So, what a week! we had some crazy stuff happen, and it went by way fast! And it all started with a harmless trip to Dresden. We got permission to go there for P-Day, and we went and did a little shopping! We went to primark (almost my favorite store now) and I got some new ties and a belt. Ties there are 1€ and their pretty good quality. I would´ve gotten some more stuff, like some nice white shirts for 5€ or a new pair of pants, but, like most stores in the world, it´s made for little people.

So, that was a great time and then came back to come do our emails. Well, right as we got to the church we got a call from one of our Zone leaders. He said 

"Hey elders! You wanted to come to Dresden today, right?"

"Yea, we just got back."

"What, you were here? Well come back! You need to stay for the next 3 days!"

 As you can probably assume, we weren´t amused.

This week there was a Leadership Training Meeting in Berlin, and the zone leaders and the district leader in Dresden had to go to it. leaving one lonely Elder without anyone else. So we were in a 3-some for a few days. We ended up going back and forth between Dresden and freiberg quite a few times this last week. 

The Elder we stayed with was Elder Hogan. He´s from Boston. Enough said. 

Wednesday morning we had District meeting, and that´s where Elder Hogan went back with his companion, and then right from there we went on exchanges. Elder Weber came back to Freiberg with me, and we had a great time together. As we were walking around in the City we found a restaraunt called "Das Kartoffelhaus" (The potato house) and, because Elder Weber didn´t get a chance to take me out for my birthday, we had a very nice candle lit dinner together with tap water that´s more expensive than gas, and kartoffel puffer. LECKER! :)

So Thursday was our last time in Dresden this week when we exchanged back. I don´t like going to Dresden that often. We have too much time in trains.

We did however have some great experiences this week. We found two new investigators, and they´re really nice. They´re college roommates, and they were actually street contacted by a member! How cool is that, we have members who walk around and invite people to come to church! They came to church last week, and we talked to them. They´re both students here, and they´re pretty interested. We´re excited for them.

We also have found a great guy from China. We talked to him on the street a few weeks ago, and he´s really interested in learning about God. Our first lesson with him was incredible. We were asking him questions like "What is God? How would you imagine him?" And he already knew everything! It really strengthened my testimony, and showed me that People who are humbly, actively searching for truth will find truth.

We had one more great event this week, a service project for a less active/part member family. They have a lot of land, and they call it a ranch, but, in reality, it´s a little small for that. But, be thankful that we took the time to go visit the Meyers´ right before I left, because we were chopping wood! (The Hubrichs should send you pictures). They also grilled for us and we just had a good time. It was a great opportunity for us to get to know this family better, and to serve them. 

Well, that´s all for this week. I hope you´re week is better. I love you mom!

Roller Coaster!

Hey mom!

So, this week was a roller coaster! That's the best way to describe
it. So, let's break it down.

Monday: Berlin! We had a little bit of time to see part of the city,
and man, it was so cool! There is a ton of history in that city. We
were just in a place called Alexander platz, but in this little area
they have giant malls, PRIMARK, and some other pretty cool stuff. It's
a really pretty city, and I hope I have the opportunity to serve
there.

After our little time in Berlin, we were picked up by the elders that
we were staying the night with. We stayed in a part of Berlin called
Marzahn. Guess who serves there? Elder Glissmeyer!! And then Elder
Winkel also stayed the night with us there. Oh we had a fun night.

Tuesday: Zone conference. What a Great experience. Elder Adler of the
3rd Quorum of the seventy came, and we had a great, very spiritual
time with him. But it wasn't all fun and games. We also had to say
goodbye to president and sister Kosak. It was really sad, I'm not
going to lie. President Kosak has taught me so much in my short time
with him. He has been a great example to me. I will truly miss him.
But really, it's ok. President fingerle is going to be awesome too!

So... The conference was in Berlin. Do you remember what happened the
last time we were in Berlin? Well, this time we decided we were going
to plan better, and we did. We found a train route that would have
gotten us home a little after 9. No problem, right? WRONG! We left the
conference, and walked over to the bus stop, but, of course, the bus
didn't come! So... We ended up walking to the train station (only
about 2 kilometers) and we missed our train. We were a little upset,
but we found another train that left an hour later, so we took that
one to Leipzig, and funny enough, we were on it with the exact same
people as last time. Small world, right? So with this train we would
have just enough time to catch our train to Freiberg, and be home at
10. Still not too bad. Well... Our train to Leipzig was late. So we
missed our train to Freiberg. We thought we were going to have to stay
the night again, but the zone leaders just told us to go home, and we
got there at 11:30. Let's just say I hate Leipzig.

Wednesday morning. Woke up, and it was my birthday! And it was one
I'll remember! I LOVE the package you sent, thank you, it was really
nice :) with the next one you send, can you send me some more inserts
for my shoes? I have destroyed all of the extra ones I brought, and I
haven't really found any good ones here. Thanks 

One of the families in my ward brought us a giant pot of soup, and a
bunch of chocolate, and then one of our Chinese members gave me a set
of really nice chopsticks. We were super tired because of how late we
got back, but it was a good day still.

Wednesday afternoon - Saturday morning. We had no appointments so we
set off and went finding, and man, it was awful! No one would talk to
us. Everyone either said "Nein, danke" or "Keine zeit" (no time). It
was really hard. I didn't understand why no one wanted to talk to us.
And on top of that, the weather all of a sudden decided to be summer
and it was 90 degrees in the shade! With no air conditioning. Not the
best.

Saturday afternoon. We came back to the apartment to take a little
break and rehydrate, and it was hard not to just stay in the apartment
for the rest of the evening, but I knew that there was something that
I needed to learn, and that the lord would send blessing when we just
worked hard. Well, I was right! We went out and after 15 minutes met
"John and Matt" they're two super cool guys from Ghana! We asked them
if they believed in Christ and they got super excited! Then when we
told them about the Book of Mormon, they were even more excited! It
was so cool to meet them, and we're going to keep teaching them! Then,
that night, a man that we met on the street a couple weeks ago called
us and wanted to set up an appointment. We're meeting with him on
Tuesday :)

And finally, SUNDAY. So, in our ward we have a "monat des einladungs"
(month of invitation) where the bishopric printed out a bunch of
really cool invitations and gave them all to members to pass out.
Well, the first week in June was a big success! We had 6 people at
church who were invited by members, 3 of which now want to start
meeting with us! It was so cool to see all that, but that's not all!
Right after church ended two families walked into the church and
wanted to learn more about the temple. What??? We asked them why they
came, and it turns out there's an exchange program for students in
Provo to come to Meissen! Two kids on this exchange told their host
families about the temple, and they wanted to come see it, and learn
more.

Wow... This week was jam packed full of fun. It had its up and downs,
just like life. Yea. Loved it!

Hope you have a great week!



Sent from my iPad

"I Didn't Know You Were Going to be Talking about God"

(Editor's note--I felt bad recently that I was so hard on Chase and told him about it)

Mom... You don´t need to apologize. You are the perfect mom for me. God sent me to be with you and dad, because he knew that no one else in the WORLD would be able to give birth to me, raise me, teach me, feed me, and love me like you did. Mom, you are awesome! I was in an interview with bishop before I left and he told me he didn´t think there were other parents in the ward who cared more for their children than you and dad. That´s not a lie! You are awesome, you´ve always been awesome! All of those rules prepared me to serve a mission here, in one of the most obedient missions in the church! That´s what Elder Kearen told us. Not everyone can serve here in the Berlin Mission! It´s tough! But I love it :) You taught me how to work hard, how to keep the rules, how to cook(and my companions have been very grateful for that) and so many other amazing things. Don´t think you need to ever apologize to me. You prepared me for my calling now. You prepared me to be a servant, and a tool in the hands of the Lord, and I am so thankful!

I love you mom. You´re the best.

So, this week was a lot of fun! We had an exchange, and I got to go work in Meissen for a day, the prettiest city on the Elbe. Seriously though, it it so gorgeous there! They have the oldest castle in Germany there, built around 905, and the Elbe river runs right through the city. I went with Elder Drazin, from Orem, Utah. He´s a fun guy, I really like him. He actually really reminds me of John. He looks very similar, is super athletic, and just a great person. We also found out that you can´t delete the photo booth app on our iPad, so... we had a little too much fun on the trains and in our free time. Haha, yea...

Other than that though, this week was pretty normal. We had a lesson with Y****, he´s doing alright, but he told us that he´s pretty sure there´s no God, and he won´t pray or read to find out. It´s really frustrating sometimes. I have this amazing thing here, that can bless this man´s life so much, and he is actively choosing not to have it. Man, super frustrating, but it helps me to understand more about how heavenly father feels about me when he gives me something that he knows will bless my life, like a commandment, and I go against it. Missions are great learning experiences.

We did, however, have one fun experience. We received a referral from Elders in a different city. They had spoken with a man who lives in Oederan, a little village about 15 minutes from Freiberg. They set up an appointment for us, and told us to go and teach this man. Well, we got to Oederan, and we found the street. Easy enough right? WRONG! There were two streets with the same name. In the same city. So we asked about 23 people where this place was, and eventually we found it. We knocked on the door, and a very nice man invited us in. He introduced us to his son and wife, and then took us downstairs to see his "hobby." Honestly, at this point I was a little worried what his "hobby" might be, but I didn´t feel a warning from the spirit, so we went down to see. This man a giant room filled with model trains! It was really cool! He told us all about how he´d spent the last 40 years or so collecting them, and how he just loved the trains. It was really cool to see. Then we went upstairs and they asked us about our message. As soon as we started talking, the son just went off on us! He was telling us all about how religion is just there to suppress free will and take money, and how there´s no God, because a loving God wouldn´t allow all the bad things in the world to happen. They did not want to here anything that we had to say. Finally I just asked them why they invited the missionaries to come, and the man said "Well, I didn´t know you were going to be talking about God, or religion." We left, and then called the elders who gave us the referral, and asked them what they talked about with him. Of course, they asked him about his relationship with God, and If they could come by another time and talk about Jesus Christ. Yea... Really this experience was pretty funny. I felt Kind of like Alma the Younger, when Korihor is going off on him. 

We also made brownies this week, and they´re delicious,

Love you! 

P.S. German companion is good for my German, but bad because... well... He´s German, jk