Week 6- Elder Bednar's Visit to the Mission

Hallo Mutti,

This week has been a rollercoaster, but that's kind of like any other week.  We started off this week, Elder Larsen and I, with weekly planning.  And as we planned for this last week, we were able to fill every time slot with something, and we started to get a little to proud in our efforts.  Well, the Lord really humbled us and showed us that it is not our own efforts that makes it.  Most of all of our appointments fell out, people didn't show up, and Raju (our baptismal date guy) randomly decided to go on vacation during the time for his baptismal date.  So it was pretty tough.  We had to go door to door for the first time this week, and it is really weird because all you do is press a button and you talk to someone into a box and if they want to talk to you, they buzz you in.  No one wanted to buzz us in, but it was a great experience.  So on Wednesday night, it was a time spent on my knees, apologizing for our cockiness.  It truly is not me that does this work.  It is the Spirit. He is the master teacher.  I need to be prepared so that he can teach through us.  So that was the first part of the week, and then the next was pretty spiritual afterwards.  We were able to attend the Temple in a small city called Frieberg, it is in our district and so we are able to visit the temple once every other transfer.  And that was a great experience.  It is probably the smallest temple I have ever seen, and we went on Hungarian week.  So since the temple is the closest one to different countries, they have weeks for different languages and this week was Hungarian.  so I had a little headset and I kept switching it from German, to English.  But that was great.  I truly goes to show you that the Spirit has no language barriers.  That no matter what language we teach, the spirit will talk to each and every one of us.  And then we were able to go to Berlin to see Elder Bednar this last Friday, and that was awesome.  He truly carries himself like a messenger of the Lord.  His teaching methods and skills are far beyond any other missionary I have ever come across.  And it showed me that there is alot of space of improvement in my teaching ability.  There is a picture of him and our entire mission on the blog and you can go and see if you can find me.  But that was by far really good and I left that meeting with a lot to think about and apply in my daily missionary life. 

Ok, so something funny, and super gross.  So of one of our only appointments that didn't fall out, was with this 87 year old man, we call him Herr Tischmaker (Mr. Tablemaker) because his last name is way to hard to pronounce.  But his father owned his own Tischerlei and so then he worked it, and now his son works this same shop.  He showed us his Meisterstück (masterpiece) and it was truly a beautiful piece of art.  But, lets get to the good stuff.  So as we are talking to him, you have to remember this man is from the DDR time, so nothing goes to waste, he decided that he wanted to feed us.  Super nice man, so we said ok yeah.  So he takes us into his kitchen, and he decides to prepare us a meal.  He cooked three brats probably in about a measuring cup full of butter.  He just wouldn't stop putting butter in that pan.  He really only cooked on side of it and then he gave us a slice of bread each.  Well, he then proceeded to put the brat in a little bowl for us with pieces of bread surrounding it, and then he decided to drizzle our brats with all the burnt butter in the pan.  So this black butter just covered our plates, and bread.  I am already started to pray right now.  As we begin to eat, I remember my companion telling me once that DDR time people get really offended if you do not eat all of the food, and even the sauce too.  So I just start guzzling this brat and bread down.  I came to find out that the bread was covered in mold and I looked at it, and with determination not to offend him, I ate it.  Gross, right?  Well, do not freak out right now.  We are as healthy as horses, for which I am thankful to Heavenly Father.  But this man is the nicest old man and we have another meeting with him today and his son and we are hoping to keep the conversation in the living room. 

But as I go into this next week, I feel a sense of urgency.  I have been reading my patriarchal blessing lately and reading over and over the part about my mission.  And I cannot help but feel this urgency.  That there are people out there that I can help and I do not have all the time in the world to help them. Just a few short months in some areas.  So, with this urgency, I am hoping to put my fears aside when it comes to talking to people and just put myself out there. 

I am sorry about Chad.  It really makes me upset.  The Family is so important, and if he doesn't agree, well you tell him to come to East Germany and I can show him some families that could benefit from being close to each other.  If something I have learned from this few weeks is how important our families are to each other.  I have seen some really sad things and things that you would not even imagine when it comes to families.  And I hope you all can work this out, because we need each other to get through the trials of this life.  And we are here to bring each other Joy! We are here to help another.

And I am glad to hear about Jeff, but tell him Drew says do not let this detract from his progression. How is he with trying to quit smoking?

And that is awesome that Hana gets to finish school and start her career. She may be a little scared now, but she will have a blast when she gets to cut that persons hair for the first time as a career stylist.

Well I love you all and you are all in my prayers

 

With Love

Elder Bretzing