New companion

Hey guys! I am now serving with a new companion. His name is Elder Burch. He and I will serve in Duisburg for another six weeks. He seems really cool and works really hard. I think I am going to learn awesome things from him. 

For example when I picked up my companion from Köln, we took the ICE train home and we were in the overflow section, which was full of Turkish people. One of them had a guitar and started playing and they all sang, which was interesting. They were extremely loud, but then Elder Burch pulls out his ukulele and starts strumming the strings. Let's just say they all stopped and looked at him and everything went quiet besides the sound of elder Burch. Then they laughed and started playing along. 

We became really good friends with all of them and there was 12 in total. They then wanted to know who we were, so we told them who we were. Then they wanted to contact us and know more. So we got a few phone numbers and some actually called us. We are now teaching German to a bunch of turks. 

It was bitter sweet seeing elder fisher go. He is now an elder in Frankfurt and hope all goes well for him. 

Another experience, behind us was a really old lady. She kinda followed us as we contacted people on the street. Finally she caught up to us and yelled... 

AMERICANS 

Come here! 

We obliged and she said she was so happy to see us. We asked how she knew who we were and she said that we dress so decently and are very respective of everyone around you. She saw something different in us. 

We then invited her to church but she said no and was too old for that and too late. We tried to change her mind but to no avail. 

So that totally made my day. 

Looks like we're going to have lots of fun here. Elder Burch comes from twin falls and told me he hates wells because he got a ticket there because of that retarded "intersection". Haha I have finally met someone that knows where wells is. He is totally from Idaho. And we are both really new. This will be insane. 

So excited to hear about you moving to Kuna. I hope you enjoy it there. Don't worry about me, all is good. For example our tech elders made a mistake by not buying me a train ticket to Köln to drop off Elder fisher. We found that out on the train. Then this man came to check the tickets on the train, but totally skipped me and my companion. All went well and we got Elder fisher to Frankfurt. 

Love you guys! I am sure there is something interesting in wells. 

Much love

Elder Monroe. 

Another week gone by

I have already been out for 4 months. This is the weirdest feeling. Anyways we have had success! I was on a split with one elder and I sat next to this guy called Musab. He is a black man from Sudan and is Muslim. I started talking about soccer and we became good friends really quick. He had a beard and looked like he was 23 or so, turns out he is 17. 

Our first lesson with him went so bad. At first I thought he only wanted to be friends so he showed us around his international school. (which I thought was really cool because it had people from all over the world there.) Then because he was showing us what he was doing to learn the language and how we can learn the language, so we went to the library which was really cool. But we wasted two hours. I was really frustrated at the time. 

But! It wasn't all for naught! I decided to call him and asked him to go to church. He said definitely and we went to church together, where he met really cool friends in the ward and was totally comfortable. He was almost there for the entire session of church. 

We then had a lesson with him about the book of Mormon and Jesus Christ.  We asked him if he thought it was true. He replied he had to read it and pray about it. He is already so far ahead. What a boss. We are excited about him. 

Really rough still dropping many less active or signing them off. One of them won't even sign off the paper because she despises us so much. She yelled that we believe in fairytales and we need to live in the 21st century. Then we tried to explain why it was important to sign this paper because we weren't the only missionaries that came by and she never wants to see a Mormon again. For 10 minutes she grilled us. And we have been chased out of many apartments. We must be doing something right. ☺️

Another one of our Chinese investigators dropped us. He told us we were wonderful people, but he can't believe in God if all the evidence we have is a book, he simply can't believe in God. As it says in the book of Mormon, when we first believe, then signs will be shown over of a surety that God is real. I have seen quite a few already on my mission, I just wish our investigator would have taken the first step. 

Also saw a cool cathedral and coliseum in Xanten. So much history here. 

I love our members here. Sometimes they give us rides home on the Autobahn, and we hit 160 km. Switch that to miles per hour. 

I love you guys. Hope all is the best for you. 

Much love

Elder Monroe

OH and by the way I look good with short ties... Haha.