Munich - Week 12

A note from President Kohler from the last week in October:

Sister Hadfield-

We were just getting ready for our Saturday afternoon Priesthood Leadership Stake Conference meeting here in Munich and there was no piano player.  The stake president asked me if I knew anyone who could play and I told him that I thought that Elder Hadfield could.  I asked him and he stepped up to play wonderfully. 

I am sure this is not the first, nor will it be the last time, but I told him that all those piano lessons and practice hours were paying off and that his mother would be proud.   I just thought I would let you know.  He is a wonderful missionary and we love him.

Danke,

Präsident D. Brian Kohler

Alpenländische Mission

Lommelstrasse 7

D-81479 München

Munich - Week 11

Sister Gardner from High School German Class!

Munich Zone Conference - October 2015

Mission Leadership Conference - October 2015

Munich - Week 10

Hi All!

What a week! We've been doing well. I apologize that it's been a while since I wrote. We are so busy.

Just real quick, I wanted to share my favorite part of conference with you all. It's this picture I attached.

For those of you who don't know the story of these 2 boys, the older one is 11, and his little brother is 9. He has Cerebral Palsy, but had such a desire to sing in the choir that he asked his older brother to hold his hand while they were singing, so that he wouldn't shake. 

For me, this was a big message of conference. An unspoken picture. Here were these messages being spoken about the love of Jesus Christ, and here are two brothers putting it into action. 

My brothers and dad had the chance to sing in the Priesthood choir at conference. To see my dad up there felt normal, he's a singer. But seeing my brothers was different. There was a clip in there where they were singing We'll Bring the World His Truth and it flashed across Joey and my Dad, and then Jake. Out of nowhere, I found myself choking back tears and wheezing because I choked on the tears. It was quite a funny scene. But it really hit me. It was so cool to see them singing that song. The only thing I want for both my brothers is to experience what is happening to me right now. I could never wish for anything better for them. Seeing them sing that really put that into perspective for me and I was reminded of it when I saw this picture again. I love my bros. (you too, Emily). If there is one thing I want you 3 to know, it's that I love Jesus Christ and would do anything to follow Him. I hope you recognize how much I love being a missionary, even if I never email you guys. I'll do better. There's nothing greater you guys could do than come on a mission. I want it for you so bad. It's the greatest experience ever. I hope seeing a big brother out there is good preparation for you all. Get yourselves ready. The time is coming. (: I love you 3. 

Elder Croft is such a good guy. I've learned a lot from him. He's a really refined missionary and knows what he's doing. He's a big basketballer and a Ute. I feel like we just match personality wise and we can joke with each other and poke fun at each other and it makes it tons of fun. I couldn't put my finger exactly on it, but things really do click between us. I've learned how to teach powerfully from him for sure. He's probably the best teacher our mission has to offer and I've been working so hard at it. I ought to send you our study plan as a mission right now. That's been helping me as well. I'll do that. 

I have contact with all my old companions. We're all good friends. I'm emailing some of them right now as we speak. The new AP is Elder Albrecht. He is a good guy. Packers fan.

MLC was superb. We talked about what we need to do to help the mission improve. I'll send you the charts as well to go with that. The mission has been stagnant and we talked about not being satisfied with complacency. Granted, we are about to match the baptisms from 2 years ago, and we have 80 less missionaries than that year. We're doing good, but there's a lot of room to improve.
Hope all is well with all of you. Pray for S to schaff his baptism on the 21st of November!
We are looking at a forecast with snow later this week. It's comingggggg. It's chilly outside right now. (: 

Love you,

Sam

Munich - Week 9

A few pictures from the mission blog from September happenings:

September Mission Leadership Conference

Discussing needs of the Munich Zone

Mission Conference Lunch!

AP's - Elder Rozan, President Kohler, Elder Ridd

Michael & Suzanne Lenhart, Phil Hadfield, Paul Lenhart, Emily Hadfield, Jake Hadfield, Sherri Hadfield, Joey Hadfield Lenhart's came to Utah from Munich to visit famiily and we enjoyed dinner with them October 4, 2015

About General Conference -- a couple of the main themes that I took out are that its far past time to stop doubting, start simplifying, and continue believing. That was a strong message for me, as it answered one of the questions I had, even though the question wasn't doctrine related. The other just kept weighing on me how much the church is needing the youth and young adults to step up. That's being said over and over, but it's just not getting in the hearts yet. But it's there for mine.

I enjoyed seeing all those people I knew in the choir, kind of weird though. There was quite a few kids in there that I know. It was weird to see Dad, Jake and Joey not over Skype. 

I couldn't pick a favorite talk. I loved Elder Andersen's talk. Loved it. Loved Elder Hales, Elder Holland, and President Nelson's. Loved both of President Uchtdorf's. Loved President Eyrings Sunday morning. So many good messages. A friend and I were talking a lot about Elder Hales' and Elder Holland's talks and it was really meaningful to both of us.

 

I loved something that a friend said to me: 'I can honestly say that I've never felt the Savior's love for me more than I have this weekend, and it's been incredible.' I agree completely. That's exactly how I felt. I feel empowered by the teachings each time and just feel the power of the Savior's love for me. It was so cool. That was something I needed this week.

So, G got a job in Poland. :( so he is there for a few months. But S is on for baptism the 21st of November. We will go get him. He's progressing pretty well and asked this week if he could pay is Kirchensteuer. Tithing. Other challenges to work through, but we are excited for him. He's awesome. We are meeting with him again in about an hour. He starts school this week so we will have a little more time to meet with him than we have had. He's doing really well and progressing. We are excited.

 

So this week I was back in Passau! I had an Austausch there with Elder Faux. It was great fun. I'll send pictures.

Elder Hadfield, Elder Faux, Bruder Guth - Passau, Germany

Passau, Germany

 

 

Munich - Week 8

We are headed down to Tegelberg right now, a mountain that overlooks a famous castle, and I'm just writing emails in the car. 

I'm doing good, this week was a little bit of a drag, but it should pick up this week. I got my voice back and I'm starting to get over my sickness a little bit. I'll answer Dad's questions here.

The car ride was beautiful. I've had a couple experiences in the Alps and it is just holy. It feels sacred up there on the mountains, I'm serious. 

That Wien schnitzel place is definitely still in business. The missionaries love it. They call it Herb's. That's not the name of the place, but we call it that. Schnitzel and Spätzle is probably my favorite meal thus far. 

I have had a lot of Spargel (white asparagus). It's more of a spring thing. They love it though. It tastes fantastic with like a ham or schnitzel dinner.

Tomorrow is zone conference with a big emphasis on member missionary work. We had a meeting this weekend where Elder Croft and I were asked to lead an hour discussion with the stake presidency, the bishops, the high council, and the Ward mission leaders. We did a really good job, and I hope it pushes towards some changes. 

They will start putting up Christmas pretty soon here. They have no Thanksgiving to look forward to haha. I do hear from Sister Smiley pretty often. I think she's doing well. You need to invite her over. With Jake. 

We were both really happy to hear about Br. Lenhart. You'll have to talk to him about BYU, you were there around the same time. 

This week will be much better. G has returned and things are looking up.

S has no date yet, but said he would pray about one this week. We will catch him. 

I hope my pictures make up for the short email. This PDay was AMAZING. My favorite by far. We had so much fun. Here are some. I have a lot more, but I'll try to send as many good ones as I can. (:
Love you!
Elder Sam

Munich - Week 7

Weekly Update 21 September 2015

This week has sure been quite the ride! It was transfer week, which makes us in Munich extremely busy. There's been kind of a big event every day this week. I'll tell you about some of our week.

On Monday, we had a really good appointment with a member. We've started calling members up and asking to come by for 30 minutes to share a thought. We tell them we don't need food, we just want to share something. What we are working on doing is getting our members in PMG more, so they understand a little more what we expect from them, and we get more on the same page goalwise. It's also a good way to trade ideas of how to better get things working in this area of the world. This one was with the H's. He's a high councilor in the stake, and was the high councilor for Passau when I was there. We had a great talk with them and chose to work through the 1st chapter of PMG this week. We'll go back next week and talk about it with them after they get back from vacation.

On Wednesday, we went and picked up 21 new missionaries from the airport. It was totally crazy to be at the airport exactly in the spot where I was a year ago, but this time on the other side of it. What happens is the missionaries come in, and we hug them and tell them how much we love them and are excited for them to be here, then we split them into groups between us and the AP's, then we take them on a Bahn back to the mission home, and let them have their first round at contacting. It was really cool to see them give it their best shot. There was one sister from Germany in my group who was so scared and was just basically holding onto my pant leg the whole time. We sat down together and started talking to this man who told us how annoyed he was that we would sit next to him and try to talk to him, and she just started shaking even more. Haha but he got replaced by a lady, who was so nice and friendly, and it really helped this sister to calm down a little bit and get settled in. That was good. I imagine we will be good friends after that experience. These 21 new missionaries were really stellar. They were totally ready to go get em and that was a good thing to see.

On Thursday, we had Transfer Day. So we spent the first half of our day at the train station seeing missionaries come in and go out to new areas. There was a problem though. The German-Austria border was locked because of refugees, so no trains were running. So we had to drive 10 missionaries to Salzburg and bring 5 or so from Salzburg back to Munich. It wasn't such a bad thing though. We had a miracle on Thursday night. Our appt on Wednesday with G fell out, which we were pretty bummed about. He told us there was no chance this week for us to meet, which was disheartening because he was leaving on vacation at the end of the week for 10 days. We really wanted to catch him before he left. So we called some less active on Thursday morning on the other side of Munich and set up an appointment with him for that afternoon. We went to the appointment and on our way in, we ran into G. In the middle of nowhere, on the other side of Munich. He had the feeling to visit a friend there in the same complex as our less active. We were able to get his email and information so that we could email him on vacation and what not. Then we ring our less actives doorbell, and he's not home. For an appointment we made out 3 hours before. So we walk out and G is sitting on a bench, because his friend also was not home. We walked up and said, "G, I think God wants us to meet today." He looked up and said, "I think you're right." In his prayer he said, "Thank you for helping us meet each other today." Our paths were definitely directed together, that's for sure. There are no coincidences. We had a great lesson with him about the plan of salvation.

On Friday, the dying missionaries went home or had their parents pick them up. Elder Ridd's parents picked him up. That's a scene that will make you trunky. It was definitely hard to watch. But it wasn't so bad. It was cool to meet Elder Ridd's parents as well.

Here's where the fun comes into play. On Friday night, I found myself praying for a better look at who I am right now and what I need to do to improve myself more, praying specifically for a challenge. Saturday afternoon we were helping our hoarder friend clean up a little bit, and he was so sick. The man has no personal hygiene either. So he just kept coughing in our faces and touching us, and at the end, we gave him a blessing. So germs were just flowing everywhere, and I woke up yesterday morning, and my voice was gone, and still is today. That's definitely a challenge as a missionary. I don't feel so sick, just like a head cold, but my voice is 100% gone. It's hard to have so much to say, and be able to say nothing. So there's the challenge, (at least I hope that's it).

Saturday was also the beginning day of Oktoberfest, and Munich has gone totally wild. On opening day, there were 300,000 people there. We were right in the middle of all that. Imagine 300,000 people wearing Lederhosen and Dirndl's and drinking and you've got Oktoberfest. It is so awesome. I literally love the atmosphere. We are headed out there today to go on some of the rides and take pictures of crazy people. Gotta buy me a Lederhosen today as well.

Alright, so here is the highlight of the week. Saturday morning, at noon, 300,000 people watched the Burgermeister pop the first keg to open Oktoberfest. At noon, we were in a lesson with Stefano. We had taught the Restoration, and he was just crying. This 20 year old kid, who is insane and before 2 weeks, had never heard of Jesus Christ, looked at us, and said, 'I feel it.' 300,000 people were outside thinking they were experiencing true happiness, but Stefano was the one experiencing the lasting happiness. He asked if he could be baptized at 12:00 sharp. It will be a long road, but we will get him. awesome awesome lesson.

Alright, so I'm headed out to go to Oktoberfest. Hope you all have a good day. Love you guys. Have a good week.

Elder Hadfield

Elder Hadfield & Elder Ridd (AP) on Elder Ridd's release day

Oktoberfest 2015

Elder Croft, Elder Hadfield, Elder ? , Elder Rozan

Elders Hadfield & Croft - Oktoberfest 2015

Oktoberfest 2015 - Munich

Munich - Week 6

Hey everybody! Things are really picking up here in Munich. There are SO many tourists here getting ready for Oktoberfest. We are meeting people literally from all over the world every single day. We got on a bus yesterday with 40 Austrailians and it was a total party. Music going and everything, super hilarious. Another U Bahn had a bunch of South Americans with several instruments playing loud music and yelling and screaming like Indians. People go crazy over this I tell ya. It's quite interesting.

So I feel like you all have the right to know about what is going on with our area here in Munich at this point! It has for sure been an interesting and action packed couple of weeks that we have had. I'm sure you have all heard about the refugees and immigrants coming from Syria, Greece, Italy, and Hungary, as well as other places, but mainly from there. They're flooding into our area at the main train station and into the refugee homes we live around by the thousands daily. Every day in the past week there has been over 1000 EACH DAY coming into Munich. It's just shocking. I don't have a solid knowledge of all the things going on in those lands, but I was sitting there thinking how humbling it was to watch 1000 people get off an S-Bahn in a new land far away from home, each hoping for a new way of life, each knowing their life would never be the same again. Then it hit me. That's exactly what I did over a year ago. Boy was THAT humbling!

We have had an enjoyable time helping these immigrants day in and day out. On Thursday, we were at the government place sorting clothes and preparing food for them, and a flood of new ones, about 1000, walked in. They had places for us to play with the kids, places for them to sleep, just really interesting. One thing that just really hit me was the paintings on the wall. They had a painting station for the kids, and each child chose themselves to draw their country flag, and the German flag next to each other, and they strung those along the wall throughout the building. How hard would that be as a child? They've literally left everything and come with nothing but the clothes on their backs in hopes of something better.

I was playing with a little kid kicking a soccer ball around and a bunch of teenagers came and joined. So it ended up that 1 Mormon white boy, and a bunch of Middle Eastern teenagers were playing soccer together. That was a lot of fun. Elder Croft during this time was serving lunch for the kids and joking around with our investigator that we brought with. It was just SO MUCH FUN. The investigator we brought can speak Kurdish, a Middle Eastern language, even though he's German, and that helped a lot. It's great to look at these refugees and realize how much hope they have and how happy they are, regardless of the fact that they have nothing.

So, I'm sure you all remember as well from my email a couple weeks ago how rough our area has been. We've just been weeding the wheat from the tares, but just finding tares. Well, that has in fact turned itself around. We've hit the wheat goldmine so to say. Last week we taught 15 lessons, and this week it was around 20, we are just doing really well. So I'd like to give you a rundown of each investigator, who they are, and how they're progressing. Here goes nothing. 

S: S is the man who came into the church for the first time talking about his partying life and his girls that he's been with, and so on and so forth. We had our first meeting with him that was just strictly on the atonement and how it helps us become clean, and he felt something. So he asked to learn more. We've been teaching him 2-3 times a week about Jesus and His life, as well as about the restored gospel, and he is starting to put everything together. He said he hasn't felt like this in his entire life before. He's also the one we have been taking to the service projects with the refugees. In fact, he brought his girlfriend with him to a service project, and she got annoyed with him because she just wanted to do whatever, so she dumped him and he just had the greatest feeling inside that he was doing the right thing even though he just got dumped. Whenever we are with him, it's like high school all over again. We're super good friends with him and he loves us, and feels very free to talk about anything, (which is sometimes bad), but it's been great. The other day we were with him and he was talking about how old it's getting taking a new girl home every night, and he said he needs to change. That was really good to here. He said he wants to do something like we're doing and help people learn about Jesus. So he's definitely on the goal of baptism soon. He loves coming to the YSA activities, and has a strong desire to go to church every week and meet the people there, which is very rare in Germany, so we're lucky. He's definitely been prepared. We're already planning his first visit back to Utah to come hang out with Elder Croft and I. So things are really good there. 

G: My man G is from Poland. He's around 40 or so. He's living in a tent here and working 10-12 hours a day here to try to bring his family to live here from Poland. He is probably the most humble and real man I have ever met. He is SO prepared to hear the gospel. It's a mixture of German and English when we teach him, but always enough to understand everything. He's got the real intent thing down here, and is engulfed in the Book of Mormon. We gave it to him and the first night, he read 16 chapters. He loves Nephi a lot. He's progressing very very smoothly, perhaps more smoothly than any investigator I've had on my mission except R. He's planning a trip back to Poland in a week here for his daughter's birthday, and so I got online and showed him where the church is, and he was so happy to know the church was in Poland as well. I guess we will see where he goes. Definitely hoping for him to be baptized somewhere in October, and get his family here. In our last lesson, he mentioned that he would love to be a member, he just needs a little bit of time to go through the book a little more and meet more members. Super excited for him. 

Ss: he's a 40 or so year old guy from Iraq. Not Muslim though. He was baptized Evangelisch here in Germany. Speaks great German. We're doing well with him, his progression is just coming very slowly. He does read everything we give him and understands it, he's just having trouble getting it into his heart. It's coming very slowly. He has a baptism date on the 24th of October. Cool guy. 

M: 60 year old black guy from New York. He's way cool. He had a stroke about 5 years ago, and has recovered incredibly from that. He's walking now and doing everything normal, but right as he began walking again, he lost his eyesight completely. He is gaining it back tiny bits at a time, but it is difficult. He listens to the Book of Mormon on his phone every day and enjoys it a lot. He is one where we are just trying to help him understand the basics before we move him towards baptism extremely quickly, but he's very well on that road. He may be smoking weed though, what can you expect from a black guy out of New York? Haha we are for sure working with him though. 

I: my boy I is a new friend we ran into Saturday night. We were talking to him and he was like, "I want to be a missionary like you guys." He's from Russia, searching for a church. We invited him, and he was at church yesterday. Woo! We will see how it unfolds from here. 

R: he is one who had a baptism scheduled on the 3rd of October, and he's not gonna make it. In fact, we're planning on dropping him this week. It's just going nowhere at this point. Better to give him a little more time to think about it.  Fact of the matter is that things are going really well. I'm happy and well.

Not too much news with transfers, other than the nice news that Elder Croft and I will stay together for another transfer. We were both a little worried. My side because he had already served for 6 months here, and I did not want to take over the entire city of Munich after only having 6 weeks of preparation. So we are happy. Not much changed in our zone, only 5 out of 15 companionships. Next transfer will be much more different. Elder Croft will leave. At least 12 companionships will change. It will be interesting. Exciting times though.

The stat line for the transfer, we taught 65 lessons and found 60 potentials. It's been a fun transfer. Looking forward to more this next one. Well hey, it's been over a year now. Love you all and well wishes for the football season. Go Packers!

Best wishes, Elder Hadfield

Munich - Week 5

 

MLC was this past weekend. On Thursday night and Friday morning. It's all the Zone Leaders and the AP's, with the Sister Trainer Leaders as well. We learned a lot and I'll sort some thoughts out and share next week. So there are ZL's in Stuttgart, Salzburg, Wien 2, Munich, Schwamendingen, Bern, and Bonstetten. Those last 3 are Swiss Zones. Our AP's right now are Elder Ridd (nephew of Randall L. Ridd) he is so cool and I enjoy his company a lot. The other is Elder Rozan (from Spain) he can speak like 6 different languages. He was companions with Elder Bartholomew back in the day.

The Kohler's are in the Munich 2 ward. But,We see the Kohler's very often. I enjoy Sister Kohler a lot. She's an awesome mom. Poor woman has been so lonely lately after sending a daughter off to college and a son off on a mission, she doesn't know what to do with herself, so she'll just come down to the office and hang around. She was at our district meeting last week, while President was in Wien doing interviews. She loves the scriptures more than anyone I have ever met. I really enjoy that about her. She's awesome.

Very busy. Refugee filled to put it in a word. If there is one thing we ARE aware of, it's the refugees. We're on the front lines of this, and it's kinda fun. I'm enjoying it. They are all coming in at Munich Hauptbahnhof, which is smack in the heart of our area. We're always around there. We see it every day. Thousands and thousands of them coming in. The police forces are insane, the media is wild, and the hype is just off the walls. We saw an S-Bahn packed full of about 500 of them on Saturday night, and last night, we got called down by the city to go help sort clothes and help them work through the German paperwork. Today, there are supposed to be 10,000 that come to Munich. We are definitely gearing up for that. We did get an email from the Area Presidency. Obviously we are not permitted to proselyte in such situations, but the service is welcome. Our coming weeks with be smashed full of that. It's shocking. They are estimating around 1,000,000 immigrants into Germany by the end of the year. It's eye opening when you think that there are only 8 million total in Germany right now. President says he sees this as the literal gathering of Israel. Interesting to think about. I don't quite know what's going on in those countries, but obviously it's something. Quite the situation we find ourselves in. 

Interesting situation, Elder Faux's companion is headed home for surgery this week, so he'll be in our apartment and working with us for a week until transfers next week. I'm sure I'll hear stories about Passau and so forth. It should be good. We had our MLC last weekend and it was pretty great, but we have a Zone Training tomorrow and we feel pretty stumped on what we would like to do there. 

We had a very great week. We're teaching around 5 new people we've found ourselves and they are all really cool. We taught 15 lessons this week and have sure had an enjoyable time. We are busy, busy, busy and I love it!

Elder Rozen, Elder Croft, Elder Hadfield, Elder Ridd

Elder Hadfield, Elder Ridd, Elder Croft, Elder Rozen, Sisters Abram and Berry

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