2 Weeks for the Price of 1

Here are 2 weekly emails and pictures from Chase.

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Oct 6, 2015

General Conference!

Hey mom!

Well, this week was difficult, but rewarding. I had the opportunity to
go on my first exchange as a district leader with elder Adams, one of
the coolest guys ever! (And his mom follows the blog. Shoutout!) we
got to go up to Meissen, and have a great time together. But, before
this, we were walking through a park an we saw a man slack lining. We
looked at each other and said "hey, let's go try!" We talked to the
man doing it, and asked him if we could give it a try, and he was all
for it! Elder Adams was really good, me, not so much  but it was
still a lot of fun. We were able to have a really good conversation
with the man, and it turned out he was from Australia! He's living in
Hamburg, but he came down to Dresden for a few days. After a while he
asked us why we were here, and it gave us a great opportunity to give
a brief testimony of the restoration. Wonderful! Not only was this a
great way to share the gospel, but now I have taught at least one
person from every continent! Church is true!

On the negative side, I was a little sick, but... Naja. It happens.

Then, the beast of the week was definitely general conference! Man, I
loved it SO MUCH!! It was so amazed to hear from the prophets of
today. I especially loved the testimonies of the new three apostles.
Right after they were done I felt such a strong feeling of love, and a
knowing that these people really are called of God. I am so grateful
for modern day prophets. We invited several different people to come
to the conference, but, sadly, none of them were able to come to the
church to watch it with us. But fortunately, we have the internet now,
so the inspired messages that we've heard are still available to them,
and to us. I would invite everyone to go through and study them again!

Thanks for being so great, I love you so much!

Elder Oliphant ️

October 13, 2015

TAUFE!!!

Hey y'all!


Well, this week was really interesting, and I learned a lot. During
the past week we had to tschüss (say goodbye) to a lot of our teaching
pool. A lot of them just weren't progressing, or there was nothing
more that we could do. It was hard, because we love these people, but
we know that it's what is best for them and for us right now. Because
of this big change we have had a lot of time to go out and find
people! And, we have been working hard, and this week we found no new
investigators. We had a lot of really good conversations, and met a
lot of really cool people, but there was no one who wanted to learn
more. But, like I said we did have a lot of great conversations, and
some funny answers to questions. Here's a list of the top five
questions and answers from our week.

5. Q: What have you heard about the Mormons?
A: Oh I know everything! I watch South Park! (Happened multiple times)
4. Q: What brings you joy in life?
A: My polish dog! (Then went off for 20 minutes about Poland and
ended with "church? Oh no!")
3. Q: What does your family mean to you?
A: a lot
Q: What would it mean to you if you could be with your family for eternity
A: We're actually discussing our divorce right now. Could you
leave? (SO AWKWARD!)
2. Q: What brings you joy in live?
A: To recognize truth (then went off for 20 minutes about how
Joseph smith is a false prophet and how we were servants of the devil)
1. Q: Do you believe in God?
A: There is no one God, but many. Go look up the ancient Egyptian religions.

Sometimes it's hard to go and go and go without any really results,
but whenever we have funny comments like these, we just take a moment
and laugh. I love these people, even though it's hard to work with
them sometimes. We were eating with some members and they told us that
the highest concentration of atheism in the world is here in east
Germany. This does make it a little difficult to find people who
actually want to learn or who are searching, but the trick is to just
love the people more than the statistics, and remember that statistics
don't apply to individuals.

So, the subject of my letter today is taufe (baptism) because Sandra,
the sisters investigator, got baptized! This was the first baptism
that I have seen on my mission, and it was such a wonderful experience
:) the spirit was so strong, and I am so grateful that we had the
opportunity to take part in the her coming unto Christ :)

I love every day of my mission, and I'm so glad for the opportunity I
have to serve! I have 11 months left, and I plan to make the most of
them!

Have a great week!

Elder Oliphant ️