Very Little Information but A LOT of Pictures!

September 3, 2016

Hello!!

Just a quick update this week, everything's good, I'm good, my leg is
getting better, I still haven't started physical therapy though, the
insurance made out an appointment for me, but the appointment was in
Hamburg! Haha, and I can't travel 250+ kilometers two to three times a
week just for that, so I have to wait a little longer until I can get
an appointment in Berlin. It's a little annoying, but I can wait a
little longer.

In bigger, better news, the Freiberg Temple is going to be
re-dedicated tomorrow! Woohoo!! We're all SOOO EXCITED!! The
dedication will be broadcast to all of the chapels in Germany, so
we'll all get to see it and participate! It's gonna be a good one!

Well, sorry for the super short email this week. Keep being awesome! Love you!

LG Elder Oliphant

August 27, 2016

Hey hey hey! How are you on this beautiful, hot, August day? Man, I don't know how it is in the rest of the world, but it is roasting up in here! 

Anyway, I wanted to start with a shout out to a true hero from this last week: my mom, the one and only Julie Oliphant. Last week she got my flight plans, and noticed that they were for the 29th of September instead of the 30th. She wrote me and asked if that was correct. Well, that wasn't correct, they had made a mistake in Salt lake and booked the wrong tickets! The tickets were booked while the whole office staff was gone helping the new missionaries in Freiberg, so we didn't notice it, and if my dear mother hadn't pointed that out, we would've been in big trouble.  So, thanks mom! You rock!

Anyway, this week was more of the normal stuff. Life as an office elder can be fun at sometimes, but also really boring at others. A big part of our job is trying to fix problems in the mission, but sometimes these problems are just way over us. For example, one thing that we do a lot is buy train tickets for traveling missionaries online through the train company, DeutscheBahn. Well, we don't know why, but we are somehow being blocked from buying tickets. It's really, really annoying. We've called DeutscheBahn, they said it was a problem with the bank. We called the bank, they said it was a problem with DeutscheBahn. We would just use another method of transportation, but DB has a total monopoly on the train system, so there's no other option. It's really dumb, I hope we can get it sorted out quickly!

Well, what else is new... Oh, this week I got a package! There was no return address, only a postage mark from England. I opened it up, and what was inside? A potato! with a message from my mom. Haha, I was so confused, but it was really funny, the whole office staff got a good laugh out of that one.

Well, that's all from me. Bis später, Alligator!

A little free time...

They needed a new toilet seat 

The District on July 4th

It's time to start walking again! Jawohl! Endlich kommt sie raus!

Hey hey hey hey!

 I'm excited, super excited! Do you want to know why?
It's because 6 weeks have gone by since I broke my ankle, which means
it's time to start walking again! Jawohl! I have an appointment with
the doctor on Monday, where they're going to the pin out of my leg,
and then I'll be able to start walking again! These past few weeks
have been really hard, but I've come to realize that the more trials
we have, the more we come to appreciate all of the small, little
blessings that we have in our lives. For example, the blessing it is
to have a healthy, working body, with two healthy, strong legs haha,
I've really come to see the blessing there.

But on a serious note, the Lord truly has blessed me in so many ways
during these past few weeks. He has been by my side, sent his angels
to comfort and support me, and has blessed me with the opportunity to
meet wonderful people, like our friend Sebastian, who will be getting
baptized on the 24th of July! Woohoo! He is such a stud, I love him so
much!

This week things finally calmed down a bit, and we were able to do
some good work in the office. Nothing super exciting, but we've stayed
pretty busy. I'm starting to like being in the office, at first I was
super worried that I wouldn't be able to do as much good here as I
could out in the field, but I've realized that the work we do in the
office has the same purpose, "to invite others to come unto Christ, by
helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ
and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy
Ghost, and enduring to the end."

In my personal study I've been trying to learn more about diligence in
the Lords work. Diligence is a very important part of missionary work,
it's one of the legs that the Lords work stands on, and when we aren't
diligent in our work, nothing gets done. I think that almost everyone
who goes on a mission wants to be a good, hard working missionary. No
one comes on a mission to just sit around and be lazy, we come here to
bring others to Christ. But often times this drive starts to diminish.
We start to justify sleeping in a few extra minutes, or not going out
to work on time. Satan comes in and tries to convince us that being
diligent isn't important, and sometimes we believe his lies and give
in to that natural man. This isn't ok, those lies are still lies! It
is important to the Lord that we work hard, and that we continue to
strive to do all that we can to serve him and to be diligent workers.
If we look in the scriptures, we notice that nothing comes easy from
the Lord. All of the prophets didn't receive the testimonies they had,
or convert the thousands that they converted because God loved them
more, or because it was a different time, these miracles were
performed after these prophets gave themselves to much fasting and
prayer, in order to know God. Enos describes his process as being a
wrestle, Alma as well. It's not easy to be diligent, it really is a
sacrifice, but "sacrifice is giving up something good, for something
better."

I love you! I hope you have a great week!

LG Elder Oliphant

Elder Oliphant, his trainee Elder Teuscher and Elder Adams

He's not the only missionary in a wheelchair

Freiberg Temple

Elder Nearon

Week 56

Hey y'all! We had a great week here in Dresden, Sachsen, Germany. I
don't have a ton of time today because we got up early to help a
family paint there apartment, and it took 6 hours, so that's most of
our p day, but it was great! I love serving people :) there are just a
few experiences I wanted to share.

 We had the opportunity to go back
to Freiberg this week to visit the temple. Not just once, but twice!
We had a zone training meeting on Wednesday, and it felt so nice to be
back in my little city. Man, I miss Freiberg sometimes. But Dresden is
also wonderful! So amazing, and so pretty! During the ZTM we talked
about goals, and how there are a lot of goals that we can control, but
there are a lot of other ones that we can't, and we shouldn't always
be so concerned when we don't achieve a goal that was out of our
control, like for baptism. Just because someone decides not to make a
covenant with our Heavenly Father, we shouldn't become mad or upset at
ourselves, everyone has their agency, and they can choose for
themselves. As long as we are doing everything that we can to help and
encourage our friends, then we know we are doing our part.


That was our first trip to Freiberg this week, the second one was a
bit of a surprise. Do you remember our investigator T****? Well, we
had been talking with him about the temple, and on Friday he called us
up and said "hey, can we go to the temple tomorrow?" So we hopped back
on a train with him the next morning and went to Freiberg. It was such
a wonderful experience. The sisters there prepared a very personal
tour of the information center and it really helped to answer a lot of
his questions about temples today, the Holy Ghost, and baptism.

We were so happy to go with our great friend and learn more together
about the blessings of the temple, the only problem was that it's the
end of the month, so we're pretty low on money, and we had to use the
rest of our money to buy the train ticket... Uh oh! We were really
worried that we would be eating straight rice for this next week (we
only have 3€) and then, that night when we were walking home, we
looked on the ground and found 20€! There were no people around, and
all of the stores were closed, so we took it as a sign from heaven
helping us out for this next week. Now we can afford more than just
rice :) And really, this blessing that we had isn't so special, God
will always care for his children when we give everything to him. We
spent all of our money trying to help one of his children, and he
blessed us with just enough so we could eat this week, and we are VERY
grateful.

I love you, have a great week!

Elder Oliphant ️

Faithfully we baptize, focusing on the blessings of the temple

Hello! Well, another week geschafft in Dresden, the most beautiful
city ever to be occupied by communists. We had a week just full of
fun, heartache, and miracles. First, the fun.

Last week we had our last p day with elder drazin and elder hall, and
we wanted to make it one to remember! So, we all went shopping!! There
is so much shopping in Dresden, and it's great. Usually I don't like
going shopping, because I don't really like spending money, but with
friends buying the right things, it's great. We went to PRIMARK (best
store EVER) and it's like a missionary paradise. Ties, 2€. White
shirts, 6€. Pants, 19€. But the best deal is definitely a dinosaur
onesie for 16€  #SwagosaurusRex. I also finally found lederhosen
that fit me, so that's pretty cool too.

Now, the heartache. We sadly had to say goodbye to elder drazin, elder
hall, sister Kooyman, and sister Stephens this week. That was really
hard. We've all become really great friends during the last two
transfers. We have gone through so many things together, and I really
hope that I can keep in contact with all of them after the mission!
But, with transfers come new missionaries also! Elder Bailey, and
elder Adams have replaced the elders program. They are both really
great, and elder Bailey and elder Teuscher could be twins! They look
so alike! I'm really excited to have the chance to work with them, and
I hope we all get along!

So last, but certainly not least, is the miracles. This week I've
really seen God working and helping people through us. We found a
family this week. The husband is from turkey, and the wife is from
Dresden. We talked to them in a park, and they were very interested.
Later we had an appointment where we taught them the restoration, and
it went really well. They believe that God has a plan and a way for
every person, and they already pray every day and ask God to help them
follow the path that he has prepared for them that day. We asked them
If they thought that maybe this was the path for them, and right now
they don't know, but they want to work with us and find out! We were
really excited for them, and then on Sunday, out of no where, they
came to church on there own! This is huge! Most people here have heard
a lot of bad things about the church, so they're hesitant to come to
the church, but they didn't care about all of that, they just want to
find out what God wants for them!

Right when I got to Dresden, we started teaching a man from Africa who
really wanted to find God in his life. We met him twice, but then he
started canceling appointments, and he just stopped all contact with
him, and we didn't know why. Yesterday evening it was late and we were
really tired, so we wanted to go home and work in the area boom
instead of following our plan and going to visit a less active member.
We prayed about it, and we decided to follow our plan. We went to the
less active, and he wasn't home. I wasn't really sure why we went, and
then, as we were waiting for the tram, this former investigator walked
up and we started talking to him! We ended up having a 30 minute
conversation with him, and he expressed some of his concerns about
temples. He wasn't sure why we needed temple now, because he believes
that temples were part of the law of Moses, and when Jesus fulfilled
the law the Moses the need for a physical temple went away, and we,
our bodies, became the temples of God. I've been really thinking about
this and study, and I've learned a lot about the temple.

The last 2 verses in the gospel of Luke say
52 And they[Jesus' disciples] worshipped him, and returned to
Jerusalem with great joy:

53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.

When Jesus fulfilled the law, some of the ordinances, like the giving
of sacrifices, were taken away, but the need for temples was still
there. We truly need the temples of God if we are going to come as
close to him as we can on this earth, and when we truly want to
worship him to the best of our ability. I was also reading in John,
where Jesus purifies the temple right before he fulfills the law. My
question is why would he make sure the temple was clean, and throw out
all of the money changers if the need for a house of God was about to
go away, and it would just turn into a cool building? Why? He cleansed
it because it was a house of God, and was going to stay a house of
God.

We had many other great things happen this week, and I have seen the
hand of God every single day. I love you, have a great week!

Elder Oliphant ️

Add caption

Dresden, Dresden

Well, first week in Dresden is over, and honestly it's been the
longest week of my life! It all started Tuesday. Tuesday was transfer
day. We just packed up, and were planning to go over and catch a train
to Dresden. 30 minute train ride, no problem. Well, we still wanted to
do some stuff here, like show the new elders around, say goodbye to
the Hubrichs, check out the temple one last time. No problem right?
Well... Made it to the temple and we did everything we wanted to do,
and we had 25 minutes to catch our train. The temple is 30 minutes
from the train station. Fortunately, the Hubrichs drove us, but it was
really close. We barely made the train! Woo hoo! We made it 2 stops,
and then the train broke down! So we got out, and had to wait 40
minutes for them to send another train to come and pick us up. Not too
bad, it was just really hot. We finally made it to Dresden, but by the
time we got there, two of the wheels on my big gray suitcase were
broken :/ they just weren't made for cobblestone. So, we got there,
unpacked a little bit, and then the other elders showed us around the
city a little bit. Dresden is huge! It's the fourth biggest city in
Germany (actual size, not population), so, it was very fun for too
missionaries who don't know the city at all to try and find
everything. But, we're managing :) There are also 4 sisters here in
the city, and this is my first time working with them. It's weird. We
see each other almost every day. I also live with elder drazin now, so
that's fun :)

For all who want more

Elder Oliphant's take  on For all who want more

So, like the mission blog shows, all of the missionaries coming in
will now be taken to Freiberg. And because Dresden is so close to
Freiberg, all of the trainers came and stayed the night with us. It
was fun, and I got to go with elder Roth and elder Sagmeister (the
former ZL's here who stayed the night with us) to visit a recent
convert That they baptized. A really nice girl with a great family,
and I started to have a pretty good friendship with her brother, who's
also really interested in the church. It was fun having 11 elders in
our apartment,but they ate all of my food  but hey, forgive and
forget.


So yea, this week was long, but great. Even though we don't know the
city we were still able to find 2 new investigators. One of them is a
cool guy from Syria. Haha, he's Muslim, and when we told him about the
Book of Mormon, he just kept asking about evidence that proves the
boom of Mormon is true. He then showed us a video about the Koran
that, in a very intense way, talks about all of the evidence that
proves that the Koran is the word of God. Now, we wanted to stay
respectful, and kind, but man, it was really funny, and elder Teuscher
and I both struggled to keep from laughing.

So, yea. Great day. Great week. I'm hoping to have some great times
here in Dresden :) this is seriously the prettiest city in the whole
mission.

I love you, have a great week :)

Elder Oliphant