THE LORD IS LEADING US - LANGENHORN [ HAMBURG ]

Here comes the cold…..

                                                                                                    18 November, 2013

Yeah, so pretty much the cold is hitting Germany!  And I am about to turn into an icicle . . . 

This week was filled with so many hilariously funny moments I just have to start with a couple of them . . .

 Our apartment has had a really bad mold problem since I came here.  We finally got most everything cleaned up, but then the great young men in our ward got volunteered to finish it for us.

 So Tuesday evening after a long and wonderful day we returned home to welcome the young men into our tiny little wohnung!  On my miracle calendar for this day I wrote, "Young men came to the rescue, and DESTROYED our apartment!" :D Haha…

We now have paint all over our light fixture in the bathroom . . . and all over random things all over the apartment . . . and they also re-wallpapered in our bedroom and in the bathroom.  It looks like somebody took a big roll of craft paper and taped it on our wall.  It is all bubbly, all uneven, and just stuck down in random places.  haha, let's just say it adds character. We also had prepared a little dessert for them for helping us . . . And we are still discovering plates, forks, and napkins randomly stuffed in crevices in our apartment . . . Haha.  

Second thing!  Last night we went to an area and decided to knock on some doors . . . We saw so much success! Pretty much everybody we talked to invited us to come back! And we set up  three really solid appointments to bring by a book of Mormon next week.

 As we started walking back to our apartment we were surprised to see a POLIZEI car pull up right next to us, and then another follow right behind.

Before we knew it there were six police men surrounding us, who divided us up and began interrogating us.  (I am pleased to say that the man asked if we spoke German and we both said yes, so we were interrogated in ENGLISH :D).

But anyway . . . I had my bag searched . . . Yeah for scriptures and church magazines!  Ha ha... and then the policeman asked if I would carefully open up my pocket so that he could look inside.  I almost busted up laughing because we had just come from another appointment with a woman in our ward and she had given us each a Clementine and an egg for the road (raw egg ;)).  Ha ha I explained that to the police man and it made him smile... hehe.  Anyway, the story behind all this: when we were going door to door at some  apartments and Sister Darrington  had written on a couple of the bricks with her pencil as we waited.  "Jesus Loves You."and "God Lives".  Apparently somebody was a little suspicious that we were talking to people about God, and then saw her writing on the bricks, so they called the police . . . Only in Germany would they send 6 cops and two police cars for two sister missionaries who were targeted for talking about God and writing on a brick with an erasable pencil . . . They took it so serious though!  We had to pull out all of our information and documents so that they could make a report for everything.  EEk!  It wasn't really a big deal because technically we didn't do anything wrong.  

Also, who would have thought that I would be calling all the way over to Italy to trying to contact an Italian bishop?  Italian missionaries?  Italian members?  Italian everybody… trying to track down missing information about a baptism?  Definitely not me!  But it really makes me love this new member of our ward who got baptized there four months ago, went to Iran and almost got killed, and is now here desperately needing proof of his baptism . . ..This has seriously been stressing me out, but I think we got everything taken care of! 

Also, apparently I look Russian . . . We went to this apartment with pretty much all Russian people and just about everybody asked me if I was from Russia . . . Ha ha maybe I'm trying so hard to get rid of my American accent that I am sounding a little Russian :D.  It was pretty funny though, because this one guy that we were trying to tell about the Book of Mormon just stopped about every minute to ask me if I was sure I wasn't from Russia . . .

We have continued to meet with J***  a couple times this past week! (The 19 year old young man we are teaching) He is awesome!!  On Tuesday we taught him about the restoration, about Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon.

 At first he just said that it could very likely be true, but by the end of our visit he just kept on expressing more and more that he did in fact believe what we had told him.

Sister Darrington and I  both bore very sincere testimonies of the Book of Mormon and how it has personally helped us in our lives to feel peace and comfort, and to find questions to answers that we have had.  He was under the belief that the Book of Mormon couldn't really do much, but he agreed that he would read it.  Then we sent him on his way!

 We didn't talk to him for a few days and then we received a text message from him!

He told us that he had "found us" in a specific verse he had read in Moroni 7. It was a verse about angels preaching the gospel to people on earth.  (Maybe verse 30?). 

I don't know what brought more excitement, knowing that we were now being compared to angels or the fact THAT HE HAD READ IN THE BOOK OF MORMON. 

Haha definitely the second fact . . .  I was so happy for him that I was dancing around the house singing very obnoxiously . . . :)  And J***'s messages showed excitement and happiness as well.  I also told him that Moroni 10 was one of my favorite chapters as well, and he said that he would read that one as well!  

We invited J** to come to a lunch appointment with a member family on Saturday as well. He ended up canceling about an hour before but we ended up convincing him to come eventually . . .We had to wait in the freezing cold and postpone our appointment for about 45 minutes but it was OKAY.  He came!!!! :) 

When he showed up we could tell he had had a really rough time because his eyes were all swollen like he had been crying . . . and you could tell he hadn't slept very well the night before.  Poor kid.  But within seconds we got him smiling!

We had him say with us:  I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME.  It is something that I shared with Sister Darrington the day before, and something that had really helped me get through the week when I was having a rough time.

We said it a few times together as we walked to the appointment, and it really helped lighten the mood.  Ha ha, he was probably laughing because we were being such dorks.  We just walked together, smiling, laughing, and saying hi to everybody that we passed.  The appointment went really well!  ...and  the family treated him very warmly.  Afterwards we shared a video from Mormon.org https://www.lds.org/youth/video/origin?lang=eng

In reality we are all just like Joseph Smith.  We all have the same question to ask ourselves.  What is truth?  Was ist die Wahrheit?  Both Bruder and Schwester Wolf are converts to the church so they both shared their conversion stories with us.  They both spoke about the "good feelings" that they felt as they directed their lives to the Savior and were baptized members of the church.

It is such a testimony to me, that it is the SPIRIT that converts people to the gospel.  The Spirit testifies of truth and leads people to the truth.  It is these good feelings, these feelings of peace and happiness that we can identify rightfully with the Spirit.  I really can't explain it other than, I have felt the Spirit, and it is what fortifies my testimony.  That I really am a representative of Jesus Christ, and I really am doing His work here.

We met with the O*** family again!  (The Albanian family we began teaching last week) We taught the Plan of Salvation and the Spirit was so strong--there was such a peace there. This family is seriously incredible. Herr O*** had read through all of 1 Nephi and had just started 2 Nephi . . . That's almost 70 pages!  And he had shared what he had read with his family as well.  We invited them to read together every day as  a family and pray and they agreed. They are sooooooo sweet.  

Sunday, we had Herr O*** come to church as well as a young Asian man we met on the street a couple weeks ago.  Herr O*** was so cute!  He even brought his Albanisch Buch Mormon!! :)  Everybody was so welcoming to him and it really made me happy. Even L***  was excited  to be at church and  stayed for all three hours!  He has pretty much no Christian background which made it interesting . . . As we were in Sunday school talking about Families we ended up having to take a major detour to explain to him who Adam and Eve were . . . And during the sacrament we were trying to explain the meaning of the bread and the water . . . Thank goodness I brought our picture book so I could show some pictures of Christ praying and on the cross. . . I definitely take my gospel knowledge for granted . . .

Our entire mission has miracle calendars that we have been using, writing miracles every day.  Sister Darrington and I have seen so many miracles between the two of us every day and it has been incredible writing them all down.  We are seriously on fire.  We really can't explain our success other than the fact that we are just being obedient and working hard and the Lord is leading us to prepared people . . .

I am started to feel like I am in the "best two years"or something though . . . We are just having such a good time together and working so hard!  We have definitely had some challenges to work through in our companionship but these challenges have actually made us a lot stronger.  And we have definitely learned a lot from each other and with each other.  

Remember, We can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens us. 

I LOVE YOU ALL.  Thank you for your prayers and all that you do.  

Love,

Sister HEIDI Elaine Shelley