Miracles (Week 21)

Hey family and friends!

This week was CRAZY, but c'est la vie. We are doing great. Sister Fulton is super solid and I love serving with her. We are good friends and get along really well.

We helped a lady in our ward with family history.. Again. She is from Haiti and their records are not very good. She'll probably have to go to Haiti for everything, but we put her mom into family search, and she can be baptized for her when the temple reopens! She made us Haitian lunch: fish, rice, avocado, and it was delicious! Schwester König is literally the cutest person ever.

The Junge Damen (young women) asked us to come pass our fliers for the ward Sommerfest with them. We went door to door on the road of the church and passed out invites. We had 2 girls with us and it was SO FUN. They were so excited and people literally could not say no to them. I wish they'd come with us all the time. :)

At Zone Conference a few weeks ago, Elder Adler promised if we did 7 things, we would see success in the next month. So we reread them and started to focus on doing these things. (Deciding to be joyful every day, praying to find your investigator a friend for church, etc). The next day, in the span of 2 hours, we talked to 3 separate African guys who recognized us and knew about the church. It is pretty rare that anyone talks to us first, and I know that God was showing us that He is prepared to keep His promise if we do our part. (One of them complimented us on our English. I think he thought we were German.)

We've been seeing blessings all week.

Another random tender mercy. We were buying cookies at your typical Deutsch chain restaurant, and the man said, "ah, Sisters!" and gave us an extra cookie.

We went finding with our Elders again. I guess Elder Pilling/Sister Fulton were talking to a Turkish guy who only spoke Turkish and Italian. They ordered him a Book of Mormon and at the end he said, "Grazi" and Elder Pilling said "de nada". Haha, wrong language.

We got to go to a piano concert at the Stake building. It was not a proselyting event, but the guy in charge wanted some missionaries to be there, so we listened to Ukrainian Vasyl Kotys for 2 hours. He was incredibly talented.. Also very expressive. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It also ended late so we got to sleepover with the sisters there.

We helped a less-active woman in our ward "renovate", and it was good to serve. We called her earlier in the week and she said, "Sisters, I actually was going to call you and ask for help, but I didn't have your number!" We had 4 appointments on Saturday and all of them fell out. We took a nice long walk through the German countryside from one appointment to the next, so that was nice. (This is my place). We rescheduled with Abraham and met with him the next day.. He told us that he doesn't really believe in God. We asked him to do an experiment and read a chapter in the Book of Mormon and pray to God, and promised him that if he does that, he will know that God is there.

We missed the bus to church, which I was super grouchy about (it comes every 40 minutes so we were basically going to be super late). But we took the bahn and found another bus and ran into some members from Utah who are backpacking through Europe and trying to make it to church, we we showed them. Also, we made it right at 8:57. That was a hug tender mercy. Church was awesome. We finally got a new bishop. He invited TONS of less actives to church, so everyone but us knew who the next bishop was.. Haha. We normally have 70-80 people, but yesterday there were 120! The chapel was packed and it was fantastic. Also, a random man heard about our church from a friend and just showed up, so that was awesome!

The Euro cup started this weekend for Fußball, so all the German cars have German flags everywhere. It is awesome. They played their first game last night. How do I know they won? I heard fireworks at 10:50 last night while I was trying to go to sleep. Haha.

We met with the Helen Mensah (from our area book) again and taught the first lesson. She is super sweet and we are excited to teach her. Also, we met with Frau Byo and answered a few questions she had. She hurt her foot so she couldn't come this week, but she said she will come on Sunday! (If you want to, pray that she comes and has a good experience!) We didn't meet with Peggy because she was busy/out of town, but we have an appointment for this week.

I love the gospel and I love sharing it with people. God is teaching me so much, and I can truly see His hand in my life everyday. Jesus Christ is the source of happiness and light in our lives.
I love you all! Have a great week!
Sister Simpson

P.s. We ran 3 mornings this week, and ended up running/walking significantly on the other two days... Sister Fulton called it "hell week". She hates morgen sport but loves me, so she went running. How nice it that?