Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Week 5- The Blessing of Obedience

Hallo Mutti

This week has been one fast one, that is for sure.  Today is the mark of my second transfer in Germany.  I am still in Meißen because I am being trained for 12 weeks so that means two transfers with my trainer.  I cannot believe how fast that went by.  It is a little scary to think about it.  I am starting to getting use to listening to German 24 hours a day.  Although, you get that random person who can tell you 5 stories without breathing and at that point, my brain just shuts off. 

Highlight of the week: we were "attempted" spit on.  So yesterday, we had a lot of time and we decided to go finding.  And so there is a loop in that picture, we will find on that bridge and walk to the other bridge behind me in the picture and we call it the loop.  And those are the two best places we can find people on Sundays for in Germany, it is kind of of a culture thing where you will take your family on Sunday walks and that's when we can run into a lot of families. Well, when we got off the bridge, we rounded this really sharp corner, and there was a man just standing there, smoking and drinking by himself.  He kind of surprised me, so I just decided to say hello.  And I look at him and say Hallo! and immediately he tried to spit on us, but he ended up spitting on himself.  So we decided to just keep walking then.  That was pretty funny. 

It is a really weird experience to start getting used to riding trains and getting to buses, and for Germans, the train is always on time.  Sometimes they are about two mins late, but then people really start to get mad.  And it is really crazy, because the train will probably stay there for about 45 seconds and once they see no one else getting on, they leave.  So we have become champs at running up stairs and when we hear the train overhead of us, we just book it so the conductor can see us.  This week was also pretty busy with meetings and what not.  We had a zone conference with about 3 other zones on Thursday and it was great to see some of the elders and sisters from the MTC.  I was able to see Elder Wirthin and Sister Walker and that was really fun. 

Something that I was really reminded of this week is the blessings of obedience.  So after we were walking around yesterday, we decided to leave a little early and get back to our studies.  But with the time it took to walk back to our apartment, we had about an extra 10 mins and we decided we would go out after our studies and walk around our apartment.  Well, while we started to do our studies, we got comfortable.  I was thinking of ideas we could use that 10 mins in the apartment so I didn't have to put my shoes on and to see if I could get into my pjs earlier.  And as the time got down to it, we figured that we better do it and go find for those 10 mins.  I was really feeling too hopeful for the last time we did a 10 min walk at night, there was no one on the street.  So we decided this time to go up the hill next to our apartment and see if there were people.  As we started to walk up the hill, we noticed an older gentlemen and a women going to her car.  We kind of figured that after she got into the car, he would leave and go back into his house.  But he didn't, and as we got closer to him, we started to wake up and notice that he was just sitting and staying at his front porch.  And then we were able to talk to him for a while and after a little quatsching (chit chatting) we were able to make an appointment with him to visit him again and bring him a Book of Mormon.  We then decided to turn back home.  We were stunned.  But I thought that that truly was a blessing.  When we do all that we can, and when we keep promises, the Lord blesses us. 

Its really funny you talk about President Bednar, because he is coming to our mission to talk to all of us this week and even some missionaries are speculating that we will get iPad's when he comes.  Our president told us that we will soon get iPad's, but he hasn't given us a set date or what not.  Its unreal to me, I know that we will get them one of these days. But a lot of missionaries are hoping that we get them this week.  But tell those I say Hi and I hope all is going well with them.  And it sounds like a lot of fun that there is some missionary work going on back at home.  That is great. 

Give grandma a big hug for me and could you please send me the birthday dates of everyone in the family?  I know, i should know all this stuff by now, but it would be better than not to forget it. 

Yes, I received your package!  Thank you! And the crush is the best.  Germans drive carbonated water by itself just because they like to and so we put the crush packets in to make our own soda.  I haven't received any letters from Chad and the kids yet, but tell them to write them.  If I do not get to write to them that week, I will send them something the next week.  Hopefully, there will be more pictures soon to come.  It is a little tough, because we have to go to this sketch computer laden and they don't have ways to send pictures over the computer.  Maybe one of these days when I get transferred to a place with a ward building I will be able to send them every week.  There is a lot of beautiful things to see here.  Did you know that Meißens sister city is Provo?  apparently, the first dean of BYU is from Meißen.  Also, we have in our area, the dedicatory site were President Monson dedicated East Germany back in the 70s.  So there is a lot to see here.

Well, I got to go.

Love ya,
Elder Bretzing

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