This was a pretty good week! We've been having quite a bit of fun and have
been staying busy and productive all the while. Although a few things happened
this week that jammed up our schedules. We had to wait four hours at a
registration building on Tuesday to start the process for my Visa. It felt like
the DMV. The rest of the day was a bit messed up as a result, but other than
that, things have seemed to be going pretty smoothly this week!
Also, it's WAY HOTTER HERE than I ever expected for right now. I've been
dying a little all week. Germans typically don't have any air
conditioning because it usually doesn't get hot, so it's been a bit rough. I
know why I didn't get sent to South America now, haha! Just kidding. It's not
too bad, but I'm excited for the inevitable winter freezing.
We have a few investigators that I believe are making good progress,
according to my companion and from what I've seen so far. Our progressing
investigators are all ones that have been progressing long before I arrived, so
I haven't been able to see their full change, but I'm sure I'll get plenty of
opportunities to see that in the next little while! One couple we have, Vincent
and Petra, have been investigating for months, and have been on board for
baptism for a long time. It's taken a bit of time to get them fully ready, but
they now have a baptismal date set for early September, and we're all super
happy about that! They're both very kind with me and patient with my currently...beautiful...German. We also have another couple, Hugo and Lily, who
both speak English. They're both very kind as well, and we're trying to get
them to feel fully ready for baptism. They want to, but in the words of Hugo,
he feels like he needs to "earn his baptism" by biking 1500 kilometers before he
is baptized. They say that they really just aren't fully ready yet, but they're
very open to having us over, and are doing their best to prepare themselves.
I'm hoping and praying for them!
We got three new potential investigators this week--all within the span of
forty minutes, actually. We were tracting for quite a while one of these last
days with no luck, and we had no luck finding prior to that. I said a quick
prayer in my heart to help us to find people who were interested, and the
apartment complex we visited right after had three people, back to back to back,
who all were interested in accepting Book of Mormons, giving us their phone
numbers, and accepting lessons to be taught this upcoming week on various days!
That was super cool! One lady was a pretty devout Catholic, she said, and
wasn't interested at first, but as we continued to talk about the Book of
Mormon, her eyes lit up and she seemed to pretty excited about it! We really
have a good feeling about her, and I'm hoping this one specifically works
out!
The language is...going, but there are several difficult things about it
right now. Since I'm still super new, my sentence structure falls apart at
times, and people have just sort-of raised their eyebrows at me and look
straight back at my companion to do "damage control" after I make an attempt at
speaking. I expected it to happen like this a bit at the start, naturally, but
it's hard right now to really practice the language because I'm just not really
reliable to communicate in most circumstances right now. And it's still hard to
understand people. Still, though, I think I am making progress even if I'm not
practicing as much as I'd like with actual people! I got much more out of our
sacrament meeting this week and that got me a bit excited. I still only picked
up like 30% of what was being said, but oh well! I also got a document
full of the 4000 most commonly used German words, which compose about 98% of
spoken German, so I hear, and I'm about 200 words into the first 2000, which
compose a supposed 95% of spoken German. Since I've started studying that, my
comprehension has increase much more, I believe! I would say that overall, the
language is coming along just about how I expected--perhaps a bit better. I
just need to practice speaking it casually much more.
I found a bit of interesting scripture passages about missionary work in
The Book of Mormon this week. One that stuck out to me was in Jacob 1:19, which
says:
"And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the
responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did
not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with
our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood
would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last
day.
I don't think I have fully realized yet just how significant missionary
work is to this world and all who live in it. I'm sure that this realization
will come as my mission progresses, but this scripture really emphasizes the
sanctity of our calling. Sometimes we forget how blessed we are to have access
to the full and restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and may forget how precious
even the truth that we consider "basic" or "simple" is to those unfamiliar to
it. I know I have in the past, and sometimes now. But this gospel makes us so
genuinely happy, and the truths in The Book of Mormon bless us so much, that we
should feel obligated by God to provide all means necessary to teach and share
this message of joy. We won't force anyone to accept our message. We don't
want to, because that is the opposite of everything we believe to be right in
this existence. But we need to do all we can to let them know what great choice
is available, and when we give them the opportunity to accept this gospel, and
to do all we can to invite the testimony of the Holy Ghost, we've done our job.
That's what I'm here to do. Sorry if I just wrote way too much. I'm
compensating for how much I'm unable to talk in our lessons for the time
being.
That's the update for this week! Thanks for your love, support, and
prayers! I miss you all! I'll keep you updated on all the happenings over
here!
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