May 23, 2011

LETTER #79 - NURNBERG


Hello!
 
Thats way cool that Dixie is in the semi-finals! I think its awesome they have played so well to make it this far the last 2 years. I can't believe Ammon's graduating though. That just seems so weird to me. It kinda makes me feel old. Another school year went by though really quick. But of course the time was packed full of tons of things being done. However we filled up our time. Now its gone by already! But its cool. Everyone is moving forward and making progress.

The last week was a lot of running around everywhere still figuring Nürnberg out. It was a lot of fun though. We did 2 tausches both of which I stayed in Nürnberg with an Elder. So that was pretty eventful. Looking back though it feels like the week just blends together into one big day or something.

We've been trying to involve the members more in our work which has been a lot of fun. There are some really cool people in the ward and they are awesome to take with to teach people. I'm looking forward for working with them more to get the work here moving forward faster.

On Friday to Saturday we tausched with the Elders from Würzburg. I was here in Nürnberg with Elder Chambers. It was a way fun tausch. We were really busy all day and for almost half the time we weren't even together because we met with some members at the church and split with them. He went with one and did home teaching with him and I went with the other and taught a couple of our investigators. It was fun though. Elder Chambers is pretty young on his mission but he's way solid. I learned a lot from him. He also played soccer. He played for 5A state at rio tinto 2010. I was a bit jealous when he told me that ha. It was a good tausch though.

We had an appointment with a less active family. I had never met them before and of course neither had he. Their record hadn't been updated in forever so we had very little information about them. So we planned a little lesson for them but when we got there our plan was destroyed ha. What we had planned was obviously not what they needed. As we sat and talked we both thought to ourselves what we could share or do to help them. I thought of a chapter in the book of Mormon which we read together and talked about it. Then Elder Chambers had a poem in his scriptures he felt would be good to share. At the end there was a good spirit in the house as we left. It didn't go according to plan at all. We weren't sure what to think as we left since we just basically made it all up as we went. But we were hopeful that it helped them. Then at church yesterday I was on the stand since I was giving a talk. As I looked out over everyone in the very back I saw the people Elder Chambers and I visited. I double took and the lady smiled and waved. I was really happy to see them there. I went up to her afterwards and told her that and she said ''You two came at the most needed time and lightened our house and gave me the strength to come back to church today''. It was really cool to see that she applied to her personally how things were and knew what she needed to do.

Then yesterday after church we were going to go to another less active guys house to visit him. We were on the way and realized we were going to be 30 minutes early. We thought about if we should go do something else for 30 minutes or just go early and we decided he wouldn't mind if we were early. So as we walked up to the apartment building a family walked in and the door closed behind them. We didn't think anything of it then just rang the guys bell from bottom and he pushed the button to open the door. A girl from the family that had just walked in pushed the door open for us and then she said ''Hey, missionaries! we are from the church too!" (this was in german though). We were confused and thought maybe they were just from some other church but also believed in God. Then they said they were from some ward in the Stuttgart stake. Tübingen or something like that I'm not sure. They explained the Dad has an apartment there and works here during the week. And that the oldest daughter is also living with him now during the week for the next while working here. They said their father was not a member and gave us his name and asked if we could come by during the week. We told them we'd love to and we were also able to invite the daugther to institute and the other YSA stuff in the ward. It was pretty cool though. Had we not gone right then we would've missed them! The Mom was way happy and kept telling us it wasn't a coincidence that we happened to be there at the same time. Pretty awesome how things like that work out!

When I was on tausch with Elder Chambers he asked me what one of the biggest lessons is I've learned on my mission so far. It was a cool question. I thought about it for a bit. Then talked about how I've learned a lot about doing. I think thats one of the biggest lessons I've learned on my mission. Is to act. There is always so much talk and whatever else but so little who act. It is sadly more rare to find someone who's words and actions are in line with each other. I've learned a lot about how simply acting can make the biggest difference. 

Often we wait around with the excuse like I don't feel like it. Or not right now. Sitting, waiting, thinking that maybe since the desire isn't there right now if I just wait it will come. But that almost never is the case! The desire comes in the act. Or we hear lots of people talking about cool things they've experienced or good things that help out in whatever. We think, "I want to experience something like that." I want that to help me too. The thought, ''I'll just wait around and see if that happens to me too'' is the wrong one to have next. We accomplish things in the doing. We wait then eventually decide to go do something. In the end we will have to go do. Which means we just wasted time waiting around. If we act quickly we can use all the time we have! Thats way better. We accomplish more in the gospel and in our temporal issues as well! To act. Do things. Always moving forward. 

There is a quote by...I don't know who. I remember hearing it while I was in 5th grade at one of the high school practices with Rakai. Its helped me a lot ever since then. ''If you're not training, somebody else out there is; and when you meet them, they will beat you.'' Always be doing things to help you move forward. In the gospel as well as right now in life. If we are not preparing and we meet temptations or struggles, we will lose. If we are, we will be moving forward consistently. It depends very much on us and our doing things.

I'm grateful for the many things we can learn from the gospel to help us move forward in all we do. Of course we aren't perfect and we will have all have struggles and make mistakes. Through the help we receive through the gospel though we can leave those mistakes and sins behind one by one becoming cleaner and cleaner. More and more like our perfect example, Jesus Christ, and our Father in heaven. It is very possible and everyone can do it!

I hope you all have a good week. Good luck with everything! Have fun and enjoy every moment of the time you are using!

I love you all,
Elder Puriri

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