Tuesday, June 20, 2017

The Path of Discipleship (Week 73)

Sister Mogensen

Sister Harlow's first Berliner

Car ride to our Essen Termin yesterday. Party!

Car ride to our Essen Termin yesterday. Party!

Hello all,

This week was good. We had interviews with President Fingerle and district meeting in Hannover. It's always fun to see other missionaries, and district meeting was awesome. We did an activity where we picked random things and had to teach a gospel principle from it, so I taught about commandments from piano.

We also had Tausch this week with Sister Mogenson and Rose. I got to go to Köthen to be with Sister Mogenson. We trained together way back in round one of Hamburg last year and it was fun to get to work with her. She is such an fantastic missionary. We ate lunch with Schwester Sickel, who is the twin sister from Schw. Winkler in Marzahn, and it was awesome. She basically bore her testimony to us the entire time, complete with quotes from General Conference and President Hinckley and tears. It was beautiful. We also taught a woman who has read all of first Nephi, and we talked about how we can find out if all the things we teach are true. We read Alma 32 with her and talked about 'testing the seed' and at the end she said she will come to church. Also, they have bikes in Köthen and i was on cloud nine riding them around. 

Back in Braunschweig, we had a 'pass off appointment' with a lady whose husband was less-active before he passed away. She was originally taught by sisters and didn't like them, and once they left, the elders have been visiting her and she loves them, so this hand-off thing will be interesting. That's basically the story of our lives here, everyone loves the elders. The ward is super excited to have us, though. We also visited a (kind-of) less-active lady, Schwester Schwarz, who is having a rough time right now, but we sang some hymns with her and read in the Book of Mormon and she was so happy. She's so cute; she tells us every Sunday how much she loves the Book of Mormon and how thankful she is to be a part of this church. We also visited Schwester Klemt and her 3 crazy kids. They were so excited for us to come over. They live far away and its hard for her to come to church without a car, but they came for the sacrament this week!  They had to leave early and the kids were really sad, but we're going back this week. 

Saturday was great! We had a ward activity: the talent show and then we all grilled together. Sister Harlow played the piano.. I didn't do anything. Sorry, Mom, I've barely touched a piano in 18 months. It was a good little show, though, and it was great to visit and eat with all the members afterwards. The Iranian brother came with his family because the Bishop's wife picked them up, and then an older couple brought them to church on Sunday! I was put in charge of helping them find scriptures in Farsi during Sunday School. The ward has really embraced them and I hope everything goes well so they can stay here. They are such awesome people and she is really interested. 

We had an eating appointment with the Luschins yesterday, which was a blast. She's from Texas and we ate tacos!

We went finding today, and we've been trying really hard to talk to everyone around us. We met this guy from Albania who speaks albanian and french, and I had a conversation with him in french, which is a huge miracle because I don't really speak french anymore. It was very basic and slow, but I could still communicate with him. He's muslim and doing Rahmahdahn (the month of fasting, which I can't spell) right now, but he was very nice and invited us to eat his dinner with him tonight. Haha. 

Anyways. It's going well here. Lots of learning, lots of growth, lots of stretching. I hope y'all had a great week.

Liebe,
eurer Schwester Simpson

I rediscovered this quote from Elder Holland this week. I want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ for the rest of my life. I am so thankful that I am here in Germany, literally wearing Christ's name, and serving Him. It is a blessing that I will always be grateful for. It's sometimes lonely and people reject you and are rude, but it will always be worth it because it is true. 

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.” And if at such a moment we can stammer out, “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee,” then He may remind us that the crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments,” Jesus said. So we have neighbors to bless, children to protect, the poor to lift up, and the truth to defend. We have wrongs to make right, truths to share, and good to do. In short, we have a life of devoted discipleship to give in demonstrating our love of the Lord. We can’t quit and we can’t go back. After an encounter with the living Son of the living God, nothing is ever again to be as it was before. The Crucifixion, Atonement, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ mark the beginning of a Christian life, not the end of it. It was this truth, this reality, that allowed a handful of Galilean fishermen-turned-again-Apostles without “a single synagogue or sword” to leave those nets a second time and go on to shape the history of the world in which we now live.'
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/the-first-great-commandment?lang=eng
We live right in the middle of town.

Köthen

Finding in a park

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