Heilbronn!

Meine Familie! 

We meet once again after a week full of just about everything and I mean that in a missionary kind of way. Its crazy how time flies and you wonder where it goes. The time has gone by but the experience are left still to be shared to and remembered. I love be able to write to you and remember the week I just lived as a missionary here in Heilbronn Germany. Heilbronn is quite the place and being my first city I dont really know what else is out there but I have heard there are prettier places. Dont get me wrong I love Heilbronn but its been fun to talked to people who have traveled a little more than me and then have them asked what am I doing in Heilbronn? And why Heilbronn? One night we were at the train station waiting for our bus to take home and there was a group of people close by and they saw us and one yelled out to us in English. I was curious how he knew English so we starting talking and then they got on the same bus as us. We talked some more and he asked me if I liked Heilbronn and I responded that I did and he was pretty surprised! It was just a good time to speak in English and know whats going on the whole time. Actually sometimes its weird to speak English, for instance when we are streeting and someone says that they cant speak German so we start talking to them in English and at times I have a difficult time because I am used to German mode and have to really concentrate to switch back to English mode. Other times its totally the opposite when I speak in German and the person says in German that they cant speak English. Pronunciation here is really big and they can usually tell right off that you are not from around here. It can be hard at times for them to understand and it is an important part of speaking the language but at the same time it can be a good way to tying it into why I am here and what I am doing! Oh how great the many and simple blessings we receive from the Lord to help us out in this work. 
I know for sure we could not be doing this without the help of the Lord. Especially us two young Elders who doesn't have a lot of experience and so are relying a lot on the Lord. I am learning twice as fast now without having a trainer which knows just about everything and you can just follow around. Every moment is a learning moment here in Heilbronn and its really a blessing for us. Even in the small things, for instance this last week we forgot for a couple nights in a row to charge our phone and so one day it died on us. I thought no biggy, we would just charged it that night and have it ready for the next day. Well it didnt quite work out that way. The next morning we turned it on and it asked for our PIN number. I had no idea what it was and so we went a day and a half without having a phone! Oh man and how important is it for us to have our phone, I didnt realized how much we used it until we were without it! On that note I have heard that for missionaries they are getting new technology or something to use, our mission president sent us a letter today telling us about it and just told us to "keep doing what we are doing" for now and we will get more instructions in the near future. But crazy how this work is moving forward as the world does! But its just what we need, it will be great if we can start using these things daily! But back to realizing things we use so much until we are without them. We had a really neat opportunity this week to visit a member of our ward who is in the hospital. He has just recently gone blind and it was a very moving experience to sit and talk with him. He is such a loving man and has a great faith in Jesus Christ. Walking out of there I realized how blessed we are with so many things that most of the time we dont even remember. Also that how important it is to keep our faith even through times of struggle. This member told us that through this experience his faith has grown and his love for his Savior has grown. What a great example of humility. He could be complaining about his situation but instead saying that his faith is still growing in the Lord even at his older age. Faith really is the base of everything and not just faith but faith in Jesus Christ and its through that faith that we hope even in times of hardness. He really does bless us as we endure to the end and I mean the very end. Just yesterday we had a little more time until we had to be home and so we decided to walk home from bahnhof and talk to people on the way. We werent having any luck and no one was wanting to talk. We were almost home and actually had a really good talk with a younger coulple who were pretty interested about what a Finnish and an American where doing here but not too interested in what we had to say. Then we had one more street to cross until we were to home and we saw one last guy, he was pretty young and we were just about late but I decided to talk to him anyway. At first he wasnt too interested but as we kept talking and brought up the Book of Mormon he got a little more interested and by the end he took the book and said he will read it. We took down his contact info it will be great to meet with him again! Talking about the Book of Mormon we had a lesson this week with a women that had a friend that had talked about the Book of Mormon before and she was interested in having one and reading it. We had never had the opportunity before and then we meet her and gave her one and had a lesson with her! It was great and the Book of Mormon is such a big part of what we do. Through it and the Spirit of the Lord is how everyone and I mean EVERYONE can receive their own answers to their prayers and their own answers that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and he through the power of God translated the Book of Mormon. This is the truth and it always will be the truth. I love you all and wish you a good week. 
Liebe Grüße,
Elder Jerman

Mosbach - drinking water on hot day