacing the end with "instruct us where to find a family ready for the gospel" then we had them pick out a street to do doors, prayed, and we set off to go get it done. En route, they then called us and said they had just felt like they should call a family they knew and ask if we could come over. Well they accepted, we went over, taught them, they accepted, and want to learn more! We even gave the husband a blessing for the sick! SO SOLID. We are meeting with them again and are so excited. It´s the first member referal in years here! And they were so excited too, i told them we need to come back more often, he said "good, that sounds really good, we have a few more ideas" KA CHING. The members trust us, and the blessings are following. The mother of the branch pres, whose husband is a non-member even invited us over to eat with her, and maybe even teach her husband! It was really really big for the program.

The next day we headed down to Schwedt to do 5 hours of just hard core finding.  En route, one of my favorite dead missionaries, (an old ZL in Kiel) called me, he was back in the mission visiting and wanted to know how i was doing. It was sooo great to hear from him again. He´s one of the hardest workers this mission has ever had, and it really motivated me to keep pushing down in Schwedt. We made out multiple appointments! One of which was with another cool family! So we´ll see if we cant get Schwedt opened up a bit more.

The following day, we didnt have much going until out of nowhere, our SUPER GOLDEN investigator lady, who we made a baptismal date out with a couple months ago, called us and wanted to meet! So we did. She´s soooo golden. She reads the BOM EVERY NIGHT and marks it. And just knows it´s all true. She talked a lot about how much she wants to be baptised. The problem is just she cant get away from her husband, and she is so busy with her nursing school she just cant make time, she said she´s going to work harder though to try and come to church and stuff. We fasted for her, and i really hope she starts picking up. She says her 7 year old daughter still talks about the Restoration film we watched, and how much she loved it! AWHHHH, why are the perfect ones even hard to keep up with!  Cool to be back in contact with her though.

Sunday, well actually Saturday night i found out i would be giving the Sunday School lesson, and i just couldnt figure out what i should teach it on. Well Sunday morning, the answer finally came, and i wrote all the impressions down, and fastened together probably the coolest lesson i´ve ever taught before, it went so good, i really felt so much more like a mouthpiece for the Lord, ah, it´s just the best feeling!  Funny story though... so afterwards turns out my comp forgot his keys which contained the key for the bottom door of the building the church is in... and somehow that door got locked. Branch president wasnt there and no one else had their keys, sooo basically the branch got locked in the building. Haha people started getting pretty mad and stuff, but i just threw on the Legacy film for the kids, made a few calls, and got one of the sons of a member, who is not a member, to grab his mom´s keys and ride his bike down to the church to let us out. Haha catastrophe avoided... kinda fun though.

So later Sunday though, i got a call from the ZL´s in Oldenburg... clear on the other side of the mission. And pretty much the most amazing miracle ever happened. So, a couple months ago, my last comp and i were talking to people on the lake here in P-town. We talked to a really old guy and a young guy sitting together on a bench. The old guy was really grouchy and told us to get lost, so i just focused on the young guy, and then set a card down on the bench for him. Haha, well apparently he was visiting his dad here, and he lives in Oldenburg. The ZL´s there were doing doors, and he let them in. He said he had talked with missionaries before in Prenzlau, and that his dad was closed but that he thought about what we said and took the card home with him. He showed the missionaries the card, and they called the number on it... which was our number. Well, in the first lesson, he was committed to be baptised, and they said he´s just golden. Haha, what are the chances!!??  The smallest, tiniest town in the mission, to the ZL big city on the other side of the mission... really crazy!

Well that was amazing, but what really capped the week off was that we finally met with the refugee home watchman i talked about last week. He is LEGIT. We had an awesome first lesson. He promised to read the BOM and even had me sign it hahaha, that was a new one. But we will be meeting with him regularly now!  And we have his work schedule so we can work in the Heim now around when he´s there to avoid trouble with the other guards. The Lord really does answer prayers!!!

Sooo, all these experience lead me to determine once again that the Church is totally true!  I love Mosiah 4:11. When we really realize our own nothingness and call upon the Lord "daily" and plead with him to bring his work to pass through us despite our weaknesses, he not only can and WILL help... he WANTS to help. There´s very little doubt in my mind that when we are concecrated, humble, and actively seeking to do His will with pure desire, that he will help us!

Have a wonderful week back home everyone! Love and miss you all soooo much!!!

-Elder Ott

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

Week of July 18 from Prenzlau

Well dear family and friends, had another great week in His service this week. I think we ended up teaching more lessons this week than have been taught in this program in a long long time, and there´s a special reason for that i believe... let me explain it to you.

So, it´s no secret that the transportation in this area has been really rough. It´s hard to schedule lots of appointments when you have to bike 45 minutes in between them. I tried to talk with President about getting a car for the area. Eventually he said it would come down to me having to draft up an argument to take the car from another program. I wasn't sure if i wanted to do that because i don't like to think that our program is more "special" or has more needs than another, even though it has nothing to do with that, so ya, i entertained the idea, but wasn't sure whether or not to push it forward. Well this last Monday President called and said he had talked about it with the Assistants and would like to try a car out in Prenzlau for a little bit. haha The only thing was, we would be taking it from our neighboring city Eberswalde. Ya, that was kinda an awkard phone call afterwards haha,
Me- "hey guys, so how ya doin?"
Eberswalde-"good"
Me- "good... sewwwwww, about your car"
Haha not good, it was kinda like, ya drive your car up here for district meeting and then you´ll be taking the train back. So they aren´t way happy, but at the end of the day they have a much bigger city with a great transit system and their program will benefit a lot from them getting outside more. Oh ya, so the main point, WE HAVE A CAR!!! :)  It´s been so great being so mobile! It really has helped a lot. I love the euro roads here with the beautiful trees and the autobahn right there, it´s great. And it´s helped the work a lot. We were able to maintain our finding of new people as well as boost our lessons quite impressively. She´s a little blue Opel Corsa hatchback and she´s beautiful.:) I actually don´t like Opels to be honest, but i can't complain i guess. The church actually could have had a cheaper deal with BMW, but they didn't want the image (which is weird because you can't throw a rock without hitting a Beamer here) nor a bunch of teenagers driving around with BMWs, especially on roads with no speed limits.;) So ya, that was a big highlight of the week.

Overall though it was a more quiet week this week. We stuck around in Prenzlau and Paselwalk, and just taught most of our investigator pool. Sad part was, very very few of our investigators made much progress this week, so sadly it looks like it´s back to a bit more fishing to find the elect. Our baptismal date is having some real problems and has ended contact with us for a reason we don't know, which was really hard to take, but ya, that´s the thing about missionary work. You can keep trying to get better and do your best, but at the end of the day the ball's in the investigator's court. So we are going to really hit up the doors in the surrounding Dorfs.

Next week however is going to be just as crazy as the last week it looks like though. Gotta go up to Neu Brandenburg to do two Baptismal Interviews this week, back down to Eberswalde another day, and then off back up to Neu Brandenburg to be at the baptisms. It´s too bad too, i really was hoping to be in town this Wednesday. We´re having our Pioneer´s day celebration which i got put in charge of planning, and i was really excited for it. We were going to make root beer and johnny cakes and watch Legacy. It was genius because Germans HATE root beer so i was going to get a lot of it... oh well, gotta take one for the team sometimes.;) I hope everything goes okay.

Well transfer calls are this next coming week. This transfer has honestly been one of the longest i feel like, so it will be good to finish it off.  There´s lots of buzz and rumors and stuff, but i think at the end of the day, i´m going to have to end up going 4 here. I was really hoping to get a shot at training my good friend Paco, and it could happen if President wants to move my junior companion after 1 here like he did with my last companion, so ya, we shall see.:)  It´s always refreshing to finish a transfer though.

Well i´m trying to think of what else i could share... we had a pretty funny/scary moment the other day.  So we have been working a LOT at the local refugee camp as of late, and the other day i parked my car in the parking lot out front. I had kinda a uneasy feeling because in Germany you NEVER know where you can and can't park and they give out little parking tickets like candy. My main concern was whether or not the parking area was public or privately owned, but we were only planning on being there an hour and there were no signs at all saying we couldn't park there. Well anywho, we´ve been having lots of troubles with the guards at the camp lately, but there was a new one there who i hadn't met before. Anywho, while we were in our appointment he went out and locked the gate up so we couldn't get out, even though it was still visiting hours, so when i left the building i saw what he had done and was pretty angry/nervous. I went and talked to him, and he said the car was going to be impounded for illegal parking on government property without a park slip, which made me mad because it´s like wide open with parking places and everything, so he said i could either give him 80 euro right there and he´d forget it, or that the car would be impounded. He let me sweat it out for a while and then... he start laughing and said he was just kidding haha. I wanted to punch him, but i had to laugh myself.:) He said he saw me come in and wanted to talk to me, so he locked the car in, we talked for about an hour actually and it was as if we were best friends, it was really weird actually, i´ve never really connected with someone like that. He said he felt as if he had known me for 20 years. Of course i brought the conversation back to the gospel... and after talking about his beliefs for a while, i introduced what the Book of Mormon is and he found it interesting, he then gave me his work schedule and said that we could come back and talk more about it whenever we want. Haha it went from disaster to miracle in literally 1 second.:)

All the experiences you get on a mission, i hope my journal will be sufficient enough to help me remember them all.:) I still have and entry for EVERY day of my mission. But anyways, hope everything goes alright this week, it´s going to be a big one for sure! I hope you all have a wonderful week as well! The Church is true, Jesus is the Christ, and the Work goes forward! Hoorah for Israel!

-Elder Ott

Week of July 11 from Prenzlau

Hey ya´ll back home. Wow did i have a KERAZZY week this week. UNBELIEVABLE. Where to begin hmmmm....

Well Monday was a well deserved, needed, relaxing P-day. Kind of a calm before the storm kinda feeling to it, which it turned out to be. We ended our P-day at 6 as always, went outside and talked to everyone and ended up finally making out our appointment at around 930.

Tuesday we had to roll out of Prenzlau in the car with the senior couple in their car to head down to Berlin for a mission conference with Elder Caussé of the Seventy. It was one of the most revelatory and edifying meetings i have ever been to in my entire life. He pulled the, what i´ve coined, Russel M Nelson technique when he taught, this technique can be broken down into a few basic steps. This is it... 1-You live a completely consecrated life for decades in a row so that your basically best friends with the spirit, 2-You get called as a General Authority, 3- You just show up at meetings with no previously planned topic of discussion and proceed to edify everybody in the room. Haha, he basically said, "i don't know this mission, i don't know your needs, this needs to be a revelatory meeting" and what followed was him teaching us for about 5 straight hours everything we need to know to baptise the entire land of Germany haha. It was really awesome. I really couldn't write anything he said and do it justice, but basically he taught us how to focus on baptise, be successfull missionaries, and to work with members. It was great.  And the cherry on top was that when we got there, MY MTC TEACHER was waiting for us on the front steps to greet us! He´s doing a study abroad and is living in Berlin, soooo cool to see him.... but it gets better later. Anywho, i ended up having to drive home from Berlin because, well, senior missionaries are just that, senior, and Berlin is a crazy place to drive, so we all decided we´d feel a bit better with me at the wheel. So i navigated my way through the heart of Berlin back to Prenzlau, that is a big city though, crazy. It´s like your given a car, and told not to damage it, then thrown into the middle of crazy traffic in the heart of Berlin, and oh by the way... the car is the Lord´s. Crazy.

Wednesday we still held district meeting and then i hopped in the car with my favorite Italian ZL and we went crazy in the city of Neu Brandenburg for a day. I had lots of fun and learned lots there. It was refreshing to be back in a somewhat big city as well, even though Neu Brandenburg is by far the most Ghetto and least desirable ZL city in the mission haha. We saw lots of success though and had a good time together.

Thursday after our train broke down and we got stuck in Paselwalk for a hour and a half, we finally limped into Prenzlau at 1 o´clock. We had an hour until the ZL´s train came so we did some finding all together for a bit and made out some solid new appointments. Then came the best part though. So we had a new lesson with this guy we found when we decided to sacrifice some rest time and go out and talk to people for 20 minutes, and ya, the Spirit was way strong and we taught a good third lesson, and long story short, we have a way awesome new BAPTISMAL DATE for the 13th of August!!! It was way awesome though, he would be a huge asset to the branch here.

Friday we met up with the Eberswalde Elders in Schwedt and had a Döner together and then i headed back to Eberswalde for a day. It was another really good exchange and we saw lots of success. Culminating with a way solid appoinment where i got to extend a baptismal date again, same scenario almost exactly as the day before, and he also accepted! The Elders there both have big struggles with German, so i´m hoping they can pull it through and find a way to communicate, but it was another cool commitment. I believe that´s the 6th baptisimal commitment i´ve extended which has been accepted, so it´s just always a special occasion when that happens.

Saturday we had a big street display in Eberswalde to help boost the program a bit. It was my first street display, and it was met with a luke-warm welcome by the city. I actually think that hardly anybody stopped to look at the table, but our whole district was running around finding people, so we made out lots of appointments for the Elders there. I really hope that it boosts that program a bit more.  Overall though it was a WAY solid week for the district. The ZL´s picked up 2 new baptismal dates as well, so basically we got 4 in the district this week which is unheard of. Way happy and proud of our District!

So, as good as Saturday was, we got home really late and then i talked with our other branch counselor and found out the assignments for this Sunday where either A-gone or B-not given out. Sewww, basically that left me with another 25 minute talk and the hour Sunday school lesson with my companion. So Saturday night was kinda stressful, but if i´ve learned anything here it´s been that i can do hard things. The scripture in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 kept ringing in my ear "when i am weak, then i am strong" And overall, it wasn't my most polished or best talk, but it worked and it turned into a good Sunday. BUTTTTT, that wasn't even close the best part. MY MTC TEACHER TOTALLY TOOK OFF FROM BERLIN AND CAME UP TO PRENZLAU SUNDAY. Basically i got to spend a Sunday doing missionary work with my idol from the MTC.:) I even got to invite him to share his testimony and he was totally there for all of our church meetings. We also did some finding with him and taught a lesson with him. INSANE! I would have never ever ever ever ever thought i would ever be doing missionary work with him here in Germany. INSANE. It was sooo good to see him though. I love my MTC teachers sooooo much! I missed them both, and i still hope Sister C is doing amazing. They influenced my mission more than they could ever know!

Man, well my fingers hurt, that was a lot of stuff haha. It was a crazy week though in the service of the Lord. I learned lots, i grew lots, and i´m better for it! The Work goes forwards, i just hope i can keep up! Have a wonderful week, love you all so much!

-Elder Ott

Week of July 4 from Prenzlau

Halli Hallo!

Well another week come and gone in Prenzlau, lots of blessings, lots of heartbreak, lots of success, lots of mistakes, but naja, what can you do?

Well, trying to think of how i could possible try and catch you all up on another week in the mission field with me always limited time... Not an easy task.

Well first interesting experience would have to be Tuesday. Sewwww, it´s no big secret that our mission bikes BLOW. We are already fixing them at least twice a week and the kids always looking to vandalize them doesnt help much either, but ya, for the most part they´re things that can be fixed. Well tuesday we were in a big hurry to Bahnhof to catch a train, so we were going really fast when all the sudden i heard a big pop behind me. I looked back in time to see my comp lose control of his bike and literally flip over the handbars and slide like 6 feet across the cement on his backpack . EPIC. Haha his chain snapped off as he was pedaling really quick and the sudden lack of tension made him go over the bars. Lame though, we missed our train and needed the bikes for appointments so we had to go back home and fix them. My handlebars and seat had come loose as they do every 3 days anyway, so ya. We went home, grabbed the tools real quick and ran out of the appartment, problem was, we set our keys down and didnt grab them as we ran back out, so basically, my bike was locked up, his was broke, we actually still needed one more thing from the appartment to fix his bike, and ya the spare key i made last transfer and gave to a member was a good 30 minute walk away, haha WUNDERBAR. But it´s little incidents like that that make a day memorable and make a mission, so we couldnt help but smile and laugh and just get walking.;) We went on later that night to teach 3 really cool new guys from Afghanistan who speak Persian. They´re soooooo cool! I´m trying to learn a little persian from them to, it´s way cool. We have a new investigator from Palestein as well who´s way strict Islam, its soooo weird that i havent tought a muslim since Kiel, an eternity ago. Haha i have to knock the dust off my Koran and start to get back into the habit of teaching muslims again. The three Afghanis are all converted Christians though, so that makes that a lot easier.

So i think i wrote maybe last week about how we found this guy by a miracle while he was on his bike... turns out to be our most solid investigator at the moment. We´ve met with him twice this last week, the first meeting was really really really good, the second meeting , which was at his house, was decent as well, it was just hard for the spirit to be there because there was Pornographie EVERYWHERE. Lining the walls, on the table, bleh it was no good.  So ya, cigarettes everywhere and Cafee, we will DEFINITELY be teaching him at the church from now on haha, until he´s baptised and all cleaned up anyways.;)

Yesterday we headed back up to go by on a referal in a town called Paselwalk to go by on a contact recieved from the Neu Brandenburg ZL´s, pretty interesting experience. So pretty much this lady  was the nicest lady ever, the ZL´s talked to her about Charity and apparently she was just eating it all up! Well we got her address and brought her over a BOM. She was soooooo nice and loved us instantly. We klingeld and she said she´d come down to us, and she just couldnt stop grabbing our hands and telling us how we glowed, and it was just incredible. She took the BOM and said, it must be true and was so excited... then... the husband. I HATE SPOUSES GETTING IN THE WAY OF SALVATION!!! He came on the box and said, "you get back up here right now!" She jumped and started pushing us aways saying "god is with you" "leave this place and never come back!" "the people here are evil" "Never forget me!!!" She then stuffed the BOM under her shirt and said she´d read it, and then she retreated back upstairs. Apparently her husband must abuse her or something, long story short, we were just kinda left standing there with that blank "did that really just happen stare" on our faces. It was really heartbreaking and sad, and weird haha, but i hope something maybe comes out of it?

As we came back last night as well, we got a call from our prenzlau missionary mom who has a room renting business here in Prenzlau. She said she had a family from America there who wanted to meet us and to get a tour of the church. The Bahn workers were on strike, so our train was a bit late getting back, but we made it to the church and met up with them. Wow. I miss americans. Haha, it was so weird meeting someone who actually respected and admired you! They were so nice and upbeat and happy!!! They were asking all sorts of questions and the kids as well, it was really one of the coolest things that´s happened to me on my mission. They gave us the good ole "keep on goin Elders, we´re praying for ya!" And i honestly never have felt more rejuvinated in my life. It was so wonderful not to be met with appreciation and love! They were just amazed at how hard the work was here and how we do it. And only one of them could speak German so i think they thought it was really cool to hear us speak it with the member there. Ah, i just realized, i AM a missionary and people DO love the missionaries! Ugh, i cant get over how cool it was! It made me smile the rest of the night.:):):)

Well anyways, it´s just another example of those tender mercies of the Lord he always prepares for us. I dont know if that family will ever know what a boost they were for us, but they definitely blessed our lives by wanting to see us!  Just following those instincst and first thoughts, it just always enables you to be a tool in the hand of the Lord and bless the lives of those around you!  The longer i stay here in Prenzlau, the more i seem to realise though little blessings you get and to be thankful for them! They´re almost always there when we reflect back and look for them, it makes for more gratitude which leads to more satisfaction and happiness with life!

Love you all so much! If you see a missionary this week, tell them you´re proud of them, that your praying for them, and to keep on going! It makes a difference.:) Have a wonderful week!

-Elder Ott