That Friday was the first ever misson leadership council. That was very interesting. Our mission has grown so much that it is hardly a council anymore. Too many people there haha 34 of us. We counciled and received teaching from President Kosak.  I don't know most of the missionaries anymore. I'm the oldest now and our group is kinda like the oldies that no one likes to talk to because we are gone soon anyways. Mission culture is hilarious sometimes. We then traveled back with the Hannover missionaries and that was a lot of fun. Missionaries are basically awesome.

Saturday was really really busy and good. First we visited a less active and he cooked us south german food. Porridge. It was not like anything I've eaten before but good. He has got a friend who needs a priesthood blessing so we are going to do that in the near future. We then visited our Romanian family. They were getting ready for Easter Sunday, they celebrate that much later than we do. He made us delicious food as always and we talked about Joseph Smith and the restored church.  Then we had an interesting visit with someone who we ran into a long time ago doing doors.  He called us up and wanted to meet. So we show up and he had a friend there.  What started as interest in the Book of Mormon ended up being them trying to use science to convince us that islam was right. All we could do is bear testimony. They said they would read in the Book of Mormon and pray about it, and I hope they actually do. I'm so glad for the restored gospel and all the knowledge we have of the true nature of the godhead. A few appointments after that fell out and then one went through!  We made out the original appointment while doing doors at a student housing. He had the Book of Mormon previously and wanted to know why we needed the Book of Mormon when we have the bible already. We prepared an awesome first lesson with lots of bible scriptures emphasizing priesthood authority and the apostasy in general. His roommate walked in as we were starting and we invited him to take part too and he loved it. We were speaking english with one anther, and using french, chinese, and german scriptures hahaha. It was a lot of fun and the spirit was really strong as I recited the first vision. They committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and we made a follow up appointment. Sooo cool!! One of those awesome moments in mission life, where you just know you are doing the right thing in the right place.

Sunday was kinda dissappointing. We were expecting multiple investigators and a few less actives and none of them showed. That is a feeling I hate and will not miss haha. Church was great though, in my humbled state the sacrament and the classes had some real meaning. The sunday school was on eternal marriage haha and everyone kept making jokes because our class was full of older single women, and two missionaries. The teacher assured us though that this lesson would have something for everyone and I think it did. I learned a lot at least.

Afterward we did weekly planning and planned our district leader schooling for the next day. That was long but good and at the end we had a good feeling that we had made good progress and goals. Our appointment that evening fell out, major bummer, but then we got to give a blessing to a ward sister who is having major health probs. That was nice. It is always nice to use the priesthood to serve.

Monday was zone pday and district leader schooling. We headed out to Bremen and planned everything in the morning super tight so we could get to everything we wanted to do. We first went to Primark. This is the most wonderful store in the universe. Then we hustled over to do a bit of emails. After that we grabbed some chinese food and set off for the church. We had a decent sized group and half of them are new so it was fun getting to know them and playing some sports. There are a lot of new sisters.   Everyone got home in one piece and district leader schooling went pretty well.

I was on exchange in Bremen, with the awesome district leader there. We had a great exchange. There are some great elders there in Bremen. Young, motivated, obedient, and fun. It was a blast and we worked hard. We found 3 people in a relatively short amount of time and did some service in a member's garden and taught a cool lesson. We had good discussions throughout the day on how to improve and help the district. He is a really great elder and it was great time working with him.

Wedensday was fun. We had a district meeting, which went well, and then had a couple good visits throughout the day. We made chicken wings, with wingers amazing sauce and brought that to the family that we have been teaching since they always feed us. Their daughter was also there this time so we got to know her and teacher her as well. We watched Finding Faith in Christ and read about the doctrine of Christ too. They had some good questions about repentance and enduring to the end. 

Thursday was a holiday and a very good day for us! We had a joint teach with the branch president. It went really well.  We taught the first half of the plan of salvation and our investigator understands it really well. Impressive was how well he got the fall. The fall is so misunderstood by lots of people but he knew exactly what is in 2 Nephi 2 about it before we had even read it. The best part though was that he said at the beginning he was very skeptical about the Book of Mormon and read it very critically, but the more he read, the more interesting it was and the more serious he treated it. He is almost done with 1 Nephi already.  After that we met with our ward mission leader and talked about the street display we wanted to do, as we were doing this an investigator showed up at the church. Our appointment with him was supposed to have taken place an hour and a half before, but we were happy he showed up. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read while we finished our meeting. We split with Elder Paul and they taught this investigator, D, while I did english class. Our student baked us a cake hahaha. Well ya that was a cool day. After the teaching and english, we ate some brats with the young men and played a round of bball. Great day.

Friday was pretty up and down. We said goodbye to L, which was bitter sweet. Got a picture with him and his son and he was really nervous about the trip to Romania and we read some comforting scriptures in the Book of Mormon. Alma 36:3.  We are going to stay in contact though. 

Saturday was pretty stressful. We had the street display and 14 missionaries coming. We had fun sharing the gospel. We had some singing and some talking to people. We gave out a ton of Books of Mormon, taught a ton of people, and got a few contacts out of it. We took care of take down as well as set up and ate with our missionaries. The rest of the day was spent finding. We got in contact with K again. He kept saying he wasn't going to change his opinion and that he already made a decision and that he was satisfied with his church and all this fluff and I just reminded him that he promised to read in the Book of Mormon and that until he does that he will never know if what we told him was true. We took turns bearing testimony and in the end he agreed to actually read before he closed the door. He was actually impressed we came back and haven't given up on him. I hope he reads. We are staying in contact.

Sunday was great. T came to church! He really liked it too. He even participated in sunday school. We ate with some members at the church afterwards. We had an appointment fall out, and fell asleep in the car as we were trying to plan our next lesson. Next thing we knew we were 5 minutes late to our next appointment. 

Then I went to skype the family. That is a happier note. They looked great but I could tell they were upset that they couldn't see me. It was still really nice to talk with them a bit and holy cow I forgot how much I miss them. 2 years is a very long time sometimes and somehow the people closest to you seem like foreign ideas more than people and then you realize I'm going home to them in a few weeks! All in all it was strange but great.

After that we had a good joint teach with a new lady. We taught about the plan of salvation. She expressed concerns of not understanding all the injustices in the world and told us how her brother dying devestated her mother and our joint teach was perfect. He lost a son 3 years ago and bore testimony that God knows what He is doing even though we don't. I bore testimony that through Christ all will be made right. That we will all be resurrected and we can be with the family together forever when we follow him. I bore just about the same testimony to my family in german when I skyped. That for me sums up the gospel of Christ, and in that moment it became clear to me how much that teaching means for me and my family. It was pretty sweet.

Well that is all I got for the week. Love you all and have a good one!

Elder Clayton