April 21, 2014

Hallo Familie!  Frohe Ostern!  I hope that you all had a great Easter yesterday.  Germans, like always, love their holidays, and so things have been closed since last Friday...  all of the shops are still closed today.  We had to get someone to unlock the computers at the church so that I could write you today.  It’s like Christmas all over again—haha. 



We walk under this everyday on the
way home from the train station.

First things first, yes, I have seen the video Because of Him.  Probably a hundred times by now, and every time I watch it, I get goose bumps.  I just found it in German, and watched it again, and now I am super excited.  Which means that we will be showing it to EVERYONE now.  Watch out Germany.  In case anyone doesn’t know what I am talking about, go check this out, NOW.  http://easter.mormon.org/?cid=HPTU041514694



Also, I got the Easter Package!  The elders brought it to church yesterday, and as I was walking out with it, Damien and his mom came over and saw it, and were just like, "Oh Hermana, there are probably Reese's in there, huh?" Hahaha, I just started laughing so hard.  They are just great.  Also, I am wearing my new purple skirt as we speak.  Thank you, so, so much.  It is great. 

As for this week, it has gone by pretty quickly.  Sister Wrathall and I are finally figuring out how we best work together, and things are going well.  This week, we were able to meet with Danielle and we had a really good lesson with her and Martin.  I have just grown to love them so much, and it makes me so happy to see the progress and joy that Danielle has made.  She is so much more confident and happy now, and I just love it.  We also had some really great member appointments this week.  Like I said, we have just gone crazy with the Because of Him video, and showed it to practically everyone that speaks a little English…that, and He is Risen.  We invited them all to bring a friend to church on Easter, and surprisingly a few did.  It was really cool to see them put their faith forward and invite their friends. 



Anna

Probably my favorite part of this week though was our lesson with Kristin.  Oh man, it was intense.  We finally got to meet with her again, after her trip to the Jordan desert!  The thing that she has the most doubt in is the Restoration and Book of Mormon (which is a SLIGHT problem, seeing as how that is the basis of our beliefs, and what makes our church different from others.  We showed her the Restoration DVD.  Can I just say that those short 20 minutes probably changed everything?  After we watched it, we tried asking her how she felt, and she just said that she needed a minute to think about it.  She then proceeded to talk about how it all just made sense now.  It just made sense.  She said that while she was watching it, she was able to relate a lot with Joseph Smith, and the confusion that he was going through.  She then quoted a bunch of lines from the movie that she loved.  The spirit was so strong, and we gave testimony, and so did the Taylors.  We then proceeded to ask her to be baptized on May 17^th.   It was silent, and she didn’t say anything for a really long time.  And then she started asking questions, like "What happens if I don’t feel ready by that date?"  In the end, she ended up saying that she needed the weekend to pray and read in the Book of Mormon and think about it.  She will be giving us her answer on Thursday, which scares me, because it is an entire week after that appointment.  But I have been praying my heart out that she will finally get an answer knowing that it is true, that this is really the direction that she should take.  I just hope that she feels so, also. 

Cathy was in the hospital this week...I still don’t know what exactly is wrong with her, but she is internally bleeding, and it is really serious.  I am nervous, but I also feel at peace that it will all work out.  We have visited with her a couple times this week, and she is doing a little better.  She still wants Michelle to be baptized, so once Michelle comes back from her camp, we will go over and start teaching her. 

Our weekly street display

This week, Sister Wrathall and I were getting desperate about finding people to teach (like I have been pretty much my entire mission—haha), so we have been praying and fasting about it.  This week, we have seen some really cool miracles.  We made about a million phone calls to past investigators, and potentials, and were able to set up three appointments for this coming week.  We also found two people on the street that want to meet us to learn more.  That is something that has never happened to me before.  I am constantly amazed at how much Heavenly Father blesses us.  This Saturday, we had another street display, and I started talking to a man about the Plan of Salvation.  When a Jehovah Witness came up to us (that happens A LOT), he was telling us how wrong we were.  The man just turned to him and said, "Stop, I want to hear what she has to say.”  That was a really cool moment.  We got his phone number and made out an appointment with him for this week. 

Our latest project that we are working on right now is getting big volleyball night for May 5^th started.  We are meeting with our ward mission leader and his wife tonight to plan out the details and get fliers made and everything.  I am excited, and hopefully it will be a big success. 

This week is going to be sweet.  As I said, we have a couple new people that we will be meeting with and we are meeting with Kristin.  Also, I get to have a split with Sister Lyons!  I am super excited about it.  We will be down here in Heidelberg, and it will be great.  She is just my favorite.  Two of the young women also want to go out with Sister Wrathall and me, so we are going to do a mini split with them on Friday.  It’s going to be great. 

I just want to let you all know how grateful I am to be a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I know that this is the true church, and that it is Christ’s church.  As I study the lessons that we teach people, I have come to realize that our real message is God's love for His children.  That is the first point that we teach—the nature of our Heavenly Father, and who he is.  Everything else that we teach is centered on this fact.  It tells people the blessings that He has given us, how we can obtain more blessings, and everything He has in store for us.  That is our message…God's love and how to receive blessings.  How great of a message is that? Why would I NOT want to share it with the world?! 



Beautiful as always, right?

I love you all so much.  I am so grateful for the love and support that you all show me, and again, thank you for the package.  It was great!  I pray for you daily.  I want to give you the same advice that my mission president gave me.  He looked me straight in the eyes and asked, "Sister Teeples, who are you?" I answered, “I am Sister Teeples.”  He looked at me again, and said, "If our Heavenly Father was here with us right now, He would look at you and tell you, 'Vergiss nicht wer du bist.  Du bist meine Tochter." (Never forget, you are my daughter).  The feeling that I got as he told me that was overwhelming.  Now, whenever doubt or fear creeps in, I just hear that voice in my head, "Vergiss nich wer du bish.  Du bist meine Tochter".  I cannot describe how much peace and strength those few words have given me. 

So, I give you all that same council.  Never forget who you are.  You are God's child.  I know that to be true with all my heart.

Love you all! 

Savannah 

Oh, I forgot to tell you all about another cool thing that happened this week.  On Sunday, we went to the Spanish sacrament (which is always my favorite), and there was a guy there that I had met a couple Sundays ago.  He lives in Dortmund, which is the top part of our mission, but his family came down here for Easter to stay with Damien’s family.  He isn’t a member.  Well, anyways, last time he was down here, I gave him a Book of Mormon that I had written my testimony in (in Spanish, of course).  Yesterday, I asked him if he had read in it, and he said that he had.  He read the part that I told him too, and he really liked it.  He then continued to say that he was so grateful that I had given it to him.  He said that he had met a lot of missionaries before, but none of them had ever given him a Book of Mormon.  I was so grateful for the opportunity to share with him why it was so important to me, and that he was so glad to have it.  I wish he lived her in Heidelberg, but wherever he lives, he now has the book. 

Just another cool experience I wanted to share.  Oh, also check this out!  It is our carolling activity from Christmas in Nurnberg.  Sweet, huh? http://frankfurtmission.blogspot.de/

April 14, 2014

ARGENTINA BAYBAY!  Oh man, that is so sick that Matt Jensen is going to Argentina.  It is crazy…that means that every one of my church friends from our ward is going Spanish speaking…except for the one person that wanted to major in Spanish.  Pretty ironic, huh?  Haha!  But at least I still get to use it here.  Who would’ve thought?  But mensch, I am so excited for Matt!  He is going to love it.  I can’t wait to tell Damien’s family.  They are going to be so excited!  I’ll have to figure out what mission they used to live in.  

That is sweet that you have started playing Citadels.  I miss those P-Days in Nürnberg when we would just play.  I am excited to play with you when I get home.  Also, I haven’t gotten my package yet.  It could be at the mission home, but I don’t know.  The elders will be up in Frankfurt in the next week or two, and they will bring it back if it is there.  Isn’t that so sad that our mission president is finishing soon?  Shoot, I will miss him.  I had an interview with him this week, and it was great.  He always knows exactly what to say to make me feel better.  It will be sad not to have a native German as my president.  No one can rival President and Sister Schwartz. 

Things are going well down here in Heidelberg.  It’s been a little tough because we have had a lot of investigators say that they don’t want to meet with us anymore, so we spent a lot of time trying to find new investigators.  We called a lot of previous investigators and potentials, and were able to find two that want to meet with us this week.  We have appointments with both of them, and we are excited about that! 

I think probably the coolest thing that happened this week was that Cathy came to church!  She brought her daughter, Michelle with her!  It was the first time she has been to church in years, and es war wirklich so kühl.  Seriously.  It reminded me of the week in Nürnberg when I saw the Fosters come into church for the first time.  I cannot describe the feeling, but it is just so great.  Just seeing these people that you work with week after week finally deciding to do something.  The coolest part was that it was fast Sunday, and she went up and bore her testimony!  While she was bearing her testimony, she said that she had been praying a lot and felt like she had to start coming to church every week, and that she wanted her daughter to be baptized.  After church, we went up to the Leonhardts with Cathy and they made tacos.  We just had a good talk.  I talked to Cathy and she said that she wants Michelle to start taking the missionary lessons!  I am really excited.  We are going to start that this week.  This is something I have been waiting and praying for since I came to Heidelberg, so it is definitely a big miracle and answer to my prayers! 

We also had a really good lesson with Frau Schill.  Her daughter ended up sitting in on the lesson with us, and had a ton of questions.  Frau Schill had read Alma 40-42, which we gave her to read, and she had a ton of questions about the Spirit World and where her mom was right now.  We were able to help her understand more, and then we talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Her biggest concern was that if she chose to go farther, then she would be doing it alone, so I asked her daughter if she would take the lessons with her mom.  She said would!  So we set up a return appointment, and are going to bring a Young Woman, Talea, with us, so that she can be friends with the Linda.  We are excited.

Remember how I said that the ward is great here?  I swear it has gotten even better.  It was nice to have a normal Sunday yesterday.  The bishop announced that he wants the missionaries to start going to a member’s house each day.  He has a vision where we go to a member’s house and then set up a follow up appointment and challenge them to invite a friend to be there with them.  I feel like the members are really starting to trust us, because after sacrament, I had so many members come up to me and just thank me for everything that I do, and invited us over.  They are also inviting their friends to activities and church and everything.  After my mission, I would be perfectly fine just moving here and being best friends with all of them. 

I am excited for this week!  The elders have a baptism on Saturday and I am really happy for them.  Hopefully we can get Kristin there and help her realize how badly she wants it for herself.   

Also, if there is one thing I have learned this week, it is the power of prayer.  I don’t know if I have ever prayed so hard before.  I know that God always answers them - even if I don’t like the answer.  I was reading in True to the Faith, and it was saying that sometimes God will answer with "no".  I don’t know why, but that hasn’t hit me until now.  I feel like it should be obvious, but it was kind of an "aha!" moment, that "no" is an answer, too.  God knows what I need more than I do, and sometime, even if it is a righteous desire, he will say, "No, not yet".  That stinks sometimes (well most of the time), because you all know how impatient I am (and that hasn’t changed much), but I know that there is always a reason behind everything.  While reading, I also saw something that said that God will never give us something that we can’t do by ourselves.  If we pray for something with real desire and intent, He expects us to get up and work for it, not sit around until He gives it to us.  I have definitely seen that this week.  Sister Wrathall and I have tried EVERYTHING, and I mean everything, to get new investigators.  My Heavenly Father has seen how hard we have worked, and He has blessed us.  I am so, so grateful dafür. 

I believe in a God that loves us and knows us perfectly.  I believe that He is there, and is waiting to help us.  We just need to get on our knees and talk with Him, give thanks, and ask for specific blessings. 

I love you all so much!  I am freaking out over here because I just realized two days ago that my nine-month mark is next week.  That means it’s all downhill from here, and that is just scary.  I love my mission so much, and I just want to help people feel the happiness that I feel!  Thanks for all of the prayers and support and emails! 

Gott sei mit euch bis auf wiedersehen! 

Liebe, Sister Teeples 

P.S.  The Schiffmanns have translated either 3 or 4 of the letters that you sent me, and they said that they are way cool.  She forgot to bring them to church on Sunday, so I will get them from her soon, and send that to you ...  hopefully next week!  But in the mean time, feel free to scan some more in.  They LOVED it. 

April 7, 2014

Family and friends!

The group at the castle...

My split with Sister McMurray and Fuller

It was good to hear from all of you this week! I am excited for next week.  I can’t wait to hear where Matt is going on his mission! And yes, I agree with all of you.  General Conference was amazing and much needed!  I got to watch it in English, which I am really grateful for.  All of the Young Single Adults speak English, and they prefer watching it in the native speakers language (I don’t blame them...  translations are hard) and so we all watched it at the church.  The time change makes things really weird though.  On Saturday at six p.m., we watched the morning Saturday session (it was live).  The afternoon session was played the next day at two, with the Sunday morning session at 6 p.m..  So we didn’t get to watch the Sunday afternoon session yet, but we will watch it at some point.  Sadly, Kristin was 

busy this weekend, so we didn’t get to watch it with her, but we have an appointment for this week (finally!).  We will probably show her one of our favorites. 

Our goodbye with Danielle

As for my life, I am back in Heidelberg, and it seems like a completely different area now.  It is amazing how just changing your companion in an area changes everything.  Sister Petersen and I worked flawless together, and we had the exact same personality, so everything was great.  Time flew by and now I really miss her.  Sister Wrathall is really nice, but she is more like my trainer was, and is just really different from me.  It has been a little hard adjusting from the huge change in personalities.  But all of the talks on charity and love and gratitude in General Conference have helped .  Es war genau was ich brauchte.  I know that things will be great here in Heidelberg.  We are together for a reason.  I know that she will teach me a lot, and that we will do work together.  Really, I just want to see Kristin get baptized.  I will do everything to see that. 

This was a good week though.  I kind of feel like it was a dream, and now I feel like I am just on a really long split—haha.  The beginning of the week, our week was packed with appointments so that Sister Petersen could see everyone before she left.  I thought it was really funny because most of the members she wanted to say bye to were the Spanish members.  She just loved them so much.  We were able to see the Paulinos and Damien’s family.  The appointment with Damien’s family was just hilarious.  Damien shared the Reeses with all of them, and when we were there, they were all just raving about how good they were.  And then they all just starting chanting "QUEREMOS MAS!"  Oh man, I was just dying laughing.  We also met with Carmen and Danielle.  That appointment with Danielle was really hard for both of them.  Sister Petersen was the one that originally starting working with Danielle to bring her back to church.  They were both crying, and it was really touching.  As Daniele drove us home, she turned to Sister Petersen and said "I think you need to teach me how to pray again.  They aren’t working.  I prayed for you to stay, but you are leaving.”  We all just starting laughing.  

Here are our "Friendship Cats" from
Kinderegg Toys.  Precious, huh :)



Sister Wrathall is my new companion.

On Wednesday, we went up to Frankfurt, and I was on a split in Friedrichdorf while Sister Petersen went to all of her fancy trainer meetings.  It was great.  I got to be with Sister McMurray and Sister Fuller, two of the girls from the MTC.  It was crazy to be with them because I felt like I was a golden again, but I have to keep reminded myself that I have been out almost half my mission.  That is just weird to me.  Thursday, I came back with Sister Wrathall and then it was General Conference.  And now, it is all on me to fill up the week, and I am freaking out.  I really want to make this a good area, and I am nervous that things will just fall apart.  Honestly, I am a little stressed, but I know that Heavenly Father wouldn’t set me up to fail.  I started the Book of Mormon over this week, and I read about Nephi’s story.  I have never been able to relate to him as much as I do now.  I read the story where he and his brothers went back to Jerusalem to get the plates and I have realized two things (well, more than two, but two main things).  1.  I need to stop being like Laman.  Laman went and did what he had to do.  When he had to go ask Laban for the plates, he went and asked, and then when he got afraid, he ran.  That is what I do sometimes.  I do what I know I need to, but when I get afraid, or nervous, I back down.  I start talking to someone, and then think, "Oh, they won’t be interested.  They never are.”  Then I get nervous to ask them again, and just back off.  But I can’t do that.  I need to be more like Nephi,   because….2.  After Laman came back and told what happened, Nephi simply responded, "Okay, we will try again, just in another way.”  Even when that failed, he didn’t give up.  He kept trying.  I have realized from this story that the Lord expects us to keep trying.  Only when we try, and try again, and really show Him that we are working, THEN He will come and show us the way.  He won’t just hand us things if we haven’t first proven that we will work and he can trust us. 



So this week, I am going to stop being Laman.  I have a goal where I am not going to back down.  If one person tells me they are not interested, I am not going to just throw in the towel and call it good.  I have prayed and pleaded and during Conference, I have felt that this week, I will find someone that is ready to be baptized.  There is someone out there waiting to hear what I have to tell them.  I am going to try, try, and try again, and I am going to find this person.  If there is one thing I learned from Sister Petersen, it is how to talk to people.  Last week was much, much needed and now that she is gone, I can’t forget it. 



I love the Book of Mormon.  The more I read it, and the more I try to apply the stories to my life, the more relatable it is.  I know that it was written for our time, and I know that it can give us the guidance, peace, and help that we need.  I am grateful for General Conference, where we can hear from our latter-day prophet and apostles, and have new modern day scripture.  Heavenly Father is a living God, and He loves us now just as much as He loved the people in Christ’s time and since the world began.  It just makes sense that He would give us a prophet again to lead and guide us and help us find our way back home.  I am so, so grateful.

I love this gospel, and I am grateful for the joy that it brings into my life. 

I hope that you all have a great week!!  I am excited for next week’s emails.  I really hope that I have a cool one from Matt!!  :)

Love you all! 

Savannah 

Also, I found a family that might be able to help us with the German letters that you sent me forever ago.  They got super excited about it, and I sent it to them.  They want to sit together and translate it!  So that is cool.  Schauen wir mal!

March 31, 2014

Mom...Zum Geburtstag, Viel Glück!  Alles gute.  Also, Troy and Alyssa…Happy Anniversary!  It sounds like you all had a great weekend.  It is weird to see pictures of you all because I kind of forget that I had a life before my mission...haha.  I am glad that you all had fun together in Utah.  It is weird to think that a year ago I had just gotten my mission call and we were at Troy’s wedding...time is strange.

Well my life is upside down right now.  We found out on Friday that Sister Petersen is opening an area and training, and I will be taking over Heidelberg.  I am excited for Sister Petersen.  She will do great.  My new companion’s name is Sister Rathel.  I know absolutely nothing about her, so it will be interesting.  I will miss Sister Petersen though.  We just got along so well together.  I am excited for a new adventure.  This Wednesday, we are both going up to Frankfurt and Sister Petersen will get her new golden and then on Thursday I will come back with Sister Rathel.

We made this last week together great.  Most of our investigators were on vacation this week, so we really didn't have too many appointments with them.  Well, we really only had one.  That was with Rufina, and she hasn’t been progessing.  As nice as she is, I want to work with people that really want to listen to us.  I am super excited though, because Kristin comes back this week!  I have missed her so much.  This next weekend is General Conference, so it is perfect.  I feel like the thing that she struggles with the most is the idea of modern day prophets.  The Taylors said that we can have her over at their house during conference and watch it together, and I think that is exactly what Kristin needs.  So hopefully, it will all work out well. 

 

We did work a lot with the less actives this week though and they are all doing great.  Danielle and her husband came to the fireside on Friday, and they both had a great time.  They were both socializing, and people were coming up to them and talking with them.  It was great.  I love it when less actives start depending less on the missionaries and more on the ward.  That is exactly how it should be. 

We had a really successful street display this week.  We drew with chalk Lehi’s Dream.  It was so cool.  We had the Tree of Life with the fruit and the iron rod, and we wrote a scripture from the Book of Mormon to go along with it.  So many people stopped and it was so easy to talk to them about the Book of Mormon.  Sister Petersen and I had highlighted the dream and Nephi’s interpretation in the Books of Mormon, so we just showed them the passages, explained what the Book of Mormon was exactly and then asked them to read the passages later.  A lot of people were really interested and said that they would.  We loved it.  We want to start drawing different book of Mormon stories every week.  We also stopped a group of people from China that are here studying.  All four of them ended up coming to church yesterday, and they are coming for conference next week!  It was so great.

Speaking of Books of Mormon…remember that goal that Sister Petersen and I had to give out 20 this week?  We did it!  We actually did it.  We gave out all 20, and found a couple potentials!  It was so great.  Here in Germany, that number is unheard of.  But now that I did it, I don't know why.  We just talked to people everywhere we went, and although they weren’t all interested, they took the book and were grateful.  We did get some numbers and so we need to call them up.  It really was refreshing though!  We know have some new people that are interested and ready to hear the gospel. 

Sunday was probably the weirdest day on my mission.  Pretty much everything that could go wrong, went wrong, but somehow we still had the best luck: It started off with our district leader not telling us that the time changed.  So we were getting ready and we got a call from our Asian investigators saying they would be late to the bus stop.  I was way confused because it was only 8 and we said we would meet them at 9.  Then we realized that the time changed and we ran out of the apartment.  By some luck, the train was early and we caught the bahn, which we never do, and they were on that same bahn.  Then, during church, we had a ton of visitors, but the primary subject was on missionary work, and three different classes asked us to come be surprise guests.  So we were running around like crazy, and then after Sister Petersen took a bunch of goodbye pictures, we realized that we both forgot our keys in the apartment.  So we waited outside the building until the elders came.  We spent 30 minutes trying to break into our apartment, but had no luck, and we were not happy.  (Locksmiths cost 200 euro).  We went and chilled with the senior couple and did our study, and they made tacos.  We then went to our bishop’s home and had a goodbye dinner.  The Familie Parra was there too.  I was so sad.  They are leaving back to Spain.  He was offered a really good job there and so they are moving on Friday.  They are one of my favorite families, and so that was a sad dinner.  It was also crazy because I spent the whole night translated between the two families.  Then at 10:30, we got back to our apartment and waited until the tech elders from Frankfurt got there.  They had a spare key and were able to unlock our apartment.  By about 11, we were finally in our room. 

It was seriously the craziest day, and I was just done, but somehow it was still a good day.  I have realized that about the mission.  Even when everything goes wrong, things still go right.  You just have to laugh it off and keep going. 

I am excited for this week.  It is going to feel like a dream.  We have a ton of goodbye appointments, and then I am going to Frankfurt for two days.  I will be back with my new companion, and then it is conference weekend!  By the end of it, I feel like I won’t know what happened, but it will be great.  I cannot wait for conference!  We are so blessed to be able to hear from the prophet and apostles.  Oh, on the mission, it is seriously better than Christmas! 

Well, I love you all.  A ton of my friends emailed me this week, so I am going to try and write some of them back!  Have a great week! 

Liebe, Savannah 

Sister Teeples 

March 24, 2014



 

 

 

 

 

Hallo Geliebter Familie!  

Once again, I can't believe that I am emailing you again.  I feel like this week was a joke because it just flew past me.  And now transfer calls are on Saturday, and I am freaking out.  Sister Petersen has been here five transfers, and so I have the feeling she will be going, and I will be taking over.  That would be quite the experience.  But whatever happens, happens.  I just can’t believe how quickly time goes.  Somehow, I have been out eight months, and I still feel like I just finished training.  HOW does this happen? 

Anyways, where to start?  I guess Tuesday.

We met with Sister Heckmann, a member from Spain (who also speaks perfect German), who is on fire with member missionary work.  We went over to her house, because she said that she had this massive stack of names and numbers of Spanish people she had met over the past year or so...  she wasn’t kidding.  We were going through them with her, trying to make a game plan of what to do with all of them.  We decided that this Thursday, we will be going over there again for a brunch.  She is going to call up all of the people she has met and invite them over on Thursday as well.  We are super excited.  We are praying that a lot of people will come and that we can talk with them all, and hopefully find some new investigators.  Wir freuen uns darüber!!! 

That night, we met with Dietmar, Justin, and his wife, Maria, again.  It was great.  They are so prepared that it was unbelievable.  We really had no reason to worry about the wife being sketched out.  She was just as prepared as Dietmar was.  While we were talking, I was just thinking to myself, "Have these people already learned the plan of Salvation?!"  Seriously, everything they were sharing and saying fit exactly in with what we had to share.  They were so great.  Often, I feel like God has really blessed us.  Their questions go hand in hand with what we have to say.  The member that we brought with us had the PERFECT experiences to share.  If there is one thing I have learned, it is how powerful personal experiences are.  Seriously though.  If someone were to come up to me and tell me a story about a boy praying and seeing God, and then giving me a book, I would probably be first off, confused, second, skeptical, and third, asking myself, "So what?".  But when it is taught with the spirit, and when we share personal experiences, these people understand WHY it is so important, and also how it can help them.  That is the key in teaching.  If it is not relevant to their interests, or to helping them, they are gone.  But if they understand HOW it can help them, and not just saying that it will, then they will listen. 

On Wednesday, I was on a split down in Darmstadt and was just jealous of Sister Petersen the entire time.  Like always, we had a full day planned, and so Sister Hull got to meet with the sweet people we are working with.  They went to see the Onigkeits, a part member family in our ward (That we will now be meeting with every other week), and Daniele, and then Jessika, a less active.  They also did a street display.  My split in Darmstadt…well it made me realize once again how grateful I am that I serve in Heidelberg, which really is the little golden bubble.  There was a strike in Darmstadt, so none of the trams or buses were running, so we walked everywhere.  We had to cancel some appointments because we couldn’t get out there.  The day was a lot of walking—haha.  But we had a good lesson with a less active.  It was great because I got to spend the day with Sister Lyons, though. 

Thursday was Zone Conference, and that was like Christmas.  I got to see five of the six girls that I came in with, along with Elder Guyman from my first two transfers in Nürnberg, and some other friends.  It was so great to see Sister McMurray.  We were talking about how great it would be if she came down to Heidelberg and we were comps again...oh the drama of the mission, Transfer Calls!   But that was also where I saw Lexie.  It was the weirdest thing.  I was talking with all of my friends, and then I look up and saw Lexie there.  I didn't believe it at first...apparently she is preparing to go on a mission, so she has done a lot of splits with the sisters in her area, so she came to Zone Conference with them.  It was good to see her. 

Zone Conference was great.  I love hearing from Präsident.  Whenever he speaks to me, I just feel like heaven is opening up and smiling on me.  He is the description of love and revelation, and I just learn so much from him.  If I could just sit and listen to him talk all day, I would.  The stake president of Heidelberg also spoke, and taught us how to best work with the members.  It was actually really helpful learning how from a German.  And then Elder Dyches from the Seventy was there, and we got to hear him speak.  After Zone Conference, Sister Petersen and I came back to Heidelberg, both super happy to be back.

 We also finally met with Erika again.  Katja, her daughter and recent convert, was sick and asked for a blessing.  We brought the Roses with us, and Bruder Rose explained how it worked and gave her a blessing.  The spirit was definitely strong, and the parents were both touched.  We called the next day, and Erika was extremely grateful and said that Katja was doing a lot better.  That was a neat experience. 

Besides that, we have just be hitting up the work will all the others that we work with.  Sadly, our solid investigators are all on vacation, but it has given us the chance to find new people.  Sister Petersen and I think this is our last week together, so we are working hard.  Last night, we spent the last hour of the night prepping Books of Mormon to give out.  We want to pull a "Best Two Years" and give out a case this week, so we have 20 Books of Mormon sitting in a box at home and by the end of the week, they will all be gone, and we will have some new people to teach.  We are pumped. 

I am so grateful to be here doing this work.  I have such a strong testimony that this Gospel is true.  I’m so blessed to have it in my life.  I know that Christ lives and I know that he loves me and knows me perfectly.  He knows each one of us perfectly.

I love the quote by Elder Neal A.  Maxwell: “I testify to you that God has known you individually … for a long, long time.  He has loved you for a long, long time.  He not only knows the names of all the stars.  He knows you."

Also Elder Jeffrey R. Holland shared, “No one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another.  He loves each of us -insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all.  He cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other.” 

And finally, President Thomas S.  Monson said, "Heavenly Father loves you—each of you.  That love never changes.  It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account.  It is not changed by your talents and abilities.  It is simply there.  It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful.  God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love.  It is simply always there."

 I know that God is there.  I have felt His love.  He loves me and I know that He loves you too.  It is a love that never ends.  It extends past all imagination.  He loves you when you make mistakes.  He loves you when you are doing what's right.  He loves you through everything.  He loves you even when you don't love yourself.  In fact, I would think that He loves you especially hard then.

I know that the Atonement is real.  It has the power to help us and strengthen us and give us power.  It allows us to feel Christ's love. 

I pray that you can all feel His love, and also mine.  I love you all more that you can imagine.  I pray for you everyday, and I hope that you all have a great week.

Love, Savannah