Transfers

Well, I am going to be in Karlsruhe for the rest of my mission. There is no way out of Narnia. They burned the wardrobe...luckily it´s Narnia. I love it here!! Things have been going really well! We ended up going to the grave ceremony for a man who passed away recently...ended up just being Catholic Mass....interesting to say the least. Ah well, I can now say that I went to mass in Germany. I don´t want to be the bearer of bad news or anything but the things they do make absolutely no sense. I have been reading in the Bible and I would say easily half of the things that were done in there were against exactly what is stated in the Bible. They did have a good message about helping other Christians though, I was very happy about that. Each and every one of the missionaries came out of that room with a different feeling XD I was just struck by how many people there are out there who really do believe on something. I sometimes forget that when I walk on the streets of Germany and see the things that go on. At the same time between the other Elders you had one wanting to call everyone to repentance....another who didn´t understand anything that was being said at all, and then the last wanting to just leave the place. I really wish that I had taken some courses or studied more about other religions in the world. I still need to learn everything about my own. There are so many cool little things in the scriptures, that when you piece it together your whole outlook on the Book itself changes. I feel my testimony changing so often. There are some key principles that will always remain the same, but there are other things that can´t help but change as I learn more about my savior and what he did for me. Hahaha it´s kindof brutal realizing how little I know every time I come out of a new situation that I have been in. I have got a long ways to go...for that I am grateful though. I really have come to enjoy learning. I love seeing things from a different perspective. I still need to work on seeing things that way when I am dealing with others but I hope that one day I can be good enough about it that I can help people a lot more. Ah well, this week has been great! The stitches should be coming out in a couple of days and I will probably have a pretty gnarly scar. I hope not, but it is very possible. Meh, I´m just about bald anyways it´s not like the hair would have been growing there in a couple of months XD I love you all, have a wonderful week!

Tschüss!

Elder Lee

Stitches

Well mom, if you understand what my leading entry is about than I can let you know that all is well and that I am not dead...completely. This week has led to more and more exciting things. I now know what the inside of a German Hospital looks like...not as exciting as I thought it would be but ah well. In other news we ended up getting to visit an Anti-Christ. It was great...probably because we didn´t meet her...but her son was there and he was a recently returned exchange student with Mormon friends in America...we will be returning this week. Let us hope that there is plenty of success in store. He plays tennis so maybe I can shape up my game a little bit and use it to contact some more people haha We also ended up getting a new investigator this week. He actually was an old investigator in our area book from 2009...well done missionaries from back in the day.

We ended up meeting with him and he thought I was German...he then asked from what area I was from and I said America. He just about lost it when I told him I had only been here since January. Made my day. He´s an older Gent though, so I am pretty sure he is partially deaf. Good thing he can look at Elder Sollis´s and my pretty face. They have some serious converting power...lol This wonderful man started off with telling us that he was going to be Catholic no matter what we did....psh, we played the Holy Ghost card and now he´s going to be reading in the Book of Mormon with us. I put him as being baptized within the next year. Also, Elder Sollis has been really sick the last two weeks. I feel pretty bad for him, keep him in your prayers if you can. I got to read a little bit in the Old Testament this week...some seriously weird situations going down in those days.

I then watched a Mormon Message where they interview people about the story of Lot and his wife. Great video. I am grateful every day for the power to choose. I hope that you all choose to continue forward in the faith and to not look back. Or else I will be using you to make a sweet marinade for my steaks...lol Have a wonderful week!

Tschüss!

Elder Lee

P.S. If you didn´t like my joke...don´t look back. 

Here are some cool pics that I was able to get...and my head...sorry mom, I´ll be more careful next time hahaha

Well..

This week was a bit of a bust and I won´t even have that much time to write this letter out...soooo Elder Sollis and I both ended up coming down with the flu this week so I will give you a quick rundown of what happened...
Monday: P-Day...feeling a little sick, do some contacting, plan, go to bed.
Tuesday: Bed
Wednesday: Bed
Thursday: Two Appointments...bad idea, Bed
Friday: Bed
Saturday: More Bed...level of sanity almost down to the level of 0
Sunday: Church, Appointment, Bed
Today: Feeling much better, ending recovery
All in all I would say it was a solid week folks. I love you all, I miss you. I miss mom giving me soup when I am sick and I miss feeling healthy hahaha I got to read a ton of scripture though, can´t beat that!! Have a great week everyone!!
Tschüss!
Elder Lee

With an Eye Single to the Glory of God

Wow, what an epic week it has been. Can I just say that conference was just incredible! I seriously have never enjoyed conference so much!! It just gets better and better every single time. Just so many things that I can learn and apply. Gee, it´s just great! I´m hoping that everyone had a chance to see conference this time around and if not, you should. They gave such good advice and some really needed council for many members of this church. It is a weird feeling being in the position of a missionary at this time. I really loved the talk that President Uchtdorf gave about asking the question "Father, is it I?" It really was much needed council for me because very often I have been focusing all of my efforts on everybody else. I do find it very important though, that even when we are focusing on others it is good to perform a "self check" It is definitely important that we have a testimony of the things that we are preaching about every single day. I really found that self-evaluation is paramount in these times. Are we really on the right path? Do we really believe in the things that we do? I can testify that things really do change drastically when you understand the meanings behind them. The search of my mission has been to really get to know Christ and to understand his Atonement. The more I think about it the more I realize that it is a lifetime pursuit, but what a great thing to strive for!! I was so impressed with the council that was given. I really can´t wait for the next issue of the Liahona to come so that I can read through the talks over and over again in my free time. There really is nothing quite like diving into the gospel and just swimming around in it all the time haha. I really hope that each and every one of you reads over those talks again there is always more truth in those words than we originally have received. Just like the prophets of old in the Book of Mormon those who speak today speak the inspired words of Christ. They truly are the revealed word of God. I really feel that the focus on building a proper foundation and building it now is reason for me to think that in the next little while the persecution that will come will increase, and it will increase a lot. Build yourself on the rock of our redeemer. Christ. There is no doubt as to why those who spoke focused so much on these things. Stay on the right paths. Learn to recognize Heavenly Father´s voice. It is no coincidence. Those who stray from the path will fall. That is the destiny that lies therein. Like I have previously stated in past letters "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve" You all have the council of those who are not only incredibly smart, but are wise. They are led by God, and as President Packer stated, "The Lord is no stranger to his servant." He leads and directs his church. And he does it through the prophets, just like it says in Amos 3:7. The Lord sticks to his guns. You can be sure that he will be on the other side waiting for us and we can choose to be ashamed or we can choose to be the type of servants that he needs, move forward in faith, endure to the end, and then live with him again. Decide now and never look back. We already know the kind of reward we will receive if we do. (Relate to Lot´s wife if you are having trouble thinking of a proper example haha) Sometimes we may not think that it is going to be easy but just like it talks about in Alma 32 faith is that seed that we plant, but first we must plant that seed. You must put in a little bit of work to get that seed in there, and then that seed will grow inside of you "until the perfect day". The words of the prophets are incredible. Study them daily. It really has changed my life being out here and doing that. Those who have forgotten their testimonies should watch this conference. You have been given a sure way to obtaining that testimony again. If you want it, he´s there, and he can help you with it. No matter what other people think, no matter what other people have done, no matter what you may or may not understand, don´t give up the opportunity of a lifetime, don´t waste this chance to really know God. There is no if in the statement previous because there is no if when it comes to God. He is there. He does love us. He is the Father of our Spirits. He has called his Prophets in these latter days and He leads this Church. The faults and lies of men will not, and can not, taint that truth. He is all powerful and never ending. Satan will lose. We already know that. So let´s quit giving him the time of day when he wants it. I know I am preaching to the choir but maybe someone will stumble upon this somehow and read it. Hopefully it will help them and you understand where I stand. I´m cheering you all on, thank you for the help I received when I needed a little bit of cheering for myself. I am more grateful every single day for what I have chosen. The things I have felt and seen have confirmed to me more than once of the divinity of Christ, his mission, and his role in saving the sons and daughters of man. Now is not the time to doubt. As a missionary called of God I can promise you that when you follow the council of his servants, when you read their words and pray upon them you will receive that "Spiritual Answer" That Elder Anderson talks about. You will not find answers in that category unless you go to the source. No matter how many times you talk to Judas about Christ you will still never experience the wonder of speaking with him personally. (The same with Joseph smith. You´ll never know the truth until you go to the source)  It is an exciting time, I´m so grateful that I can be a part of this wonderful work. There is nothing quite like seeing the light in someone´s eyes who has come to know at least a piece of the truth. My mission became worth it when I saw it in my own. Make it a mission of your own to see it in yourself. I love you all, have a wonderful week!! 

Tshcüss!

Elder Lee 

Victory

America beats Germany 3 to 1 in the Finals!! And the crowd goes wild!! Woooooott!! Haha as you can see we had a great game of soccer on Wednesday. It was so wonderful being on a big soccer field again. Normally when we play we´re just on the small little fields that they have all over Germany. Since we had enough people for a full on game it made things a lot more fun and interesting. I ended up scoring all three of our goals. One of them was on a header as well so I was pretty pumped about that. It was a solid game though. I love playing with Germans because most of them are really quite good and so it allows you to actually get a lot better, which I really enjoy. Other than that proselyting has been going really well out here in the Good old town of Karlsruhe. I really absolutely love it out here. The people are great! The work is great! The town is beautiful and it really is just such a blast! We ended up running into a couple of our investigators this week and it ends up the reason why we haven´t been able to make contact is because one was in the hospital and the other was on the other side of Germany. So hopefully we will be able to figure things out with all of that stuff. We had a ton of really cool experiences this week (again) but I wanted to share a really small miracle that we saw that really increased my faith. It was about 9:45 at night and we were on our way home from an appointment. As we were on the train we were talking and Elder Sollis did the exact same thing that I did so long ago. He pulled out a Book of Mormon, looked at me, and said, "Elder, I need to give this out." So we decided to get off a stop early and started walking towards home. Elder Sollis was pretty dismayed when there was literally no one outside on the street, platform, or sidewalk. I then turned to him and asked him if he had faith that the Lord could help us give out that book. He said yes. So, I said a prayer. I started off by letting him know we were willing to do what it took to find someone, that we would talk with anyone and everyone (if anyone came) and then I asked that he would bless us with the spirit so that we would be able to talk with them clearly and that we would be able to share the message that person needed to hear. I then ended the prayer and we continued walking. A car pulls up and a man hops out, we start speed walking towards him...he takes off across the street XD we should have chased him lol but we decided that would probably not make him overly comfortable to hear our message....so we kept walking. Then at the stoplight before we reach our house a man walks out between two buildings...this time we chased him. The light turned red so we caught him there and to make the long story short. He accepted the Book of Mormon and a card. He will try and visit our church when he can but he doesn´t have a phone. So hopefully he actually comes. I really was grateful though to see that the Lord really does answer our prayers. We just need to go out and do and he will help us as we direct ourselves. It has been really wonderful being out here serving the Lord. It has become such a blast! Elder Sollis works hard and he makes it so much easier to just get moving sometimes. Once you get moving it´s hard to stop. I´m so grateful to be here and I love you all! I hope that you have a wonderful week!
Elder Lee

Religion

What an interesting week it has been. I feel like every single one of my weeks here has been interesting...and somehow the next one finds a way to be even more interesting. I guess you just meet so many people with so many different ideas about life that it just throws you on a little bit of a loop every week. This week was especially interesting for me because of some of the people I talked with. I have noticed that there are very common threads with people though. Most of the time every single one of them is looking for something that they can´t find or they feel that they have found everything that pertains to them already. The other day we were able to travel up to Mannheim to go and help with a booth that the stake was putting on. Kind of like what Steph did this past week. It was in a park for a "family day" that the city was putting on. We weren´t allowed to go contact people but if anyone had questions we were allowed to answer. So we tied balloons, played games, and I chilled at the front table where the copies of the Book of Mormon were as well as all of the pamphlets. (Enter nice lady checking out picture of Jesus Christ) She then proceeded to talk to me and tell me that she was completely atheist and that there was no possible way that a god could exist because of everything that goes on in this world. We then were able to have a very wonderful conversation and by the end she was taking just about everything she could get her hands on. I then looked her in the eyes and made sure to let her know that she would be seeing me again sooner than she thought....could be taken creepily...somehow it worked.

Either way, another possible investigator. Loved it. I then was able to talk to some other great people and it was fun sharing my beliefs with them. Afterwards we traveled home and on the way back to our apartment a group of Guys called out to us "Zeugen Jehovas!" they did it a couple times. Normally I would just walk by and ignore them. They all had beer so I assumed that they had been drinking for a while. At the third time though I turned and walked back through a bunch of Patrons at this bar to talk to a group of them in the middle of it. (It was an outdoor bar) We then ended up having another great conversation in the which they told me that they thought it was really awesome that we were out serving others and they would gladly look us up. They also complimented my German, which made me feel great! I´m finally able to really just sit and communicate with people. It has been happening a lot more often lately. People actually have mistaken me to be a German. Yaya!! I must be getting a proper Baddish accent. I am just so pumped! Elder Sollis contacts everybody, he especially loves contacting younger woman because I am the one who is forced to talk. Stuff is brutal. I have to admit that I contact that group of people the least. Give me any other generation but them and I am good. Ah well, you gotta try and help everyone I guess hahaha. I really am  pumped to see how things work out. We ended up having most of our investigators drop this week so I think that the Lord is wanting us to find some others...or help us remember to always be finding people. That could be it as well. I have to head now though. We´re going to be playing a game of soccer against our stake team before the go to Berlin for a big tournament there. Missionaries gegen Members....woot this is going to be awesome!!! Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Lee

And here are some pics of Elder Sollis and I.........First week.....he´s tired hahaha

First Week

Well, these last couple of days have really brought me back in time. Sometimes it feels like forever but at the same time it feels like only a few days. Wednesday night I headed up to Frankfurt Bahnhoff with Elder Pearson and sent him off to the Land of Eternal P-Days. I´m going to miss the guy, he was an awesome missionary and I have a lot of respect for him. I then went with the other trainers that were called to the Hotel that they would have us staying in for the next couple days. I got my key and was sent to my room...ended up spending a few minutes trying to get the door open. For a couple seconds I was completely stumped as to why I couldn´t get in. That´ll make a guy feel dumb right there hahaha can´t even get in the door. You only have one key so the excuse of using the wrong one just can´t be used. Sooo after a couple of frustrated jerks on the door it finally opened for me. Seeing that new Elder Sprawled out on the bed, having fallen asleep in the middle of writing in his journal, was just to much. I started chuckling, luckily, he didn´t wake up. I then undressed, cleaned up, and got in bed. Probably 30 minutes later Elder Butler woke up and we talked for a little bit. He is from Cedar City so that´s way cool. We then fell asleep and the next morning got ready for our trainings and our pairing meeting. After a breakfast of nutella on bread and an apple. (Ya, I´m known for being a healthy eater) Then the trainers went downstairs to a meeting room and they talked to us for an hour...doomsday had arrived and I had forgotten a change of underwear for the scary stuff. Luckily, the lord blesses his servants and with Bladder under control the Goldens arrived. As everyone stacked into the meeting room President talked with us and went over some more things. They then paired us by lifting up our picture and then lifting up the picture of the Golden we would be with. After introducing myself I was paired with Elder Sollis. He is legit!!! But, I will get to that later. So after the meeting we all went to our seperate rooms and the Goldens came and we studied together. Elder Sollis and I then went with some other Elders and met up with the group again and we started walking to the train station. Halfway in we got attacked by a massive German Shepard...luckily, we were in a large group and so he just marked his territory on the mailbox in front of us and then he walked back to his humble abode. 5 minutes later we ended up having it pour rain so we all booked it to a Rewe and hid there for a little bit. We got some food and then we started walking again when it all died down. From there we went back to my home in Darmstadt. It was great!! I loved being there and just talking with tons of people again. There was a street display there so we joined in on the fun. We talked a bunch and good ol´ Elder Sollis passed out his first Book of Mormon!!! It was awesome! I loved being there to watch and work with him. We then went back to Frankfurt and joined in on that street display. For three hours I walked back and forth talking with everyone in sight. By the end of the night our companionship had handed out 8 copies of the book of mormon and had given numbers, received them, as well as cards etc. All in all I was pumped about the success and the fact that my golden is just super awesome!! Afterwards we went back home pretty late and got in bed ready for the next day with Elder Ballard. Wow, and how amazing it was to be 15 feet away from an apostle of the Lord. He walked in and I literally could feel his presence and the presence of others with him. The spiritual confirmation that followed was incredible. He then told us that we have got to do more work. We just aren´t doing enough out here, and I dare say I have to agree. I haven´t done my best and I was surprised that I didn´t throw up an excuse in my mind. I just accepted it and went to work. He talked about some other things that were really quite special. Sadly, It´s to much to write but I have it written in my journal so no worries. We then returned home and got Elder Sollis filled in on everything and planned for the next day. We then slept and hit it hard. I am so pumped to see how these next couple transfers turn out.  It really is going to be wonderful!!! The Lord is in this work, I can see it, and I saw it when one of his apostles spoke to us on Friday. We need to be doing all that we can to help him hasten his work. I thought that I was but as Elder Ballard spoke with us I realized I haven´t been. We can always do more. Never forget it. Never get complacent. Work your hearts out. I´ll be right there along with you trying to do it myself. I love you all! Thanks for everything!! Talk soon!
Elder Lee