Munich - Week 4

Hey everybody!

I'm sorry it's been so long. This is the first week in 3 or 4 weeks where I've had time to sit down and write something out. We've been busy to say the least. It's been a good busy, but a very difficult busy. I'm really enjoying Munich, it's the coolest city ever, I love my companion, we work really simply well together. Our combination is one where he covers my weaknesses really well and I cover his, and we can both work on our weaknesses together.  It's been great.

Right before I got here, the 2 main investigators dropped the missionaries, and one with a baptism date was told by his wife that if he was baptized, she was kicking him onto the street. So the past 4 weeks have been rough teaching wise. We keep finding new people and having great conversations, but nothing moves past a first lesson. We have taught almost 30 first lessons this transfer, and most times, though we feel like our teaching is really refined and really powerful, they don't accept a return appointment, or we find out that they are just crazy overall. So we don't have much progression going on right now. We are searching out the elect, weeding the tares from the wheat, but thus far, it's just tares.

We have taught some really cool people though. A CEO of a big company in Germany, a professional basketball player, a football coach from Austria, and a ton of kids our age. I love being able to teach people my age. It's been a great way for me to refine my teaching skills and my general ability to be personable with everyone I meet. We did have a couple cool things happen this week. We went on Tausch in Neuötting, part of my very first district, where I had my very first Austausch. That was really cool. I got super sick there on Tuesday night and spent most of my night throwing up and in a lot of pain. I got food poisoning pretty bad.

So on Wednesday, even though I was really not doing good, we were still determined to go out. What we often do is go to Marienplatz, which is as downtown as it gets, and split up to opposite sides of the street, and work one on one with people for an hour or two, then move on to whatever we are doing next. So we were doing that and I talked with a guy who didn't have a lot of time, but I just invited him to church, and he showed up yesterday! That was super cool. He really enjoyed it and said he was planning on coming next week. We have a return appt on Wednesday. I guess we will see how it goes. The other cool thing was an appointment we had yesterday afternoon. It was awesome. It was with 2 guys our age. They showed up and we were like, "hey, let's go over to the church." The one dude was like, "man, you didn't tell me we were going to a church." We showed up there and they started telling us about the party they were at until 4 am, and the girls they had taken home, and how hammered they had gotten. It was an interesting conversation to have. You could definitely notice a strong contrast between the lives we are living. Then we started talking to them about how we sometimes screw up in our lives and need Gods help. They were pretty open with that. One of them was like, 'yeah one time I was dating this girl and I made out with her sister. Then I really needed Gods help.' Yes you did pal. Maybe more than that... Just kidding. But it turned into an awesome conversation and it was SO COOL to see the attitudes of these two guys change. The Spirit was really strong, and the feeling was just indescribable. We didn't mention the word Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, or anything from some type of first lesson. It was strictly about how we can be healed from the Atonement and it was super cool. 2 guys who walked in talking about vulgar and crude stuff were suddenly hanging on every word we were saying. Astonishing to say the least. They're new investigators now, and we will see where it goes from here. That's it for this week. Things are good over in Munich.

Love you all. Have a great week

Elder Hadfield

Munich - Week 3

Elder Hadfield & Elder Croft

  

I don't have a lot of time today because some things came up and we were needed somewhere in our zone. I only have 10 minutes but I'll do my best to fill you in and answer your questions.

Our Zone Training went awesome on Tuesday. They've been setting up for Oktoberfest here in Munich, and it looks so cool. I've enjoyed seeing the progress. No restrictions on us during those times, it's normal work guidelines, but we just have to be careful. Elder Croft got kicked in the chest a couple weeks ago by a drunk guy. Insane I tell ya.

Elder Croft is a really good teacher, which is where I need to improve, so it's good that I get to be with him.

This week, we had 119 lessons as a zone, 2 baptisms, which gives us 7 in our zone for the quarter, 92 for the year as a mission. We still have 15 dates, and Elder Croft and I set one of those this week. His name is R from Bulgaria. He's 17. We're excited for him, but it is going to take some really hard work to get him there. It's for the 3rd of October.
The zone is definitely headed in the right direction. I'm excited about where we are headed. We committed everyone at Zone Meeting this week to carry a Book of Mormon as often as possible the next few weeks and see if it makes a difference. I've got to run now. I'll make sure I do better next week.

Love you!

Munich P-day - Week 2

Consecration
I've been thinking lately, and I think I've really come to something. It hit me hard during training from President on Thursday. We were talking about how one becomes a consecrated missionary. There was a couple missionaries who had just been killing themselves over feeling like they weren't perfect. Too often, I think the concept of a consecrated missionary is skewed. Whenever somebody uses the phrase, we get pictures in our minds of someone who is perfect, doesn't struggle with anything, baptizes hundreds of people, and knows the answers to everybody's questions and concerns. Then, when we look, there isn't a missionary in he world that is just like that. Assuming consecration is perfection is shooting for a goal that nobody will ever reach. It's impossible. Shooting for something that is impossible to reach is just stupidity. Consecration is so much more than what we picture it to be. We were talking one time about when to drop investigators if they aren't making progress, and the comment was made, 'Our investigator doesn't read the scriptures, pray, or come to church without us nagging him to do it. Why should we keep teaching him?' Sister Kohler shot right back and in essence said, 'How long did it take you to do the small things like reading in the scriptures or going to church on your own? Did your parents ever give up on you?' Now here's something I can relate with. I was a tough nut to crack as a teenager, and I remember often thinking, 'I'm being forced to go to church, but if I were on my own, I wouldn't do it.' I never really voiced those thoughts, so I might be surprising my parents here hahaha, but that's okay. I always wanted to go on a mission, but going to church was just super boring for me. It took me a little while to start doing the small things on my own, without push from other people to do them. If we refuse to push people for a little while, then they'll never do the small things on their own. The point I'm trying to make is a developing of a self-inspired motivation to do things.

There's a talk that every missionary references about becoming consecrated, and the one sentence that I take from it, is this. "A consecrated missionary pushes forward, not because it's easy, but because he knows it's the only smart thing to do." A consecrated missionary has developed that self-inspired motivation to do the things that are hard, because he knows who he is, and when it comes down to it, he is a son of God who wants to become what God wants him to become. A consecrated missionary is NOT a perfect missionary. He struggles with his fair share of homesickness, he misses the girl he loves at home, he sometimes doesn't want to wake up in the morning, and sometimes he would rather stay in the apartment instead of going out in 100 degree weather to hit the streets for 9 hours, but he pushes forward because it's the only smart thing to do. Personally, I've noticed a change in myself lately. I don't want to put myself on a high horse or anything, but from the beginning of my mission to the point I'm at now, I see differences that I didn't think were possible. I sat at church back at home listening to missionary after missionary after missionary come home and say, 'I found myself on my mission.' I would sit back and say, 'Yeah alright, sounds good. I'll serve my two years, come home, marry, start a family, and live life to the fullest.' I was absolutely willing to serve, but doubted that I would become a completely changed person from it. I was dead wrong. I came on my mission and went through the motions and started to panic because I started to see that going through the motions like I had done my entire life, was not going to work this time around. I went back to the drawing board, and dug through Preach My Gospel to learn the Christlike Attributes and develop them. I started talking to every single person I came into contact with even though that was shattering comfort zones. I started obeying every single little rule, no matter how stupid I thought it was, because I saw that the more obedient I was, the more obedient my investigators would be to their commitments. Much like people become investigators, I became Heavenly Fathers investigator, and watched Him mold me in His powerful, gentle hands. I kept my commitments and started watching Him fulfill His missionary purpose, bringing me closer to His Son, Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean it has been easy to change, it's been very difficult, and it's still in process. But, it's worth it. Without a shadow of a doubt. I feel myself doing the things a missionary does because I want to do them with all of my heart. Not because it's expected of me, or because I have nothing better to do, but because I understand who I am, and who I want to become. I understand where I stand in God's plan. I know that there are hands with my name figuratively written on them, and that because of that, there's a bond between He and I that cannot be broken. In essence, I've felt the same power Moses felt when God said to him, 'Moses, thou art my son.... And I have a work for thee to do.' I know that the same goes for me. He has a work for me to do, and I need to become what He wants me to become. Moses never looked back from that point, and those are my intentions as well.

I don't know how many of you have seen the LIFT video on Mormon Channel. It's about the Ward with all the men who go help this woman with a disease into bed every night for 7 years, and along the way learn something about service. A couple quotes from there stand out to me. 1.Service heals the soul 2.When we serve, we find ourselves, because there's so much more of us to find. I can honestly put my voice with all those other missionaries I have heard say, 'I found myself on my mission.' I'm beginning to find who I truly am, and I can't begin to describe the new levels my mission has taken me to. I'm sure many of you haven't missed the kid driving down 800 West in the middle of the Ward boundaries, speeding and blasting music with all the windows down, and not a care in the world for anyone but himself. I understand, and that's quite alright. I don't much miss that kid either.  Keep that in mind. When we start to do things because we know who we want to become, and we begin to understand the WHY behind everything we do, that's when we are blessed with the vision of who we are and from that comes consecration. To me, THAT is a consecrated missionary.

I listened to an Elder Holland talk from a BYU graduation and he said, 'In this generation, we need members who understand WHO they are, and never give that up for anything.' There's my challenge for all of you. Look behind why you do the things you do, and change where you need to, because it's blessed me immeasurably. Thanks for listening to my rant, love you all. Have a nice week!

Elder Sam Hadfield
Kirche Jesu Christi HLT
Lommelstraße 7
81479 München
Deutschland
mormon.org

Munich - Week 2

P-Day!
Touring the Bayern Soccer Stadium

Hello Munich!

Transfer to Munich

Last few days in Ludwigsburg were good. I had lots of things to get done and we didn't have a lot of appointments, but we did meet with Bruder Cataldo again before I left which was nice. I love that guy. Other than that, it wasn't busy like normal. L's baptism never got set before I left, but should soon. Her grandpa is still in the hospital.

Transfer was awesome. I feel great. Super duper tired, but nonetheless great. We've been really hitting the streets of Munich. It's been fun.

Apartment wise, the AP's actually got a new apartment, so they're out, but very often at our place because we live at the mission office, which is where they normally have to be. They went down to 3 office elders this transfer. There were 2 companionships of office elders, but now just a dritt. They live with us, so it's a 5 man. It's fun. We play rugby every morning together, and I'm having a great time. No car for exchanges, just trains, that's good though. There is a very real chance I could go back to Passau for a day.

Elder Croft is from Utah, Salt Lake, Sugarhouse, right around that area. I really really love him. We're doing great. We got along well from the start and we're doing great things. We've found 14 potential investigators since Thursday and we just enjoy each other a lot. He's served in Wien, Ingolstadt, here, and somewhere else. Es fällt mir nicht ein. He's got an awesome personality.  He's a powerful teacher, which is something I can learn from him and I will work on. He's got terrific German, which is great. My German has felt a little like it's been flat lining and I need to get it back up.

So, I'm on fire here. The work is awesome. The area is dead, but that just makes it more fun. Gotta find your new people and really really put the rubber to the road. We've hit it off on a good point. I feel like I jumped on a train that didn't stop driving which is good. I'm doing great. No worries here. The zone is awesome. We taught 114 lessons as a zone this week between 15 companionships, so it's good. 

Well, hey, I love you, hope it's a good week. We got stuff to do!

 

Elder Sam Hadfield

Kirche Jesu Christi HLT

Lommelstraße 7

81479 München 

Deutschland

mormon.org