Hallo leute! Diese Woche war echt toll.

This week was cool. My first full week in Germany!

First, some of my adventures this week!

First off Church is a lot more interesting when you only understand 1 word in each sentence. And it's even more interesting when you then have to teach the Thema (lesson) in Elders quorum! (like Sunday school)  It actually wasn't that bad haha. I'm not that bad at speaking, the Lord has really really blessed me. The funny thing is that even though I can speak pretty well, I still am not very good at understanding when native speakers speak at a bajillion kilometers an hour. So often times I get into conversations and people think I can speak German way better than I actually can and I have not the slightest inkling of what they are trying to say haha. But it IS getting better. Ich kriege es hin :)

Germany is super cool. Its super super German. Who'd have guessed?

The chocolate is super good. I know i said that last week but it really is haha. Also they eat wurst with basically every meal and its super good. Everbody lives in apartments, the houses are all super duper tiny. Actually everything is tiny. The roads are super skinny and everyone drives super aggressively. Pedestrians are also allowed to cross the street wherever they want if there isn't crosswalk nearby. Also, there is a ton of graffiti. It still makes me laugh when it's in German. Dunno why haha. And everybody smokes. That part is nasty.

It's awesome here! I love it!

A sunset. They are hard to photograph since the terrain is so flat!

Funny, short story. My companion and I went to help out a member as he renovates his house and my job was to vacuum up rocks and dust with the shop-vac. So I'm sitting on this brick and slowly vacuuming up this gigantic pile of rocks and dust. I'm about half-way done and one of the hired workers comes over to me. First off he comes up behind me and is speaking in German, and the vacuum is on, so I have no idea he's there trying to talk to me until he turns the vacuum off and grabs my shoulder. Then he proceeds to yell at me in German for like 45 seconds through his cigarette and gesturing angrily at my pile of dust. I of course understood nothing but the few cuss words he threw in and "Staub saugen" which means "to vacuum". So I'm sitting there covered in dust just trying not to laugh at how comical this is and terrifying it should be to be angrily berated in german over how poorly i was apparently vacuuming. Then at he cuts off, narrows his eyes and I think realizes that I have no clue what he's saying, and says "Verstehst du Deutsch?" (do you understand German?) to which I said "nicht wirklich" (not really) haha. He then continues to grumble and swear as he grabs a brush and motioned for me to sweep it up better before I vacuum. I think. That's what I did and he didn't yell at me again haha. It was really funny.

Aight! Spiritual thought time.

This week I wanted to talk a little bit about Faith.

The construction of the Frankfurt Germany Temple. 

Faith is super important. Soooo many scriptures talk about having faith. But something I've been feeling bad about lately is that I've been feeling like my faith isn't strong enough. And I think we all feel like that sometimes. I've been thinking of great examples of faith from the scriptures: the Brother of Jared removing the Mountain Zerin (Ether 12:30), or Moses parting the Red Sea, or Noah building the Ark. I've been thinking of these wonderful miracles of faith, and thinking to myself, "Well I can't do that. No way is my faith THAT strong." It didn't really make me feel completely worthless, but it did kinda make me feel like I wasn't good enough. Especially hearing of other missionary's miracles out on their missions. My faith just isn't strong enough to do those things. I cannot move mountains.

But what I realized is that my faith doesn't feel strong enough to move mountains, because the Lord doesn't need me to move mountains. I don't feel like I can do those miracle because the Lord doesn't need me to do them. Right now he needs me to get better at German. And to get better at talking to absolute strangers on the street. That's what He needs me to do, and I have faith that He will help me to do it. I also have faith, that if the Lord DID need me to move a mountain, He would strengthen my faith so that I'd be able to. My faith is exactly where the Lord needs it right now. I don't have to worry about being able to move move mountains.

Pretty flowers that are actually weeds. 

And neither do you. I'm not sure if faith is something you feel you struggle with, but just know that God doesn't need you to move mountains either. I don't know what He does want for you to do, but I challenge you to find that out, and then just trust that He will help you do it. We cannot fail with the Lord by our side.

Have the faith and the trust in the Lord to do what He needs you to do. To improve where He wants you to improve. To become who He wants you to become.

You cannot fail :)

My challenge for you this week is this:

If you cannot explain with conviction why your religion has blessed your life and why it will bless the life of your neighbor, fi

nd out for yourself. 

Pray, ponder, study the blessings that your religion has brought into your life. Come closer to God. 

I love you all! I miss you all! Ich wünsche euch eine schöne Woche! Ihr alle seid am Besten! 

Auf Wiedersehen!

Elder Harps

PS: My favorite word to say in German is "Eichhörnchen". It's really hard to say in German haha.