Woche 12

Hallo Leute!

This week's email is probably gonna be pretty short. Not a whole lot happened. The work is good. Life is good. Deutschland rocks.

We did have a funny experience though. We got a referral from the sisters serving in Frankfurt for a guy living in our area, so we gave him a call and set an appointment to meet at the local train station. We met him, and he brought his friend. Both of them are refugees from Afghanistan and speak really broken German. He said we could come to his house and have dinner. So we did. It was really funny because as we talked about their situation as refugees and briefly about their religion (they are Muslim), it became clear that they had absolutely no idea about what we do as missionaries. They just were inviting us over as friends! So we just talked to them and had fun. It was kinda awkward but funny. 

The spiritual thought this week was something I read about in Peach My Gospel (the Missionary manual). I don't know how I've never seen it before, but a short sentence at the end of the section on Charity stuck out to me. It reads:

"Charity, like faith, leads to action"

If we have charity, it leads us to act. If we love those around us, we will go out and serve. We will act to help them. 

John 7:17 immediately became even more my favorite scripture. It says that if we want to develop faith in a principle, we simply need to act on it or try it out, experiment on it, and God will give us a testimony of it. 

But what this also means is that if we want to develop a Christ like attribute, we need to just work on it. It means we need to pray and then look for opportunities to exercise it. If we want to develop charity, we just need to try to be charitable and we will become charitable. Kinda like fake it till you make it. But more like fake it and pray till

you make it! It sounds funny but it's really true. Just act like you are charitable, patient, diligent, and God will help you become so. 

I love you all! Thank you for your prayers! I'm praying for all of you! 

Elder Harps

Woche 11

Aye, hallo von Langen! 

This week was crazzzzzy. So many miracles. Like for real. 

So a member in our ward taught us a phrase: "Der April, macht was er will". It means that April flips a coin every day and decides whether it wants to be winter or spring every 15 minutes. It's awful haha. For instance, we walked to an appointment in the sun, bright blue skies. The appointment didn't happen though, so we turned around and saw a massive rain cloud headed toward us. It dropped 15 degrees, and started to snow/sleet on us for about 15 minutes while we hid under a tree. Then it was sunny again. All. Week. The weather can't make up its mind haha

Elder Harps with other missionaries in his district

So for one of the Miracles, last Thursday night we got back from our whatever it was we were doing and realized that we hadn't reached our goal to talk to at bare minimum of 5 people a day (it was Pday, normally we hit it no problem at all). So we headed back out. We turned the corner and talked to these two guys. And one of the two happened to be a potential Investigator from Eritrea who's number we found in our phone.  We had been trying to get a hold of him for a while. So we talked and he said he could meet with us on Monday. It was so cool. Funny thing is though, on Monday he didn't show (like the last few times). But before we walked home, Elder Mortensen decided we should walk home a longer way so we could talk to people. And we talked to two other young guys from Eritrea, named Adu and Selame,and we set an appointment with them for Wednesday. So then come Wednesday, they actually showed up! (that doesn't happen very much with street appointments). So we took them to the church because April was deciding to be winter and it was cold. And we taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel. It was super cool, and they not only took a Book of Mormon in Amharic but asked if they could bring other friends to future appointments. It was awesome! We never would have found them if we hadn't tried going a little further. The Lord really blessed us. 

This week's thought is about Grace, which has to do with our cool Miracles this week. 

This week we tried to just push ourselves a little farther than we normally do, and holy cow was it awesome. We tried talking to people more during our travel time, on buses and trains, and also just talking to more people on the street. We were so blessed. 

So something cool I found on Grace in the Bible dictionary says:

 "It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means."

It's hard to push yourself further every day. Like really hard. It's hard to love everyone, all the time, every day. It's hard to make yourself talk to people even though you really don't want to. But something I've experienced firsthand this week is that if you make yourself do it anyway, and pray for help, God will make sure you always have just enough strength to do it one more time. Every time may be a struggle, but he will support you as you grow into you are strong enough to maintain it on your own. God will help us maintain our righteous works if we ask him to and try our hardest. 

I love you all! You are awesome. Push yourself a little farther this week! 

Viel Glück! Bis nächste Woche!

A cool castle we drove by

Elder Harps

Woche 10

Hallo meine Freunde! 

Diese Woche war wunderbar! 

Lots of things happened this week. I hope I can remember them all. 

Street display in Michelstadt

First off, this last Saturday we did a street display in a city called Michelstadt. It looks like it comes out of a story book. It was so pretty. Funny though, at the same time we were doing our street display, a big scavenger hunt type thing was going on. So a few groups of people were wandering around the city taking pictures of different things. Which meant that the same people kept walking through our little square. So we kept accidentally talking to the same people over and over haha. Some of them weren't too happy, but ah well :) 

Elder Roesner and I 

We also did some more splits this week. So Elder Roesner and I were companions for the day in Langen. Funny thing is though, both of us have only been here for 4 weeks and we had an appointment in an area I've never been to! We only missed our train stop once! And fortunately there was another one coming the opposite direction 30 seconds later. We had a lot of adventures being two brand new missionaries haha. We walked around our appointment's house twice looking for it, we went down the wrong street for another go-between and ended up getting a potential Investigator of of it, and we saw a guy mowing his lawn with a pair of scissors. Lots of fun haha

Also, the bus drivers here are crazy. I swear I'm standing at a 45 degree angle in every turn. And they floor it everywhere haha. 

But easily the best part of the week was last Thursday night. We had a Fireside meeting with the missionaries in the Frankfurt, Heidelberg, and Friedrichsdorf Zones, and all the ward council members from within those stakes. And President Uchtdorf came and spoke to us!!! In German!! It was so stinking cool!!(Listen to one of his talks)

Elder Uchtdorf , Member of the First Presidency 

I was very much freaking out. He talked about the importance of living the gospel in our wards. That we need to live our lives and work together and be an example of a Christ like community. It was really helpful because he spoke about how ward councils and full time missionaries can work together. Super super flipping cool. 

Jesus Christ emerging
from his tomb.

Spiritual thought this week is about the enabling part of the Atonement. Alma 7:11-12 says that Christ took upon himself not only the penalties for our sins, but also every single pain, sickness, and hardship we have ever gone through,so that he can comfort us in our time of need. This also enables us to overcome anything that life throws at us. This part of the Atonement I have a very strong testimony of. I've seen its power in my life personally time and time again, especially here on my mission. But something I've never really understood is why exactly we have this part of the Atonement. It always has been something I've appreciated, but it always seemed to me that this part was just something extra cool about the Atonement, but not something necessarily that Christ needed to do. 

However, this part of the Atonement is not only beautiful, it is incredibly necessary. This part of the Atonement makes everything okay. It means that no matter how hard our life is, we can find comfort and strength in Christ. This is really important to the plan of salvation. If this wasn't a thing, then if you were born into poverty, that's it. Stinks to be you. Yeah you can have salvation still, Christ can still redeem you, but as for life right here and now? Tough luck. God is then a respecter of persons. He favors some people over others. But that can't be, or God isn't God. So then in order to make everything fair, we can't have our agency. We can't be allowed to make life any worse for anyone else, or God is not fair. Without agency, there is no point to life. We can't learn, or grow. We can't become more like God. And that's the whole purpose. So there goes the plan. 

That's why the enabling power of the Atonement is so important. It makes life fair. Yeah some people have harder lives than others, but anybody, when they rely on Jesus Christ and have faith, can overcome anything thrown at them. Anything. And so it doesn't matter what trials or tribulations come our way. We can learn from them. We can grow from them and become stronger. Any thing unfair about life is made okay through Christ. We can still have our agency. It's okay if we make mistakes. God has provided a way for all of his children to find peace and happiness in this life. All unfairness can be overcome through Christ. 

Again, you all are awesome. Life is good out here. I wish you all an awesome week! 

Bis nächste Woche! Tschüß! 

Elder Harps

Pictures:

More spring time in Germany

Another sunset

The Elders in our district being tourists
 (Elders - Roesner, Mortensen, me, Chamberlain)

Jonah was a prophet
(Elder Mortensen and I at the Frankfurt museum)

Woche 9

Hallo Leute! 

Wie geht's euch? This week was awesome. Lots more practice talking to people. Lots more doors slammed in our faces. Lots of Revelation. Super cool week. 

(sorry for the long email this week) 

Not a whole lot specific happened this week though. We did have a really cool district meeting on Tuesday though. And general conference! Which I will talk about later. 

This weekend we helped somebody move which was fun / hard haha. German moves are different than the ones I've done in the past in America. For starters, the ward is a third the size, so we had about 6 people. The girl we were moving lived in the 4th floor up a really tiny staircase with no elevator. And Germans apparently bring ALL their household appliances with them. Everything. Washer, dryer, dishwasher, refrigerator, the kitchen counters themselves, beds, a bajillion dressers, and three couches. Literally the only thing left in the apartment was a few light bulbs (and even the light fixtures were packed up). It was awesome haha, but a lot of hard work. And a lot of stairs and tight squeezes. 

We had interviews with our mission president this week. That was cool, but mine was actually pretty short. I'm doing pretty well and so he gave me some tips on how to work on my charity and that was about it. He's a really good man. 

This weekend, our church had something called General Conference. It is absolutely incredible. Our church leaders, including our current Prophet and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speak to us and give us Revelation for our day and time. It is basically a time where we get tailored messages on what we need to focus on to help us the most. It's truly incredible. 
One thing that really stood out to me in General Conference, as a theme between all the talks given, comes from a scripture in our book of Doctrine and Covenants:
"Look into me in every thought; doubt not, fear not" (D&C 6:36)
One of the talks, given by Brother Yoon Hwan Choi, talked a lot about looking up to Christ. In this world right now, there is a whole lot of darkness. Terrorism, hate, racism, fear, hunger, turmoil, war. There is a lot of it. Sometimes it feels that we are surrounded by darkness. Sometimes it feels like everywhere we turn, all we can see is conflict. But what Brother Choi talked about, is that in these times when we feel overwhelmed and surrounded by darkness, we need to look up. Sometimes we may not be able to see through the darkness in front of us, but the Light of Christ will always be visible if we look up. 
We went to a members house this week and they shared a really cool experience that happened to them. They said they, this Brother and his wife, were walking down the street, and they saw a man standing and talking. For those of you not aware, Germany right now is housing a LOT of refugees. Most of these refugees have fled from terrorism torn countries such as Syria. This man was telling everybody to build bombs and place them in places they would hurt people. He was telling the refugees to hate the Germans and to hurt them. This Brother was understandably upset. He said that he had no good feelings after encountering this man. He felt surrounded by darkness. All he felt was this sense of hatred, malice, and evil. He said that he was so wrapped up in these negative feelings, that he didn't see something else unfolding in front of him. His wife had to stop him and point it out to him. In the very same square as this man preaching hatred, was a young mother and her 6 year old son. Behind them was an elderly man in an electric wheelchair with a bag of groceries. They said they watched as the mother gestured, and then the little boy offered to take and carry the old man's groceries. The little boy walked alongside the man and chatted with him about his wheelchair. The old man was visibly delighted that this young boy was taking such interest in him, and was being so kind. The Brother said that he had been completely unable to see this beautiful scene of Charity and love unfolding in front of him because he had been unable to see through the darkness surrounding him. He was very grateful for his wife and her ability to point out the good in the world, despite the darkness. He was able to find peace where he had only been feeling anger. 
It is the same thing with Christ. Sometimes, like this Brother, we feel the darkness is all encompassing and impenetrable. We need another person, Christ, to help us pierce the cloud. We need Christ to help us find peace and light in the darkness. Something really cool is that that is actually what this year's Easter Initiative is about. It's all about how Christ brings us peace. (If you haven't seen the new video, take a second and watch it at Mormon.org . 

It's only 3 minutes long). At the MTC, we actually got to hear from the church head of media and he said that they decided to focus this year's Easter on peace because we are so lacking in it in the world. We are surrounded by darkness. It is so critical to have peace in this world because without internal peace, we will never have peace globally. The cool thing about peace that comes from God is that it is unshakable. We can have this peace through Christ that can endure through all hardship. The prophet Ether describes it as an "anchor to the souls of men" (Ether 12:4). When we have this peace within ourselves, we can have hope, joy, and faith despite the darkness. Yes we may still be surrounded by evil, but when we look up to Christ, we can see enough to take the next step. We can overcome the darkness. We can overcome the world. 
"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

You all are awesome. Don't forget to let yourselves see your strengths. 

Challenge this week: compliment someone at least once every day! 

I love and miss you all! I hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Bis nächste Woche! 

Elder Harps

PS. Funny German word of the week is "Spargel". It means "asparagus". It's funny because apparently Germans really lie asparagus because Spargel stands are a thing here. There are just roadside Spargel stands where you can buy asparagus. Super weird. Still need to try it haha