Yes we tell time in military style over here, its taking a bit of work to get used to...yeah its about 1:17 and Sister Singer and I are in the Freiberg University library, its still weird typing on a Deutsch keyboard, maybe one day ill get it.. So many awesome characters.... y is in the z spot. and we have üöäߧ° okay thats all but theyre in weird spots..ANYWAY on to the important stuff. This week was SO GREAT! So last Pday was awesome I got a new backpack in Dresden, and we went to the Frauenkirche, we saw some members of our ward there, the temple missionaries, Monday is their P-day too, and one of the Sisters explained to me the symbols and meanings of the art (IN GERMAN) and I got it! (I hope:) Its really been incredible feeling the Lord blessing me with my understanding of German, especially here in Sachsen (Saxony?) The diolect is different much more ´shhy´-ier. (yes I just said that word) Its hard to understand, even native Germans that speak hoch deutsch (high german) cant understand them, so I feel blessed to serve here first so I can learn this dialect and be able to understand most everyone now! Its been incredible the difference of last sunday and yesterday, people spoke to me and I knew what they were saying! For example; Bruder Fröbel- side note, he and his wife wow Schwester Fröbel and their family are so classically euopean stylish ah its like looking at a magazine everytime I see a member of their family, ill sent some pictures :) anyway apparently their son is serving in London, and they got a letter from him and brought it to church, well I saw it and I know his sons companion! Dan Hales (anyone from Ventana or the singles ward knows who im talking about) Cool right!? well apparently Schwester Fröbel wrote her son telling him all this and I guess I have a letter waiting from one of them, but Bruder Fröbel came and told me about it in his quick sachsen accent and I caught most of it, of course I talk like a babbling 3 year old, but I feel so blessed to understand most of the meetings and the members..the speaking will come later right!?
So some other cool experiences, other than seeing the Fröbels in all their stylish glory- We had district meeting in Leipzig, it was nice seeing the other missionaries, Sister Hung and Martineau and some elders and an Ehepaar-Senior couple....Sister Hung gave the Theme (lesson) and I thought i´d share a thought from it.... 'the first step in any progress is to believe that it is possible.´'- Amen to that, so whatever youre goal is.....lose weight, drop a habit, get up earlier, exercise, read your scripts everyday, well first you have to believe you can do it! Yay and another basic theory but pretty cool for me was.....Sister Hung quoted Elder Holland when he asked 'Why are you a missionary'- and among all the many answers, the real reason I am a missionary and the real reason any of us do anything right is.....du.. du du duuuuh! Becauseeeeeee... We LOVE JESUS CHRIST! Thats it. Thats the reason, the purpose to follow the prophet, to keep the commandments, to not drink coffee, or to be kind to our siblings, or to do anything we know is good is because of our love of the savior and the effort we give DAILY to try and perfect ourselves and to follow him. Ohhh I just love that concept, hope you're catching my drift.....
Well for our service we go see these ollllld omas in our ward who cant come to church any more because their health wont let them....ive only met one of them, but we´ve seen her a handful of times in the last 2 weeks, Schwester Houschka. Shes incredible. She hardly ever complains and has such a strong testimony. Well, its been a funny funny excperience everytime we go and see her, at least for me and Sister Singer. The first time I met her was like my first day here, and she was in the old folks hospital place, and I obviously caught like 4 words out of the whole conversation, and well, randomly she stopped talking and turned on the t.v. and had us watch some German cooking show with two ´happy`men making a salad....we sat there....and sat there....and she just had us watch this cooking show......for like 20 minutes! Oh mensch it was funny, especially because I couldnt understand a word of their German either....okay it must have been funnier to be there, but continuing on with the funny times, she finally got to go back to her wohnung (apt) and we went and visited her....well she needed some groceries and we had 20 minutes before our next appt which was close by so, Sister Singer attempted to write down Schwester Houschka´s shopping list. Mind you, Sister Singer has excellent German, but as far as Deutsch cooking items and random vegetables...well lets just say it was hilarious....im sure you can imagine two american girls walking in circles around the Edeka looking at every label and then once finding it wondering why in the world any human would want to eat that....and then having to ask another person what a certain vegetable was....who themselves didnt know either. haha, oh mensch it was a good time. We got 50% of the items right, and the classic moment was Schwester Houschkas face when we would pull out our newly bought groceries, she was especially surprized at our attempt to buy her a ´fleischsalat´....
Another awesome lady Ive had the pleasure to meet is Schwester Guerisch, shes a wenigeraktiv (inactive member) and when we went bei on her, she wasnt in her house, but walked up as soon as we got there! Miracle! Well our meeting went great (wearing the house shoes and all) and we read the Joseph Smith story....that started when Sister Singer left to get a phone call and LEFT ME! a new golden, alone in the room with an old sweet german lady, so Sister Rasmussen thought 'what do I know...hmmm oh yes the first vision, glad we memorized that in the mtc) so luckily by the time I finished saying it, Sister Singer returned and the lesson continued :) well she came to church the next day! (that was my first sunday,last week) and we just met with her again this last Saturday.... when we walked in the house and got on our house shoes, we went to the kitchen I noticed a huge GRASSHOPPER on her wall, up by the ceiling on her butterfly wallpaper....okay wierd I thought.
Well she pointed it out, acting like òh wow, there is a grasshopper on my wall´ well.....about 15 minutes later we found out she actually had found it, brought it into her house and tried to feed it grass....YEAH! I KNOW! Crazy. haha, well the best part was, we changed the subject and read for like 15 minutes in 3rd Nephi, when Christ comes and visits the Nephites....it was a beautiful story and the spirit was there and AS SOON as we read the last verse, like the second after we finished the last word she ups and talks about the grasshopper....Sister Singer and I just looked at eachother and responded to her grasshopper comment and then asked her something about the scriptures, but really? This lady sure loved her grasshopper, in the closing prayer she prayed for it! We asked her if she wanted us to take it outside for her, oh and I asked her his name....sorry ive forgotten, maybe ill ask her again and let you know...but she did let us take it outside for her, sister singer did it and she crossed the busy street to put it in the trees, and Schwester Houschka had her cross the other busy street to go to the OTHER trees so he wouldnt die....how sweet of her.
Well she pointed it out, acting like òh wow, there is a grasshopper on my wall´ well.....about 15 minutes later we found out she actually had found it, brought it into her house and tried to feed it grass....YEAH! I KNOW! Crazy. haha, well the best part was, we changed the subject and read for like 15 minutes in 3rd Nephi, when Christ comes and visits the Nephites....it was a beautiful story and the spirit was there and AS SOON as we read the last verse, like the second after we finished the last word she ups and talks about the grasshopper....Sister Singer and I just looked at eachother and responded to her grasshopper comment and then asked her something about the scriptures, but really? This lady sure loved her grasshopper, in the closing prayer she prayed for it! We asked her if she wanted us to take it outside for her, oh and I asked her his name....sorry ive forgotten, maybe ill ask her again and let you know...but she did let us take it outside for her, sister singer did it and she crossed the busy street to put it in the trees, and Schwester Houschka had her cross the other busy street to go to the OTHER trees so he wouldnt die....how sweet of her.
The other really great lesson we had this week was with our progressing investigator DING GE! She is so sweet, from China, probably 23-24 years old and is going to this university here in Freiberg- she told us what she was studying.....yeah neither of us quite understood what she said, but we nodded and told her it was cool anyway..haha, well we had an awesome lesson about faith and umkehr (repentance) and it was actually really exciting because the conversation turned to baptism and she asked a lot of questions about it! We decided to commit her to baptism this next lesson! The spirit was strong and she said she had prayed and will pray this week for her tests etc. When we´re with her she dilligently reads between her chinese and deutch books of mormon and asks very sincere questions (I really love it too because her German isnt tooooo good so its a little slower and I dont feel too much pressure to have correct grammer etc) but as we were leaving she offered us a glass of water...we said we were okay, but she got it for us any way haha, and Sister Singer took a huuuge gulp, like downed it, well to her surprise it was BOILING HOT WATER. hahahaha, oh I wish you could have seen her face! Well of couse she couldnt react ( and I couldnt laugh) because Ding ge sincerely gave it to us so we had to hold back our laughter (and sister singers pain) til after we left her apartment. Oh mensch it was funny. Hope you can imagine it too. . . I am really excited to see where Ding ge goes, we´re meeting with her this Freitag!
We got to go to the temple this last week! (If youre a sister in freiberg you get to go 3 times in a transfer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sister Singers birthday is this Freitag! The big 22, so we bought a cake, its supposed to have strawberries in it, we´ll see how that goes.....! oh and Zone Conference too! we also have a return appointment with another sister I havent met and a new appt with a couple we contacted on the street at about 8:30 at night, did I talk about them? Kind of intimindating, well Im especially excited because Sister Singer was talking to the man and I was talking to the woman and she said `yes, I would like to feel Heavenly Fathers love, and yes I want to know his plan for me´ (well she nodded when I asked her if she wanted the previous) and THEN we saw them at Kaufland (the store) the day before our termin (appt) and she said yeah 16:00? Yeah! She remembered! AND THEN she called us the next day to tell her her enkelkinder (grandkids) just came into town and she rescheduled for this week-but the cool thing about that story is, she called us! she kept our card and now we have her number, and yes I know im a golden and who knows what will happen, but at least to me she sounds committed to coming and finding out what we're all about, plus we're meeting at the gemindehaus (wardhouse) right next to the temple, so how could she not feel the spirit and you know....GET BAPTIZED!!!!!!!? Yes, its going to happen...actually we (Sister Singer and I) are going to baptize all of Freiberg and this university here will become BYU Freiberg (or UVU Freiberg :) so keep watching the church news, and read the story of Alma, He did it, and so can we. (so WILL we) I believe it can happen and thats the first step right!? Hope you all have absolute faith as well, no rolling of the eyes or ókay we´ll see`.....your prayers are greatly felt and love as well, thank you so much for your support and I feel overblessed to have such incredible friends and family. Good luck this week in all your endevours and remember the important things like family and your relationship with our Heavenly Father and his beloved son, our savior Jesus Christ...because those are what count.....money, work, school, all that comes second...right? Right. Okay gtg convert a city now!
Congrats to Benjamin Collett and his call to Brazil! Go baptize em!
Oh and good luck at school family and have a blast in MIDDLE SCHOOL Kara Beara!
Toph-send me your email address haha.
-Sister Rasmussen
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