The west

Wow, let me start off by saying that it's been a week.
I'm just going to jump into some stories because I just have to tell them.

First off, I had to pick up my new companion in Freiberg. He is a
brand new missionary named elder Lorenzen. But before I met him I had
to get myself from Erfurt to this hotel in Freiberg by 11 in the
morning. The train part was easy, everything is really organized and I
didn't have to walk very much. But then one of my trains was late...
that meant that I would be getting into Freiberg at 10:30, which
wasn't much of a problem except that I had a 30 minute walk from the
train station to the hotel, over cobblestone roads, with all my
suitcases. I got off the train and started speedily walking, and then
it started to rain. And it rained hard. By the time I made it to the
hotel I was freezing, and tired, and soaked to the bone. And we still
had a full day of traveling to our new apartment ahead of us. As I
arrived at the hotel, President Fingerle walked out to greet me.  He
gave me a nice German style hug, (which means that he pressed his
cheek firmly against mine), and said he was glad I was punctual. (I
arrived at 10:59 because I ran the last couple blocks.)
We had a very good meeting, and then I picked up elder Lorenzen. We
got on the train and headed off to Braunschweig!
All the traveling went very well, and I think that I may be learning a
sense of direction! We found our apartment, and then we discovered why
it is called the princess apartment! It is seriously one of the nicest
apartments I've ever been in. Next week I will get you some pictures
of it.

And now for another story. Elder Lorenzen and I got a very cryptic
phone call from someone who just said "I'm coming to pick you up at
8am tomorrow, we are going to move wood in the forest." Sure enough at
7:45 we got a knock on the door. Then we went to move wood in the
forest... we stacked it in a trailer and took it to someone's house. I
don't know why, but they kept telling us to work slower. So it ended
up taking 7 hours to move all the wood. Then they fed us, a lot. They
fed us Grünkohl (google it), Bregenwurst (brain sausage) and the belly
of a pig. Which means literally they took a pigs belly and cooked it.
I guess that they didn't bother taking the skin off... and all the
sudden I had a steaming lump of white flesh covered in fur sitting on
my plate. I flipped it over so that I couldn't see any of the long,
pig belly-hairs and I choked it all down.   Elder Lorenzen decided to
offend them and not finish it. But we shared our Christmas initiative
with the people, and then finally made it back to get changed and
start proselyting at 5:00pm.

Elder Lorenzen and I are having a blast here! He's just out of the MTC
and I haven't been here too long, so pray that we will be able to
understand all the German we encounter. I love Braunschweig already,
and I'm just pumped to keep working here. Also, I'm very sad to not be
in Erfurt for Christmas... it's so sad to abandon my city. I love all
of you at home, please take advantage of this Christmas season. Make
sure to look out for those who need help through this Christmas time.
Give your families big hugs, and tell them that you love them! Eat
lots of chocolate oranges for me!

Love you all!
Elder Openshaw

Westward Bound

Everyone cry a blue tear for me because I'm leaving Erfurt this
Wednesday... just before Christmas. I seriously wasn't expecting it at
all, and I thought that I would stay at least until January. But
honestly President Fingerle is one of the most faithful and inspired
people I've ever met, so I look forward to what's in store for me in
the West.
My next area will be Braunschweig (Brunswick), in West Germany! I have
been told by almost everyone that it is like a completely different
mission in the West. That people want to talk to the missionaries, and
that everyone tries to speak English with us... (that I'm not super
excited about). As of right now, I don't know who my companion will
be. But next week I'll have all the information.
Braunschweig I know is a really historic city, and that it was bombed
during the war. And I know that I have heard other things about it
before the mission but I can't remember haha. So you could all send me
a cool fact about it if you want to use google for me haha.

I have learned so much from my time here in Erfurt, and I will always
be so grateful for the people here, and the people that got me here.
There is nothing more spectacular than doing mission work, and nothing
more amazing than the light that the gospel brings in a generally dark
place.
This week we went and visited a lady who had been inactive for a
really long time, she was really lonely and had been having a super
hard time. She showed up at church and immediately this old guy in the
ward went up and hugged her. And then he went up to one of the other
missionaries, and just said thank you with a tear running down his
face. Those things just make what we are trying to do worth it.

I am going to miss Silvio, I hope you like the awesome picture I sent
of him! He always is showing off how he looked in his model days haha.

Love you all!

Elder Openshaw

Frohlicher Weihnachts

This week was super awesome.  Elder Roemer and I had a lot of fun and worked really hard on sharing the light the world initiative.  It's been super fun.  We did tons of walking this week and met with some very strange inactive members.  We also went to the Weihnachtsmarkt for P-day which is just so insanely cool.  It has gotten COLD here! The humidity freezes during the night and then the trees are just covered with this awesome frost.  

We have been working with a guy named Phillip a lot, he is super cool and will probably get baptized if we can get him to come to church.  His dad is also an investigator in a different area and they talk about the lessons all the time.  He reads so much and asks the most awesome questions.  You can honestly just tell that he is ready for the gospel.  Hopefully we will have a picture of him getting baptized soon!

I would definitely recommend coming here for christmas when you have the chance.  It is so awesome!

Ok, I've had two weeks in a row of the lamest emails.  So I promise that next week I will find you guys a good funny story, and I will send you some awesome pictures!

Love you all! Thank you for the emails!

Elder Openshaw

Short one this week

This week was pretty long to be honest. We had several busy days, but
most of the time we were forced to drive to mission stuff that was
really far from Erfurt. I think I drove a total of 20 hours this
week... not something that expected out of a mission, but I love
driving so it's been alright.

We worked really hard this week and I'm so thankful to be here. I
actually have next to no time to write you all. So I hope that the
picture with Silvio says enough.

Power Preaching

 Me and Bruder Marschaleck (my favourite old guy in the ward. And he
hates all the missionaries but me haha. He's the most amazing guy, and
told me I have to be a sailor someday)

Typical Erfurt back alleys.

Erfurt Sunrise.

The Weihnachtsmarkt is almost all the way built here in Erfurt!
Seriously I've just been getting so excited for Christmas ever since I got here. They have huge Christmas trees all over the place, and tons of little buildings with food and treats and nutcrackers. I just can't wait for it to officially start! Seriously everyone needs to see what it looks like here for Christmas.

This week was the week of crazy street displays and spending time in
random cities. Our zone leaders forced us to go to Apolda and do a
street display (I say forced because there was just us and a senior
couple there. And they didn't really give us any supplies to be able
to make anything cool.) so we went and ended up just throwing the
football that we had to random people on the street and then trying to
talk about the gospel. Apparently we were supposed to be there,
because we had some crazy success with getting phone numbers and
setting up appointments. Sadly though, none of the appointments are
for us... so we just found a bunch of the people for the zone leaders to teach hah. But apparently they liked our work so much that they planned another one in a different city for the next day.

(A street display is normally when you set up a table and have a bunch of missionaries with pamphlets and stuff out talking to people on the street.)

We had a couple lessons with Phillip and Silvio this week, and it has just been insanely cool. Elder Römer and I have been taking a really German approach to teaching, which means that it's just power
preaching. Lots of missionaries actually don't understand that it's ok to speak really forcefully here. But it actually is way cool to just say loudly, "Come to church and we'll baptize you the next week!" You don't really have to be polite here (aside from at meals), because the people just really want to know straightforwardly what you want from them. I like that a lot actually haha.

Also, we've been meeting with this guy named Mykola, he's native
Ukrainian but sadly he's a little crazy. But he honestly has the
biggest heart out of anyone I've ever met. I don't know what exactly
we can do for him, but we are trying our best just to read out if the Book of Mormon and just be his friend.

This week has just been a good one! Send me pictures of everything at home haha. Love you all!

-Elder Openshaw

Narenweckens

Hello everyone! Quick disclaimer... I'm learning the art of being very
blunt from the East German masters.

This week started off crazy, and persisted the whole way through.
Something you ought to know about Germany, they love their
events/holidays. There was this holiday on Wednesday, and it has
totally become one of my new favorites. It's called St. Martin's day,
and you should all look it up. Seriously the coolest thing ever! It's
a mix of trick-or-treating and caroling, with an awesome message
behind it.


Then the day after that, the other elders in our apartment got a call
and one of them got transferred the next day to Cottbus (which is
totally ghetto), but he kinda deserved it... he fell in love with one
of his investigators. She is goth, he is very strange, yeah it was a
weird week. But the new elder is Elder Chadwick, and he is super cool.
He's from Chandler, AZ and we get along great. I'm very happy with the
change haha.


There was also another holiday on 11/11 called Narenweckens... I still
have no idea what it was. All the sudden all the street trains stopped
and there were a ton of pretty girls marching around in funny hats.
Then everyone would do cheers and yells... I think it is just an
Erfurt thing, but maybe I'm wrong haha. But I was asking people all
over the street what it was... and nobody could really explain it.


We also have some crazy investigators, and they are all so awesome.
Phillip, a brand new one, is such a champ. And I can't wait for him to
be baptized.

Well I actually don't have much time to email today because we were
hanging out with Phillip and now it's time to head back to our
apartment. But I love you all!

-Elder Openshaw

Pictures

The snow picture is in Oberhof, a "famous" ski city in our area. It's the most insanely cold place! We were getting blasted with frozen mist and snow, but I have my dads nice Ukrainian hat to keep me warm. This picture was taken right before I met a lady 

taking her Newfoundland puppy on a walk, one of the most 

beautiful dogs I've ever seen.

Sorry the picture is so dark, and you can't really tell what was going on. But this was a huge saint martins day celebration right by our apartment. That church on the left is der Dom, and on the right is the Church of Saint Severus. They come together at the back and have a space of 10 feet between them... it's beautiful, but really shows how the churchs all try to show each other up here in Germany.

Erfurter blau

 I think it's official.  We have the world's most dapper missionary on our hands!  -Aunt Jen

This week honestly was the best ever. Halloween in East Germany is
interesting. All the old people HATE it haha. And they don't answer
the door when the little kids come "süßes oder saures"ing. And some
little kids are too scared to go out because teenagers all dress up as clowns and run around with knives and chainsaws. Germany.

We also had a crazy service project for a very crazy woman. We built a retaining wall in her garden, but she was very German about it haha. It was the first time in a garden service project that I have ever had a table and paper and a calculator to do calculations. Luckily Elder Römer is a mechanic/engineer, and super good at all that stuff. So we didn't get yelled at too much.

I guess the theme of my week was crazy East German ladies. But I love them so much! Seriously I just can't help but smile when they start yelling hahaha. We taught this lady named Frau Lösch this week. And she pretty much yelled about trump the whole time. I'm not sure why she cares so much... but then we ended up being such good friends. It was funny because she doesn't really like Elder Römer but she loves me.

This week ended with an awesome party at the church! Herbst Fest! I
need Lieder Hosen statt! I was way underdressed wearing my white shirt and tie.

Ok, love you all!
-Elder Openshaw

Rain, rain, and clouds

Well I guess the last time I was in Germany I got really lucky with
the weather... Cause I still haven't seen the sun haha. Hopefully the
summer will bring back the sun... I've heard it just gets darker from
here. But holy cow I love these East Germans!

At YSA (old divorced people and strange investigators) family home
evening the East Germans were ranting about how much they loved it
back in the DDR days, that was interesting. I made sure to be extra
American to make up for their love of communism.

This week while I was on an exchange we found this really cool Asian
guy named Tung! Elder Fernandez and I are teaching him tomorrow, so
everybody eat some fried rice for me as good luck.

Love you all!
Zane

Me vs. East Germany

This week flew by!  We are doing well here and working super hard.  Sadly this week we had pretty much every appointment get bailed on.  But we actually did well in improvising and teaching random people off the street.  

The ward here is super cool.  There are 3 big families that pretty much do everything, and tons of little kids.  All the other elders are jealous because the kids love me the most.  I took a page out of my dad's book and brought random toys and treats.  I gave this boy Friedrich a little toy car and then he asked to sit by me in sacrament meeting.  Then he talked the entire time... haha I didn't understand really anything of what he was saying because he was whispering and talking really fast.  But his Dad, the bishop, was staring me down as I was trying to get his son to pay attention haha.  Well I hope that the kids will help me find someone to baptize.  

There is this family called the Mill's that speak perfect english and they always tease me for my love of all things German.  But that's pretty much my job... just walk around and love everything.  Then I figure that everything will work itself out.  This woman gave me the weirdest look today because I was just beaming at the haltestelle.  It was amazing. 

Love you all!

-Elder Openshaw

Wonder Week

I was so discouraged at the start of this week.  I have been praying so hard for just an ounce of success.  Literally just one person to stop and listen to what we had to say.  I have honestly been trying to talk to everyone on the street.  I can get everyone to stop and talk for a little bit, but they just walk away as soon as I start to talk about the church... haha German people are very blunt too.

I was getting a little frustrated because I had been trying my best all day.  Literally stopping everyone that I had the chance to.  But nobody was talking to me.  Then I saw this guy and I knew I had to stop him, (I have some self challenges to stop the most scary-looking, angry, rushed people).  And this guy looked pretty rushed and angry.  So I went up and asked him what the family meant to him...

Well it turns out that he used to be a DJ in Finland, but one day he woke up and realized that he wasn't happy.  Quit smoking, quit a bunch of drugs.  And started reading the bible to try and find the truth.  Honestly he was an answer to my prayers.

This German mission business is no joke.  Literally we are on our own out here just trying to get people to talk to us.  It leaves lots of room for God to bless us.  

I love you all.  I'm loving Erfurt and Weimar. 

-Elder Openshaw

Feeling like a missionary

Wow! What a week!  I finally started feeling like a missionary this week (I think that means that you are tired all the time but not allowed to sleep).  But I have some cool stories from this week!

In my area we have a car, and I am the designated driver.  We surprisingly did a lot of driving to appointments, and etc.  Seriously Germany is the most beautiful place on the planet! We would drive through these ancient villages and then out into the countryside where you can just see ancient castles out in the distance.  AND EVERYTHING IS SO GREEN!!  But that's no surprise because it has literally rained ever since I've gotten here.

I have a ward here, so lots of people on Sundays!  But also tons of hilarious drama because they used to be three separate branches.  I guess I accidentally opened a can of worms in ward counsel (bringing up some inactive members) because they all started yelling...  but it's just typical German discussion I was told... (?)

We made a street display in this city called Apolda.  It wasn't super successful because there weren't a ton of people on the street.  So Elder Mayer, a Zone Leader, and I went to go find people on the street.  We didn't have a ton of luck and we were headed back to the street display when we say this drunk man talking with the sisters... and we knew they needed to be rescued. 

This man was the most picture-perfect drunk man I had ever seen.  A huge, burly, hairy guy, wearing liederhosen and a tank top under a sweatshirt.  We saw him trying to kiss the sisters so we ran up to talk to him and they ran away.  His beard was wet and was covered in throwup and drool.  He grabbed my hand and kept getting closer and closer to me, and I had to keep stepping back so that he didn't drool on me.  But he kept yelling louder and louder because I couldn't understand him.  Then Elder Mayer said that we had to go, and we ran over to the fountain to wash ourselves off, because we were covered in hobo throwup and drool.  It reminded me of a story my mom would tell from when the drunkards would try and kiss her in Ukraine. 

My spiritual thought for this week comes from another man that we found during our street display.  Elder Mayer and I came up to him and started chatting, and then we ended up teaching him the first lesson.  He has a wife and a 6 year old daughter and hopefully they end up going somewhere.  I was really stricken by the fact that he claimed to deny God but then at the end of the conversation he was telling us how much that God loves him.  \

Love you all so much!

-Elder Openshaw

Mein erste Gebiet, ERFURT‏

WOW!!! I am the luckiest person in the world, back in Germany at last.  My first day was interesting.  We woke up at 3 am in order to catch our flight in Salt Lake (I think they schedule it like that so we don't have to worry about families stalking us hahaha).  Then we flew to Chicago, and had an hour layover there.  It was around 12pm when we were there.  Then we flew to Frankfurt and it was 4am again.  From there we flew to Dresden, where we met our mission President.  It was interesting because it honestly felt like we had 3 days straight of sunlight.  President Fingerle is awesome, my first conversation with him was weird though haha.  He came up and introduced himself in English, I responded in German and then he immediately said "Why did you waste your time going 6 weeks to the Provo MTC? You should have done 3 weeks and then came here."  I didn't really have much choice haha, but he's probably right.  

After meeting our President we went to Radebuel, a city right next to Meissen (where I was for my exchange), and I discovered that President Monson had spent time in that area when it was East German.  He gave a dedicatory prayer over the land of East Germany and promised the people that they would see the blessings of the temple.  I think if you Google the dedicatory prayer over East Germany you will be able to find it.  It's honestly one of the coolest things I've ever read, because it is all about my mission.

We then went to the Freiberg temple and did baptisms.  I have some pictures of the new Freiberg temple, it's amazing.  We spent the night in a hotel near the Temple. 

The next day we had a meeting and met our trainers.  My companion is Elder Römer, a native German from Wisconsin. We were assigned Erfurt as our area.  Seriously everyone came up to me and told me how lucky I am.  It is the best area in the mission, the most beautiful, the best ward, and just an outstanding city.  We then took the train to our first area... except the train got delayed for 4 hours because of a bomb threat.  So then we took a bunch of other trains to try and get around Leipzig, where the bomb threat was.  But we ended up having to go straight there.  We just waited for a while and then got to our apartment at 10 30 to discover that the other Elders had gone out looking for us.  So we waited for a long time until they finally came back.  We went to bed super late.  

The next day we unpacked and just went through our area book and stuff, trying to figure out everything.  Finally we got to go finding!  I was so excited, we walked into this beautiful square and then the first person we talked to was Chabar.  He is from Hungary and he seems super interested in the Gospel.  We have our first lesson with him on Saturday.  Our luck didn't persist though, nobody else would talk to us.  

General Conference was awesome, though I had to watch one session completely in German.  

Ok, not sure what else to talk about.  I'm so excited to be here.  I've decided to add a little spiritual thought to the end of all my emails. So here it is...

I've been thinking a lot about my mission in general.  And especially about my calling as a missionary.  As we met our mission president he really emphasized the fact that we are not just here to plant seeds.  That our mission is to baptize the people of Germany.  Every missionary who comes here is told that they probably won't baptize someone, but that just isn't true.  I believe in the literal gathering of Israel, and the restoration of the 10 tribes.  The things that have been happening in the world are part of God's plan of gathering.  I would encourage all of you to read President Monson's dedicatory prayer over the land of Germany, and to read some of the prophesies concerning Germany.  Because I am not here to plant seeds, I am here to labor and in the vineyard and gather the fruit.  I have a testimony of the work of the Lord.  I have a testimony that this Church is true.  I have faith that we will all see the gathering of the children of God.  Thank you to everyone who has shown me your support and love.  I also want to share why I am serving a mission.  I am serving a mission because I believe that this gospel can change people for the better.  And especially because of a promise that I made with God.  The day I found out the news about my family's accident I was with some of my German friend's in their backyard.  I started telling a story about my Dad and I started to laugh.  And then they asked me how I was able to laugh after something so terrible had just happened.  And I remember the feeling of the spirit, and I remember the looks on their faces when I told my German friends that I knew I would see my family again.  That is my testimony, and that's why this work is important.  Because we can all live with our families again.  I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Zane with his mission president

10 days left

We got our travel plans yesterday and all the sudden it hit me... I'm going back to Germany!  I am so excited to get back there and share the message of the Gospel.  This week was again kinda boring, but I got a big group picture with all my friends.  Ok, not much time to email!  Love you all!  Thank you for all the birthday wishes, it honestly was an awesome day.  

Love,

Elder Openshaw

Over the halfway point

Hey everyone!  This week was really good in the MTC.  Not that there is much to write about.  But there was a bat infestation that made us move apartments.  I stole a mini fridge for our room but then I guess the janitors went searching for it because it they stole it back from us.  They also took the coke that I put in it with it....  so that was kinda sad.  But I became friends with the haircutting lady and she gave me a bunch of goodies haha.  Anyway, I feel like I'm ready to go to Germany.  I should get my flight plans on friday, which is super exciting.  I'm ready for the language, and I'm so ready for the German food.  It feels like the time has gone fast in the MTC, and so I'm stoked to be out of here soon.  We play against Argentina every Friday in soccer.  It gets intense, and it always takes me a while to get back into the missionary spirit after the game.  But we creamed them 5-0 this week, which was amazing.  Thanks for all the letters, and emails, and packages!

Love you all,

Elder Openshaw

Week 2 1/2

Aunt Jen here:  including yet another picture of him with another cute Sister Missionary in the MTC.  This is Zane with Tatum Froerer that he went to preschool with.  She will be serving in the Detroit Michigan Mission.  They haven't seen each other in years.  More fun MTC Reunions.  :) 

Now, here's Zane's email:

Wow, the time really does move so weirdly in the MTC.  I am having a great time and the German is coming along fast.  My teachers are such good guys and I always enjoy class.  One of my German teachers talked to me after class about Nike for like 30 minutes in German, and after that he looked at me for a second and said, "I think you're probably ready to go to Germany."  But I'm happy to be here and learn a bunch of stuff in German.  I've learned some great ways to make the teachers laugh and I experiment with German slang every day.  Turns out my friends in germany taught me quite a few bad words hahaha.  There have been several times that my teacher's eyes have gotten wide after I say a sentence in German.  I can't wait to try out my slang on some real Germans.  I don't have much time to write every week, and there's not much to write about.  But I'll let you know when I make it to Deutschland.

Week 1 1/2

To be honest this week has flown by, and I have learned so much German.  It honestly hasn't been too bad, and I have made lots of friends.  It sucks to have to deal with a bunch of drama in the Zone, and having to go to extra meetings isn't fun, but being Zone Leader isn't too bad either.  I've gotten a bunch of packages this week and that has been amazing, they honestly get me so stoked to be here.  I have become good friends with both of my teachers, Brother Nilsen and Brother Garrett, which honestly helps so much in the German learning.  Brother Nilsen never speaks English to us, but he loves my German jokes.  Elder Taylor is a marine and he talks about that all the time, but we get along well and work hard.  Haha I am the only guy in my room that makes my bed and gets up on time.  My companion has some very strange sleeping habits, and often is yelling in his sleep, I have told him that it's probably because he lays on his bed eating Cheetos and drinking coke while he's trying to fall to sleep.  I room with Elder Garner, Elder Ockey, and Elder Taylor.  I love Elder Garner and Elder Taylor... and I'm still working on trying to love Elder Ockey.  But it's kinda hard to have your slang corrected by an Elder who didn't get out of bed until 7:00.  I'm sure we are all just trying to get used to each other.  I'm just glad he's going to Frankfurt haha.  Well, that's pretty much all that has happened this week.  Love you all!

-Zane/Elder Openshaw

*Aunt Jen here: adding a photo we received of Haley Barber and Zane this week. Haley is heading to the New Mexico Farmington Mission.*

The start of a long road

Hey everyone!  I know you probably don't really care to hear how I'm doing after 3 days in the MTC but I'll email anyways.  I am doing really well and I can't wait to get to Germany (I know I'm still six weeks out though).  It seems that my German has come back in force and I am doing really well in all my language classes.  It is really fun to remember that I know most of the things I am being taught haha.  My companion is Elder Taylor, we get along super well.  We got totally shafted and ended up becoming Zone leaders.  I have seen tons of my friends, which has been really cool.  Not sure what else to say, but it has been a lot of fun so far.  I am working hard to learn German.  The pictures are of my class and my teacher, my companion, and our room.  Love all of you!

-Zane