Week #31 Why I Love 1 Nephi

Servus!

Hope all is going well with everyone. Things here in Waiblingen are going well. To be honest, there are lot of lessons that I needed to learn here. Humility and patience to just name a few. It can be annoying when the work seems slow but it is getting better. 

Waibilingen is an interesting area actually. We are only 20 minutes from Stuttgart and the ward is decently big. Finding spots can be a struggle sometimes. We have five spots we have tried: Waiblingen, Bad Canstatt, Winnenden, Backnang, and Schorndorf. 

We hardly touch Schorndorf to be honest but it is a nice town that is about 20 minutes east of here. I found maybe 2 potentials there. 

Waiblingen itself has a nice stadtmitte (the middle of the city) but it can be empty often. Winnenden and Backnang are two spots north of Waiblingen and Hansen and I like them a lot. There are good people to talk to but sometimes getting phone numbers can be a struggle.

 The last spot is Bad Canstatt. I can actually find a few potentials there but people who live there are really rude and it can be a little sketchy. The thing about Bad Canstatt is that a lot of Auslanders live there. Auslanders are people who are not German. A lot of them can speak English and are pretty religious. Others can hardly communicate with us at all. Anyway, the struggle is that we can get a few numbers there but appointments fall through easily and they have little interest after the first meeting. 

Waibilingen has been quite a learning experience to say the least. Finding can seem dry at some points. Members feed us a lot (we have 7 appointments this week with members) but they are not interested to invite friends to church or to meet with us. I sometimes get irritated with that but I also remember how hard it was to share the gospel with friends when I was at home. Anyway, I have learned a lot from being here and I expect I will continue to learn a lot more.  

Wednesday was transfer day. We went up to Stuttgart to say good bye to some fellow missionaries and then we did more finding. 

Thursday we did some more finding. It has been really cold as of late but winter is slowly coming to an end. I hope. Anyway, we had a cool member appointment Thursday evening. Ammon, a boy in our ward, will be baptized this year and his parents want him to hear the gospel from someone else so that he can learn for himself and not just rely on his parents. Interesting concept and plus we get dinner every time we teach him so that is great. We focused on prayer and the First Vision with him. It is interesting how incredible the First Vision can be to those who first hear it. I am used to the story but it is always good to remind myself how important that event was. 

Friday we spent the whole day in Bad Canstatt. Finding, Trying to visit less actives, Teaching Investigators. We had 2 lessons and they actually went through. The first one was with Amad. He moved from Syria a few years ago and he likes to talk about God. The second one was with Ehab. He also moved from Syria. We ended up in a bar/restaurant. There was so much beer and smoking. To be honest, I was super uncomfortable and Ehab was not showing a ton of potential. Anyway, it was a good learning experience. 

Saturday both of our lessons fell through so we went to the ward party late and showed up just in time for clean up. We helped out with cleaning and even got free food! 

Sunday was a good day. Sacrament meeting is great because it is a nice spiritual refresher for the week. We had good discussions in Sunday School and Priesthood. We had a nice lunch with the Metzner grandparents (there are 4 Metzner families from this ward). Brother Metzner drove us to the Bahnhof, parked, and talked to us for 45 minutes about his mission. He had some cool stories. We did weekly planning and I got to play the piano! 

Monday was district meeting. We had a good discussion on some of the commandments, the divine design in our mission, and preparing to teach. We had an appointment that afternoon but it also fell through. We went finding in Winneden for a bit. Sadly, the only guys who wanted to talk with me wanted to bash. Oh,well. Hopefully, they come around some day. We finished our training for smart phones and we also watched a missionary training about the Importance of the Book of Mormon. It was really inspiring so I decided to start the Book of Mormon in English again. I have been trying to read auf Deutsch but I have only gotten to Mosiah. I will continue to work on both. 

As I started the Book of Mormon, I realized how important 1 Nephi was. You know the classic reading of the Book of Mormon when we get through 1 Nephi, forget about it, and then we start over? Well, I started to realize how important the first few chapters of 1 Nephi are. First of all, Nephi is a boss. In 1 Nephi 4, he is carrying the brass plates and then Zoram starts to flee. Nephi turns around and grabs Zoram with the other hand. Isn't that so cool? Also, I realized how obedient Nephi was when he went to the treasury of Laban. He knew he was there for the brass plates but I assume that his family's possessions were also in the treasury. He probably had some valuable items that he liked but his priorities were to get the scriptures. It was something I never realized before. Nephi is becoming a big hero for me. 

Here are some gospel principles I pulled from the first seven chapters of 1 Nephi- 

1. Importance of Prophets- (1 Nephi 1:18)

2. Obedience (1 Nephi 2:2)

3. Prayer (1 Nephi 2:16)

4. Faith (1 Nephi 4:1)

5. Importance of the Spirit(1 Nephi 4:6)

6. Graditude (1 Nephi 5:9)

7. Importance of Scriptures (1 Nephi 6:4)

8. Being a Righteous example (1 Nephi 7:8)

9. Forgiveness (1 Nephi 7:21)

It is just so cool to see how rich of truth the first chapters of the Book of Mormon are. Of course, read the whole book but enjoy the first few chapters. Alright everyone have a great week! Remember the treasure above rubies- The Book of Mormon! Love you all!

Elder Evans 

From last week at the Fernsehturm