Hallo Family!
So the sad news has arrived... I am
transferred! Tomorrow (Tuesday) I will be transferred to Forst! Forst
is right on the border of Germany and Poland. Elder Miles and I will be
doing a whitewash, so we are both leaving our areas to take over in
Forst. It's so awesome. Elder Miles is actually from my MTC group! We
actually know each other pretty well and we were both district leaders
here in Hannover. We are going to have such an awesome time. The
assistents to the mission president said that we need to 'show the ward
how real missionaries work'. So we are totally going to do that.
We have had a pretty radical couple of days! A lot of
member work and a lot of joint teaches. One of our members, Bruder Nazir
(from Pakistan) finally got a firm position at a hospital about 40
minutes away. It was pretty essential for him to get this job. It means
that his family will be able to come to Germany from Pakistan. Woo! He
has a big family and will be an great help for the ward. But anyway...
now that he has this firm position, he is able to help out more with
missionary work! He has time on Saturdays and Sundays, and he comes in
to Kassel and helps us to teach some investigators from Pakistan! We
have one investigator who is really making a lot of progress. His name
is Muzim, within the first month that we gave him a Book of Mormon, he
had already read it cover to cover! He's excellent. The only problem is
that he only fluently speaks Urdu and Greek..... haha. He's learning
German, but it's taking him quite a while to figure it out. Becuase of
the language barrier, it's essential for us to have Bruder Nazir there
to translate. I'm fairly certain that Muzim will be making even more
progress because of Bruder Nazir.
Another cool development is one man from Romania that we
talked to on the street... well actually he talked to us! haha. He
speaks Romanian and Spanish (he lived in Spain for a couple of years).
So I used my tiny bit of spanish to tell him. Domingo iglesia! :D (Sunday
church!) and then I pointed at the church and gave him a card with the
time and our phone number on it. (Did you know that I could understand
spanish?... me neither :D sweeeet) This week he came to church! And the
best part is that we have a few members that speak spanish and one
member from Romania! woohooo! So he was able to talk to him about the
gospel and about the Book of Mormon, and help him to be integrated into
the ward. It was so awesome to see this Romanian member be integrated
also. Sometimes it's difficult to help him to be totally active in
missionary work because his german/english isn't the best... but his
Romanian is wonderful! :D haha. It worked out greatly.
This last Sunday here in Kassel was super
awesome. I feel like I'm leaving Kassel with a 'bang!'. Elder Spackman
gave an awesome talk, and so did Sister Richter. We had 3 investigators
at church who were all fellowshipped in with members sitting next to
them explaining what was being talked about. It was excellent.
Elder Spackman (my companion of 3.5 months) will be
training here in Kassel, and I feel like there is a pretty stable
foundation of investigators and a great connection with the ward here. I
have greatly enjoyed working here and building up this awesome place.
It's sad to move on, but It's a part of life. I have been meeting with a
ton of people these last couple of days to say goodbye. I have a lot of
adresses so that I can stay in contact with a lot of the people who we
have taught and helped, and with a lot of the members. I am excited to
start building again and to see the process again from the beginning.
Ich hab euch Lieb und wünsche euch alles gute!
Bis zum nächsten Mal!
Elder Braden Thorkelson
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