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| Blumen |
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| Our church, from the gondola |
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| Lookout from the top of the mountain |
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| View from lookout |
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| Ich |
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| Sister Haynie and I |
Happy Birthday Naters! Also happy Mother's Day, I get to see y'all on Sunday!
I got to go on tausch with Sister Peck in Neubrandenburg. The last time I tausched with her, she was a trainee, so it was fun to see her progress. She's a fantastic missionary and I learned a lot from her. We did some finding in the rain and it was freezing cold and beautiful. The first lady we talked to was actually the sisters neighbor and super friendly and we had a great conversation with her. We almost got to help this girl who was canoeing down the river get her boat out of the water, by a guy on a bike rode by as we were running down the bridge to help and beat us to it. He was probably more helpful than we would've been.
We had interviews on Friday and the elders wanted our help, so we spent the entire day there trying to keep things quasi on time and running smoothly. We also had district meeting and made pancakes together there for district lunch. It was fun but a long day. And we didn't even get to eat burritos for cinco de mayo. Schade.
We had a hand-off lesson with a woman named Divine (pronounced "dee-veen" because she's French). She's young and looking to strengthen her relationship with her Father in Heaven and we are really excited to start teaching her. She is from somewhere in Africa and speaks French. I think Elder Ausobsky had high hopes for my French but it's pretty buried, so I don't know how well teaching in French will go. It's a good thing she's studying german.
We also met with the Labib family with the counselor in the bishopric, Bruder Ortlieb. He was able to explain the priesthood and answer their questions that they had. We're trying to help them to see the importance of reading in the Book of Mormon to find out if it's true and understand the Holy Ghost. We are starting to meet with a newish convert from the ward, Jenica. She's super awesome. We're going to start reading in the Book of Mormon together. The elders meet with her husband, but she wants to meet with us, so we're down for that. :)
So right next to our church is this huge International Garden Ausstellung (IGA) that is a big deal here in Berlin. One of the Ehepaar missionaries in our mission or stake made it so we (the Marzahn missionaries) are now a part of this religious group committee that will be doing a "treasure hunt" thing at IGA for kids to get to know things about different religions. It won't happen until July, but we all met together on Saturday to plan it (us, some catholic ladies, some Muslim ladies, a Buddhist lady and the lady in charge). We got into IGA for free (it costs 20€ and I really wanted to go) and it will be a cool opportunity. After it was planned, we used our lunch time to ride the Gondola to the lookout over Berlin. It was awesome and totally worth not actually eating lunch before we started our fast. Haha.
Sunday was awesome. The great thing testimony meeting in East Berlin is that someone always shares an incredible story about them or their parents joining the church during or after the DDR. The members here are so solid and I'm strengthened by their faith and love for the gospel. President Fingerle and his family came so he could bless Jenica's new baby, so they stayed for gospel principles, which we taught on the millennium. #nopressure. Thankfully that meant the elders were on top of their participation game. Their new convert, Johannes, received the Aaronic priesthood, which was cool. He's so awesome. After church, we sang in the ward choir and then ate with the Schröders, one of my favorite families. Bruder Schröder told me a few weeks ago that ever since sister Wilson and I went over a few months ago, he's written in his journal every day (we encouraged them to record their spiritual experiences so they don't forget them).
Anyways, so that was our week. We had some more appointments with Kira, Lydia, and another less-active sister, but I was on Tausch and missed them. Martha has kind of fallen off the face of the earth. We think she went back to Cameroon to take care of her father's funeral, so hopefully she comes back irgendwann.
One of the elders shared an experience in testimony meeting this week. They were also at the IGA meeting, and at the top of the hill was a bobsled type thing that you could take down the mountain. They got really excited and decided the 3€ and 30 minute wait was worth it. They bought the ticket and were almost up when they realized that they had to go one at a time (would be split up) and came to the conclusion that it was something they probably shouldn't do as representatives of Jesus Christ. He said that sometimes we get really excited about things that may not be straight-up bad, but that we shouldn't do. It takes humility and self-control to take a step back and make the right choice. And that's how life goes. We have commandments from someone with a perfect, heavenly perspective to help us navigate life. To quote Elder Sabin from General Conference , "it is far better to follow the Creator than the crowd." "No one has sinned tomorrow." If you've messed up today, repent. That's why Christ suffered and died for us. There is hope for us because of Him.
Love you all! Have a great week!
Sister Simpson
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