100th Post!

Hey y'all!

 Well, we had another week full of fun! A lot of stuff happened that
made this a week to remember. First off we got to help with two
different moves this week, both with different less active members.
One was with a super sweet older sister in the ward. She moved about a
month ago, but still needed help organizing everything. Most of time
was spent trying to hang cabinets on walls, which was really hard
because her building was build in the GDR, and is basically a big
concrete block, so we had to drill a bunch of holes into concrete
walls. The other move was with another less active, who lived on the
5th floor of his apartment, without an elevator. Wahoo. Haha, good
thing I've been doing my exercises.

 We also got to go to this super cool city called Arnstadt. It's in our
area, and we got to do some work down there. But arnstadt is one of
the oldest cities in Germany, it's been around since 705! Over 1300
years! Crazy! While we were there we got to visit a less active
family, and have a lot of really great conversations along the way. We
talked to one lady who was super excited to see us! She was born and
raised atheist in communist east Germany, but later found faith
through reading in the bible. But after she decided to become a
Christian her family shunned her, and now she's all alone  so she
was very happy to talk to anyone about religion and faith. It's so
nice when people actually want to talk about God, most people here
just say "what? Church? No thanks." Of that was good.

 We had stake conference this week in Leipzig, which means we had
another road trip! President Fingerle was there and he talked about
the promises that have been given to Germany. These saints were
promised that there will be 100s of stakes here. There are currently
around 20. Some of the members here have started giving up hope that
this promise will come true, because there hasn't been a ton of growth
lately. What president Fingerle said was very profound. He shared the
story of Abraham, and how he was promised lot of posterity, but became
very old to the point of not being able to have children anymore, and
still didn't have children. At this point it must have been really
hard for Abraham to continue to have faith in the Lord's promise, but
he continued in faith and was blessed with a son.

 The Lord honors his
promises!

 I know it! I've seen it!

 I hope you all have a great week! 

 LG Elder Oliphant

Elder Teuscher, Chase's trainee

Good thing for Google Translate

Chase did not have time to write this week so he forwarded the letter he wrote to his mission president.  I did find a picture of him on another blog which I think is adorable

Elder and Sister Hubrich, Chase and Elder Teuscher

From the Hubrich's blog:

Here we are in Dresden with Elders Oliphant and Teucher.  Elder Oliphant was our "trainer", because he was the first one we met and worked with as far a the local full-time missionaries is concerned.  He is a wonderful missionary and love our association with him.  He is a BIG BOY, with a heart of gold and Elder Teucher, from Logan is such a great missionary too. What a dynamic duo.

Hallo Präsident!

Diese Woche war ganz anstrengend. Wie Sie wissen, es gab diese Woche
eine Taufe in Jena, und weil ich der Distriktsleiter bin, habe ich dem
Täufling die Taufinterview gegeben. Das war gut, wir haben einen
Austausch gemacht mit den Zonenleitern um das zu tun, und ich hatte
eine ganz gute Zeit mit Elder Anderson, und mit dem Täufling, Gustav.
Ich habe sehr viel von Elder Anderson gelernt über wie wir Kontakt mit
Untersuchern jeden Tag haben können, durch das Handy. Er benutzt es
ganz gut, und ich hoffe daß wir das auch in unserer Arbeit anwenden
können.

Elder Anderson

Diese Woche war anstrengend weil wir diese Taufe hier in Erfurt
hatten, und, natürlich, das heißt dass jemand die Taufbecken füllen
müssten. Wir haben versucht und versucht jemand zu finden, der einen
Schlüssel für die Taufbecken hat. Endlich haben wir jemand erreicht,
der einen Schlüssel haben sollte, und wir haben ihn am Samstag vor der
Taufe getroffen, und seine Schlüssel ging nicht! Wir hatten keine
Ahnung was wir tun sollten, dir Taufe war in vier Stunden, und wir
konnten niemand erreichen mit einem Schlüssel dafür. So, Elder Griffen
und ich haben es selbst gefüllt mit Wasser vom Waschbecken mit Eimern.
Haha, es war ein bisschen schwer, aber wir haben es geschafft, und
dieser Mann hat sich taufen gelassen!

Ich freue mich aber hier in Erfurt dienen zu dürfen, und auch über die
Leadership Training Meeting diese Woche!

Bis dann!

Elder Oliphant

Sorry, it's in German.. Google translate?? Or bishop?? You'll get a letter soon.

more

Winds of Change...

Hey y'all!

We have had a very exciting week, but first of all, the activity we
planned for this week of going to the art museum fell out, so we ended
up making a makeshift ping pong table in our apartment, and we went to
globetrotter, the cool store with a cold room. They also have a little
pool where you can test out canoes and kayaks! It was a ton of fun!

We've been super busy, and it's awesome! Our work has started to pay
off. We met with a less active member this week who joined the church
a few years ago, but then he moved to New Zealand for work, and wile
he was there it was really hard for him to stay active. He came back a
few weeks ago, and we finally had the opportunity to meet with him! He
is super cool! We talked about the restoration with him, and asked him
how he ended up joining the church, then his mom came in to the
lesson, and we started teaching her as well! It was very spiritual,
and then he came to church this week! One other thing that makes this
guy super cool is... You ready? He's a RAPPER! And he can rap his
testimony! So cool! The church is true, and it's for everybody!

We've been doing a lot more work with less actives recently, and we
had three less active families that we teach come to church this week.
It's been great to be able to work with the other ward members here to
help fellowship them, and help them feel comfortable coming back to
church.

We had several other appointments this week, members, less actives,
and investigators, but the highlight of the week was Definitely this
weekend. On Friday we had three appointments, plus weekly planning,
and then On top of that we had to go to the city of Görlitz for a
stake missionary weekend. Görlitz is a really cool city. It was built
around a river, which after World War II became the border dividing
Poland and Germany. So half of the city is in Poland, and the
missionaries there have permission to go to Poland. For this weekend
we had 10 elders and 4 sisters come to the city and we went on splits
with all of the young men and women from 16-18 in the stake. I got to
go out with a young man named Jeffrey Lehmann, and we had a blast
together. We went out for a few hours and just did missionary work in
Görlitz for a few hours. It was great, and we really helped these kids
prepare for their missions!

I have had a great time here in Dresden, it has been wonderful to
serve here, but, sadly, all good things must come to an end. I have
been transferred, and will be going to Erfurt, the Capitol of
Thüringen, where I will be the district leader. It's not too far away,
and it's still in east Germany. Plus I've heard that the best
bratwurst in Germany comes from Thüringen, so, I'm excited :) my new
companion will be elder Griffen, I don't know him at all, so we're in
for an adventure! But, I'll have a car! Woo hoo! (Yes it is still DDR, my comp is elder griffin, and he will be driving because i don't have a drivers license yet, but ill get one when i get there) As I got the call,

I'll be honest, I wasn't very happy. I love Dresden. I love the
members, I love the other missionaries, I love my investigators, I
just love everything about it, and I really didn't want to leave! I
didn't know why I had to go, it didn't seem fair. Then, as I was
sitting in church listening to the prelude music, the organist started
playing "Ich gehe wohin du mich heißt"(I'll go where you want me to
go) and it just reminded me that this isn't my mission, it's the
Lords. He is sending me their for a reason, and I don't need to know
why, I just need to go forward in faith. I will truly miss Dresden,
but I'm excited for a new experience in "uncharted territory" (Erfurt
was added to my mission only a few months ago).
I love you all, and I am so thankful for your prayers and support.
Have a great week

LG Elder Oliphant

Apparently they are trying to conserve on dishes by not using silverware?

Saratov Part 2?

Hey y'all! 

We had quite an interesting week. Just like last week, we were out a lot on the street just trying to talk to as many people as possible to try and find whoever will listen. Just like last week, we worked hard, and had several great conversations, but we still haven't seen any real success. But, in spite of this we are continuing in faith! We know that we'll see some success soon, we just need to keep going and not give up!

In our attempts to find new friends who will listen to our message we have also been trying to do a lot more work with the members that are already here. We spent more time visiting with members this week as we normally have, and we had some great experiences with that. I first of all just want to say how impressed I have been with the faith that I have seen that the members here have. It is remarkable to see these wonderful people, who really do "let their light shine forth." I feel so blessed to be able to get to know these amazing people. One of these members is a brother from Bulgaria named brother N****. He has so much faith and he loves the missionaries. We visited him on Tuesday, and he told us about several of his friends who he wants to bring to the church! He said one of them works in a Bulgarian market here, and he was going to take us on Friday to meet him and to get some Bulgarian tomato paste...? We thought it sounded good, so we went with him. We met him on Friday, and he took us to this super sketch DDR building, and honestly, I thought we were about to have Saratov approach pt. 2! It was super sketch! We went in, and it was an office building. We went up to what looked like a totally normal office, and brother N**** started talking with the man there in Bulgarian. They talked, laughed, and then this friend took us to a back closet completely full of booze! Haha, we were so confused, and brother N**** just looked at us and said "it's all juice!" LOL nope! Then the guy went into the back corner and pulled out a box of tomato paste for us. It was a pretty interesting experience, one that we'll never forget! After we google translated the ingredients of the tomato paste to make sure there was no alcohol in it we tried it, and it's pretty good! It's like a mixture between salsa and spaghetti sauce. 

One other cool experience this week from working with members, we have started working more with the institute program, mostly because of a less active member that normally goes who we've been trying to come in contact with, but this week we met a different man from it! His name is ****, and he's been coming to institute for a while now, mostly because he likes how he feels when he goes and he has a lot of friends there, but he never really met with missionaries. Then last week the other elders called him up and made out an appointment with him, but because he lives in our ward we got to go and teach him! He is really cool, and he really wants to find out if all of the things he's been learning about the church are really true. Super cool! We're really excited to be able to work with him!

So, yea. That was really my week. Bulgarians, YSA's and lots of finding. Today though we're switching our p-day time to tomorrow and we're going to go to an art museum with a member who paints for it! We're super excited for it, so hopefully that all works out!

I love you, hope you have a great week! 

LG Elder Oliphant

Chase said is apartment is clean so I told him to prove it with pictures

Ponderize

Elder Bailey

Elder Teuscher