Immer Noch in Leer

District

Hey mom!

Ok, so I am not being transferred. I will be staying in Leer for at least the next 6 weeks.


I have had quite a week here in Leer. To start off, I´d like to tell you a little story that happened this week that really strengthened my testimony of prayer. 

We decided to go to Meppen on Saturday to visit some less active members. It´s a city about 40 minutes away by train, and we brought our bikes with us, and when we got off the train we went to work. We visited the members, and found out that some of them had moved, and others didn´t want to speak with us. We were planning to go visit some other members who live in a town called Haren. There is a train that goes there from Meppen, but we had just missed it, and it didn´t come for another hour. Well, we had our bikes, and Haren is only 19 kilometers away, so we decided to bike there, to save a little time, and to burn our big lunch. We started off, and it was easy. The path was nice and paved, and it was totally gorgeous. Unfortunately, after about 2 kilometers this path turned into a mountain trail, then into really awful pavement, then into mud, and then into sand... This was very hard to bike through, and we were a total mess, but that´s not really important. About 10 kilometers into the rife my pedal started becoming loose. It eventually fell right off of the bike. So we were in the middle of no where, 10 kilometers from meppen and 9 from Haren, and there was no one around us. I was frustrated, and upset, so we got off our bikes, and said a little prayer, asking for God to help us somehow find a way to repair my bike. After we said this prayer, we went off, and I tried to ride a bike with one pedal. That didn´t work, so Elder Timmerman and I grabbed on to a stick, and he started pulling me down the road. That was hard. After about 2 kilometers we saw a house. We went and knocked on the door, and a lady answered the door. We explained the situation, and she led us to a shed in her back yard. It turns out her husband was a mechanic, and he looked at my bike and was able to fix it. What are the odds that the one house we found had probably the only man with the only tools that could fix my bike in miles. That just strengthens my testimony of how the Lord will bless us, and we just need to reach out to him first. We made it to Haren, where we were able to continue our work.

We also had an exchange this week, and I worked here in Leer with Elder Perez. Haha, he´s a funny one. This exchange actually lasted 2 days, instead of one because Elder Timmerman is now coaching a football team in Wilhelmshaven... I will let you know how this goes, as time goes on.

I actually don´t think I´m going to buy a suit yet. Elder Wilde and Elder Perez said I didn´t need to. Also I took out 100€ from my account because we are supposed to have an emergency fund, just incase we need to go to Berlin. I´m not going to spend it unless there's an emergency. There are some crazy things going on in Europe right now. Anything that I need to know? 

ALSO! We found out that Nizar has been moved by the government. They just moved him, and we have no idea where he is :(

I forgot to tell you. Haren is like a crazy catholic town! There´s a really cool giant church in the middle of the town, and there were nuns EVERYWHERE!

Ciao for now ;)

Elder Oliphant

Smoothie accident