Week 25 - Life in Cottbus Episode 8: Do you want ads with that?

I just want to immediately clear up the title, McDonalds is doing some weird ad campaigning stuff.

(Kidney beans are the kidneys of tiny animals.)

(Kissing makes you pregnant.)

And they only get stranger from there. Germans aren't nearly as shy as Americans, I guess. The stuff at the bottom says "don't believe everything that people tell you." I can only imagine that somebody said some seriously negative stuff about McDonalds to spur an ad campaign in this direction.

Anyway, now that that is out of the way, this week has been really good, and really busy. On Tuesday we went down to Freiberg for interviews with Präsident, and those went really well. I received some great advice, and I absolutely love president.

With Elder White at the Freiberg Temple

Interviews ended up running so long, however, that we overnighted in Dresden with Elder Searle and Elder Keck. They are hilarious and we had a great time. Elder Searle surprised me with these pictures as I walked out of the bathroom, but it just goes to show how quickly I can go from normal to creepy when I need to. (These are for you Elder Watts, I love you son.)

I also got to find out what it is like to be a girl thanks to Elder Keck (these guys are both huge!)

On Wednesday we taught German class to "B" and because we do that in the church, we went ahead and gave him a tour of the building, ending on the baptismal font. We talked a lot about baptism and what the covenant means, and then asked him if he would like to be baptized. (Over the last few weeks we have been focusing a lot on personal revelation and he has gotten really excited for the "search for truth". He has been praying a lot about it.) He thought it over for a second, and then told us yes. Whoop! We are super excited for him! He is preparing to be baptized on the 22nd of April.

On Saturday we were finishing up our weekly planning, because we had a crazy Friday and didn't get to finish it, and right after we had dropped an investigator who we had done everything we could do to reach, he called us! Due to him being a refugee and some interesting legal circumstances, he was out of town working in another city for over a month. We met with him that night, and we ended up going through the baptismal interview questions to see where he is, and he is basically ready. We invited him to prepare for the 22nd as well, but we are hoping that we can move it up, because he is super ready and chomping at the bit. It just goes to show, never give up on anybody.

I love you guys so much, you guys are wonderful. Keep being great, and I'll talk to you next week!

Liebe Grüße,

Elder Austin Spaulding