Woche 25

Hey everyone! 

This email is going to be pretty short, cuz there is a lot going on today. I'll make sure to do a good one next week. 

This week was berserk. Elder Clarke and I worked our flipping tails off finding new people. We were able to find a TON of new investigators and it was such a blessing. We've found some really cool people. 

One of the people we found is named Reza. He's from Iran and we met him through some afghanistanian refugees we met with again. He had some way cool, very sincere questions. He asked us how we can believe in a religion that is 2000 years old, and keep its rules. We told him that we don't follow a religion for the sake of following a religion, we follow it because it truly is God's church. We do it because God has confirmed to us that this church is the truth. We keep the Commandments because they are from God. Not because we like rules. We challenged him to find out for himself if this church is from God or not, by reading in the scriptures and praying to know. He very humbly accepted and said he would read and pray to God. We are way excited to be working with him. 

I'm a little fried from today, and so I'll make sure to do a really good spiritual thought next time. Read my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon! Ether 12!

I love you all! Bis nächste Woche! 

Elder Harps

Us with Reza and friends. Reza is on the far right

Woche 24

Ayo! 

Diese Woche war wunderbar. Wie immer :) 

This week Elder Clarke and I helped a member in the ward put flooring in his new house for like 5 hours. It was a lot of fun actually, and we got to know his friend who also came to help. Lots of mistakes and having to remeasure everything, but it was all good. It felt way good to do some good old manual labor. And they fed us wannabe American burgers which was thoughtful.

Us with Manic family

The Manic family came to church on Sunday and LOVED it. They are the family from Serbia. Their story is crazy. They came to Germany because their house got burned down by a drunken mob and they were forced to live on the streets or leave the country with their 4 kids. The Father, Mladn, is 23 and the mother, Dzula, is 26. They already have 4 kids and he even got a tattoo at age 11. Serbia is way crazy. It makes me really grateful for what I have and where I came from. 

Us with Manic family

They are so wonderful. They both asked us what they need to do so that they can serve their own missions. They loved church, ask awesome questions, and love to talk about Jesus Christ. They are so excited for their baptism, but we most likely have to push it back a bit because they need to get married and that's a major major bureaucratic pain here in Germany. Even for natives, let alone immigrants. Ahhhhh, they are wonderful, and I hope they get baptized before I leave Langen in a month. We'll see 

We also went on splits with the Zone Leaders again! I stayed here in Langen with Elder Ault, and we had a fantastic split. We found out we are basically the same person. Same video games, we both play music, we have similar majors, both did some college, we like to program, and love to talk about missionary work. We talked a lot about having faith to find new investigators and we set some way good goals, and made great plans to reach said goals. We had a great time klingeling a bit and had some way funny rejections, namely Elder Ault said "Hi I'm Elder Ault!" and held out his hand for a handshake, to which the old lady looked at his hand, and then back at him, then back at his hand for 10 seconds and then said "What do you want?". It was hilarious and we laughed about it after she slammed the door. It was a way way fantastic split.

One of the things Elder Ault and I did on the split was go by on Marius. I talked about him a while ago, but he has since told us our church isn't for him, though he's liked everything we've said, continues to read in the Book of Mormon, and we've answered all his questions. He literally said "Wow you've answered all my questions. I've never felt like this before". So we were way confused when he said he wasn't interested. 

We talked with him about how he can receive an answer about the truth of all that we say. He said he hadn't received an answer from God that our church was true. We read Moroni 10:3-5 with him, which reads:

"3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

"4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

"5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

This is one of our primary invitations as missionaries, is to invite people to find out for themselves if the Book of Mormon is true, and if what we say come from God. We use this promise written by Moroni a LOT. But what we talked with Marius about is a key phrase in this recipe for receiving an answer. 

It says we must see with "real intent". 

This, was my personal key to receiving a witness of the truth of the Book of Mormon. I read the Book Of Mormon 7 times without knowing for sure if it was true or not. I kept the Commandments and went to church every week. I had prayed and asked God if it was true, but I didn't feel like I had received an answer. Honestly I didn't know until I had left for my mission. 

There was a point a few days into the MTC where I realized that I was gonna be doing this for 2 years. I also realized, that I was sick of not knowing for certain. If the Book of Mormon wasn't true, then I was wasting my time. But if it was, I needed to know personally or I wouldn't be able to testify with any sort of power of its verity. Let alone try to testify about it for 2 whole years. If the Book was true, I was going to work my absolute hardest to live the principles it teaches and follow Jesus Christ of whom it testifies. THAT was when I got my answer. It was at that point when I finally had "real intent". It meant that I was ready to fully accept and ACT upon whatever God's answer was. And it wasn't a big flash of inspiration. It was more like a realization that I had known it all along. That I HAD a testimony of its truth, but I didn't know that I knew. God confirmed to me what he had already told me piece by piece. And I was then able to develop and strengthen my witness. 

We explained this to Marius. We asked him, "Marius, if God told you that this Church was true, what would you do?". He thought hard about it for about 2 minutes and then said "Honestly, I probably wouldn't do anything". So we told him, that if he wants an answer to his questions, he needs to have real intent. Without this intent to follow up on his answer, God won't give it to him. We left, and now Marius knows exactly what he needs to do if he decides he wants an answer. He was still incredibly nice and invited us back in the future, but I hope one day he decides he wants an answer. 

I know that The Book of Mormon is true. I know that Joseph Smith really restored Christ's Church. I know that Christ lives and loves each and every one of us. I know that he knows us by name, and supports us in our trials if we let him. Christ is our brother and friend. He is our Savior. I know that He lives. 

I love you all!! I love the Book of Mormon and I love Missions! You are awesome! Don't forget to doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith!! 

Habt eine schöne Woche!! Bis nächstes Mal! 

Elder Harps :) 

Elder Clarke and I literally shouted for joy
when we saw this while shopping today. Hopefully it's good!

Woche 23

Ayo von Langen! 

This week was AWESOME. 
Elder Clarke and i both stayed in Langen! We'll be together for 6 more weeks! Then I'm most likely off!

Saturday was flipping rough. We had 6 back to back appointments, ALL of which fell through. That sucked. Nobody even answered their phone to cancel it officially. Yeah. Ugh

BUT SUNDAY WAS ONE OF THE BEST DAYS OF MY MISSION. One of the appointments from Saturday was with a family from Serbia, but the husband wasn't home so we couldn't teach them. On Sunday we met with them! THEY ARE THE MOST PREPARED PEOPLE I'VE MET (besides Simone. Nobody beats Simone). BUT THEY ARE AMAZING. This man can barely speak German, but his wife and kids translate for us. They all 4 of them accepted baptismal dates for August 5!! Their eyes got wide when we told them that Christ's original church was lost, but they got even wider when we told them it had been restored! This man, when we explained that the Book of Mormon had been translated, said "Gott sei Dank!". They are so awesome! Their two kids eligible for baptism, Alexander (10) and Alexandra (8) participate actively, and have awesome answers to our questions. They all 4 are so excited to get baptized! The Father said as well "Even though I can't really understand much German at church, I still think it's really important that I'm there". AHHHHH I'M SO EXCITED FOR THEM THEY ARE FANTASTIC. SO HUMBLE AND SO READY AND WILLING TO FOLLOW CHRIST

This week would have a spiritual thought, but I'm way rushed for time. I'll make sure to do a better one next time! 

I love you all! Life is fantastic! I hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Tschüß! 

Elder Harps

Pictures 

Add German forest 

Our District before Sister Burk went home this week

Woche 22

Grüß euch alle!! 

Crazy high ride that nearly killed us

Sorry for the super short email last week! We were at a crazy fun Festival in Darmstadt called Heinerfest. It was a blast. Lots of slushies (very rare in Germany), bratwurst, some Churros with oreo dipping sauce (absolutely divine. I can't believe America didn't think of that first), and a few Roller coasters. The Roller coasters here in Germany are flipping crazy. You gotta pay a few Euro to ride but they go forever and you definitely get your money's worth. On this one spinny one my face was very very smashed into the side of the seat the entire time. It was way fun. Highly recommend visiting a German Sommerfest. 

This week we did another street display in Michelstadt, and boy was it fun haha. It was drizzling the entire time, and also this giant bleachers thing was set up right in the middle so nobody could see our display. Also because of the rain nobody was out. It was fun regardless haha

The work is going fantastic here in Langen. We are finding a lot of new investigators, and have been doing a lot better at planning and goalsetting. It's awesome. Lots of lessons given, lots of appointments falling through, a LOT of calling old investigators from the Area Book. Missionary work rocks. We are doing awesome :) 

Half our mission meeting
President Boyer and his family!

This week we got to meet our new mission president! He's really cool, and crazy young. He's probably 40, and has 4 kids that he brought with him. He's super. Only got to meet him briefly, but I think he will be an excellent mission president. I'm excited. 

This Saturday is transfer calls. Elder Clarke and I have absolutely no idea what will happen. I've now been here long enough that it wouldn't be weird if I left, but also not at all weird to stay. He hasn't been here long enough to say for sure if he'll stay or not either. It's all up in the air. Who knows haha. Next week I may have a new companion or even a new area! We'll see! 

K so this week's thought is a scripture we shared with a member this week, who shared some really cool thoughts on it. 

The scripture is Ether 12:4, which reads:

"4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."

I love the imagery of hope being an Anchor to our souls. The interesting thing is though, that just because a ship has an anchor doesn't mean that it won't get slammed and knocked around by storms. The storms will still come. The waves will still surge. But so long as the ship has its anchor it will stay rooted in place. 

Elder Clarke shared a quote that went right along with this. "It doesn't matter how angry the storm is, or how big the waves are, if you don't let any water get in the boat". When life's storms come, if we don't let any water into our ships, we can stand fast with our anchor of hope. Don't let the devil get any water in. Fear, shame, discouragement. Don't let it in, and the Devil cannot sink you. A ship with no water in it will never sink. And though you WILL get batted around in a storm, you will stay strong, and you WILL overcome, so long as you hold to your anchor of hope. 

Jesus Christ lives! He loves us! I love you all! You are amazing! 

Ich hoffe, dass diese Woche die beste Woche eures Lebens ist! Macht Spaß! 

Tschüß! 

Elder Harps

Simone really wanted to give us some of his old shorts.
So we tried them on and took a picture haha

Very German bar/food stand at Heinerfest

We found this German statue thing in the middle of Darmstadt.
All the people are fully posable. Like metal action figures.
So we did the mature thing and made them all dab.

Elder Clarke frying up some SCHNITZEL!! 

This is how Elder Clarke and I celebrated Freedom Day in our apartment haha

Us and Astro-gorilla

Woche 21

Ayo von Langen!

Today is crazy so this email will be really pretty short. 

Life is awesome. We have been finding a lot of new investigators. Simone is doing fantastic. 

Sorry we went to a fest this week and I'm not gonna get any time for emails. I'll make sure to do better next week! 

I love you all! Have a great week! 

Elder Harps

Woche 20

Grüß euch! 

Langen ist wunderbar, wie immer! 

This week was awesome! 

Elder Sticht and I trying
 to find out way to the
church in Darmstadt

We went on a split with the Darmstadt Elders this week, and I stayed here in Langen and Elder Sticht came up and joined me! He's from Washington near Seattle and he's a way cool dude. We had a lot of fun talking to a lot of people. He's a sweet missionary. Also the next day before we split back we left the house at 7 to catch a bus to get us to Dietzenbach so that I could pick up my Aufenhaltstitel (residency permit/visa). It took forever to get there for my appointment, but literally took 5 seconds for them to hand it to me and me to sign that I picked it up, and then we were back on the bus again haha. We traveled on a bunch of crazy busses and trains trying to get back to Darmstadt. We even had to walk through a forest at one point haha. It was way crazy, and it took about 4 hours all in all. Verrückt! 

Elder Clarke and I found a cool new Investigator last week named Marius. He's about 22 and we have him a copy of Das Buch Mormon. When we met with him a few days later, he had read the first 10 chapters already! He's pretty cool, we'll see where he goes :) 

Simone and I

Also way funny experience from a few weeks ago. We were teaching Simone about the Godhead. We were trying to explain Der Heilige Geist. We didn't know it in Italian yet, so we tried to see if he knew it in English. We said Heilige Geist is 'Holy Ghost' in English. He said 'ah! Yes I understand'. So we continued on teaching about the Holy Ghost and he kept looking more and more confused. He finally stopped us and said 'Heilige Geist ist Holocaust?'. We died laughing that we had accidentally confused the words 'Holy Ghost' and 'Holocaust'. We clarified it and all was well. It was way funny. 

This week's thought is about goal setting. 

This month as a mission we are focusing on using our time wisely. It comes from chapter 8 in Preach My Gospel. It involves a lot of things about goals and plans. 

I don't think I ever set a single goal before my mission. But now I set tons of goals. And I think goals are really important. 

"Through goals and plans, our hopes are transformed into action." - Preach My Gospel 

When we take time to write down goals and set visions/long term goals, we clarify where we want to go in life. It makes us organize ourselves to write out our desires and ideas. When we have a clear vision of who we want to be, and what we want to do, we can evaluate and prioritize what we do in a daily basis to get ourselves there. 

"“I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.”

–Elder M. Russell Ballard

Talk given to Salt Lake Area young adults, Oct. 18, 1981

I can attest to this that is we don't set goals, we will not reach our potential or become who we want to become. 

My challenge this week is to take 5 minutes right now and think about who you want to be at the end of the year. Our three end of schooling. Our the end of life. And just wrote down a description of that person and if all help you a LOT. The more detailed the better. Your hope will increase, you will be happier and more focused on what is really important to you. Just sit down and take a few minutes to really ponder. 

I love you all! Germany is awesome! I hope you all are also doing awesome! 

Ich hab euch Lieb! 

Elder Harps

President Stoddard and I before he leaves to return home next week.