Go, go, go, on an adventure, the ting-a-magigga is upa nd away!

Go, go, go, on an adventure, the thing-a-magigga is up and away!!- apparently thats what my little cousin Liam says? Thanks for the tip liam.

Life is good, sorry I didnt get last weeks mass email sent off but I guess you get two today! Lucky you. Life is great, big news....
IM GETTING A GOLDEN!
Who knew. Well, people said it was obvious but Im still a wee bit nervous, I mean I dont know what to expect! I sure hope she is excited and ready to work because we have a lot going on here! We had a stellar last week, Sister Anderson and I. Saw a lot of miracles...oh and I got bitten. or stung.. Either way 3 mornings ago I woke up with a bite on my ankle and it itched like crazy, but then in started swelling up and turned purple and red and i couldnt walk it was so swollen (pretty sounding I know) and we all decided it was a sign I would become a 'mission mother' I have a mom haircut and swollen ankles It must mean im going to train right? Yep. Its the truth. Oh dont worry about my foot, it was really painful a couple mornings but as I got moving it wore off, and then (as spoiled as we are here in leipzig) the bishop took us to this awesome doctor who is a member in Kütten. I got some creme and a wrap and some antibiotics, she said I really should just take a day and cool it, but since that doesnt work for me haha I should ask for a blessing. Which I did. It was so neat to get a blessing from Elder McCann and Elder Walter. They are both great missionaries and it was a pretty spiritual experience realizing we are just 4 20-22 year old people all trying to do our best to serve the Lord and helping each other. I was super grateful for the blessing and comfort that came with it.

We have some exciting newss about Bürcan, Michael and Maik! They are all loving the gospel! All reading in the Book of Mormon and all came to 3 hours of church yesterday, and then stayed for a baptism afterwards. They all said they wanted to be baptized as well....and I feel so honored to get to be the missionary who gets to teach them! Haha, so we teach Bürcan and Maik and the institute a couple nights a week and BOTH of them at least once this week just showed up hoping someone would be here....without an appointment or anything, you definitely can tell they feel the spirit here and feel welcome and wohl here. We taught Bürcan about tithing this past week with Irakli and it was a cool lesson, i love teaching it with candy....10 little pieces...and telling him this represents all that God has given us....and asked him for just 1 of the 10....and as he does that we slam down a HUGE bar of Milka chocolate saying it represents when we give the Lord a 10th of what he already has given us, he blesses us with SO MUCH MORE and so much better then we could ever imagine. It was a funny lesson but also very spiritual when we asked him 'will you keep the law of tithing?' he responds 'Ich will das.' 'I want to.' Same thing when we talk about the baptism all he says is I want that. I want to. Ich möchte das machen. Its so amazing seeing his faith and willingness to do the things the Lord asks. I hope I and we all can have that same kind of faith and willingness to keep the commandments....not just 'yeah okay, if I have to.'..but 'yeah, I want that, I want to.'

It is really amazing to see the change in both Michael and Maik as well, theyre both younger guys who didnt grow up with any religion or much knowledge of even the 10 commandments but both, especially Michael are so willing to change and fill their lives wih the good things the gospel brings. We taught Michael about keeping the Sabbath day holy and he was immediately willing to keep it, he said it would be a little harder when he goes home to visit his mother because they had the tradtion of always going to the bakery for breakfast on Sunday mornings, but other than that he would be able to do things that bring him closer to the savior. After the long day at the church (after 3 hours of church and the baptism and food at the end he was there from 9 to about 2pm) he said something like 'who knew Sundays could be so schön,' I mean that was his first sunday, a little long for a newbie....lol a little long for anybody and he enjoyed it a lot. he is excited to come to family home evening tonight with Nadine and to come next week to church, bah im just so excited for him!

So we are seeing miracles with these 3 and im hoping we can find some new people this next week....we need to do better and getting members at our lessons with them but we have a few lined up for this week and that should help them feel more integrated, we decided to move the baptisms to the 25th of September and by that time they will have been to church a few more times and have an even more solid foundation...its such a blessing to work with prepared people who show so much faith and are willing to keep all the commitments we give them to come closer to the Savior.

We have been cleaning and Sister Anderson is packing she is going to go open a sisters program in Kiel, up north...and im going to Berlin on Tuesday for a day and we are going to go finding with all the new goldens but I wont know which one is mine!! But then Wednesday we have golden conference and then Ill bring her back here! I wish I had taken my mothers advice and written down all the things Sister Singer did so well to train me, but I guess ill just love her and hope the Lord guides us.

I love this gospel so much and just the pure doctrine in knowing we have a FATHER: in HEAVEN! I Heavenly being who loves each of us so perfectly and just wants us to be happy and have joy...how incredible. and then to know we have a perfect Brother who gave his life for us so we can be clean! and with our families forever! We just talked about that last night with a cute little family in our ward, just remember the last time you were with people you loved and you were so at peace with life and and so happy, laughing and content and loving yourself and loving the people you were with.....that feeling, we can have for ETERNITY! What an incredible plan....why would you ever choose something to take you away from that feeling? I dont know either. its so fun and such a blessing to get to bring the spirit with these teachings to people here in Leipzig, but why keep this knowledge to yourself when you know someone who just needs to know they have an eternal identity, you should tell them, i dare you :)

Its great, and this place is amazing. Weather has been CRAZY. One night it really seemed like the ocean was falling from the sky in 4 minutes we were COMPLETELY DRENCHED..not just like wet but like 'jump in a swimming pool and then get out and jump in again' wet....and then the next day was so hot I thought I would never cool down again...luckily we know an awesome guy who works at a döner shom (BÜRCAN) who gave us free water...so then we survived....and now its refreshing end of summer almost fall weather and I love it. We are going to go to Vapianos today for lunch, then getting Sister Anderson her last Lukas vanilla donut (famous from Leipzig) and have FHA (family home evening) what a wonderful work.

Have a great week, dont hesitate to take 10 minutes and write a little notey note and put it in a little envelope and 'old school' like get a stamp and write
Sister Kimberly Rasmussen
Kirche Jesu Christi
Blochmannstraße 15
04105 Leipzig
Deutschland

on it and then put it in the little mailbox. Youll be blessed im sure :)

Happy Monday, talk to you soon!

Alles alles Gute!
Sister Rasmussen

'Wie du willst, so will ich sein'

I want to look back at this time and be proud of the person ive been. I want to know the choices ive made wont be wishing i could make them again. haha, yay EFY. Yep, ive fully converted to missionary life and was so excited to get the new efy cd. Dont judge me. haha, Its the truth too. Dont you agree, we*'ve got to live it up now, living to our best and be proud of the choices we made, how we treat people, how we show our love to our Savior, today. No waiting til later to change...and why would someone wait to feel the love and get the blessings the Lord wants to give us. It really makes no sense in my mind anymore why someone would choose not to live the gospel so fully. Laziness, theres some commandment that seems to uncomfortable or too difficult? Well, luckily theres always time to recommit to the lord and give our best now. Thats the point of this life is to turn around and go back to the path the Lord has shown us. . . so simple. Why do people make the gospel so complex. It really is simple. and its such an honor to get to represent the Savior and teach these people how to change and live to how the Lord said we should. We've had some pretty unique and awesome experiences this past week, one of my favorites was last night.

We had an appointment with Bürcan and Irakli (pic attached...dont know why they look so sad, theyre both hilarious) and it was amazing. Bürcan was given the Book of Mormon 3 weeks ago and he has read through to Mosia! He loves it and knows that it is true. We taught him the Word of Wisdom last week and he went from 7-8 cups of coffee a day to 0. Yeah! Anyway yesterday we taught him about the 10 commandments and keeping the sabbath day holy and the spirit was so strong. So Irakli was baptized 2 months ago...was talked to at a bus stop 3 months ago and I promise he will be a general authority. He lovest he gospel and is such a great member to have at lessons, it was such an honor to get to be the missionary to lead the discussion teaching this 30 year old man how the lord has revealed we should be living for him to bless us and to have the testimony of such a solid new convert was so amazing. Well we talked for awhile after the lesson and then we had another appointment scheduled afterwards with Maik and Robert and then they came in and Burcan and Irakli decided to stay for the lesson as well....so we talked to Maik about the word of Wisdom and talked about the stop smoking workshop...than another girl showed up who had an appointment with the Elders and she joined our discussion as well. Itw as so neat! So 3 investigators all excited about learning more about the restored gospel and a new convert and a member all talking about why we need to live the word of wisdom and the blessings we would receive for living it 100%. We all said we would be Maik's support and we would all get back together in a week to celebrate him accomplishing to quit smoking! We then called him a couple hours later to see how he was doing and he said, I just got through throwing away all my ashtrays and stuff and i was just about to read in the Book of Mormon.' Seriously....yes you just read that, there are real people like that here! All over the world ready to keep the commandments, they just need to be taught it.

It was so neat to sit next to Maik and Bürcan at church to hear them both singing the hymns and realizing the sacredness of the sacrament. They both met the bishop afterwards and both had groups of people talking to them after the meeting. They should both be coming to Family home evening tonight too...! as well as Michael who is coming back from his 2 week trip....he did it! Quit smoking while he was gone and said he is ready to be baptized when he comes back and is so much happier after quitting smoking and reading so much in the Book of Mormon: I was just so excited and almost surprized hearing that a 22 year old guy had really read so much and changed his life to pray everyday and build his faith so much already. I am so honored to get to be the missionary to teach these people and to help them feel integrated into the ward...into the gospel.

Isnt so amazing? Knowing we are apart of the gospel that Christ is leading today? This very minute he is aware of the status we are at living the commandments and coming closer to him. It was neat teaching Bürcan about the 10 commandments saying, yes we keep all these commandments and he was well yes of course....he said, we dont just go to church on sunday for a few hours and thats it, we read everyday and pray and LIVE the gospel. Amen Bürcan. Haha it was neat teaching him, we arent just living the 10 commandments we are trying to become closer to our heavenly father.....so no we dont have a problem chosing to keep the commandment not to kill, or to steal or honor our parents, but chosing to not go to the movies on Sunday, or to listen to wholesome music. Choosing to really participate in the meetings at church, to get out of our comfort zone and really become a Christian, to live how Christ wants us to live, not just debate if we would keep the 10 commandments or not. Its a constant commitment in everything we do, do we do it with the spirit and choose to do things that bring us closer to our Savior? Its incredible to see the faith of these people to say yes, I want to commit to follow Christ, commit to make better choices and become a better version of myself.

I love this work...and serving here in Germany. Did you know Bach was buried here?! Yeah i walk past where he's buried like 4 times a week! Its so cool being in such a historic city...hearing stories of WWII and the DDR times. Example.....we just started visiting this sweet sweet member, Schwester Schilde and she is 89! She tells us really of the war, running with a pregnant friend of hers dodging bombs and her husband getting caught hiding jews. She told us ome jews hid in the basement of where the Nazis were....this lady is telling me this! Im not reading it but talking to someone who lived it. And the most incredible part about it was at the end of every story the spirit was so strong because she said her faith in Christ got her through it all: She new her Savior was close to her and she is such a strong member. Shes too old now to go to church but is so solid. I want to be her. She wishes so badly her family would join, but shes done all the temple work for all her family who has passed away (even her mean sister in law who treated her like cinderella haha) she feels so bad she cant pay her tithing because she has no income and no money. She was so sad saying, i miss paying my tithing, it was how I could say thank you to the Lord for all he gave me...I just told her to thank him with her prayers and bearing her testimony so strongly of him and the reality of his life and atonement. Its so great to visit her, theres a picture, she didnt look at the camara though so she looks a lot crazier than she is.

Hope you can feel a little of the appreciation I have for you and for this gospel. Hope you can feel the love the Savior has for you and feel his presence. Hope you have courage to make the little changes to come closer to him and let him and our Heavenly Father bless you. Hope you feel my love for you and the excitement of sharing the gospel! Hope you are happy and healthy and arent eating as much as I seem to have to. Theres a picture of roladen and klösel...its delicious... Ill have to make it for you one day :)

We believe.

Love you! Sister Rasmussen.

*enjoy this moment, this moment is your life*

I love the gospel. Dont you? Its so eternally glorious and brings so much happiness. Why? because when you believe in Christ and know that through him we can be clean and filled with joy, through his sacrifice we can be with our families forever...we can get through any trial or hard time because we know we have a loving Heavenly Father who wants the best for us....who is helping us grow. So...if youre going through a hard time, strengthen your testimony of your Saviour Jesus Christ and know that through him it will all be okay in the end....and if its not okay, its not the end. :) I am feeling so blessed to be serving a mission right now, the Berlin mission is a special mission, the biggest in Europe and getting bigger over 200 missionaries in our mission! and I get to be one of them...wow. So great.

Im especially pumped because we had Zonekonferenz on Friday and President taught us about vision and effort. He read to us the dedicitory prayer from 1975 and we talked about the promises promised to the land of Germany and the missionary work here. We are already seeing huge blessings, our mission is higher then average in almost every aspect, and we have so many people with baptisimal dates, now we are working towards getting them to that date. That is our plan right now with Michael and Bürcan, Miak and Ruth... Seglinde and Aloysious as well, and they are all making progress and if they arent we aren't wasting our time trying to pull teeth and push them to keep committments because after seeing and experiencing people like Hany and Schwester Zimmer and now Michael and Bürcan, there are people that are dying to learn how to live the gospel and to find the truth. So we are working hard to find those people. One of the differences president made is he got rid of 'ballards' not sure if there are any missionaries reading this but that is HUGE! Haha, yep instead of talking to a minimum of 20 people and then making out an appointment, we now just measure the new appointments and will report at least 7 new appointments a week. Anyway enough with the logistics, Im just stoked about the bar being raised and the new commitment we have to work hard.

Bürcan is doing awesome, he's read through 2 Nephi and called the other day to ask us if there was anyway we could make his baptism earlier because he had told his boss that he had a BIG appointment on the 18 of September (which was his original date) and apparently his only other coworker is getting married that day, so he was very flustered and then asked us if we could move it...so now he is preparing to be baptized on September 4th!! Hes such a great guy and his committment to the Lord and finding the truth is so strong. We taught him the plan of salvation yesterday with Maik with us and it was awesome, by the end he said....you answered all my questions with this plan (he had been soooooo confused by talking to the jws and knew they were false) and he was just beaming by the end of the lesson and said he believed it was true but would still pray about it that night. Yeaaaah!

It was then pouring....POURING....at the end of our lesson, looked like, i dont even know, just so much water, haha, constant HUGE rain drops, and as we were walking through it avoiding puddles to head back to the bahns (steet cars) Bürcan quickly asked, so what time of day will the baptism be? What do I have to bring? haha, I just got so excited and overwhelmed with humility being able to be the missionary who gets to help him find out the truth, it was awesome to see this is all he is thinking about and what he is excited to do. We also called Michael to find out how he is doing (he is out of town for the next week) and he said hes doing perfect, he said he's completely changed his lifestyle and hasnt touched a cigarette since we taught him the Word of Wisdom 2 weeks ago, he said he's feeling heathier and happier. I then asked him how he is feeling about his baptism... he said, since ive been reading in the Book of Mormon and know that it is true, when I come back I want to be baptized....we had pushed his baptism back before because he was leaving for 3 weeks, and we wernt sure about him being able to quit smoking, but it looks like we'll have to move his baptism up as well!!!

There is so much joy in being able to help people change their lives...Maik the other day asked us (our investigator about 25, party kid who wants to change his life) he asked us, do you really come hear voluntarily? you payed to be here to do this all day?? and when we explained the joy of helping people make changes in their lives to be happier, he seemed to understand and said in his prayer (probably the 3rd prayer hes every said in his life) help me to change to be a better person. . yeah Maik, its so worth it to help someone realize they can pray for that, and then change. Hope that made sense, either way you should see I am overwhelmed with excitement about the work here and the people here!

We have some awesome members, awesome activities, like familieheimabend (fhe) and institute, so we get to help investigators be integrated into a younger crowd of ppl and show them how living a clean, wholesome life is so much more worthwhile, 

This last pday we played soccer and football with all the missionaries in our zone, there were only 4 of us sisters and it was hilarious, we were the captians and we had huge elders protecting us as the quarterbacks etc, it was so funny. It was amazing to me to go from that environment to zonekonferenz to see all the same missionaries dressed up as servants of the Lord and us teaching each other about how to better make out appointments and be better teachers of the restored gospel of Christ. What an incredible work. I love it. It was also neat to see 3 of the other Sisters who were in my MTC group....we are the older sisters now, and people are training and its neat to share all the experiences we've had. With new Golden sisters there...I tausched for a day to Cottbus with a new golden named Sister Openshaw from California, it was neat working with a new golden and to show her another style of misisonary work, and we got a long really really well, she reminded me of Ros Collett, and we laughed a lot.. We taught a cool kid named Björn and he believed that Joseph Smith saw Christ and Heavenly Father..and was excited to have found the truth and was excited for his baptism on Okt 1st. Woot.

Those are my random thoughts and feelings at the time, sorry a little scatterbrained, just so excited and blessed to have a knowlegde of how to get happiness and get to share this knowledge with the people here looking for it!

Hope you have a stellar stellar week and Congratulations to my bestie Syd who got engaged!! and Natalie who got MARRIED!!! Together Forever.....thats what Im here for teaching people about how they can too have that eternal love and joy foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrr, through the gospel and living it 100%. Yay, what an incredible eternal plan our heavenly father has for us. Lets not forget to thank him for it and show him our love by living the gospel...not just knowing it, or knowing about it, but LIVING it and showing our committment and gratitude for it. I will if you will. :) Happy Monday, talk to you soon!

Liebe grüße, Sister Rasmussen

Wünschlos glücklich....das bin ich.

Yep im wünschlos glücklich.....meaning I couldnt be happier. The gospel is so true and its such a blast talking to people everyday about it!!
What an incredible week. Its such a different world serving in a big city, I love Leipzing already. This mission thing is really the best place to be, I highly reccommend it. 

So we have 7 people we are teaching with baptisimal dates! WAHOOOOOOOO! We set another one last night with a guy named Bürcan. He apparently talked to the sisters on the street and he was the one who asked if he could meet with them. The appointments had to be rescheduled a couple times so our first appointment was with him last night. He is so prepared. He is from Turkey and has been in Deutschland for a long time. He owns a döner shop and works a lot. He really is searching for the truth and wants to find it. The JWs had been meeting with him and he told us he thought they were false...we may or may not have encouraged that thought. He said he knows Jesus Christ is the son of God and that is HUGE. He was muslim and his whole family is muslim...we didnt quite hear how he found out that Jesus is the Christ, but he said he knows he is and knows he died for us. He jsut wants to know the truth about him. We taught him the first lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon in Turkish. He understood the concept of apostasy and believed that Joseph Smith saw God and Christ. We had talked about how we would plan to invite him to baptism and Sister Anderson wasnt even finished with the sentance when he said 'Ich möchte das machen' (I want to do that) he told us he wanted to be baptized even before we could ask! He said he wanted to be sure that it was right and for it to come from his heart but he did set the goal of September 18th! He then said 'aber ich habe angst.' (but, im scared) and we asked why and he said, my whole family is muslim. If I do this they wont have any contact with me...we promised him the Lord is on his side and I told him about Ola and Ahmed who were also Muslim from Egypt and they are so blessed from this decision. He said he wanted to go through with it and it was such a testimony builder to me. This man was so willing to follow Christ, not even really knowing all the reasons behind it, just having so much trust and faith and was willing to sacrifice (it sounds like) almost anything to do the right thing and follow Christ. We then suggested that he read Moroni 10 and then he said, 'Ich werde das ganze buch lesen' (i will read the whole book) we said well yeah okay, its kind of a big book and he said he wanted to know if it was true. He speaks broken German, and obviously fluent Turkish...and there is an INCREDIBLE guy who just got baptized in June who speaks fluent german, russian, turkish and almost english.....so we will be using him as a joint teach, definitely some miracles coming!!!

We also had some awesome appointments with Michael this week, I wrote about him last week, the friend of Nadine? Well he had an awesome answer to his prayer and said he said a little prayer everytime he went to bed. Pretty great. He's really taking on the gospel... We had an awesome  appointment with him and Nadine on Thursday and we taught the word of wisdom....we had him write on a piece of paper 'darf und nicht darf'' (do and cant do) and as we read through d&c 89 we had him write down the dos and dont dos of the Word of Wisdom. He said he would live it and told us of actually 2 hours before the lesson he was with Nadine and had told her that he noticed that cigarettes dont really taste that good to him anymore.........WHAT?!!?? That was BEFORE the lesson! Seriously the Lord is preparing this guy, he siad he would live it and said he was happy to do it. It definitely would be challenging to quit smoking and not do drink anymore, but he said he would live it and wanted to be worthy to feel the spirit and to be baptized. Sadly he is leaving for 3 weeks to go visit his parents in Berlin, so we made him a reading calendar with chapters for him to read eveyday while his his gone and a little question to go along with them...so a couple days ago we called him to see how his reading was going and he said he loved it, he said he really respected Moroni for putting the plates together etc, also he said he hasnt touched a cigarette since our appointment 4 days go...woot woot! So since he is leaving for 3 weeks, we moved his baptisimal date to the 18th of September as well... that will definitele be a white day!

Our other baptisimal dates are making pretty good progress, its amazing to see their desire to change to be worthy of the spirit and to follow Christ, Im so humbled to see how much people need to sacrifice to change and also to be the one committing them to change is also humbling. But so rewarding. 

The beginning of the week, last monday was also very special, Sister Singer (my mother/trainer) 'died' (ended her mission) last Wednesday and her parents came to pic her up! They took a little detour down to Leipzig to come say hello!! It was so great to be able to see TASHA haha again and to meet her parents! They were so great and so from Texas, it was like America came for a visit, they took us to lunch at a famous place called 'der großer keller' and we had delicious traditional German food. They are so great and were so proud of Sister Singer, I am too, she was an incredible missionary and now one of my best friends, yay missions! They really change your life forever...like I said i reccommend it for anyone thinking about going.

So . . . there is a lady in this ward who cuts hair. And our awesome bishop set up an appointment for us... well I apparently said to cut it shorter than I thought, so you know that awkward length of hair a girl has between short and long....yep thats mine! So....any emails of support and encouragement saying that my hair will one day soon be long again would be greatly appreciated :) That was also a little humbling :)

This week should be a good one, looks like Im tausching to Cottbus on Thursday with a new golden up there, so that should be an adventure! Then we have zonekonferenz in Dresden on Friday!!! Love zoko, its so motivating and Sister Anderson and I are giving a workshop 'on how to make fest appointments' apparently we either need to work on that or have some useful advice for the other missionaries in our zone, it actually should be pretty good, im also excited to see sister Lanctot, she was in my golden group and I havent seen her yet!! its been how long? So it shall be a good reunion.

Looks like my irish twin Natalie is getting MARRIED in what....5 days???  Congratulations on finding the ETERNAL COMPANION who youll be a grandma with! woah....eternity....with Tanner DeVinny in the family, what a party!

Happy Monday, hope its full of excitement for you too, we are having a zone pday, sport in the park. yay. 

Ich hab euch lieb. 
Sister Rasmussen

I'm lovin Leipzig!

Yes Im back in Sachsen! The accent is s o o o different here, and it reminds me of my golden days in Freiberg. I love it and can here my own accent changing a bit the more I am here. They say 'Leipsch instead of Leipzig.' Where to start!? Theres too much to say! Leipzig is huge and its crazy realizing all the cool missionaries who have served here, as I flip through the area book and see pictures of old missionaries (the less actives we visit show us pictures) Ive seen such incredible people who have served the Lord here, even my MTC teacher Bruder Orton served here! So im feeling some sort of a poetic fulfillment of something as im here. Its cool because Sister Singer was golden here, and Sister Forsyth served here as well. Its such a different program than Frankfurt Oder. Its huge, we have so many more resourses! We have an incredible institute center in the middle of the city, for the jae (young single adults) where we also meet and teach people, have family home evening and hold our district meetings etc. Its beautiful, and so refreshing having such a central place to meet and teach people.
We've already seen some miracles this past week. We made out a few appointments earlier in the week for this past weekend, one of them with Frau Stein and the other with Maik. Both of them have no real belief but both showed up to their appointment and we taugth them about their heavenly father and his plan for us. The spirit was so strong and we talked about Christ and how he asked us to follow him and the joy that comes from the restored gospel. Both of them set baptisimal dates!! I dont know what Ive been doing for the first part of my mission, but since Elder Causee' came from the 70 and told us to be inviting people from the very first appointment to baptism we've been doing it and seeing miracles. Its really an honor to get to be the sister missionaries of Leipzig and to get to teach people in this pretty building. We also have  a huge gemiendehaus (ward building) and there are two wards here in Leipzig. There are 6 missionaries here and a senior couple. It was odd being in a big ward again, where the sunday school class was already bigger than the last branch i was serving in. . but so amazing to me to see the church is true everywhere you go. I bore my testimony and introduced myself to the ward. Our bishop is really cool, as he was saying I was going to give my testimony he said 'and she'll tell us what she has planned for us here' BIG miracles coming. I talked about Ammon and the way he glories in the Lord.....he said :
he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work.

 16Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.

And thats the same with me. I cant express the smallest part of what I feel, I feel so blessed and am so excited to be serving with Sister Anderson. She is from Texas as well (like Sister Singer) and is the second youngest of 5. She is a soccer goalie, loves being a missionary and is super organized. I thought I was organized....no, you should see her desk haha. Ill send a pic next week. Yeah our apartment is sweet, super crazy finally living in a new place, I mean I was in the last apartment from Dec to July so its fun to have change. Favorite part of the new apartment is the huge balcony, it connects the two rooms of the apartment and ive already had lunch out there as well as looked at the stars. The beds here are a dream, the comforter is like sleeping with a cloud...we have a pretty good sized kitchen, smaller than the one in Frankfurt, but still cute, the bathroom is huge, with a shower and a tub....probably use that in the winter (if im still here) its feeling like winter lately. Today I have a sweater and a scarf, its rainy and misty, i love it, but its definitely not feeling like beginning of August.....AUGUST!?!?! Can you believe its August? Me either, we've got to take advantage of this time oder? Yeah. I agree. 

So we also had a miralce this week when we visited Trinh a really sweet less active lady from Vietnam... she has been dying for the missionaries to talk to her son....for years, no one has talked to him, they've seen him but nothing, anyway when we were there visiting her, he came home and was getting some tea and we started joking around with him about how many languages he spoke (perfect, viantamese, german and english...as well as learning russian and somethnig else) anyway he was such a stud and we totally got into a gospel discussion with him about who God is, what his plan is for us, why someone would believe in him and how we can feel his love and guidance. He said he wasnt ready to change and believe but the spirit was so strong and Trinh was so happy her son had a spiritual conversation with us. I felt blessed to be there at the right time to talk to this 26 year old intelligent guy about how the gospel could bless his life. 

It was also neat on our first Sunday (yesterday) to meet the new ward, sooo many people, definitely will take awhile to get to know them all, but we had Frau Stein come and she loved it, yes the lady we met in the park on Wednesday and committed her to baptism on Thursday! She came and really enjoyed it. It was so neat to see her excitement of feeling the spirit and to see her desired to read the Book of Mormon to find out if it is true. Another cool miracle is coming our way....a sweet 20 year old girl named Nadine got baptized last month and just brought her friend to meet with us to get the lessons. His name is Michael and we've now taught him the first two. We set his baptismal date for September 4th and the spirit has been really strong in our lessons with him, he is now reading in the Book of Mormon and he said his first prayer at the end of our lesson on Saturday. He has a small stutter and it was sweet to hear his simple small prayer to the Lord and to see the satisfaction on his face after he said it. I fell so blessed to know these people and to get to be the msisionary leading the discussion to teach him. Its really interstiing learnig out to teach with a new companion, we are borth so excited about the work and its a new experience for me being the one to be in charge of where the lesson goes, well of course following what the spirit says. 

Its really beautilful here, huge old gorgous German buildings, old rathauses, a HUGE trainstation, and gorgous parks all over the place, its really a dream I need to stop being so grateful or some big trial is going to come our way ;) The Christlike attribute Sister Anderson and I have chosen to work on is FAITH. WE have some pretty faith-filled goals for this next week...hoping to have 10 investigators at church and teach 32 lessons...:WOOT. 

I love this work and love being here in Leipzig, I miss Frankfurt and the people there, but feel so blessed to meet and get to love new people here. (another perk I am SO stoked for...we get to go to the temple this Freitag!!)  I havent been since last year! It will be a dream to get to go back to Freiberg....so if anyone is going to the temple Friday...well we'll be there at the same time hahaha, ah isnt the gospel just incredible? It was so amazing to teach Maik last night about who Christ is and what he sacrificed and did for all of us, just because he loved us. It was amazing to talk about the plan our Heavenly Father has for us and to see a child of God realizing the potential of what that sentance means....this life has a purpose and there are things we can do to take away the guilt and pain from past mistakes to clean them away and become a new person committed to following the Lord and living following his commandments....and then to receive his blessings our whole lives long.

Okay ill get off my soap box, I just love this gospel and know that it is true. I love sharing that knowledge and joy with others and to get to feel the spirit so often...hope you are feeling the constant feeling of the spirit as well. If not, I challenge you to find out what is blocking you from that and as soon as possible get rid of it, because the constant flow of comfort, love, peace, security, joy and happiness is einfach herrlich (simply glorious) have a super great day and know a sister missionary in Germany loves you!

Love, Sister Rasmussen

Pics: Me and Sister Anderson at a Hansel and Gretel statue in Leipzig, awww cute.

The whole branch was so sweet and took a picture together when I was leaving.....a lot of people there ja? Love them.

Sister Madsen and I right before I left the apartment, love that place, that girl, that apartment. Oh transferssss.