Family! I have no idea what to even tell
you this week. I'm sick and I'm stuffy and it's been rainy and cold (except for
yesterday because it was Easter Sunday and Jesus must have wanted it
to be sunny). Our bishop and his adorable family invited us
over yesterday for Easter dinner and they gave us big chocolate bunnies and it was a sweet part of our Easter. It was so nice. They have five kids under the age of
12 and they're just a fantastic family.
Kevin didn't come to church, but his friend did! So
that was great. Mustafa also came to church. Have I told you about him? He is a
very special kind of Muslim (Ahmadiyya). So of course he doesn't believe that
Jesus Christ was the son of God, and he also doesn't believe that Jesus Christ
died on the cross. So it was perfect to have him at church on Easter Sunday, right?! It
was the first time he had heard about Gethsemane and what happened in the garden. The best thing about him is
that he really believes that we can communicate personally with God, and that
we can receive answers. So that's something we certainly have in common as a foundation!
We had a finding day here in Solothurn with our
whole district on Saturday. It went so well and I got to work with my dear
Sister Couper. We found some great people who I am so excited to get in contact
with again.
You asked about less actives. I haven't had a whole
lot of experience working with less actives on my mission until now. Basically
in Wien we visited one less active woman and she never came to church while I
was there and then in Schaffhausen the only less actives we met with were the older
women who lived in the Altersheims and really couldn’t attend anymore. But here
we have so many less actives to work with. We keep track of about
how many less actives that we are working with who come to Sacrament meeting
that week. One time I asked Sister Siems, "Does that EVER happen? Because
I have never had a less active at church." I had seen it happen for Elders
I was serving with but I had never had a less active come to church. But she
said it happened in Aarau. And apparently it does! Last week we had 3 less
actives at church who the sisters have been working with! But this week none of
them came. Working with less active members seems to lead to a lot of
heartbreak. At least it does for me. It's so different than with investigators.
They have already made the baptismal covenant! There are two less actives who
have just been breaking my heart over and over and over and over and over and
over and over again. Oh and I have only been here how long? 3 weeks or
something. I don't know how much longer I am going to last. I am going to have
to learn patience and enduring to the end. The most heartbreaking part is that
in the cases of these two less actives it is so apparent that their decisions
affect the decisions of so many other people as well. They both have children.
They both have two children who are baptized (okay not true one of these
children is only 7 but she already wants to get baptized and she would like to
be coming to church) who of course also don't come to church or have very
strong testimonies. One has parents who set a baptismal date for her with the
elders but have never come to church. So their baptismal dates are now canceled
and not even postponed because this couple is so difficult to get ahold of.
They are now our investigators because it makes more sense for us to work with
them since we are working with their daughter all the time. But the fact that
our decisions affect other people is true for all of us. With the other less
active she has a son who is interested but hard to get ahold of and she has so
many friends who she has introduced to the missionaries and who have become
investigators but it's hard to bring your friends into the church if you don't
go to church.
Oh guess what Sister Blohm got proposed to this
week. It was so funny. She was so funny about it. We think he actually thought
she was Sister Graf, a former sister missionary here who he has also proposed
to because Sister Blohm and Sister Graf are both blonde. Clearly he doesn't really know either one of
them, and he thought Sister Blohm was from Germany which Sister Graf is. I was
talking to another guy but then he got off the train and even though I couldn’t
see Sister Blohm I could hear this guy and Sister Blohm talking and he was
trying to convince her that she should marry him and this went on for a while
until I finally came over to back her up. It was so funny. He said he was going
to come to church to ask the pastor if he could marry her (Sister Blohm was
fuming. She told me later, "We are in EUROPE! Not AFRICA! I decide if I
marry someone or not!"). Don't worry he didn't come anyway.
You didn't say anything about us coming back here
together. I just wanted to let you know that it turns out the transfers have
been changed and I will be coming home around the 4th of December. What
that means is I am no longer opposed to the idea of you coming to pick me up,
if you think that is the best thing to do so you can see my mission. We could
visit the Christmas markets! If you ever decide to buy a plane ticket you will have
to do it through my friend Jörg in Schaffhausen. He works at the airport and he
will get you a killer deal.
Thank you to Grandma, Mommy, Daddy, Tara, Bella and
JJ for writing me!!! And did I ever thank Paige Tueller for her birthday
postcard? And I got a nice letter from James too. Also Greg wrote me a great
email! Thank you Greg!
You asked about the size of my area. I don't know how to explain why this ward is
bigger because I don't know myself. The geographic area for the Schaffhausen
branch was actually larger. And so was the Wien 1 area. How big a ward or
branch is has no correlation to how big of an area it covers. It has more to do
with how many LDS families are in the ward who have been in the church for
generations and have stayed around in that area. We have a few such families in
this ward, but there weren't any in Schaffhausen because almost everyone was a
convert.
Quote of the week:
Sister Blohm leaving a voice message and trying to
end it:
"Im Namen Jesu Christi . . . Tschüss!"
Right now we are finishing emails at a media mart.
What that means is, I'm typing you on a macbook. What that also means is Sister
Blohm is typing and she's going, "It's not working!"
Me: "Sister Blohm I told you it's because you
put LSD instead of LDS in the address!"
I love you family!! Today we're off to meet our
district in Ikea for some kind of district P-Day.
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