Spaghetti!

      Here we come to the last Monday in January! I hope everyone has enjoyed their start to 2013. It has been a good month to us here in Rostock! So many miracles and amazing lessons were witnessed. Its crazy to think that I have been in this area for 5 months to the exact day! I continue to LOVE the people here every day of my life! Enough with the feelings though :), lets get to the facts, of the week that is!
     Last Pday was a great one! We went to a place called Karls. It is a giant strawberry farm but they have TONS of stuff there for families. Such as, ice skating rink, lots of giant playground equipment, stores, amazing food, animals, etc.... really the whole shebang. Along with all of that good stuff, they always have a big attraction, and right now it is a ginormous ice sculpture display. It honestly was fetching cool to see what they can do with ice! I mean I have been to the annual ice sculptures up in Midway, haha but that was kibbles and bits compared to this mammoth! All 6 of us missionaries went together and hand a grand old time!      Sister Heggeman is a woman I talked about in my last letter. She is a less active member that we have been working with and have been able to really see a transformation in her. Well it continues! She came to institute this week as well as church! Whoo, lady is going full throttle! We love it, and so does she :).      Last week, I told of my food experience with some of my African investigators. They made us a dish called FuFu. Well, after we were done they asked us to make them something from America. Me and my companion kinda laughed and said the only thing that is really American is hamburgers.....everything else is adopted from other cultures. They settled with us just making a typical dinner that we would have in American. So......we made a big ole portion of Spaghetti for the Africans! It was straight laughs!! Most of them HATED it hahaha. We had to teach them how to eat it and their faces KILLED me. We forgot our cameras that day and we were so mad, because that video would be worth some serious dollars. Oh how I love my mission!

     Another area of great news.....Manpreet is back!!!!!! My family here in Rostock has finally returned from their 5 week vacation! I have missed them so much and getting to go back over to their house on Friday just made me feel right back at home! She brought some goodies for us from India even! She wasn't able to go to church the entire time she was there, so she also loved just being able to study the scriptures together and rekindle that spiritual fire.

     Right after our appointment with Manpreet and her kids, it was time for our ward GAMENIGHT!! In the 5 months I have been here, we have never had a ward activity. That just didn't fly with me, so we have been working hard on this game night idea. I made some fliers and divided out assignments. It was a blast!!! A big success too :). This ward needs to learn just how to have fun together and how to build friendships with one another. Lots of praises were said about it at church, and this might even turn into a monthly thing!      This week as been absolutely frigid! Literally, my face peeled off it is so cold!! Both me and my comp are getting major facials from this wind.....but not in a good way. We just laugh/cry every time we reach up and feel more come off, haha oh the joys of being by the ocean!! Another funny thing that happened this week....my comp now wears a mask to bed haha. Her eyes have been burning her ever since our first transfer and I discovered she sleeps creepy with her eyes not all the way closed! ha such laughs. I have been telling her to buy a mask so that her eyes stop burning.....she finally caved! It worked like a charm I am happy to report and her burning is gone. Plus, I get to make fun of her every morning and night :). All of our investigators are doing well! I can't wait to see what continues to happen with them in the coming weeks.
     Spiritual Thought: I have no time left sadly, so once again I will just leave you with a quote. "At . . . moments of crisis and challenge, some choose to abandon faith just at the time when it most needs to be embraced. Prayer is ignored at the very hour when it needs to be intensified. Virtue is carelessly tossed aside when it needs to be cherished. God is forsaken in the all-too-human yet mistaken fear that He has forsaken us. The truth is that our only safety, our only security, our only hope is to hold fast to that which is good. As the mists of darkness gather around us, we are only lost if we choose to let go of the iron rod, which is the word of God."

Thanks for everything! Love and miss you all!

Sister Linford

Kirche Jesu Christi

Sister Jessica Linford

Friedrich Str. 14

18057 Rostock

Germany