Hello!
 
I've been quarantined in the Preston MTC here in England and I have to say, I'd rather not be quarantined again. But I'll be doing that exact thing upon my arrival in Frankfurt, so that's lovely.
 
I've been put in a room with Elders Felt, Helmer, and Sumsion. Although I miss my friends back in Texas, all three of my roommates are going to Frankfurt with me, and we've had a great time. They're all funny guys, and in comparison to my last companion this is a heavenly situation. We also have been in contact with President Hammon (our Frankfurt mission president). He's incredibly passionate about missionary work, and truly loves all of us missionaries. We've been able to tune into some of the Frankfurt zone conferences, Monday morning prayers, and He's even had one on one interviews with us. I haven't heard of any other mission president for the missionaries here going to such lengths to meet with the missionaries and include them before they're even in Germany. I can't wait to get there.
 
Side note: he told us to really hit our German hard, as it's very possible that we'll only have 4-5 weeks of training before we're on our own or training other missionaries. Oh yikes.
 
Upon arrival, we were put into these rooms with some strict rules. We have to stay in these rooms unless we are going to our assigned bathroom. Food comes 3 times a day and we have to stay in our rooms while they deliver it. I don't know if this is a reflection of the country, but oh my goodness mayonnaise and cheese on a sandwich is by far the worst lunch idea I've tasted in a long time. We get many Nutella packets with our meals, so we've done the only logical thing we could: use them as currency for different food items.
 
We were allowed outside time twice a day for 30 minutes but had no room to really exercise. The classes they recommended we attend were basically our MTC classes but with different teachers, so we have been skipping them and practicing German on our own. Although it's been boring, we've had near daily devotionals from the area 70, which has been uplifting.
 
That was my boring schedule, however due to some changes in the UK our quarantine limit was shortened to 10 days. Although we have to stay in our rooms when food is delivered, we have unlimited outside time and are allowed to go throughout the entire MTC campus. We've had the opportunity to visit the temple grounds daily and might have snuck onto the grounds during a run on our first day of freedom. We've also been going on runs through Chorley, the town we are right next to. It feels amazing to get out of the MTC, and these runs really hit home the fact that we aren't in the US anymore.
 
It rains a lot here, and It hasn't been completely overcast or rainy twice while we've been here. One of those times was yesterday afternoon. We went up to the temple during this time and the gates were open, so I snagged some pictures of the temple.
 
So that's my life right now, In about 48 hours I'm going to be on a plane to Frankfurt for quarantine v2. I miss y’all and hope you're doing well.
 
Tschüss!
 
Elder Wilhelm

Hello!
 
I've been staying busy these past few weeks. Sometimes it seems that 12 hours is not enough time to get everything done, which I have a hard time hearing from the mouth of a lazy teenager. Regardless, I haven't really had much to say at all, hence the lack of emails the past few weeks.
 
I've done my best to make friends, have fun, feel the spirit, and work hard. After a little over a month in Texas I am confident in saying that I've gotten into the groove of being a missionary. We've been working hard on finding more people to teach and have been working on setting up a ward mission plan alongside our newly made family history plan. We're still working at it and are praying for the best.
 
Aside from that, I technically am allowed to knock some doors! We are able to check up on inactive members or people who have been taught by the missionaries if they first don't respond via text or call. I've knocked a lot of those doors and have had plenty slammed in my face. So, I'd say I've gotten a solid taste of the classic pre-covid missionary experience.
 
This past week, Sister Schellenberg left to quarantine in the UK. She was the other German missionary in my zone and was also out just a few weeks longer than me. I'm optimistic about heading to Germany soon, but it could be before December or well into next year. It's hard to tell.
 
My other big highlight was finding out that the Elders Quorum president in our ward has a two-seater plane in a trailer on his driveway. The wings fold up, and it has a giant parachute in the back to safely stop / land the plane during an emergency. He told us how he sometimes flies it when his kids are at school between the days he has to fly for work.
 
So that was my little captain's log, but I wanted to leave off with one small message. This Friday, President Nelson will be sharing "A Message of Hope and Healing" live around 11 AM MST. I encourage you to tune in, and I hope his message brings some comfort and peace into the hectic world we seem to live in.
 
See you next time!
 
Elder Wilhelm

​Hello again!
 
Man, time moves quickly. It's been about 4 weeks since I came out to Fort Worth, Texas. These past two weeks have been focused on exchanges, service, and a little bit of finding. My companion is the district leader and as a result I go on exchanges twice a week.
 
Last Wednesday, I went on exchanges with Elder Edwards, who was originally assigned to Thailand. We spent most of our afternoon helping a member build the foundation for a small patio in their backyard. He lives with another companionship, where I got to meet Elder Fake. As it turns out, the both of us grew up on the same street over a decade ago when we lived in Dupont, Washington. 
 
Last Saturday on my exchange with Elder Hawkes, we also had the opportunity to go to a service project. It was a short one involving hauling wood next to a lake. While out by the lake we saw all sorts of enormous insects, and Elder Hawkes even caught a big grasshopper bigger than my pointer finger. And most recently, I went on exchanges with Elder Hunt. A member called us at 9:30am asking if we could come help them with a project on a ranch. All the other missionaries in our district already planned to go to another service project, so we decided to go to the ranch instead. The members there were super nice, but we spent over 7 hours doing service at this ranch. We cut down trees, cut and hauled the logs through creeks, and shoveled an unholy amount of dirt. It was tiring but really rewarding to ourselves and helpful to the members who needed it.
 
Last p-day I got our district permission to go to a store called "House of Blades." As the name implies, there were a ton of awesome bladed tools and weapons for us to look at. I got to hold a katana from the walking dead, which was really awesome. I like knives a lot, and we spent hours browsing through the different items for sale at the shop. I ended up buying a Karam bit, which has a curved blade that looks like a talon. I bought it because I've often needed a knife during service projects, and it feels pretty sick to twirl it around.
 
Other than that, we don't have plans for our p-day today so we're just relaxing at the apartment. I might go on a walk or something, who knows. I also recently received an email about gathering documents for my visa, and now the next step is waiting for my mission president to get a call about when I am to go to Germany. That call could come now, it could come next year, who knows. All I know is that I'm excited to have the opportunity to eventually go to Germany, and I'm doing my best to have a great time in Texas! 
 
Yesterday I had the opportunity to give a talk in the ward I'm serving in. My talk revolved around these five steps anybody should take to be missionaries in our own capacity: 
 
First, Draw closer to God
Second, Strive to be disciples of Christ
Third, Love others; be a good neighbor
Fourth, Share what is in your heart
And Finally, Trust in the Lord to work his miracles.
 
I wish you all the best!
 
Elder Wilhelm

Hello again!
 
I had a fairly uneventful, but good second week. It went by super-fast, so fast that I forgot to write this email on P-day. It's ok, as there's a little more for me to write about since we've gone through most of the week. This past Friday, I had the pleasure of attending a baptism. The baptism was for two children of the same family. It was a really neat experience to watch the father baptize his kids. 
Me and my companion were also able to participate in the laying on of hands to give those kids the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was my first time participating in such an ordinance, and naturally it was kind of exciting. 
 
Me and Elder John live in an apartment with 2 other missionaries. However, one of those missionaries had to go home last week, so now we are in a trio covering two wards. As a result, last week was pretty busy as we had to mesh our schedules together. Not only that, we are getting 35 new missionaries next week, so we are getting ready to potentially split up or have more missionaries in our apartment. 

P-day in Texas hasn't been too eventful. To be completely honest, our district only really sits at the church building all day and plays frisbee or basketball, which is not quite up my alley. But that's alright, it's still fun to hang out with the other missionaries. However, one great thing I did this P-day was go to the local Daiso: a Japanese sort of convenience store. I bought a lot of treats I used to get when our family lived in Japan. It was a breath of fresh air for me. On my most recent P-day, we had a fun time carving pumpkins and hanging out at Cabellas. My district is filled with lovely people, and I'm grateful to get to know them more every day. 
 
I meant to write more for my second and third week, but to be truthful it's slow going here in Texas. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of stories from the relentless attempts at bible bashing to simply odd things I've seen throughout my day. The work is going slow in my zone, and at times it feels like I'm sitting here waiting for somebody to ask about the gospel.
 
In light of this, the talk given this last conference titled: "God Will Do Something Unimaginable" by Dieter F. Uchtdorf resonates with me. One of my favorite quotes from the talk was "Perhaps we were still building with sandstone when granite was already available." While he was referring to something else in the talk, one way I look at this is to not be complacent with where we are when we can do more to reach our destination. Although it has felt as if I have done all that I can to further the work, upon reflection I have noticed that I was building my foundation out of sandstone. I took 10 minutes tonight to think and look at what more I could do to further my missionary purpose and was able to find more than 5 things I could do right now. It's great to know I can do more, even if I may not see success immediately. If we take a moment to take a step back and ask, "what more can I do?" we'll be able to build foundations of granite that will carry us to our goals and beyond. I know I have a long road to travel, and much more foundation to build, but I encourage everybody reading this to not be complacent with "good enough." 

Ich wünsche dir alles erdenklich Gute!

​Elder Wilhelm

​Howdy!
 
I've just finished my first week on a mission in Fort Worth Texas. It was a blast, and if there's anything I've learned: southern hospitality is real, and I love it. A lot of events occurred throughout the week, many of them happening on the first day.
 
After landing in Fort Worth, I got to meet plenty of wonderful people. I met the mission president, some of the other missionaries, and my companion: Elder John. It turns out that Elder John is from monument Colorado and is in the same stake as me back home. We never knew each other beforehand, but it's crazy to think of how small a world this is. Just minutes after meeting Elder John, and a few short hours after landing, we met our first street contact. His name is Lamar and his car broke down. He wasn't quite able to pay for a tow, so we helped him out with the difference and told him a little bit about our church and gave him a Book of Mormon. It was an interesting encounter to say the least. Shortly after, we met Elder John's old zone at a Mexican restaurant called Rosa's. Although the food was honestly mediocre, it was great to meet a bunch of new missionaries, even if I won't see them for at least 6 weeks as they aren't in the zone me and Elder John are assigned to. Not much else happened that day, except for driving dozens of miles in a cramped car to move into our new zone, trying to figure out how to communicate with the sisters who had the SIM card we needed (they are in quarantine for covid), moving in, dealing with a power outage, finding out that we didn't even have mattresses, and some other events. It was a fairly interesting day to say the least.
 
On Thursday we were able to help a member begin to replace the floor of the second story of his deck on the lake behind his house. There were huge hornets about the size of my thumb flying around, which was super crazy to see. He supplied us with huge cans of some very intense hornet/wasp killer, which is quite literally acid. I mean I saw a hornet start melting a bit when I sprayed it with a generous helping of the hornet killer. While one of the missionaries attempted to kill a flying hornet with this spray, the wind blew it onto my arms which prompted a leap into the lake and a lot of scrubbing. Besides that event, it was a great project, and I was glad to help. 
 
So those are my two stories for the week, as random as they were. Me and Elder John have been able to become more acquainted with each other, and he's been a great trainer. We keep each other motivated to stay on task and stay focused on our missionary purpose. When we have time, we either sit by the pool at our complex or go to the lounge room which has a pool table and some other games. We really lucked out with the apartment situation, so I'm taking full advantage of this, as it's all downhill from here. 
 
I hope to have more stories to tell this upcoming week that don't involve getting sprayed with acid. While I haven't had too many spiritual experiences. I want to challenge you all to do these: love your neighbor; be a kind soul amidst the struggles the world is facing. 
 
Stay safe and have a wonderful week!
 
Elder Wilhelm

​It was a bittersweet morning as we said goodbye to Andrew at the Colorado Springs airport where he was boarding a plane to head to Ft. Worth, TX for his first missionary assignment. He was pretty calm and collected but I could tell that he was nervous about what he was heading into. Since I had already said goodbye last month this goodbye was much easier, even though I knew that it would be the last time I would see him in 2 years. I am so proud of Andrew for his commitment to share the gospel with the people of Texas and eventually the people of Germany. I know serving a mission will bless his life.