A "White" Christmas in Usingen, Germany

I guess I had better update this blog. I keep waiting for pictures, but Colton doesn't seem to send very many (he keeps forgetting his camera cord, so he says).

I did get one picture of him by a Christmas tree with Elder Goldsmith Yeah!!

We were able to Skype with him on Christmas Day for 2 hours, 6 minutes and 51 seconds, THE BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT, EVER!!


He shared with us the story of Rebekah and his "White Christmas" I will let their words tell what happened. The following is an excerpt from a Zone Newsletter where Colton is serving....


Usingen (Elders Goldsmith & Weeks) – Well, Rebekah is the daughter of a recently reactivated member. Rebekah saw how happy her mom was, and asked her why she was so happy, and she said it was because of the church! So Rebekah wanted to come to church, and then she started meeting with us, and she’s been making so much progress in feeling the Spirit and reading the in the Book of Mormon. One day we had the feeling to play the song “When I am Baptized” in a lesson with her, and after the song we just kind of sat in silence. And, well, then asked if she would be baptized, and she said yes! We talked about being baptized on Christmas Eve, like, being reborn with Christ, ya know, and she said she was thinking the same thing, too! It was really a lesson to us on the importance of following the Holy Ghost, because we taught her, and not a lesson.

Meeting President Uchtdorf

Happenings at the President Uchdorf Fireside in Darmstadt, Germany:

...Elder Hogan got in and grabbed our seats and then mingled with everyone that was there. We were able to see a lot of other missionaries with their investigators and it was really fun. We saw the Hasenstabs come in with Briguette right by their side. We greeted them and then waited outside for Peter. As we waited outside we saw a black van pull up. Elder Hogan and I started creeping our way over to the van to see who was inside. The driver door opened and we saw it was a just a member of the area presidency. Elder Hogan and I both looked at each other and just shrugged our shoulders and said, "Oh well..."

























Then we saw the passenger doors open up. The first thing we saw was a head of silver hair getting out of the car. Sure enough it was him! As he got out of the car we was greeted by primary children who had brought him candy and chocolate. Elder Hogan and I looked at each other and started creeping our way towards the van. As we walked down he made eye contact with Elder Hogan and said, "Hallo Elder" and reached out his hand. Elder Hogan shook hands with him. Then President Uchtdorf made eye contact with me nodding and said, "Elder" while sticking out his hand. My heart pounding and hand shaking I reached forward and met a powerful handshake. Oh my gosh it was so cool! He then turned and hurried inside the door.

The meeting soon began and Elder Hogan and I took our seats. The meeting was amazing! President Uchtdorf bore powerful testimony of never being ashamed to be a disciple of Christ. He kept saying that wherever you are in life, is the best part! He said over and over during the meeting, "I know this work is true! I know this is the church of God!" It was awesome being able to hear him speak German. So great. After the meeting he asked everyone to stick around so he could greet people. (You see he was the Stake President here in Darmstadt many years ago, so many people there last night he knew personally.) I was able to shake his hand once again and he held onto my bicep for support for a few seconds.

The Ups and Downs of Missionary Work

The time has come for another update...

The weather is beginning to turn cold in Germany, but these Elders are trying to "heat" it up with their excitement and enthusiasm. The work has been hard. It has had it's ups and downs. They have gone from 0 investigators to 7-8 investigators and back down to 2 then adding 3 new investigators this week. Most of their "finding" has come from member/church referrals, although this week they did do some street contacting with some success and found their 1st investigator on their very own. The Attitude is very positive. Elder Weeks and Elder Hogan are working very well together and having fun doing it in the small, rural town of Michelstadt. They have set a goal of 5 baptisms by Christmas. We do know that they will be together until November 12th.....but after that, who knows what will happen. They have been together for 3 transfers, so they anticipate that some movement may occur :( Oh the life of a missionary!

Pictures:
1. Another week, another e-mail
2. Whatcha drinking there Elder??
3. The Town of Heidelberg in the background.
4. Dare I say, Men in Black

Baptism and Bad haircuts

Elder Weeks FIRST Baptism in Germany--

"The Buhrer's looked so excited and happy. It was quite the spiritual experience seeing two of Heavenly Father's children enter into the waters of baptism, and take the first steps of gain eternal life. Elder Hogan and I had the wonderful opportunity to bear our testimonies towards the end of the service. Oh it was so great!.

Yesterday they were confirmed and are now the newest members of the Michelstadt Branch! I am so excited for them as they now start to prepare to enter into the temple. I would hope that I would have the opportunity of being able to see them sealed if I could."

And now for the BAD Haircut Oh No!! :D

The caption on this picture..

"I could've sworn that I had in on a higher setting..."


Good thing that hair grows :D

Golden Contacts...

...and I am not talking about the kind that go in your eyes ;)

I thought I would share a few excerpts from Colton's and Elder Hogan's letters describing some of their investigators...talk about GOLDEN!

The first one is Colton's letter, it is in blue, and then Elder Hogan's is in red:

"So last week we did meet with the Bührer's and they are awesome! Oh my gosh, just to give you an idea of how excited they are I'll tell you about the first few minutes of our appointment. We get inside and they tell us just how excited they are. They first said, "We want you to teach us how to do missionary work!" They then pulled out a Preach My Gospel and said, "We bought this and we have read through the first chapter, now can you teach us how to best use it." Our jaws dropped and all we could manage to say was "Uhu we can do that for you." Oh so awesome! They are already paying tithing and everything. I seriously think the only reason they are meeting with us is because they have to in order to be baptized."

"The Buhrers, the family getting baptized, are SO awesome! She was a member a few years ago, but asked to be removed. her life went downhill after that, and about a year ago, she met a guy on the internet and married him. Then about 6 months ago, he had a lot of deaths in the family and such, so she started preaching the gospel to him. They both started reading regularly in the BofM, and started coming to church!! They are pretty much members already. They were being taught by the Darmstadt Elders, but once we got here we took over! They pretty much fell into our laps. They have had all the lessons and are 100% ready for baptism. The ward loves them!!"

To give you some background on the next investigator, here is an excerpt from one of Colton's letters telling us HOW they plan on finding people:

"President Schwartz did give us some finding ideas that Elder Hogan and I will be trying out. He told us that prophecies have said there will be around 300 stakes in Germany. He then said that means that we are going to have to find 300 Stake Presidents, and 3,000 Bishops, 3,600 High Councilors and many other church leadership positions. He then said, we can't find them by simply knocking on doors. We have to have smarter ways to find the elect. He then gave this idea to go to bible studies that Protestant and Catholic churches. Haha infiltrate the enemy territory!!"

This is what they found--

"So you know how last week I told you about how we were going to infiltrate enemy territory by going to bible studies? Well it turns out that they really work! While I was on a split in Darmstadt, Elder Hogan and Elder Bame decidied to check out a bible study. There they met a guy who was really interested in who they were and everything. I guess he told them that he was an athiest for a long time and then decided to pray to see if God was actually there. He got a witness from the Holy Ghost telling him that God was there. He said ever since then he has been going to church, but still searching to where he feels most comfortable. Once Elder Hogan and Elder Bame were able to get their jaws off the floor they started to give him the first lesson. They introduced him to the BoM and everything. The guy, Harold, then said, "hmm this sounds really interesting. Is there anyway that we could meet next week?" They then set up a return appointment and he told them that he would read the whole BoM before next week and pray about it. Wow... I couldn't believe the story myself. I am so excited to meet him and everything. He sounds like the Lord has been preparing for him, and I guess we'll see what happens..."

This is Elder Hogan's own words about their find--

"On Wednesday we joined our first bible study. It was hosted at a Baptist church (not like, strict Baptists though), and about 200 people were there. I was on a split with Elder Bame at this point. The best part was right at the beginning, we walked in the door and everything got silent. Everyone just stared at our name tags wide-eyed O_O. Ha ha! Anywho, to break the ice I walked up to the nearest person and shook their hand and said: "Hello! My name is Elder Hogan. May we join your bible study?" xD Everyone broke after that, and came up and started talking to us. It was grand. We talked with the pastor guy and a few other head honchos, and lots of people asked whom we were. Then we all sat down in the chapel, and they read the Bible at us for 2 hours. X_X We didn't even get a chance to dazzle everyone with our wisdom. The best part happened afterwards, though. Everyone was gathered around us, asking us questions. I felt like an old BoM prophet surrounded by the masses. We answered all their questions, and everyone was astounded by our German. I just came out and said: "Well, if you read in 1 Cor chapter 12, it talks about the gifts of the Spirit. *I pull out my Bible and read a few verses* We believe that we are actual servants of Jesus Christ. Our message is so important, that God blesses us with the ability to speak German. Otherwise, we could not tell you that God has once again called a prophet to restore the true church of Christ!" and so forth. When all was said and done, only one guy was left from the crowd. We walked outside together and shared a first lesson with him, gave him a Book of Mormon, and committed him to read it and pray about Joseph Smith. Job well done mate! We are meeting with him again this Wednesday. :D :D:D His name is Harold. I think he's one of the elect! Awesome eh? eh? eh? :D"

Don't you wish it would ALL be that easy. I guess it is nice to find a GOLDEN NUGGET amongst all the rocks and gravel that is out there :)

I will keep you posted on their progress...

A Baptismal Date and ...Carrots.

We received a few more pictures this week of Colton.

This mission president is
welled loved by his missionaries.
President Lehi K. and Sister Gudrun Schwartz

This week has been pretty good in Michelstadt. We found a former investigator and she seemed interested, but she hasn't been able to meet with us. It has been a little frustrating, but hopefully we can meet with her again. We are really looking forward for this Thursday in meeting witht the Buher Family. I can't remember if I told you about them, but they are a couple that already have a baptismal date. Elders from Darmstadt taught them, but they are technically in our area. So when Elder Hogan and I got to Michelstadt, we found out that we already had a baptismal date set up. We met them at church this last Sunday and told us to come and teach them the rest of the lessons because they are really excited to get baptized. We are pretty pumped for them, but the one snag is that they haven't been taught the commandments yet... Hopefully it all goes well. The wife had been a member previously so there shouldn't be any surprises, at least that is what we are hoping.

I was on my first split today. Elder Hogan had to go with our DL to a Leadership Conference, so I was able to come up to Darmstadt for a day. It was fun being able to be in a new area. It is as huge city compared to Michelstadt and the people are a lot more...interesting I guess would be the right word. Elder Bame and I were walking through the Fuss (which is basically a mall, but outside) and we saw two men with what seemed to be silver magic marker all over there face. They set themselves up into a corner and were setting up microphone stands and putting on acoustic guitars. The best part of it was that they had no microphones, so they decided the next best thing would be...carrots. They literally put a carrot where the microphone would go on the microphone stand and sang into those. Haha I wish I would've had my camera with me, because it was pretty weird. Oh the things you see on your mission.

My Dad, the Bishop

The following is an excerpt from a letter Colton wrote his Dad when he found out that Dan would be put in as Bishop of the ward... This son of ours, wise beyond his years.

Dear Dad,

...Man I can't believe that you will be Bishop next week. I wish that I could be there to give some support. I know that it must have been hard last week having your last meeting together. Scott was an absolutely amazing bishop. I am so grateful for the love and support he gave me as I went through my own trials and hard times. He is an amazing man and I know that he did so much to strengthen the ward. I hope that you will send me love and gratitude to him.

I know that you are going to do an amazing job as bishop. You couldn't have picked two better men to be your counselors. I am so grateful for Chandler and Ed and how I was able to work with them in Young Mens. They are part to the reason I am who I am today. They have taught me so much and I know that they will do great serving with you.

I know that I have told you this before in previous letters, but I want you to know that I know that you can do this. It is kind of exciting the both of us starting a whole new journey and doing it relatively the same time. I know things won't be perfect and you will have to make some hard decisions, but I also know that you have been called by your Heavenly Father. That He trusts you. There will be times when you may feel weak and have so many things weighing down on you, but I can testify that the Lord calls on the weak things of the world to confound the wise. He has done that in my life. While being here in Germany I felt so weak and humble. It has been really tough at times to speak the language or to teach clearly, but I put my trust in Heavenly Father, and He strengthens me.

There are times when I don't believe that I can do this. I don't have a lot of faith in myself. But there is one person that I do have faith in. My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He has called me here to the work. I know that. He knows me better than I know myself, and whom the Lord calls, he qualifies. Even when I don't see it. I love Him so much.

Dad, I want you to know that I love you. You are one of my best friends. There is no one else that I would rather have be bishop of our home ward than you. I know that you can do this, but more importantly your Father and Savior know as well. I pray for you as you make this transition. I know that you will do great. I offer the same advice you gave me as I left on the plane for Germany. "Don't be too hard on yourself, You'll do great."

Know that your missionary son loves and supports you. You will do great things. I know that.

I love you very very much. Keep strong and keep reading from the word of God. Pray to Him and He will strengthen you.

Love,

Colton

The Branch (they are AWESOME) and Driving in Michelstadt

I guess I will tell you a little bit more about our Zweig (Branch auf Deutsch) here in Michelstadt. They actually meet in a fairly good sized church building. It owned by the church and everything. We have about fifty members there so it is getting there to be a ward, hopefully soon. All of them are so awesome. The branch president is President Leimgruber. He is great and we have dinner at his house every Friday. He is really excited for us to be in Michelstadt. He really wants go get the ward involved in missionary work, and it seems to be working. After church for the last 6 months many of the members of the ward would enter into a small room and pray for the missionary work in Michelstadt. They are so awesome and we really do love them.

President Schwartz read our emails last week and felt that he should come down for church last Sunday and visit the branch. It was amazing the things that he told us. He met with us, the branch President and Ward Mission Leader after church and shared some great insight/prophecy.

He said that he not only wants Michelstadt to become a ward, but also re-open the Walldurn branch just east of us. He also said that he wants to start a youth center/institute there and he already has the funding for it and everything. Our jaws slowly dropped lower and lower as President Schwartz continued to talk. It seems like he feels there is something really special about the area we are serving in.

In this meeting President Schwartz also mentioned something really cool about Elder Hogan and I. He told President Leimgruber and our Ward Mission Leader that when it was revealed that Michelstadt would be re-opened again he spent many hours on his knees praying about what missionaries should be sent there. He said that it was revealed to him that Elder Hogan and I were to serve here. He said it was very specific and very strong that we were the right ones for the job. He said that we weren't called by him, but rather called by God to serve here. Wow...

I have to tell you that I love President Schwartz. He truly is an inspired man. He is so full of love and hope and I know that I was called to specifically serve with him. I know that he will lead this mission to do great things. So good.

In other news Elder Hogan and I did receive a car last week! The fun thing is that with a Utah license you can drive in the country for 6 months. Since Elder Hogan has been here for longer than that, and his Germany driving license is in the mail, I get to drive. Haha luckily the car we have is an automatic and not a stick shift. Good news for me, that's for sure.

Driving in Germany is kinda crazy. I don't think the Germans believe in space. The roads are so narrow that I sometimes get nervous driving through them that I will slow down to under 20 kmph, but Germans have no problem zipping right through. Haha pretty crazy, but it is fun to drive again. We do have a GPS and we call her "Jane" Definitely no "Moronica", but she'll have to do I guess ;)

Other than that not a whole lot to report on. Elder Hogan and I are working hard, but we definitely have a lot to do. We are excited and ready to get at it.

Arriving in Michelstadt, Germany

Hallo von Deutschland!

Wow it is crazy that I am here and now writing you from a member´s computer shop in Michelstadt. This place is absolutely beautiful. It truly reminds me of Fantasyland in Disneyland. I really don´t think there is a prettier place in all of Europe.

Elder Hogan and I have had our share of adventures of getting lost and everything, but it has been a lot of fun as well. We have definietly seen the Lord´s hand as we have traveled around not knowing where to go.

I´ll have to share with you the whole story of our arrival here some other time, but man was it crazy. We had left all together from the Frankfurt Train Station, but the person who assigned travel groups didn´t do a spectacular job with us. The train we went on went in the exact opposite way of Michelstadt. We had to figure out what was going on with the both of us having 3 pieces of luggage a piece. Well to make a long story short, after a few fallen out trains and missed stops we arrived in Michelstadt at about 8 pm. The problem is we had no idea where anything was or where we lived.

All we had was an address on our key ring. Luckily people were kind enough to help us out and told us to hop on the bus. The problem was we were out of money and couldn´t buy a bus ticket. The bus driver took pity on us and let us ride for free. (once again God looking out for us.) We arrived at our bus stop and saw a huge carnival down a street with thousands of people. Elder Hogan and I looked at eachother and thought "oh isn´t that nice." Then we took a closer look at the street and Elder Hogan turned to me and said, "Elder...we LIVE on that street." We decided then to carry our 3 bags up a huge hill to try and come around on the other side. We pressed forward and finally arrived at our apartment. Pretty crazy how it all worked out. We felt very blessed and very tired. We started to unpack a bit and get ready for bed. Elder Hogan and I knelt down and were about to start compansionship prayer when we heard explosions! We thought WW3 had started or something. We looked outside and saw fireworks. Haha typical end to our crazy day. We like to think the fireworks were meant for us. They were celebrating that missionaries were back in Michelstadt.

The Branch here is awesome and all are very excited about missionary work. It is really great to have so much support.

Well, I am not restricted on time, but Elder Hogan and I have a lot to get done today. I will tell you that I truly do love it here. I get down on myself sometimes because I can´t understand or speak the language very well, but I just have to have patience. The Lord is with me every step I go. I know that.

I love you all very much.

Love,

Elder Colton Weeks

Thanks to the Petersons!!

Glade and Lola Peterson, Parents of Scott & Jyll Peterson, good family friends, are currently serving in Germany as the Public Relations missionaries. They are based in Frankfurt and have been waiting the arrival of Elder Weeks. Through their connections, they found out where Colton was assigned, who his companion was, and went to visit them on the 1st Saturday that they were there. Thank goodness for them, because they were able to email and then call us (Well, they called Jyll, we just happened to be there to listen in) with the information and updates. As you can see with Colton's letter, he is a little short on details (probably because he knew that the Peterson's would fill us in :)

Here are some of the pictures that the Peterson's took of the area and the boys...














The Peterson were kind enough to take the Elders out to a nice lunch before returning them to their apartment (notice the fried egg in the middle of the pizza, apparently this is a German thing)

Meeting the President, Assigned a Companion and an Area.

This is Elder Weeks with his Mission President, Lehi Schwartz, and his Trainer, Elder Jacob Hogan. We have gotten word that they will be opening up a new area that has not had missionaries for quite a long time, Michelstadt, German. There is a neat story behind this, the branch in that area really wanted missionaries, so they decided to fast and pray for it to happen. On an act of faith they even painted the apartment, getting it ready "just in case" that day would happen. And here it is!! Elder Hogan and Elder Weeks. The area book is completely BLANK so they will be starting from square one. ... Go Get 'em Elders!!

Fun Times in the MTC

All of these Elders attended Bingham High School together and are now headed to serve in Frankfurt, Germany---Elders Weeks, Hill, Ripplinger, and Sommerville.

President Schwartz had the opportunity to meet with the missionaries that would be serving in the Frankfurt mission while he was at the MTC for Mission Presidents Training.

Colton's district while at the MTC

Need I say anything more :D