Werden Sie das beispiel Jesu Christi folgen...

Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ? That is really what we are trying to teach people here; who he is, what he did, how much he loves us, that he lives today, and how to follow his example. It's such an unforgettable experience when people hear it, understand it, and feel the love of the Lord in our lessons and alone at home.

A huge blessing right now is what is going on with Christiana. She came to church yesterday in my skirt again and looked great! We have a new aufbau class with our new ward mission leader who is an awesome teacher. We talked about Heavenly Father and his attributes. It was so great because it was a small group and Christiana added to the discussion and clearly learned a lot. That is really our purpose - to help her build her relationship with her Heavenly Father and with Christ. It was also great because more people in the ward are noticing her and helping her feel welcome. She has come with us the past two Sundays to our eating appointments with members and you can see that her hopes for a future family and her thoughts about her decisions now are changing for the better. We had an awesome lesson about chastity and it was so cool to talk about our respect for ourselves and our future relationship, as well as our respect for the Lord and what is best for us. She is doing great and is inviting her friends to come to activities already as well...yeah!

We also went and saw Olga at her house and her husband was there! He is athiest and isn't a big fan of religion. He was born and raised athiest, but he was there and was so friendly. He and Olga are the cutest couple ever and they are so in love. We talked to them about life and family and got to know him a little better and they showed us their wedding pictures....cute but so...hmm anticlimatic? Just pictures of some guy by a desk in the city hall and them signing some paper and drinking champange afterwards... Sister Faerber and I were excited to see them but it also showed me wow what a huge drastic difference there is with a marriage in the world and marriage in the temple. Not even comparable. We asked if we could show them an awesome 5 minute dvd we have called finding happiness which is good when just wanting to start the conversation about the purpose of life. It shows beautiful landscapes and families and people working here in Europe and asks the questions like, "What if there was a big plan for us?" and "Who is the creator?" and "What if we could find out this purpose and live in unity with it?" " What if you could communicate with this creator, our Heavenly Father?" ...etc, and the spirit comes pretty quickly. We showed them the video. Olga loved it! And the man was well, you could tell he was affected by it, but he wasn't interested. He said, "I know Olga likes meeting with you and that's great, but Im not interested." It was weird to hear that response after just bearing testimony of the joy that comes when knowing a marriage can be together forever! What a happy thought! Oh well. He will come around. We can just invite right? Either way we laughed with them a lot and we brought the spirit into their home. Mal sehen.

We had an awesome Sunday yesterday. Sister Faerber plays this gorgeous 'erstaunt und bewundert' arrangement (I stand all amazed) arrangement and the spirit is so strong! It brings people to tears and oh I just love it, I tend to ask all of our investigators if they have an extra 5 minutes at the end of our lesson to hear her song. It's a good thing she loves me and loves playing the song or else someone could get really annoyed me always asking to hear it... :)

It was pretty chilly a couple nights this past week. We were on the gleises talking to people pretty late and were just freezing, but it was exciting and we found some cool people.... like GEORGE AND RACHEL!

They came up to us and asked us what our shields are! Oh I mean tags, haha. And they said they were looking for a bible study but it had fallen out! So we said, WELL, can we show you our institute in the city and we talked about there being a living prophet on the earth today....and then about the book of mormon and George freaked when we told him we had it in Hungarian! He was so excited!!! We had an awesome lesson with them and gave them both books of Mormon. Rachel is from Germany and George is from Romania but they are 20 and 24 years old and are awesome. Hopefully we will see them this week... I LOVE IT!

Being a missionary is the greatest life ever, just getting to study the gospel, feel the spirit, find others who want to learn and be a tool in the Lords hands....just hearing what a life is like in the real world....bleah i want to do this forever :) Okay? okay.

I hope you are happy and healthy and feeling the love from me through this email but more importantly the love of my and your Heavenly Father in your whole heart and soul. There's no better more fulfilling feeling than feeling his love and guidance! I recommend it.

Have a great OKTOBER week!

Love, Sister Rasmussen.

'...how bout sometime next week?'

Those are my two favorite lines we got to hear this past week..... so the normal rundown when we talk to people on the street about the gospel we get into a coversation about the purpose of life, or how we find real joy or the fact that we have a loving Father in Heaven and then we go for an appointment right? Yeah, so we are normally suggesting times that they could meet us at the institute center in the city and then we end up figuring out a time, but to be honest it doesnt happen very often where a person, like Susan. We talked to for a good 10 minutes who was pretty skeptical at the beginning and she told us that she had tried to believe in God when she went to visit Ireland and said it didnt work haha, well we then figured out she speaks like perfect english and works for Office depot here in Leipzig? Yeah and she was born here, her family isnt religious at all and she didnt have a good experience when she visted a church in Ireland. As we talked to her about the love her Heavenly Father had for her and the purpose of a church, his church is to learn the truth about him, how we can learn to show our love back to him and to each other. Also most importantly to fulfill his plan for us and be sealed to our families for eternity. It was so cool to see the spirit touch her and to laugh a little realizing how this church has been here at least 20 years and she had never heard of it but wondered why. She then said of course she would meeet us and we asked if she had time tomorrow and that didnt work and then SHE said 'how bout some time next week?' Yes yes I know there are prepared people and that the Lord gives us the words to touch their hearts, but I dont think ive ever heard them suggest 'how about some time next week?' It just showed an excitement and a sincere desire to find the truth. I WAS SO EXCITED AFTER WE TALKED TO HER, just imagined her in white and coming to institute and being a future young womans leader....yay.
Isnt that cool? Just walking on the glies on the way home and she wants the truth, wow they are just all over this city and weve just got to talk to them. Yeah, we are still teaching the other awesome people who we are calling the fantastisch vier (fantastic four) Christiane, Masha, Olga and Stephan..
Christane is doing so great, is coming to every activity and she even wore the skirt I gave her to church yesterday. She loves saying the prayer and brought a friend to come meet us last night. You can see her changing to be obedient and to do what is right. She is in need of love and of people to give her a good example. The gospel of Jesus Christ is true and ever person that changes to live in unity with his teachings is just another testimony to me of the truthfullness. Its so incredible to see the happiness and satisfaction in their eyes. She is going to wait until her friend Nadine comes back from Hannover to be baptized so it will be on November 13, but she is excited and her faith is growing. Its a challenge to see how much she understands and is taking in because she is going from 0 belief, but Sister Faerber and I read in 3 Nephi about the people who repented and believed on Christs name were baptized and stayed strong and true to the faith, and that is what Christiane is doing.
It was awesome teaching Olga as well this week as we taught about the apostacy again and the need of a restoration of the truth. The spirit was strong and Olga just giggles as she realizes she has found something that brings her closer to her Heavenly Father. It was sweet of her to ask us if its hard for us to convert her haha, she said another month or so and sister Faerber and I just smiled at each other realizing the Lord was doing the converting, not us. She is going to come to a members home (the relief society presidents home) and also talk to her husband, who served a mission in Russia, so theyll speak russian together. I know the spirit will touch her when she feels of the truthfullness in her mother tongue.
Masha is doing great too, she was just coming to sport because she boxes and we have helped her realizes the plan that Heavenly Father has for us and how to become better people in following his son Jesus Christ, so now she is meeting with us as well! She is excited to meet with us this week and is willing to have faith in to what we teach her and to pray personally to find out the truth for herself. Its been really personal because her mother passed away in her arms and she feels her mother close as we teach her more about his plan. She had us over to make us a delicious lunch and we taught her about the restoration, the spirit was strong and she teared up realizing the love that comes through this gospel. Its sweet when she calls us family and like her sisters, I hope we can teach her well so her roots are deep in the gospel.
I sure love serving here in Leipzig and for the ward, our GML (ward mission leader) is awesome, just baptized and married his girlfriend this past summer and served a mission in California so he knows the hows and whats about how to best work with the ward. We are going to have more organized lessons with the called ward missionaries so our investigators can meet real people who live and love this gospel, im so stoked! (alongside that will be more of a ward sport with hockey in the parking lot so they can feel loved and welcome) yay missionary work! Dont you love this gospel too??
One special person we are visiting lately is Schwester Schilde, she is the lady with the sunglasses in the picture. She is 89 and is the strongest member ive ever met. Her testimony is so strong especially of Thomas S. Monson being a prophet of God. I told her yesterday the expereince I got to have with President Monson before he was the prophet when he told me to 'marry right' and she teared up and said he really is inspired isnt he? Just like the story he told in generalkonferenz... we had an awesome appointment with her and she calls us her granddaughters. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE!
Missions are the greatest and I cant imagine not going on a mission, these people and experiences are priceless!
Hope you know how grateful I am for your love and prayers and for your letter mom, Have a super Oktober week!

Love, Sister Rasmussen
Das Evangelium macht man glücklich...probier mal davon zu kosten. :)
 

but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ.....

Do you know what happens to those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ? They are happier, more fulfilled, more filled with love and forgiveness, more reassured that good is going to come. Its so amazing being able to teach Christiane, Stephan, Olga, Masha and our other investigators who Christ is, how much he loves them and how they can show their love back to him. Its amazing to help them change their lives to be receptive to the blessings Heavenly Father is holding out of them. Its so cool to see their faith and willingness to read even if they dont understand, to change to keep the commandments because of their goal to strengthen their relationship with Christ. We are seeing miracles, especially this last week. It was the first week of this transfer and we reached and even suceeded some goals we had set...one of them being members with us at lessons.

Its been really amazing to see the improvement of the work, we arent just searching for people anymore, we arent just teaching a couple people and scraping by getting lessons, we are teaching people who are making significant progress and bringing members to our lessons and teaching in members homes etc. Its so inspiring to be apart of the work as the 'giant of missionary work' here in Germany wakes up.

Some special miracles that I loved this past week happened last night and the night before. Ive told you before of the missions goal to make out a new appointment every day with somebody new, making that at least 7 new appointments a week. Well the past two days our days were packed with lessons and there wasnt much time to find. We had the goal to talk to everyone we could but there were slim chances, I mean think of the miracle in itself to be able to do that! To find someone who will be willing to meet with two strangers, who cant really speak their language to talk about a deep topic like the purpose of life...pretty incredible, but to them find a person who would be willing to do that within a 20 minute time range? yeah, I know right! So we prayed and talked to everyone, no go, but as we walked on our street home we talked Saturday night to a guy who said yeah he would but had shifts with his work so it was always spontan when he could meet, but we found a time and hes meeting us next week. THEN last night about 20 feet away from the other guy we talked to an awesome lady named Rosie on our street after having talked to tons of people in the city and she was so cool and said the same thing it was hard to find a time because she had shifts at her work too...but she said we could meet on Saturday, bah!! After we walked away from making out the appointment we just walked with jaws dropped and both thanked our Heavenly Father for sending us two nights in a row someone who would want to hear 'der frohe nachricht' (the joyful message.)

We also had an awesome appointment with our lovely Olga, the awesome law student from Ukraine whos husband is athiest and German, we have been meeting with her for a couple months now and she is more open every time we meet with her. We had her meet us at the church this time and gave her a tour. Then we pulled out our secret weapon, Sister Faerber's arrangement of  'I stand all Amazed' on the piano...the spirit comes so strongly and we then bore testimony of Christ and his love for us. We told her about how we show our love to him by keeping his commandments and committed her to live the word of wisdom. She then said we could come visit her at home and meet her husband! SHE THEN came to church and saw the last session of Generalkonferenz and loved it. She said she thought Thomas S. Monson was a prophet and she felt the spirit when she was there. We still have a lot of work to do with her to help her realize this is the ONLY church with the priesthood and the power to act in Gods name when perfoming holy ordinances...but we are trusting in the Lord and know he'll give us the words. 

We also saw a lot of miracles with Christiane! She is so excited about the gospel and said she noticed a change in herself to be more outgoing and to be more daring...you can tell her self confidence is growing a lot. She is really feeling the love of the Lrod and loves this feeling of belonging to a family. She is committed to keep the commandments and reconfirmed to us yesterday after church that she is going to keep the sabbath day holy and go read her scriptures and not go out shopping with friends, she said she can do that next week. :) She was assigned last week to give the opening prayer this week (tonight) at family home evening and she has been offering to give the prayer in all our lessons etc, its so amazing to have been maybe a small help in someone building their relationship with their Heavenly Father. 

We also met with Masha and she is like a big sister to me, she is from Ukraine and is awesome, she is a boxer haha and is the sweetest, she met us by coming to the church on Wednesday nights to do sport and a guy who just got baptized in June is a boxing trainer anyway, thats how we met her and we have met with her a few times, she's made us food and has come to Familieheimabend etc, and was pretty open but wasnt catching on to the vision, or our purpose and goal to help her come unto Christ but this past week as we met with her and she opened up to us she explained to us about a dream she had and she saw her mother who passed away just a year ago, she knew this was an answer to her prayers and we are now debating which ward to baptize her into :) She is amazing and we are already planning when she can come visit America. :)

One of the last but most awesome miracles is Bürcan. He was the awesome guy from Turkey who got baptized 3 weeks ago...its been so amazing to talk to him and teach him now, now that he has the gift of the Holy Ghost. He understands a lot more quickly, and is LOVING the gospel. He also experienced a miracle of telling his mother that he is Christian (because they are all Muslim) and he was really nervous that she would either die or disown him after he said that, but we promised him that the Lord would provide away and HE DID! He told her and she said its okay as long as he believes in God and is happy then that is all that matters to her! Bah! Miracle. He also had an amazing dream, well actually a couple of them and we are so grateful that the Lord is working so powerfully with them, its incredible to promise blessings and answers to prayers and to see the answer come so clearly. I know that God answers our prayers, because he has answered mine day after day after day after day.... i recommend trying it out. 

I love this mission and love this gospel. I love serving in Leipzig with such an awesome companion Sister Faerber. I love the Savior and love wearing his name. It is such an honor to get to tell people about the joy they can experience right now feeling his love...hope you are doing what you can to feel his love as well! 

I love you, thank you for your prayers and love. Have a great brisk Oktober Week! 

Congrats to my bestie Syd, who is becoming Sydney Evans TOMORROW! 

Sister Rasmussen

 Me in the Leipzig hauptbahnhof (trainstation)

 me and my golden Sister Faerber in my golden city last transfer at the temple!!

 me and Caroline at her baptism in September!

  Us at Bürcans baptism! Irakli was who baptized him, he himself was baptized in June!

Me at the Leipzig zoo...being a flamingo

Leipsch

do the right thing at the right time without delay

I LOVE GENERALCONFERENZ! Dont you?

I really couldnt get enough of the words of the prophet, the twelve. They are inspired men and woman and I couldnt write fast enough. I hope I can keep this love for conference my whole life. I loved Uchtdorfs talk about Heavenly Father's love for us. He knows our actions and will neither forget or forsake us. I liked how he said to have hope and faith and learn to love my Heavenly Father in act and word and deed. and to remain faithful and one day we will experience the promise, to wexperince the things which God has prepared for them that love him.

Its so great, doesnt seem like a hard task to love our Heavenly Father but in times of temptation that is when it matters most and when we really show our love. Its how we treat others and keep his word and his commandments. I think of it sometimes of when my parents told me things to do, yeah I could tell them the whole day long that I love them but when they arent watching to things against what they expect of me, or even go against what they have asked me to do, or even commanded me to do. Then it takes real love and honor for my parents when I do what they have asked me to do and follow what they say and not just tell them that I love them. Just like that with our Heavenly Father, we can pray and say we love him but they really are empty words when we dont act as we know we should. and thats the joy that comes in a mission... to first teach people that they have a perfect loving heavenly father who created everything...who have put the 'spark of eternal life in our breast, and worlds without end are in our grasp' like Uchtdorf said...we get to teach them about this perfect plan, show them how to connect with the celestial joy that comes through the savior and then as well teach them how to show their love to their Heavenly Father. Its so rewarding and I cant get enough.

We saw our family again and they are doing great, im so glad we fasted and prayed for a family, we have been praying for a couple weeks now for a family and we have made out two more appointments with two more families!! I sure hope we get contact with them, one was a guy named Felix who was holding his little daughter named 'Lila' and said we could come teach them the plan we believe God has for us. YAY! Its so incredible sharing this message with the world, but even more selfishly rewarding is the perspective that it gives me. It shows me what is really important in life, what matters and not, what decisions I make really have eternal consequences. Its a blessing I wasnt expecting. 

We have also seen miracles with Stephan, I told you he bore his testimony on his first Sunday? Well we have taught him a few times, and have had different members there with us to teach him, he came as well to conference all dressed up (suit and tie) and loved Packers and Uchtdorfs talks... He also came to  the priesthood session. He said he bought a new bible and is making really great progress! Christiana is also doing great, she came to the relief society meeting and one other session of Conference. We are going to celebrate her birthday here for family home evening because she doesnt really have a family and she needs some love! So she is also doing great, knows that she wants to be baptized to make a promise to Christ to follow him and to have faith. YAY! I love her.

Leipzig is getting a little cooler, not too cool though, there is a little 'harvest market' in the plaza in the city and a lot of people. . . lots of people talking to us! Im loving it here and love the bahns and all the work we have to do. Our ward is awesome and our bishop is so great, he is really excited for us and he and his wife are like our grandparents. Im so grateful for these people, and for my awesome companion, she is a hard worker and her German is getting better and better. We are seeing miracles and are feeling your prayers, Please pray that we can contact these families, oh and Olga came to the church too! yay! Love being a missionary! Yay my cousin David for putting in his papers!!! Its life changing...for hundreds of people. Oh and I liked how Packer bluntly said... Dress modestly, talk reverantly, Listen to uplifting music, Take order of your life and you will be remarkable blessed. Amen to that.

Have a super week! Talk to you soon!

Love, Sister Rasmussen