22nd

Well remember about how I told you about D*** last week?  Well we had a lesson with him on Freitag and we talked a lot about putting forth our full effort in finding the truth of the Gospel.  In one moment I was prompted to ask him to get baptized.  He said he would get baptized!  What is really cool is that usually when you ask someone to get baptized, you put a date forth so that they can prepare for this date.  We weren't planning in this lesson to challenge him to baptism but we had to give him a date.  As I was asking him to be baptized, I asked him if the 22nd of September was the right date and he agreed.  I had no idea what day of the week the 22nd was but in this ward they have their baptisms on Sunday.  After the lesson, Elder Ashmead and I walk outside and I asked him what day the 22nd was, we check the calendar on our phone and it was a Sunday haha.  Oh man that was so cool how that all worked out.  

It sounds like you are all super busy!!  It is good to be busy.  It keeps you focused!  I have been thinking about Trevor's feet a lot.  I am not sure what I think about it.  I feel so bad!  Has he had a blessing?

That was another cool thing this last week.  I got to give 2 blessings!  I absolutely love giving blessings.  It really gives you the chance to be in total connection with the powers of Heaven.  

This last week I have studied a lot about the Parable of the Talents.  It can be found in Matthäus 25:14-30.  He gives these servants a certain amount of Talents.  He gives one man 5, second 2, and third 1.  He then comes back and asked what these servants have done with their Talents.  The first one, recieving the most, says that he has learned and doubled his load.  The second did the same. These first two servants were rewarded for their work.   The third put forth no work with what he was given.  He didn't capitalize on the gift.  This applies to our life exactly.  The Lord has given us more talents than some other people.  We have wonderful families, a strong faith, an amazing church and love for another.  What happens when we become like unto the third servant?  We will be called the "slothful servant".  When I stand before God I want to give Him as much as I can back.  We are given so much with the Gospel.  This intelligence that we have should not be buried away, but we should study, share, and live so that this intelligence, this gift can grow.  And most importantly so that we can obtain a place in the kingdom of our Father, and bring the rest of the world along with us.  This Parable shows that even though we are all on this earth, we have different circumstances.  God will judge us on how well we capitalize on what we are given.  WE GO TO WORK!!!!

I love you guys :) Give my love to the family and ward!  

Love, Elder Hays

pictures . . .

Germany is doing well . . .

How is the desert these days?  I hope Utah is holding up good without me.  Germany is doing well!  Birds singing...people laughing...especially the drunk ones but it's good!  The weather right now here is just awesome.  It a bombing 26-39° C everyday with rain twice  a week or so.  Oh yeah...with 80-90% humidity!  White T-shirt contest anyone?  I would win with the combination of sweat and rain.  So much fun.

We met with Samuel yesterday and he gave me the package that you sent.  Thank you so very much!  That is everything that I wanted and you sent the right book :)  

This week we found 4 new investigators!  They are all awesome and progressing!  We found this one girl doing doors who is about 18 and super interested in what we are talking about.  When we found her, we had already passed out our Book of Mormons that we had and we didn't have one for her.  Before we left, we told her a little about it and what it is about and she told us to bring on for her mom as well!  It was so awesome.  We made a return appointment and gave her the two books, told her a little bit more about them and they will be coming to church this next week and she is also bringing another friend with who is interested in the gospel.  She said that they have been going to a baptist church in Dresden, trying to search for the truth but without luck yet.  I got such a big smile on my face and told her she is about to feel the presence of Heavenly Father in her life more than she has ever felt before.  (Sorry for my terrible english)  Anyways I will update you next week on how she is going.

We have another investigator named Deng.  Deng is Chinese and is sick.  (sick as in cool).  He is progressing slowly and he came to church yesterday and saw one of the Sister's investigators named Lin (who is just gorgeous) and said he would get baptized if she would haha.  I told him that if he kept coming to church, she will be here.  (We will work with him :))

Members from Groitzsch called yesterday and they all are really missing me there.  I miss them too a lot.  I hope they are all doing well and stay alive so that I can visit them after my mission.

On Saturday night we went to meet with one of the members who is in the bishopric named Marco S__ who is just amazing.  He is fresh off his mission from Greece and has a couple of daughters already.  Anyways, he loves the missionaries.  I bore testimony and shared the story of Peter and the Christ when Christ came back after 3 days and called on Peter from the beach.  The Lord asked Peter 3 times if he loved him and Peter answered every time in the affirmitive but probably a little scared.  The Lord had taught him so many things that he should be sharing with these people but he and the other apostles went back to fishing.  Sometimes we have all of this amazing information that everybody in this world needs but we don't share it with anyone and we just go back to our daily fishing or work.  The Lord is asking us if we love Him.  Do we love the Lord as much as this?  I sure hope so.  If we do, we need to feed His sheep.  

I guess that Br. Schultze really liked it so he had me share it in church the following day in sacrament meeting.  I have not felt the spirit more in my life and I thank the Lord for that experience.

I love you guys :)

Elder Brandon Hays

Answers to questions:

Day to day we have appointments with investigators and in between we talk to as many people as possible; in the train, subway, bus and on the street.

I usually eat bread with a piece of cheese on it haha some meat sometimes too.  We don't have a ton of time.

We get fed by members once a week if it's a lucky week.

We get around everywhere with street cars, like the ones in san fransisco, and busses and trains.

We knock on doors every day :)

Going Hard in Dresden

I feel like I sat at this computer yesterday.  Wow...Dresden really went hard this week.  We really have felt a new motivation and we are seeing miracles.

Yesterday, I was on exchange with Elder Stephens.  My Zone Leader.  We had an amazing exchange full of running and finding.  We found 2 new investigators and made out 5 appointments in 1 day!  We talked literally with every person, crossed streets, ran after people and scared a few people but nobody was injured.  We were invited by this man into his party which was full of drunk men and women and dog?  Anyways, I gave like a Sermon on the Mount to these people even though they didn't take anything really, we got to answer some questions.

I was sitting next to this lady on the bench, talking about her grandma who just died and like 10 people started surrounding me.  I taught about the plan of salvation and they all listened!  To be honest it didn't end up to good and we ended up running out of there pretty fast but it was fun!  We decided that we would follow every single little prompting we felt to follow, and we did!  Sometimes you feel like you aren't being prompted but I promise that you aren't listening hard enough because they are really there.

Today...We went to the temple!!!  Holy cow it was amazing.  It felt so good to go back to the temple and experience it in Polish even!  That was interesting.  We had headphones for german though.  I got to talk to the Temple President for a minute and he was just great. (Brandon went to the Freiberg Temple.  They switch languages every week).

I'm going hard.  I'm so ready to put everything into it.  Throughout your mission you really realize that there is always room to improve and it never stops.  You can never give enough.  Every day you go harder.  You think of a new way to help.  You find a member who has wanted to come to church but just moved here and didn't know where it was.  When you "go hard" what I really mean is using time effectivly to the second, talking to that last person before you go home, sharing an inspiring message to a family who will now next week, be having us meet a friend of theirs, because we are trusted by them.  The work is charging forward like a ticked bull.  Plowing fields and piercing hearts!  Sorry that wasn't probably the best example but it works.

I love you all!

Love Elder Hays

PS...Chocolate was on sale this week....send money...jk

Freiberg Temple

I LOVE DRESDEN!!!!!!

I LOVE DRESDEN!!  It is so amazing here.  People stop and talk to us all of the time and actually want to have a conversation!  It is so cool.  We had a night where we got out of an appointment at about 8:20 and had another 30 min or so to go contacting.  I swear...those last hours of the day when you just want to go home are the times when miracles happen.  We walked down the street, spoke to everyone and 100% of the people like 10 people, stopped and talked to us!  It was so incredible.  They listened which was just amazing in the first place.

The Zone Leaders, Elder Stoddard and Elder Stephens are incredible examples to me.  We all live in the same appartment together and have a blast, helping each other and keeping each other super pumped and excited to do the work of the Lord.  Something that I have learned here is that exact obedience is really the key point in seeing true miracles happen.  It is something that we allways need to work on but it is always possible to achieve.

It is those small miracles that we see everyday that keeps us going.  That night that we talked with all of those people at 8:30, among those people we met a young lady who was about our age.  She was incredibly gorgeous but she looked so so sad.  Elder Ashmead walked up to her and I told her that we are sharing a message of joy.  After seeing a lot of markings and cuts on her body and her looking so depressed, she stated that she didn't know much about God but would start to think about what she believes and give us a call.  After that I could just see so much pain in her eyes that I just bore my testimony that she has a Heavenly Father who loves her and He wants her to just accept Him.  She gave a little bit of a smile after that and I knew that God had let her feel something.  I'm so grateful for a Father who loves me.  Who wants the best for me.

Anyways I'm glad you all met up with Samuel!  He is such a stud.  The ward here is amazing and the work is going forward like a legion of a nintey thousand horses being riden by captian Moroni and the stripling warriors.  They can't be stopped!

We always make jokes that we are going to just tackle people off of the bridge into the Elbe and say the prayer as we are falling and just baptize people.  Sick right?

I will send pics tonight hopefully:)  I love you guys!

Love, Elder Hays

P.S. I sent a letter back to Erika right after I got it and I got Kristin's letter today.  Thanks!!

Here in Utah

On Monday morning we got a phone call from a man named Samuel Schmidt from Dresden Germany. He had met Brandon at church the day before.  He was coming to Utah on his honeymoon and wanted to meet us and take something back for Brandon.

Here is a picture of Elder Hays and Samuel in Dresden . . . .

And a picture of us with Samuel and his beautiful wife, Luisa . . .

This was huge for our family.  The kids were excited to meet a real "German"!  They were catching a shuttle to St. George, then Vegas and onto California.  So fun to chat with them:) I hugged them tight and told them to hug Brandon for us!