12 September 2011
Liebe Familie und freunde,
This week has been amazing and I have had so many great experiences.
Synthia first of all is not doing so well. She said that she does not have time to meet with us so we simply stopped by and shared a scripture. Her entire countenance changed by the time we left. At the beginning, she was not doing so well. She seemed almost in pain and sad, but by the time we left, she was smiling and was doing much better... I unfortunately do not think she will be ready to be baptized on the 25th :( We are planning on stopping by this week and somehow get her ready to be baptized!
We have been meeting with a less active member names br. seiler. He’s so great.. He calls me "Scott Sunshine" and was super funny this last appointment. He has a problem with cigarettes and we have been trying to help him quit and to be free from addiction. This past week we read the story of the anti nephi lehis and how they buried their swords or temptation in the earth. We related that to his smoking and he really wants to quit but he doesn’t think he can do it. We tried everything to have him quit. I showed him a picture of Jesus and put it in front of him so that the picture was right there. He didn’t want to quit for a couple of years and I said to tell that to Jesus and he talked to the picture and it was priceless and kind of funny in the middle of a really serious discussion. He is working on it and he can quit with the help of the lord.
It has been really difficult to get investigators to come to church... We didn’t have anyone attend this week and there aren’t many people progressing that we are teaching:( however we did have some really cool experiences this week.)
We taught Annette and 10 of her friends last Monday night and she seems to be getting more and more interested. We didn’t know it was going to be like a party... But when we got there, there were a bunch of people and food and stuff. The people started to ask why we were dressed up so weird and we ended up teaching the entire first lesson with the Joseph smith story... it went reasonably well and her sister is interested, We gave her a church DVD we had with us. We have another appointment with her on Saturday and are going to teach her over the phone during the week!
This week we also taught a new woman named Frau Fuehrtmueller. We tried to do a quick lesson and commit her to baptism but we ended up staying almost 2 hours and taught some pretty in-depth things about the book of Mormon and prophets and the restoration. She seemed pretty interested and it was fun to meet with her.
We meet regularly with a woman named Donna. Donna has been wondering about very deep doctrine and has been searching for mistakes within the book of Mormon. This week, she started to talk about the location of the new Jerusalem and arguing about Jerusalem and the promised land and so on and so forth. We stopped right there and had a testimony session for about 30 minutes. We (elder Hamilton, the member that was with us, and I) bore strong testimony of the truthfulness of the book of Mormon. We told her that we do not understand all the prophecies about the last days or about all the little things within the bible, but we do know one thing. We know that the book of Mormon is the word of god. We received the answer from heavenly father that the book is true and that’s enough. We dint have to try to prove the book wrong to know that it is true, or compare prophecies in the bible. It is true and we told her the only way to find out if it is true is to read the book with an open heart and pray about it... that is the only way.. That is final.
I hope she takes our advice and is open enough to receive answers !!!
We also met with a couple named the Schowalds. They are the most spiritual people... outside of the apostles that I have met... and maybe more spiritual than Eckhard Steinat... but I am not sure. We invited them to pray about the message and they are going to get an answer that it is true.
This week has been full of fun and we have many appointments this week and opportunities to bear strong testimony of the gospel... It is true and the work is going on.
I found a fairly long German word I thought everyone would enjoy. It is benachrichtigungssymbole.
The church is true and it is led by men who are led directly by God.
Elder Sonne
