28 DEZEMBER - 3 JANUAR 2016
The New Year 2016 came in with a bang - a big bang! Although it was not as big a bang as we were expecting. It seems that our neighborhood around Porthstrasse is known for setting the town aglow with massive fireworks. Reports from previous missionary couples caused us to expect world war three, but it wasn't as bad as we had anticipated. Yes, there were lots of cherry bombs booming amidst the buildings and quite a few flares and fire crackers and such. But it wasn't as noisy as thought. We were anticipating not getting to sleep until 2-3 a.m., but after midnight we were fast asleep in our bed. Well, Stephen was fast asleep. Elaine has not yet perfected the fine art of sleeping. To add to it, she was somewhat under the weather with a lot of junk in her throat. We were going to have missionary couples come and watch the fireworks, but because of Elaine's cold we didn't want to share her germs with others. There were plenty of other apartments on 10th and 11th floor that had just as good if not better view than we had.
The last couple of weeks have been pretty dead around the Europe Area offices. Most employees of the church were off celebrating for much of the time. Most of the senior missionaries worked at least part days. Stephen stayed pretty consistently busy with missionary calls. To give you a feel for the workload for a normal months we offer the following statistics:
Total number of missionaries counseled: 45
Total number of missionary consults: 111
Total consults with mission presidents: 120
Missionaries completed during month: 16
New missionaries added this month: 17
Missionaries released early: 3
We had missionaries from 13 different missions to work with during the month.
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Elder Biddulph and little Daniel Wegner |
We are going to have our first convert baptisms this coming week in Offenbach Gemeinde. The wife and 13-year old son of a member are going to be baptized next Saturday. It is our first baptisms since we have been in the Offenbach branch. There are perhaps 2 or 3 others who are showing potential as well. The family is from Ghana but live and work here. Andy is a prospective elder (priest) and worthy to baptize his wife and step son. Hannah recently gave birth to twin boys: Daniel and Joseph. Stephen is shown holding Daniel. We drove out to Aschaffenburg last Monday and visited the family and brought them a few groceries. The parents were having a few challenges. Hannah may be going through some hormonal changes after the birth and Andy may not know exactly how to deal with the
emotional issues. So, we did a little marriage counseling and checked up on the family.
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Offenbach Chapel |
Stephen is working with the father, Andy, and also with another brother who has is a member but who still has a smoking problem and hasn't received the priesthood yet, trying to help both of them prepare and qualify for the Melchizedek Priesthood. We hope to see growth and improvement in these areas. We have so enjoyed serving in the church in Offenbach branch. Other seniors simply don't get the opportunity that we do to engage in the work in the trenches. We are grateful for the opportunity and it has helped us strengthen our German language some, although we are far from perfect.
This week we hit our 1 year mark on our mission, and later this month we will have been in Germany for 12 months. We only have 1/3 of our mission remaining. Time goes so quickly. This month our little branch is also doing a service humanitarian project for the refugees (Fluchtlinger) here in our area. We are purchasing and assembling 50 cooking-utensil packets to be delivered to the refugees in Hanau. There are about 1 million refugees in Europe now. Germany has been a leader in assimilating these folks. They come with nothing and are so destitute. Sometimes fear of terrorism causes people to harden their hearts and want to reject, kick out, or get rid of these people. But we cannot allow fear to rule. There is no doubt that Europe has become more vulnerable to terrorism with this refugee migration, but so many terrorists are being radicalized right here in Europe and are not coming from the refugees. Whatever, we cannot become so fearful that we turn our backs on those who need our help. I love the scripture in 1 John 4:19-21: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is aliar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
It will be most interesting to see what 2016 brings to us. We have covenanted to consecrate all that we have to the building up of the Kingdom of God upon the earth. We seek to be true to our promise. We wish all a happy and blessed New Year!
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