19 months!‏

Everyone in the back row is on a chair except Chase 

Hey y'all!

 Wow, yesterday I celebrated my 19 month mark! I can't believe how fast
the time has flown right by! I love it so much! The transfer also just
ended, and I've already had to say goodbye to elder Bakly. He's
currently on a train headed off to Freiberg, and then back home. And,
the best part is, I'll be staying in Erfurt! Woo hoo! And my new
companion will be Elder Powell. He's pretty young on the mission, but
I've already met him a few times, and I'm really excited to work with
him! 

 This week was pretty good. We've been working with a woman, Petra, who
moved here a few years ago from the Czech Republic, and she is so
excited for the gospel! We taught her this week about the gospel of
Jesus Christ, and when we gave our testimony of His Atonement and
resurrection she started crying. She wants to be baptized next month!
Let's hope all goes well there! 

 We also had a Zone training meeting in Jena, where we talked about the
work, and what we can do to get more baptisms. Elder Weber is getting
transferred, I'll miss that guy. Hopefully we'll have a little more
time together, but we're both just running out of time. It's so crazy
how the time flies by! That's why we use every minute, and don't waste
a single bit of it! 

The church is super true! I love Erfurt, I'm so
glad I'll get to stay for at least 7 more weeks(7 week transfer!)

 Wish me luck!

LG Elder Oliphant

Add caption

Elder Greaves

April Fools!

Hey everybody! 

 We had a really fun time this week, and we learned a ton! First of
all, how was that general conference, huh? I always knew that German
was a special language :) haha! Go President Uchtdorf!!

 But, really, what he said about God being able to take someone in
ruins, that may look completely hopeless and destroyed, and rebuild
him into someone great is so true. The atonement is for everyone! This
talk also had special meaning for me, because I actually had the
opportunity to serve and preach the gospel in Dresden, the city where
the beautiful Frauenkirche is. I'm so grateful to be serving a mission
in this blessed country.

Picture taken by Elder Oliphant

After the bombing during WWII

This week we also went on exchanges, and I got to do one more great
exchange with Elder Weber. Haha, we've been in the same district for
such a long time, that this was our 6th exchange! Mensch, sechs mal!
Das ist doch verrückt, oder? I love Elder Weber, he's a great elder.
On this exchange we went and visited a few of the older sisters in the
ward who are too sick/old to regularly come to church. We wanted to
share a message with one of them about feasting on the words of
Christ, but when we got there the other member that we came with just
started talking and talking, and we didn't get a word in! He talked
for 45 minutes strait! Haha, crazy! I love older people. It was a lot
of fun, and I learned a lot from Elder Weber. 

 One more week of the transfer, it's gonna be good! Love ya!

P.S. My companion and Elder Seegmiller are doing "monkey week" where
they're only eating bananas  

 LG Elder Oliphant

 A carnival!

2 for the price of 1 Frohe Easter everybody and Frühling!!‏

Hey everybody!

 Frohe Ostern! Happy Easter! I hope you all have had a
great Easter celebration, and a good opportunity to think about the
savior, Jesus Christ and his resurrection. I'm so thankful for the
opportunity that I have to be a part of his great work.

 Everything is going well here in Erfurt, we have found a new
investigator, who had to flee his home country in order to protect his
life, and now he has been living in Germany for about a year. He's is
really cool, and is really excited about the gospel! At our last
appointment he had two other friends come over, then his brother, then
another friend! And we were able to have gospel discussions with all
of them!

 Have you all seen the new Easter video? #Hallelujah? Probably, but if
not, Watch it! Followhim.mormon.org it's great! We've had a lot of
success with it, and with talking to people about Easter this week. 

On
Thursday we went on exchange, and we found a family that wants to
learn more about Jesus Christ, so we showed them the video, and they
really liked it! In th video, you can really see the joy that these
people have received in their lives because of the knowledge that
Jesus Christ suffered, died, and rose again all for us. This knowledge
brings joy! I've seen it in my life and in the lives of others! The
gospel works!

 I hope you all had a great Easter!

 LG Elder Oliphant

Hey hey hey!

 Spring is finally here! Woo-hoo!! Say goodbye to the cold German
winter and say hello to sunshine, sweaters, and smiles! As well as
rain, allergies, bugs, and a sunrise that's way earlier than 6:30.
But let's not focus on the negative. 

We also have easter, with easter
care packages (hint hint), general conference, and good
sport/proselyting weather! #HALLELUJAH PRAISE THE LORD. 

 So, if you remember, I said last week that we were expecting miracles,
because this week our zone did a WUNDERWOCHE®️ (miracle week). What is
a WUNDERWOCHE®️ you ask? Well, when a companionship is having a rough
time, and is desperate for miracles, he can do a WUNDERWOCHE®️ where
he and his companion come together and set goals and make plans for
things they want to do in order to show the Lord that they need
miracles.
 Some of the things we did were:
 1. Wake up at 6:00
 2. Five minute showers
 3. Cold showers
 4. Extra 30 minutes of study in the morning 
5. No chocolate (that was hard)
 6. Only spoke German
 7. Only listened to talks or motab 
8. Only took the stairs (which is hard when your investigators live on
the 7th floor)
 9. Kneeled for every prayer we said
 10. Drank green smoothies
 11. Only 30 minutes for dinner. 

 There's probably some more stuff too, but that's all I can remember
right now. Now is course, doing all of this stuff isn't what gave us
miracles, the miracles came because God loves us, he loves his
children, and because we were expecting them. This was a way to excite
us about miracles and to show our urgency and desperation. Desperation
can be a wonderful tool to motivate us for the work, and I even though
a lot of the things we did were hard, I learned a lot about myself and
I was very happy! 
 I love you all, I love the Lord, and I love His work! I hope you all
have a great week in preparation for easter!
 LG Elder Oliphant

Don't go hiking in dress pants!

Elder Greaves

Hey!

 Another week come and gone, and it was a good one. We got a referral
in a city called Eisenach. I've been there before, and for those of
you who remember its where the Wartburg is, the castle we visited a
few months ago where Martin Luther translated the new testament. We
visited this man and he was really nice. We went on a walk through the
city, he told us all about the history of the city, showed us some
cool sites, like the Bachhaus, the house where Johann Sebastian Bach
was born, and we taught him the restoration. 

It was a great time, but
for part of our walk we walked up a few "mountains" (small Hills,
actually ) and I totally ripped my pants! Right in the middle of a
lesson! Oh it was so embarrassing! And we couldn't go home and change
because Eisenach is an hour away from Erfurt, and we had other
appointments there, so we hurried and finished our appointment and ran
to the store to buy new pants. Haha, that was fun. You'd think I'd
have learned my lesson after that, right? Don't go hiking in dress
pants! 

But then, at zone training meeting this week we had a focus on
desperation and consecration, and Elder Weber and Greaves wanted to
show us how becoming a consecrated missionary is like climbing a
mountain. So, in order to get the point across we all went and climbed
up a mountain in Jena (once again, just a small Hill, really. There
aren't any real mountains here). I wasn't super excited about that,
but this time my pants stayed together! Success!

 We also found four new investigators this week! The guy in Eisenach, a
super cool African, we started teaching the step daughter of a member
here, and at another lesson with Ella, her husband decided to accept
our invitation to meet with us as well, and we're having him too!
There are so many miracles happening right now, and we're expecting
even more! I'll tell you all about why we're expecting miracles next
week, but until then,
Tschüß!

 LG Elder Oliphant

 The zone on the "mountain"

30 Year old canned bread

Change is Here!

Hey hey hey!

 Well, the winds of change have come and gone, and Elder Griffin left
with it :( I miss him a lot, he was a great companion. But, with him
leaving comes a new companion, and adventure! I'm now serving with
Elder Bakley. He's from Montana, he loves the Bible is a huge zelda
fan, and is going home in 5 weeks... He's super old on the mission, so
we're going to get work done! 

 We spent most of the week trying to get Elder Bakley acquainted with
the area, members, investigators, etc(which is really really hard
because it's a huge area) but we did a pretty good job I think.

 The best part of the week was definitely Sunday. So a few weeks ago
Elder Griffin and I were going by on a few less active members here in
Erfurt, and we went by on one, and when we went by on one brother, we
found out that he was mentally handicapped, and his family used to be
in the church, but they removed their records. The mother invited us
in, and we stayed teaching them. Everytime we go by we have just the
most spiritual lessons. Yesterday we talked about the first vision,
and it was one of the strongest spiritual experiences of my mission.
This woman used to have a strong testimony of the gospel, but through
time it stopped growing and she lost what she had. But, it's still
there! We just have to help her refind it, and the spirit is helping
us so much! #ChurchIsTrue 

 Other than that not a whole lot happened. But we had fun, and we're
excited for the coming week!

 Love ya! Stay classy! 

 LG Elder Oliphant

Automatic Chocolate Milk mixer

That's a piece of bread

Elder Griffin

New Comp

Change is Coming

Hey everybody!

 So, just like the subject says, we got transfer calls this week. I
will be staying in Erfurt (yay!) but, sadly, my companion Elder
Griffin will be leaving. Tomorrow he'll get on a train and had down to
Zwickau. Honestly its not too bad, he's still going to be in the same
zone, but I'll really miss him. He is a great guy. Haha, at first he
was a little different, and really short, but after our 4 months
together I'm amazed at how big of a heart such a little bit can have.
He's wonderful, wonderful!

 My new companion will be Elder Bakly, and Elder Greaves is still in my district. 

 This week we had a lot of fallen out appointments. Remember the new
Albanian family I told you about that replaced the other one that got
deported? Well, this one is leaving too... So no more Albanians for us
 but, we did find a new investigator!

We were out talking on the
street and we stopped this group of people. They didn't really look
like the type of people to accept the gospel, (you know, dreads, lots
of piercings, tattoos, etc) but we stopped them anyway. At first the
group saw us and kind of laughed and then walked away, but then one of
them stopped and asked us to tell him what we were doing. We quickly
taught about the restoration, and then he told us that the night
before he had prayed, and asked God to help him understand more about
him. We met later in the week, and when we introduced the book of
Mormon he got so excited! He loved it, and he's really excited to
learn more!

The church is true!

Sorry for the speedy letter, don't have a lot of time. 

Have a great week!

 LG Elder Oliphant.

Valentine from Elder Bennett