Immer Schneller: Hastening the Work: Still in Koln

Mission update: (du du duuuaaahhhhhhh)

Chapter One: Transfers

I'm still in Köln, but my trainer left for home! He's home!

Talking to girls! Right now! It's weird... And I'm here, finally a full fledged missionary, taking over the Largest Area in the Whole Mission.

Thankfully they sent me a really top notch missionary.

Chapter two: the Van Dam

Elders and Sisters, Köln is being invaded by THE Elder Van Dam! This guy is fast, he's clever, he knows his German and there ain't anything that's gonna stop him from finding 3 Potentials a day!!! Honestly, this (about a year old) Elder is Fire! He hails from the distant land of South Dakota and has been known to play the Trumpet and French Horn on Statewide levels. He can cook some sweet schnitzel and loves... Let me explain, LOVES Les Miserables! Haha he's got the whole play memorized... In German!

He's coming from Offenbach where he honed his Street Contacts to a fine Point. It's super fun to go around with this guy and I'm sure that this will be a great Transfer! We've found 7 potential investigators in the last 3 days and have a goal of finding 3 a day.

And the Lord has really supported us in our efforts. Today we have a meeting with Vincent, an atheist we met while we were walking the Park for Uni Investigators. He's really interested in our doctrine. I can tell he feels the spirit a little so we'll just have to bring the big guns to our meeting over Coffee tonight. (Don't worry, we usually get cokes or something)

Chapter 3: Gemeinde Köln.

So we have two goals this transfer. 10 baptisms, as a zone, and 50% of our lessons to have Members with us. But this is putting pressure on us to invite Members. The thing about Germans is that they aren't so... Open? They have their time and they want to use it. And Germans take a lot longer to form friendships than Americans do, so we need to condition the ward a little to be more welcoming to New Members and to be excited about missionary work. One of the ideas that we had was to trade help with their Home teaching for help with our lessons. That way they are serving in both opportunities AND they get to see what Missionary work is like and feel the spirit of helping others find and recognize Christ! So we need to work more closely with the members which I'm really excited for.

Chapter 4: ... I'm pretty sure I should have more than 3 chapters...

Yeah haha so... Here are some miscellaneous things then :) Köln started testing their Air Raid sirens a few days ago, that was a really spooky thing. Being in Europe and hearing Air Raid Sirens. It's a little humbling. And then seeing the Dom, the building the allied troops used to orient themselves to strike the city. It was interesting to imagine it all... We heard that Putin is putting different restrictions on Missionaries which is causing the Russians to come here to be baptized, the Sisters are teaching a woman and her daughter who fled. There are wars in Syria and Iran, pushing the Christians to flee here for safety. The warring Tribes in several African Countries (Ghana, Nigeria, Etc.) are pushing those people out of their homes. The U.K. left the UN which is putting strains on the relationships between the countries. Other countries are thinking of seceding and so there's a lot of talk about the stability of the UN.

It's really interesting over here, lots of things going on around us.

(Note from Mom-I've stopped editing his emails so much. The odd thing that is developing in his writing, is the German rule of capitalizing all nouns. That, and the occasional German word that I'm not sure he realizes he has used mid sentence. I find it all endearing. Elder Fisher has been out 135 days, not that we are counting,)