February 24: Welcome to Berlin!!!!!!

How much do I love my life right now?

Okay so being a missionary is great all the time, don't get me wrong, but imagine being a missionary with one of your greatest friends in the greatest city on earth.

I'm pretty sure the exponential intensity of that can't really be described, but I am going to try to explain some awesome things that happened this week.

So Monday was last week. I swear. I wake up on P day and remember that I was just barely at emails... Even though it was a week ago. But we spent the rest of the day packing, getting everything ready to go, and visiting Elder Brereton in the hospital. (He's out now! And doing good.)

Tuesday though.... Was rough slash awesome slash suuuuuper tiring.

The majority of the day I was shuttling sisters around the Leipzig hauptbahnhof getting them to their different destinations, picked up a sister who was going to stay in Berlin with me and Sister Sykes until she picked up her golden and went back to Zwickau with her and got on what was basically the longest train ride of my life.

Sister Meyer made it super enjoyable, though. She's a doll.

So we pull into the Berlin Hauptbahnhof and get off the train...

Because our train was late, Sister Sykes was already there with our district leader, Elder Breitenstein and his new comp. Elder Miller.

You should have seen our embrace. Seriously though. It was so violent and awesome that Sister Sykes walked away with a battle scar. Haha her earring ended up stabbing her and she was bleeding for a good while afterwards. All is good in Zion, however. She lives, her ear is not mutilated and we got to our apartment safely.

Thank goodness for Elder Breitenstein, that saint. He carried basically half of our luggage up 5 flights of stairs by himself..

The next few days we ended up getting everything ready with the apartment - cleaning, reorganizing, stuff like that.

A whitewash is not necessarily opening a program. There was an existing program there, but it just means that both of the missionaries are brand new in the area. So there is no one there to show us the ropes... Which is really exciting actually because we get to explore all over the place.

And have some really cool and awkward experiences!

So, we had a few lessons lined up at the church the other day... And as we were on the way back to the Ubahn station, there was a lady that stopped us in the middle of the street.

"SISTERS!!" ... I thought "Oh, this must be a member!" So we stopped and the first thing she does is go in for a kiss.

WHAT?!?

Yeah, you read that right. I wasn't feeling it, so I saved myself just in time and she only got my cheek but seriously woman?!

I knew I was going to run into some weird things in Berlin... Didn't know how weird...

Totally confused and invaded, we found out she was a Jehovah's Witness (they are EVERYWHERE.) and tried to get out ASAP... Yeah. She wouldn't let us go. We heard all about how we would be damned and there was no way out unless we joined her religion. We invited her to church and then. She went in for it again. Quite literally my palm may or may not have hit her face...

She called us to repentance again and then we left.

Welcome to Berlin!! Hahaha

Probably the funniest and most awkward experience of my life.

This weekend we had Stake Conference... Which was a bummer because we didn't get to meet the ward AT ALL. Okay we met with a few members, but the whole ward? No clue. I kept getting introduced to people who were in wards that were NOT Neukölln. It's okay though because this Stake Conference was SO good.

It was broadcast from Salt Lake to all the German saints and guess who spoke?

Elder Bedar.

In GERMAN.

Probably the highlight of my week. What a boss though! After serving in Germany 41 years ago, he used all the German he had and spoke with all the members in their native language. It was really good, too. All the talks were about hastening the work in Germany and how the members and the missionaries need to work together. What a beautiful message :)

This morning I was reading further in Preach my Gospel and there was a "personal study idea" that said to write a Book of Mormon scripture in your study journal that has changed your life and why. I thought it might be kindof fun, but ended up basically writing a talk, so I will see if I can summarize and still have it make sense. 
Start with 1 Ne. 20:10 and 1 Ne. 21: 2-3.
10 For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
2 And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me;
3 And said unto me: Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
I was thinking about how we have two choices to react to everything we go through. We can either choose to let Christ change us or not. But once the day comes that he needs you to be a sharp sword or a polished shaft and if you aren't ready, then he can't use you. The phrase "waiting on the Lord" is for us. We wait and trust his timing. He cannot wait on us to take our time to be ready and prepared.
Now let's go to Doctrine and Covenants 123:16-17
16 You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.
17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.
This is how we let the Lord refine us. To cheerfully do everything that lies in our power. And be it a helm of a boat, a sword, or an arrow, he refines us and makes us strong IF we allow him to.
Ether 2:25
25 And behold, I prepare you against these things; for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea...
This is the why. Bigger picture - we cannot do it alone. Christ is the only one that can prepare us to "cross the great deep" aka school, missions, life... etc...
And it's all part of the biggest picture of all!
Moses 1:39
39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
What we do matters. In the grand scheme of things! How grateful I am for repentance to fix something when I mess up, but how grateful also I am for the fact that this time we have here is not to be wasted! It's to become refined so that we can help with the main goal - immortality and eternal life.
When I put it in this context, it helps me realize the part I play and how the things I do right NOW are important.
Love you!
Sister Babbitt