Interfaith, African Parties, and a trip to the Carribean- June 15, 2026
That is the photos (link removed for blog)
So much happened in this week it was absolutely crazy. In fact I have so much to write about, that I fear I cannot waste any time getting into it.
Interfaith Meeting:
A couple weeks ago, we received a digital flyer from the Elders in the Elmshorn area, (A suburb outside of Hamburg) inviting us to a Christian interfaith breakfast fellowshipping meeting. The Elmshorn Elders had received the invitation, because last year, they had attended the meeting, which happened to be online. But, this year the meeting was in person, in downtown Hamburg, and since Elder Morley just so happened to be trained in Elmshorn last year, and went to the online meeting, it was no question that we were going again. So, we pulled up on Saturday morning to the address on the flyer, in full suits, and it was a super nice hotel in downtown Hamburg, right across the street from Hauptbahnhoff. We thought that somehow we had gotten the wrong address, so we called the number on the flyer, and a few moments later, we were escorted through the grand dining hall, up a flight of stairs, and to a conference room. We arrived at the time when the meeting was scheduled to start, and there were only three people there. We took a seat at one of the front tables and waited for it to begin. The meeting itself was structured amazingly. We first started by going outside and getting our own private hotel breakfast, which had been prepared for us. Then we talked about what their organization was, and were implored many, many times, that we were not to preach. We then went out to eat another round of breakfast after 30 minutes of talking. Then, we heard a testimony from one of the organization members which was nothing short of colorful, and were lead in a 15 minute worship time, which got quite intense. We then ate breakfast for another thirty minutes. So we see, that the event was certainly worth it for me, because I got to eat three rounds of breakfast for free. After the third breakfast, we heard from the main speaker, Dr. Reverend Tete Lawrence. He was some high up pastor in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana here in Germany. He gave a little sermon about may favorite scripture coincidentally, Romans 8:28, and how all things will work together for our good. After his sermon, they asked Elder Bain to give the closing prayer, so that was very cool. After the meeting we made sure to get a picture with everyone, and then we promptly headed home and spent our lunch hour taking a nap.
African Party:
Then after our nap, and an hour of contacting our friends, we headed to the church. Because, Saturday night, we had already organized an African Cultural party, where we ate Fufu, and Jolof rice, and invited all of our friends and prospective friends to come and see the church. There was only one glaring problem with the event. No one showed up. Whatever the reason, be it the fact it was raining all day, or the 100 people that we alone invited forgot, who knows. But 6:00 rolled around and no one was there. 6:30 finally came, and we decided to start the party with what little people had filtered in. Then, Elder Morely and I took in upon ourselves to go find people to bring to the party. So, we left the church with flyers in hand, and went around the corner to a packed barber shop. Determined to get people to our party, I stormed into the barber shop and gave a brief soap box, telling everyone we had free Fufu and Jolof at our church just around the corner. We then escorted a crowd of eight dudes back to the church. Elder Bain and Elder Hendrickson, then left shortly after we got back, and brought six new guys to the party. At this point, it was about 7 pm, and there was about 30 people there, so we decided to just chat with them. I ended up spending the next thirty minutes talking with these guys that Elder Bain and Hendrickson had found from Luebeck. They were super cool, and gave me a great chance to practice my German. We talked a lot about soccer, and school, and their plans after their last year of school. By the end, I asked them if they had Instagram, and got them all to follow me, and before we left, I left them all with a Book of Mormon and a referral card, saying that they were gifts from me, and I knew that if they read them, their lives would change.
Transfer Call:
At 8 pm we had to abruptly leave our own African Party to watch transfer calls. Long story short, we are all staying in Hamburg, except for Sister Zamaripa, who is going home, and Sister Rex will be training a brand new Sister in her stead. We also heard the departing testimonies of many missionaries, which took about until 9:30. Then, at 9:30, we had to go back upstairs and clean everything that the members had so kindly left for us. Including, all the tables, chairs, dishes, and so forth. But, it was really no problem, we cleaned it all up, and got home at 10:40 (certainly not against mission rules).
Sunday:
Sunday was also a very packed day. First we obviously went to church, where we had two brand new friends attend, but all of our progressing friends, flaked on us yet again. After church, we had two baptisms, one was a friend of the Sisters, and one was the friend of the Spanish Elders. It was a super cool experience to see them both get baptized, and it was very memorable to see the Spanish Elders Friend get baptized, because he made a splash so big the, the water came out of the font and drenched the carpet in front of it. After the baptisms, Elder Morley and I got spontaneously invited to a member meal, simply because they had too much food that they needed to eat. So, we accompanied them to their home, and for two hours, ate Phillipino food and talked to the Becker Family in German. It was only after the meal ended, that we realized we were totally out of our area, which makes absolutely no sense, because the Beckers are in our ward. Whatever the case, after our lunch we stumbled upon what we named, the Persian Enclave. Just a neighborhood full of Persian people where everyone we talked to was Christian, looking for a church, and willing to come next week. It was crazy. Then, after a little finding, we made our way to the church. It was here that we had our second member meal of the day with Samuel Heslop, the Persian Group Leader. For this meal, we ate hotdogs and watched Germany dump seven goals on Curaco. He then drove us home afterwards, and we were only a little late home again. But, it was so much fun.
Monday:
Monday, we started the day by leaving the apartment two hours early, to visit a friend we hadn't seen in three weeks. We arrived at his house at 9:00 and proceeded to have an hour and a half lesson, where our good friend Hussein really seemed to lock in. We explained to him that our purpose was to teach people and prepare them for baptism, and he was still on board. He is also super ready. We talked about the word of wisdom, and he was like, "Oh makes sense, I totally agree, that stuff is bad for you", or he asked if we believed Jesus and God were separate entities, and after answering in the affirmative, he again said that made sense, and was no problem. So, by the end of the lesson, we were able to put him on baptismal date for August 2nd. The only issue, is that he is from Syria, and was already almost killed by terrorists once for simply being a Christian. But he is very passionate and set on returning to Syria, and distributing Book of Mormons to the Christian minority in Western Syria, because he knows it will, "be a game changer". After he admitted that doing so would only be safe in secret, we made it clear that we are representatives of the church, and the church could not support him in any such undertaking in any way. We couldn't even give him paper Book of Mormons. But he seems determined to share the app with the people in Syria. So, we will continue to pray for his safety. After the Hussein lesson, we sent a picture of his baptismal date to our ward chat, and got yelled at once again. This time by the Persian Elders, because they assumed that Hussein spoke Persian, and were angry that we had not passed him off to them. Even the ward mission leader asked if we were now going to pass him off, and we said no, because he speaks Aramaic, not Persian. Then the chat was absolutely silent after that. We then went home, weekly planned, and had our member meal with Samuel Heslop once again, where we watched Cape Verde pull off a stunning draw against Spain. Spain sucks if you didn't know.
The week:
It is quite interesting that all of my interesting stories came from this weekend. It was really a packed weekend, and this week was long, hard, but we had some fun. Elder Morley and I will be staying together for another seven weeks, until the next transfer. Which by the end of it is our goal that through our efforts, we can prove that I am ready to flip train, and he is ready to be ZL, even if it is not our time to do either. I did not use any new languages on the street this week, and in a miraculous turn of events, we practically never had to cook at home this week, because we were always at a members. I guess I can leave you with the exciting news that the Hamburg temple will be built on the plot of land where we now go to church, they will be tearing down the coolest stake center and meeting house I have ever seen to build a temple. I guess the church gave up on finding a new plot to build on. Anyway, every missionary here is perhaps a little too excited that the temple will be built in the same place where we "watched Tavon Austin's senior mixtape".
Anyway that's life I guess, don't got much time today to say anything else. Hopefully I can speak fluent German with Pres in two weeks. Tchau.
-M.J.
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