Email from Oct. 19th

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY [Dad & Mitchell]!!! I´m sad I can't be there... But i'm sure it'll be great. This week was pretty cool. Around Thursday and Friday. We did a LOT of finding. We worked so hard trying to find an investigator with no luck. Elder _____ was getting kind of discouraged. I wasn't really, cause...idk. I don't get stress out much. but anyway. Yesterday, our hard work paid off. We were blessed with 4 investigators! It was awesome. We also got to talk to a lot of really interesting people. We doored a dorm, and we got let in by this one guy. His name was Ali and was awesome. He was wearing the Muslim garb and had an awesome beard. I'd say he's probably around 22. We had a great meeting with him, but he wasn't interested in meeting again. Which was too bad. That was on Friday. Sunday, we doored the same building and we got let in by a Hindu guy from India. The meeting was in English, and we had a great meeting with him too. I learned a ton about Hinduism and their way of looking at things. He was really intelligent. He's studying some crazy type of engineering, so he's probably one of these crazy smart guys. Then we had a meeting with 2 girls from Kenya and a German physicist. At the same time. Language was weird. It was about 3/4 in english 1/5 in German, and the rest in Luo, an african language. haha. They became investigators, so it was really awesome. We had our appointment with ____. A really awesome member that i talk about in my tape. btw, the tape is close to being done. It will have a total of 20 min on it, and i'm pretty close to being done, so i'll probably send it next week or something. German is coming along pretty well. The last 2 weeks especially. I can probably hold a conversation with someone, if they annunciate clearly. That's one great thing about O., is that he enunciates. he also has perfect english so that's good too. Some not so great news, is that we had to drop _____, cause she wants time to ''digest'' or something. So that was too bad. But Frau ____ is still going strong. We'll probably try to set a baptismal date this next week. Which is awesome.
I think that's it. Once again. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Love,
Colter

From email of Oct 5, 2009

Well, yesterday was when transfer calls came. But none came! The other elders didn't get any either. Which is awesome, cause our district is awesome. We get to stay together for another 6 weeks. We are all really stoked about that. Today we went to an American Shop near Fürth. Our bishop is half American, and loves to go to american shops. Basically we just got american soda, peanut butter, american chips, and hot sauce. haha. It was aweosme. It was a bit expensive though, so we didn't get all that much. I can't wait to work near a base. I've heard they have taco bell on the american military bases! Our primary investigators right now are are both making slow, steady progress towards baptism. Our other investigators though are really hard to meet with. 2x a week in an investigator is ideal, but none of ours have time or something. Most we meet every 2 weeks, which is annoying. But, at least we are meeting with them. Nothing is really that new though! I'm doing great and continue to wish everyone a great yeah! Tschus!
Love, Colter

Colter's email Oct 5, Erlangen

Well, this week was pretty good. We definitely taught a lot and are keeping ourselves busy. We have a bunch of investigators..... General Conference was awesome. I watched in English along with most of the Elders (except for the German ones) and it was awesome. We however didn´t get to see the Sunday afternoon session, cause it was at 10-12 last night... It sounds like it was amazing though. I really liked how a big theme for this conference was about love and service. President Monson´s talk on Service was awesome. I also really like President Uchtdorfs on love and Elder Oaks was really cool too on Love and Law of God. Frau Maisel came to the Sunday morning session (at 6 at night). Both of the morning sessions we got to see live, then we saw priesthood and saturday afternoon delayed on sunday morning for us.
Last week it was a district P-day in Nurnberg. haha. It was fun. I took pictures and i´m planning on sending some pictures along with a ´microcassette tape´. And hmmmm. The Best thing this week as far as teaching was a really cool meeting with a less active member. She doesn´t come to church anymore because of some mean things some people in the ward did. But we are going to try and work with her and see if we can get her back to church. The hardest thing was finding enough ward members to come help us teach! All the members that are awesome and always want to help us were busy this week and/or next week. We´ve had to cancel a couple appointments cause we need them to come with us to women appointments. It´s quite frustrating. but hey, such is the life...
Well, i should go, i have an appointment soon with my pillow...haha.

Much Love!
Colter

Quotes from Colter's email of Sep 28

Well, we are in Nürnberg for P-day today. I am in a suit that i bought at a thrift store for €3 and the others are in Lederhosen. haha. um... so yeah. This week was a little rough as far as missionary work went. But it was still fun. A lot of appointments fell through and got postponed. But this next week looks awesome. In the next 3 days we have i think 9 appointments, 7 being joint teaches with members. So it´s going to be awesome.

So some answers to questions: Yes, mitchell can have my martin money. I was wearing glasses in the MTC cause it´s really dry there. I would always put my contacts in when it was time for Gym, but before that i just wore glasses. I wear contacts all day here. My clothes are fine. We have a washer and we hang them up to dry whenever we need clothes. My german is coming i think. it´s still hard to understand people, but i think it´s coming, I´m really hoping that i´m absorbing lots. haha. I do spend some time studying each day. From 10-11. The wheather is great right now. It´s kind of like california where i am. Sometimes it´s warm sometimes not. It rains every couple weeks for a couple days. but yeah, the temperature has really gone down on average since i´ve been here. It´ll probably plumitt soon. haha. Most funny thing... hmmm. In a way it´s kinda of not funny. But we were having a rough day. First, we went to a place were there was supposed to be a house with 4 combacks (people that say come back later) and the missionaries before us put the wrong house number or something cause we couldn´t find it. Then, a bird pooped on Elder Achtmanns bike seat . Then, some guys drove by and asked ´hey, how can we be like you guys´all sarcastic and stuff and Elder Achtmann said, you have to be baptized by... then listed the 5 points of the gospel. It was kinda funny i thought. haha.

Then, most spiritual thing. Probably the lesson yesterday with new investigator we found from Ukraine. He´s a student here. and we just talked about the gospel for 1.5 hours. It was cool.

But yeah, everything is going great! Only 2 more weeks left in this transfer. Who knows if i´ll move or if i stay. Pres. Condie kind of likes to move greenies a lot. But Elder Achtmann has been here a while, so who knows. They might even combine the 2 Erlangen areas. Cause they are getting only 1 new Elder and 4ish are leaving. So 1 area in the mission should be closing this transfer. But yeah, this week is going to be crazy. SO many lessons, which is awesome. It sounds like everything is going well at home! Have a great year in school, and don´t stress TOO much. It´s just high school. haha. There are much bigger things in life. I look forward to hearing back!
Love,
Colter