Week 29 - Life in Cottbus Episode 12: Das Feld ist schon Weiß, zur Ernte bereit

Hallo my friends!

This week was pretty routine, outside of two things, so I'll focus on those. We got to say goodbye to Elder O'Bryant this week as he is unterwegs nach Bad Bentime to be the Oldenburg Zone Leader. We will miss him, but we know that the Lord is going to do some great things with him there. We spent a few hours babysitting Elder Sinclair in Cottbus until Elder Hickenlooper, our new district leader, got here. We had some good fun and got to know our local Brit. It was a right good time. (I'm still not sorry, I'm not convinced that it gets old.)

Elder O'Bryant, Elder White, Elder Spaulding

Then on Friday, we had our district meeting along with the Baptismal Interview for Roland! He passed with flying colors, leading to the next step...

His baptism on Saturday! Mensch, am I so excited for this Typ! He is just the coolest, most humble guy that I have ever met. Every decision that he has made in the past while has been totally founded upon his faith. There are some interesting situations surrounding him, but that doesn't stop him from coming to church and loving every minute of it.

His baptismal service only lasted about 30 minutes, and ended with his solemn testimony, and the singing of "A Child's Prayer" in semi cacophonous English and German. It was absolutely beautiful, though. I honestly can't claim a single bit of responsibility for his decision and process to get here, but I feel that that is true for all things in the Lord's hands. I am so grateful that I was able to be here, though, and I love him and his Gospel so much!

Roland is the one on the middle left,
Bruder Kosak, the legend, is the baptizer on the middle right.

My thoughts are brief this week, guys, but I hope that you know that I love you all as well. I am so grateful for your support, and I hope that my mission and a few of my experiences have been of use to you as well. If any of you ever need someone to talk to, WRITE ME, I love you, and I'll be here for you!

Stay close to the Savior, and He'll stay close to you!

Habs euch lieb!
Elder Austin Spaulding

P.S.

In a more solemn note, my mission father, Elder Mayer, "died" this week. It might be a little difficult to find information on the matter, seeing as Elder will not be associated with his name anywhere in the near future. Go ahead and try looking for Brother Harrison Mayer, and you might be more successful.

(Love ya bud)

Week 28 - Life in Cottbus Episode 11: Return of the Transfer Calls or Something

So my friends and family and associates and people I gave my email to for whatever reason, here comes the moment that you probably all haven't been waiting for, but I have, so here it goes...

Elder White is spending his last transfer in Cottbus! Going out with a massive bang and shooting sparks out that will never leave this city the same! He will touch the lives of thousands! He will change hundreds of lives for the better! He will do a great job here!

Oh yeah, I'll be here too.

 Honestly, this week hasn't been too eventful, we just keep trucking along and doing our thing. You know, missionary work. But what does that even mean?

Well, I'll tell you.

We wake up every morning at 6:30, and go to bed every night at 22:30.

In these 16 hours of being awake we have to fit in half an hour of exercise, an hour and a half to prepare for the day, two and a half hours of study, thirty minutes of planning, an hour and a half of eating⁄meal prep time, and an hour and a half before bed to write in our journals, prepare for bed, and wind down. That leaves us about 8 hours per day to actually missionary.

The question then is how we do with that...

Pretty good I would say! Except for some weeks where the forces of the world come together to waste all of our time, and I would say that this week was one of those.

Elder White had bronchitis our first transfer together, and so we went to the doctor. This week we got a phone call from the doctor telling us that the bill still hasn't been paid. (The mission provides us with some paperwork with instructions for the doctors on how to get paid, along with a guarantee that they will get paid.) They have followed the instructions, but haven't heard back. They then sent a bunch of stuff to us (we moved last transfer so we never got that......). We called Sister Fingerle, and she told us that we should just go and pay it with our grocery money, and that the mission will refund us.

So, we went and did that the next day. The clinic is pretty far away, and bus times are weird, so it's about a three hour round trip to go to the doctors. While we were there, the people were really attacking and rude, telling us that it was probably our fault and that we were trying to defraud them. We stayed calm, though, and paid the bill and went on our way.

About an hour later, we were sitting and waiting for our return bus, and we got a phone call from the clinic. They sounded super embarrassed and apologetic, and said that the bill had just been paid and that we would need to come back and pick up our cash.

Well, the bus was just coming, and we had an appointment to make and couldn't wait another hour for the bus, so we had to go back the next day. The best part of this all is that it was all for 30€. That's right, we wasted six hours of missionary time over 30€.

That's just one example of our weird week, but I won't pain you with other stories. I suffice it to say, that it was still a good week.

Liebe Grüße,

Elder Austin Spaulding

Week 27 - Life in Cottbus Episode 10: A Disturbance in the Force

So, this week at ZoKo we learned about some exciting changes in my mission, but I'll make you wait until the end of the email to read about those.

Other than those changes, ZoKo was a blast! It was a mini ZoKo, so it was just two zones, and we didn't really see each other (It was separated, but the other zone came from pretty far away to use the
temple). (Shout out to Elder Seamons!)

Elder White being fabulous in front of the temple

 That's right, I got to go to the temple! It was actually kind of weird, it was my first time bringing names that I found for myself. This time I got to be baptized and confirmed for them, and next time (whenever that is) I will have the opportunity to do the other ordinances for them! It was super cool and spiritual.

The rest of the week was just BUSY. We have been having a great time working with our friends on baptismal date, and we have had tons of other appointments to top it off. With #FürstdesFriedens we have had plenty of work to do, and we have done a street display and hope to do a few more in the near future.

Have ye some #FürstdesFriedens.

(I'm not exactly sure where this came from, but this is President and his daughter with their sweet ride. It's been floating around the mission.)

Yesterday at general conference we had four Americans show up in the ward. Two of them served in the Hamburg mission a number of years ago, so they could German, but the other two spoke no German, so we translated for them during sacrament meeting.

And now it is today! We are getting ready to head off on an Austausch, and then another one in a few days, and then the transfer is over. Crazy stuff. Can't believe I'm approaching seven months already, it
has been one heck of a ride, but a good one.

Anyway, exciting⁄disturbance in the force stuff. We found out on Tuesday that our mission has gotten a green light to begin online proselyting. My mission is one of the few, and one of the first
missions in the world, but I hope that it begins to spread out quickly, because it will totally change the pace and effectiveness of the work. It will let us teach people far away more frequently, have
meaningful contact with investigators every day, and let us really develop friendships with people we teach and work with.

I still need to receive a special training for it, so it will be a few weeks before this all starts, and I'll know the specifics later.

I am simultaneously scared and excited, because I know that it will really help the mission, but It has been really nice to get away from it all for a few months. Anyway, prepare yourselves to see me crawling around Facebook again in a few weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to spread some gospel to you guys at home as well.

Cool, I guess being in Germany means seeing a working steam engine randomly at Bahnhof?

A house (of cards) leaning against itself must stand? Or something?

Liebe Grüße,
Elder Austin Spaulding

Week 26 - Life in Cottbus Episode 9: Conference!

Hello friends, right now I'm in Dresden separated from my conference notes, or else I'd send you a bunch of things that I thought were motivational that would probably mean absolutely nothing to you! Or something.

Instead, you can enjoy this picture of me eating spaghetti ice for my 6 month mark this last Tuesday!

It's been a pretty good week preparing for and using this #princeofpeace (#FürstdesFriedens) initiative to do some finding. Normally I'd share some miracles, but once again, I'm in Dresden (on my way to a zone conference) and my time is pretty tight, so I'll just recommend that you all check out the redesigned Mormon.org and watch the new Easter video. This initiative is really powerful and teaches us how we can find peace through the Savior.

I'll also give you a picture of the Frauenkirche here in Dresden (cool stuff). President Uchtdorf talked about it in a recent conference talk, and now I get to see it! Germany hype!

Other than that, all you really need to know about my week was that I saw goats on a roof. Germany in a nutshell (picture below) love you guys!

Liebe Grüße,

Elder Austin Spaulding