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

Just like a Roller Coaster

We have had a roller-coaster of a week here. It's Been going up and
down and back up and then down. But, just like a roller coaster it's
super exciting and I love it! A roller coaster really is a good...
Um... Vergleich? Comparison! With a mission. It started out with the
mtc, where we were constantly getting higher and higher on the spirit,
then we had a high exciting drop when we got off of the plane in
Germany, and now we're going through the corkscrews and loopdy-loops,
and I love it!

But, yes, this week.

We started off with a big low when we had to say
goodbye to our dear friend (more like a brother, really) Alexander.
Man, we've been working so much with this man, trying to prepare him
for baptism, and this week he got sent to Albania. We were such good
friends, it's really, really hard to say goodbye, but after a lot of
prayer I realized it's for the best. In Albania he'll be able to hear
the gospel in his own language, and he'll be able to make even more
progress. That was a pretty deep low this week, but it was
accompanied by an awesome high. We made contact with another member
who we thought was also sent back to Albania(because he hasn't been
too church for a while) but we found out that he's still here, and now
he has contact again with the church.





Alexander
Then we had another low... Sort of. Our super awesome, amazing,
spiritually gigantic friend Edwin was supposed to be baptized this
week, but in our lesson two days before he told us that he didn't
quite feel ready yet. He wants to really make sure that he's fully
ready and pure in heart before he makes this covenant with our
heavenly father, and we totally support that! It's just a little
frustrating to do all of this work to prepare A baptism, and then have
it fall out. But, it's OK, because this is the Lord's work, and
everything happens in his time. 

But, right after the whole baptism
fell out, we had the feeling that we needed to go by on an
investigator that we found a few weeks ago, but haven't been able to
contact since then. We went by, and they were home! We had no plan
when we walked in, but we trusted that the spirit would help us know
what to say, and he did! He gave us inspired questions to ask, and
scripture references to back up our testimony. This woman told us that
she had a hard time believing that she was a child of God, so we
opened up to Romans 8 with her, and as she read the spirit filled the
room and she showed us that she had already marked the scriptures we
read, and the spirit helped her remember the testimony that he used to
have, that we all are children of God.

 Another fun experience this week, on Sunday the gospel principles
teacher came up to us at the beginning of the second hour at church
and told us that he needed to talk with the bishop for 5 minutes, and
he needed us to start up his class. Only for 5 minutes, no problem,
right? Well... Wrong. Apparently some other stuff came up that took
longer than 5 minutes, so elder Griffin and I ended up leading the
class... And, of course, the topic was chastity... 

The church is true! 

I know it, I live it, I love it!

 Have a great week!

Elder Greaves getting shoes from the double decker parking garage

Schönen guten Tag Moin Moin!

Elder Griffin with all of his companions (notice how they've been
getting progressively taller)

Wet Elders

Traffic on the AutoBahn

Sister Ibrahimi

Well, another week down, and we have had a bunch of stress with it!
But mostly because we've been really busy teaching, and finding, and
doing missionary work. So it's good stress!
This week started off pretty sad, we had to say goodbye to sister
Ibrahimi. She is one of the new converts that we've been working with,
and she's also been helping us teach her son. They came here as
economical refugees, but because of all of the new refugees coming in
from Syria and the Middle East, the German government doesn't have
enough resources to support all of the other refugees from other
countries where there isn't any war. So, the Ibrahimi's are being
deported. Sister Ibrahimi left on Tuesday, and her two sons will be
following next week. It's very, very sad. I've become such good
friends with them, and I hate to say goodbye, but I'm sure we'll see
each other again :)

 However, with goodbyes, there are always new hellos! We made contact
with a new Albanian family! Woo hoo! This family came to Germany at
about the same time the Ibrahimi's, and they also were being taught
together with them. At the end of the teaching, the Ibrahimi's decided
to be baptized, but this family decided to wait a little longer. After
this area changed missions they got lost, and haven't had contact with
the church for the past 10 months. Then, last week the wife met our
relief society president on the street, and told her she would like to
meet with us again. Score!! They are a super, super sweet family. They
know the gospel, and they told us that they miss the good feelings
that they had while they were investigating the church. There's only
one problem: they speak almost no German, or English. But, the wife
speaks Italian! And one of our members speaks Spanish! And through the
similarities in the languages (and a lot of divine intervention I'm
sure) they can understand each other. This week in our lesson we were
speaking English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Albanian...
#CultureSplash 

 So, quick update with Edwin, WE FOUND HIM! He came to soccer, and
church, and we had a great talk with him. The baptism is now scheduled
for next week, and everything's looking good! So excited!

We have so much fun, and success here. 

I ️ Erfurt

 LG Elder Oliphant

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!

I can sum up this week in two words: Flipping awesome!

Schönen guten Tag! Wie geht's euch??

I can sum up this week in two words: Flipping awesome! Definitely a
week to remember. Elder Griffin and I have started doing a lot of less
active work this week, which is great, because I love less active
work. We had the opportunity to meet with 8 different less active/
part member families, and some of the experiences we've had are just
amazing. With most of these people we're at the "get to know you/feel
our love" stage, and the amazing stories that these members have
shared with us have really touched me. Our current plan is to help
these members come back, and then, in the words of elder Nielson,
"baptize their friends and family". We'll keep you updated on that one
:)

Everything with Edwin is still going great. We had an awesome lesson
this week, where we started teaching the commandments, and he is
totally ready to follow everything that the Lord has commanded. He's
so cool! We're really excited for his baptism in 2 weeks!

So, as I've said before, I currently live in a four-man apartment,
which can be really fun. We decided that we needed to have some more
unity together, and really just find a way to relax and have a little
fun at night during our personal time(after 9:30 PM before we go to
bed). So, we started a boy band (see video) I love these elders,
and I'm super grateful to be able to serve with all of them together.


One more fun event, every week we go and play Fußball (soccer) with a
few members and a lot of their friends. It's actually a really good
opportunity for us to find new investigators and make good friends.
The only problem is that it can be a little dangerous. This week I was
playing in the goal (apparently the Germans think I'm good in the
goal?) and one of the players kicked it super hard, and it slammed me
right in the face! I didn't really see what happened, but apparently
blood splattered all over the place! Haha, I'm like Scott Sterling!
The man! The myth! The legend! (Don't worry mom, it was just a bloody
nose, I'm totally fine.)

Well, yea. That's it from me. I hope you have a great week! I love you!

LG Elder Oliphant