Sister Rasmussen.: 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