June 17, 2013

Dear Family

So this week was quite nice. Tuesday we went to Munich and heard Elder Nelson. That was so cool to hear. Actually we were late to the meeting. So what happened is German trains are awful. We were supposed to take a high speed train that left at 8:12. But it broke so it never came to Ulm. So with half of the zone in Ulm, and the other half on the broken train we decided to leave the other missionaries and took the slowest train. It left at 8:30 and took two hours instead of one. So we walked into the meeting 10 minutes late and the other missionaries were an hour and a half late. Ya bummer I know. So the first bit there were 3 elders from the Quorum of the Seventy. They all spoke to us. And I took tons of notes so they'll be there when we get home. And then Elder Nelson talked for the last hour. Well actually the last half hour he opened it up for questions. And I wish I would have thought of one earlier to ask. But some of the questions I learned a ton from. One of them blew all of our minds. When Jesus tells Peter, ‘Thou shalt deny me three times’ it wasn't a prophecy. It was a commandment. That's why Peter wept. I have heard so many other things about it. 

Well then Wednesday came around and we had nothing, so we just went by on tons of people. Then we met with the D. (no idea how it's spelled) and they were very impressed by us. She said how she doesn't like how the church works here and thought there were no more good missionaries. But with us she feels different. It was a very cool experience. But also very sad that she hasn't felt loved by the church since they moved here from Portugal. She also loves how mom can speak Portuguese and said it would be cool if she sent something to her. Maybe you could send your testimony in Portuguese or something. We also went by on L. She is the 16 year old who lived with a Mormon family in the states for a foreign exchange program. We are meeting with her on Wednesday. She is pretty shy, but we think she wants to join the church. She told us she really liked it but wanted to make sure it was true. 

So Thursday we planned forever doing paperwork, weekly planning all that jazz. And then we met with some 20 year olds. It was kind of a half Bible bash. half lesson. It wasn't contentious it was good nature. And the one from Florida has a lot of interest. I think he actually wants to find out what the Book of Mormon says. Then Friday was an exciting day. We chopped wood for hours but then Elder F. died afterwards. He gets this strange type of migraine where he goes half paralyzed and he got that Friday night. So he was out for the count. 

We had a lesson with a Chinese member named J.  The branch president went with me.  As we left Elder F. with A. (another member). And we were debating if we should sleep there or go back home. The zone leaders had no clue and the AP's said stay put till we say anything. And then finally at 9:40 we were able to talk to Sister Miles and she talked to President and we needed to go home. So we got driven home. Then Saturday we had two lessons. One with R. and one with a less active sister, K. And we had to change both of them to this coming week. That was super sad. But Elder F. doesn't even remember Saturday, but he is 100% now. No problems. Church was good, we had two eating appointments and calls from the zone leaders and all sorts of stuff.


Yup, Switzerland is expensive and money grows on trees there. But the missionary work in Switzerland is really going right now. The Swiss people are much more open to the gospel. That may sound weird because they are so rich. But I was talking to elder E. about it (the Swiss missionary) and he said people there are much more open to religion. And that's why there are so many more members in Switzerland. They also have the most baptisms of the mission. 

You could have seen missionaries coming here in the airport. They take the same flight as the missionaries going to Berlin. They had probably split paths just a few minutes before. 

Oh, I'm not one to get discouraged. Honestly it's not that bad here. I hear of all these missionaries who say it's rough and everything. The truth is get to work and who cares. Do your best and it will all be okay. I've never felt depressed because nothings happening. Oh. and this mission is the most coveted mission. More couple missionaries request to come to this mission than any other mission by quite a large margin.

Love

Elder Kinghorn