So Much Good (week 68)

Monday

Emails, shopping, grocery shopping. We ate at subway for lunch. We do this thing in our mission called "Tschüß books" which is just a book you give to people you served with and they print off pictures and write nice things in it and then at the end of your mission you just have this huge book of good memories and stuff. Anyway, so we worked on those for people we're going to see tomorrow. Then we had FHE and we played Settlers of Catan and I won, haha.

Tuesday

My last zone conference. President's last too. It was super sad and he gave everyone, even the sisters, hugs. I learned a super ton though. Really just how I can be a better missionary and make the most of my last few months so I'm ready to take on the world when I get back. Gosh the church is just plain true. It was also so good to see a lot of my friends and companions for one last time and talk to them and see how they're doing. Today was a really good day.

Wednesday

Another super good day! We made phone calls this morning to make out all of our appointments for the week. We called one of the investigators that we got from the elders who we couldn't get a hold of before. He answered, said he's still interested, and asked if we could meet...today! It only was gonna work after 8 p.m. but we told him we'd find someone to bring for a joint teach and be there. The whole day we kept asking people if they could come and they all said no. We went by on another earlier investigator and she gave us the shaft AGAIN so we're gonna give her a break. We had a little bit of extra time before we were going to eat and do language study so we decided to go out of our way to visit a less active, so we took the tram, which should have only taken like 15 minutes to get there, but ended up taking more than half an hour because of an accident or something. It was so hot and we both fell asleep, haha. Anyway this less active was home and let us right in!! We talked and shared a short message before we were on our way again. We got subway on our way to the church and ate really fast before seminary and choir. We had asked the choir director, Sister Mitte, if she could come to the lesson with us and last minute it ended up working! Oh my gosh this guy is so solid. His name is "J". He is super interested in faith and wants to develop it and said that our religion is the one religion that he's researched (and there's not a few of them) that really speaks to him. My companion and I both said that we haven't felt the spirit like that in a lesson for a really long time. At one point in the lesson, my companion got to describe her conversion story and he just sat there, riveted. After she finished, he said, "see, that really touched/moved me. I need this feeling with me all the time." He is so ready and so willing to keep his commitments and try it out and exercise his faith and come to church and dig deep. He promised he'd come to church and we made out a new appointment. I'm excited to see where this goes.

Thursday

Soup kitchen. We were sitting down eating when one of the men asked if he could sit by us so we told him that of course he could. We started talking to him and asked him if we was religious and he told us that he had been baptized into our church but had stopped coming a long time ago. We totally didn't believe him. People pull our legs all the time and the people at the soup kitchen aren't the most... I'll say normal. At this point my companion started working again and I kept talking to this man and eventually got his address so we could visit him! He said we were welcome to come over for a visit! How crazy is that?! Later in the day we looked at the ward list and this guy is totally on it but he moved and they didn't know where. We found a lost member! I'm still really amazed that this even happened. We'll see where this goes! We visited sister Schröter, went by on a less active, talked to people on the street, and taught "D" German.

Friday

Weekly planning. We got a referral from Leipzig today. We went to another appointment with an old investigator of the elders. She's the mom of a 9 year old girl in our ward who got baptized about a year ago and the mom also took the discussions in a roundabout way as the daughter was being taught. She said it's a bad time to start learning again but we shared a video anyway and we had such a good time that she invited us over for lunch next week! Her name is "D" and she's from Africa. Whoot! Then we went by on a less active that wasn't home. There was a RS activity that we went to and we basically just ate and then cut out stuff for a primary thing the rest of the time, haha. We had an eating appointment with the Abass's, an African family in the ward, and it was great and a lot of fun. Their home teacher was there too which is great because the members here are [working on getting better] with home teaching, haha... We ate African fried rice and had a spiritual thought. Another great day.

Saturday

We finally got a French speaking joint teach for "D" and we went through the baptismal interview questions and cleared some things up. He will be getting baptized on July 4th, :) super exciting!! We had nothing planned for the rest of the day which meant... Dooring. It was 90 degrees outside. We were out there for hours. And we were fasting, which meant no water. Honestly I'm surprised we survived, haha. People were pretty nice though but had no interest. We talked to one man for probably 25 minutes on his step and he just kept asking really good questions and I guess we gave pretty good answers cause he kept talking, haha. We came home and did area book work and I called a bazillion people cause my companion fell asleep. No luck.

Sunday

We had to leave early to pick up Destiny (the 9 year old member who's mom we visited this week) cause the elders used to do that but now it's our job. She had already been picked up when we got there. We had church and only "D" came—that means "J" didn't show. BUMMER. Huge huge bummer. But we got another referral today!! A friend of the Abass family we visited came to church and Brother Abass hooked us up, haha. Then we had an eating appointment and we just played with their kids for a while, haha. They have 5 kids under 8—two sets of twins and one normal, haha. They are so cute and so energetic, haha. Our investigator appointment fell out today so we went by on people (and ended up seeing this investigator on the way, ha) and ended the day with our studies.

Such a good week! We have one baptism on the way, "J" who's solid, two referrals, an old investigator, a less active woman, and a lost member. Pretty successful week if you ask me. This all goes to show that the Lord blesses us in our efforts and wants to see us try a little more and be a little better.

I know that God lives! I know that He's my Father and friend. I love Him and His Son and His work.

8 weeks.

Sister Seamons

I hear this is the 2nd biggest clock tower in Europe.
Second to Big Ben? Someone do their research on that.