New City, New Companion, Elder Williams from St. George

Mom... Do you  know how many times I have sprained my ankle? You really went to the Emergency room? Is everything going to be ok?

Anyway, I made it here to Freiberg, finally! That train ride took forever, but fortunately I wasn´t alone. Elder Perez was with me for a while and Sister Kooyman, who was in my MTC group, travelled with me. We had a fun train ride, but I´m glad to be here. And it is a beautiful little town. There are mountains here! Well, hills, really, but more than Leer! It´s also in the heart of Erzgeberg, where all of the cool wood stuff comes from, like the smoking men and the Christmas pyramids. We have a really big ward here, and they are so cute. Yesterday we had our fast and testimony meeting, and they put up a little microphone on the stand and all of the primary kids ran up and bore there testimonies. Super cute! We also have, of course, the beautiful temple. Did you  know that when it first opened it was the smallest temple in the World? Then they remodeled it, but it was still the smallest? So now there adding on to the back, and making it bigger. I wish I could go in, but sadly I can´t. Not right now. Hopefully though it´ll be open before I go home and maybe I´ll be able to come back!

Well as well as having the temple here, I also have an awesome companion, Elder Dalton Williams! You should´ve told me you were going to st. George, because he´s from there! We were really good friends in the MTC, and now we have the chance to serve together :) I´ll really miss Elder Timmerman, I learned a lot from him, and he really helped me out a couple times, but this next transfer is going to be great :)

I really don´t know a lot about the Area, I´ve really only seen 2 streets, so could you look up some things to do here? Also things to do in Dresden, because we´re planning to go there for a P-day, it´s only like 30 minutes away or something. Thanks :)

I do know however that miracles happen everywhere. This last week a member was driving us to an appointment about 20 kilometers away, and we got there and the lady wasn´t home. Lame, right? We were a little upset, but the great member rose our spirits when he took us to McDonald's and got us a Big Mac. Did you know I´d never had a big mac before? I  hope the ones in America are better, because it wasn´t very good. But anyway, as he was taking us back, Elder Williams got the Impression that we should go by on an investigator that lives a little out of the way, and is almost never home. Fortunately, he followed the spirit and asked the member to drive us there, which he happily did. We knocked on the door and this woman was home! She let us in, and we taught her about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and invited her to watch General Conference and pray to receive a testimony of living day prophets. Little Experiences like this are what really keeps me going sometimes. When we look for the miracles in our lives, we will find them. 

I love you,

Elder Oliphant

P.S. Tried Spaghetti Eis. Loved it!

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Short but Sweet

Keep the German bible ;) but yea, haha, the batemans mixed up the packages :P Whoops!

Ok anyway, this week we had an exchange with the Elders in Wilhelmshaven, and I had the opportunity to work with Elder Perez here in Leer. That was an amazing exchange. We were going door to door, and a woman answered the one of the doors. I explained that we were sharing the Book of Mormon, and I gave simple testimony of it. She was hesitant at first, but she eventually let us inside! We walked in, and there were five older women sitting around a table all holding there bibles. Elder Perez and I were a little surprised, but we gratefully came in, and started explaining our message. This is when we had a prophecy fulfilled. This prophecy comes from 2 ne 29:6 which states "Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible."

Even though it was a little funny, and Elder Perez and I had a good laugh about it later, I really made me sad. I was sad to see just how stubborn some of these people are. We testified, read, and prayed with these women, and the spirit in that room was one of the strongest spirits I have felt on my mission, but these women rejected it. It also made me think about things that I do, and how I sometimes reject things that can help me. All in all this experience really taught me a lot about humility, and how we need to always keep a humble attitude so the spirit can influence us. 

We also had a district conference in Oldenburg with president Kosak, and he told me that I was going to be transferred in 4 weeks. I´ve loved my time here, And I want to make the most of the rest of my time here. Any suggestions?

I love you,

Elder Oliphant

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

Merry Christmas!

Hallo meine familie! 

Oh it was so good to Skype with you, I loved seeing you! Also I got to see Elder Smith´s family. It was great to see you, but man. His sister is CUTE! ;) Also his family told me they read my blog, and they said i do a great job writing home. Just saying ;) Man, I don´t even know what to write you about, because we just talked yesterday. Well I can tell you about the weihnachts pyramids. Yes they are very, VERY expensive, but they´re cool, and I bought one O_O. But mine is very small, and it was only like 10€. Not too bad. They don´t have a lot of the really big ones here, those (and all the other cool German Traditions) are mostly in the south, near Leipzig and Munich. And I am literally as far away as you can get from there and still be in Germany. Sweet :)

But we still had a ton of fun this Christmas. Our ward is super fun, and. Yea :)

Now I can also tell you about some of our investigators! This last week we found a new investigator named N****. He´s from Syria, and he speaks Arabic and a little English. It´s really hard to teach him, because of a really big language barrier, but it doesn´t matter, because we aren´t the real teachers here. When we teach him it is 100 percent the spirit. He is such a cool guy. We´re actually going to teach him again tomorrow. We also have another investigator named K***** (maybe I´ve told you about her before, I don´t remember) and she´s been an investigator for 3 years. Yea, a LONG time. We had a lesson with her this last week, and it was the first time I actually led a lesson in German. Normally Elder Smith would lead and I would try to get in a word. This lesson however, I was forced to lead, because Elder Smith wasn´t there. We had an exchange that day, and I was teaching with Elder Perez, our district leader. It started off really shaky, but as we got into it the spirit came in and took over, and we taught a really good lesson, and we´re planning to commit her to baptism this coming week! Wish us luck!

This was at the MTC

Plate Lady

Ok, I guess I do have a good amount to write about. There´s so much missionary work going on here. We see miracles every day.

I love you,

Elder Oliphant

P.S. Here on my mission, the first thing I gained is a testimony on the blessings that come from OBEDIENCE

PPS. I need names of your and dads parents, their siblings, and grandparents and their siblings, if possible. We have a "meine familie" packet that we need to fill out, and I need names, birth/ death dates, marriage/divorce dates, pictures and stories for my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. I´d look it up myself on familysearch but we have to do it during our email time, and I´d rather email my parents :) 
Also Elder smith said he has a blog. have you found it?  

 (Editor's note: if you know Elder Smith's Blog address would you please leave it in the comments?  I have looked and looked and cannot find it.  I may or may not have more pictures of Elder Smith to share ; ) )

December 8, 2014

The District

Ohhh mom, you´re KILLING ME! You bought an x box now? :( Man, oh well. It´s ok because I´m here and I love it! This week was so interesting! We took a different approach to our finding. Instead of knocking on doors and asking if we could share a message that will help them, we´ve started asking people if we can serve them. Most of the people we talk to are very proud and are thankful for the offer, but respectfully decline. Even when this happens, it´s still a little success, because now their vision of Mormon missionaries is nice young men who just wanted to help them out, so even if we can´t teach them it gives them a good thought for the next set of missionaries who come around. 

While it´s great when these people say no thanks, it´s awesome when they say yes, and that´s what happened this week! We were on our way to an appointment, and we saw a woman sweeping her driveway. We stopped and asked her if we could help. At first she was all weird about it, and thought we were just trying to get money out of her, but then when she realized we were just trying to help her out she really opened up to us, and she let us come back and help her rake her leaves! We´re also planning to go back this week and clean out her gutters, and then we´re starting an English class for her, because she want´s to learn English! Man, I´m loving these Ammon Experiences :) 

Elder Mitchell finished his mission and went home??? OHHH NO! :( I love elder Mitchell:(( That makes me so sad :( He was on my team in the turkey bowl, and we had so much fun with that. He took the ball, and I just ran in front on him and cleared his way ;) man, I´m gonna miss him

This last week we decided to buy calendars, because.. We needed calendars. We went to the store and I bought a sweet car calendar! Oh it´s so awesome. I´m very happy with it. Elder Smith bought a calendar with... Horses. yea, horses. he´s a pretty interesting guy, but I love him... 

Deutsch ist nicht sehr schwer. Ich bin in Deutschland für nur ein monat gewesen, und ich kann vieles verstehen, und auch vieles sprechen. Ich mag es wann ich ein brief von bishoff bekommen, und es ist auf Deutsch. Ich liebe diese sprache. Ich willte miene zeugnis in kirche geben, aber unser zweig präsident hat mir geblockt... traurig.. aber alles gut! Ich liebe deutschland, und die loite hier. 

Ich bete für euch jeden tag, und ich hoffe das alles gut nach hause.

Tchüss!

Elder Oliphant

P.S. I could totally be an engineer. My favorite pen broke, so I fixed it with a sewing kit. Dad, you were right. Those are handy!

Ok Explanation of pictures.

That is what my hair always looks like after I take my helmet/ hat off. That´s actually not as bad as normal.

That´s the christmas tree our members set up in the church

That´s two bottle of Ibuprofen the Bateman family brought for me back from their trip to America.

Elder Smith pondering in our train. That´s where

 we do most of our serious thinking

My awesomely fixed pen!

My sweet calendar (That´s a Saab!)

His... horses