We had a great week of Christmas Zone Conferences this last week. We started off Tuesday here with the Berlin and Neubrandenburg zones in Berlin. Wednesday we drove off to Hannover combined with the Oldenburg Zones, then the next day to Hamburg with Neumünster, and we finished up yesterday in Leipzig with the Dresden zone visiting. It was so great to see all the missionaries and feel the Christmas Spirit in all the different zones. It´s so fun being able to see all your old companions at least once a transfer and reflect with them. It´s just a special time of the year as well, and I feel a little bit more into the Christmas "mood" this time I think. I feel great today, but that´s probably also the fact that it was my first full night´s sleep as well. This last Tuesday night was the worst though. Because we had so many finisher missionaries going home right before Christmas, President made a rare exception and had us help get all 13 of them shuttled around and off with all their luggage. Normally president keeps finishers very isolated so that they don't "contaminate" other missionaries, but this time we took them to the no-mans land of the Wall where we dedicated ourselves as missionaries (at the beginning of our mission) to have them report on their mission, and to the airport and everything, just because we didn't have enough drivers. Man, I can totally see why we usually stay away from them. Seeing your good missionary friends walk through that terminal to go home is HARD and WIERD. We always liken missions to our lives, and when you go home you "die", and so for me that was the closest thing to an out-of-body experience a missionary could have. Anyway, that was a tangent. So that night we loaded all their suitcases into the van to take them to the airport for their EARLY flight. Problem was, we didn't get the van back to the office to load until around 12:30. After loading we got in bed around 1:20 or so, then got up at 3:30 to get them back to the airport... it was a great way to start off a week of already limited sleep. But as always, we had all the strength we needed and everything went well.:)
The ZoCo´s went great though this wek. We gave a Thema on miracles and how they´re everywhere when we look for them- macro-miracles or micro-miracles. We watched the last minute of the 1980 Soviet vs. USA olympic hockey game where at the very end the guy announcing the game yells "Do you believe in Miracles!?" It was great and the missionaries were super energized to see more miracles in the work I thought. These last four weeks of the year we launched a little something called "The Advent of Miracles" where starting every Sunday of the Advent time, we have specific goals and things we work on, and as we pray every day to see miracles and write them on the Advent Wreath Calendar we sent everyone, we expect to see them and see a jump in the work. We´ve seen SO MANY amazing miracles and it´s really just sweeping through them mission like a wild fire. The first week we focused on finding, and we reported the best finding numbers the mission has ever had (we measure it by New Apps. Every day you´re supposed to make out at the very least 1 appointment with someone new (tracting), and as a mission with 210 missionaries we average 6.8 per companionship that week CRAZY!) The second week we focused on Joint Teaches (having a member at lessons) and reported the highest number per companionship on record. The whole focus has been responding to the Europe Area Presidency´s letter calling for inviting people to come to church, and we´ve had the highest rate of investigators at sacrament meeting in 6 months! We are really just seeing tons of macro-miracles, and the micro-miracles are just everywhere every day.
One of the biggest miracles happened to me personally this last week. So I´ve written a couple times about the miracle with this investigator my trainer and I found a year ago in Kiel and how she is going to be baptised in October and how I got to teach her on a surprise Tausch a couple weeks ago. Well, in the short time I got to be there, we talked about if she had prayed to know if her date was right. Well a couple nights ago I got off the phone with the Kiel ZL´s who had just gotten off the phone with her, and apparently she had woken up a couple nights ago not being able to sleep and decided to she had to pray about what we had talked about. And she got a powerful answer.:) She´s now going to be baptised on the 7th OF JANUARY!!! Haha, it was such a wonderful miracle! I get to go back up and have been asked to speak at it.:) So now, not only do I get to go back to Kiel for the baptism of one of my greatest Kiel friends, but I´ll be spending the day there doing work too!!! Yep, Merry Christmas! Life doesn't get any better.:):):)
So anyway, that´s basically what´s been going on with me the past week or so. Transfers start being decided this next week, so we´re gearing up for some late nights with pres. I´m super excited though! Have a great week, love you all so much!
PS Oh ya, and I found a wild hedgehog outside the office this week.:) They´re like rats for Germans.
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