July 28: How many times can your tear ducts reproduce in a week?

So. 

I know this is the final email and everyone's final emails always consist of everything they have learned their entire mission but I absolutly cannot go on and on about the bajillion things I learned. 

Number one, if I won't want to read it in 20 years, I am not sure anyone will want to read my ramblings. 

I do, however, have some really great stories from this week. 

First story. I wish I could show you the picture but I am on the computer in the mission office and I don't know where to hook it up.

Okay lets be real. Since when do I include pictures in my emails?

#laziness/onlytwohoursonline

Sister Sanders and I were going to an appointment and it was blazing hot (seriously. This is no joke when I tell you that Germany is hot...) so we were sitting at a bus station when something fell into my lap.

I wish I could tell you it was an investigator, but....

Anyway, I thouht maybe it was a drop of water in hopes of rain. So I looked up at the sky... No rain. Hm. Maybe it was bird poop. That would be awkward.

But you don't really expect a FULL BIRD to fall into your lap.

Yes. A dead bird. Fell ino my lap. Way worse than bird poop.

Who does that??! I thought that some sicko threw it at me but I am pretty sure a bird of prey dropped it from the sky.

Oh my word.

Even the birds know I am going home.

The district made me weep at District meeting.

Naja. What else would you expect?

But seriously. They all stood around me as I played the piano. Klar. God Be With You Till We Meet Again. I will miss them.

I am not going to lie to you. I have made some of my very best friends of life here in Germany. I am not quite sure what I will do without them. 

Okay, so some of them are coming home with me. But I guess it's not so bad. I have awesome friends and family at home too.

Success story!!

Okay so this week was actually pretty great. We were able to get in contact with a bunch of investigators that we haven't been able to get in contact with for at least a month...

And we invited them all to institute!!!

And they said they would come!!!

So we were super stoked... Then we learned that there was actually no institute this week...

Um. Shoot. 

So, what do we do?

Last-minute spontaneous ping pong tournament?

Success.

Seriously though. We had like 15 people there that we haven't been able to really get a hold of for a while. The elders brought some investigators and we basically had a party.

One of the new converts in the ward even rapped for us.

He rapped his testimony at his baptism.

This kid is legit.

I realized that I actually never got a hang of the public transportation system. 

Well, doch.

I got used to it but I ALWAYS got lost. 

Including this week.

We took the bus again that takes an hour instead of the one that takes 20 minutes.

Cool.

So this week, we had a service project....

Sorting good fruit from rotten fruit at the welfare center.

For 3 hours.

I was SO tempted to start a food fight, but I was pretty sure that wouldn't have been kosher.

This week in church was actually quite.... Interesting.

I had a lot of realizations.

All of them relating to the fact that I won't ever do any of what we do normally as a missionary any longer.

And that made me sad.

But right as I was realizing that... the water for the sacrament was being passed around. 

Thinking it was going to taste like it always tastes, I was extremely shocked when what I was drinking was NOT water.

Okay, it was totally water, but it was carbonated water. 

Which Europeans seem to love...

Anyway, the bishopric caught my face as soon as I had swallowed it and they tried so hard not to bust up laughing at me..

Sister Babbitt for the win.

Ha

This week has been a blur. It's gone by so fast and I am still shocked that I am coming back to my good old 'merica in a few hours, but this is the part when I talk about what I have learned.

It's really hard to condense a year and a half of study journals, experiences, emails, conversations, etc, etc... into something short and sweet... But if I could it would be: Children of God NEVER stop becoming. There is always something to work on. Always something to accomplish. And it never stops. We ARE children of God. He is our Father. We have divine potential and we never live below our privilages.

I love you!!!

I will see you soon!

-Sister Babbitt

July 21: 163,7°C

There is so much to say I don't know how I will be able to fit it in... 

So I will probably, maybe, have another email day. 

Maybe.

I'll be heading from Dresden to Berlin on Sunday night, staying with my beloved Sister Sykes for two nights and do all the stuff I have to do in Berlin on Monday\Tuesday... So there may be time for emails. There may not be. Hopefully, since I still have one week to report!

Also, my thoughts the entire week have been all over the place, so please forgive me if this is ALL OVER THE PLACE.

For the most part, I am good. It's been a super great week and my comp Sister Sanders is basically the best thing thats happened to me.

Let's talk about Tom. Remember him? The one from the bus?

Well, he asked me out.

I told him I would go out with him if we talked about Jesus.
KIDDING. I did NOT agree to a date. But we haven't heard from him since I told him all I wanted to talk about was church...

Can't pass him off to the elders... schade.

We watched the finale!!!

Okay so I already knew that Germany had won the world championship but the stake president invited all the missionaries over to his house to watch the final match. So that's what we did last week. It was awesome. A day late, but fun anyway. It's nice for once to know some news that EVERYONE is talking about.

Alright. Hold onto your seats because there is a miracle coming your way.

Like... Best miracle of life. 

So far.

So Fedor. Our sweet Fedor.
We went over this week to teach him with a YSA in our ward, Melanie (who, by the way, is a star. I absolutely love her). As soon as we got there, he explained his week, how terrible it was, and how confused he was. He had been wrapped up in his own thoughts all week and couldn't find a way out.

He also didn't want a lesson.

Uhum... That's my job. 

Anyway, it went from total depression at the beginning to smiling, laughter, and promising to come to church on Sunday.

Fast forward to Sunday. 

He gets picked up by the bishop, knows like 5 people in the ward already (excluding joint teaches we've brought) and SURPRISE. There was a baptism after church that we invited him to and he stayed. 

Not only did he get the full experience in one day, he was absolutely loved upon by the members. 

As the bishop was leaving, he shook Fedor's hand and said, "Hope to see you next week!"

That was ALL it took. Fedor is basically coming to church for the rest of his life. 

It was so interesting to me to see that all it takes is for someone to really love and care. In our lesson earlier in the week, we talked with him about coming to church, promising that that is actually exactly what he needed in his life, and how it would help him with any problems. 
He had faith.

He came.
And he's coming again.

You want to know ANOTHER miracle??

We were on exchanges this week and I found out that Martin is getting baptized.

The SAME day as Hildegard and Clarissa!

Unfortunately, I won't be able to go, but whatevs. They're getting baptized and that's all that matters!

(Martin is the awesome black man from Camaroon I found in Neukölln)

So apparantly, according to the elders, there are 3 types of Sisters. 

1.The Baking Sisters

2. The Elder-haters

3. The Cool Sisters.

I was super flattered when they told me that Sister Sanders and I fell into the 3rd category, but I am not sure that's true anymore because EVERYBODY HAS ASKED US TO BAKE WITH THEM THIS WEEK.

Don't get me wrong. I like to bake. Just not every day. Or in 90% humidity, 90 degree weather. With no air conditioner. (P.S. whoever told you that Germany didn't get hot LIED. Okay, I have a tactic though. Every time I think about how hot it is in Germany, I remember Aaron in Columbia who is probably boiling to death...)

I guess this baking extravaganza has come because of the goodbyes that have started...

Ha. One of our baking escapades was super exciting though.

Melanie, the same YSA that comes with us to Fedor, wanted to bake with us and one of her friends... So we thought we would go all out and make chocolate peanut butter brownies with a caramel frosting (which is heavenly, by the way.) - you know... something super sugary and American...

Well, Melanie's oven doesn't work very well.

So it turned into warm batter with frosting.

Hey. At least it was tasty batter? It's probably because we couldn't set the oven at exactly 163,7°C.

Ha okay. Awkward instruction following moment.

So the MTC came out with this language assessment thing where all the missionaries have to respond according to different every day missionary situations. These are recorded and then examined for further review.

Well, I had my headphones on, speaking into the microphone, yada yada... And halfway through the prompt, I stopped being able to hear myself... So thinking that it had stopped recording, I stopped talking. Or started talking to Sister Sanders...

This happened for all 13 prompts. 

So. I went back and listened to some of the ones I had recorded (you could only get to that page after you had completed the entire assessment) and realized that it HAD actually recorded. Everything.

I assume it will be entertaining for the research team when they hear me cut off mid-sentence or start chatting away to Sister Sanders for half of every recording...

Sorry in advance.

Scripture time!

Alma 17:2 is probably a favorite missionary scripture of all time.

Also, being able to read it in two languages is pretty great.

In English, there is a phrase that says "They waxed strong in the knowledge of truth". In German, it says, "They had become strong in the knowledge of truth".
Okay so it basically means the same thing. But I really liked the visual of what it says in Englsih. Waxing. It's a process. A candle takes on a little more wax every time it is dipped....

But I wanted to go on a "Becoming" tangent one more time. Just as a string that is dipped in wax thousands of times becomes a candle, there is nothing in this life that is worth it without any work. Without being dipped in wax thousands of times... Without BECOMING.

The entire purpose of life is to become something.
Becoming doctors, teachers, artists, moms, dads...

Becoming better friends, people...

But to what purpose does becoming anything serve?

Well, that's where the why of the gospel comes into play. 

Why do we go to church? Why do we study the scriptures? Why do we pray, pay tithing, serve, keep the commandments?
Because the final goal, the greatest gift you could ever achieve REQUIRES you to become. 

In order to make it to the end, it will take work.

Thankfully this work is the most fulfilling work anyone could ever do in the course of existance. It brings joy, it brings blessings, it brings friends, it brings a lifetime full of wonders.

Ah. I love you!

I hope this finds you happy and smiling.

I will see you soon!

Love
Sister Babbitt

July 14: Weltmeister!

So apparantly Deutschland won?
Haha we are watching the finale today at a member's house but we definitely knew about it last night at about... Oh you know. Midnight. When the streets erupted with cannons and fireworks. 
YAY FUßBALL!!!
Yesterday evening when we went out after study, every single person we saw was dressed up with the German flag going to their parties... Then 8 o clock rolled around and the entire city was dead... Nobody was outside.... 
But Germany won and the world cup is over! Happy day!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh this week was SOOOO much better than the past few weeks.
Miracle that happened this morning!
Backstory:
We were riding a bus to an appointment when this guy comes on and sits next to me. I started chatting with him in German, he switches to English when he figures out that we both speak better English than German. I ended up getting his number and we establish that we want to meet and talk about this "Book of Mormon thing".
He said he was busy this week but we could call him later. 
Fast forward to this morning.
We get a text, "Hey! This is Tom! What is up? Why didn't you call me yesterday??"
Ahhhhh Tommmmmmmmm SORRRRRRYYYY you told us you were busy!!!
Whatevs. We are meeting with him this week.

We met some gangsters this week. 
Okay, so they met us. 
We were walking back to our bus when we were about to pass this park bench... We could see people sitting on it, but weren't sure who they were... (We usually steer clear of men who are drinking and smoking and are in a group of more than one...) And we were just going to walk past them but then one of them talked to me... I am not exactly sure if he was trying to hit on us or whatever, but in the course of the past year and a half, I have learned that the fastest way to get a creeper to stop hitting on you is to automatically introduce yourself as a missionary and jump straight into a discourse about God. 

Usually what will happen is the look on their face will change. They say, "Oh... Sorry, yeah, I don't want anything to do with God." and walk away. 

Well, we ended up giving the first lesson to these two gangsters and giving them both a Book of Mormon. 

Do they want to meet? Yes. 

Are we giving them to the elders? Yes.

Right after that, we were finishing the walk to our bus and ANOTHER creeper.... Stares at my companion, winks and rides off on his dinky moped.

What was my first reaction?

Yelling at him as he drove off, "Can you not see this woman is a nun??!"

Thank you Nacho Libre. For apparantly coming in handy these last few weeks...

Remember Fedor? 
Well, we visited him again this week (and can I tell you the POWER of a joint teach? Holy, we have had a joint teach with him since day one and he has come A LONG way. Pretty sure it has to do with the fact that we make absolutely sure that at every lesson we have a member with us) and as we invited him to come to church (for the 20th time) he said,
"I think I need one more week. But I want to come next time!"
He even prayed and committed to God that he would come to church with us next week.
Cool part about this lesson though, was that he was going to call us and cancel it because he said that he had a lot on his mind and didn't know if he could pull it together for our meeting. Fortunately, he lost our number so we showed up anyway! haha

I found out this week that Hildegard and Clarissa actually ARE getting baptized at the end of this month! The 27th of July? I AM SO EXCITED

Okay so the ward put on this really cool... Missionary day thing... Where all the youth from 12-18 came together and learned about what it was like to be a missionary.
We were invited :)
So in the morning we had a zone conference thing where we shared things about our missions, the bishopric talked, etc... 
And later in the day we split up with the older youth to go do some missionary work. 
I was paired with our GML's daughter and we basically rocked it. We had 2 hours to have lessons, find, service... whatever we wanted to do and we hit the streets. 
The faith and competency of the youth these days AMAZES me. Denise is 17 and yet, she didn't need me to tell her how to go up to people and start a conversation about the gospel. She just did it. It's so natural for her and so easy for her to relate to people. I think I have forgotten that. (Okay confession. It terrified me. She just like... chatted like normal with a bunch of people and all I could think about was how I could get them to take one of the 4 Books of Mormon we brought with us... GOSPEL TOPICS RULE MY LIFE!!! Haha)

We also were able to organize a priesthood blessing for the less active/part member family in our ward that had just had a baby.... And it was so good. I love them so much. The Priesthood is real. And it can bless every single person on the planet. Member and non-member alike.

Lots of other random things occured this week including:

-Chipping one of my teeth. Don't worry. I am only trying to fit into the culture of bad teeth here... 

-Watching this horseless buggy roll around town all week. Why is there a horseless buggy??

-Playing with swedish fish. And throwing them in other Sister's windows...

-Getting a call from a member in Cottbus. Telling me that she would be in Dresden next week and I will see her. Aye Aye!!

-STILL getting lost on trains.

-Juggling tennis balls like a champ (this one is about me. Yes. I can juggle now)

-Trying to remember what Tacos taste like.

-Hunting fruit flies. Pretty sure I have either caught or ingested at least 200 this week.

-Sister Sanders asking me if she can get a pet slug... Instead of worms coming out in rainstorms, it is slugs. I told her no.

All in all, I think a quote our district leader, Elder Ames shared with us this week at District Meeting has basically goverened the majority of the week. 

Why did I forget this? No idea. 
But you shouldn't. And here it is:

"Life is 10% of what happens to you, and 90% of how you react to it."

And with that, I hope you have a great week!!!
Love you!

See you soon!

July 7: How Beautiful

I always know when Germany has won their game in the World Cup, even though we are not watching it...

At about 7:45 every night when Germany plays, the streets erupt in fireworks, honking cars and lots of drunk people. Okay the drunk people is a giv-in. That happens just about every holiday. 
And let's be honest, the World Cup is a holiday here. 

I think I will continue to blame our investigator-less state on the fact that every single person gets into soccer here. I have a love hate relationship with the World Cup. I love it that it is a conversation starter and people are more than happy to talk about it, but hate that nobody has time to meet because of it. "I'll call you after the 14th.", "I have no time. I watch the World Cup every night!", "Soccer is my God..."

Cool story bro. 

Have you seen Nacho Libre?

If not, find the clip on youtube where Nacho is talking to Esquelto about his salvation (trust me, it is SO much better to watch...)

Nacho: I'm a little concerned right now about your salvation and stuff.... Why have you not been baptized??!

Esquelto: Why do you always have to be judging me because I only believe in science?

. Enough said.

But. There are progressions. Although we don't have any new solid investigators... Or any new investigators at all, we have this contact who barely speaks any english or german..

Who we are trying to help speak German.

Don't ask how that works... but it is!

So back up story. We met her and she invited us into her house right away. We talked a little bit in the broken english she could understand and offered our help teaching German.

Through the last few months, she had been super stressed with her two children always crying during our lessons, not knowing any german and feeling really impatient because it's not coming as fast as she wants it to... 

Well, Sister Sanders and I devised a plan. One of us would read super simple childrens books with her so she can start getting the grammar, words and pronounciation (works like a charm. Learning a language? READ TO CHILDREN. Ha) and the other would distract the children. With coloring books, the two origami things I can make and things that basically take their attention away from always being with mom.

Well, this past lesson we had with her was FANTASTIC. She commented on the feeling she gets when we come over and is so thankful that we are patient with her learning German. Also that we are good with her children. 

It's interesting how the Spirit can penetrate any language barrier. Sometimes it just needs to be calm enough for it to flow freely. I love that.

We were at a lesson with a part member-less active family and we were getting ready to go. This family has a 3 year old daughter and I asked her if we could pray with her and her family before we left. She said yes and climbed onto my lap (holy. I love children. Best feeling ever to be loved by a 3 year old...) Her dad asked if I would say the prayer and as I started, the little girl repeated every word. 

It reminded me of the times when the kids would go up on Sundays to bear their testimony in front of the congregation, but they can't do it without their parents... So they whisper it into their ear and by the end, the kid is so happy he's basically slobbering on the microphone?

I love that.

Sister Sanders is teaching me how to juggle. In return, I am teaching her how to play the guitar. 

One of the elders loaned me his guitar for the week and it is GLORIOUS. Well, as glorious as a duck-taped together ancient guitar worth about 5 euro can get... 

Missionary resourcefulness. Gotta love it.

The other day when we were walking home, we spotted this older woman carrying a bag that looked like it weighed just about as much as her, so we stopped her and carried her bag for her (yeah. it totally weighed as much as she did... ha)

But she asked who we were and we told her we were missionaries.

"Oh, you're Mormon? I should have guessed! We had some of your people over for dinner once. They were so nice. Like you!"

...What?

As I was thinking about that, I realized how much of an impact being examples in word and action is... This woman recognized us not because of the tags we were wearing (she didn't even see them) or introducing ourselves as missionaries (there are missionaries from lots of churches. Including Jdubs...) but rather the simple act of service we did. 

That was super cool to me.

We had a 4th of July BBQ with the Tenneys! 

Sister Sanders and I dressed up for the occasion. I matched the flag.

#mericanpride.

My last Fast Sunday in Germany was yesterday... That was weird. And sad.

As I have been thinking about, well, everything, and realizing that a chapter of my life is now ending and a new one beginning I ran across this verse in my study.

Mosiah 18:30
 "And now it came to pass that all this was done in Mormon, yea, by the waters of Mormon, in the forest that was near thewaters of Mormon; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to theeyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall sing to hispraise forever."
I realized that it is not sad. These people who were baptized in Mormon, who left everything behind because they knew something else was there and it was better... I'm sure they didn't really want to leave Mormon when they had to because of their attachment to it. That's kindof how I am feeling right now. My emotions go back and forth between wanting to come home to wishing I could stay here. I found comfort in this verse though, especially the part "How beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer".
I realized that I have many places like that, and Germany just got added to the list. In fact, there are specific places in Germany: investigator's apartments, my apartment, the church, specific streets, specific park benches... How beautiful these simple things are to my eyes. I came to know my Redeemer a little more in each of these places and even though the place may not be within reach, my testimony is. 
I love you! I hope you have a wonderful week! We will.
Sister Babbitt

June 30: We Lost But We Still Won!

Okay. Cliffhanger. I know I left you guessing with the riddle last week... You have probably figured it out by now, but the answer is double letters. Dumb, huh?

Our situation hasn't really improved in the investigator area, but we did have a few lessons this week!

One of our sweet investigators, Verena, is basically awesome. She comes to church every single week she can and is involved with every sort of activity possible.

Unfortunately, she wasn't able to come this week.

Why?

I have gotten everything as an excuse not to come to church... Diahrrhea, slept in, don't really feel like it, my dog has to be walked, I have a dog and I can't leave him at home for 3 hours alone, (insert other excuses...) but this one I have never heard before. And it's pretty legitimate.

There is this festival thing that goes on on her street, and in order to leave, or be on the street, you have to pay a fee. Even the residents. No busses run, it costs an arm and a leg for cars to drive through and it lasts 3 days. And one of them was over Sunday...

Well, better luck next week!

We also found out that a man we are teaching is a descendant from Martin Luther... He showed us his pedigree chart in a giant book. 

Cool, eh?

I think this will be a hurdle we will have to jump...

Germans are totally into tradition.

ACH. Okay. So on Tuesday the other sisters called and asked if we had any time to help an older lady in our ward with her cherries.

Apparantly her cherry tree had produced so many cherries she could basically fill her bathtub up twice. 

So we went over there and helped her sort the good cherries from the bad cherries...

Well... let me tell you something. If any of you are familiar with cherry trees, you will know that you must spray your tree when it is in blossom or before, or during, or lets just say spray it all the time because these little flies lay eggs in the blossoms, and as the cherry grows, the larvae grows. INSIDE the cherry. 
So as we were sorting, we were looking for holes to see if there were any worms (which look like long grains of white rice) and if there were we would squeeze it and sometimes the worms would pop out. Oh it was so gross. It was like popping giant zits...

Anyway, grossed out from the cherry experience, we learned later that you need to open them before you can them. Because there could still be worms inside... Good thing we didn't take any. 

I learned WAY too much about cherries this week...

This leads into another noteworthy experience. Ha.
Okay so we were joking with the elders all week about them and one morning, one of the elders calls us.

"Hey Sisters, how's it going?"

"Oh, we're fine. How are you?"

"I'm alright. Hey, do you know the number for the doctor in our ward?"

"Um... What's wrong? DO YOU HAVE A WORM??"

".........How did you know??"

He had a tapeworm. Ha so this is in no way related to the cherries, because you get tapeworm from raw meat and or water... but it was funny.

He is doing good though. Practically tapeworm free. No worries.

We got permission to watch the USA versus Deutschland world cup game... Oh that was fun. 

Lots of conversation starters. 

EVERYONE here gets into the world cup. Parties every night.
I am going to blame our investigator-less state to the fact that everyone is focused on the world cup. Haha

Yeah, we lost to Germany... At least they didn't cream us. And I am totally surprised at the USAs abilities in soccer... That's where the subject of this email comes from. We lost the game, but are still moving on! 

I think I am just excited about the world cup because everyone else is excited about the world cup.

We had some fun experiences tracting this week:

- We met a man that looked like he stepped out of a 20s film. Think mustache. He was extremely pleasant and as he rode away on his bike, he blew a kiss and waved. Feel good moment.

- I exchanged salvation for gummy bears... Let me explain. There were these guys handing out gym membership advertisements with gummy bears attached (fatten you up before you lose weight!!) and I asked if I could trade cards with him. He was totally confused, but took my card anyway. You, sir, have salvation in your hads.

- Sister Sanders ran full on into a garbage can... And has the bruises to show for it. Poor girl

- A little boy stole my umbrella - opened and closed it for like 5 minutes... Then gave it back to me. I do not know this little boy. It was cute.

- Some drunk teenagers spit beer on us... Not the first time this has happened.

- I got us on a bus that usually takes 20 minutes to reach it's destination. I fell asleep and an hour later we were still not there. I don't know if I will ever get used to this transportation system. It's like a love hate relationship. SUPER convenient, yet you are at the mercy of other people's bad decisions. Kindof like life.

- We were dooring out this building and there was a lady who comes on the intercom, "I'M CALLING THE POLICE!!!" "Go ahead. We'll still be here..." Empty threats....

- Last but not least, we DID get a number from a really nice guy who said he thinks he would be buddhist if he could pick a religion... But he lives in Hamburg. Hm.

I got a letter from the office this week stating my release date and the things I must accomplish before leaving. President asked me to send some goals and it caused me to think a lot about it... What are my goals? I remember writing something similar to Justin when he returned home and it came back to me at the time I probably need it most.
 here it is:
Philippians 3:13-14.
I don't like them as much in English, so I translated the German into English according to my understanding.
"Bretheren, I don't imagine that I've already understood or caught it all, but one thing I do: I forget what lies behind me and reach for that which is ahead of me - the Goal before my eyes, I chase for the prize of victory: The holy calling that God has given to us in Christ, Jesus."
I have never had a checklist for my goals. Most of my goals are focused on learning, but I think this scripture is the sum of it all. I want to remember, however, that the experiences that I have had have brought me to where I am now and to continue becoming. 
What's been done in the last 1.5 years I can't re-do. I can't turn back time and talk with that one person that I needed to, or avoided a situation I should have... And I don't know if I would want to because those lessons are priceless. But there is one thing I can do. I can continue to become. To keep becoming a more effective missionary - a preach my gospel missionary - a more obedient missionary... If there's one thing I've learned, is that I will never have my ducks in a row 100% of the time. There are always ducks that fall out of place that I have to attend to.. So my goal is this: Continue BECOMING a disciple of Christ.

Alles gute!! 

Love you!

June 23: Freiberg x 2

Our new district leader called us the other night and had a riddle for us. 

Deep has it, but profound doesn't.

Cool has it, but calm doesn't.

Wood has it, but water doesn't...

And then Sister Sanders comes back with a riddle of her own...

"Who walks the streets for hours and can't find any investigators?"

....The answer to the second one is Sister Babbitt and Sister Sanders. 

Haha but really. This is something of a struggle to find people to teach recently...

Nevertheless,

we did have some really awesome experiences this week!

We went to the temple on Tuesday with the Tenneys!!

I never stop being amazed at what happens there.

The cool thing about the Freiberg temple is that it is super international. In our session, there were people that spoke English, German, Polish and Hungarian. It's the same in every language. And as I was listening to a prayer in Polish, I found that I could almost understand what was being said. 

Gift of interpretation of tongues?

No idea. But it was really cool.

On the way home though (and this is just something that happens here in the summertime...) we saw this man on his bike...

In a speedo.

But not a normal sized man. 

A 300 pound ex football player. 

Now if that doesn't scar you, I don't know what will...

Okay so in reference to the walking the streets for hours and not finding investigators... That part was definitely true this week.
Even though every single person we talked with shut us down, we DID have some miracles. (na KLAR!)

We chose a few less-active members to go by on, and some of them live a little further away from where we live, so it takes a little bit to go out there. 
This one in particular was in a little part of town that is not super populated...

But as we were looking for her house, we actually ran into her as she was out walking!

She has been having a super hard time with... well, life the past little while and she said that earlier that day, she had prayed for help. She emailed the sisters that taught her in Leipzig asking them to pray for her and then she went out for a walk.

That's when we found her. Not 20 minutes later.

We were able to walk with her a little bit and she accepted our help - to meet with her and help her feel God's love again.

One of our investigators was sick this week and we thought we would be really sweet and clever, and put some flowers on her doorstep.

We were trying to be sneaky as we were fidgiting with the card and the flowers when her door opens...

Uhhhhmmm...

"I thought I recognized your voices! What are you doing here?"

She let us in and we talked with her for a few minutes. She has had some major sinus problems for the last little while and has not been feeling top notch. But as we were leaving she said, "Thanks Sisters, for making my day!"

Mission accomplished.

We got to go to the temple again this week! Freiberg, take two!
But this time it was for a little mini zone conference for some of the youth in the Nurenburg (?) stake. By Frankfurt. 

And guess who I saw?!

Elder and Sister Gordon. 

Haha, flashbacks to childhood!

But the zone conference was good. I am pretty sure I was just as distracted as the kids... But stick a bunch of 12-16 year olds in a room for 4 hours, we all will go insane.

So a few weeks ago, we had a mission tour with Elder Dyches... And he taught us how to make these little origami shirts so that we can leave them at members houses for little thank you notes... Well, Sister Sanders thinks they are the best things ever. And she uses them for almost everything EXCEPT notes for members.

We have a little bathroom chart with all of the sister's in our apartments heads sticking out of the origami shirts, so that when someone is in the bathroom, they take their origami shirt and put it into a little pocket so the rest of us know who is in the bathroom - to avoid accidents...

And the other day, she starts taping a bunch of paper together.

"Do you think we could make one big enough to actually wear?"

Hm. Yes. I do think so. 

We modeled it for the other sisters. Origami shirts. New missionary staple?

We got rootbeer from a member yesterday.

That's pretty much all that needs to be said about that. 

As I was reading a few days ago, I read the verse Mosiah 1:7
 7 And now, my sons, I would that ye should remember to search them diligently, that ye may profit thereby; and I wouldthat ye should keep the commandments of God, that ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lordmade unto our fathers.
I thought this was interesting. King Benjamin is talking about the scriptures here. He says we should search the scriptures diligently so that we can profit from them. And I thought about how the best tool we have as members of the church - for any questions - are the scriptures. But how good is our best tool if we don't know how to use it?
I hope you get great tidbits of knowledge out of your daily scripture study. I know I do. Something that I had studied comes back to me throughout the day and helps me remember my eternal identity. Helps me remember who Jesus Christ really is and what he has done for me. 
I hope you have a wonderful week! Love you!