Hallo! I hope everything is going well for everyone! This week inGermany has been a mixture of some disappointments and some amazing miracles. Let’sget right into it all!
Last P-day was particularly fun! We got to play.....beach volleyball!! Oh howthat makes my heart full! It was a blast to play with all the othermissionaries is our district. Something neat happened though while we wereplaying. A girl called over the fence and asked if anyone knew English. When weran over to her we saw that she was crying. We found out that she is 17 and ishere in Germany with her high school German class. She got lost and had beenwondering around for 2 hours, poor thing! When we found out where her hotel waswe knew we couldn’t just instruct her where to go. So, we left the volleyballmatch and me and my comp set out with Hailey on the 30 minute venture back toher hotel. Missionaries can do a lot with 30min. :) haha. We got her backgroundand she was very curious what missionaries actually do. We gave her the wholefirst lesson and sent her with a card to look at mormon.org.I have no idea what will happen with Hailey, but it was a very special 30minutes and I wish her the best in life!
District meeting on Wednesday is always a highlight for me.....but now with theother two sisters in our district, it is just a straight party. We have way toomuch fun together! We get to spend every p-day with them too, good times! Mydistrict is already really close which makes things a lot of fun. The Elders weare working with are fantastic. I have really lucked out so far!
Okay lets update you all on some of my investigators....
DORIS! Shes backkkkk! We had the joyous opportunity to return to the toxicwasteland aka Doris' apartment. We walked in and I braced myself for the smellas always; but the stench seemed to be worse than normal. I realized that everyother time I have been over to her apartment the door to the deck was open, butwith the intense rain storm that was outside, the only source of oxygen wasgone. Oh boy. Me and my companion could only stay for about 15 minutes beforeour lungs literally started burning. The mix between way too much smoke, catwho knows what, and Doris herself was far too much for us to handle. Oh how welove adventures to Doris' house :).
Melanie! She has unfortunately still not told her family, however, she is doingreally well. She is almost completely done reading the Book Of Mormon! Socrazy! She is amazing and I have no doubt that she will get baptized, she justneeds to take her time on being able to confront her family. It’s always hardwhen you set a baptismal date with someone and then have to remove it or pushit back, but I know she will make it through.
Cuong! Well this is well the major disappointing momnet of my week was. Cuongwas supposed to get baptized this week. Thursday night came around andeverything was a go, he just had to have his interview. Well after an hour and15 minutes Cuong comes out of the meeting and my District Leader comes over tous and said the dreaded words, "We have a little problem." ApparentlyCuong didn’t completely understand the Word of Wisdom. The sisters that werehere before I got here taught him that lesson. We were blown away. And Cuongwas too. He had no clue that our religion believed that alcohol and coffee werenot allowed. It is an embarrassing hole that happened as sisters weretransferred and other ones come. We had gone over the baptismal interviewquestions with him previously that week, but didn’t go into depth on everypoint. Unfortunately Cuong is leaving for Vietnam for 7 weeks and the baptismhas had to be postponed when he gets back. It was soooo incredible hard to beso close with him and have him be what we thought was so ready. However, I knoweverything happens for a reason. I know that Cuong will remain strong. It wasstill quite a heartbreak though!
Aros! Well we still have a lot to teach him but we are making progress! AfterAros accepting baptism on the first appointment, we knew we had lots to teachhim and he is taking everything so well! I still don’t know if we can have himready by June 30th but we are looking good for July.
Igor! He has been out of town the past 2 weeks but should be coming home soon.We are excited to meet with him again and I really think he is close to baptism.
Ifeanyi! We met Ifeanyi when we went to visit his roommate who ended up notbeing home. He is from Nygeria. He saw our name tags and said, "Hey I havea mormon friend on facebook! He told me I should meet with missionaries, canyou teach me?" This is every missionaries dream to hear. We have taughthim twice this week and he came to church yesterday! He is so humble and justkeeps calling us angels from god.
Well that is really all the investigators worth mentioning right now. I havenever had this low of people to teach. It has been really hard lately to findpeople who want to listen. In fact, our entire district has been struggling sowe decided to do a fast. We started the fast on Saturday afternoon and it didn’ttake long for us to see the miracle. We went out finding Saturday night andsomething insane happened. We went to this building that I have been wanting togo to for a while. We started doing doors and we made 7 new appointments in anhour and twenty minutes! 7 new appointments is our mission goal for an entireweek......and to see all of that happen in just over an hour was such amiracle! We are really hoping some solid investigators can come from all ofthis.
Germany has been going wild with the EuroCup. Soccer here is life. When thereis a game the city is honestly empty. Is it bad that I am hpoing they lose nextweek so we can get back to having people out and about to find??
My companion and I get along really well. No complaints in that department! Ithas been SO hot this week. We just walk around sweaty and gross....no wonder wehaven’t been getting new appointments! haha. I like chocolate now....yep they aren’tlying when they say this German stuff is good. Still carbonationfree.......such a miracle.
Funny stories: We were at a busy train stop and I see my companion kinda skippast me and jump on the back of some random person. She quickly noticed that itwasn’t me, jumped off in horror, and turned around with the most frantic faceto find me laughing my head off. Also, I convinced my companion to dye herhair. The box said brown....but it most definitely is now red. She isentertaining.
Spiritual thought: brace yourself it is long :)
In D&C 88:15 we read that thesoul of man includes “the spirit and the body.” President Hinckley has taughtthat we all have 3 things – 1) a spirit and 2) a body - and 3) a mind. The mindis a connection point between the two parts of our soul: the spirit child ofour Heavenly Father within us and the body, which I think of as the naturalman. Here is the quote from President Hinckley: “You have the potential tobecome anything to which you set your mind. You have a mind and a body and aspirit. With these three working together, you can walk the high road thatleads to achievement and happiness. But this will require effort and sacrificeand faith.” (Stay on the High Road, Ensign May 2004)
Good positive thinking, setting ourminds to do something, can lift our spirit and motivate us with physicalstrength to do the work. Answers to prayers come by the Holy Ghost “in yourmind and in your heart” (D&C 8:2) and then we put our whole souls, body andspirit, in motion to do it. On the other hand, negative thinking can kill thespirit and make it harder to do the work to fulfill our Purpose in life. The mindcan decide which part of the soul is in command in a particular moment. KingBenjamin taught that “the natural man is an enemy to God” unless he yields to,submits to, “the enticing’s of the Holy Spirit.” (Mosiah3:19)
Our mind is connected to our spiritand to our body and plays a key role in agency – deciding which part of us isin charge – the spirit within us or the natural man. “Wherefore, mean are freeaccording to the flesh…, to choose liberty and eternal life … or to choosecaptivity and death…. Be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life,according to the will of his Holy Spirit.” (2 Nephi 2:27-28) We need to make upour minds to be positive.
Thanks for all the love and support!Life here is amazing! Love you all!
Sister Linford
Kirche Jesu Christi
Sister Jessica Linford
Wiesen Str. 8
01277 Dresden
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