Time Flies!

Wow, weeks fly! I swear I was just writing to you guys yesterday. Anyways this week was actually a really fun and cool week. Sounds like everyone is enjoying the hot weather and loving life. That makes me happy. I pray for you all every night. I am so very grateful for all the prayers and thoughts. Also, I am super excited for Jackson and Cherese and the baby. Treyton gets a brother and Jackson gets older. Haha jk, but I am so excited and can’t wait to see pictures.

So what we as missionaries hear a lot here in Germany are that doors are extremely impossible to find any investigators. Elder Lindsey and I don’t think so at all. This past week was actually a really cool story I wanted to share.  So Elder Lindsey and I were up in Gartenfield. A stadt tile from Bad Hamburg. We had an appointment with a less active family up there. So it’s about a 20 min bus ride from Bahnhoff.. So we got to this massive apartment complex. Here in Germany they have these klingel systems kind of like doorbells to get into the main complex. So we klingled this in active family and nothing.. So we waited for a little bit and klingled them again.. Nothing.. Elder Lindsey and I looked at each other and I said "Okay, Elder Lindsey klingel one name on the 200 names on the building. He agreed and klingeld someone on the top floor of the building. They let us in and so we had to go to the top of the building. We got there and we got out of the Elevator on the top floor and this lady and her husband were sitting there. They were so scared to see us when we first got up there. We explained that we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ and we started asking them questions. They were really nice and invited us to talk more about the Book of Mormon to them... Elder Lindsey and I looked at each other and just smiled because that NEVER happens here in Germany.. We went inside and it was super hot so they asked us to go outside to talk more. We went to this little park outside of the Wohnung. We sat down and talked for an hour!! Ha it was insane.. And they are super prepared and ready it seems like. I know we are not supposed to give hugs, but this lady gave Elder Lindsey and I the biggest hug and told us that she knows our church is true and asked when we could meet again. It was so humbling knowing that there are people out there for every missionary and God prepares them for us to find. I honestly don’t believe in coincidences anymore and I know everything happens for a reason. We are teaching them again this Friday so I will let you know more about how that goes later.

This week I went up to Weterau again for splits. I was up there this time with Elder Henderson; another great Elder here. Weterau is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. I will send pictures soon. But to kind of explain it.. Weterau has small little towns about 3 to 4 miles apart from each other with just massive fields. It is sooooo pretty. Anyways, when I first got there we studied for about 3 hours. And then realized that both our companions had our cell phones.. So we had no cell phone whatsoever. It was okay though.. So our first appointment was actually in Friedberg, we first got something to eat. Of course we went to a döner shop and bought a döner. Best food you can get here. I don’t know how to explain it. If you ever come to Germany you need a döner. Ha but anyways the appointment in Friedberg fell out. We then traveled about 30 miles on train up to Hungen. We had our bikes with us so that’s what made this interesting. Between cities is like a one lane road but with people going both directions. That is the only way to get between cities. So Elder Henderson and I were riding on this one way road with a thousand cars flying past us and massive semis. I have never been so scared in my life. ha but it was such a great experience. Haha I thought we were going to die a few times but we got to our appointment and it was great. The total for the day of biking was close to 30 miles.. I have never been so tired in my life. It was such a fun split and I learned a lot about how to teach and learned a lot from the split.

This week was such a good week. The language is still frustrating. But I always say I am worse then I really am. I actually speak okay enough to have conversations but I am all over the place.  It has been such a great experience and I am loving the work. My testimony of the Gospel is growing so much. I love this Gospel with all I have in me. It has been such a great experiences and I have had SO many experiences so far. I love hearing from you guys, thanks for all the support. I love you all.

Elder Emery

Happy 4th of July!

Well, the 4th of July here is nothing compared to what it is like in America... Ha
but it still was a solid day. Actually, we were able to celebrate Elder Lindsey’s birthday that day so that was a lot of fun. We went over to Christian Ottiker’s house and were able to have a Rochlette dinner.. An amazing German dish. I swear all we do is Eat, Walk, Teach, and sleep!! ha but it’s been good so far. This week a ton happened but I will try to tell some of the main points.

On Tuesday we actually were being followed by a newspaper writer. It was really interesting and sometimes awkward because we were out contacting and she would pretty much take pictures of us talking with people and interview us after we would talk. That day we got a referral from the Elders in Mainz.. They told us to go talk to this guy named Fahrad in Oberursel.. To come to find out Fahrad actually lives in a Refugee camp and it honestly was the scariest experience. We walked in there and people were just insane.. They were honestly scared by 2 missionaries walking in with a reporter behind them. We got yelled at and people would hide and scream at us.. What makes it even better is we didn’t find Fahrad.. Ha so we ended up leaving that situation as quickly as possible but we really couldn’t leave because people were blocking us from leaving.. We spent about 45 minutes there and it was a little bit sketchy..

After that experience we went to a couple members’ homes that night and taught a few lessons and then got interviewed by this girl. I am really interested what she writes in her article after the experiences we had with her.

Another cool story, so EVERYONE here in Germany smokes! Everywhere you go there is someone smoking. We were waiting for a bus and we were standing right next to these 2 girls that were smoking and it smelled awful. I was actually kind of getting sick of the smell. There was a sign right behind us that is an advertisement for smoking and on every cigarette box it says, "Rauchen kann tödlich sein" which means "smoking can be deadly." Well to make a long story short I was getting sick of this smell and so I turned to them and said can you read the sign?? It says "Rauchen kann tödlich sein," then I asked what they thought about that?? -- I was just being blunt and honestly would have never said that in my life I just said it out of nowhere.. Ha but she ended up telling us how she started and she wants to stop. We ended up getting her number so I guess being pretty bold works here in Germany. haha

On Saturday we were invited to go play soccer over in Bad-Nauheim. The Usingen, Wetzlar and Freidrichsdorf wards were all invited. The train ride was about an hour up to Bad-Nauheim but the scenery is beautiful. When we got there they had already started and I honestly thought it was a bunch of professionals playing soccer.. They were Incredible!! Ha Elder Lindsey and I joined the game and it was so hard.. ha I remember playing soccer as a little kid so I mean I had some moves I guess. The only one that worked for me was kicking the ball ahead of everyone and out running everyone and chasing it down. I actually was successful and scored twice.. ha it was a lot of fun and through that we got a couple new investigators. Whatever works to get investigators we do. After we played soccer we had a BBQ and just enjoyed the rest of the night. It was such a fun experience but honestly I am SOOO out of shape.. I have been soo sore these past couple of days! Hahaha it is so hard to even walk but it was so worth it to finally get out and play some sports.

This week was a lot of fun. I have learned so much and just seeing how happy people are is everything. I have grown so much in this work and love every single moment. The days seem to fly by. It’s weird to think it’s already been 2 months since I have been out. But I hope everyone is doing well. Sorry this letter is a little bit shorter. Hope everyone’s 4th of July was great. I always have you all in my prayers. I love you all

Elder Emery

more pics

Elder Lindsey, Lorenzo, Christian Ottiker and I. Christian is one of our best friends here and he is honestly one of the coolest guys. He is the older one and he speaks English. He always has us over to eat and we have gotten really close friends.

2 Months

2 months already done.. Crazy to think! Hope everyone is doing well. I love getting the emails and hearing about everyone’s weeks. Thanks a ton for the support. For the week here in Germany it was kind of a slower week. That is missionary work though. This week was a big tester for me. I had a lot of patience and for the first time I was actually a little homesick. But putting my trust in the Lord and having faith I was able to figure out things and get back on track.

One cool story that happened this week is last Tuesday we had been contacting for about 2 hours after an appointment we had. Honestly everyone we were talking to was just denying us and we felt really down that night. We were in Freidrichsdorf and so we had to take the train back to Bad Hamburg to get to our apartment. As we were getting off the train, there was a lady getting off the train behind us with her bike. Out of our first reactions we started to help her with her bike out of the train and down the stairs. We started talking to her about why we were in Germany and what our purpose was. She began to open up to us and she was telling us how her family needs help. We made an appointment with her for tonight and Elder Lindsey and I are so excited.

This week we went up to Neu-Ansbach to do service for a member family.. We dug holes and ripped out tree roots and honestly it was like digging straight rock. The ground was so hard and honestly felt like we got nowhere. While we were working Elder Lindsey started to get really sick.. So we started to head back to our apartment. He has been in a lot of pain. Yesterday we were in our ward and I thought Elder Lindsey was about to die. He did not look good at all. We had an eating appointment at a member’s house and he ate barely and then just threw it all up so we came back to our apartment a little bit early. He slept and says it’s not getting any better. So I hope he will be getting better. I have been helping him out and I feel like my mom now :) haha Elder Lindsey is such a great guy though and is staying positive.

This week we went on splits. I went over to the Wetterau area with Elder Stimpson, another really cool guy. He is our district Leader and so once every transfer we go on splits. While I was in Wetterau we taught this kid who was really interested in the Church and they found him a week before. He spoke English so I could actually talk to him. It honestly was pointless though.. He just tried to tell us how our religion was wrong and how he wanted to discuss about all the religions. It was really uncomfortable because there were Muslim pictures all over his wall and he tried to give us this book which explained about all the religions. It was getting late about 9:30 and we needed to be back at the apartment and so we tried to get up and go but he would not let us go.. It was super weird! Ha so we told him we would meet with him again sometime and about 10:00 we finally got out.. It was such an uneasy feeling but I am glad I don’t have to talk to him again. ha But I learned a lot from the experience.

Well a little about Germany; the weather has been really crappy here. It’s been in about the 50’s and raining. Some days are super hot and other days are awful. One constant thing here it seems like is it is all cloudy and just dark and a little bit sad. Haha Its crazy.. When the suns out people are so happy and love to talk. Then when its cloudy people are so mad and don’t want to talk. It’s really funny to see but also is really fun. I heard it has been super hot back in Utah. That is crazy numbers it seems like.

Jackson sent me something last week that has really helped me; He said, "If you are not exactly obedient with your thoughts and actions, change that. The Lord will wait for us to do our part before he does his." That has really helped me! We can all learn from that quote and I hope everyone will find something they can change. I have learned so much about myself. I have learned that I love serving people and helping people out. And yes mom I am a clean freak now.. Everything is so clean. I have definitely learned that :)

Thanks again for all the support. This week was such a big test for me. I have really found out how much I have been blessed in my life. I am so happy to be serving here in Germany. Thanks for all of the prayers and all the letters. It really means a lot. Love you all

Elder Emery