Week 56 - Life in Hannover Week 16: A Crazy Week of Crazy Weak

Hey guys, today was district P-Day, and that led to some craziness, including the timing of this email and my absolute lack of time to write it. Let's see what I can wring out of these ten minutes!

One quick bulletin point, we decided that Kenneth hasn't quite progressed to the point he needs to for his baptism, so we set a new date for the 26th of November. We are super excited to keep working with him!

As for the title of the email; I spent three entire days this week inside of the Wohnung. The first one was on Tuesday; Elder Heywood is pretty succeptible to migraines, and after a long day of interviews where we weren't able to get to bed until around midnight, just due to the craziness of it all, he was pretty wrecked. We ended up spending that whole day in the apartment, which was pretty unfortunate.

On Friday, we began an Austausch with the elders in Göttingen; we wanted Elder Thompson to run the baptismal interview for Kenneth, and there was another baptismal interview we had to run, so we had four elders in Hannover for a super Tausch. During that night, though, Elder Heywood, Elder Thompson, and Elder Rasmussen all were extremely sick and throwing up. I was fine, though! We had yet another sick day, this time with four elders, though. And then the next day, Sunday, Elder Heywood was still sick, so we didn't even make it to church. This week has made me extremely stir crazy, and I am excited for the new one!

Liebe Grüße,
Elder Austin Spaulding

We carved pumpkins for district P-Day today!

The temple is mine. Pretty janky, but I never claimed to be an artist.

Elder Heywood did President Fingerle!

 Me and Kenneth at our ward Sport Abend!

Week 55 - Life in Hannover Week 15: K is for Kenneth, That's Good Enough for Me

Hey Friends and family, just a litte update this week.

Elder Heywood and I have been hard at work this week getting some organizational things done for the rest of the transfer. #Interviewdayisalogisticalnightmare

Things have been going well, though, and we are excited to have the baptism of Kenneth this weekend! Things are going well, and he is going to be such a great member!

I got to give a Thema in district meeting this week about our relationship to God and to each other, and I want to send you all a reminder that you have divine potential. In the words of our Prophet, "The worth of a soul is its capacity to become as God." Keep doing everything that you can! Never give up! as long as you do your best, and rely on Jesus Christ, the problems that seem insurmountable to you in this moment will be no worry at all. You can do it, and you will do it!

1. We got to visit Cella this week, a little town near Hannover that looks like you imagine Germany.

2. Altstadt in Hannover. Also pretty classic Germany.

3. Our investigator Kenneth, the K is for Kenneth.

I love you all, and I hope that you have an uplifting week!

Liebe Grüße,
Elder Austin Spaulding

Week 54 - Life in Hannover, Week 14: Das Feld Ist Schon Weiß

Hello friends and family, 

This week was really good! A quick summary of how the area is doing; we currently have three investigators on baptismal date, a new record for me and Elder Heywood! We are super excited, and super busy working on that.

We sent out our Zone Goals last week (one of our responsibilities as Zone Leaders is that we make goals and guidelines for our zone) and we have a huge focus on faith and miracles this transfer. Something cool is that later in the week (yesterday), there was a broadcast that we got to watch. Elder Ballard came to Germany, and he and the area presidency spoke to us. I didn't take very many notes during most of it because I didn't feel like much of it was related to me, but right at the end Elder Ballard hit the nail on the head. He nailed home the necessity of miracles in the work, and spoke about what it takes to have them. He also had a somewhat pointed challenge at the members here to help more with the missionary work, I am excited to see what comes from that!

Other than that, our week was mostly just working. We had several large scale service projects, a cool opportunity to go finding as a district, an exchange, and a failed sport night. It was a pretty good week, though, and I'm excited to have another one!

Liebe Grüße,
Elder Austin Spaulding

1. The university in Hannover

2. Painting (with scissors?) service project

3. Elder Heywood and me being gorgeous

Week 53 - Life in Hannover Week 13: A Little Drafty

This week was full of strange happenings, I'll go ahead and explain a little bit. 

This week was transfers, and in Hannover that translates to stand at Bahnhof day. Thankfully, that didn't last as long as last transfer's, but it was still pretty exhausting.

The day afterward we had our district meeting, and got to meet the new missionaries. The sisters also found a family last week that wanted to feed a bunch of missionaries, so our entire district (8 missionaries) got to go and be fed by this family. It was super fun, the food was delicious, and we got to share a spiritual thought afterwards.

That's when things started getting a little crazy. There was a very big windstorm that hit Germany, and shut down almost every train in the country. Our entire district was stuck in Hannover for two days! It also affected street cars, and so most of our appointments during that time fell out.  It was crazy, but we also had a blast with it. We got to work together and brainstorm to set up and advertise something that we want to do here.

Then on Sunday we watched the last session of General Conference, and we had three investigators show up. We knew that one was coming, but the other two showed up unexpected. We had a blast with them, and meet with all of them between now and tomorrow night. We are super excited. 

Sunday after church, we had the opportunity to go to the hospital to give a blessing to a nonmember who is about to have a pretty major heart surgery. It was incredible to see the peace and assurance that came from that, and we are super excited to work with her and her husband in the future.

Anyway, as closing, I want to give you a short introduction to Kenneth:

Kenneth was one of the investigators we had at conference yesterday. Two weeks ago, he just followed us into the church wanting a blessing on his football. His dream is to play football for the NFL in America, and I wouldn't be surprised if he made it. There is absolutely no one like Kenneth, and we are super excited to work with him. 

That Sunday, he stayed for all three hours of church, it started with the Primary Program, and then we had two more very spiritual hours of church. It was very cool, and he was strongly touched by the spirit. 

After church, the ward had an activity where the whole ward ate together, and he got to make some friends there.

The following week, he stayed for 6 hours of conference. 

We have taught him the first lesson, and he accepted a baptismal date for the 29th! It has been ridiculously cool to see how fast and drastic his progress is, and we are excited for him.

He also made us some of the best food that I have ever had yesterday, just because he could. We didn't end up getting invited anywhere else to eat, so it worked out.

Anyway, I hope that you all have a great week!

Liebe Grüße,
Elder Austin Spaulding

Week 52 - Life in Hannover Week 12: The Beginning of the End

Hey, friends! It's me! Elder Spaulding! Hey! Hi! What's up? Na? Wie geht's?

Whelp, those are called pleasantries, and now they are out of the way.

I don't have much time to write, so I'll just get to the meat of it.

This week we had our transfer calls, and Elder Heywood and I will be staying together in Hannover. The crew is losing some important members, namely, Sister Koch and Sister Decker. They will be missed!

A few other cool notes in my few minutes, I went on Austausch two times this week, and had a really good time with them. One of them I was part of a drit (a companionship of three missionaries) and it was pretty intense. We had a good time though. =)

There was also MLC this week, and we had a cool meeting and discussed some new things that we are doing as a mission. We actually now have smart phones, which is a big deal because we can now use WhatsApp. That is huge, because literally everyone here uses it. It will open a lot of doors, and I'm excited to be able to work with people we never could before. =)

It was also my year mark this week and I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but I am humbled to see how far I've come. I love you guys, and I hope you all have a great week!

Liebe Grüße

Elder Austin Spaulding

Enjoy the Brandenburger Tor!