My Final Week In Offenbach

Well, I have finally reached the end of my time in my first area.  I had a split, ate authentic chinese food from an investigator, and had other Elders move into our apartment.

So, I had another good split this past week with another elder from Offenbach, only thing was that it didn´t feel like too much of a split because we spent the entire time together with the other Offenbach elders.  We had two member appointments, one which was saying a goodbye because they were about to move.  It was still a fun time though.

The following day the other Offenbach elders decided to move into our apartment to get ready for when they move into their new apartment (it is in the same complex as us).  So, it has been fun to have a bunch of elders in the same place, but it can get kind of distracting. 

We have an investigator who is from China, who will be heading back soon, so he invited us over to his place and made real Chinese food for us.  We had some weird stuff to eat, like stomach, but most of it tasted pretty good actually.  This investigator is the same age as me and is studying in Germany for school but now his time in Germany is over, sad to say goodbye.

Finally, transfer calls happened this week, I will be going to my second area, Paderborn, and serving with a new companion, Elder Black.  I hear that it is a beautiful area, but far away from other areas.  Should be a fun time though, and I get the opportunity to see more of Germany now.  I will be heading to Paderborn Thursday, which is crazy! Time seems to be flying by.

Hope you all have a great week!

Aaron with his investigator

Aaron in a beautiful country

Ultron has a new friend

This week was pretty eventful:  two splits, a sick companion, and the branch calling me Jesus.

So early in the week, my companion took a sick day where he slept a lot.  For most of that time, I studied, cleaned the apartment, and started to work on my 3D puzzle I got from my zone leaders.  I finished R2 a few days later, and he looks pretty good, he even talks when you press a button!  Ultron is not so lonely anymore.

I also went on two splits, one in Hanau, and the other in Offenbach with a zone leader.  They both went well, and in Hanau we went to a smaller German village that actually felt like Germany.  It was beautiful, with lots of trees, old buildings, and actual German people!  

With the Jesus situation, there was a member who has a mental handicap, but for whatever reason, didn´t take his medicine, and started telling me a bunch of crazy things.  He said I was a higher intelligence and that he saw me create the universe and that I was better than Jesus.  It was weird, and at one point he even sort of attacked another Elder when he was pulled outside of the church (the church was open that day for Basketball).  So, the entire branch found out about it, and on Sunday they started to call me Jesus.  Yeah, not sure what to think of all of it, but on the other side of things, we did get some new investigators to come to church, which was awesome!

Well, I hope you are all doing well, until next time!

 Ultron helps build R2

 Aaron with his R2 puzzle

Aaron in a small German village

Germany for the Win!

Crazy World Cup week for Germany, and I got to watch the final!

This week was interesting in its own special way.  We had some good appointments with members of our branch, including our branch president, and also appointments with some investigators.  I had a split with one of the other Offenbach Elders, which is always fun, and we got to talk a lot about our mission area and trying to figure it out.  We tried throughout the week to do some street displays, but everytime we tried, it would rain!  The weather here has been full of rain, thunder, and lightning, we actually got caught in the rain walking home from church, thankfully I brought my umbrella.  We were able to successfully go through one street display, where we tried things differently and brought a TV, a laptop, and American lemonade.  It was different from all of the other street displays before, which I think was good.  

World Cup wise, when Germany played against Brazil, it was right around when we were getting ready for bed.  We started to hear a lot of screaming out in the streets and wondered what was going on.  One of the members started to text us and tell us whenever Germany made a goal, that was an intense evening!  Then with the final, we got permission to watch it if we had an investigator with us, so we found one and went over to a member`s house and enjoyed watching the game.  I am happy I bought the national jersey now that Germany has won, and now I can say I was there in Germany when they won the World Cup.  Pretty cool.

So now that things have cooled down, hopefully mission wise we can find more success.  This transfer seems to be flying by, and my training days are almost over! Yikes!

Until next time!

 Aaron and his companion stuck in the rain

(I don't know how to rotate the picture.  Sorry. -Aaron's Mom)

 Street display

Germany wins the World Cup

The Fourth of July in Germany

This week flew by quickly.  I had a split and the fourth of July in another country, and met the new mission president.  

The new mission president, President Stoddard, is from Utah, and both he and his wife seem very friendly.  He talked about when he was being trained, he and all of the other new mission presidents went to the Thanksgiving Point Megaplex to watch the new church film with one of the apostles.  I thought that was cool, considering that I worked there for a year and a half.

The split I had was fun, the elder I was with, Elder Moore, loves to cook, so everyone likes to have him around because he always makes something good!  He also enjoys talking about movies, so he and I got along really well.  It was fun.

The Fourth of July was honestly kind of sad.  I missed all of the fireworks, but we did make cheeseburgers for dinner, that was fun.  We also did a street display that day but no one was out because there was a World Cup game going on at the time.  Oh well. . .

Everyone seems to be pretty excited about the World Cup, it is fun, but it will be kind of nice when it is all over.  

Sorry I don't have any pictures with me in them this week!

Aaron's 4th of July Dinner

excerpt form his letter to his mom:

I am doing well, and yes, I like my new apartment.  Apparently it is the nicest apartment in the whole mission, or so I have been told.  It has a balcony where you can see Frankfurt in the distance, some big speakers hooked up to the portable DVD player so we can listen to music, and it is pretty big.  The only down side of the apartment is that the bathroom has no door, and the bathroom is pretty tiny.  A door should be coming soon, but as of right now, we have to use a sheet as a makeshift door.  Germany is really excited about the world cup, after the games everyone is out in the streets partying, not the best time for missionaries to be out in the open.