Well Hello Mommy!!
Man, this week has been a roller coaster week. I have no idea where to
start! Well, I guess that I will start with Raju. I do not know if I told you
about Raju, but we have an investigator with a baptismal date and he doesn't
speak any German or any English. We gave him all of his material in Hindi, and
so we have been trying to teach him from that. He absolutely loves coming to
church and he absolutely loves seeing us. Every time we show up to his house,
he thinks that we are going to go baptism him that day. It is really funny and
really great. However, we have a few problems. Because he does not speak
German, we do not know how well he knows the Gospel. We were told that the
Hindi translation of the Book of Mormon is not very well, and we finally found a
translator for him. And he was able to come with us to a meeting and he told us
in English, oh you have a lot of work ahead of you elders. Even after talking to
him for just a few short hours, he still has this desire to be baptized. And
his wife absolutely loves the church and she was so focused when our Hindi
translator started to explain the restoration to them in Hindi. And something
that I really learned this week was looking forward with faith. His family has
been in my mind this entire week. I have been stressing over them, because we
have a lot of work that needs to be done before he can be baptized. And then, I
started to think about Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father really wants all of his
children back home with him. And He wants this child and his family to return
home to him. And because of this, Heavenly Father will help us. And I have
been able to read up on talks by Elder Bednar, because he is coming to the
mission this month, and he spoke about having faith with an assurance of the
future. We may not know how things will be done, but with faith in Heavenly
Father, they can be done. All is possible. And I truly believe that. And that
is something that I have been doing this entire week, when I start to stress
over about Raju, I just remember that Heavenly Father wants him home and He will
help us if we do our part. And He has helped us so much. Just getting this
meeting with the translator has been such a miracle. And Raju just loves the
church so much, that he is willing not to go to work on Sunday just to come with
us. And even though he understands nothing, he still loves to be there and
wants to come back every Sunday. I am so excited for him, and I will work as
hard as I can to make sure that this baptism still takes place. He truly wants
it.
Other than that, everything else has been going really good. This week was
kind of rough with getting lessons with investigators, but I feel like we have a
great group of investigators and I can see real potential in all of them.
Everyone still thinks of me as the elder that cannot understand German, which I
have been getting really better at that, so it is really funny how they will ask
my trainer to translate for them, when I am sitting there just thinking, I can
understand you. And whenever someone hears my accent, they just start trying to
talk to me in English, which their English is just awful.
Ok, question answering time:
Haha well, we tried handing her off to the branch, but that is going to
take some time. Instead, we asked her to go with us on joint teaches because
she has a great testimony and it would definitely benefit a lot of people. And
yes, I took a bunch of pictures, I actually sent some home and mailed them home,
but I do not know if you have received them yet. I am still trying to figure it
out but I figured this would be just fine. My German is coming along good as I
kind of explained. I just cant catch the details when people are trying to
describe things or they go off on hobbies, but when it comes to church things, I
can understand about 90%. I just cant really speak back. Oh yeah, I had a talk
yesterday in church and that was really anxious. They gave me the spot of like
a youth and gave me like 5 mins to speak but I was actually kind of happy when
they did that. They all say I have good German, but I bet they are all being
really nice about it. We have an investigator and she tells me straight up I
need more practice. And it makes me laugh every time she does that. We were not
able to see Frau Kluba yet, Elder Larsen had food poisoning that night and we
are actually really booked this week so probably in about next weeks or so we
will have time to go up and see her. And the Jdubs are huge in Germany. But
they arent considered a real religion here by the country which is really
funny. I have a legal identification card from the country that says I can
proselyte and preach and the cops cant do anything about it. But they dont.
And they still try to proselyte and people here do not like that and they always
mix us with them and sometimes I just walk up to people and before they can say
anything I just look at them and say, I AM MORMON! have you heard of us?
Give Kayle a big hug for me and tell him that I love him and miss him. And
when I get home, we can speak to each other in our different languages! And I
am happy to hear that the young women still want to hang out with you and
stuff. How is the dog? I am surprised that you havent ever talked about him.
And tell grandma that I am telling her to try to make it to church and I know
she can do it. And give her a hug for me too and tell her I love her. Well,
that has been my week. I love you and I keep you all in my prayers!
Love
Elder Bretzing
P.s. German fun fact: If you want to be a busy old person like you always
say and keep moving around when your like 90, come to Germany. They all ride
bikes and they are in great health. It is really funny because you see this
old 70 year old women pass us on a bike and we feel kinda lame.
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