Tischtennis....brownies....Freude....CHURCH!

October 18, 2010
What a great week! Agree? The weather here is cool and crisp, leaves are COVERING the sidewalks, its misty in the mornings and yet the sun is shining...sometimes there are really cool grey rolling clouds, but yesterday and today the sun has come out and its been just perfect. Sister Singer and I thought it seemed like 'perfect turkey bowl' weather. Everyone is saying it should snow in the next two weeks.....eeek! Im excited! Its going to be so beautiful, I for some reason think I will be putting my foot in my mouth being excited for it, but I guess we will enjoy the weather as it is and stop wishing for the future. Either way its starting to smell like winter and its time to buy some good boots.

We made a lot of progress this week, especially with Li and Ding Ge. Ahh there is so much to say, so last week we had invited Li to be baptized and she responded in her sweet chinese german english 'Liebe Sisters, I am going to be honest. I dont want to become a mormon.' So that was...well not so great, BUT we then recommitted her to pray, to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true, etc..  and invited her to this 'Tischtennisturnier' on Wednesday. She said she would pray and also be waiting for us outside her door at 17 to walk up to the tournament with us. So we showed up that evening and she poked her head out the 4th floor window and said 'here I am' haha Oh you would love her English, its so cute. She also said, is it alright if I bring some friends? We said of course, and DING GE walks out of the building haha, our two investigators are chillin now, (if you didnt remember, we had contacted them completely separately, and here were are, all friends) Also their other friend, her son and her mother came with us to the ping pong tournament. There were a lot of people from our ward and Li played great! Ding ge and I just laughed the whole time and wow Germans do everything right, they had a trophy, and two medallions for the 2nd and 3rd place winners....crazy...for PING PONG! haha, anyway, we then had an appt with Ding ge for Thursday and Li wanted to come too, so they said they would walk with Sandy up to the church and meet us there the next day. 

So Thursday Sister Singer and I taught English to our hilarious 9 Germans, we brought American chocolate brownies, very chocolatey and delicious, they loved them and wanted the recipie.(we also gave some to the streulings and she wanted the recipe too...! Guess its a good one!) We then met Ding Ge, Li and Sandy and they brought their Books of Mormon. We opened with a prayer and asked how they had been doing with praying...Ding Ge (who had no previous religion at all) said she had prayed twice and we were very proud and excited, we also asked Li (who ís baptized Evangelish and has a lot more knowledge of the bible and christ) said, 'yes I prayed about what you said and I want to keep looking for the truth, zu wissen die wahrheit' BAH! Coolest response ever and we were so excited! So we reviewed of the importance of prayer and then watched Finding Faith in Christ in Chinese.....after it was finished there was some confusion with the translation of the word 'faith' in the chinese, something to do with 'confidence' and so Li was teaching Ding Ge what faith was.... not just defining it but really bearing her testimony of faith. We then read a few scriptures about faith and Li told us what Jesus Christ meant to her. It was really great to have both of them there to clarify and explain faith in their native language. We then talked about how faith is an action word and to show our faith we cant just say 'i believe' and then go on doing nothing, we have to help it grow, and we talked about the seed. Ding ge then chimed in, like us we have to have water and earth and sunlight, we need to work on our faith.' (perfect answer) It was then cool when we were talking about our human hunger and our spiritual hunger and just like we need to feed our physical body, we need to feed our spirit. and we laughed because a couple weeks ago they had taught us how to say 'I am full' in chinese...it sounds like 'ooo bow la' so we were saying we want our spirits to be saying 'ooo bow la' and then Ding ge said 'so after church we can say Thank you Heavenly Father Ooo bow la' how SWEET! So they both committed to showing their faith and to pray and read the scriptures, we gave them a chapter to read and also invited them to church. They said theyd come and I said 'you can wear a skirt if youd like' and Li was kinda hesitant like...mehh I might.... and then Ding ge said, so can we meet here every Thursday? How often does the invetsigator set up the regular appointments!?!?

Well Sunday we went out to the road waiting to see them walking up the street.....didnt come...didnt come....and then we saw li in a cute tan skirt and boot and her hair was all done up and oh it was such a cool experience seeing her faith in coming to church. We welcomed her warmly and asked how she was and she said 'ich fühle mich wohl' meaning I feel comfortable or very welcome....and then she pulled her book of mormon out of her purse during sacrament meeting! Apparently Ding Ge had accidentally slept in and re committed to last week, but WOW! So great!

I hope all those stories made any sort of sense...if anything just know that Li and Ding Ge are doing great, progressing and are SO funny. I will send some pictures next week.. hope Kasandra can put them on the blog or something. It so incredible being on a mission and meeting these people and knowing, wow I am going to talk to these people for the rest of my life! Church is so great, I really feel like I am in my home ward....everyone is so friendly and there are already so many inside jokes between us and different members. Its really funny too, all the members want to hang out with us! haha-last week we went with the streulings on p-day to the sechishe sweiz, today we went with Schwester Fröbel shopping at TKMAXX in Chemnitz (which let me tell you is THE place to shop here in Saxony...youve never shopped til youve shopped in a TKMAXX in Germany :) and then another member, Schwester Hartz (with the blue hair) she said she would love to go hiking with us next week, hahah, so we are booked. 

We are super stoked for that, because Schwester Hartz' husband isnt a member so maybe we can build a cool friendship and some trust with him....who knows what will happen! Also the list to feed us was just updated and wow the members here are SO loving. Its such a blessing to be a missionary in the Freiberg ward!!

Sister Singer and I are having such a blast together....we laugh so hard, bending over holding our stomachs....I wonder what people think driving by, who would want to talk to such friendly sisters!!? Its a constant adventure, talking about the gospel, bearing our testimony to everyone we meet, laughing with members, being rejected left and right, praying, bearing testimony, laughing and praying some more....its such a lovely life and I am so blessed to be here. Thank you immensely for all the support and love and prayers....it is very much felt and needed! Have a grrrreat week! Good luck building the kingdom over there! We'll do our best over here!

-Sister Kimberly Rasmussen

ps Congrats to Nick Coombs getting engaged! and HAILEY RAE SCHROEDER is becoming HAILEY RAE SCHROEDER WRIGHT THIS THURSDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS HAILEY RAE! Wish I could be there!