LETTER #88 - NURNBERG

Hello Family!

A new transfer begins today! Although this one will be a bit different. Instead of doing one 4 weeks transfer to align things up they are doing two 5 week transfers. So this one and the next will only be 5 weeks so thats strange. Elder Durrant has been transferred to work up in Düsseldorf in the northern part of the mission. I will be staying here and getting 3 elders! ha I get my new companion, Elder Anderson (a different Elder Anderson than my other companion), then 2 more elders are coming to our apartment. So we will have 4 Elders in Nürnberg now. It will be good for the ward and hopefully get things here going a bit quicker. It will be cool. I'll get a picture with all 4 of us so you can see who I'm all with here in Nürnberg. Anyway yea thats what is going on with transfers!

Here are a bunch of pictures from the last little while here since I haven't sent any in a long time. A couple are of making the brownies you sent. We made them for the couple that was going home but the icing didn't spread well so Elder Durrant used it the best he could. Then there are some from the Helping Hands thing we did. Then from the FHE we have each monday. We usually play UNO once or twice right after. Then with the Perkins who just went home last week. Then one with 5 of my companions at one of the meetings we had in Frankfurt a couple weeks ago. left to right is Elder Nelson, Elder Durrant, Elder Anderson, me, Elder White, and Elder Gassman.

Anyway the last week was a blur pretty much. I was in Ansbach one day for a tausch then in Würzburg another day for another tausch. It was fun though. Working with all the Elders is a huge blessing. You always learn so much from the others and learn to better appreciate them and it always motivates you to be better. In Würzburg I had the opportunity to do a baptismal interview for a kid thats about 25. It was really cool! He has now known the church for about 3 months. The interview was way cool though. We just went through the questions and talked about the different things and he would bear his testimony to me about all the different points. It was really cool. We knelt down and he offered the closing prayer and there was a very good spirit there. The Elders said his baptism and confirmation were really good.

I'm sorry this is so short and quick about everything. Elder Durrant needs to pack and get some other things organized so I have to finish this up. Well here is at least something I've been thinking about a lot lately. ''The life each of us lives is the life within the limits of our own thinking. To have life more abundant we must think in the limitless terms of abundance.''--Thomas Drier.  And you can relate that to John 10:10.

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

I love you all so much! I hope everythings going well. Enjoy the summer and make the most of your time! Have a good week,

Elder Puriri

LETTER #87 - NURNBERG

Hello!

 

So we are kind of in a hurry today. The Elders in Erlangen want to meet up and go to a museum thing here about world war 2 so that should be interesting. I will have to kind of hurry through this though because I'm usually the one who slows things down when there's group activities because I take a little longer doing emails ha. Normally its no problem but when there is something going on I have to hurry a bit faster.

Anyway! This last week was pretty fun. We had quite a lot going on. Tuesday Pres. Schwartz came to Nürnberg to interview the Elders in the zone. Since our zone is pretty big everyone came from all over and just staggered their District meeting throughout the day. We had to be at the church early to open up for President then we had our district meeting and visited all the other district meetings as well. So we were in the church almost all day, it was a long day ha. 

That night I went on tausch with Elder Johnson up to Coburg. Elder Johnson is from Mesa Arizona if I remember right but he does not know the Urrys. I don't know how probable it would be for people to know each other there but I always ask everyone when they say they are from that area. Anyway Coburg is beautiful. It was also cool to be able to work with Elder Johnson. Elder Gassman trained him after I left Nordhausen so that was cool to. We were able to share different experiences we had in Nordhausen. I learned so much in my time in Nordhausen. It was definitely one of the greatest times of growth for me. After I left I went to Heidelberg with Elder White, then to Frankfurt. When Elder Gassman was transferred he also went to Heidelberg with Elder White, then to Frankfurt. Then the Elder Anderson, who replaced Elder Gassman in Nordhausen left nordhausen to Heidelberg with Elder White. So everyone thinks Elder Anderson will go to Frankfurt next ha. And yes that shows how long Elder White has been in Heidelberg, almost year! I'm a bit jealous since I only had 6 weeks there. Its alright though, we know we go where we go because thats where we need to be. This weekend is also transfer calls so we'll see what happens with Elder Durrant and me here.

We had the opportunity to do a service project this week with the YSAs in the stake. It was one of those ''Mormon helping hands'' ones where we got those yellow pennys. I thought that was cool ha since you always see the pictures then I got to do one. The bishops wife works at a kindergarden and we went and fixed it up. We waxed the upstairs and re-did the floor downstairs and cleaned up the outside a bit. It was fun and a good opportunity to work with and get to know the YSAs in the stake. We also had a ward grill party. Elder Durrant and I made chocolate chip cookies for it. When we put them out they were gone so fast! We were proud of ourselves for accomplishing that ha. We also made those brownies mom for the missionary couple has been serving in Nürnberg for the last 18 months and are going home this week. We have pictures so I'll send those to you next week so you can believe we baked ha.

As we were in Sunday School yesterday we were talking about the sabbath day. The same new convert who gave the priesthood lesson last week shared a cool thing. He was asked how his sabbath day changed after he became a member. He talked about how it has always been a family day in his family. How they all believe in God and all but it was basically just a family day to go to the park or hike or spend with close friends where they would sometimes discuss about God. He said though that after he got to know the church and became a member his sabbath days became more spiritual. He said something to the effect of ''You can approach the topic of Faith and God from a philosophy point of view or from a spiritual point of view. Although it is the same topic the feelings you get are much different.'' I really like that because we often meet people who approach it only from the philosophy side and we as members or even non-members get caught in doing this. The feelings and experiences are significantly different as we allow our spirits to connect with with our Heavenly Father instead of just approaching the whole thing from a logical or philosophical point of view. 

We can discuss and speculate our whole lives, but until we allow our spirits to connect or relate with God we will not benefit in any way. You cannot teach a testimony. As this Brother talked about, when we approach things of God from our spiritual side we will experience things of greater meaning to us. We will truly learn of our Heavenly Father and of Jesus Christ. We will develop a real relationship with them. A real love for them will develop. In this process we feel our responsibilities as we learn of them. And we will desire to fulfill them. I am grateful for the reality of this and know that God loves us. That he has a perfect plan for us and desires with all his love that we learn of it and follow it.

I hope everyone is doing well. Things sound pretty busy back there. Take time to truly nourish your spirit. I love you all!!

Elder Puriri

LETTER #68 - FRANKFURT

My dear family!
Sorry this is a day late! Random things come up all the time and through out pday so don't worry when you don't hear from me on Mondays. This time it was a German holiday though. President didn't want us to have pday on it and be out with all the people partying during the day so he moved it. Which didn't really matter since the thing basically went since last Thursday and ends tomorrow. So there will still be partying people everyone. Frankfurt was only bad in certain parts of the city though which were easy to avoid.

Anyway! The last week was good and flew by. I was looking back through my planner to find something and looked back like two weeks and couldn't find where I wrote it down. Then I just started flipping closer and closer to today. Then on Wednesdays page last week I found it! So strange I thought it was over 2 weeks ago. Time doesn't exist. It does actually but it’s weird.

The week was good though. We did a few tausches and I was the one who usually went to the other cities last week. It was cool though I was in Wiesbaden with Elder Schwitters. That area is an American Military ward. It was so weird! All the stuff we did was in English. I kept messing up and would switch in to German and realize they had no idea what I was saying. My ability to pray in English is basically gone. I have to go really slow and think really hard. And still I mess up and organize the sentence according to German grammar and when I'm at the end of the sentence I want to say the unconjugated form of the verb and realize that makes no sense in English. So I pause and wait and think ‘how I can somehow make it make sense.’ Usually I don’t know so I just start the sentence over and remember to put the verb where it’s supposed to be.

It was cool to be there though and see the dedicated US Military members. They are really cool. The ward there is also pretty big. At the end of the night we did splits with the Elders quorum. So I went with this one brother to go do some home teaching. We visited this family with a few little kids and all the little kids were running around speaking in English and it was confusing me so bad. I would forget it was an American family and hear all the little kids speaking English so fast and then it would register. I don't think I would do good in a military ward. I don't know how to do gospel in English anymore. Plus the English I've been speaking for the last however many months has been with others who speak German as well. So we use a whole lot of German words in there and German grammar. That’s ok though! Because I'm serving in Germany among German speaking people. So my English doesn't have to be perfect.

Then we had these 2 Elders from Koblenz come down and stay with us for a day because there city turned into party city. They are both German and can speak zero English. Elder Amandoron can understand basically everything and can express himself pretty good in English, we only speak German though. It was funny though being with them for a day. They don't understand any English at all. The funniest was they brought their areabook with them for us to translate. They said ''Look it doesn't work. We want to do areabook work and find people out of it. So we open it up, sit down in front of it. And see words all over that we don’t understand. Everyone writes in English! Imagine you sat down and opened an areabook up and it was written in Arabic. That’s how we feel.'' They're good Elders though and they work hard. Its way cool being able to work with so many different missionaries.

We helped one of the Romanian families move last week. That was also fun. They love having us around and they seem to be accepting everything pretty well. The other Romanian family was too busy to meet with us for a while (the 27 year old father and mother with 5 kids). Then he called us Saturday and asked if we could come that night. We had time so we went out there. As we walked in they already had visitors. All the kids and mothers were in one room talking, and they showed us into the dinner room. Around the table were a few men speaking Romanian with their bibles in front of them. The father stood up and showed us our chairs and said ''finally, finally you are back''. We were able to give them all a Book of Mormon in Romanian and to talk to them about why it is so important. They are all Pentecostal and very strong in their faith. So the 2 other men had tons of questions and were basically trying to prove us wrong while Herr Tinislaf (the father) had his book open to 3rd Nephi 11 and was reading quietly. One of them started to tell us that we were weren't teaching certain things that were very important, then Tinislaf spoke up (with his head still down reading) and pointed at the book and said ''yea but it’s all here'' then he just kept reading. The man looked at him confused and we said ''yea. Let’s open up and all read together''. He is searching and wants to know if it is true, and he will find out. It was a cool appointment.

Today was also cool. We started off our pday with a quick stop at a member’s to help her. She is actually in the International ward in Frankfurt and we had never met her. But the Sisters in the International ward called us last night and asked if we could go help. The sister in the ward had just had an operation and had her hip replaced and she couldn't walk up the stairs to her apartment. So we met her and her son there in the morning.

We decided the easiest way to carry her up would be if she was sitting in a chair. So her son went up to the 4th floor to get a chair from her apartment. As he was gone the Sister took her crutches in one hand, grabbed the railing, and started pressing forward up the stairs. We kept telling her it’s ok and that she could wait but she just went. So we stood at her side until she had made the first flight. Then her son came back with the chair. Her son grabbed her bags and everything. Then we got the chair and sat her in it then Elder Amadoron and I carried her in the chair up to the 4th floor. They invited us in quickly to sit down and talk.

They are from Bolivia but have been in Germany for 40 years. The sister was probably in her 80s and her son in his 50s or 60s. They both just kept saying thank you and explaining how grateful they were. It was just a quick stop along our way in the morning. We didn't really feel like we had done much but the way they were thanking us you'd think we just saved their lives or something. Shows again how amazing service is.

We may not think its much but to the people we are serving it means everything. They made out an appointment with us and would like to have us for lunch next week. Just for a 15 min thing. They were 2 very cool people. The sister was so grateful.

As we sat and talked I thought about other acts of service we do. And what the Savior did, and what he taught about it, and what service really means. It was a humbling experience. While we were sitting there I asked what kind of an operation she had had and she said she had her hip replaced. I was pretty surprised and said 'and you just climbed a flight of stairs!' Then she simply said ''yes...I wanted to do what I could to make your work easier''. In this moment where she needed help she was trying to figure out what she could do to make it easier for us. And she did something that was surely not easy or comfortable for her.

I learned a lot from her this morning. I hope to keep that always in mind, to also do whatever I can to lighten the burden of others. Even when it is not easy or comfortable. Because most the time it is not easy or comfortable. Like Elder Busche said--The pain of sacrifice last only a moment, it is the fear of the pain of sacrifice that makes us hesitate to act.

I am really grateful for my life. For the life God has given me and the experiences I have had along the way and the people I have met. For the many things I've been able to learn from so many people who don't know the impact they have had. Many of them I will not be able to thank in this life. Many I don't even know, or only knew for a short moment. The only way I can say thank you or repay them right now I think is to live what I learned from them. And to live it the best I can. And become the best I can. And doing that so that I may be more capable to serve others and pass on what I have learned to enrich the lives of others and bring them closer to their father in heaven. The Gospel is the best tool to do that.

I love this work, and I love you all so much! I hope you all have a good week. Look for opportunities to serve.
Elder Puriri

LETTER #67 - FRANKFURT

Dear Fammmmiilllyyyyyyy
I hope everyone’s doing good and that Ammon is getting better! Being sick is really lame. I experienced that also last transfer. We were at Shahab's house (from Iran, baptized in November) last night and our spiritual thought after dinner turned into what a blessing it is to be healthy. Shahab is such a good guy. I'm really grateful I was able to meet him. The week though was cool! We had Zone conference and did a couple tausches. And found some cool people to teach!

 
On Tuesday I went to Wetzlar with Elder Hofbauer from Austria. It was a sweet tausch. He also loves soccer so we had a little soccer talk ha. I have no idea about anything now in the soccer world which I'm ok with. But it was weird talking about it again. We'll be playing soccer today again too so that’s sweet, also this might be short because of that. In Wetzlar though we taught the young men’s lesson on Missions and how you prepare and what it’s like, it was cool. Then there was a girl who is studying in Wetzlar from Hildesheim (small city close to Sarstedt where I lived!) and I recognized her. We saw her quick at the church. But I met her the one time I went to church in Hildesheim on my exchange, since the rest of the time I went in Hannover. That was pretty random though. The next day was ZOKO and that was good.

 
We then tausched with the Elders in Wetterau. I went there with Elder Staley who is from St. Louis, Missouri and has been out about 5 months now. He was really involved in missionary work back home and would go out all the time with the elders. He said one time he was with elders who were teaching Nelly! haha. I laughed so hard but he was serious. They went by and visited him but he wasn't there. Then the guy at the gate said ''Look Jesus boys. You know and we know that Nelly likes you comin by, but he 'aint here right now so you're gonna have to come back later''. I found that pretty funny ha. Nelly was meeting with missionaries. haha Anyway, the tausch was good. Towards the end of the night we were doing doors in a small town and we usually stop around 8 with doors. So we walked back to the car and got in then found a list on contacts on the street that we hadn't seen. We still had a bit of time so we went and tried by but they had no interest. So we walked back to the car, got it, then saw one more we missed. It was pretty late now so we weren't sure if we should try by. We decided to go so we got back out and walked down the street to the house. As we walked I prayed that this person would be home and be open for the Gospel so that we could have some success on that day. I wanted Elder Staley to have a good experience and for this person to be willing. As we rang the bell no one came. So we rang another bell then a lady opened the door and said hello. We introduced ourselves and talked to her about what we were doing. She explained she just moved in 3 weeks ago and doesn't know the people we were looking for. Our conversation continued and we talked about the love of God. She then said ''I would invite you in right now but it’s kind of late can we make out an appointment?'' Of course! So we did and exchanged contact information. Then we drove home! It was sweet. It was a little thing but way cool. Lots of miracles like that, they are always awesome to experience. Prayer is so cool, and that God blesses us with simple little things like that is amazing.

 
Being here has given me so many opportunities to learn to serve and love people. I am very grateful for that. The gospel is the best tool we have to serve people. There is a cool quote from Pres. Uchtdorf ''It seems only right and proper that we extend to others that which we so earnestly desire for ourselves.'' As we learn more about the gospel and our Savior. As we learn more about what he has done for us and what he has to offer us. Our desire for this grows, and so does our want to allow other people the same opportunity. As we learn in Helaman 5:10-11, Christ's power is conditional upon our actions. Because he knows this he sends people to declare these 'tidings and conditions' so that everyone can know them and act according to them. So that he can then use his saving power to redeem us! He loves us so much and knows we cannot be saved without knowing and acting in accordance with these things. He gives us all the opportunity to learn about them so we can then activate his power in our lives. I am very grateful for this and his mercy. I pray that we can all learn these things and choose to use them properly in our lives. Only in this way can our Savior and Redeemer use his power to save us.

 
I love you all very much. Thank you for everything you do to be good people and live the gospel. Have a good week,
Elder Puriri