Week of April 14 from Berlin

Hey ya´ll!

 

Well my final week of travel has come and gone and we ended it on a good note with lots of good zone conferences.

Easter Sunday was a great day and one full of peace and reflection, which was a wonderful blessing after having a somewhat stressful weekend with zone conference and everything. We had a way cool investigator come to church for the second time, and she´s making huge progress very fast, and should be getting baptised in the next couple weeks. Overall though, the day was filled with eating appointments (we had two back to back) and doors in student housing in the evening. We´ve been seeing lots of success in focusing on students during this holiday time, lots of new appointments made out and first lessons taught.  The trouble is just getting time in their busy schedules to meet with us and time in our almost busier schedules to meet with them. It´s been rewarding though to get to declare the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon so many times to so many different people.

Tuesday we had our conference here in Berlin.  Everything went pretty well. The Zone Conferences were focused mostly on the Book of Mormon. President, being the creative teacher he is, read a modified story of Green Eggs and Ham, called Green Eggs and the Book of Mormon, and talked about it´s converting power and how it helps investigators on the path to conversion.  He then showed us Jeffrey R Holland´s testimony of the Book of Mormon in his famous talk "Safety for the Soul" and bore his testimony to us. Siser P. talked about how we could use the BoM more in our missionary work and shared some missionary stories from her mission about how using the BoM lead to success.  Then she challenged us to pray to know how we can better use the BoM in our missionary work. We taught, on special request of President, about another blue book that´s very important to missionary work, the Area Book, and announced some changes in policy and things we had made. It wasn't the most popular topic, but we tried to make it fun and applicable to everyone. We closed however with a cool Mormon Message about the BoM and our testimonies. Overally the ZoCos were good, but in a way it was sad to see so many mission friends for the last time. 2 former companions bore their finishing testimonies and are going home in a week, so it was no fun saying goodbye to them as well. Overall though it was a good trip and things went smoothly.  It was a good finishing round of ZoCos.

Another hard thing this week was saying goodbye to our wonderful investigator who is going to Miami for the next couple weeks. I was able to tell her goodbye and that I would come back for her baptism 100% sure. She shed a few tears and said thanks for everything and that she was excited for her baptism... it was one of those rewarding missionary moments to know that you were able to help somebody out and that you meant something to them. I´m stoked out of my mind for her baptism though! I just hope they don't steal one from us in Miami haha.

Well all and all not a whole lot more to report. I was super sick this week, but things are on the mend and I still have yet to miss a day of missionary work due to sickness, so I´m thankful for that. It made things unpleasant but not impossible. I´m hoping to finish out well this last week here in Berlin. We´ve got a big transfer coming up with lots of key pieces on the move.  Tuesday we´re driving out to the political offices of a well known Senator here, and also a good friend from the Prenzlau days, to discuss the future of the work here in the great state of Brandenburg, so that will be fun to see him again as well. Hope you all have a wonderful week back home, and thanks for all that you do!