Wk 22 BJF Apr 13

 

As for teaching goes, we've been losing most of our investigators
slowly for awhile although most of them weren't that solid to start
with. So we're down to only one or two but that's just how the cookie
crumbles. I assume by "the one next door" you mean our friend Silva.
He is actually down the street from us. He's one of the most solid
guys we've got. He's out of Brazil and he's been involved off and on
with the church his whole life. He even had his own BoM when E. Davis
and I found him. We hadn't met with him since Davis left but we
finally did yesterday. He's ridiculous, he actually referred us to a
couple of his friends and then invited himself to church again. His
only thing is he's a self proclaimed 'lazy' person so he's not running
to the baptismal font but he certainly is headed in that direction.
Other than him we're out of luck in Offenbach, according to our ward
mission leader it's been like that for years so I'm not too worried
about it.

Although I got a call from a sister in the SLC Chinese ward about a
sister here who wants to start looking into he church but the problem
is she only speaks Mandarin and oddly enough...Russian. just another
person I could talk too if I had learned Russian. But we've got
connections so she'll get a Russian speaking friend soon.

And Dan is not a very consistent emailer so I haven't heard about any
of this aside from his few weekly emails. Cool about the twins and
especially the facebook connection.
Even more so about the brothers in Africa. There was a pair of twins
in the same situation in the MTC. Except it was a totally different
part of the world I had no idea what language either of them were
learning.

I know how her nephew feels. We actually have a lot of missionaries go
home. It's rare when an entire group finishes two years. That's just
how Germany is. People's faith here is dead, but we're not looking for
the dead ones anyway. We've got to sift through all the Muslims, JWs
and the faithless ones to find the elect, sifting through a trash heap
to find the pearls. That's how all missions are, Germany just happens
to have one of the densest piles.
I've heard many stories of Elders not having any baptisms but the
effect they had resulted in baptism without number after they had
left. So after starting in tough area in a tough mission in a tough
country I've just decided not to look for the instant gratification of
a baptism. If I get the opportunity, great but that would be after
other Elders had made the way before me. That's just how Germany is.