The Greatest Week Ever!!!

That was the title of Jaren's letter this week. It sounds as though things are going well for him. His MTC companion's mom sent me a link to her son's photos from his mission. It wasn't until I responded that she realized it was another Elder Smith, but then realized Jaren and her son were MTC comps and Jaren was actually in a few of them. There are just over 1,000 pics in his mission album to Jaren's 392! I guess I can't complain too much, I get fairly detailed letters. . . except for this one. Jaren didn't answer the five questions I asked. I hope this isn't an indication of what the future holds for letters from him. He has never just blown off the specific Q & A's I write. He has always copied and pasted them into his letter to us. I supposed I can live without the information for another week!

Dear Familie,
Well, sounds like everything is going well there at home. I know that you are all dying to hear what happened with transfers as well! It was the most interesting thing! After having little change in our district for the last 4 cycles, this transfer every companionship got a new companion, me included. So, to answer your questions, I am staying for another cycle here in Saarbrücken, and I guess I am the District Leader too. Yikes! (could that explain the not answering my Q & A's? He was so flustered about that?) Hope I know what I am doing and that I can be a good enough example to everyone else! My new companion is Elder Brown, (he went from one color to another!) and he has been out for only 4½ months now. So I am excited, but sad that Elder White is going. I will really miss him because we had so much fun together and had so much success in the work together.  He was just amazing. In fact, when President called us we just kind of slumped and cried, well not really, but I didn´t want him to go! O well, guess I have to gird up my loins now and move on… (I don't ever remember my mission president calling me about transfers. . . well, maybe when I trained, but I can't remember cuz I'm so old!)

William and Charity are doing great still, and both are doing fine coming to church. Charity actually came to church for the first time last Sunday and everyone loved her and was around her. It was kind of funny to see because with her sickness she thought that people would think less of her, but because she wore a really colorful native dress, people were amazed and loved it and stuck to her like glue! It made me so happy because the ward hasn´t been too open to investigators in the past, but now they were really happy to see the two of them there in church!

Another thing that happened this last week with them was when we re-taught them the Word of Wisdom. William didn´t have too much of an issue with it, just black tea and coffee. We taught him first last Tuesday; Charity wasn´t feeling too well so she wasn´t there for that lesson.  We had talked to him the day before when we taught him German, and said that we would bring things to replace the tea and coffee. He said, yes bring it, otherwise I won´t know what I should get and I´ll keep buying the same stuff. We agreed to bring it the next day. So, on Tuesday, we brought Sister Niesen with us to this lesson. She was amazing and we just talked about the commandments and the Word of Wisdom. We taught everything at the beginning except for the Word of Wisdom, we saved that for last. It was an amazing lesson! If you haven´t noticed from the emails, William is very religious and wants to do everything that is good in the sight of the Lord. He is very humble and down to Earth and has a spirit like a child. He isn´t a child, but he understands the gospel like a child in its clearest and simplest form.  He kept asking questions like “Why then do people not keep the Sabbath Day holy when it says to right here? Why can´t people understand these commandments?” and many other things like that. Then we came to the Word of Wisdom. Now, for this we had prepared two garbage bags. One we filled with replacement items for the coffee and tea. We brought a huge can of swiss mix hot chocolate, and several small boxes of different flavors of herbal tea. The other garbage  bag had nothing in it, just a piece of paper taped to it that said “Repentance Bag”. When we got to that point, we asked William what it means to repent. He said, “To go away from bad things and never look at it again or do it again.” We said, that´s right, and then I looked at him and said, “okay William, I promised you yesterday that I would bring things to replace your coffee and tea, do you believe me?” He said, “of course!” “Okay”, I said, “but first, you have to repent before I give you the blessing!” We all laughed, and he agreed to repent. Elder White then pulled out the repentance bag, and told William to come to his cupboard with him. He then asked him if he was ready to pull the offending items from the shelf and throw them away in the bag. He did so. As soon as that was done, I pulled out our bag with the replacement items and said, “Now here comes the blessing!” We then pulled out every item one by one and laughed together! Sister Niesen loved it too! But, as we were getting ready to go, William looked at us seriously and said, “Thank you! Thank you! I didn´t understand or know that these things were bad before, but I will never touch them again.” That hit all of us pretty hard. He was very sincere about it and from what I could see, seriously meant it. That was an example of repentance that I will never forget! He first showed his faith and willingness to repent. Then, by repenting (through the repentance bag), he received the blessing for his obedience (Swiss Mix and Herbal tea).  It was by far the most memorable lesson that I have had so far, and one of the most rewarding experiences as well. I have seen him from the very beginning, and I have seen him change. He was happy before, but he is so much more happy now.  The gospel really does changes people´s lives when they do accept it and try it for themselves. William has never said no to anything we have taught him. He has always tried it out to know if it was a true principle or not. And every time that he has tried, he came back to us and said, I know that it is true.

(This is the message I shared in RS presidency meeting this morning. I was responsible for the thought and I read that whole part about William and simple the gospel really is and how sometimes we make it more difficult than it really needs to be and if we just put our trust in the Savior, things will be okay. We really do need to have child-like faith. Sometimes what we need is for someone to say, "those might not be the best choices, but here are some better choices. Maybe that would take our agency away, I don't know. But I do think it's good to give investigators and new members some ideas to replace old habits and past behaviors.)

I love this work, I love the people, all people, German, African, Asian, I don´t care they are all children of our Heavenly Father and they happen to be living in Germany at the same time that I am here. Every missionary has a part in it as I´ve noticed, and it is all the timing of the Lord. It has been amazing serving here and when the time does come to leave, I will miss it for sure!

Schwester Schmitt is also doing very well, and came to Familie Heim Abend (Family Home Evening) and we taught a First Lesson. Schwester Schröder also invited her son to be there. He isn´t a member, and it was a surprise to us. Didn´t know that he was coming.  We used cups to describe the church and everything in the church that Christ built to build a church with a foundation of Apostles, Teachers, Priesthood, The Four principles of the Gospel and many other things. Then, with the Apostasy we pull the apostles out one by one until the church falls. We then described a Restoration and said that the church was restored through Joseph Smith. We then watched the Restoration DVD with them. No one had seen it before, and it was a very spiritual lesson. Schwester Schmitt loved it. I hope it helped describe Joseph Smith more and what happened to him.

Well I hope that you all have a wonderful week and don´t have too much fun! Enjoy the Grand Canyon, I love it down there! I can´t believe that Graduation is just next week for Holly. Hopefully she isn´t too freaked out about going to college!

I Love you all and I´ll talk to you all next week!
Your Son/Brother
Elder Smith