Street display and street contacting.

This week was the biggest struggle to get people to make appointments and actually come to them. We probably had a record amount of fallen out appointments. However, it allowed us to have a ton of finding time which has become one of my favorite things to do as a missionary. So lucky me! We found some good people and of course had some interesting experiences, but I want to skip to the really good part of this week! 

Oma Giselle - such a sweetheart

On Thursday we had another street display! And I ran into my German Oma, Giselle again!!! She held my hands again and gave me chocolate again! She's so cute! 

Also on Thursday we went by on a potential from Syria that I had talked to 2 weeks ago at our last street display. When we klingled the door a woman very timidly answered. I introduced us and said we had given her an Arabic Book of Mormon. Suddenly 2 other girls show up behind her and they all had super wide eyes and got REALLY excited. They pulled us into their home and sat us down. We noticed the Book of Mormon as the center piece of their living room. They told us that they'd been reading it together as a family and even fighting over whose turn it was to read it for the past 2 weeks! So we talked to them about what the Book of Mormon was and we invited the whole family (mom, dad, 2 daughters, 1 son) to church. On Saturday we called them to see when we could meet them to walk to the church from Hauptbahnhof and they were way excited and said the whole family was going to come. On Sunday we go to pick them up and we see only the mom and the oldest daughter was there. They apologized that they were 5 minutes late because they had ridden their bikes for an hour to a train station and took a 25 minute train ride to Kaiserslautern. They explained that when they had left at 8 AM (for 10:30 church!!) that it was too cold for the brother to ride his bike and so the younger daughter had to stay with him at home..... 

Our jaws dropped! They loved church even though they couldn't understand most of it. We found scriptures and more materials in Armenian (the family's second mother sprache). Sister Harris and I were running back and forth trying to introduce them to the ward and simultaneously trying to do our normal Sunday responsibilities. It was insane! After our investigators left the ward was asking us left and right how they can help us get this family to church and what they can do to help. We were overwhelmed with gratitude for our small Gemeinde! We have 2 appointments lined up with this family this week AND a dinner appointment at a members house for next Sunday. The ward is also looking for a way so we can communicate better with them. The family starts a sprach course this week so their German will get loads better and they already speak ok-ish English so we can speak that in the time being. We're finding translators for our lessons too. I love this family with all my heart and I am so astonished at their sacrifice to be followers of Christ. 

They told me that 3 years ago they began to get death threats because they were Christian. The daughters would get their homework back with notes on them that said they would get killed if they came to school. The oldest daughter told us she had many close friends that were killed. They decided to escape to Germany. They lived in a friend's home for 7 days and together they lived off of a couple of bananas and a half loaf of bread. Eventually they escaped in the night and with just the clothes on their backs they walked 6 days to the coast and took a boat with 100 other people. They arrived here just over a year ago. They were so excited to meet me and my companion because we are young and Christian.

On top of it all the German elders baptized Said from Iran on Saturday! After his baptism, he bore one of the sweetest most powerful testimonies I've ever heard. Many years ago he had come in contact with a friend who was a member of the church in England. He read the entire Book of Mormon and very quickly had the desire to be baptized. He couldn't be baptized in Iran so he moved to Afghanistan with the hope to escape to somewhere with religious freedom. While he was there he was kidnapped by the Taliban. He told us that he said his first prayer out loud while he was in the prison. He said that he prayed that if Jesus Christ was our Savior and the Book of Mormon was true that he knew God would help him find a way to be baptized. 5 days later the Taliban released him. That is pretty much unheard of. He dedicated the next 8 years of his life to get his family out to a safe country. He finally made it to Germany where he found the missionaries and they taught him. His 14 year long wait came to an end this weekend. Many tears were shed. 

Kind of an emotional email, but these people are such amazing examples of sacrifice. They relate to Christ so easily because he sacrificed for the world. Sacrifice is essential because salvation was never easy. The Atonement was never easy for Christ so why should life be easy? Here is a quote from Elder Holland that has given me a lot of strength:  "When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions." 

Ich weiß dass mein Erlöser lebt. Ich weiß dass nur durch Christus und sein 

Sühnopfer wir Errettung haben können. Ich weiß, dass wenn wir für ihm opfern, er wird uns segnen. Ich bin so dankbar für die Beispiele von dieser Leute und für ihrer Opfern. 

Bis nächste Woche!

- Sister Luymes 

Squirrel Family Crest -- so random