Hi from Berlin!!!

So basically this week was crazy. I'll sum it up real fast.

Monday consisted of packing, saying bye to members, shopping (polish ties!), and my birthday party my companion and I had. We made cake and used all the random stuff I got in packages for my birthday. Pictures from the epic party are coming soon. haha. Ya it was weird and kinda hard to say bye to the branch and my companion but all is well.

Tuesday was transfer day. Everything actually went exceptionally well. Made all my train connections and my luggage isn't broken yet. Plus I unpacked in like a half hour. One thing that was wayy cool is that I ran into old friends from my home ward in the train station! Sooo cool. A tender mercy from the Lord. The chances of that being coincidence are about 0.

Wed-Th consisted of meeting with the people we are working with here, finding new people, and just trying to get a feel for the area. Basically our area has about a million people. We are most all of East Berlin. Huge! Our ward is like 400 on paper and just over 100 on Sundays. Traveling takes lots of time and we have to take trains or subway or buses or streetcars everywhere. Mostly trains though. It is insane. There are soooo many people here it blows your mind. From all over the world too. With german and english you can communicate with almost all of them though. It was a crazy few days. Never a spare minute here.

Friday we went to a neighboring city with some other elders to help advertise this BYU symphony benifits concert. It took the whole day and it was unbelievably warm. Busted out the short sleeves and sweated bad. Good fun.

Saturday had a thing in Tiergarten (middle of Berlin) and saw a lot of mission friends I hadn't seen in a long time. Wayyy fun. Later met with an investigator who has a lot of problems and he basically hit rock bottom a couple of weeks ago and wants a direction in life. We talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and I felt impressed to bring up baptism. He said he had actually been thinking about baptism lately and we made a goal to work towards it. He has got a lot of things to overcome if he wants to achieve that but he really wants something more out of life. A future with hope. It was wayy cool to see the power and hope the gospel gives us. He then came with us to a baptism here in another Beriln ward. It was wayyy cool.

Sunday was church. Wow. About 5 times the size of my last branch. I'm in a ward! With a real live bishop and everything. Wayy cool. The members here are great! Way friendly and chill and ya I like it a lot. They even have a person called to teach the investigator class! In every other branch the missionaries do all of it. In sacrament I had to speak for 5 minutes and God helped me not to be too nervous or to mess up my german too bad. I was actually way calm and felt the spirit. We then ate with a hilarious member family. Then did some street contacting the rest of the night.

So that was as short as I could put it. Basically I'm loving it here. It is a challenge for sure but it is an adventure and it is going to be lots of fun here. I think we are going to see a lot of success too. Basically I'm still stoked. Just got to get to work and figure things out.

So on Sunday the main topic in church was sacrifice. Whether it is tithing, serving a mission, keeping a commandment or whatever. Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. It is really hard to make sacrifices at first but the Lord rewards you so much in the end you receive more then you give. We are always in His debt. It is an honor to sacrifice to serve a mission. So many cool experiences and blessings I'd never have had without the sacrifice. Love it!

Have a great week people. Til next week.

Elder Clayton