The Bitter and the Sweet

Hi Everybody!

Out with the old...

It's been another great week out here! I am now working with Elder Sardoni and we are having a lot of fun! On thursday I sent Elder Gubler back home and picked up elder Sardoni in Munich. That was one of those bitter-sweet days because I am sad that I can't work with Elder Gubler anymore but Elder Sardoni is also really funny. I drove all the way to Munich and back and we carried Elder Sardoni's stuff to the apartment and headed out again to to talk on the streets.

While Elder Sardoni and I were out talking to people we decided to say hi to one of our members who lived close to where we were. She asked us if we had already visited deisy, another member in our ward. We told her that we hadn't but we thought it would be a good idea. So we went to deisy's apartment and knocked on the door. We heard deisy ask who it was so we said "It's the Elders!" We then heard her get excited and come to the door. When she opened the door she said to us, "Elders! I can't believe you came! I was just praying for help when you knocked on the door!" Her son, Nico, was really really sick. He had been sick for a few days and he looked like it too. We told her that we would give her son a blessing, but we couldn't go into the house because she had no husband there. We quickly got the other elders so that we were allowed to go in. Deisy asked me to give the blessing. I was pretty nervous but I knew that I could do it. While giving the blessing I had the distinct feeling that he would be healthy again. I promised him that he would be healed and ended the blessing. As soon as we were done he already seemed to have more energy and color in his face. We also checked up on them the next day and Nico was his old playful four year old self again.

In with the new!

I really learned a lot from this experience about being spiritually prepared. If I hadn't been keeping my commandments and staying worthy of my calling, I would have never been able to experience the power of God work through me.

Those videos of the kids are pretty darn cute! Ainsley has such a beautiful singing voice! I couldn't believe it! I also like Graysons up-beat style! It is too bad that everybody is sick. That must not be very fun! I hope that you all start feeling better soon!

Working with Elder Sardoni has been tons of fun already! He has been on his mission for almost 7 months now. It feels a lot different being the senior companion now. I am learning a lot of new things now that I am the one who has to take more of a leading role. It is really fun and I am trying my best to be the best example and teacher that I can. We are working really hard on german together because Elder Sardoni has been in an english speaking ward for his whole mission so he needs a little bit of catching up but he is doing really really well already. He knows more and more words every day. I will send a picture of me and Elder Sardoni and one with me and Elder Gubler in munich.

I hope that you all have a great week! I pray for you and love you all!

Love,

Elder Eldredge

P.S. Dad, would you mind making a line of authority for me? I have always wanted to see what mine is. Thanks!

A New Year and a New Companion

Hi!

It sounds like you all had a great time in mexico! Those pictures are really great! I really miss those people down there! We had a pretty awesome week here! The new years eve party was right on the river and there was a ton of college students with a lot of fireworks. Sadly it was pretty foggy so we didn't get to go hike the hill to the castle because we wouldn't have been able to see the fireworks anyway. But it was fun nevertheless.

We got transfer calls on saturday! I will be working with Elder Sardoni from Kanaraville utah! He is about 6 months old on his mission so I will be the senior missionary for the first time! I also have heard that he is really really funny so I am excited. Elder Pugh will also be leaving Kreuzlingen and Elder Schuhmaier will be coming to work with Elder Stank. It should be a really fun transfer!

We had a pretty cool experience last night. We left an eating appointment last night and we were going to take the train home because it was going to be too late to just walk. When we were at the train station, the women came and sat next to us so we offered her some of the left over cake that we had just received. She apparently loves chocolate so she took it. We got talking and she had met with the elders before in the Dominican Republik. We kept having this really awesome conversation until we realized that the train should have come about five minutes before. We thought that was weird but we just kept talking. She was waiting for the same train but it never came. We got her phone number and address because she wants to meet with us. We then started to walk home because the train still hadn't come and it was about 20 minutes later. She went the other way. We later had the strong feeling that the train never came because we needed to talk to her. We even walked along the tracks for about 40 minutes and not a single train drove by. We know that for some reason, we really needed to talk with this women and God made sure that it happened. That was just one of the many miracles that we see daily.

I can't write too much this week because we have got some stuff planned for Elder Gublers last P-day so I am sorry that this is a bit short. But I am doing great and I couldn't be happier! Thanks for writing, and I am glad that you all got back safe! I love you all and I will talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Eldredge  

More Christmas

Hola!

Happy birthday ben! I can't believe that you are 17! That is super weird to me! But I hope you have a good one bud!

We had a pretty awesome week here in konstanz. Thanks for all of the awesome new toys! We have been having a pretty good time with them! One of our members, Patrik (at who's house we skyped at), gave me an Asterix and Obelix magazine for Christmas and it is really funny! Do you remember those dad? We have got stack and stacks of chocolate from our ward in the last few days, it is unbelievable!

On Christmas we were with a family from south africa, the Ryans. They are way cool and they have two kids, gary and Kaily. They were fun to play with, especially because Gary got some legos so I spent some time building his trains for him.

Almost everyday of this last week we have had at least one eating appointment, so I have almost eaten myself to death by now. Luckily everybody here eats really really tasty, normal food. I have still never had a bad meal, except for a few things that I tried to make!

Mexico looks like it has been tons of fun! I can just imagine being at the church at evenings being swarmed my masses of people ready to play games and eat good food! I do have to say that I have missed mexican food. They don't really do that over here and it makes me a little bit sad. But I'm sure that I will have many more chances to eat tacos. Make sure to eat a few more of those shrimp tacos for me!

Sadly we didn't get too many chances to do normal missionary work this week because of all of the holiday stuff, but I am really excited to have a pretty normal week of work! I am also pretty happy about new years eve! We are going with a few families to hike up this hill and I think that we will be on top of some sort of old castle tower to watch all of the fireworks. That should be pretty fun!

I took some pretty awesome photos of the sunset on Christmas eve so I will make sure to send you those photos. I also have some more photos of the same scenery but I made them yesterday evening. There is a big bridge that we walk across and the river always looks super pretty behind it.

Well I hope that you all continue to have a great time in Mexico! say HI to the Calls for me! Thanks again for the Christmas gifts! I love you all!

Elder Eldredge

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Wow you all have been partying a lot! Thanks for those photos and the video! It is fun to see everybody there together again!

Lunch at Switzerland Conference

We have had a pretty fun week here! I keep forgeting that Christmas is in just a few days! We have so many eating appointments this week it is amazing! I better make sure to get my excercise in the morning or else I may be looking a little bit different in later photos. It is fun to be able to see both german and swiss Christmas's at the same time. We will also be spending some time on Christmas with a family from south africa, so we are pretty multicultural.

We had our ward party last night, which was really fun! We spent time just talking with the members in the ward and the YSA's in the ward planned a program for us all about Christ around this time. It was pretty fun and I ate a lot of cookies and peanuts. This ward is really really awesome and friendly. It always makes it easier when your ward feels like your family.

You can tell that it is vacation time around here because there are no people on the streets until like 12 o'clock, but there are about a billion people in the middle of town where the shopping centers are. Konstanz is a really big shopping area because it is right on the border of switzerland. So all of the rich swiss people come up and outnumber the germans. For that reason, Konstanz is one of the most expensive cities in germany! We went into this mall today as we were waiting for a train and it was completely full of people trying to finish up their shopping and just having a nice time with eachother. It was pretty fun to see.

The only Americans serving in Switzerland

We are teaching a guy named C-----, from kenya, and he is awesome! We taught about the importance of Jesus and the atonement this week. A few members came with us and they really helped make it an awesome lesson. C----- was really excited when we told him that we actually have a book of mormon in Swahili, which is his native language. He actually is really smart because he is nineteen and can speak 16 different languages! Pretty cool right?

I have really been thinking alot lately about how important scripture study is. Sadly, I talk to way too many people on the street who are faithful and active members of their churches but you always know which ones read and which ones don't. The rest of the world, outside of our church, has just the Bible. We, as members of the church, are so blessed to have not only the Bible, but also Three other books of scripture along with modern day teachings from the prophets. We are the most blessed people on earth and I hope that we all take advantage of the gifts that were given us. We should always be hungering after our daily bread. I have found that daily scripture study will change the way that we look at our lives and our minds will be opened up so that we can see with more of an eternal perspective, with more hope, and with more faith.

I hope that you all are having a great time getting ready for Christmas! I can't wait to talk to you on skype! I will be able to tell a lot more stories there! I love you all so much! Have a great day! 

Love,

Elder Eldredge

True Happiness Comes from the Spirit

A Street in Konstanz (Constance)

Hey!

It sounds like it's freezing at home! It is pretty cold here but it hasn't snowed quited yet (that might change by tonight). Have you all been doing a lot of sledding and snowball fights? You all seemed to have had a great week! It was also pretty fun here! We are starting to really really feel the Christmas spirit over here. We had our Christmas conference in zurich on friday! That was really fun because it was also Elder Gublers birthday. We sang a lot of Christmas songs and played the chimes as well! There were a lot of missionaries there, most of which, I had never met because they have been in Switzerland for their entire missions. But it was fun and I made some new friends! I also did get my package on that day so thanks for that! The family tree is a pretty awesome idea as well!

President Miles

I have a pretty cool miracle for you all. It happened just last night and i was really impressed by how God puts us where we need to be, so that we meet the people who we need help.

We met a man, F------, on the street and we asked him what he would be doing to celebrate Christmas this year. He began to cry and told us that he would be alone because his girlfriend had just broke up with him. We offered our help in that he could let it all out on us (he was pretty broken up). We went and sat next to a building and began to get to know each other a little better and we tried to help him as much as we could to stay positive. It began to get really cold and he asked if we could go inside somewhere. We happened to be on the way to a member's home to drop by some candy as a personal touch, so we decided that we would go and ask if we could use their home. The member let us in and we began to talk again. This member has had some problems in her marriage and could connect with him so well and she really opened up to him. Her story was exactly what he needed and we taught that God has a plan for all of his children and that if we trust him, nothing stands in our way to happiness. At the end of the night we sent F------ off on his train with a Book of Mormon and a DVD from the Church. It was so cool to see how well our member helped us and how she bore strong testimony to this man. It was pretty much all done by her.

Elder Gubler playing the bells

At this time of year, people are searching a little bit harder for that feeling of true happiness, that only comes from trying to follow the Lord's commandment of loving one another. We know this feeling to be the Spirit. I hope that we all remember why we have this holiday. Remember that Jesus never gave gifts of earthly worth to those around him. He gave eyes to the blind, health to the sick, and comfort to the needy. A good gift comes from showing love and serving our brothers and sisters around us.

Some things never change

We are really excited for the next week because we set up a lot of appointments with a lot of really great people, and our members are inviting us around a ton because of the season. It will be filled with a lot of food and fun!

I hope that you all have a great week and that you are all safe with all that ice! I pray for you and wish you all the best until next monday.

Love,

Elder Eldredge

Pictures!

Someone is putting on a little weight!

Hello again!

Another week is gone just like that!? Darn. Time goes by way too quick out here. I don't even know what day it is sometimes. It was a pretty good week though! It is starting to get pretty cold here but it hasn't snowed yet. They say that it doesn't snow too bad in Konstanz because we are so low down and close to the lake but it is already way cold! All that snow looks like a lot of fun! We had a pretty good snowball fight while we were leaving the church in St. Gallen because there is a good amount of snow there and that was pretty fun.

From the pictures, it looks like everybody is doing pretty well and having a lot of fun like always! Those kids look bigger and bigger every week! I bet that everybody is having fun with the christmas stuff starting up and being able to eat candy canes and watch christmas movies all the time. We went on a walk with some members and their friends yesterday after lunch, and we walked into the woods a bit where santa claus was and he was giving all of the kids cookies and stuff. It was pretty fun and festive. We are also getting a lot of invites for the holiday season! We don't know exactly what we will be doing to skype but I will make sure to let you know exactly what is happening.

This week we will have a christmas conference in zurich with all of the missionaries in switzerland and we will have a white elephant party, and have a real spiritual christmas conference. That is also when they will be delivering the christmas packages so no worries. I will get it this friday for sure.

We had a pretty cool lesson this week. We found this guy a few weeks ago and we have been trying to make contact with him for a while and we finally got an appointment set up for last friday. We asked him what his expectations where from us and why he wanted to meet. He told us that he has been searching for a long time to find answers to his questions about God but he couldn't ever ask because he lived in muslim countries until about six months ago. He has been writing down his questions for years and we were already able to answer some of them. He was so happy to find people who have the answers to his questions and he just got excited about it. It was pretty cool and we will meeting with him this week.

We also found these two kids playing basketball outside of a school so we asked if we could play, and although basketball has never been one of my strong points, it is ok because I am in europe and they are worse here. We had fun kicking there butts and they will be bringing some friends to play this saturday. It was pretty fun and we hope that we can make it a pretty regular thing.

I took some pictures of the city and of the lake last monday so I will make sure to send them if this computer doesn't get to angry at me this week.

Overall, the last week was way awesome and exhausting as well! We are working really hard and setting high goals everyday. We listen to a lot of christmas music at home to, so we are getting excited for the season, just not for the snow. It will be pretty cold.

Well I will make sure to let you know about the whole skyping situation so that we can talk in a few weeks! I hope that you all have an awesome week! stay safe with all that snow on the roads! I will talk to you all next week!

Love,

Elder Eldredge

Hello Elder Gubler!

Hey there family!

Wow those thanksgiving photos look really fun!

I can't believe how many people there are in that one room, but I wasn't surprised to see uncle Bryan fixed in onto that football game you had on. It was a little sad not having thanksgiving over here but I guess there will be many more years of turkey to come. I was missing you all though and wishing you could be here. Let Ben know that his hair is looking pretty sweet! Elder Gubler and I are over here giving out some serious props. *clapping hands*

Elder Gubler (right) is Parker's new companion

This week was pretty awesome! We had a lot of eating appointments because Elder Brose left and they were all really fun! We had two eating appointments in a row yesterday and I almost died from all the food that I ate. After the first one, where I had eaten two mountains of spaghetti, we had to catch a train in like 15 mintues but we were way way far away. So we ran after eating all the spaghetti and cake for like 15 minutes with our backpacks and everything! That hurt but we caught the train just in time.

But ya we had a lot of fun this week. On thursday we didn't have any thanksgiving dinner but Elder Brose and I drove to munich to ship him off and to pick up Elder Gubler. It was way fun at the trainstation in munich to see alot of my old friends. Elder Stilger was there too because he is training again so I have a brother! We even got to be on the same train for about two hours so we got to talk alot and hang out with Elder Gubler and Ridd (elder stilgers golden). We got out first in a place called Ulm so that we could get onto a different train, but it wasn't coming for a little over an hour and there is a way huge church there so we ran all the way there (10 minutes) with all of elder gublers luggage. It was really funny and the church was unbelievably huge!

Elder Gubler and i are having a great time together and I am learning tons from him! He is a really posotive guy and is always happy and really funny so we are having a lot of fun. We have already seen a lot of success as well! We are finding some really great people! Yesterday, these two guy from nigeria showed up at church, the first was a guy named mike who is already a member since the last 6 or 7 years, and the second is a friend of the first guy who came with him. They were both super cool and the friend really wants to learn about the Book of Mormon ( we taught a way awesome lesson with the other two elders and he loved it)! They live in switzerland so the other guys will continue to teach them but we are excited for them!

It is starting to get really christmasy in our apartment as well. We found some lights and hung them up in our apartment and we have paper snowflakes all over the ceiling and Elder Pugh has a lot of christmas music. They already have the christmas market up in most cities and towns as well and the one here in konstanz is really pretty.

If I could really explain what it feels like to work with Elder Gubler, I would say it is like jumping onto a quick moving train. We are really working so hard. I'm not saying that I haven't been giving my best to my mission because I have been, but Elder Gubler has shown me how to make my best a lot more effective. He just does things in ways that I have never seen other missionaries do work so effectively and now, already after just a few days, I would say that I haven't learned so much about what it means to be a missionary. It is pretty hard but I love every moment of it all.

That is how things are going around here. Always lots of fun and always lots of work. But I guess those are the same out here. Thanks for all those pictures! I will make sure to try to send some more photos in a few minutes. I hope that you all have a great week and that you are all safe. 'Til next week!

Love,

Elder Eldredge