May 5, 2009

Hello Mom, Dad, and family,

First off--Kiersten A TICKET. What are you thinking? Who would do such a thing? :)

OK, I am sorry. I realized this morning that I haven't really told you any of our stories of teaching. Right now we are teaching several investigators and hopefully one of them will be baptized within the next month. We are teaching this family from Africa and they have three kids. They are a sweet family and I think that they will join the church as soon as they recieve a witness. We are also teaching this college kid that is cool. He is 24 but looks like he is 18. We met with him yesterday and he said that he really thinks that the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith could be true. He was way excited when we first talked with him and went home and studied a little bit about our church. He has a Book of Mormon now and seems way excited to read it.

We are also teaching another lady who has been an investigator for about 4 years. We had an intense lesson with her last night and we asked her if she believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. She said she did but what is holding her back is that she was baptized in to the Lutheran church and doesnt really want "another" baptism. I bore my testimony to her that we have to go by faith and that I wanted her to pray this week and that she will know that it is the right thing to do. We will meet with her again and hopefully she will be baptized.

We have had kind of a really crazy week though. We got in contact with a former investigator and he wanted our help with his drinking problem. We met him in a park and took his beer from him and dumped it on the grounds. We went back to his house and threw away between 150-200 beer bottles! They are like 30-45 oz. bottles too. It took a while but he is for sure an alchoholic and its sad to see what it does to their lives. He has lost his whole family. He wants to change but he is so addicted he can't go a day without drinking. We will hopefully meet with him tonight and help him again.

Another experience that I found funny and that I thought you might like to know was that we were sitting on a baun and some guy just started yelling things out in German. He was yelling at us of course and told us that we were British murderers. He told me that I was lucky that he didnt have his gun with him or else I would have been dead right then. I found it funny. Crazy Germany. Ya, I didnt think I would have so many experiences in the first month. Well, thank you for everything. Love you all and I pray for you.

"No Regrets"
Liebe euch,
Elder Merrill