Pushups, Flub, And Goliath

Hallo liebe Leute!

 

Another week is over! Man, time is flying by fast!

 

On Saturday we had a stake sport activity in Friedrichsdorf (it was also combined with the Friedrichsdorf stake) and it was so much fun! We brought Shuheng along with us and we all had a great time together. It was almost 100 degrees but it was pretty breezy so it actually wasn't too bad. We played volleyball for a while and although I never thought I was THAT bad at volleyball, lemme tell ya, Elder Madsen, who is one of the senior missionaries and is probably about 75 or so, really showed me up. He was diving left and right and when he hit the ball, it went exactly where he wanted it to go. He took it upon himself to be my coach, and I learned a lot from him, including the fact that I need to do more pushups. 

 

Anyways it was awesome, and Shuheng got to know a ton of people in the stake who speak Chinese, so that was great for him and he was really excited. It is so cool to see him become integrated into the community and he is not even baptized yet!

 

On Sunday we had church of course! A friend of ours, Chimney, came to church and it was awesome. His family is Hindu but he isn't too religious. He made it clear to us that he probably wouldn't be too interested in committing to any one religion, but he really enjoyed church, getting to know people, and he even stayed for the potluck after! So we'll see what happens. It's pretty funny cause he is trying to refrain from cursing around us, but he always forgets, so most of the time he will just say the f-word or something and then immediately say "oh sorry!" And then correct himself with the word "flub" or "fudge" or something. 

 

We also had our young adult Sunday school class and we talked about David and Goliath and how we can overcome the "Goliath's" in our lives. What I was thinking about is how we can learn a lot from David's perspective, but we can also learn a lot from Goliath's. Sometimes we think our spiritual foundation is strong "enough" and that we are spiritually prepared "enough", and that we already have "enough" religion in our lives. Goliath was armored, had a huge shield, a massive spear, was pretty darn tall, and was an incredible fighter. I think it goes without saying that in any normal situation he shouldn't have died. But a tiny little stone launched by a small boy took him out! He was NOT expecting that. Goliath was too confident that no one could slay him. The point I get out of this is that we all can improve. Satan uses tiny little stones to take us down, and if we get too comfortable dont work everyday to be more like Jesus Christ, one of those little stones could do a lot of harm.

 

On Monday we had a meeting called MLC where we met with other missionaries and our mission president to discuss how we can improve the mission, help all of the missionaries in the mission be happier, and most importantly how we can focus more on Jesus Christ as missionaries. It was a lot of fun and we talked about how it's often more encouraging to talk about and be open about our struggles rather than use only successes to encourage. By being open with others about our struggles, we can build each other up through showing that each one of us are not alone in the hard times we go through. Empathy is powerful, and Jesus Christ understands everything we go through on a daily basis because He went through it too.

 

Anyways it's summer time now in Europe, so you know what that means: a lot of old men wearing a lot less clothing. Wish me luck! I really got to get a blindfold or something.

 

Love y'all, miss y'all, and talk to y'all next week!

Landon

 

1. Elder Madsen "coaching" me

2. A nice smiley face cheesecake that we found during out service for the foodbank

3. Cool statue

4. Cool lion statue

5. Squish

6. At the train station in Frankfurt with Shuheng

7. Visited the temple with Shuheng before the sports activity

8. The temple!

9. The temple!

10. A very ironically placed cigarette machine in front of the entrance to the temple