September 22, 2013

Hallo!
My week was pretty great. This week was the baptism of Kai! It went really well. The interview was on Thursday and then the baptism was on Saturday. His wife and two kids were both there. His little boy (8 months old) looked so confused when he went into the water and came back up! haha. It was great. The spirit was really strong.

As a companionship things are going a bit better. There's a lot of change going on. We're trying our best to work with each other. It works some of the time. I'll be sending an email to my mission president about it... it shouldn't last longer than 3 more weeks (until the end of the transfer). Luckily we have an awesome district. It's only 4 missionaries total, but the two elders in Stadthagen are awesome. One of them I know from the MTC, and the other one is a newer missionary. They both have a fire for the work, and they recognize that I am having a difficult time with my comp, so they help me out :)

The area here is really good, and so is the ward. Our ward mission leader is really hands-on. He takes a very active role in missionary work. He knows the ward, and he knows the investigators. He is doing a great job. With the release of the church transmission 'The Work of Salvation', there's a big movement towards working more through the ward mission leader to do missionary work. A lot of wards are having troubles with it, but our ward mission leader is way ahead of the game. He had been doing this before the transmission even came out! haha. It's great. There are a lot of missionaries who are wish that they had a WML as good as we do :)

It's always great being able to show people from the ward dad's illustrations in the Liahona. Haha. Everyone is always super impressed. It's a good way to set me apart from other missionaries who come and go.

Well, I'm learning a lot about patience, humility, and patience... :) I just have to remember that it's all for my own good. The Lord knows better than I do.

Love,
Elder Braden Thorkelson