Jingle Bells!

     Hallo!! I hope you are all enjoying Christmas Eve! I wish I could be home with you all, but duty calls :).

This week has been a tad slower than normal with the Holiday buzz. Lots of our investigators are in other parts of Germany spending time with their families for Christmas. However it did not stop us from having an amazing week!

      This email is going to be shorter than normal, because I hardly have any time today, so I would like to just talk about the people that I am teaching right now.

    Mark- Wowza is all I have to say. People always say that you will know why you have been sent to the place you have when you meet a few people that you know you were meant to be there for. Mark has been added to this list and tops it. I swear we are the same person minus he is a guy. Mark is the investigator that asked to stop meeting with the elders and asked to meet with us instead because of the few lessons I taught to him in Sunday School. He has been investigating the church on and off for 6 years. He is 28 years old from Indonesia. He is one of the most genuine people you will ever meet. We meet with him nearly every day and every time I walk out of there just amazed and blown away. We have seen Mark more progress in the last few weeks working with us than any other point of his investigation. It has been such a testimony builder to watch him. We were able to bring up baptism last night and he said that he is ready :). He isnt quite ready to set a date, but he said it was important for him to get baptized before I go home. Mark is someone I came to Germany for and I am so thankful Heavenly Father has allowed me to work with him!

      Degol! I have spoken of Degol a couple of times before. He is a masters student here at the University in Rostock. It has been extremely hard to meet with Degol because he is taking...get ready for this.....50 credits!! He is crazy! He honestly gets up at 5 am and goes to bed at 1am every single day to be able to get everything done. Even though he honestly has no time to meet, he always seems to open up a tiny slot to meet with us. We had such an incredible lesson with him this last week. I cant wait to see him get baptized when he is done with this semester in February!

      Patrick and Charles- They are doing awesome! In fact, they were suppose to get baptized this Saturday. However, because they dont have enough money for the bus, they havent been able to make it to church. The only members that have cars in our branch live way too far away to be able to give them a ride. We have been trying to solve this problem for weeks, but it had proven to be more difficult than we ever thought it would be. Charles and Patrick are so ready to be baptized, but its important that they go to church at least 2 weeks before they can be baptized. Hopefully our ward can help us out a little more so we can find a solution to this problem and add some new members to this tiny branch!

      Bodo is doing fantastic! He is progressing at a fantastic rate. Bodo is another investigator that has been on and off for years with the missionaries. But we are happy to report that just as with Mark we have been honored to see more progress in the last few weeks than the entire 6 years before this. He now has the strongest testimony of the Book of Mormon and we couldnt be happier! He is still deciding when he wants to get baptized but he is so excited about it.

      William is also still doing well. He takes his time with things and there is nothing wrong with that. He is still working towards baptism and will make the plunge next transfer. He is trying so hard to read everyday and inderstand all the stories in the scriptures. He has even inviting us over for dinner the day after Christmas! We are excited!

      Anna is still doing incredible! She is loving spending time with her family who live near Berlin. We are happy for her that she is able to spend Christmas with her fambam, but we cant wait for her to come back to Rostock :). We text her often though!

      Mario- Also another investigator that has been around for years and years. I love that he has chosen the same path as Bodo and Mark and really started to make so much progress. We talked to him about Baptism last week and he said that he too would love to be baptized. We arent sure when but we left him with the commitment to pray about the when.

      I wish I had to time to tell you about all 19 of our investigators, but the clock just wont allow it today! Rostock is just full of amazing people that are ready to fully commit to this Gospel. I am going to be so sad when transfer calls come this Saturday and tell me where my new city will be. This city was rough for me at first, but has made the most amazing turn around. This truly is a city of miracles and I have learned and grown so much from being here with these people.

      I am stoked for this coming week! We have Christmas tomorrow which means skype!! WHOOO!! Also, lots of fun eating appointments, a service project at the zoo, transfer calls,  and I will be doing an exchange with my MTC companion Sister Bohne this week too! She has been struggling with training and has done a special request to president and he approved it. I am exciting to return to Langenhorn and see how the apartment is looking post fire :) haha.

      Well I love you all so much! I hope you have an incredible Christmas! Ich wünsche Ihnen ein frohes Weihnachtsfest!!

Love, Sister Linford

 

PS Dont send anything to my address this week, I will tell you next week where my new address is :)