Happy News!

G found the Elders in Rwanda and has been going to church with his family every week.  We email on Mondays and have been able to skype with him through the members.  He is wonderful!

There was also a broadcast Stake Conference this week.  It was from Salt Lake and went to all the German speaking countrires.  Elder Bednar spoke and gave his talk in German. It was amazing.  

I loved every minute! 

I am not sure if you can find it or watch it on lds.org.  If you can, you should. 

Our New Family!

This week we found new investigators and a new family!!  We found a FAMILY! 

 

We got a referral from the Elders.  It was an old teaching record in their area book.  They said we could go by on it if we wanted.  We decided that we would.  When we knocked on the door a man came out.  We explained that we were from the church, but he just looked at us.  We switched to English but he still had no idea what we wanted.  We played charades in the hallway for awhile using our name tags and the Book of Mormon to help us.  He knocked on his neighbors' doors but no one was home.  He then pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and gave it to Sister Nilson.

She explained our situation to the mysterious person on the other end of the phone.  We set up another appointment to come back later and exchanged numbers.  

We came back a couple of days later and were not sure what to expect.  We went inside the apartment and found a whole family just sitting ready for us ot teach them.  There was a young couple and their daughter and then the grandparents and some of their other children.  They are such sweet people.  We explained what we do as missionaries and they said they were interested.  We met later at our church and showed them around.  We are meeting again with them tonight and are so excited!

We had a good week!

I hope you all did too!

Love,

Sister Brown

Photos this week

 The church where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses:

 Friends at Zone Konfrence:

 More baptism photos:

SO LONG FAREWELL AUF WIEDERSEHEN GOODBYE

Elder and Sister A are preparing to leave Germany. The Elders and Sister missionaries performed this for them to say goodbye:

Family!!

We had a wonderful baptism this week with G.  He was such a prepared person.  His baptism was one of the most spiritual meetings I have ever been in.  It was stressful to put it all together, but in the end it was so wonderful and totally worth it!  It may have been my favorite day on my mission so far.  The whole day was just filled with miracle after miracle.  We felt a special spirit from the minute we woke up to the much-to-early alarm!

On Sunday during fast and testimony meeting all of the members who were at the baptism got up and shared their testimony about it.  They told the rest of the ward that it was the place to be.  It had made an impression on all of them.  They had also felt that special spirit.  It really got the members excited for missionary work.  We tried hard to get the members involved with his conversion process and we worked with and through them a lot.  It was amazing to see at the baptism how many strong relationships he had made.  His relationships with the members were just as meaningful as ours.  

My favorite part of the baptism was during the talk on the holy ghost.  It was right after his baptism and he had come back in his nice new Sunday clothes.  He looked down the bench at Sister Nilson and I and with tears in his eyes mouth the words "thank you".  It was amazing.    It really helped me remember why I am here on my mission.  The whole day he just kept telling us how happy he was.  It is such a miracle to watch the gospel change someones life.

We went yesterday and helped him get off to the airport.  He is so excited to go back to Rwanda and take the gospel to his family.  In his confirmation blessing he was told multiple times that he would be a great tool to help build the church in Rwanda.  He is super excited and even took Book of Mormons down with him so he can start as soon as possible.  He knows where the church is and got the contact information for the bishop there.  We will keep in good contact with him too through emails on Mondays.

We had a really great week.

Love,
Sister Brown