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| Sister Mogensen |
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| Sister Harlow's first Berliner |
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| Car ride to our Essen Termin yesterday. Party! |
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| 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
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| We live right in the middle of town. |
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| Köthen |
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| Finding in a park |
