21.07.2014 Pascal´s news

Dear friends,

well, what can I say. The summer holidays have definitely hit home here in the Züricher Unterland. Church attendance fell to about 25 this week, mostly because our two biggest families in the branch are on vacation. Record low for my time here is 11. We`ll get there, I`m pretty sure. However, there were thankfully some people who jumped in to raise our numbers: Sister W______, who was baptized a while ago, came to Church for the first time in months, stayed the whole three hours, and said she loved it. She also says she`ll come back every Sunday now if she can. It`s a lot similar to Sister A_____`s story. She also pretty much "reactivated herself" a while ago, which is so lovely :) It just came to show that there are, probably in every ward or branch, people who don`t come to Church but would love to if they were just invited by someone. So...I challenge all of you to invite someone to Church next month who is on your ward`s memberlist but doesn`t come all the time. And then you watch the miracles happen :)

G_____ also came to Church again, despite the horrendous week he had at work. He said he`d been working in three different cities within the two days prior to yesterday and had rarely slept. He still came for the first two hours and really seemed to enjoy it. :) The funniest thing was when we asked him if he`d like to be taught a lesson in a separate room or if he would stay for Sunday School in the chapel with the rest of the branch. He thought for a moment and was like, "There`s so few people at Church today, I think you need me here in Sunday School!" haha that was precious. :) I don`t think I`ve ever been more amused about a lesson not happening...

Talking about lessons: This week was truly a BREAKTHROUGH week, lessonwise that is. We taught not two, not two, not two, but indeed THREE lessons! First, there is a man that Bonstetten Elders found for us. I went on a split with Elder Dewey to teach this man named R______. Tons of prepared, tons of good lesson! He is really busy though but we`ll stay in touch. New investigator number 1! We also taught a couple that showed up at Schwamendingen Church last Sunday, H____ and N_____. They are super awesome and really concerned about how they can strengthen their family. Well, we might have something for them! :) We got another appointment with them for tomorrow, we`ll see how it goes :) New investigators 2 and 3! Finally, we got to see the R_____ family again! They are so sweet. What an angelic less active/part member family! :) We scheduled this appointment...let me think...like in my second week in Dielsdorf. Three months ago. They can only meet during the holidays, which is why we got a "return appointment" for fall break, so to say. haha I wish we could meet them more, and them giving us home-baked bread and ice cream sure isn`t the only reason for that :)

We also got to go to the Temple. It was such a great day! :) I love the Temple more each time I go. I`m so glad we can go there once a transfer! :)

Random AGSM Moment: I gave a talk in Sacrament this Sunday, on preparation for the Temple. Well...I wasn`t really sure what to tell people and quite sincerely, the references that I got with the assignment didn`t help too much. What would I talk about then? Think closely. Y`all know Elder Friedmann well enough to guess right. I talked about the Temple and how...the YOUNG WOMEN`S VALUES prepare us for the Temple! :) haha it ended up being a little less random than I thought it would be, or than it sounds now in retrospect. (Un)fortunately no young women were present at Church this Sunday so there was no need for me to hide from them, in an attempt to deter their admiration for me. It reminded me of the fact though that I definitely want to marry someone who holds dear the YW values. Anyone?! haha :)  

Have a great week! :)

Elder Friedmann   

30.06.2014

Dear friends, 

I hope your week has just been fantastic! :) Maybe because it didn`t fall apart as much as ours...pretty much what happened. We were secretly shooting for up to 13 lessons this week, and ended up with one, which actually was outside our area. I guess one might call this a horrific week, but it wasn`t really, perhaps because we still got some things done. I`m a little shorter on time than usual for some reason but I will do my best to explain. 

First of all, sickness has hit a lot of people in our immediate and extended teaching pool. Two to three lessons gone. Then, exams are also an issue to some of our investigators. Two lessons gone. Work, of course, and just not being home, or watching football, ...almost all the other lessons gone as well. This being said, other people`s agency influences what we do but it doesn`t influence that we do something. Because we WORK in this Mission. I`m really grateful that our branch mission leader did not only support us by giving us for free a solar-powered flashlight and a Switzerland football sombrero, but that he also introduced us to the art of dooring. It`s a bit of a touchy subject in this Mission because President Miles doesn`t really like it that much. Which ended in generations of Missionaries never knowing how to do legit door approaches and the practice being abandoned altogether. When we went to teach a less-active member with him in Seebach (which is tons of far away from Dielsdorf) this week and the lesson fell out (who knew?), he just started ringing the other doorbells of the building. No one answered, just a lady came to the window to tell us that no one in her place speaks German. In German. So we went on, and came to another house where a potential investigator lives. She opened and we talked for a while, and the salesman Brother N____ (our branch mission leader) is, he convinced her to take a Book of Mormon and give us kind of a referral, even though she was not interested altogether. Here`s where it gets really cool. She speaks English, and we offered to bring her an English Book of Mormon the following day. But since she was looking like she came from South Asia somewhere, and is Hindu, I thought I should ask if there`s another language that might be better. She answered Telugu. Well. None of us had ever heard of that and we were quite positive that probably the Book of Mormon wasn`t translated into it, so we prepared her for English which we knew would be fine. We got home and the next morning we were just looking through the cupboard where we have all our foreign Books of Mormon, in alphabetical order. Looked under "T". Didn`t find Telugu. Then saw a random book laying flat in a different row of the shelf, with foreign symbols. So I opened it and it just happened to be in Telugu! :) 1 Nephi 1:20...We shall see what happens next. I have a feeling that might have opened her heart a little more and she might actually read it :) We also went on to another HUGE apartment building and had some good conversations. We also gave out a second Book of Mormon so we`ll see what happens to it :)

Random AGSM Moment: We went to this place called Buchs this week to go see a potential. The potential wasn`t home (who knew?) but we saw a very pretty fountain...an upside down rusty car on a probably 40 ft tall pole in the middle of an intersection. It was so pretty we decided to take a picture :) Behold it in attachment, my dear e-mail subscribers. Everyone on the blog should just go on a trip to Buchs to see it themselves :)

Keep up the good work, y`all! :) Love,

Elder Friedmann      

News from Pascal´s Mission

Dear friends! :)

I would like to begin my weekly e-mail to you by acknowledging that I have passed my three-month mark this week. One eighth of the way done, and it feels like I just got here. Oh well, I have faith that things will go even better. 

With pleasure we saw that the Friedrichsdorf Germany Stake was created yesterday. What an amazing day for the Church in Germany to finally create a stake again. I`ve seen the work speed in Germany, clearly, and now we are just trying to set Switzerland on fire as well. It will come, I`m sure, to a point that the Zurich Switzerland Stake will be able to survive without help from Germany. It would be great to live to see it on my Mission but really, time flies!

Now on to our actual week. It was quite good. We taught a few lessons, one of which was with G_____. We went over the baptismal interview questions and yeah, there was a little problem that we need to resolve. But it`s definitely feasible and he WILL be baptized, most likely during this transfer. We also taught our new/old investigator, C____! We had a great lesson and she definitely wants to read in the Book of Mormon and continue meeting with us. :) We also went by L_____ and she wants to meet with us too! And we had a street display in Regensdorf where we gave out like 20 Books of Mormon and got some really cool potentials along the way. We also taught a record in member lessons. Looking at the weekly newsletter, the whole Mission has been doing much better lately. Four baptisms this week and apparently a lot more coming up, which is exciting :) There were also some disappointments this week but I already forgot...

We also had a cool experience with weekly planning a few days ago. Schwamendingen Elders found a potential for us who was supposed to live right here in Steinmaur. He`s a Hungarian named A_____ and he wants to have a Book of Mormon and meet with us. They got his address and we looked up on the computer where it was. Now, the street didn`t really exist and his name wasn`t in the phone book either. We looked around the other nearby towns and nothing was there either. We were super close to giving up and just putting him into the no-contact file when I felt a prompting to use google once again. Turns out, he obviously didn`t give the Missionaries his street address, but told them that he lived next to a restaurant whose name they mistakenly took for the name of the street. We looked it up again and it all fits and makes sense, so we`ll go by him this week. Wish us luck! :) Just don`t give up too early, is my message to you :)

Random AGSM Moment: We went to this town called Niederhasli one night last week to go by on some potentials. On the way there we noticed a little problem. Switzerland was playing in the World Cup and people tend to be quite passionate about watching the game. So it would have been an insane and probably even quite dangerous thought to visit them. BUT we were in Niederhasli already and had some time on our hands, so what could we do (with the streets being deserted because of the game)? We go SHOPPING! Now, Niederhasli is one of the bigger towns in our area but it`s still quite small. There`s maybe five or so shops if you add them all up. However, the first shop we came by on was quite...interesting. We thought we`d just get some drinks for the four of us in the apartment. However, all they had was beer and ice tea. Literally. Nothing. Else. To. Drink. It took us a little while to figure out what was going on, but then we noticed that all the products in the store had the same brand. We were the only people in the shop, there wasn`t even a cashier for a while, and the whole scenery was just...well. I found it quite creepy, at least if you`re used to regular supermarkets. So we did some research and it`s some kind of storage/shop place for this very famous Swiss brand called N_____. But yet, it was quite the experience. 

I know that the Gospel does indeed bless people`s lives! I love being able to see people change for the better each day as we share our message with them :) I`m so grateful for my decision to serve a Mission, it was worth every sacrifice :)

From Dielsdorf with love,   

Elder Friedmann

Pascal´s News from 09.06.2014

Hey friends! :) 

First off, a shout out to our friends in Chur (Elders Bauerfeind and Acunomoreno) for their double-baptism this weekend! :) These events are so rare over here that I will acknowledge them every time when things like these happen in my zone.

  

So...today is my birthday. And it`s also P-Day and about 95 degrees with no wind and what feels like 90% humidity. Lovely! :) Summer is certainly here in Switzerland. It`s also the slowest season for Missionary work, unfortunately, but we`re stretching and keep up the numbers in Dielsdorf...at least until the whole branch leaves on vacation next month. At the same time. It`s gonna be the same as back home in Bonn, I assume. Prepare to listen to me play the piano during sacrament. Cause no one else will be there. Good for them in that case. 

ANYWAYS, this week was strange. I felt really busy actually, but when it got time to report numbers last night, I realized how little we had actually accomplished. Still, here are the highlights: We had two lessons with G_____ who is still on for baptism on the 28th! I`m not quite sure if I told you last time why we moved his date back yet another week, but here`s the reason. MOST LEGIT REASON EVER by the way. Wait for it! His niece is getting baptized on the 21st in Wetzikon. And he will be there. So he can`t be baptized himself at the same time. :) This also gives us more time to prepare him. We are going to teach him the fifth lesson and he`ll be good to go :)

We also went to the Temple on Saturday to help with a baptismal session for the youth in our branch. It was fun! Not sure if it was worth getting up at 4 a.m. for it but I guess we just gotta do what we gotta do to make it happen :) President and Sister Miles also had their farewell conference this week. It was great to hear their testimonies one more time. And I`m really excited to see what President Kohler is gonna do to this Mission when he gets here. :) Sister Miles also gave all of us Elders a hug. It felt...weird. haha oh well, I just presume that it will be the only one on my Mission so I guess I can live with it. "It`s better to break a rule than to break a heart." 

Finally, I would like to thank my dear friend Jessica for giving me our favorite cookie receipe to try them out on members! We did that this week and it was quite successful. Time-consuming, especially the delivery process, but totally worth it! :) The members we brought them to loved them. And so should you. Imagine the type of chocolate chip cookies that would exist in the celestial kingdom. That`s them. :)

Random AGSM Moment: This Sunday, there was no Church but instead there was a regional broadcast for all stakes between Switzerland and Albania, but mostly for Italy and France. It was done in Bern nearby the Temple and broadcasted live to a lot of chapels in the area. President Uchtdorf and Elder Anderson were there, as well as some others. It was pretty decent. They talked a lot about Missionary work and, interestingly, personal experiences they had in Switzerland. It just went along like this for perhaps an hour and a half until President Uchtdorf said something that totally blew us off our chairs. He was like: "Before this trip, I was sitting together with the other apostles, and in preparation to going to Switzerland, we found out that the country had actually never been dedicated for Missionary work. They assigned me to do it, so I dedicated Switzerland this morning." Over 160 years after Missionaries first came here, almost 60 years after the Temple was built here, we are now a country that has been dedicated for the preaching of the Gospel! Yay! :) 

Much love to you, and also thanks for all the birthday wishes! I`ll reply to them all tonight :) I hope your week is great :) 

Elder Friedmann   

News from 02.06.2014

My dear friends! 

Here is my last e-mail to you as a 20-year-old. This past year has been so much fun and I`ve made so many experiences that have changed my life and that were very crucial to my development as a person. Thanks to all of you who have had a part in this, be it big or small :)

Oh, there is no birthday blues in my work. It`s been a good week overall, getting better as time went on. We`ve had some decent teaching opportunities so that was great. 

First of all, G____`s baptism will be postponed. We just can`t teach him everything we need to by the 7th, and interview him. So unless there are any major roadblocks coming up, it will be the 14th now. Which is great too! :) And not far away at all. We taught him twice this week, first the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then the first half of the commandments (including the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom). It went really well both times. The actual funny part came to be when we decided on how we`d "sell" the postponed baptismal date to him. We decided to do what all desperate Missionaries would do. We first prayed, and then acted on the answer we got...and bought him cake! :) So the plan was to just give him the cake as we confronted him with the bad news, but Sunday morning as we left for Church where we`d have the lesson, a much better thought entered into my mind: Use the cake for an object lesson on the commandments! And I did. It worked great in my head but the execution was a little crappy. G_____ didn`t mind but I think he didn`t understand it too well either, which I honestly don`t blame him for. I told him something along the lines of, "Here`s a cake for you! You can eat it eventually, but we`d encourage you to do it at home after Church and not right now. If you imagined this cake to be your romantic feelings and desires and you eat (or use) them too early, you wouldn`t have them anymore at the proper time, which would be with your spouse..." Bam! Law of Chastity. Right there. Elders from "The District", here`s how you teach it. This is an inside joke and if you`ve not been a Missionary recently you most likely won`t get it. By the way, we resolved all misunderstandings after and taught him the actual Law of Chastity, eventually. 

We also found some great people this week but I will report more on them when we actually advance to teaching, because my time is a little short. But I`m actually really pumped for the last couple weeks of this transfer, because they`ll be great! We`ll be obedient. We`ll talk with everyone. We`ll baptize (probably FOR REAL). :) 

Random AGSM Moment: We went home teaching with our branch mission leader on Wednesday and since he`s a salesman, he gave us some of the Switzerland hats (for the World Cup) he`s selling to people. But Elder Marshall and I got them for FREE :) We wear them all the time now, and pictures are definitely forthcoming. 

Much love! Have a marvelous week! :)

Elder Friedmann 

(Title explanation, freely from our Mission Vision Card which we recite daily: "To reach our goals this transfer, we will become disciples of Christ by helping our investigators step into the water, like Peter did.")

19.05.2014

Grüezi wohl! 

The Mission is such an adventure these days! We got to go to many wonderful places and spaces :) My time is short to explain it all, but we had fun, taught some great lessons and found a few people along the way :) Interviews with President Miles were awesome :) He`s such a good man. He`s getting trunky because of his soon approaching going home, but he`s still great :) 

This week in brief: G______ was taught twice and he`s doing great! Still on for his first covenant on the 7th :) We contacted a referral in the sweetest small town FAR FAR away ever :) He was nice but not interested...but the trip there was wonderful nontheless :) The place is called Zweidlen and it`s in the Aargau canton (which by itself means it`s kinda far away from Dielsdorf). I dare you to google it. You won`t find much. 

Then, we also found some amazing people to teach! One family in particular who was taught by Missionaries a few times back in the ealry 2000s. As we went by their place, the family had just gotten home from grocery shopping and they unloaded their car. When they saw us, they were just so happy! They remembered the names of the Missionaries who taught them, like 12 years ago! It was awesome :) We scheduled an appointment. They are super busy but they also understand that families are best taught together, so we have an appointment scheduled for early June with the entire family :) 

Random AGSM Moment: In our tiny little branch, we have a monthly news booklet (I don`t want to call it newspaper) called the Leitstern. We decided to write an article for the June issue. And I was challenged to quote in it a hymn that is exclusive to the German hymnbook. No one really knows it or ever sings it, but it has become a favorite in our district (and I credit myself with this achievement). The hymn is called "So jemand spricht, ich liebe Gott". We also call it the "You`re going to hell" song. Because that`s the message of it. Pretty much all it says is that you`re going to hell if you`re not nice to everyone *for the right reasons*. No one I`ve talked to could ever explain how this song made it into the hymnbook, but I took the challenge and quoted it for the article. I wrote first about how it`s important that we welcome people at Church and that the members should be nice to everyone. And then I wrote that the lyrics of the hymn herebefore spoken of come to mind: "Such a one speaks that he loves God, but yet he hates his brethren. He mocks God`s truth and outrightly destroys it. A judgment of wrath will come upon those who are not merciful..." I think I did well! Elder Marshall also got me permission to read it in district meeting tomorrow. Hooray! I`m totally going to troll and brainwash everyone into thinking that this hymn is actually great and well-known! :) 

This is it for the week! Thanks also for all the personal e-mails I received! They mean a lot to me :) I love you all!! :)

Elder Friedmann 

12.05.2014

My dear beloved friends! :) (and acquaintances, and enemies, and random neutral strangers)

My first Mothers Day in the field has passed! Calling home wasn`t as emotional as I thought it would be, maybe because it`s only been two months since I left. However, those were some of the most exciting, challenging and refining months of my life! I shall ever be grateful for the experiences I`ve made thus far and anyone who is undecided about serving a Mission among you and is worthy and able should definitely do it. As I said, regardless of how numerically successful you are, it is an amazingly rewarding experience that I would not trade for anything in the world :)

Now on to the real stuff. This week was a little slower than I had expected. A lot of area book and potential list work. And a lot of contacting potentials. It was quite successful though! We found two new potential investigators who look promising and who want to meet, so this is exciting. G____ is still up for baptism on the 7th next month but he`ll have to stretch. There`s a lot we still need to teach him, but I know he can do it! He`s still golden :) 

As I said, we did a lot of finding because appointments fell through. Let me tell you the amazingly cool story of how we met one of our two new potential investigators, P______. We were on the bus to Bülach for an appointment (which happened to fall through) and quickly went over the lesson. We were going to present the Book of Mormon, read the introduction together, commit to 1 Nephi 1, etc. Just the usual stuff. Anyways, as we were talking, a guy sitting next to Elder Marshall turned around and asked us if we were from a Church. And if we had something to read for him. Needless to say, the answer was YES! We gave him a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet and exchanged numbers. We set up an appointment but he had to cancel because of work. Anyways, on Saturday we went to Bülach again to contact some former investigators, and at the train station on the way back, we saw P______ again! Crazy, huh? He talked to us and said how much he wanted to meet and how sorry he was that the appointment fell through. We`ll keep in touch and meet for sure :) 

Now, finally...this was pretty much the only really cool thing that happened, besides skyping home. We were with Familie Ryser. THEY ARE SO GREAT! :) I loved being in the same MTC group as their daughter, and now I actually get to be so close with them! :) Definitely one of my favorite families in the branch. 

Random AGSM Moment: Switzerland is composed of 29 states, or cantons. The smallest of them is called Appenzell-Innerrhoden, with a population of perhaps 10,000 people and half a million cows. It`s quite close to St. Gallen where Elder Marshall served prior to coming to Dielsdorf, but it`s really...a different world. Almost 100% Catholic. They didn`t give women the right to vote until 1990. And arranged marriages are still quite commonplace from what I hear. In combination with cows, this reminds me a little of Johnny Lingo :) And they make world-famous cheese (to mention something good for a change). Anyways, one of my dreams was not so much to ever go there, but to see a license plate from that place. This week, I accomplished that goal! We were walking down a street in Oerlikon and there it was, a car with an "AI" license plate! :) It made my day! These words cannot capture how cool it was. 

I love you all! :)    

Elder Friedmann