Assignments

His first assignment was in the Jagst River Valley in the city of Ellwangen, Germany with Elder Middleton. After he broke his leg and ankle on July 18th he was hospitalized for 10 days and then he returned home to recover. He served one transfer in the Albuquerque NM Mission from January 4 - February 15, 2010 and served on the Navajo Reservation with Elder Lee.

He returned to Zurich on February 16, 2010. His first assignment was to serve with Elder King in Offenburg, Germany. The city is located in the Kinzig River Valley and adjacent to the Black Forest. The nearest large town is Strasbourg, France. He then served in a companionship with Elders Baird and Vaniturt in Offenburg.
On June 24th he was called to serve in Heilbronn with Elder Aeschbacher, who is from Switzerland. He is excited to serve with a native German speaker and hopes this will help him improve his language skills. On August 18, 2010 he was transferred to the city of Tubingen and called to be a companion with Elder Mildon.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Scorpion in the Shoe

So these last two weeks were pretty boring. My comp was sick for pretty much the complete first week. Some members kept coming by and giving us medicine. I think we have enough drugs in our house now to do hard time if the police come barging in lol. Luckily I did not get sick, just extremely bored sitting around all day.
Tried going through the book of mormon in german but I got lazy and ended up trying to make a missionary german comic, then I got bored again and went to sleep. That was pretty much my routine for the week my comp was sick. We were able to go by and visit sister Espinosa and her two kids near the end of the week. She is really active now and will probably get moved back to acitve here in a couple weeks. That will be way cool. Her two kids are way awesome too. One is kinda crazy and just runs around a lot, but is way good at piano and cooking. The other is a hardcore gamer (he is my favorite). He is also way smart and is starting to save up for his mission now even though he is only 10 cause he really wants to go on one now.
Usually we meet with them on Mondays and play basketball with them and some other people and then play a board game or something and share a spiritual thought. They are way nice to us and all the members even though there was problems in the past.
On saturday we had the first part of general conference. Only about 12 members showed up to it on saturday but it was still really nice. We only had the first part of the saturday broadcast on saturday. Everything else, the second half of the saturday, priesthood, and both sunday sessions were on sunday lol. The second half of the sunday session however started at 10 pm here so we were not able to yet see it. I really enjoyed the story about the scorpion in the shoe lol mainly because I thought of new mexico.
But one of the two talks I really liked was the one from Jay E Jenson. He tells the story of when he was on a mission and realized that he did not have a personal testiomony yet. All he did was simply pray and ask if God was there. He didnt even ask a ton of deep questions or personal concerns but just the most basic things he could think of. Also this did not happen right when he went on a mission but a year after being out. Pretty much how long I've been out. Helped me think about all the things we teach people and things I have not yet had a strong testimony. I got to have sort of an example from one of the speakers I had never heard of (and lets be honest we dont normally listen to the other speakers as intenetly as we listen to the prophet or apostles).
The other one that I really liked was from Juan Uceda. He spoke in the priesthood session about a father who yelled at his daughter because she did not listen to him right away. After yelling though he knew he had been wrong to shout so he went to pray about what he should do to make it better (and probably still make his point but in a nicer way) All he felt he should do is go and say sorry. When he went to tell her though she read him a scripture that he felt she had prepared for him but had in fact read for herself. It was just a way cool story that I liked. Kind of like a "scripture helps in every way" sort of thing.
Overall I must say I think I enjoy general conference out here better cause I pay more attention so I know what is being said.  I did get to see Kevin singing, that was way cool. I kept telling people "I know him!" and people kept not caring. lol
Another cool little thing about hearing it in german is for when they get to president Uchtdorf. Since they need to translate it right away you get some other german voice translating for this guy we get to hear in german all the time. Just kind of different I guess.
The week after we were re-fueled and got out to go by more former investigators. We realized that we hadnt switched our september train tickets for our october ones so we got ticketed 40 euro each. Then the guy who ticketed us told us to take the next train to pay our tickets. We almost got ticketed again on this train! lol. We finally got to the ticket place and I actually was able to talk her down to just 5 euro for the both of us! Went from almost 160 euro between us, to just 5. Kind of feels good to have good enough german to talk someone out of something lol.
We met a lady who wanted us to come in, but she was alone and so we are going to be going by sometime soon when her husband is home. We also met with Claudia, sister espinosa, and jens (claudias cousin). They are our normal scheduled appointments in the week. We also met with brudder Winkelman. He is a way cool guy. He went on a mission and was in the bishopric a long time ago but he is less active cause his family is against the church and he actually doesnt know very much about the church. He wants to meet every week to get the lessons and learn more.
We also me with a russian less active, Victor. He is really nice as well. Not sure why he doesnt come to church often. People love him and I cant see anything holding him back. He even asks us to bring the sacrament when we come and an instrument cause he wants to play some music with us lol. Im taking my guitar next time and he is going to play piano and Im going to play along with him. We are ordering a german preach my gospel for him. He saw ours and thaught it was the coolest thing ever so he asked us for one. He is going to study the lessons on his own and teach them to us. Just like Claudia does lol. It will be way cool if by the time we left all the less actives and investigators were teaching us the lessons instead of us teaching them.
On sunday we taught Jens and Claudia in a seperate class. We focus more on Jens since he is newer to coming to church and claudia helps teach him. He has lots of questions and has really good answers already when we ask him questions. He already had faith in god and christ and is just looking for the best way to live his life. From looking at him you probably wouldnt get that. He has a street racing car. Wears rocker clothers outside of church. Kind of a buffer guy. Way nice though. Talks to everyone and acts like everyone is a close friend of his. Im glad we got the opportunity to work with him.
Today we dont have much planned. Just emails and going over to play a board game with the espinosas. Maybe watch a church movie or disney film. We think we may have found a place to watch the new joseph smith movie. Well see how that goes.
Well thanks to everyone who sends me mail  and I'm sorry I dont really respond to mail just write my weekly email for everyone to read.
I love you all and hope your week goes great!

Elder Hargett

Monday, October 4, 2010

My Own Chicken & Asparagus

This letter is from last week, we got it Thursday the 30th:
This last week started off kinda boring. On Monday we didnt have anything going on so we pretty much sat around and nothing happened. Also we couldnt get a hold of anyone for Monday night so absolutely nothing happened Monday, that would of been the 20th. On Tuesday we had district meeting. Only four people in our district so its really wierd. Basically everyone did about 2 or 3 things each. Afterwards me and Elder Anderson went on an exchange. We went up to Esslingen for two days. While we were there I got to meet a lot of members up there. A lot of them are related to members in our ward so I got to ask them a little about some people in our ward. Like normally everyone was nice. (how come there is not a least one jerk just to make it interesting) They fed us a ton and it all tasted great.
There was one older lady we went by on, her husband was the first stake president in Stuttgart a long time ago when Stuttgart became its own stake. She told us all about how she got to meet President Monson (when he was still an Apostle) and all the other apostles and people she got to meet. She fed us the most. We each got our own chicken and asparagus.... some one must be telling people I like asparagus.
We even met a less active that had recently become active. His roommate had thought the missionaries where cool when they went by and so he used to sit in too and listen, he got baptized about 3 weeks ago. Everyone was way nice. Afterwards we exchanged back and me and elder mildon went by on some less actives and investigators. Not a lot exciting happened with anyone, Claudia is having her tests these next two weeks and so wont be able to meet with us, but she plans on getting baptized the week after her tests are over. We did get to go by Franchesco an investigator the Reutlingen elders had before they left. We knocked on the door and he told us he had no interest anymore and closed it on us. Kinda sad, he even had a baptismal date. We went by a less active in Reutlingen that was really nice though.
We walked about 4 kilometers in the rain and were completely soaked by the time we got there. We forgot our umbrellas. He asked a lot of deep questions and was really interested in learning. He even taught us a little russian so we could say hello to his wife and family. They were all really nice even though they didnt understand a thing we said. We met with our ward mission leader later in the week. He was excited for the new young less actives and investigators we had met and contacted in the past two weeks. We set up a plan for them and what we would like to do for each one. At first our ward mission leader didnt really seem to like us too much but now he is really excited and helping a lot.
On Sunday Claudia and her cousin Jens came to church. Jens comes every week on his own since I have been transfered here. He started wearing a suit the second week he came. He is way nice and open. We havnt yet been able to meet with his outside of church but hopefully this week he comes to institute and we can talk with him there. We talked a little about the priesthood callings with Claudia during the second hour. She knows a lot but it was still good to go over it all and Im pretty sure she learned a lot and so did we lol. Afterward we went by a family to eat lunch with, they made about 4 pots of chicken broth stuff... for us! Yeah i ate about four bowls and was done. After that we went by and saw if some people were home on Sunday in Reutlingen, no dice. So that was about it for our week. Only that on Monday we went to the military base with a less active and we ended up getting more american food lol. I did have a problem using my military ID card, they let me use it at the exchange but then at the commissary they said I couldn't.  A group of managers came over and had a heated discussion which basically ended with them saying because Dad lives in America I can't use it here.  I don't know why.  But - America is great.
Well thats about it love you all Tschuss


Elder Hargett