SO MANY MIRACLES!! - LANGENHORN [ HAMBURG ]

The Best Monday ever!!! An amazing email from Heidi and finally LOTS of pictures. I'll post the rest of the pictures on another post.

December 1, 2013

I don’t have a ton of time left to write and so many miracles happened this week I just don’t know where to start!!

Last week . . . going through our area book  from 2006.  It had an address on it  . . . After being in an area and having no success, we prayed and I felt like we should go to the street but I didn’t have the address.  Sister Darrington responded that she had wrote it down that morning.  She didn’t know why but she just did.

We went to the address . . . We went there for our first appointment this week . . . It was amazing!  She really wants to learn more about the church and have us teach her whole family.  She told us about their son who is only 5 but who is really spiritually gifted.  Apparently he wakes up a lot of the time and just speaks in a language that nobody can understands.  When asked, he just says that only God can understand.  And everything this little boy does, he tries to do it in line with God’s will.  That is pretty incredible isn’t it??  They (Ev***,E***’s ex wife, and Er**,Ev***’s brother) were really excited about church.  We gave them a pamphlet for the restoration lesson and Er*** read through almost the whole thing while we were still there and talking.  We also talked about the book of Mormon and shared our personal testimonies.  They were so excited about everything!!  They want to meet with us twice a week every week. 

 And… before leaving, Er*** asked us if he could be baptized!! 

 We told him that he could!  And that after they met with us even more and learned more, the baptism would become a more significant and important thing to them, and that their desire to be baptized would get even bigger.

 Ev*** excitedly explained that she wanted the entire family to be baptized!  

 Thanksgiving coincidentally landed on District meeting day and so we were lucky enough to have a full course thanksgiving dinner!  Even though I really really really really missed our family it was nice to be with my district family.  We all sat around and were able to say something that we were grateful for.  Sister Nuttall and Elder Nuttall were so sweet and just started bawling at the head of the table. Can I just say to you all how grateful I am for our family??  I miss you all so much.  Being away makes me realize how blessed I am.

That same day we met with a woman named L***.  She was a referral we received a while back.  We were able to introduce her to the Book of Mormon and teach a little bit from the first discussion.  I was able to quote Joseph Smiths experience in the sacred grove as he saw God and Jesus Christ.  I felt the Spirit so strong as I did so.  There was such a peace in the room.  After speaking with her we asked her how she was feeling.  She described the feeling in her heart as a warm, good feeling.  She told us she had never felt it before.

SHE WAS FEELING THE SPIRIT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE.

 We testified of the power of the Spirit and I just felt like crying.  This is what she has been looking for in her life, and she is just barely realizing it.  

We met with Ab*** on Friday. This is only the second time since Sister Darrington came here!  It was actually really nice how it worked out because we had herbal tea, crackers, and apples and we just met in the church kitchen and talked, bore testimony, talked, bore testimony, and strengthened each other.

 He is having such a rough time right now.  But this visit helped pump him up just like it always does.

He brought his pocket size Bible and I found a few verses and read them out loud to him in French Ü. 

I still find it incredible his motivation and dedication to living as a member of the church. People are constantly tearing him down in his belief and he is constantly being tempted to break the personal commitment he has to himself and to God.  But he knows that this is the right, and he knows it is what he wants.

He needs to go to Italy in the next few weeks to renew his papers.When he leaves there is a good chance that I might not ever get to see him again :((.  But we talked about getting together on Christmas and making fufu again since we are both away from family at this time . . . It was good to see him smile when he left.

Sunday A*** came to church!  It was testimony meeting and she was sitting next to me.  I had really felt like I needed to go up and bear my testimony but I was just scared.  She asked me if I was going to go up there, and that was all I needed.  She told me that she wanted to hear my testimony.  So I went up there, bore my testimony in German, started crying, saw her smiling in the back, and I was just so happy ÜÜ.  I sat back down by her and she just kept on saying, thank you sister!  thank you sister!  

The miracle story about the kitchen cabinet . . . I was in the kitchen and I opened up the cabinet to get something out.  I heard a funny sound, so I closed and reopened the cabinet.

Before I knew it the entire kitchen cabinet came off the wall, and there was an enormous explosion as all of the glass dishes, pans, cups, etc went crashing everywhere.  I should have been crushed under this enormous cabinet, but somehow I was able to be completely at the window as it came crashing.

And the physics just don’t match up… the cabinet landed in the hallway as if it was pushed out of the way or something.

There were pieces of glass all over our kitchen, but somehow I was not hurt in any way.  And also, our walls are super thin and the wall that the cabinet should have fallen  through is exactly where Sister Darrington was sitting . . .

 So whether it was God, his angels, or just chance...  I really felt like God was watching over and protecting his sisters here in Langenhorn. 

 I was so shaken up after, but the first thing we did was said a prayer thanking God that I was alright.

                      This is from the miracle story of me almost dying in the kitchen . . .

We also invited S*** to be baptized this week!  She still hasn’t agreed to a specific date but she knows that she needs to be baptized. We watched her pace all around her apartment as she thought long and hard about it.  The Spirit is working on her ;).  She ended up asking sister Darrington and I if we could just baptize her in her bathtub.  We had a good chat about priesthood authority and the significance of the baptism . . . ÜÜ

Well, I hope you all have a good week!

Love you all!!!!!!!!!

Heidi and her new companion, Sister Darrington

                             

Heidi and her companion fixing the mold problem in their bathroom.

Freezing our tootsies off as we waited 45 minutes for J***....I put my mittens on my feet and then sweet Sister Darrington ended up taking off her wool socks to give to me.  The love of a companion...