New Area. New Companion and District Leader again

This week's email sounds like a very great and busy week.

This week's email says
"Hey friends and family.

Wow what a week we have had here in Germany. So as some of you know, I got transferred to Zwickau, a little city of about 100,000 people. There I will train and white wash the area. So on Tuesday I went down to the train station and half of the branch came to say good bye to me. It was such a humbling moment. Just to have the members there and to cry with them. It was nice.

So for the next 7 hours I sat on a train until I got down to Zwickau. My new flat is the nicest flat I've had in my whole entire mission. So during this time I stayed with other missionaries, because my trainee wasn't in Germany yet. I stayed with one of my good mission friends, Elder Schofield. Love that kid.

On Wednesday I had District Meeting with Elder Schofield's district and it was lots of fun. After DM we went and did some service for a member and I love doing service it is so much fun. We did some garden work. At the end I'll send you some pics :)

Wednesday night I took a train down to Freiberg all by myself. I'll tell you something, being by yourself as a missionary on a train is so weird haha. That night I got to be with the other trainers and also the AP's and the Mission President. It was a lot of fun. We had pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert. Wednesday evening we had a trainers conference and it was really good.

Thursday morning started off with a 40 minute jog through the country side. Was really pretty, but it was freezing cold. Having a nice hot shower was the most desirable amount missionaries this day. We had an hour long meeting inside the under construction temple and it was so beautiful to be in the baptismal room. Evening though it's not consecrated, it is still a holy place and the spirit is amazing.

We then had a temple tour by our Temple square sister Missionaries. That was really informational. Then afterwards, we found out who would be our new companion for the next 12 weeks. I was the first one to be called up, and my new companion is ...............................……Elder Green from American Fork, Utah. He is a super cool guy.

We have had so much fun already. Especially getting lost in our city sorta fun. After we arrived home, we went straight out and did some solid work and then had correlation meeting with our WML (ward mission leader), who is the man!!! He is so cool.

Friday and Saturday were awesome work days. We had District Meeting. Being my second time as District Leader, I got to change a few things I didn't like from what I did the first time. Also just being a zone leader, I got to see what they expect from district leaders. So it was nice. It was really great. We have a huge district. It's 8 Elders. So I'm going to be having about 7 exchanges per transfer. So I'm pretty excited.

Being at church on Sunday was amazing. I loved it so much. The ward here is great. It's really big and the people are really friendly. They love us already, I think it's the Aussie charm :P thank goodness I'm an Aussie. Life is great tho, I'm excited for the next few weeks.

I love you all so much and wish you all a great week. Take care and until next week.
Elder Pinyon"

A reminder the photos will be uploaded onto Facebook and posted on the "Mission Photos" section of this blog.

Stay Tuned.

The Relativity of Time

I really liked what Elder Pinyon's email for this week.

Here's the email:

"Several scriptures suggest that the way we perceive time on earth may not be the way time really is throughout the universe. Alma 40:8 suggests that only men measure time and that to God all time is as one day. Other scriptures suggest that all things are present before the Lord (see D&C 38:2; Moses 1:6). Verses 4–7 in section 130 suggest a similar concept, namely that past, present, and future are continually before the Lord and that time is relative to the planet on which one resides.


In the twentieth century, the field of physics began to speak about time and space in a way that may help explain these revelatory statements. Albert Einstein, in the early part of this century, developed what is known as the theory of relativity. Einstein postulated that what men had assumed were absolutes in the physical world--space, gravity, speed, motion, time--were not absolutes at all but were interrelated with each other. That is why the theory was called the theory of relativity. Physicists now agree that a person’s time reference will vary depending on his relative position in space.


According to Einstein’s theory, if a body moves at very fast speeds (those approaching the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second), that body’s time slows down in relation to the time of a body that is on earth; and for the body in motion, space contracts or shrinks. In other words, time and space are not two separate things but are interrelated. Physicists refer to this as the space-time continuum. If an astronaut were to journey out into space at speeds approaching the speed of light, though to himself all would seem perfectly normal, to someone on earth it would appear as though
his clock were ticking slower, his heart were beating slower, his metabolism operating slower, and so on.

He would actually age more slowly than would a person who remained on the earth. Though the
finite mind tends to reject such concepts, Einstein’s theory suggests that reality to us is a product of our relative position in the space-time continuum.


According to this theory, if a being achieved the speed of light, to that being all space would contract to the point that it would be “here” for him, and all time would slow down until it became “now” for him. The theory of relativity thus may suggest how, for a being of light and glory like God, all space and all time could be present. As difficult as such a concept is to understand, increasingly sophisticated experiments continue to substantiate Einstein’s theoretical description of the realities of
the universe.

Lael Woodbury, dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications at Brigham Young University, talked about man’s perception of time and God’s perception of time in an address
sponsored by the Church Educational System:

“The evidence suggests that God perceives time as we perceive space. That’s why ‘all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things’ [D&C 88:41]. Time, like space, is ‘continually before the Lord.’

“… Right now we perceive music in time as a blind man perceives form in space--sequentially. He explores with his fingers, noting form, texture, contours, rhythms. He holds each perception in his mind, one by one, carefully adding one to the other, until he synthesizes his concept of what that space object must be like. You and I don’t do that. We perceive a space object immediately.

We simply look at it, and to a certain degree we ‘know it. We do [not] go through a one-by-one, sequential, additive process. We perceive that it is, and we are able to distinguish it from any other object.

“I’m suggesting that God perceives time as instantaneously as we perceive space. For us, time is difficult. Lacking higher facility, we are as blind about time as a sightless man is about space. We perceive time in the same way that we perceive music--sequentially. We explore rhythm, pitch, amplitude, texture, theme, harmonies, parallels, and contrasts. And from our perceptions we synthesize our concept of the object or event--the musical artwork--that existed in its entirety before we began our examination of it.

“Equally complete now is each of our lives before the Lord. We explore them sequentially because we are time-blind. But the Lord, perceiving time as space, sees us as we are, not as we are becoming. We are, for him, beings without time. We are continually before him--the totality of our psyches, personalities, bodies, choices, and behaviors.”

Sent from Elder Pinyon"

Stay Tuned.

It is Better to Look Up

This week's email is powerful and great!!

Elder Pinyon said "Moin moin (that's the greeting in north Germany),

How y'all doing? I hope life is always looking up for you. Just like President Thomas S. Monson said to a brand new Seventy that was called in 2011, "what are you doing looking down there" as this seventy had going through his mind, "how can I possibly do this?" President Monson then smiled and lovingly suggested, while pointing heavenward, “It is better to look up!”

My dear friends and family, it's always better to look up. If we are only looking downwards, how can we possibly see the Lord's love that He sends to us from above? Always look up, don't be afraid to receive God's love. He will always love you.

Take care friends and family,

Elder (Jacob) Pinyon"

A friendly reminder that the photos is on the section "Mission Photos"

Stay Tuned.