All Is Well In Duisburg

While Steve and I were suffering from insomnia late last night (or early this morning!) I asked if I should contact Jaren's mission president just to make sure everything was ok and he said no. I was relieved to find his letter in my inbox this morning. . . and a great letter at that!!

Dear Familie,

Well, all is well here in Duisburg. I know that it was crazy for you all so no problem with all of that. (I apologized for not writing last week while in NYC.) I do need to give you my new address though, here it is:

Elder Jaren Smith
Gerhard Straße 33
47137 Duisburg
Deutschland

Sorry that I haven´t written, but today is our P-Day because we had Zone Conference in Düsseldorf yesterday and then although P-Day would be on Wednesday, the district decided to have it on Thursday because of the Baptismal interview, me having to anmeld and a service project at a less actives house. So That is why I am writing today. Sorry.

Q.  Are most of the people you are teaching now found by the missionaries before you?  I know that is some great grammar right there.  And so was that!
A.  Yeah, all of them are from the missionaries that were before me. But I am trying to get to know them better. That is sometimes the hard part as a missionary as you know!

Q.  Why is Elder Melum from WA state, but attending the U?  Is he involved in athletics or attending on some academic scholarship?  Go UTES!!
A. He is from washington, but his brother lives in Utah and he attended the U of U just because that is where he wanted to go.

Q.  You have never said anything about your calling. . . are you still a DL?
A. Yeah, I just assumed that you´d figure it out one way or another I guess, but yes, and it is a lot of fun!

Q.  You have not mentioned anything about Elder Melum except what I have mentioned above.  You know I like to know the details. . . how many siblings?  where is he at in the mix?  convert or long time member?
A. He is actualy one of the youngest in his family. He is amazing! He is a life long member, but his dad is a convert to the church. He is one of 4, 1brother and 2 sisters.

Q.  Where is Elder Norton?  I would like to know when he comes home and when his homecoming is.  I will try to email his mom as it gets closer.
Q.  Where is Elder Crump?
A. Elder Norton is ZL in Wetterau, north of Frankfurt, and Elder Crump is in Karlsruhe in the southernmost part of the mission.

Anyway, life has been really crazy here. I did mention the fact that we were having a Baptismal Interview with someone, and that was yesterday. His name is Daniel and I can share that story with you in a little while, but he is amazing to say the least! His baptism is in two days, and we are all excited for him and the other elders in the district who helped him along. It is very nice to see. 

Elder Melum and I also have someone who is getting closer to baptism, but it isn´t planned until October 3rd. His name is Bikash Moktan and he comes from Nepal. He is a great and happy guy, but talks about 90 miles an hour which makes it difficult to understand him sometimes. He is currently working on Word of Wisdom issues, really just tea and coffee. Elder Melum told me that he used to drink many cups of tea and coffee each day, (I'm guessing he means Bikash :) and last week he told us that he is now down to just one a day! We are actually trying to move the baptism up a little bit closer, maybe the end of September, but we will see how it goes. He is actually moving to another part of Duisburg tomorrow, closer to us, so it has been really crazy for him the past several weeks. But we did have this miracle of miracles this last week and I really don´t know how else to describe it!
       

We received a phone number from a man by the name of Roman Adams from the office because he had supposedly called them looking for the missionaries in his area, so Duisburg. The couple in the office then called us and gave us his name and number, so we called him. I talked to him for a couple of minutes and then he told me that he wanted to meet early this week. So I told him I would call him back the next day to set a date and time and place to meet. Well he started to send us text messages which were really interesting. We can receive texts but not send them. But, this is what he said in the first one on Saturday “Hello, my name is Roman. We spoke yesterday evening on the phone. Is it possible to meet us tomorrow at 6:30 in Duisburg? It would be very nice. Perhaps it is also possible to telephone today afternoon. I want to tell u of the background of my interest. Thank u very much. Roman.” That is really the first time ever that I have had anyone contact me first to try and set up an appointment! I just kept getting more and more amazed as it went on though. I tried to call him though before it was too late on Sunday but couldn´t get a hold of him. So, I did send a text back to him (I think I´ll be forgiven. Hopefully!) and he sent the following back: “Hallo. Ich rufe morgen früh auf jeden Fall an. Wünche eine gute Nacht. Bis morgen.” (Hello, I´ll call you tomorrow morning early for sure. I wish you a good night. Until then.) As I got up the next morning wondering where we could meet him, the thought came to me to meet him in the church. At the very least it would prove to me what kind of a man he truly is and how deep his interest is in meeting with us. I also just wanted to prove that this was real because this just doesn´t happen! So I called him and asked if he could meet us at the church. I tried to tell him the address, but he wanted to do it himself for some reason. 10 minutes after I hung up the phone he texts back, “Hello. I have found the address. Thankyou for making this possible on such short notice! I will be there at the latest at around 6:40.” So it was done. Elder Melum and I went to the church and were there at about 6:15 and just waited for him. Sure enough at 6:40 he pulls up in his car and walks in the door. Now this is the funny part to me, at first, any way. This man is driving a new mini cooper, walks in in Bugotti shoes, Hugo Boss everything and hair nicely combed. (As I read this I said to Steve, "Wow, this kid is mentioning name-brands. Didn't know he ever noticed those things before!") Not the typical investigator that I have had here in Germany. Then we sit down and say a prayer and we find out that he works for a large steel company here. But on the other side, this man starts to unfold everything to us. He told us that he was born Catholic and it wasn´t until he was about 17 years old that he started to question his religion. He then left and joined the Evangelish church, and a few years later left that, and in the mean time has just done his personal best to do what he can to keep his faith up. He has LDS friends in Bochum, just east of here, and has been close to them for most of his life. He noticed how they lived, how they dressed, how they love one another, and how they live what they believe. Then he said the most amazing thing I have heard so far on my mission “I really want to be a member of your church, I just don´t know what, exactly, I have to do, but I also want to learn so that I can prepare myself for baptism.” I didn´t know what to say!!! We then explained to Roman that we could help him with that desire and prepare him with the lessons we teach and then he can really make that decision on his own. We agreed to meet again on Tuesday, but it fell out because of an appointment that he forgot about which put him a lot later than he thought he would be, yet he let us know that rather than make us guess.
       

This experience though has taught me another principle of missionary work: Those who honestly seek it shall find it. The Lord truly does prepare people to receive us, and in this case to find us. It is obvious that it is his time now, but it didn´t just start on Monday. He has been prepared over the last 25 years by the Lord to come to the conclusion that he has come to. I honestly did nothing. He fell into our lap. It is His work and not mine. None of this was due to my own personal efforts, sure I called and co-ordinated things, but the Lord did the rest, mainly all of it. This man also passed the test by coming to the church, and I knew  that was where we needed to meet with him that day.
       

Now Daniel, the other young man, was also similar. He found us. He is the one getting baptized Saturday. He was initially contacted by missionaries on his campus, but did the research on his own. He found a blog from Sister Doty, a missionary in our mission and found out more. Sister Doty´s mother then forwarded the information to the mission office, and they in turn contacted the elders here and that is that. He is 22 and a student at Essen University. He is very excited to become a member of the church. I asked him yesterday after the interview why he wanted to join the church. He told me that he had been looking for years. He was born Evangelish, but noticed that many people even his pastor did not really follow what they teach. When he found out about us, he knew we were the right church because we followed, or at least did our best to live and follow the teachings of Christ. I have just been amazed since I have been here. I have asked the missionaries about the baptisms that they have had so far and how they were found and they have said that for the most part they have come to us!
       

I know that this work is true, that Christ lives, that He is a driving force in everyones lives, and that there are many who are looking or searching for the truth but cannot find it. The atonement is real, and at least for me it is the sole reason I have to even be here on earth and to do my best to be like our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Life can be hard, but He is there for all of us when we seek Him and His direction.

Your Son and Brother,
Elder Smith

By the way, what is Holly´s address? And to answer your question about scriptures, I actually have a new set for the mission. I filled up my seminary set really quick. It is actually nice to have a brand new set on the mission because it is filled now to, but a lot different than my last set! It probably would help just to do two different ones, one now for seminary and a new one before he goes.

Oh, how I hope the Lord is finally blessing him for working so hard and being so diligent in his last area for so long. Hopefully the missionaries in Saarbrucken will see the same success with the people Jaren left behind!