Elder Ryan White's Mission Blog: HOWDY from Germany week of October 13th

HOWDY!!!

Well I finally got to see the last session of General Conference!!! What a great experience to hear the words from the Prophet!! Listening to General Conference on the Mission is so awesome!!!

This Sunday I bore my testimony in Sacrament meeting in German and the members came up super surprised about how well my German was. I also blessed the Sacrament in German. It really helped build my confidence. It's great because now I can sit in church and understand what they are saying, not always everything but I understand most everything and can hold conversations on the street in German and contact on my own!

The only tough part is the Branch here in Offenbach, don't really support the missionaries, I haven't eaten at a single members house since I got here and it is hard to set up appointments with members. We pray for the members that they will soften their hearts and help us out a little more. I have been thinking about how to work with with the members in the Branch and people who are difficult, so today I was praying and asked my Heavenly Father what do I needed to do. Then as I opened up Preach My Gospel, to the page about Christlike attributes and about charity. I realized that I can overcome these struggles through charity and having the pure love of Christ with me! The one thing I have learned on the Mission is the importance of Atonement in my life. Through the Atonement we are healed of our short comings and weakness. Alma 7:11-14 doesn't just say sickness but it talks about afflictions and sickness. I haven't understood before that Heavenly Father can help overcome my weakness and not just sin itself!! What a beautiful Blessing!!!

This week we had splits, (this is where two sets of missionary companions switch companions for 24 hours) and we got to do a golden golden split. ( This mean 2 brand new missionaries got to be companions for the splits. They usually but a new missionary with a seasoned missionary) So me and Elder Arnesen got to go on a split and he has only been out 6 weeks longer than me!! It was so cool though, we taught a lesson and then we were walking down the street and I had an impression to talk to a man. Elder Arnesen and I went up to him, he talked to us in English and he is from Argentina!! He Name was Ricardo and by the end of the conversation we figured out he was a inactive member of the church!! He told us about he active sister, and that he thought our encounter was a sign that he needs to go back to church! It was awesome!!

The work is a little slow right now because our golden investigator is in America on vacation, but it has given us a chance to just talk to everyone, I have gotten kind of lazy on contacting, but now I'm just trying to talk to everyone I see!! It's easy to get down because the sun doesn't come out much anymore and it rains about every other day. But we have to find joy, a lot of times Elder Bulkley and I sing church hymns as we walk down the street. It's funny because People look at us weird, but it really helps make me happy!

Well RL, the man from the park, who we had kind of given up on, we found him randomly!!! We talked with him and by the end realized that the Lord needs us not to give up on him. So the next day we went looking for him to see if he was in the Clinic yet, we found out that he does have a house so we went to the house and rang the buzzer and he said he would come down. Then randomly as we waited a man walked up to us and said he would let us in. We told him we were fine, but he insisted that we go inside, he forced us inside and so we went to RL's Apartment.He let us come in and OH MY GOODNESS, worse place I have every seen in my life, so many bottles of whiskey that he trips trying to get to his bed. Rotten meat everywhere and piles about 4 feet tall of flies and random stuff. We left the apartment realizing the Lord needs us to serve him. So we have a new Project, it is called Project Ü. We received special permission from the Mission President to involve another district in cleaning up the Apartment. We are going to clean his Apartment!! And I'm so excited for him!!

Well all in all things are great a Little sad because our district leader is ending his Mission next week. he is heading back to Switzerland. But everything is great, Offenbach maybe a rough place sometimes but other times it is just amazing full of miracles and People from everywhere. This Gospel is true!! As we bear testimony of Jesus Christ the Lord silences those that would seek to do us harm, because whether you are a missionary or not you are a disciple of Jesus Christ and his Name will Sound in every Nation!! DEUTSCHLAND!!!

Love,

Elder White

Here are pictures from when we went to the temple last week.