Elder Heilmann: Adventures in Serving the Lord

Another week brought some strange firsts for Elder Heilmann.  First Transfer, first time being called names, first time being threatened, first time trying Oat milk, and more! Elder Heilmann is, well....tired.  He loves being a missionary so much and it's also exceptionally exhausting.  Transfers came and went and Elder's Tillett and Heilmann are still together in Wiesbaden.  Zone conference was delayed again.  Sister Hammon, President Hammon's wife, had a medical emergency and had to go back to America for the next 5 weeks.   The Elders are still in search of friends to connect with and teach. In one month, he has only personally found and taught one person that can be considered an investigator (or friend, as they call them).  More often than not, it's been just one time visits or meetings without any continuation or interest.  Mustafa is still not quite an investigator yet.  The Calvinistic Christian friend likes to continue having ap...

August 22nd.  Elder Heilmann wasn't able to call on the 19th and I think it was the first time I cried for missing my beautiful son.  Being able to talk to him regularly really helped stave off the sadness.  But it came crashing in when I missed his weekly call.  And then....a tender mercy.    My sister, Emily, sent me this picture with the most amazing story.   "Guess who's in our Ward?"   The Elders were invited over for dinner to this members home the evening of August 22nd.  The Elders live around the corner and down the street from this family so it was an easy walk. The group talked about homeschooling and then the Elder's asked where are all the places the family had lived before.  All the while, Elder Heilmann is thinking, "Why do these people look so familiar to me?"  The family mentioned they had most recently moved from Richmond, Virginia and so naturally Elder Heilmann asked "Do you know the Chacon's and t...

 August 16th Elder Heilmann got to call me for HIS Birthday...a day later!  It was such a fun treat.  I was in Florida visiting family and my best friend, so Elder Heilmann had the pleasure of seeing my bestie while we chatted.  It was wonderful! My bestie, Karina, is like a second mom to him so he thought that was cool to see her.  We started out our conversation with me telling him all about falling off a horse the previous morning.  It was on my mind since I was in Florida an extra day per doctors orders.  I will include the poem I wrote about the experience at the end, but first, more about Elder Heilmann. For his Birthday, Elder Heilmann gave his first talk in German in the Germany Ward.  He had written his talk already in English and had run out of time to translate it into German.  So, sitting in Sacrament mtg., he was furiously translating his English talk into German.  Evidently, the translating went well and he gave a beautiful...

    The last post was heavy!  Let's face it.  Last WEEK was heavy for Elder Heilmann.  But, in the midst of it all, he was able to share some fun little quips here and there.       On one of the first days of serving in Ahrweiler, Elder Heilmann was given a granola bar from the Government agency that was there to help feed the village and volunteers.    He realized that it had a peanut in it after he started eating it.  He didn't realize that the German word for peanut is "earth nut" or erdnuss.  He went back to the food tent and did his best to tell the agent that he had a peanut allergy so the agent gave him an entire tub of Haribo gummy snakes instead.  He got such a kick out of that!       Speaking of food he is really enjoying the cuisine in Germany but has really limited his consumption of meat.  It was making him feel a bit ill.  So instead, he is eating a lot of soups, breads...

  This past week was full of service to the people of Bad Neuenahr - Ahrweiler.  Words can't fully express the devastation that has happened in this area but I will try to share the things that Elder Heilmann was able to express of his experience there.  As for pictures he said,  it's "kind of offensive to take pictures of peoples tragedies. Mom."  He was able to write today (August 12th) as they are now back in Wiesbaden, (since last Sunday) and he said some missionaries did take pictures and I will include them here.  For a more in depth look, you can Google the town name to see pictures of the flooding and subsequent damage.    The Elders arrived on Sunday night, August 1st, and joined the other group of Elders, Sisters and emergency service members at the Youth Hostel.  He expressed that they were a very jolly group and fun to be around.  They were able to get settled in for the night before commencing in the morning on all the hard ...

Rhein and Other Service Opportunities  Elder Heilmann had quite the week! He and his companion Elder Tillett had anticipated going up North on Friday for the week to help with flood clean up but plans had to change.  Instead, they got moved to a Sunday to Sunday trip.  Hopefully that means he is there now.  Because of that though, we may not hear from him this Thursday.  The Elders that are already there serving are staying in Youth Hostels, so we just don't know what his Thursday will look like or what kind of connectivity he will have.    There is just so much to do in the flooded region.  The flooding of the Rhein was incredibly devastating for the people and the town itself.  Elder Heilmann said it was going to take many years to fix.  Some peoples homes got carried downstream and many train tracks were completely destroyed.  The work that is being done now is just chopping and breaking things up just to GET to homes....