WEEK 45

Well one more week come and gone, and it's been a weird week.  And my hump day is not till next week, so next week I will write about the one year mark.  Besides, I don't want to admit that it has been a year yet.  I hope you got the pictures and they came through ok.  Some of them are pictures where we are at a eating appointment with the sister missionaries in our area with a really cool American family in the ward.  They are the best and I was super thankful for their love and support.  An other picture that we had was the elders in our area taking us out to this sort of 50s diner in our area.  It doesn't taste anything like home.  Especially because the patty is like meatloaf, it was weird. And the other photo was my birthday present to myself.  It was a license plate that I as able to find and they were willing to print my name on it.  It was really funny.  I don't know why but we felt that we should make mug shots with them. 

It was a weird zone conference.  We started to sing God be with you till we meet again and I started balling.  I am going to miss president Kosak but I am just as excited to create a good relationship with my new president.  We were able to share our love with each other and I got to give him and sister Kosak a huge hug.  He even promised that he would come to my wedding and be there to support me.  So that's two people who I know that will come to my wedding.  They have been such a great support for me and such a great example.  I have really cherished the moments to be with them and learn from them.  He thought the picture was amazing.  I thought he sent you an email because he forwarded it to me and that was how I was able to get the picture.

 

 

 

The work continues to go on here in Hamburg.  Step by step. We have been really struggling with really keeping Investigators to teach.  We find a lot of people, but they will either not pick up their phones anymore or have no more interest to meet with us.  We in our program have really been working with new members and converts.  We have found a lot of people who have been here in Germany for a while and did not know that there was a church here.  So it has been great to help them and to help them reconnect with the church.  Now, as the summer time starts, a lot of our new converts have found jobs and they are not really being good for them.  They are not finding the most stable jobs and so they end up working long hours and almost everyday so we have that working against us. 

The zone is going good.  They are all great missionaries and I am thankful that God trusts elder Weakley and I to watch over them.  We have been having a really good relationship as a zone, but we have not really seen the measured progress that I thought we would start seeing.  It gets hard sometimes but I know that God is with us and whatever happens, it is His will and we are the ones that have to learn to do His will, even when it doesn't seem like what we want to do at the moment.

 

This week, I will be celebrating my birthday at a leadership training meeting that will take the whole day so that is going to be fun.  At least I get to see president Kosak there.   I feel that some of the missionaries want to do something for me there so I just have to be willing to let them.  It is a weird transition here as it now comes another day of firsts, which is stupid because I don't like thinking that but I really can't fight it.  It's weird knowing its my first birthday without dad.  I think it helps being on my mission and it's really my first birthday without everyone but it is still weird. 

 

Well. I love you all here on my side.  I will give Hamburg your love and greetings and I want you to know that I miss you and love you all.  I'll hear from you next week!

Elder Bretzing