THE JOY OF SERVING - LANKWITZ [ BERLIN ]

7 April, 2014

Hey Family,

I just want to start off by saying that I really love you.  So much.  I just feel so happy and content right now.  I'm just sitting in the same internet laden that I do every Preparation day, reading and emails as it goes with the routine.  But I just feel so happy. I just feel complete.  I am just so grateful for you and that I can call you my family.

Well, this week came quickly and went by just as quick.  Sister Bronson and I have almost had a week together now.  It's amazing how quickly things can change and how fast you learn how to adapt.  Sister Bronson is a sweetheart.  She is from Missouri.  She is honestly really quiet.  But I like her.  I am grateful for her patience especially, because she has put up with me leading her around Berlin, getting lost, and taking complicated routes everywhere.  It's been a good week.  :D.  LOTS  of adventure.  Buahahahaha.  

. . . I was just looking back at my earlier blog entries. . . Just read the entry from my first week in Berlin.  Ha ha I feel like I am just being emotional because I'm almost crying.  I just feel so happy and my heart just feels so full.

Oh meine gute.  General Conference.  We are so blessed and so lucky.  I loved gathering with the ward.  I loved that J*** was there.  I loved that I was sitting next to Schwester Clark during the women’s conference and that we both laughed so hard together at the jokes.  At one point there was a video shared of women singing "I am a Child of God" and my eyes just teared up.  What precious knowledge.  That was seriously the most touching and beautiful thing.  Germany is like a mixed salad.  People, culture, language, experience, color, flavor, on and on.  But I have always asked myself, why why why why why.  The thing that brings me peace though is the knowledge that God is OUR loving Heavenly Father and that WE are all His children.  The differences don't matter. 

Discipleship.  I feel like I haven't ever heard it referred to as being a burden before.  But when I look at my own mission I find it a fitting appendage to the word.  There are many faces of discipleship.  But to put it simply, I am proud to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  

Elder Russell M. Nelson reminded us to SHOW our faith.  So many talked about the necessity of DEFENDING our faith.  That is such a privilege.  

There was so much said about obedience, about love, about gratitude. 

There's a quote that President Kosak likes to use frequently from Joseph Smith.  "I have found out for myself . . ." "Ich habe für mich selbst herausgefunden . . . " The messages and testimonies shared in conference meant so much to me because I have really found out for myself.  I know for myself that God is there.  And I know for myself that Jesus Christ is the son of God.  So as I listened to people talk and bear testimony of gospel TRUTHS my heart was filled with such peace.  

I am grateful for gratitude.
"Being grateful in times of distress does not mean we are pleased with our circumstances. It does mean that through the eyes of faith we look beyond our present-day challenges.
“This is not a gratitude of the lips but of the soul. It is a gratitude that heals the heart and expands the mind.”

From my own experiences on my mission it has been so easy to turn to bitterness or to become completely enveloped by fear.  But, hey, gratitude seriously is the antidote to all of that.  And by being grateful we show our trust in God and our love to him. 

Ah, this week we seriously experienced so many miracles.  I could write a book about them.  With the couple minutes I have left I will do my best.

I felt impressed to go back to a house we had long ago given up on.  She was there.  She let us in.  We taught the lesson of the restoration.  It was the clearest I have personally ever taught as a missionary.  The Spirit was there.  At the end we invited her to be baptized after she came to a knowledge of the truth.  She said yes.  It was just incredible.

We went and visited the T*** family at the auslanderheim.  I felt impressed to give M*** Sister Hansen's old Monatskarte (monthly pass) that still had a couple weeks of use on it.  She was so happy she had tears in her eyes.  We were invited in and they gave us each a glass of coke.  They were so grateful.  We shared a couple of scriptures and I really felt love for these people.

We had a lesson with R*** fall out, but we had a member who was already there for the lesson.  Beatrice ended up doing some street contacting with us which was awesome!  She just got home from her mission a few weeks ago and I felt like things worked out how they did for a reason.  We were able to talk with her and I felt prompted to share D&C 78:18:

“ Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you;
And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along.  The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours."

 It didn't matter that we were sitting in a Döner Laden with other random Turkish people....

 Missionary work is so much more than teaching lessons and counting numbers . . . It's about being a person, about loving others, about doing what you can to help those around you.   

It's just been a good week.  I hope you are all doing well and you are happy. 

Ich liebe euch!

Sister Heidi Shelley