Happy Easter

Frohe Ostern!

 

On all of the screens here at the Haltestelles, it says "happy easter" in German, Polish and English, but for English they wrote "Happy Eastern" by accident, haha.

 

Oh meine gute, this week was pretty great, and it's not even over!

 

On Monday we had a big Berlin pday, so great! Sis. Szvoboda served there for 5 months so she knew the quickest ways around. We wanted to go by the Brandenburger Tor again, and to our amazement, it was the best idea ever! They had ridiculous people dressed up as random things to take pictures with them, and there was someone there dressed as Darth Vader! Of course we took pictures with him, so I have a few dorky pictures of me posing with Darth Vader in Germany. And the best part is, he said, "Guten Tag, Sisters!" He's a member! Too funny.

 

We also visited the Fernseher Tor, or just took quick pictures of it. It was a great day because there was a couple of random hip hop dancers performing that day, so I got to see some good dancing. We also went into an actual MALL but I ended up not really getting anything because shopping as a Sister is just not as fun--although I got some leggings to wear for the warmer months coming ahead so I can ride my bike in a skirt and do so modestly! Mensch.

 

It was funny because we have weekly planning and comp inventory every week, and this past week, Sis. Svoboda said to me, "sometimes I think, 'man, she's soo cool!' and then other times I think, 'man, she's SUCH a nerd!'" and I thought that was hilarious. We get along sooo well! We aren't the most perfect companionship but it's so wonderful--we are in the process of moving mountains!

 

This past week or so I've been reading through das Neue Testament and I love it! There's a lot of good stuff in there, and mensch, Paul really knows how to give good advice to missionaries, he's a hero. I have 46 more pages to go and I'm done! That's about 2-3 more personal studies!

 

The weather here has still been pretty lame-sauce. We check everyday to see if we need our raincoats or our winter coats. :P But we've been doing lots of great teaching! Mischa our investigator who went with us to General Conference has a baptism date! Sis. Szvoboda must've been pretty inspired because she asked him to be ready for May 19th, Nicholas' birthday! So we'll see if we'll both be here for that. He needs to still learn a lot more and has some kind of complex that he learns like a kid, just small chunks at a time, so we'll give him time to learn everything. But we're excited--I'm excited!

 

We were invited this week to the FHV aktivität--decorating Easter Eggs (or "Spring" eggs? That's total behindert). They showed us this traditional Sorbisch way (like a Polish/Germans somethingoranother mix down by Cottbus) of decorating eggs with hot wax--the activity was like, 4 hours and I managed to schaff' 2 eggs. Ridiculous but not bad! We used this little hand pump to pump out the innards of the egg from a small hole, so we have just the shell and the egg wont' stink after a while! Easter Eggs are very much serious 'bidness here.

 

Yes, Easter is a 4day weekend here, but it doesn't mean that people here are celebrating for Christ. It's sort of like the same with Christmas--many people here aren't gläubig, but they'll take the break from work and school anyway! So we'll see how that helps with our finding efforts. We will try today to go dooring and ask people if we can sing for them, mal sehen wie es geht!

 

A pretty funny story. We were in EHS and was waiting for our bus to come, and we talked to these older ladies and you could tell that they weren't really all THERE im Gehirrn, and we gave them our card and invited them to church, but they didn't know where it was, so I showed them where it was on the map and I said, "and there's the church!" and one said, "Chuuuurch? Take the card back!" and that was that. She said something else that I didn't understand and when I asked Sis. Szvoboda (thank heavens for German speaking companions) she said, "Keine Sorge, they thought we were giving them a card to a good mental institution." So yeah--that's left up to interpretation. :P

 

The thing about Easter, is that it does soften other people here like Christmas. People generally greet each other, even us with a nice "Frohe Ostern" and give each other lots of candy. WE already have quite a bit. Haha, we've already gotten two of the traditional Golden "Lindt" bunnies. I can't wait to eat them! They're the best kind of chocolate bunnies! hehe

 

We've been asked to sing this Sunday, so we will sing "Beautiful Savior" from the Primary book, and I'm playing the piano with. It's gonna be pretty good, we're excited!

 

Update on Parmeer: prayers were answered this week! In a sort of interesting sense, yes. We decided to write a really long letter to her, which we dropped off last week, and we tried waiting to give her time to call us like she said she would, but she didn't. However we found out yesterday, that she has been extremely busy with her new classes and then a new job in Berlin. She said that she was even too busy to call home, so THAT'S busy. But we set up a time to meet next week because she said she missed meeting with us! Phew! That was a relief for me, to know that okay, lack of communication is for work, not that she's upset over her family at home. I'm actually not quite sure if she's worried about her family now or not. We'll find out next week. But a lot of my worries were laid to rest.

 

This week we had a really cool lesson with Hans, an older investigator. We meet him at the Altesheim, but when we got there they said he was sent to the hospital and we went directly there to visit him, since it was Good Friday, and we thought we should still try and visit him and teach him--everyone likes visits in the hospital! It turns out he really really appreciated it and wasn't expecting us to make it, so he was touched. He shared with us that he thought it was for a specific reason that he met us, because he usually likes going out on Sunday walks, and he explained his route that he normally takes...and he said the Sunday we met him was like the first time in like a year he decided to go a different way. Talk about amazing! The Lord promises to help either put people in our paths, or us in the paths of others, and this was a testimony to me, that he, like always, keeps his promises. "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time." Colossians 4:5

 

Was noch? I got some updates from Sis. Anderson still working in Cottbus--a lady that I helped teach on Sundays was baptized a few weeks ago! Her husband is already a member and he was most suprised of all to hear that she wanted to be baptized--so in a year they can go to the temple. :) Also, apparantly Frau Baruck who was the 5 yr. "evige Untersucherin" tried driving herself to church rather than relying on her husband, and her car CAUGHT ON FIRE. Good thing she still wants to be baptized this weekend with water! Mensch. >_< So it's great to hear that good things are going on in Cottbus, and that I was able to help somehow in that cause. I can't wait to hear if a few others will say "yes to the date"--I haven't heard in a while from Anna so I might send her a postcard soon.

 

This week in general might not have been special to anyone else, but it was for me. Contact with Parmeer doesn't translate to numbers for the week, but it's a relief that someone that Golden still is golden, and that we have someone with a baptism date, and the less active members that we meet with just as aggressively as investigators are making wonderful progress--one of them just completed a week-long fast and we helped her basteln little apples with scriptures on them and she wrote her goals on them so she could see the "fruits" of her faith. She hung them on little branches she brought from her garden and by the end of the week her 5 cats had knocked over the project too frequently, but the branches had little budding leaves--a symbol of potential and a spark of faith to me. And that's really what's wonderful about Easter--no matter where we are in the year of our lives, we always have potential to do things better, to be better--we don't have to wait for New Years to make another lofty goal, we can make smaller goals today! "But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." Hebrews 11:6 I think that was the overal feel of Conference--whether we are investigators, less actives, or a normal member in between, we can always return to God ("if you feel far from God, who moved?") and ask for a "redo" a fresh start and do things right, just like in Jeffrey R. Holland's talk. Eeeek! I'm such a missionary.

 

So I think that's all I've got for now, seeing how I'm few a short days, but I highly recommend watching the new videos of Christ's life on lds.org because they're WAY different from the past movies, and pretty amazing. The Spirit definitely fills in the blanks. 

 

So I'm pretty excited for the next week--we're getting the flippin' Minis on Monday! That'll be inTENSE! We decided this week we'll be doing splits for most of the time, me with one mini and Sis. Szvoboda with the other and we'll switch off which city we'll work in--we're looking forward to lots of visits, and lots of miracles. They'll only be here for a week, thank goodness. I already told Sis. Szvoboda that I'll miss her this next week, haha. But we have to "fight" over who gets to meet with who, but we compromise pretty well (it's not mystery that I get to take the mini to meet Parmeer!!)

 

So that's the deets. I love you guys and hope Easter is super fun! Ich habe euch lieb!

 

love,

Sis. Whit