Moldy Aspargus & Inspiration

Well this week was interesting. On Tuesday we had only district meeting and then some appointments with members. But on Wensday we had quite an experience. We had a meeting with a man named Immanuel. I have mentioned before that this man had a baptismal date but cancelled after we talked about the word of wisdom with him. What I forgot to mention is that this man is insane. I had also forgotten to mention that after the day we had set the baptismal date he had given us some way old expired asparagus. We had decided on the way home that we would throw it away because there was mold all over the asparagus. My companion however before we threw it away had said 'Im afraid he'll find it if we throw it away.' He said this because this man, we belive, goes around and looks in garbage bins and acts exactly like a homeless person even though he owns a house, suits, and everything else a farely wealthy person has. Note: I now believe everything a missionary says is inspired and is said for a reason. On Tuesday for our return appointment after the baptismal date cancellation we came to drop off a book about Joseph Smith he had requested. After we handed it to him he went to put it away and came back with something else. The stupid asparagus we had thrown away!
I am telling you this man is insane. He sat there asking us why anyone would throw food away and acted as though he did not think it was the asparagus he had given us. Then he gave it back to us. We later found out this is why he had cancelled his baptismal date. Any way we still threw it away only we traveled on a train to get to a town this man would never go to just to throw it away. It was scarry, but at the same time extremly funny in its own sort of strange way.
So then on Thursday we were way stoked. We had an appointment with a woman who had been investigating the church for about a month now. She loves everything we tell her and loves going to church. We commited her to baptism and she said yes! Only there is a problem. She lives with her boyfriend and does not want to get married or move because she says she loves him but they can't get married because she gets money every month for being divorced and being over 55. And if she gets married the government stops giving her money and she said both her and her boyfriend are too old to work. It is a pretty bad situation. But we have a return appointment with her today right after we are finished with our emails.
On friday we only met with investigators and talked to some members, but then on Saturday we went to contact some refferals we had recieved from Temple Square. We took two trains for 2 hours and then walked for another 45 minutes to get to one family. But it was totally worth it! They are an Indian family who had visited Utah and was very interested in the church and mormons and had written their information down and requested that missionaries visit them. They had a birthday party for their daughter going on when we arrived but they were very excited for us to meet them and asked us to come by another time. We gave them our number and this morning actually the man called and reminded us to go by some time. They really are excited to meet with us.
After meeting them we started on our way home and some teenager saw us and offered us a ride to the train station. We were on our way and he wanted to know what we were doing here so we explained about our church and told him about being here. Then we got to the train station he asked us where we were taking the train too. We told him Ellwangen. The train still had 15 minutes before it arrived and he was just like 'whatever I'll drive you home I want to hear more about your church anyways' So we talked to him about our church for the whole ride. It was way awesome and a great oppurtunity.
After he dropped us off I noticed he had a radio system in his back seat. He explained that he had to put it in for his brother since it was his brothers car. I told him I used to work on cars and I put it in for him. He was way grateful and happy. He told us to call him if we ever wanted to hang out with him. We in return left a book of mormon and our phone number. He told us thanks for the book he didn't think we could just give one away and he was interested in it when we had talked about it.
Then sunday we had both Immanuel and Frau Loske arrive plus Frau Loske invited her boyfriend to come to church too. We also had three inactive families decide to come to church too. The place was completely packed and we were going around talking to people for ever it seemed before church started. There was so many new faces we had never seen before. The church went great and afterwards they had their monthly 'Gemindeessen' which is just having lunch at the church after church. It is a huge potluck thing and even Frau Loske and her boyfriend brought about 7 bottles of saft and juice for the lunch. Luckily Immanuel did not bring any thing becuase it might not have been healthy.
And then during the lunch me and my companion noticed Immanuel outside going through the churches trash. Immanuel is not a poor man, just a very strange man. So we made sure to keep everyones attention in the building and hoped no one looked out the windows and saw Immanuel. It was quite a fun week. And we are planning on having an extremly packed week this week as well. We are doing emails today but our pday has been pushed back to wensday and we will spend all of wensday making a movie for a workshop we were assigned to do for zone conference. We do have a ton of fun though. Nothing has been boring yet since I have been out here. Even though sometimes things go slow for a while every day has something funny about it. Well I hope everyone else is doing great and I love you all. Jeff Hargett

Mom's Note: (Missionary Woes) I think the rain is getting to him. When you come from a place that has sunshine 350 days per year, it's hard to cut back. Poor little missionary!

Rain Woes:
today we did service but it is raining too much so we only worked for a while and then everyone left so we went back to an internet cafe to work on our presentation till we have to take the next train which they just cancelled. And i have no idea what we are going to do now. We are still making the slide show. But yeah it is also still raining pretty good so I don't know. Maybe we will just visit a member or work on this the whole time and make it better I don't know yet.

Pant & Shoe Woes:
i wear the jacket to my black suit only on sundays and the pants that go with the striped suit I picked have ripped. I still don'T wear the black coat but I usually wear one of the black pants now. One of the sets of shoes is completely worn out now I have a picture of it on my memory card when I send it. Germany does not run like America. There is no point in taking my pants to a seamstress or to even get them dry cleaned since it costs around 50 euro for both and a brand new suit costs the same thing out here. I don’t know if it would be better to buy a suit, have you send me new pants or what. I am fine right now with what I have so don’t do anything yet.

Money Woes:
since we lost that 120 when my wallet was lost/stolen and I have taken 100 to cover it but I just sent in our re-embersments today, and so I might take out a little bit more before friday. Sorry I am taking out way more then I want to and I hate taking money out but we are actually in the most expensive part of the mission. (Which is the 2nd most expensive mission in the world) So it is pretty bad for money. We have to pay for travel and phone stuff too which is free for the swiss missionaries. So that kind of sucks too. But at least meat is cheaper up here.