5 WEEKS LEFT

Well, Elder Bean leaves to go home tomorrow!  I follow his footsteps in just 5 weeks.  It is super weird but I don't think about those things :)  Well sometimes but only at nights!

Great job Kristin!  I heard you did wonderful.  I'm super proud of you and I can't wait to take you to practice again! 

Sorry for giving you a heart attack mom haha.  This last week my shoulder has been hurting super bad.  I didn't do anything weird either!  It just started hurting really bad and I would wake up in the night because I moved it wrong or something I don't know but I wouldn't mind getting it looked at when I get home.  It  has been better the last couple of days.

We have had really good appointments this week!  Our investigators are improving and learning.  Once my new companion comes in, we are going to focus everything on our finding.  We just need new people to teach.  I am really going to give it all I have got these last few weeks.  I'm never going to have this ever again!  I have to use this time. 

This week on Sunday we had our first eating appointment since being here!  It was fun and good to meet the family a little better.  At church, a kid walked through the door and I totally recognized his voice.  He was from Dresden!  11 year old Felix from Dresden was here with his sister.  He booked it down the hall to me and he sat next to me during the whole meeting :)  He is great.  I will send a picture this week. 

We helped a member clean up his garden a little bit and he was so thankful.  He is such a great guy and helps us a ton.  It was great to put your hands in the dirt as well haha. 

We also meet a really cool guy this week named F___ who wants to meet.  He just barely moved here and is excited for us to come over on Friday. 

I will see you soon family!

Love,

Elder Hays

Hunger for the Light - Pictures of Rostock

It's Elder Bean's last week on the mission!  I am excited for him and we have some good appointments already set up which will make the week bright and full of joy. 

We played soccer this week with a bunch of awesome guys.  E___ invited us to come play and it was super fun!  A couple of the guys were pretty good and had a really fun attitude.  I did really good actually haha I was proud of myself.  After we played, we went home to change and I couldn't move.  My body just hurt so so bad haha.  It was terrible but I finally moved again.  We got to talk to a couple of the guys about the church a little bit so that made the pain worth it :)  E___ also made us muffins yesterday!  She is so great.  I will get a picture with her sometime. 

We had a couple of good first lessons on the street.  It is so great to give testimony of the Savior and the Restoration.  You see the people feeling the spirit!  You see their eyes light up as you recite the first vision but most of the times they shy away from that feeling.  They get scared of it!  They don't know how to handle it!  But they wont forget it.  It will burn in them until the satisfy the feeling.  They will start to hunger for that light again. 

We met with a couple of college students this week who turned out being a little crazy or just really opinionated but they were cool.  They said we were cool guys and that we could hang out but we don't do stuff like that fortunately. 

Thank you for sending the pictures!  It is so great to see all of your faces.  You're all such beautiful people. 

I am so grateful for my mission.  I love my prophet Joseph Smith and I love my Savior.  Can we go to New York sometime?  I think I am glad that I didn't go before my mission because I really appreciate all that he did now to bring about this work on earth.  He is amazing.  At night I have been listening to lectures by Dr. Truman G. Madsen on the Prophet and the early life of the church and it is so amazing to get the real story in detail of the everyday life of the prophet. 

I love you all and thank you for all you do for this church.

Elder Hays

The Sacrament

Man I really need to send some pictures...I'm  sorry.  I loved the picture of Uncle Bryan in the background at the temple haha.  I bet that was a great day!  Thank you for sending me some pictures.

So this week we had Zone training meeting which was great.  We talked about the goals that we have until the end of the year and our mission has the goal of 125 baptisms here in Germany.  Last year we had set the goal of 150 and it went really well.  Although we didn't reach the full number last year, we improved and got better numbers than we did earlier.  I really support this goal.  I trust President Kosak and I love that he helps us as young people to go to the Lord and to find out ways to reach such high goals.

I got to bless the Sacrament yesterday.  It really humbled me....I can't really explain how it did but it did.  Earlier that morning I wasn't looking forward to church so much.  For many excuses, someone could decide not to go to church in a small branch.  (No friends, so excitement, all older people, 5 people at Sacrament meeting)  There are so many excuses!  But no reasons.  The reason I wanted to go to church, was for Sacrament meeting and for the taking of the emblems.  I went into the bathroom and washed my flat face and changed my attitude.  I can ruin my Sunday but I'm not going to ruin Sunday for all the people here who sacrifice coming to church, even though there are not many people.  I was then asked to bless the Sacrament.  I was overcome with complete joy.  I couldn't stop smiling!  I was so thankful to be there.  The Lord taught me something very important yesterday that I will never forget because I felt it through the Holy Ghost.  He taught me that I am not just there for me, or just for the investigators or just for the members.  I am there to 'lift where I stand'.   If there is a 5 year old in front of me, I am going to make his day.  If there is something to be done I will do it without question.  If I need to benefit from the Sacrament this week I will focus on my repentance during that time.  I will carry a smile on my face because I have the gospel.  Through the gospel I can CHANGE.  Be better.  I can shrug off mistakes and move forward knowing that Someone stands to my side at all times.  Sometimes we need to be thankful.  Then the Lord will give us great joy.  

I love this scripture...Romans 12:21

So we got lost this week in the middle of nowhere but I will tell you that later because It's not important haha.

We have a steady progressing coming from our investigators.  We are doing our best and finding and teaching but nothing huge this week.  We found an awesome girl who we will be teaching this week.  She is a college student here.

I love you :)

Elder Hays

General Conference

It's like the super bowl but BETTER.  A spiritual hammer to the face. 

This week was good!  A***, our progressing investigator, came to general conference and watched a session.  We also had a couple of friends we made here watch it.  Most of the sessions though, were just the missionaries and a member named Victor.  It was a blast though. 

We did a lot of service this week in a couple of gardens.  We helped the branch president in his garden by picking all of his apples and gathering them up so that he can make apple juice!  Good stuff.  We also went to Br. Sepp's garden and helped him take a couple of trees out of the ground with a couple of shovels.  Reminded me of construction again.  Gotta love it :)  We taught some good less active lessons this week as well!  We gave a couple of blessings to the sick and had some good weather. 

A friend of ours named E***, invited us to come play soccer with her and her friends!  We had a great time getting to know everybody and had some fun at the same time.  We got to talk to E*** a little bit about the General Conference and she ended up watching some of it which was awesome to hear.  She bakes AMAZING food.  She baked us some chocolate muffins which were DIVINE. 

We had a good lesson with a less active member who was baptized a couple of years ago.  We showed up to the appointment and she had brought a friend with who was also an inactive member!  We had a great lesson about why the Lord allows us to have trials in this life.  The friend of the inactive member who was there to visit gave pretty powerful testimony of it as well!  I was so suprised and happy.

I am doing great!  Learned a lot of things that I need to improve on from General Conference.  I set some goals and have repented to reach those goals that I need to achieve.  I have really held fest to my blessing from Br. Packard.  Half of my blessing is focused on my mission and what I will do here.  Everything has fufilled itself.  Perfectly.  My mission is not over.  I am very tired haha but we are working hard here.  I love it.  I can't explain everything I have learned here.  How I have changed!  I guess you will see soon, but the Atonement made it possible.  It allows everyone to change and to become like God. 

Love, 

Elder Hays