Missionary Work

This week we have done more missionary work than we have done since we arrived.  How wonderful that has been.

Jan came over to the apartment for dinner and a discussion Thursday evening.  He arrived early so that he and I could talk.  He has been under stress and difficulties.  I think he just wanted someone to talk to and to listen to him.

After dinner, the missionaries, knowing some of the things he is having to deal with, talked about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and how that gift might benefit Jan as he endures these difficulties.  They were smart to tell him that joining the church may not resolve all of his worries but the Spirit would help him cope better.  The missionaries even offered to up his baptismal date if Jan felt that would benefit him.  He said that he would think about it.

I got a text from him today telling me how grateful he was for inviting him over the other night and that he is looking forward to being at church tomorrow.

Yesterday evening the sister missionaries took us over to Dave’s place to teach him.  We’ve had Dave over at our place before.  It was a great experience to go to someone’s own place and teach.  I told the sisters that they were fulfilling my dreams.  I told them how much I wanted to meet the people here in Germany and have the opportunity to go to their homes to teach them.  Dave is not German.  He is from Nigeria, but, still the same, it was a great experience.

Missionary work did not stop there.  Today we visited Elfrieda Herrmann.  She is in the hospital and has been there almost 2 weeks.  Not completely sure why she was taken in, but we heard that she lost a lot of blood.  She is 88 years old and they are evaluating what kind of care she will require once she goes back home.

Elfie

She lives in our apartment complex.  She is not a member and isn’t interested in being a member yet. Elder and Sister Stay, one of the missionary couples, have been friend-shipping her.  I believe other missionaries know her, too, and she enjoys their company.

She is fascinating.  Diane and I let her into the church one day so she could practice the piano.  She insisted we listen to her play.  She would mention a classical composer and then begin playing.  Then she would ask, do you want to hear some Bach?  Then she would play a difficult piece from his work.  Then she would ask, do you want to hear some Mozart or Beethoven and then she would play pieces from their works.  We learned today that she started piano lesson when she was 3-1/2 years old and when she was 5 she played the piano with a full orchestra.  She is extremely talented.

We also learned something else that is interesting.  Supposedly there was a sister of Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Evelyn Moody,  who served a mission here.  Elfie (Elfrieda) got to know her.  It was through Evelyn that she met Elder Oaks and even has a picture of herself and Elder Oaks together when he visited Germany.  Elfie has asked us to contact Evelyn to let her know what is going on.  I believe it was the Spirit that prompted her to ask us.  Of all the people in the world we know the grandson of Elder Oaks, Jake Oaks.  He married the daughter of some good friends of our from Weaverville Ward.  We contacted them and they will notify Evelyn to let her know.

It has been wonderful to be involved in missionary work.  Monday evening, Dave is supposed to come here to be taught.  We are looking forward to that.

A couple of days ago we made two phone calls to two new Stake Technology Specialists.  One was from England.  He has extensive background in computers and technology.  He told us that the furthest unit out from the stake center is about an hour away.  They don’t feel they need to webcast Stake Conference because the travel time is not long.  The same with Video Conferencing with the High Council.  There was very little information that we could share with him.

The other call we made to Italy.  This young man, about 21 years old, has had almost no background in computers or technology.  He is from Portugal and, of course, speaks Portuguese, but is learning to speak Italian.  He doesn’t know any English.  Diego from our ICS group had to translate for us. This poor young man is struggling.  He lives about an hour away from the Stake Center.  He has a mentor from another stake who is trying to train him, but the mentor lives four hours away, so training is very infrequent.  There is a strong desire to use webcasting and Video Conferencing but the Internet bandwith is not very reliable.

What a drastic difference there is between those two phone calls.  Our hearts go out to that young man in Italy.