Busy

Time on our mission seems to be moving more rapidly.  This past couple of weeks have been very busy, let alone what is going on in the world.

From the world's perspective, the forest fires on the west coast of the US continue to rage.  The southern part of US has been bombarded with one hurricane after another.  Now Jose poses a threat.  India experienced heavy flooding which resulted in a lot of people dying. Pres. Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-in are verbally battling out threats against each other.  Both are capable of sending off nuclear missiles.

For us, it is not so catastrophic, just busy.

Our Cones

Sis. Enger teaching us.

Over a week ago in our German Culture class, Sis. Enger taught us what Germans do for the first day of school.  This is for all children attending their very first day of school.  They receive a decorated cone.  The whole family walks to school together, with the child carrying the cone. Once in the classroom and at a specific time, all the children open their cones.  They can be filled with school supplies, treats, small toys, etc.  She told us that some stores are selling these cones that are over 3 feet high.  I can just imagine a small child dragging theirs into the classroom.  The stores also sell much smaller cones for the younger siblings who also accompany the family on the trek to the first day of school. As you can see, we all got one. Then she proceeded to pretend like we were in school with a normal 1st year schedule of classes. We had to guess what the subjects were. Then she gave us a quiz on matching words in German.

With regard to missionary work, I am continuing to stay in contact with the gentleman the sisters are teaching.  This past couple of weeks he has become quite sick with a cold.  Last week I talked to him on the phone and he sounded terribly congested.  However, I talked to him yesterday and he told me how much he wants to get baptized.  

You know, for someone who is struggling with a lot on his shoulders and knowing that joining God's church may make things much more difficult for him, he knows in his heart it is the right thing to do.  He wants to show the Lord how serious he is in his commitment.  

Let me tell you what has really kept us busy.  It is seminary.  Last Monday was our first day.  Preparing the lessons have been hard, because we don't fully know what will work for these youth, but I suspect it will get easier as we learn more about them.

One thing we did learn.  They are much more spiritual and better versed in the doctrine and scriptures than other youth we've taught before.  Something else different is the number of kids we have.  It is a large class of 11 youth.

Foolishly, I have agreed to continue to teach Gospel Essentials class until they get a teacher.  I find myself continuing to prepare lessons and that has cut down on my ability to study driving.  As for studying German, that is temporarily stopped.

At work, we have noticed how the Lord is waiting for us to learn things so that we can help others.  After the first month of being here, Diane and I delved into Personal Video Conferencing (PVC).  It took about a month to really develop a good understanding of the features in the program.  To be honest we are still learning more about it, like trouble shooting problems and such.  After we had the basic understanding, we suddenly got emails from stakes in Europe needing our help in using PVC.  We even had requests for help within our own building.

One of 5 persons.

5 Persons or 992 lbs.

Just a week ago we started to learn how to do webcasting.  Last Tuesday Diane and I, by ourselves, set up the equipment for a webcast in the church chapel.  A couple of days later I received a phone request from Hungary to help someone to set up their webcasting equipment.

Before we learned these things, we received no such requests, yet no sooner do we learn about them, then our help is needed.  I can't believe that the Lord isn't involved.  He is just waiting for us to do our part so that we can bless others.

Starting tomorrow I'm going to start on a sugar-free diet.  The only sweeteners I will be taking in are from natural fruit.  Since coming on this mission, I went gluten-free.  I lost 5 lbs.  So I'm wondering what will happen when I exclude sugar from my food intake.  Maybe I'll be able to be the 5th person in our apartment elevator.  It is so small.  It is barely able to hold four people without touching the other person.  Yet it is supposed to be able to hold 5 persons. It looks much bigger in the picture than it actually is.   

Well, I gotta go.  Diane and I have to prepare for seminary next week.