I spent a total of 10 hours on a train this weekend. We spent 4 hours going from Erlangen to Heidelberg. One of our umsteigs (when you transfer to another train) was actually outside of the mission. We were almost in Stuttgart! We spent the evening in the Heidelberg sister‘s apartment and the next morning we got up early to catch a bus at 6:20 in the morning. We got on an ICE and went to Frankfurt. The whole mission had a conference to hear Elder Ballard speak. It awesome! There were so many people that I hadn’t seen since I got transferred/ the MTC. 

Elder Ballard did a broadcast Sunday evening and we were lucky enough to arrive in the Heidelberg chapel just in time to hear him. He talked a lot about miracles and missionary work. He said „the missionaries can’t bring miracles alone anymore, we need the members to help!“ After the conference so many members came up to the missionaries and said that they had people for us. It was awesome! There were a lot of members from Mannheim so it was good to see them. 

On Monday morning the whole Frankfurt Germany mission were sitting in their seats at 9:30 AM (a miracle if you ask me). Elder Ballard came in and said that he wanted to shake everyone’s hand. Afterwards there were a couple speakers and then he spoke to us. He gave us so much good advice for being better finders, teachers, and people. He described an example of missionaries who served in England who just felt like they weren’t having as much success as they felt like they could. So instead of just dooring a building, they printed out flyers and posted them on the building telling the tenants when they would be coming and what they would be doing. He said that they were able to find so many more people because those who were interested would know when to be home. In the meeting I felt like he had just described Erlangen to a T. Tons of great people, but they’re just not home or they’re hard to find. So we made our own version of a flyer and have been praying about some buildings that we would will post them in. I hope it works!

Afterwards we all ate pizza in a park and took a lot of pictures. After another long journey we were finally home. 

We taught our favorite Familie Vu the plan of Salvation and it was so great! The son is the best teacher and can explain things in Vietnamese too. It was hilarious because he had to Deutschnamese since he didn’t know the gospel words so it was like „Cha thiên thượng EVANGELIUM của chúng ta KÖRPER“ We had a great time together and they fed us homemade Frühlings Rolle (spring roll) and pho. 

This week I was studying about hope, specifically what it is and how we have it. In the chapter about Christlike Attributes in PMG it describes hope, the first 2 lines say „Hope is an abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises to you. It is manifest in confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance.“ I have seen on my mission and before, that the Lord will always keep his promises when we do our side. I have been blessed to have promises that were  made to me be fulfilled in so many beautiful ways. When we have hope we are able to repent and feel our shame and guilt be lifted. When we have hope we are able to confidently do that which the Lord has asked us to including trials. 

BIS BALD!

- Sister Luymes