"He started getting a little emotional... That made me lose a little bit of respect for him..."

Quote of the week explanation

This week we had a mission tour, and a man by the name of Elder Jörg Klebingat came. We had our zone conference on Wednesday, and Elder Klebingat was the main event, the “keynote speaker” if you will. As you may have guessed by his name, the man is German. His opening remarks to the zone conference is that we North Americans are to sensitive and care to deeply about our emotions, and therefore we shouldn't get offended if he said something that sounded rather blunt; as that is simply how German culture works. To drive the point home, he said that there was a time when he was talking to his stake partriarch in Germany and the patriarch's emotions began to show a little. And you've already read what Elder Klebingat said. Basically what I learned from the whole experience is that I must still have a small sliver of German buried in me somewhere, for I related in many ways with his sentiments on emotional outbursts. No offense.

Since we're already on the subject of the mission tour, I suppose I'll just roll straight into that.

It was incredible. I was very impressed with Elder Klebingat and his views on missionary work. He is a very work-minded individual, and he completely roasted some missionaries at various points of him speaking. I guess there has been a problem with some missionaries staying inside all day and doing very little actual missionary work. Well, they were condemned in no uncertain terms. Observe: "There is a special place in hell prepared for missionaries who stay inside reading when they should be outside working." Also, when a few Elders started complaining about how they couldn't find people with their particular language program Elder Klebingat turned to them, looked them directly in the eye and said, in effect, "why, then, my good Elders, have you been called to this mission then?" He also said a ton of really good stuff that wasn't so harsh, though. He was a very inspiring speaker, and he knew the scriptures better than anyone I've ever seen. He would ask a missionary a question, and then, based on their response, he would say a scripture that related to what they said and recite it from memory. It was insane. 

Something else that was slightly less pleasant happened that evening. It occurred as we were driving back home from zone conference. Things were going pretty smoothly; we were taking some Elders who are on bikes back to their apartment. We were driving down the road, when the stoplight turned red (as stoplights do) a ways in front of us. We were able to come to an easy, completely safe stop. The car behind us, however, did not. Lets just say, our vehicle was totaled. Thankfully, nobody was injured, but... It was more than a minor inconvenience to our evening. Both cars had to be towed. One of the senior missionaries picked us up in a car (after we had sorted our everything with the other peoples insurance and towing and such) and drove us all the way back to Oakland to get another car. Since the accident was in no way our fault, nobody got their driving privileges revoked, but it was still definitely an experience. 

Random footnote, this is the second accident that I have been involved in on my mission. Neither one has been our fault or has had any injuries, but still…

So that was all the excitement that took place on Wednesday. The rest of the week was not quite as thrilling, but it was still pretty good.

We found a few people this week that we may be able to start teaching at some point in the future, and we also have some people who we will be teaching this coming week, so that's exciting. 

We also helped a lady move. She had a ton of random stuff that we helped her organize and move, so that was pretty good.

Wow, I'm getting more and more concise in my descriptions of things. I suppose that means that you've probably gotten bored of reading this by now, so I suppose we can close off.

Bye

P.S. The temple dedication also happened, as I may have forgotten to mention. It was pretty dang good. Elder David A. Bednar (or "Dave Bednar" or "Brother Bednar" as he sometimes refers to himself as) said the dedicatory prayer, presumably since this is the temple he grew up with, having been born in Oakland. It was a great occasion, and I highly enjoyed the service. It's also great that we missionaries will now get to attend a session every quarter! 

P.P.S. Something else insane happened. I met a famous person this week. It was someone who is loved and revered the world over. A name you all undoubtedly will recognize. He opened the door, and after we introduced ourselves he said... "I am Buddha."