Visit to Buchenwald

Hello!

So, I want to apologize in advance for the short letter, but we're a
little short on time today.

We had a really good, and busy week. We had leadership training in
Berlin, and I got to go and take part in that. Lucky me! I really
enjoy big mission meetings like this, but I just wish they didn't take
as much time as they do. We had to stay the night with some other
elders in Magdeburg, and then I drove to Berlin with elder casperson.
We had a really good meeting, then we came back. I like meetings like
this, I just wish they didn't take so much time out of our week. We
lost a day and a half for it. :/ But we wouldn't do it of we didn't
need it.

One of the best parts about being a missionary here in Germany is
being able to experience so much of the German history. This last week
we had the privilege of being able to visit Buchenwald, one of the
concentration camps of world war 2. Words can not describe the
thoughts and emotions that one has when he is there. The camp was
bombed shortly after its liberation, so there isn't much left, but
what is there they've made into a memorial. It is so hard to imagine
that so many thousands and thousands of people were killed there
because of their race or faith. I will never forget that experience,
and I think it's important that everyone understands just how that
feels, so that nothing like that ever happens again.

Just an update on Edwin, his baptism should be this week, but he
didn't come to our appointment this week, or soccer, or church, and we
haven't been able to contact him yet, so... Please pray that
everything will work out!

Well, I hope you have a great week! Love ya!

Elder Soup Cube (Elder Bullion)

Edwin! 

Hey y'all!

 We had a great week! But, every week is a great week on a mission :)
Man, I love this city, and ward, and mission! It's the greatest!

We said goodbye to elder Day this week, as we put him on a train and
sent him off to the temple. Then we got to say hello to Elder Soup
cube! Haha, his name is elder Bullion, like the broth cubes. It's so
funny, everyone here has been making jokes about his name. But, I
think Germans just do that with every name haha, I hear stuff about
Oliphant all the time, and I love it! I love my name! But, we've been
getting to know him and he's really funny. He was also elder Griffin's
MTC companion, so that's fun. 

 We also had an amazing opportunity this week to learn from the leaders
of the church in the missionary department. We had a worldwide
missionary training broadcast where we learned from elder Bednar,
elder Anderson, elder Oaks, and other members of the missionary
department. They gave us a great reminder on repentance, and how we
are called to teach repentance. These leaders didn't tell anything
new. They told us exactly what we've heard multiple times, but the
Spirit was so strong when they spoke, and their words rang into my
heart, and I learned a lot from what they said, but more from what the
spirit told me. I learned way more from the spirit than from what was
said, and that's how it always is. It says in the doctrine and
covenants that there is one teacher, and that's the spirit. He's the
one that will teach us what we need to know, and he is the one that
will also tell these German people that our message is true. And it is
true! The church is true and I love it! 

 We did a lot of work this week with some of our less active members,
and one of them came to church this week! Woohoo! I love working with
less active member, I can just feel so much love for them.

 Everything's also going well with Edwin, he still wants to be baptized
in less than 3 weeks now! Woohoo! The church is so true! I know it, I
live it, I love it! 

 Have a great week! 

 So cold!!! Grateful that we have a car!

LG Elder Oliphant

Another Transfer in the Books

Hey y'all!

So, first of all, sorry about last week, i wrote the email, but my
iPad decided it didn't want we to send it, so... yea. Sorry 🙁🙁

But, its ok, because life moves on! And gets better! We had a good
week, first of all, transfer calls came, and Elder Griffin and I will
be staying together for another 6 weeks! Woo hoo! I'm glad we're
getting more time to get to know each other even better, and to help
these people even more! Love it! And I love him! But, there are some
changes happening to the district. I'm still the district leader, but
we will be losing Elder Day, because he's going over to my old area,
Freiberg!! Haha, ever since we got that call I've just been telling
him all about it, and how wonderful it is to serve in the same city
where the temple is. Ah, Freiberg is the best! He will be replaced by
Elder Bullion (I don't know him) And also, sadly, the zone leaders
will no longer be in my district  They had to close one of the
programs in the neighboring district, so there were only 2 elders and
2 sisters left, and DAS GEHT ÜBERHAUPT NICHT!! So the ZLs are leaving
to add more to their district until they can reopen that program.

So, the work. We were really busy this week with Zone training
meeting, two exchanges, and transfers, but we still got a good amount
of teaching in and we found 3 new investigators! One of them is a
super nice woman who has a son that got baptized a few years ago.
She's been learning about the church for a while now and now she's
ready to start meeting with us. The only problem there is that she
lives forever away!! It takes us 45 minutes to drive out there! On the
autobahn! But its not that big of a problem, and salvation is worth
it!  It also gives Elder Griffin and I some good bonding time.

I also got to go on exchange with Elder Greaves. Haha, he's such a
stud! We had a really great time together, and he helped me out a lot.
He's really good at just going out and talking to everybody, and he
always just knows what to say. We found two of our new friends while
we were together! Im excited to get to work with him even more!

There's also been something wrong with my heel for the past few weeks,
I'm not sure what, but it kind of hurts, so this week I went to the
doctor and got it checked out. It's nothing too serious, it's just
from walking too much(shocker). But I got an x-Ray of my ankle!
Don't worry mom, I'm really ok. It's nothing serious at all, I just
need to eat more bananas and drink more tea. Or at least that's what
the doctor here told me.

Well, thats all for now. Haha, even though I've been writing weekly
emails for almost a year and a half now, I still feel like I don't
know how to write them. Oh well, I'll probably perfect it in a few
months, and then I'll go home! 😬😬😬

Love ya

Elder Oliphant

No Email, Just Pictures

New Year, New Cheer!

Hey y'all! 

Well, I can't believe the year is already come to an end. I can't
still remember back last year when I was still in the small town of
Leer for the new year. That feels like it wasn't that long ago, but at
the same time it feels like a whole other life! Time is strange on the
mission, the days are long, the weeks fly by, and each transfer feels
shorter and shorter. I'm sure these next few months will just fly
right by. 

This week was just a wonderful week of Christmas cheer. We had a white
elephant give exchange at district meeting, but we did it German style
where in order to get a present you have to sing a song, or recite
something. But for us, instead of singing or doing something like
that, we used this opportunity to practice our memorized scriptures ;)
and we all got gifts from "Der Weihnachtsman!" (Santa)
🏻🏻🏻🏻

We also spent a lot of time with the amazing members here, which was
awesome, because the members here have so much love, and they're so
nice to us. Honestly without the members this would've been a sad
Christmas. We got to spend last Sunday with a family, and they fed us,
Wurst, then Monday with a family, and they fed us, more wurst. Then
again on Christmas Eve, with more wurst. Each Wurst was about twice
the size of a Normal American hot dog, and I probably ate over 30 of
them this week... So this week we only bought vegetables to make up
for it, and we're doing a "vegetarian week" to give ourselves a break
from all that meat. 

There was one other moment this week that was just hilarious.
Yesterday Elder Day gave a talk in sacrament meeting about inviting
friends to church activities. It was a really good talk, but he didn't
get to finish it, because right in the middle of it, he fainted! We
all rushed up to the pulpit to make sure he was ok, and then after we
helped him out of the chapel and made sure there was no real problem
we all just busted up laughing. It was so funny! He just locked his
knees, but when the members came to ask what was wrong, elder Day
didn't know to say that in German, so he said it was the spirit!
Hahaha! Oh, such a funny day at church :) but Elder Day is totally
fine now. Some members even took us to the hospital because they
wanted to be sure he was ok, so we went and sat in that awful hospital
waiting room for two hours, just to have the doctor tell us he was
fine and that we should go home... Oh socialism 

Well, that was my week. It was great talking to you on Christmas, I
can't wait for Mother's Day to roll around. And if you have any more
questions, just email them :) and I will answer!

 Love you! 

 LG Elder Oliphant

Christmas Pancakes!