Brownies...

I have the greatest 'chubby sister brownies' recipe. Thank you to Sister Marineau from my golden transfer and it is such a great way to bring love from the Sisters. Haha, we brought them to our ward party last week and sadly not everyone got some because somebody else hid them all for themselves...who knew they were so good? Either way we baked some and brought them to church and after the meeting we had a little treat for everyone. People kept asking...whats the occasion? (we really had made them because Schwester Zimmer and Katrin hadnt gotten any at the ward activity) but we just did it because we wanted to...it made me think....

Why does there always have to be a reason to do something good for somebody else? I think its a cool concept to hopefully master to just do things for people, serve people, just because. Just because thats actually our responsibility. I think our biggest goal of members of the church, and representatives of Christ is to accomplish what we promise to do every week when we take the sacrament. We promise to 'immer an ihm denken' (quick side note, its super wierd think of the sacrament prayer in English) to 'think of him always' and when we do that we act like him as well, because our actions come from our thoughts right?

Yeah we talked in scripture class this week about how sometimes we think of a situation we are in and say 'that has nothing to do with church or with the Lord' and that is completely false! Every situation we are in, regardless of its with work or friends or school or food haha every decision we are given 'has to do with the lord' Its so comforting to realize we can have guideance, divine guidance, for every decision we make...and thats where agency comes in.

Its one of the hardest things being a missionary and getting to deal with peoples agency. Christian has chosen to 'take a break' or something...we havent talked to him in a couple weeks. Its sad to see and kind of hurts, but then you realize Heavenly Father has a much bigger plan then ours and he will be ready to take on the gospel later, we were just a good introduction and Im excited to hear of the success other missionaries will have when he uses his agency to choose to take on the gospel.

Sister Madsen and I are loving serving together and have big goals, we try and speak German wie oft wie möglich (as often as possible) and are seeing miracles every day. I dont know why I always get surprised when people make out an appointment with us, but its such a miracle, I should be to the point of expecting miracles but it throws me off guard everytime, and its such a blessing! This last week we had an awesome time teaching Bianka...she is still saving for the wedding but so close...she says her wedding dress will also be her tauf dress. yay! So she is so converted, just waiting to be married, she lives the gospel so strongly. Kneels with her 3 kids all together every night for family prayer, listens to the prophet on youtube often and reads the scriptures out loud to her little daughter, Lia Sophie as she does her hair. She has a lot of pressure against her, her parents against them going to church and work collegues etc, but she just lives it and beams full of the spirit and im just so excited to see the member she will become, of the people she will bring with her into the gospel. We meet with her every week and have started giving her topics to study and she teaches us, this last time we got there and she was so excited to show us what she had prepared, she even typed it up. I sure love that woman and that family....hope the wedding comes soon!

Alishar is another investigator we are super excited about (i wrote about him last week right?) Either way he came to church yesterday! Ran up the hill in the rain to bahnhof to catch the train with us. He said he really liked church and you can tell he feels comfortable there, sang the songs and seems to really be taking it on well, sadly he is reading a lot of anti stuff on the internet, trying to learn a lot 'about' the religion, so we are working with him in not just learninga about it but 'experiencing it.' And thats really what its about, when we talk to people on the street we say it a lot too, a belief in God doesnt come from being born into a family who belives but from experience and its true. The only way I can say I know God lives and Jesus is the Christ is because Ive EXPERIENCED it, experienced him in my life.

Hope youre experiencing it too. Theres nothing better. Theres no better feeling than being filled with JOY...ooo ooo! That reminds me of one of the scriptures I am memorizing to get 'seek my treasure' (this study program we have in our mission) it says...

Wahrlich wahrlich ich sage dir, ich werde dir von mein giest geben, der dir den verstand erleuchten wird, der dir die seele mit Freude erfüllen wird.

haha, hope thats right, that was from my mind, but it says something like. Verily verily I say unto you I will give you my spirit which will enlighten your mind and fill your soul with JOY!

Thats what Im loving and experiencing here is a whole lot of mind erleuchtung and soul filling joy. haha, hope you are too! Have a great week!

love, Sister Rasmussen

Pictures....

1. My favorite Manfred, Rosel (Rowlands wife) Sister Madsen, Me and our lovely Marcel (the less active weve been working with for...ever and he finally came to church! He has now come 2 weeks in a row!

2. Sister Madsen and I at the top of the Berliner Dome....theres Berlin! Ahh im so blessed to serve here!

3. Sister Singer send me a cute package with so much chocolate...so much for not going home rolling off the plane....oh well :)

4. SO my mom sent me a random post it note a couple weeks ago inside another letter with a picture of a snail on it.... saying 'dont you just LOVE snails?!' Yes mom, I sure do love snails, I even found a German vw van with snails spraypainted on it just for you.....I may also have felt really sad when I accidentally crushed one unterwegs . . . sorry snaily. (oh theres some DDR wohnungs (apartments) in the backround for you.) Happy day!

chachachachangesss. and miracles too!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY DADDIO!

 

Hope everyone had a lovely week, we sure did, emotional too. It was crazy packing up Sister Scrugg's stuff and then picking up Sister Madsen too! I was full of anticipation and sadness and excitment and relief and joy. See!? A lot of emotions at one time, but luckily through it all we just had a blast! It was weird taking Scruggsie to office, but so exciting too, she was an amazing missionary and I am so honored I got to serve with her...twice!

 

Sister Madsen is super great! I love her already. We laugh a lot and she is a hard worker. She is from Mapleton, which we all know is down by Springville...not up by Farmington. (oops) Haha, she is one of 9 kids and they all sound awesome. She has served in Magdeburg, Greifswald, Celle and now here! She and I went into the MTC on the same day and she was fast tracked. Its so awesome to be in the middle of our missions commited to the work and motivated to see miracles and work hard for them. We are seeing so much success here (shh dont want to jinx us) but there are so many people, almost too many and they are split between 2 cities so our biggest challenge is just figuring out when to meet with them all! Out of all the challenges we could be having, Ill take it, just excited to see where the Lord leads us and hopefully learn how to master it.

 

Did I tell you about Alishar? He is a student who is studying in Frankfurt Oder who talked to US  on the train a couple weeks ago. He is from Germany and his mother is from Kazakhstan. We taught him a first lesson and gave him the Book of Mormon 2 weeks ago and then last week he came to scripture class. It was actually a funny story, we called and he said 'didnt you say there was something in Frankfurt tonight?' and we said 'Yeah scripture class! We'll meet you by the stadion bus stop ten minutes before 19:00....' so then around 17:00 we got a call from him and he apparently got the times mixed up and came 2 hours early! haha, it was fine and he then came laster, but really eager right!? Hes a super smart guy and is in culture studies. He then came out to Eisenhüttenstadt to meet with us and Danita (the daughter of the branch president) was a great joint teach, we talked about the Restoration and he then comitted to pray about it and was excited to come to church next week! Wahooo I love this work.

 

Another small miracle was when we got rejected by this younger guy who we talked to about God...no thats not the miracle, so we thought it was a pointless lesson and then at the end we asked, well who do you know who would be interested in meeting with us and learning more about God, and without hesitation he said, yeah my step dad. So we got his information and called him up a couple days later and he made out an appointment! That appointment was yesterday and it was amazing! The son brought him the Book of Mormon we had given him and he had already started reading it. We had an awesome lesson and the spirit was so strong... he said he had stopped believing in God when his brother died when he was little but he had a desire to find out if he was there, he wanted to believe in him just didnt think his prayers were being heard. It was such an honor to get to be the missionary to tell him, Yes you do have a Heavenly Father who loves you, who loves all of us and wants the best for us. As we do what he suggests or actually commands us to do then we can clearly see his hand in our lives and can feel his love overwhelm us. It was a great lesson and he said the closing prayer. He was excited to read the Book and was eager to make out another appointment to let us know what would happen.

 

It was just a testimony builder to me of how nothing we do is wasted when we are following the spirit, one could have thought that appointment with Danielo was a waste, he was really closed and didnt want to believe, but then through him we found his dad and he is now feeling the love of his Heavenly Father having learned how to communicate to him. Bah what a wonderful work isnt it!?!

 

One of the biggest miracles I have seen on my mission was the 'keeper key' we got yesterday. Our goals in this mission are, To find and teach, to baptize and keep. KEEPING is the work we do with new converts, members and less actives. A keeper key is what we get when a less active comes back to church after having been gone for at least 90 days....or in this case 9 years. Marcel Peters is a member who was baptized 12 years ago and has really fallen away from his faith. He has been taught by missionaries a lot in the past few years and we have met with him almost every week for the past 6 months... and he was taught a lot before that. He has been coming to scripture class but not to church. We have invited him a lot before but there was always something standing in his way. . . Well you can tell he has been thinking a lot about the gospel in the past few weeks as he called the branch president and asked if he could order the liahona. He then commited to come to the ward party. He had a great time and you could tell he felt very loved. We again invited him to come to church the next day, and he said he would. My faith was tried as I convinced myself this time it was different than all the other times he said he would come. I almost teared up as we walked around the corner and saw Marcel standing there at 8:15 with Manfred waiting for us to take the train to church. It was such a miracle and he loved it. We ate at Rosel and Rowland Rudows garden after church and you could see that Marcel felt like he was home.

 

Theres a glimpse at some of the cool experiences we had this week, we didnt have time to go grocery shopping so weve been eating a lot of cherries (everyone has cherries) and some homemade bread the Scharfs gave us. haha, we are working hard and being obedient and laughing all day long. Thats how a mission should be done I think, I highly reccommend it. But I guess thats the same thing as real life isnt it. Just doing what you know you should, working your hardest at whatever your righteous goals are and laughing the whole time. Hope its working out for you. If not, just pray for it, Heavenly Father will send you SOFORT (immediately) the answer you need if you earnestly want one.

 

Have a happy, safe, joyful, successful, spiritual, exciting, fufilled, lovely week!

 

I love you!

Sister Rasmussen

success.

What is success? I think a simple answer could be, knowing you did, are and will follow the spirit your entire life. That defines success because its inevitable you will be successful in every aspect of your life when the Lord's opinion and guidance is the only one considered. Then miracles come! We have been blessed to feel successful in all the miracles Sister Scruggs and I have seen together in the last 6 weeks. I think the most prominate one is the fact we found a new person everyday for the past 5 weeks that wanted to learn more and set up an appointment to meet with us! What a miracle! They are all over this place people just looking for this same spirit and love of our Heavenly Father.

 

We worked hard this past transfer and laughed a WHOLE lot. Our district leader Elder Pauli from Switzerland is hilarious and is also a very hard working missionary so we (our whole district) were motivated to work hard together to achieve district goals. Im so grateful to be serving around such spiritual giants and hard workers. So Sister Scruggs is finalizing this week and traveling around Germany with her fam for a week and her homecoming is on June 26th at 10:50am Monument Park 15...shout out for Sister Scruggs. SO THAT MEANS IM STAYING HERE ANOTHER 6 WEEKS! Sister Madsen is coming to me from Celle, from the other side of the mission. We went into the MTC on the same day, and she was fast tracked, so we are close to the same age on the mission, we had a tausch in Freiberg when I first got here so I know her a little and am so excited for the miracles coming our way! She is great, her personality reminds me a little of Jenna Crowley if anyone remembers her, we'll see if my opinion changes, probably will but thats a good start :)

 

I feel so blessed to be serving in this little branch and I am feeling lately the Lord really using us! Haha, I am being stretched and it is good...where more is given more is expected I guess. We taught Relief Society on Sunday, then the pianist wasnt there so I accompanied for the meeting, then we found out the Missionaries will teach Scripture Class on Wednesday and we are getting ready for a big 'familien fest' where the missionaries play a big part, in advertising and getting investigators to come! Wow its a wonderful work and its so comforting remembering this is the Lord's work and as long as we are prepared we shall not fear. Tee hee, I love this branch dearly and it so funny to be the one staying, I have now had 3 companions here and will now have 4, I really feel apart of the family and am excited to serve these people with a little more love, boldness, power, diligence and charity in this next transfer!

 

I am so grateful for the knowledge of D&C 130:2And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy.
We are promised to be with our families and friends forever....actually very soon! Our loved ones are close and the Lord will give us the hope and strength and peace we need while waiting for that sweet reunion.
Hope this email finds you happy and healthy and loving life, counting the sweet things in life and really feeling successful. If you arent feeling so successful lately, just find out the Lord's opinion on the matter and then follow the sometimes uncomfortable promptings of the spirit, then you will be filled with an overwhelming feeling of love, peace, JOY and success! Have a great week and know a missionary in Germany loves and appreciates you!
Liebe Gruße, Sister Rasmussen
Pictures:
1  Pday on the train back from sport...just took a drink and may be a little cross-eyed. Happy Pday!

2 We taught an old couple and the lady just gave us old necklaces and fruit when we left...we felt like we just ran away with pirate booty...crazy German ladies...

 3 Door to door on one of the cutest streets in Frankfurt-Oder. We decided this isnt really what Germany looks like, usually its more DDR looking and old, but here is a street that looks like what most people imagine Germany looking like :) 

Sei Treu und Sei Gut

Yay missions! I love Germany! I love being a servant of the Lord and seeing these peoples lives change.

 

CHRISTIAN is rocking it!!! He is planning to be baptized on June 11th!!! And we have taught him everything but tithing. He is really changing his life to follow Christ. It just blows my mind the elaborate plan of our Heavenly Father and how we find his children. We talked to him outside of McDonalds in like February and he now has a testimony of Christ and is committed to the gospel. We met with him a lot this past week. We met with him Tuesday and talked about the Word of Wisdom and the only thing in his path between him and baptism and that is smoking. We talked about how wimple it is with the Lords help and the motivation of wanting to keep the commandments, so we went through his stuff and found all his lighters, like 26 of them! and took his ashtray and of course anything he had to smoke, he seemed excited and we told him the power of priesthood blessings, so on Wednesday he came to scripture class and sat with hany, hany pointed out to him where we were reading in the arabic BOM, haha. Then after scripture class we went into Ola and Ahmed's kitchen and talked a little bit more about the power of the Lord and what a preisthood blessing is and then Christian said the prayer and Ahmed gave him a beautiful blessing. After the blessing his face looked different, full of peace and comfort, you could see he was filled with the spirit. He did it! He quit and is keeping all the commandments. We met with him Thursday and taught him about the prophet and we asked him to pray to see for himself if Thomas S. Monson is a prophet and he said, well yeah but we all already know what the answer will be.. We also met with him Saturday and taught him the law of chastity, we talked to him with the aspect of the trust it builds in relationships and how it effects eternal families. He said this commandment sounded logical, and of course had no problesms with it, this guy is so prepared and one of the elect. Thinking the law of chastitiy is logical isnt usually a response from a 32 year old single guy! He is reading dilligently in the Book of Mormon, and his prayers are really meaningful and heartfelt, its so incredible to me to see these people change to find their faith and develop this faith and desire to return to our Heavenly Father and find lasting joy in this life too through the Gospel.

 

Also really great news with Hany! He got the aaronic priesthood yesterday! He was beaming and the whole branch was there when he was ordained. He is going to do great things as he continues growing in the gospel, sadly we havent been able to meet with him as frequently as desired but he luckily has the greatest friends, Ola and Ahmed who teach him and keep him motivated and loved in the gospel. He has such a big heart and it is so great seeing him become apart of the Eisenhüttenstadt branch/family. . . he is hoping to get the rights to have his children every other weekend and be able to bring them to church, yay 3 little kids to add to the primary!

 

Speaking of primary, we taught yesterday the 5 primary kids about cumbucas...do you know what a cumbuca is? Its an ape trap. When you put your hand in the hollowed out gourd theres a banana or something inside and when you're holding on to it you cant get your hand out...and then theyre stuck because they wont let go. So we made our own Cumbuca and had all the kids try to get free while holding the banana inside, didnt work. Satan also builds cumbucas and if we dont let go of the sin we are stuck and cant be free! ahh! So let go! and stay faithful and stay good. Thats what 'sei treu sei gut' means, we played the primary song for them and sang through it a few times, it was neat to hear the primary kids later in the day humming and sing the song to themselves...we also heard that little Josh told Schwester Schmidt the primary president about our lesson and asked if we could do it again next week. Yay! Love primary kids and love teaching the gospel in such basic terms. Thats seems to be the key, teaching deep doctrine but keeping it so simple that a child can understand it and so the spirit can testify. Im really excited to study the gospel with that in mind, to learn how to teach it simply but with all the important key points to help people convert to the Lord, to have deep deep roots growing quickly committed to following Christ, when that happens then these children of God stay and are committed to endure to the end. And thats the goal.

 

We are finding a lot of new people who have interest to learn more, every day we find someone new and make out an appointment, what an incredible plan our Heavenly Father has made for us. One of the most important things we need to do and strive to do daily is to remember we are a piece of that plan and he can/will guide our decisions and lead us on our paths, very clearly/obviously too! We just have to ask him and look for the signs he is giving us! Learning how to feel and follow the spirit is all we need to be successful and happy in this life, to live worth of it and feel it and follow it and be surrounded in light and lvoe of the Savior. Isnt it so incredible? There arent words to describe the Joy the gospel can bring and even better to bring that joy to someone else! I highly reccommend it, I commit you-dare you to talk to someone about your belief this week, at least live the gospel so magnificently some one will notice the light of Christ shining through you, wanting to know your secret of how you live life so well....have fun.

 

I sure love you and love this gospel, thank you for your love and prayers and support. They are much needed and strongly felt. Happy June this week? When did that happen?? Have some great starts to summer! We will too over here in our little poland boardering city of Frankfurt Oder :)

 

Machs gut!

Sister Rasmussen