Week #39 (2-23-09)

This week has been even more amazing then last week!! MIRACLES, MIRACLES, AND MORE MIRACLES!!

Monday was P-day of course and then sadly the family that we had an appointment with that night fell out. So we made a plan to visit some inactives and guess what?? Sister Sayson got her first contact. It was so great...She stopped this guy and she started to talk to him. Well, I felt something hit the back of my shoe behind me so I turned around and it was an old lady with this rolly thing. I apologized that I was in the way and took a step forward and then she just started talking to me....that is not normal for Germans. Especially when they are older. Well, while she was talking to me Sister Sayson got this guys info and said that we would bring a book by. It was so cool!! This lady was really crazy though. She kept telling us the same things over and over again!! We ended up helping her with her bags and rolly thing..she had to catch a bus and then went on our way. I think that the lady was really confused, but we got her on the right bus!! But anyway...she got a contact!! WAHOO!! My Golden is so grown-up!! She doesn´t need a trainer!!

Then on Tuesday: We had interviews with the mission president and I talked to him about weekly goals. He has certain goals that we are supposed to reach every week...like a certain amount and I was feeling a little down because we had been setting our goals every week to the Standards of Excellence, but we just weren´t making it!! I wanted to be able to set goals and reach them and then feel good about what we did. Well, I found out that the Standards of Excellence are what we should be striving for and not necessarily what our goals need to be set at every week...it was a big AHHHH moment for me!! My comps and I have always set goals for the week at what was expected for the mission and not what was possible for us!! I was so excited to hear this!! (Later you will find out that the Lord showed me that I need to not doubt Him because it is possible to reach the standards for the mission even with out many investigators!! I was very humbled...but that comes later)
So then we went to visit a really old member that can not leave her bed. We were afraid that no one would be there to let us in, because she cannot let us in...obviously. Thankfully there was a woman there to let us in...she only come 2 times a day. Her son also lives there, but he is not always home!!

Then the Robb´s (the missionary couple in Bremen) called us and told us (well Elder Robb called) that Sister Robb was sick and he needed our help the next day to make food for the YSA. They cook a huge dinner every week for the YSA to eat after institute and sister Robb was too sick to do it. Well, we called and rearranged our schedule to help them....
....that brings us to Wednesday. I had made a mistake by moving 2 appointments to the same time thinking that I could call the other (Katharina) and change it to another day. Well, when I tried to call her I remembered that her phone was broken and so I couldn´t get ahold of her. Well, we were in a pickle!! I had no clue what to do because I really wanted to helped the Robbs because they do so much for us and ward....but I also didn´t want to call and cancel this other appointment because she is really sensitive and would be offended. Well guess what. Katharina called us and canceled because she had to go to the Doctor!! WOW...what a miracle!! I couldn´t believe it!! We still got to go to an appointment and help the Robb´s to buy groceries and cook dinner!! We also got to have our family home evening with that family that I talked about last week. Sister Sayson made this really cool board game for the second lesson for a 9 year old investigators that the Elders have (well we are sharing him) and so we tried out the game with this family!! It was really fun. We had a spiritual thought, played the game and even ate dinner together. We are going to have it again next week...the son has the lesson next week and then I have a memory game for all the commandments in the 4th lesson of preach my gospel!! It should be fun!!

Thursday we had an appointment with a contact that the Elders found...well actually she stopped them. I´m not going to go into details about what happened because I don´t want anyone to think that I am making fun of other religions. The beginning of the lesson was really good. We taught about the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. The Spirit was particularly strong when I told the first vision in his own words...no matter how many times I say it...the spirit is there!! Then the ending got really weird. I will just leave it like that. We have another appointment this week and we will see how it goes. She is our first investigator that we have gotten together!! WAHOO! We then had an eating appointment and then went to a lesson with Daniel Rust the 9 year old that the Elders teach. The family are already members and since he is older then 8 we get to teach him. We played the game and the kids had so much fun. They want us to come back and play it again. I´m so proud of Sister Sayson!! She is so creative and amazing!! So many people have told her that she should send the idea to Deseret Books and sell it...maybe after the mission!! :o) Our miracle for the day was that our Ward mission leader called us with a re feral from a lady that referred herself!! Wow...I love referrals!!

Friday was one of the best days ever!! That was the miracle that I wrote down because there was too many to write!! First when we were planning the night before we decided to do some doors in the morning before we had to take the bus to an appointment. So we looked at the Bahn that we were going to take and decided that each of us were going to choose 2 bahn stops in our minds and then say them out loud to each other and we will do door in the area that we both choose. So we both looked and thought about it and then said our choices out loud and guess what. One of them was the same!! :o) So we made plans to go there...ok...so we went there and started doing doors and no one was home and if they were they had no interest!! So I had a feeling that we should go to doors on the cross street near by, so we did. We did door after door and nothing. There was this little German lady in the window across the street watching us and I wanted to go and ring her doorbell and talk to her, but we just kept going. Finally I thought to myself..."we will just go to that door and then we will go to the other side of the street" Well we got to that door and the last bell that we rang a little Chinese girls voice came on. We told her who we were and she told us that she was baptized into the protestant church...I told he about the book of Mormon and just finished saying that it was another Testament of Jesus Christ when the door buzzed and we were let in. We walked in and she was standing in her door way waiting for us. We told her a little more about the book and she wanted to come to church on Sunday!! We were so excited!! We were totally led to her!! (She didn´t end up coming to church, but we will go by this week to visit her). We then went to an appointment with an inactive woman and then went to visit the referral because they lived in the area. Well we said who we were and invited us in. We found out that her brother is a member of the church in Russia and even went on a mission. She told him that she would inform herself about the church, but with no promises. Well we taught her about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and asked if we could come back next week and she said yes. She is really willing to learn and find out what we believe. Her husband was there as well and agreed to let us come back. She even said that she would probably invite a friend next time as well!! WAHOO!! We got 2 new investigators in one day and they are a family!! Then we went and had an appointment with Van (she is also the Elders investigator but because she is a YSA our mission Pres. wants us to teach her...so we had an appointment at a member's home and it went so well. We taught the 3rd lesson on chastity. Because she is from Vietnam it is just part of their culture to live chaste and to keep the work of wisdom!! She is so amazing!! (Sadly she called the Elders on Friday and said her mom won´t let her get baptised!! We are fasting for another miracle today!!) The reason the day was so great is because we got to see so much success and really felt lead by the Spirit!! Man, this really is the work of the Lord!!

Saturday was also a great day!! We visited a few inactives and found them home. One lady had been praying that we would come back by. She hadn´t seen the missionaries in a year!! Another lady and her family have lived in Bremen for 4 years and didn´t know that there was a ward here. Well she was so surprised to se us standing at her door. She said that 20 minutes earlier she was telling her friend on the phone that she needed a sign...and there we were on her door step. She was so happy that the Lord had answered her prayers!! She said she would come to church. (She also didn´t come to church) We got to be the answer to 2 people prayers today!! The elders also called and told us to look for a lady at church the next day who would be visiting from another city...she is a nonmember!! (She didn´t come to church)

Sunday: Well as you probably noticed from this week that we saw a lot of miracles. As missionaries we work hard all week to finally see the results of a good week by getting people to come to church. Well we had a lot of people that were supposed to come and none of them came. But I was actually ok with it. I was a little disappointed and surprised, but I was ok with it because I know that we had a great week and did a good job. We did what we could to bring people closer to Christ and this week we will work harder and get those people and more to church next week!! Also as I talked about at the beginning of the email...the lord humbled me this week....our standard of excellence for lessons each week is 15 and we got 13!! The lord proved to me that we can do it!! This week we want to get our 15!! It was such a great week and I know that the Lord is in this work...it is his!! Oh...man....it was a great week!! WOW!!

I hope that your week is full of just as many miracles...we see them everyday...sometimes we just have to look a little harder for them!!
Sister Jones