could it be any more beautiful?

November 8, 2919
It really couldnt be anymore beautiful.

 I cant even put into words the feelings of gratitude and immense JOY I have about being a sister missionary in Freiberg. But really its trying to describe that feeling you get when you are overcome with the spirit, or with love for someone else, or feeling the love of our Heavenly Father and you have this overwhelming peace and its almost choking because the feeling is so much bigger then us and it fills our whole being....with warmth and love and joy and peace and wow our Heavenly Father just loves us SO much. Dont you agree!!!? Its a great trick that I have quickly learned being on a mission......to count your blessings. No seriously, I know people say that all the time and we have a hymn about it, but dont roll your eyes, it really works! Just counting and thinking about all the blessings we get every single day! The people we meet, places we get to go, experiences we get to have, ahhh you just are filled with joy remembering that our heavenly Father 'is there watching and assisting and always there are those angels, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.' -Elder Holland. Its true! Cant you feel them there!? I sure do.

One of the blessings I already can count today.....SNOW! OUR FIRST SNOW! NOVEMBER 7TH tell the whole world, haha, I was so excited! It really was only a 'dusting' of whiteness. but still, so beautiful. Especially on the train today coming to Dresden (yes, we are in Dresden again for Pday) all the hills covered in trees, now topped off with snow, its a fairytale. Sister Singer said its like the snow they get in Texas and they shut the whole city down....geez we get 5 feet in utah and they still dont shut the schools down :) Im just excited and I know its going to make the work a little more challenging now having a physical challenge, but its okay, we will keep on keeping on :)

We had a 'best 2 years' moment on Freitag. We have this lady, Frau Von Ludwig, the one who already had a Book of Mormon from 15 years ago, we had met with her once....So we called her and tried to set something up, and added at the end of the call the invitation to come to Dresden to come to Stake conference with us, but she said she would be busy and wouldnt have time for the next couple of weeks. We didnt really know what we could do about her, but during our weekly planning prayer and also personally we just prayed that she would call and find time.....and just as we finished the prayer the phone rang and it was her! She told us she would be coming into Freiberg (she lives in a little dorf outside of Freiberg) and asked if we could meet on Tuesday! We were so excited and I felt the lord right there with us. but that isnt the end of the story.....we then were having comp study on Saturday and she called again and asked 'is the invitation still there for me to come to stake conference?' uh YEAH! So Bruder Steiner picked us up Sunday morning, we went and got Sandy (our new convert) and Frau Von Ludwig! It was great, we went to the new convert meeting before the main meeting and we sat on the front row. Frau Vonludwig brought her Book of Mormon and asked quesitons and made a lot of comments. It seemed that the stake presidency was talking and bearing their testimony right to her. The spirit was strong and talk of baptism came up a lot. The main meeting was so great and she seemed to enjoy it!

It was such a great experience being in Dresden for stake conference, the room was PACKED, it was such a strength to be among the saints of Germany. All these families doing the same thing we do in Utah and what people do at stake conference all over the world. It almost felt like home...exept for in German. We sustained the prophet and 12 apostles and I knew that my family was doing the same thing at home. The children sang the new primary song 'ich weiß daß mein Heiland mich liebt' and it was so beautiful...its so incredible knowing children all over the world in every language are singing those same words 'I know that my savior loves me.' Those might be some of the 8 most important words to know, and so many people here have NO idea of their truthfulness. So many people around the world dont know that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and that our Savior loves us! Its so great being a missionary and being able to teach that great knowledge.

Our chinese investigators, Ding Ge and Li are doing great! Last night they made us dinner and I helped make dumplings, it was hilarious. . . and delicious. We learned how to count to 10 in chinese and then we taught them the plan of salvation. The spirit was really strong and I love those two girls so much. Ding ge came last Friday to institute in Chemnitz with Sandy, so we went along too. It was on Präsident Uchtdorfs talk on Prioritäten (priorities) and Ding Ge said she really enjoyed it, we also played some games and Ding ge was great, the really funny part was trying to run afterwards to catch the straßenbahn and missing one and so booking it to the next one haaha, oh it was hilarious. Can you only imagine us running with our bags, through the rain, as fast as we can laughing the whole way....oh and then realizing our train back to Freiberg was leaving in 5 minutes and we were 6 minutes away.....so we said a prayer on the straßenbahn...Ding ge was the one that said 'well there is no one else on the bahn, why not pray?' so we did...and we ran from there to hauptbahnhof and our train sign said 3 yellow words -  '5 min später' it was cool to tell Ding Ge that that was an answer to our prayer :)

We had a mission wide conference call this last saturday and präsident told us about some new revelation for our mission that he and sister pimentel and the aps have been fasting and praying about.....its a new big push, new initiative called WHITE CHRISTMAS 2 Nephi 31.

The Big Goal: Every companionship can baptize before Christmas.

The Fast Start: Every missionary in the mission joins with all other missionaries in fasting on this past weekend to put our efforts into motion towards our big goal, e.g. fast for faith, for strength, for the who/where/how and success.

The Doctrine of Christ: We will all read 2 Nephi 31 right away and see how our big goal to baptize and our Purpose are the doctrine of Christ.

Our Purpose: We will all have our Purpose from page 1 of Preach My Gospel memorized and recite it as we get ready to leave the apartment for the first time each day. Each apartment should hang up something that is easily visible reminding us of our united effort, e.g. baptismal clothes.

The Invitation: Each companionship will each week invite at least one person to accept a baptismal date.

Gifts of Service: We will look for extra service opportunities during the Christmas season. The usual guideline of 4 hours per week can be doubled during White Christmas – 2 Nephi 31. 

Gifts of Truth: We will deliver gifts of truth in our teaching, including the 3 gifts of truth that God lives and loves us, that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, and that the Lord’s church has been restored to the earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith. 

Success Reports: Provide warm up stories to Sister & Pimentel and weekly emails will share highlights of success every week until Christmas.     

So thats the plan, and we feel we have a lot of candidates, we can smell it, baptism is coming :) Thanks for listening, kind of a different email today, but hope you all have a great week and know how much I love and appreciate you!!!!!

A quote that ive loved this past little while about the Holy Ghost:

You want to Be good, and to Do good. That is commendable. But the greatest achievement that can be reachable in our lives is to be under the complete infludence of the Holy Ghost. Then he will teach us what is REALLY good and NECESSARY to do.

-Sister Rasmussen