December 7, 2009

Dear Sisters and Elders,

At last evening’s First Presidency Devotional, President Thomas S. Monson presented the following suggestion for focusing our efforts during this Christmas season:

“Finding the real joy of the season comes not in the hurrying and the scurrying to get more done or in the purchasing of obligatory gifts. Real joy comes as we show the love and compassion inspired by the Savior of the World, who said, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these...ye have done it unto me'" (Matthew 25:40).

That we will so serve that we will feel the Savior’s love as we love our Father’s children is my prayer for you and all you will influence this month.

With love,

Robert G. Condie
Germany Munich/Austria Mission
Lommelstrasse 7
81479 Munich
Germany

Office: +49 (0)89 724 48 60
Fax: +49 (0)89 723 87 18
Home: +49 (0)89 798 34 0
Mobile: +49 (0)171 361 92 58
Email: robert.condie@ldschurch.org

Hello lovely family,
WEll this week has been amazing. We have worked our tails off. It has been freezing cold. one day it was raining and we were out on our bikes and then the temperature dropped below freezing and the water that was on my hands and on my suit turned into ice. Oh we have always had that rule. WE are asked to wear our suits anytime that we want to wear another jacket. we are asked to wear our suit jackets in underneath them. so i am always in my suits. I think it is about time to clean them at the dry cleaner. I have been out for a while and i have not yet had the chance to clean them.
Kürze frage. Short question. When is a time that would work best for you to do the calls on the 25 of december.
Anyhow we have done some good this week. As I stated before, we have worked our tails off. So this week we found (well we didn't really find him he found us, he is the one who called us last week and asked to meet with us) a man whose name is heinz stix. He had met with the missionaries before and he stopped meeting with them because they talked about the snake and how it tempted adam and eve to eat the fruit and he didnt really want to talk about the evil things in life. Plus he said that he was already on too many life paths (he was also associated with the hare krishna chanting group, catholic baptized, and a bunch of other religions as well) and that he didn't know if he could take on another life path (the committment of baptizm). So he called us up last week because he was at a really low point of his life and he said that he saw the book of mormon that the missionaries had given him earlier. He picked the book up and said that he started to read in it. And as he read in the book he told us that he felt such a peace as that he had never before felt in his life. That is when he said that he knew that the book was true and that he wanted to meet again with us. He called the church headquarters in Frankfurt, and told them that he wanted our number. So they gave him our number and he called us and wanted to meet. We have since then met with him twice and he has told us that he wants to keep meeting. So we have been teaching him and we have set a baptizmal date for the 26th of december. He said that that is a beautiful day and that he wants to prepare himself to be baptized on the 26th. Woot. that is soooo coool. we have been working so hard this week. We have another progressing investigator his name is Geff, he is from brazil, he speaks portuguese as well and he wants to meet with us regularly. We have met with him three times and this week we also set a baptizmal date with him. He wants to be baptized on the 23rd of january! Wow! He said something pretty amazing the last time we were with him. He said, that he has nightmares and he feels not very good when he is just at home with his wife or at work, but as we come there it is such a happy and good feeling. we took this opportunity to explain to him that that is the holy ghost and we showed him the scripture in galations chapter 5:22-23 about the fruits of the spirit and he said that that was exactly how he felt as we were around. We told him that he could always have these feelings with him as he followed the commandments and got baptized and konfirmed with the holy ghost. And when he keeps the commandments he is promised to have the spirit to with him always he was excited about this and so that is why he wants to change his life that he has right now and begin a new one with the baptizm. But i feel we are going to have a lot of work to do with him, because in our first appointment with him he said to us, "weißt du, gestern habe ich zu viel drogen genommen, ich bin auf dem boden gelegen" (translation: did you know, yesterday i took too many drugs, i layed on the ground.) WE also gave out a baptismal committment to a foreign exchange student that was here from california. the setting was classic. So we were in a mcdonalds in the kids section. That was the only place that he could meet because he is heading back to america soon because his semester abroad is coming to an end. But ya music was playing in the background (by the way that is the first time i have been in a mcdonalds here, they are way nicer here than in the states) music, everything from CCR to BEyonce to Johnny cash and LIl' John. We taught him about the gospel of Jesus Christ as we sat at this loudly colored table that had Mcdonalds graffitti all over it in neon colors. The cool thing though was that among all the distractions we still had an opening and closing prayer and the spirit was so strong there. So we gave out a baptizmal committment in the middle of mickey D's and people were checking out what was going down with the two mormons in black suits in the kids section. It kinda reminded me of the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants section one verse 24 then verse 30. We are here to bring the church out of darkness and obscurity. I actually dont know what it says in english, i have it memorized in german however. ha ha so ya we are givin out the baptizmal commitments like crazy letting people know our purpose here, but trust me i wont be just baptizing people to baptize them. they need to be ready. that would be a total shame if they all just fell away.
There was just so much that went on this week we, also had zone conference. we ate tofu at a members house (not going to become a vegetarian anytime soon), we got water thrown at us from a 3 story building out of a bucket. just to many things to even say as we are running out of time. well i will be sending your packages today now that i have money thank you mother for clearing that up. I love you. Well tschuss!!!
oh a donner is a thing kinda like a flat bread pita then it has meat inside that has been shaven off of a giant rotissere meat stick thing. It is a turkish food. But they are super good. you will see a pic of one sometime. On christmas you tell me when it would be best to call. love you!!!!!