Fall is here..

HALLOOOOO!

So this week has been pretty crazy-ridiculous; since we didn't have to transfer, we tried having a super lokker Pday to rest from our labors and run full-speed into the next. It's been a while since we've had every day of the week open for planning--something amazing comes up, so we squish a lot of Termins into the other open days and gear up and go! But we love it, natürlich. 

I think I'm starting to freak out about the fact that my transfers are numbered, and Sis. Child has been helping me keep my head on straight. It doesn't bug me all the time, but I think like with everyone, I think of how everything has gone by so wicked fast and I hope that I've done my best and if I could've put more effort and love into the work, and wondering how many miracles I can cram into the last 3 transfers that I have. The weeks are going by like days, and it's like racing downhill and there's no sign of stopping!! But talking about it helps and Sis. Child doesn't let me mess around, so it's good to have her. 

Tuesday we met with Gerda, an older lady who like, wants to be baptized but has tons of things that make her nervous about it and what-not. She told us she's been having "keine Lust" to live anymore, and it freaked me OUT but apparantly she's said that before and bounced right back, but I was like, "jeez, saving lives much?!" 

But Tuesday was still pretty cool; meeting with Ingo and all. He's still trying to learn about prayer and through the course of this week, we decided, leider that he needs more time to learn before this Sunday as his baptism date. He still doesn't have a strong enough testimony of God and Christ and if you can't answer the first question, then, yeah, he needs a bit more time. But definitely still in this transfer! :) He wants to be baptised SOOO sehr, and so it seems a little weird to have to hold people back and say, "Dude, you gotta believe in Christ a little bit more if you want to follow him, but we got this, keine Sorge!" 

I also got to witness another miracle on Tuesday; this couple Familie Molina from Cuba, who's SUPER amazing have been waiting for months to find work and the husband sent out like 80 job applications (sound familiar?) and then this past week, four different people were calling him like crazy and he found something stable and amazing here in Bielefeld, and so they were so overwhelmed with gratitude and the Spirit. We've been telling them for weeks to hold on a little longer and have a little bit more faith and it paid off! Hopefully they''ll have enough money to afford the weekly trips to church again. But they made us a buttload of amazing spicy food to celebrate. For some reason, now is the time that they need a job and the Lord blessed them with renewed faith and patience. Great for General Conference just last weekend!

On Wednesday we taught Ines and Vladmir, both of which are doing great; Vladmir is getting a wee bit nervous for his Taufe and we might have to push that back, too. Blarg, Taufdatums are great, but we keep having to change them around! But it's a good problem to have, right? As long as they make it and want it. But Ines is turning 12 this week and we want to start teaching her about the temple. Her mom is also a convert and hasn't made it there yet, so we want to prepare them both for a mommy-daughter day in the temple and do baptisms, isn't that super neat??

On Thursday we taught our brotha, Frank, who's quotes are pretty much almost as good as General Conference quotes. We're pretty sure he's met with a few JWs because he was asking about the 144,000 deal and was asking what we believe and he was pretty troubled. So we talked it out, used scriptures and he was super relieved. Isn't it so unfair to think that God only has a limited number of his children that he wants to save?? He said, "See, you Sisters know your scriptures, you cannot defend the kingdom and not know the King." I cannot write a hundreth part of all the crazy-hilarious-inspiring stuff that we hear from Frank and George. :)

But Thursday was a pretty great day. I think my favorite part was trying to talk to people on the street, and I saw this couple, and was like, "I'm gonna talk to 'em!" wie IMMER! But I started talking to them and I thought I was gonna loose them and they were going to walk by, but then I just started saying as much as I could about the Book of Mormon and how it helps us rekindle our faith in God, and the man started to really listen. It was weird because as I turned to talk to them, the sun was like right in my eyes and they both looked so bright but they were like, "what should we do to have this book?" That's what eeeeeevery missionary wants to hear, of course. We gave them our card because I think they still wanted to "research" before just giving us their address, but they looked so intensely at the card and were really thinking about it. I was so full of the Spirit that it carried me off the rest of the day. It feels really good to just bear down pure testimony. 

Friday was another stacked day--just go, meet, get out, go to the next meeting, go, go, go! I love it. 

Saturday was the big Kahuna or whatever you wanna call it. Präsident Monson came into town! We rode up with Alicia and Sai--she's American married to a Fijian in the British Army and they're the COOLEST EVER. He's technically one of our investigators, even though he doesn't really know it yet. His brother is a Bishop in Fiji, though, so he knew a bit about Präs. Monson and wanted to go see him and then of course brag about it to his family. :P But we drove up to Hamburg for the big day and ended up being 1/2 hour late, but came just in time for Präs. Monson. His talk wasn't amazingly special, like expounding on doctrine or promising a flourish of new people, just a plain old, amazing talk. He said to achieve our goals we need to LISTEN (to the Spirit and those who love us), LEARN, LABOR, and LOVE. Pretty simple, but awesome! He even said, "ich liebe dich" at the end of his Ansprache and everyone was like bawling or chuckling. His presence was amazing and it pretty much caught on fire for the German members. I sorta thought, "next conference, I'll see that again in a news blurb and I'll bawl like a baby and miss my mission!" Na ja. At the end, the members swarmed up to shake his hand and everything, but all us missionaries just had a big reunion in the back so it was okay. I saw a whole bunch of Sisters and Elders I haven't seen in FOREVER--Sis. Laubaugh who served with me in Chemnitz but also a lot of other Sisters AAAAND I even saw Sis. Nelson, my MTC companion!! She got transferred to Düsseldorf and the way north part of her mission got permission to attend the Hamburg conference rather than going forever south to Frankfurt, so I got to see her totally out of surprise! It was super fantastic. Alicia and Sai of course drove us through Hamburg which is BEAUTIFUL!!! I don't know if we'll make it up there for Pday--it's 2 hours one way by train--but we drove around a bit in the fall evening air and saw all the gorgeous canals up there, and went to Bahnhof because we heard they had a KFC there. Chicken was still pretty good, but out here they don't serve the biscuits and potatoes and you know that takes a bit of the fun out of it! But Alicia was craving some legit American food so it was a win! But don't worry, I think I'll remember the canals more than the chicken, mom. :P

On Sunday we saw the last session of General Conference, so that was great; I found it interesting that so many people talked about true conversion SO much and accepting the invitation to come unto Christ (aka Taufe, Leute!) but I think that's what's gonna help us through the hard times, is the testimony and the daily acts of disciplship. You don't leave the storm shelter when you see the storm! Sounds like something George would say. I can imagine them going back to Nigeria and being the best Bischofs you've ever seen. Oh meine Mensch.

So that's the week so far! It's a lil' rainy and cold, about 13 degrees C every day. Some days we have sun and other days we don't but it's all good, my Brookstone umbrella is still in Ordnung!

Anyway, sorry if my Wishlist is a bit random, but at least on Skype I'll tell you what you got me! I haven't quite decided, but I'm narrowing it down to things that I really really want. I wanted to get a couple of soundtracks in German, but I want to know--is it possible to access German soundtracks on iTunes? If so, then it's not worth busting my butt to bring them all home, y'know? If Justin could research that for me, or something, that would be much appreciated. I hope he's got some good music for me when I get home, aka the new Step Up soundtrack! :P


Hopefully my emails are still okay; I'm starting to get into that phase where writing emails home seem a bit of a drag--not because I don't want to write, it's just like, "just another super random busy week in the neighborhood, oh and the PROPHET came!" Sort of a routine and I'd much rather just TELL you rather than whip out another frantic email. But it's all good, they'll still keep coming. 

Did I tell you that Sis. Child and I run 3x a week? Oh meine GUTE. We run for 20min each time, not too bad considering my sad experiences in gym. I think we'll reconsider when it starts to snow, but for now, it's not so bad. 

Anyway, thanks for writing! I love the updates from everyone and I have you in my prayers! Ich habe euch lieeeeeb!

--Sis. Whit