Bodo continues to do so well! This week he officially has been coffee free for a 6 days! Woot Woot!! This was his biggest hold up, and it awesome to see him overcome it :). I love the miracles I get to see. He is trying so hard to prepare himself for his baptism.
Degol is also back from a very long vacation! We had the greatest appointment with him ever on Saturday! I was quickly reminded of how strong his spirit is and how much fun he is to teach. He will definitely go down in the books of great investigators!
There is a new name here in Rostock. HIba is a single mother from Lebanon. She is HILARIOUS. We had our first appointment with her on Wednesday night. She loved it so much that she invited us over for dinner on Friday. I will take any kind of food over German food :). Not only was the food just straight heavenly but we had a killer lesson with not only Hiba but her sister too! Her sister speaks really good English and Arabic. Hiba speaks Arabic and okay German. This definitely created a communication challenge haha. We had to say every sentence in both German and English and then sometimes they would have to talk about it in Arabic to better understand it. Whoo it was quite the headache, but the result was well worth it. We have a few more appointments with them this week and we are excited to continue to get to know them better!!
Yesterday at church, I some how got put on babysitting duty. It was during sacrament meeting and Manpreet had to go and deal with something which left me with Mahi who is 6, and Sam who is 2; and we refer to him as "monster"(for obvious reasons). Their reverence lasted all of 20 seconds. This is when my missionary bag of wonders turned into entertainment for 45 minutes! The liahona magazine became the coloring book, the highlighters the markers, with the pens and pass along cards becoming lincoln logs. We all survived.
Sadly, this week was also a week of goodbyes. Mario, one of our investigators that is working towards baptism, just informed us that he would be moving soon for work. We were so sad to hear this! We will miss teaching him a great deal! He already had looked up the church closest to him and the institute program, so no need to worry about him :). We also had to say goodbye to one of the 3 Young single adults in Rostock today :(. Olga is pretty quiet at first, but as you get to know her you come to see the biggest heart! It has been so incredible to watch her come back from inactivity to being so strong during the time I have been here.
Spiritual thought: This week during our lesson with Degol, we were teaching him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He looked at me and asked me what was the driving force for me to do the things that "we are suppose to do". He asked me how I gain the desire. It was a question that I had gotten before, but for some reason in that moment it meant more. I waited a moment and replied , "Love." It was in that moment that I resolved to give my whole heart to these people in this last week of Rostock. It got me thinking of just how powerful love is in every aspect of our lives. It brought to memory a quote by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "We are created in the image of our heavenly parents; we are God's spirit children. Therefore, we have a vast capacity for love—it is part of our spiritual heritage. What and how we love not only defines us as individuals; Love is the defining characteristic of a disciple of Christ." This week I want to show the people that I have worked with the last 6 months how much their love means to me and how much it has changed me. I want to do this, by simply loving them, and loving them more than ever before. It is a commandment to love others. And with all commandments, as we follow the Savior, He blesses us with gifts, talents, and the strength to do His will.... allowing us to go beyond our comfort zones and do things we've never before thought possible. This week to have more happiness.....simply love those around you more.
Thanks for all the love and support! I miss you all deeply! I wish you the best in the up coming week!
Sister Linford
Kirche Jesu Christi
Sister Jessica Linford
Friedrich Str. 14
18057 Rostock
Germany
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