Fun surprise!!!

Thought you might enjoy the companions' picture following the recent "apartment check."

Elder and Sister Clement

Another Week in Darmstadt!!

Holy cow this week has been insane!!! I wish so badly that all of you could be here to experience every moment of it!!! We started off the week with our district meeting on Monday morning so that we could clear up some things with the new transfers that would be happening this week. OUr P-Day was moved to Tuesday so that we could go to the temple but we were still able to do emails! I got your back mom! ;) We then had a really fun P-Day and then we went to one of our investigators named Duane. Bahahaha the "battle" that ensued was pretty epic! We walked in and he´s like "Now ya´ll be my American brothers and we´re in a foreign country and we gotta watch each others backs. So I am here for ya no matter what, but I want you to know that there is no way that I am going to let you take me away from Jesus and my relationship with him...now, let´s begin"...You can imagine what I was thinking XD "Time to smash this guy with the spirit!" hahahaha Elder Bonzo and Elder Bruneel then began quite the "Bible Bash" with this guy. I am not going to lie it got pretty intense. So much so that Elder Bruneel was standing up bearing testimony like Abinadi and Elder Bonzo was riling off scripture left and right. I was just sitting on the water bed couch asking myself how in the world I was going to get everything under control when the water bed broke and soaked my left cheek. Brutal I tell you. I was able to talk a little but Duane would have none of it from any of us. So, I decided to take a roundabout approach. Since I was the only one not standing I decided to stand and speak. I then came in a more roundabout way. I took the man out with LOVE!

Like a boss!! I showed him that we were all saying the same things and there was no reason to be arguing at all etc etc. By the time I had finished Elder Bruneel had picked out a scripture and we committed Duane to read it. He says that he would be happy to and he swears we chased some devils out of the room hahaha We then took off to another appointment which went really well! We went to the Temple on Tuesday and that was great! We ended up in a french session and so I got to wear the special little headphones. I ended up listening in Deutsch and was able to understand about 90 percent of it. The Lord definitely blessed me with the ability to understand what was said. It really was quite the spiritual experience. I absolutely love the temple. What a wonderful place to go and really feel the spirit. If there is a sure way to go feel it I recommend going to the temple, even if it´s just on the grounds! we then came back and had some appointments with Members and Aaron and it was great! Wednesday we ended up taking Elder Lovelace to Frankfurt for the Transfer and so I got to hang with our ward mission leader and them for a while and we ended up going around Frankfurt and I took some pics. I will be sure to send them. Thursday we had mor appointments as well as on Friday. Saturday we did our basketball finding and then Sunday came round and I was so pumped!!

I was able to Baptize Aaron Göring and it was just the most amazing experience!! I wasn´t able to get a picture of Aaron and I in white which I was really disappointed about but I did get some others so I will be sure to send them to Mom and then she can send them out. :) After the baptism we confirmed him on the same day and then there was a huge luncheon for Stake Conference! Then we went to an appointment with the Winstels whom I love, they´re so awesome! Then we went to an investigator appointment. Idk if you all remember AJ but the lesson went incredible. He has committed to being baptised on the 22nd of March and he really wants to go through the temple. He kept saying that everything we were saying was just clicking for him. It really was so awesome!! Well, I am having to end the letter so I can send some pics. Just had to say that this week was pretty crazy. I miss you all so much!! I´m so grateful to be a part of this work! God´s church has been restored!! What a blessing it is to be a missionary and tool in his hands. The effects have changed me and my life forever. Love you all so much!!
Tshcuss!
Elder Lee

Some pics of Frankfurt!

The Financial Building

I believe this is week 5...or 6

Seeing as I still can´t count we´ll just have somebody else fill in the dates for me XD. So this week has just been another insane week!! We have been working like crazy and the Lord has been hearing our prayers. I have a baptism this next Sunday and I am so pumped!! This week started with a really fun P-Day. We ended up having a sport time and we played soccer for 3 hours hahaha so much fun! We then went and took care of some other errands and then we had a couple of appointment. Tuesday and Wednesday were just chalked full of member appointments and Inactive appointments. We have been really trying to work with the inactive members because every lesson we have been having with them have gone super well. We´re thinking that they were just kind of "lost" in the transfers between missionaries and so we´ve been trying to round up the "Lost Sheep" so to say. We also had a cool little Ausstellung this week (street display...it´s a good thing I give you the English Translations because I don´t even think google translate would understand my terrible German spelling hahahaha) Either way I was given some chalk and we drew the plan of Salvation and a bunch of other things. We also set up a t.v. and a little booth and had some church movies running. Then for 3 and a half hours we contacted everyone in sight. It was quite a fun time! I am defintely very practiced with rejection, and I am sure one of you will be happy to let me know that I will be when I return home and start talking with the Ladies but persistance is key ;) We were getting a few appointments and we had given out about 18 Books of Mormon, which is pretty good. My favorite of the night, though, ended up happening with a younger guy. He was walking along the walkway pretty slowly. The cool thing about Germany is they have squares all over the place where cars aren´t allowed and it´s just filled with Trains and Busses that go everywhere so there is quite the thoroughfare going through the area. (This was one of the areas that we were doing our street display) And he stopped to look at the chalking I had done of a tree for family history...he then walked a little bit, stopped and read some more. By this time I noticed him, and the Holy Ghost just started telling me to go talk to him. I was pretty nervous because my Deutsch is getting a lot better every day but it definitely is still not where I want it to be at all hahaha but I took courage in the fact that the Lord was with me and started walking towards him, I called for sister Lyons since she was in the pathway between me and him and we walked over and I just started talking with him. He said he had work (this is where persistance comes in) and never taking no for an answer I said it would only take a few seconds. I then talked about how the Book of Mormon had helped me so much in my life and how I was out in Deutschland sharing it with others because I knew how great of a book it was. I then ended up bearing testimony to this guy and he was just eating it up! He then asked if he could have it and some biker rode by and just threw it on the ground!!! I couldn´t believe it!!!!........okay, the biker didn´t really do anything like that bahahahaha. I actually ended up giving him the book, we talked more about it, and he asked us for our contact information and said he really was so excited to read. His name is Daniel and he really is an awesome kid!! Hopefully we can get things going with him. We´ll see! I also ended up giving a blessing this week and the spirit was really powerful. I just love being a missionary. The closeness that I feel with the Holy Ghost is just so epic. Becoming an instrument in the Lord´s hands and seeing how much bigger things are than the little things that we tend to get stuck in really has blown me away. Well, I have been on for quite a while and so now I must go! You all are so wonderful! This gospel is true and time is just flying. I wish I could write more! So much more is going on but I hope that what I have written will suffice. Love you all so much!!!

Tschuss!!

Elder Lee

Another Week In Darmstadt!

Well well,

What an experience this has been!! We had another solid week and the work has been going so well!! I´ll just start with Monday, not much happened but the usual fun that you have on P-Days. I haven´t been taking as many pictures and I am really sorry!! I am just so busy and i forget my camera way too often, but just for you Mom I will keep it on me at all times! My diet these days consists of a lot of spaghetti, chocolate, nutella cereal (sooo tasty), eggs, qwark, and more spaghetti XD We get some random things in here and there and I do eat a lot of oranges but that´s about it. I really should work on eating better!! On Tuesday we went singing at the old folks home again with a couple members in our ward. They really love the spirit and so they invite us back often. We also went on some go-byes on some inactives which was pretty successful. We mainly just ended up talking to people in the streets because some of our inactives are really talented individuals. I thought I would be good at catching people in their homes...guess not. Bahahaha I sound like i´m hunting stuff. I promise we´re not too crazy here ;) After that we went and met with King David. He´s a really funny guy. Always calling us "Ma Bruddus" guess I´m just a black man now XD We then had an appointment with Aaron Taubner. He is going to be baptized on the 23rd! I am really excited! I´ll be having my first baptism!! We got a lot of Area Book work done and then we did some more streets. Then on Wednesday we had our breakfast and study times and we then had to go to the church because I had to take some surveys for my twelve weeks program so we ended up being there for a little while. We then went and did some service for a couple hours and then our appointment with one of our investigators fell out which was too bad. We then had dinner and some more go byes on Weniger Aktives. We have over 240 so we have a lot of ground to cover there. We then had our sports night and so we went and played some basketball for our finding activity. We ended up giving out a bunch of cards and a lot of the guys wanted to come play basketball at the church, ergo, tours of the church. Brilliant.  We then went home and hit the sack. My favorite place has now become my bed. Sleep always feels like 30 min though. Thursday I had a lesson that I had to give for district meeting. I did it on D&C Section 4. I wish I could share more but I don´t have that much time so I´ll save it for some other time. We then were going to go chalking the Plan of Salvation but that fell through because we had so many things that we had to go over so we ended up going home and getting some of our study time in. We then had dinner and then an amazing lesson with one of our investigators named Toby. He is 19 and he has a gf and child. He really wants to know more about eternal families and so we taught him just that as well as sneaking in some other amazing doctrine hahaha. I ended up not understanding very much but I had a thought come to my mind and had the impression to start bearing testimony. So that is exactly what I did. I don´t know exactly what I said to be honest XD but I ended up talking for a good 5 to 10 minutes and Toby was just eating it all up. We were with a couple members and everyone just starting going off of what I said and bearing testimony and the spirit just got stronger and stronger and stronger. By the end of the meeting we asked if we could do another appointment next week and Toby was like "come over whenever you want to." He really seemed to be loving what he was feeling, heck, I know I was!! After that we went contacting for alittle bit and ended up getting an appointment with a man and giving out another Book of Mormon. Friday was really busy with appointments. We ended up having six so we had to go on a split hahaha that happens a lot. :PSaturday, we had service in the morning. More basketball contacting and then appointments with 5 more people. Didn´t get much study time in sadly :/ but ah well. Sunday was great the ward is really a blast. They´re going to be splitting it next week which is actually really good. Makes the ward uncomfortable and ready for more growth hahaha we then had a couple more appointments and such and then got stranded out in the middle of nowhere for an hour and a half. It was pretty chilly but I got the chance to look at the stars and get a little reading in from the street light. We then hit the sack. So, real quick. The food is great, The language is coming. I can understand a lot when it comes to church things and about 40 percent when it comes to daily things. So the understanding is coming along. My speaking still isn´t the best but it´s survivable haha. I have to go now though! Love you all!! 

Tschuss! 
Elder Lee

Darmstadt Week of I can´t remember

Hey everybody!!

Well it´s been another crazy awesome week in Darmstadt!! We have had some crazy things going on and It´s been so amazing to be a part of this experience!! Monday was a great P-Day!! We were able to get a couple termins in before we went to bed. Also, I was able to give out two Books of Mormon on my own this week!! Crazy awesome!! The first time we were just walking along trying to contact people and I was asking Elder Bonzo for some tips on how I should contact people (he is a really good contacter) as we were talking I looked to my left and had the distinct impression that I should talk to the man walking past us, so right in the middle of Elder Bonzo talking I took off and went and asked the guy if he knew the book that I was holding in my hands XD bahahaha I felt pretty crazy but the spirit prompts us when he knows we are ready and when he has a job. You can imagine how crazy it was for me when I was speaking clearly and understanding everything that he was saying!! So toll!! I think I just about lost it when we had a termin scheduled and had given him the book of mormon bahahaha like a boss!!! He didn´t end up showing up sadly but heck, I gave out that book! That´s a good start!! The next day we ended up doing some more contacting when we went on a split, Elder Bonzo and I were together and I was just contacting everyone I could get a hold of. We got rejected a lot and I was thinking that we should try a different area when I had the same prompting again on a guy walking way out of my way, so like any proper missionary who has new clue what he is doing I chased after him ;) naw, not really, but I did approach him and we started talking and found out that he was catholic and that he was very interested in our book. We exchanged numbers and we´re going to call him probably tomorrow, i´m not sure yet. Then later after some more rejections I had the same impression again. It´s really interesting because it´s not some mind blowing thing, it´s like my body decides for me that I am going to talk to a person because as I am walking over I am like "what in the world am I doing?" bahahaha it´s such a blast though. This lady was named Jasmine. She is a student and I was able to get everything with her on my own. Elder Bonzo had helped on the last one a lot so that doens´t count hahaha but it was just such a great experience!!! Then later on this week I had the chance to participate in the blessing of one of the older guys in our ward. His name is Bruder Warnka. I guess that he has been feeling really sick and really weak and I had the chance to participate in seeing this man be healed. After he recieved his blessing he had the strength to do everthing that needed to be done and when we met with him again on Sunday he was happy and so thankful to us for the blessing and he said that he felt amazing!! The Priesthood power is really God´s Authority on this Earth. I saw it and I can´t tell you how amazing it is!! hahaha he wasn´t running any marathons after he got up ;) but it was amazing to see that the Lord gave him the strength to complete the tasks that he needed to complete. I am so grateful that I was able to participate in that!! So amazing!! The work has really been hauling along in the ward. We have  been working really hard and I think that the ward actually likes us so that´s a bonus XD We go to a members house and she always has a bunch of pretzels for me because she knows that I like them hahaha She also is going to make some "berliners" for us. It´s like a cream filled doughnut...but better!! Guess she is going to stuff them with Nutella too! Oh ya!! So tasty!! There have been some really good deals on chocolate here...I now weigh 195 about...gotta love it!! hahaha don´t worry I refuse to let myself get fat on the mission!! I also have a crazy newfound interest to learn more about the history of the Americas, especially with the Incan, Mayan, Aztec, etc. It´s so cool to see how the Book of Mormon and the prophecies in it are really being fulfilled! I just can´t get enough of it! Too cool!! Thanks everyone for being such great supports!!! This mission has really been an absolute blast and I have loved every second of it...even through the hard parts, I have had the comfort of the Lord and also the comfort of family and friends. Thanks for everything all of you! You´re all wonderful!!! I pray for you daily! 

Tschuss!!
Elder Lee

Oh and by the way if any of you have some awesome insights or stories that you would like to share please send them my way. I have really enjoyed all of this learning...pretty crazy I know...but it really has just been such a wonderful experience. Thanks!!