October 27, 2014

After the call, when we
realized we were getting split up 

Well, MY LIFE JUST GOT THROWN UPSIDE DOWN.  I think that Heavenly Father has a really big sense of humor, and I still don't get it.  Remember how last week I sent this to you?

Transfers calls are this week.  No matter what dad says, I’m pretty sure Sister Heywood and I will be staying together. 

I thought it was a 100% chance we would stay together and Elder Rock was getting shipped out.  I'd been making guesses of where the whole week.  Well, jokes on me.  On Friday morning, Sister Heywood and I were just going about our day, and just got out of another super awesome lesson, where we found YET ANOTHER FAMILY.  We got the dreaded call from President.  Turns out, my little golden is training here in Münster and I am opening and training in Frankfurt.  Holy Crap.  I have to open and train.  In Frankfurt International Ward.  Looks like my days of speaking German are over.  I am seriously freaking out right now.  I LOVE Münster (I know I say this every time I am transferred), but it is going to be the hardest thing saying bye to Aiyana, Anna, Raphael, Elkin, the Jackwerths, Sören...everyone.  I just love everyone.  This place--it’s like my little family, and now I am going to a big ward, where I don't even know where I live or the church is, let alone have any investigators or anything.  This is going to be a big test, and I am extremely nervous about it.  I just really hope that I get a good golden that is ready to go out and work...because this is going to be hard.  But the Lord's plan is better than mine--as much as I want to stay in Münster with Sister Heywood. 

Elder Rock teaching me how he relieves
stressed after I found out where
I was being transferred to. 

That being said, this weekend has been just a major freak out mode for the both of us, ha-ha.  I have been trying to get Sister Heywood feel a little better about taking over, and we have her weekend all figured out for her new golden.  I think the saddest part of this all is that I am going to miss out on Dorian's baptism this Saturday.  He's Aiyana's little brother, and after her baptism, he decided he wanted that too.  He is such a cutie.  But at least the Elders get to stay for it. 

District Ten

My little buddies...I'm
going to miss these guys

As far as the pre-freak out days, those all went really well, although we had a ton of appointments fall out.  We were still working hard and seeing success.  We have FHE every week with Anna and her family, and every week her little brother is more and more excited about it.  We taught the Plan of Salvation this week.  Well, actually, we had Anna teach us the Plan of Salvation.  It turned more into Leon teaching it to us.  It was awesome.  He was able to tell us so much about it.  Every week it just gets better.  We are going again tomorrow, so I can say bye to them, but I am hoping that we can make him into an investigator again, because that would just be so great for Anna to have her family supporting her again. 

We also found a really cool lady this week.  Well technically, the Elders found her through dooring, but asked us to meet with her since her husband works late every night.  She has three cute little boys and the youngest has Epilepsy.  She just loves them all so much, and you could just feel it.  She is not religious at all, but she opened up to us that since her youngest was born five years ago, she has lost all faith in God.  She doesn’t understand why some people would be cursed like this...both her and her son.  She just looked so lost.  All we could do is just listen to her, and then I just bore strong testimony of how much God loves her and that He has a plan for each of his children, and that He doesn’t want her to feel this way.  He wants her to be happy.  We said that the message we had to share would help her gain a relationship with God and answer all of her questions and doubts, and that we wanted to share it with her.  You could just feel the love in this room.  She said we could come back this week, and share more with her. 

Ola and Nurdjan... these
girls are HILARIOUS 

We also finally got to meet with Elizia this week.  It has been over a month.  But we walked in preparing to share about the Godhead with her (There is a massive language barrier, so we have to go reaaalllly slowly).  Then to our surprise, her whole family was there from Seria, including her two brothers, their wives and their children.  We sat down, just completely shocked, and had no idea what to teach, so we just started basic and talked about the love of God.  It was the most interesting lesson ever.  We would say about three sentences, and then one of the teenage girls or Elizia would translate it into Arabic for the family.  About after 5 minutes, one of the brothers asked us if we knew why there were so many churches.  We ended up teaching the entire Restoration, and at the end, they all wanted to come to church with us and want Books of Mormon in Arabic to read.  They were so invested in every thing we were saying.  It was just awesome.  About 5 of them ended up coming to church yesterday, even though they understand almost no German.  It was really cool. 

Monika, our hilarious referral

We had a sweet appointment about repentance with Ola and her friend Nurdjan.  We asked them what repentance meant to them, and I felt like they were just reading out of Preach My Gospel.  It was amazing.  We then read the story of Alma the younger together, and had an amazing discussion about it.  Ola has an extremely strong testimony about how through Christ, we can overcome all things, no matter where we are at, and it just really strengthened my testimony. 

We are meeting with Raphael tonight, for my last time.  He came to church yesterday and when I told him I was going, he just was like, "Noooooooooooooo!".  He is making us a spaghetti dinner tonight because it is his favorite meal and he wants to say goodbye properly, ha-ha.  Spaghetti topped off with the Word of Wisdom...  its going to be a great lesson! 

Sister Dröge and her son Sören.  AKA...
nicest family alive, and best Ward
Mission Leader this world could ever see. 

Taryn... expect a good letter in the mail soon 

We also met the craziest, funniest lady this week through a referral.  She was only here this week, for her dad`s funeral.  Her daughter is a member in North Carolina, and she has been trying to get her mom converted for years,  She figured that this would be a good opportunity for us to go offer to help, or share some comfort during this time.  So Sister Heywood and I were expecting someone super sad to answer the door, and we were role playing what to say to help her.  Well, that was a waste.  This women sees us and was just like, "MORMONS; COME ON IN." She let us right in, gave us food, and just started cracking jokes like crazy.  We were just sitting there so confused, thinking, "Is this the right lady?"  She was just talking to us, when the door bell rings, and she just stopped and started laughing, and says, "Oh this will be funny, here comes another Catholic".  It was this way cool guy from Mexico, and the appointment ended up just being Monica complimenting the Mormons the whole time and telling us everything she loved about us.  The guy was studying to be a Catholic priest, but wanted to come check out our church.  Not sure what happened in that appointment, but it was sure entertaining. 

Man, I am going to miss this place.  I am going to miss all of these awesome people, this branch, our investigators, and especially Sister Heywood.  I love that girl.  Hopefully I will like Frankfurt just as much, but right now, I am just scared out of my mind for what is coming.  Definitely going to end my mission with a bang.  Please just pray for me, ha-ha.  I need some help.  Sister Heywood too.  But if it is what the Lord wants, then I will go.  No matter how much it hurts.  I guess I will just really learn to rely on him and learn how to apply his grace and enabling power in my life.  Oh side note, go read that talk by Elder Bednar.  He gave a talk on the enabling power of the atonement at BYU a few years ago, and I read it this week and it has really helped me.  It opened my eyes to a whole new side of things.

We had fun playing your little
spider darts thing... until they
threw them all at me. 

Well, wish me luck.  The Adventure beings again!

Love you all.

Savannah