Sweltering in Stadthagen (Week 32)

Bückeburg schloss in our area

Bückeburg schloss

Evangelisch church also in Bückeburg

Sunday morning (perks of waking up at 6:30)

Hey fam!

This week was SO HOT. Like 35 degrees C all day with humidity. All the auslanders are used to it and the Germans just take off all their clothes or stay inside. As a missionary, neither of those are an
option so I was in survival mode all week. Ha. We drink lots of water, and eat lots of cold things (aka Eis and real ice). I also took freezing cold showers twice a day a couple times. Funny enough, we had
to run to catch almost every train this week. Thankfully it cooled down today, so hopefully the heat wave is fertig.

We met with Monika Peters, the woman who has been coming to church.  She is so sweet. She really wants to stop smoking and she asked what she has to do to be baptized into our church. So we started a stop smoking workshop (the church's SSW is AMAZING) and we made it halfway through before she realized that she would have to give up coffee for a week too. She decided she would need some time to think about that one, so we'll start again next week or when she's ready. It's going to be hard because she's smoked since she was 9 and its been 30 years but if she's willing, we are willing to help her.

We met with Herr Nicola again. He is from Romania and had met with the missionaries one other time before us. I seriously just love him. He has so much faith in God and wants to do the right things to follow Him. He told us he used to hang out with his coworkers but they drink and party and he felt that God wouldn't like that, so he stopped. We shared with him the plan of salvation and our ward missionary, Schwester Hegemann, shared her conversion story with him. He really just needs to find out for himself that what we are saying is true.

We went by on a little German woman in our ward who is 96 and can't come to church anymore. She was so precious and really loved having visitors to talk to for a while. Our bishop and his family also visit her every week, and she thinks he's an old missionary who brings by his wife and little boy. She told us that we can do the same if she's still alive when we have kids. :)

In our Sunday school class, we had a man from Bulgaria, a new sister in our ward from Taiwan (so natürlich I translated into Mandarin.. Just kidding, she speaks English too), and Schwester Rabe from
Colombia (Sister Koch tried to help h r follow along in the Principios del Evangelio manual in Spanish). Plus our German teacher and another German Schwester. Super fun.

We went by on a lot of "contacts", or people who have either met with missionaries before or have expressed interest in the past. Normally, I get tired of just walking to and from, so we klingle buildings on the way. We had a really good discussion with a man about how we can find peace in this life even when so many bad things happen. I showed him the Book of Mormon and he looked at it for a minute, but then handed it back to me and said, "this is nothing to us." It's so sad because I know that the Book of Mormon and gospel of Jesus Christ brings peace. For everyone, no matter how old or young, rich or poor, no matter what you have experienced or done wrong. I know people have
agency and can choose, but I just want to help them to see the light, so a lot of the time, I wonder if I said the right things or what I could've done differently. I know I can do things better, but as long as I am trying my best, that's all the Lord asks.

I read this quote from President Monson about the temple today: "Until you have entered the house of the Lord and have received all the blessings which await you there, you have not obtained everything the Church has to offer. The all important and crowning blessings of membership in the Church are those blessings which we receive in the temples of God." The Freiberg temple will be dedicated on Sunday, so we get to attend the dedication via satellite in our Gemeindehaus here, and we've been working on helping Schwester Heumann to come and a few other people in our ward. I am so thankful for temples and the covenants we make there. I know it is the house of the Lord and the
symbol of our membership. Anyone can go and receive those blessings if they prepare themselves to be worthy to enter the house of God, and it is the most important thing we can work towards.

I love y'all! Have a great week! Good luck with all that running!
LG
Sister Simpson

Quote of the week:
Sister Koch: "I want to title my email 'A taste of South America; The week we taught a lot of lessons and drown in sweat'"

I'm getting better at cooking (jk it is a recipe from our bishop's wife)

 the cute 96 year old German lady