Week #24 (11-10-08)

So guess what?? I´m still in Bielefeld!! I was so sure I was going to be transferred because I have been here for 4 transfers now, but the Lord has other plans for me....it´s called 2 companions. Yep...Sister Buynak and I are still together and we have another companion coming this week. Sister Cha is her name and she is from Korea. She is 32-yrs old and is on her last transfer...so she will be dying here in Bielefeld. (That´s what we call it when someone goes home). I´m pretty sure I will be transferred the week before Christmas...which is pretty dumb. It is possible for me to stay for Christmas, but that would be 6 transfers in the same city....that´s half of my mission in my Golden City!! 5 transfers is already 7 MONTHS!! WOW!! I´m excited though!! It will be a good change and this transfer is only 5 weeks (starting Thursday) so it will go by really fast!! I love Bielefeld, but it is hard to know what to do with the same contacts, investigators and families after so many months!! I will just continue to work hard and see if I can find out why the Lord still wants me here!! :o)

This past week was good....they seem to go by so fast!! Nothing really new happened. It´s still hard to get O to meet with us. She came to church which was good...but she has still not read in the Book of Mormon. She has a total social conversion, but we are trying to work on her spiritual conversion!! She has to have the Spiritual to get baptized and the Social to stay active. Normally the Spiritual is first and we have to fight to get the Social.

We contacted a referral from a member this week...well actually 2!! The first one was super cool because we just said the name of her friend and she invited us in. We had a great talk, but she is too busy making Christmas cards to meet with us now, but she said maybe after Christmas...lol. The other didn´t have any interests, but she was really nice and we gave her our card and said she could call us if she changed her mind. I think that if I could give any advice to members of the church it would be to pray about their friends and then give the missionaries referrals. Not everyone that is referred will get baptised, but just saying the name of a member that the referral knows gives us a way better chance of getting in and teaching the lessons. The first referral kept telling us that her friend (the member) is super smart and if she thinks that this book is true then there must be something right about it. She is just too smart to be fooled into something like that. It was just cool to hear her rave about her friend and the difference that she sees in her compared to other people. I hope that it works out and even if it doesn´t this non-member has more knowledge about the church and knows she can always go to her friend with questions!! So...moral of the story....be a good example and give referrals to the missionaries. :o) We LOVE referrals!!

Frau A is good....I think. We were supposed to have an appointment with her this morning, but she changed it to tomorrow morning!! We have quite a bit to do before our new companion comes, so it will be an exciting week!!

Oh...I do have a funny story (Sorry, I´m sitting here racking my brain to know what to write. Some weeks it is a whole bunch and others not so much!!) So we were sitting on the Bahn and this drunk old man walks on....well stumbles on. He walks towards us to sit in the seat right in front of us and was about to sit down when the Bahn started to move. Well, when the Bahn moves and your still standing up most people almost fall till they grab onto a poll or something...but when someone is drunk there is no control. He fells right on top of me!! I mean full on...all weight on my body for a few seconds before my companion and I pushed him off into the seat across from us!! Then all he said was "Oh Entschuldigung"....Oh Excuse me!! It was so funny, but also really gross. Most people here in Germany smell especially the bums, but when a person is drunk and kind of bumish together....that is pretty disgusting. I wish I could bottle it up and send it to you for Christmas...just so you could smell it!! lol

Well that is all the exciting stories!!

Have a great week,
Sister Jones