So...we just had the most deathly hot week ever...it approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit this week, with 85 percent humidity. Blah. Shoot me. But it was still a fairly good week as well. But because of the heat, they even cancelled 2 hours of church!! We only had sacrament meeting, cause in the church--like most German buildings--there is no AC!! Terrible...could we move into the 21 century now, please? Thank you...
We found this Serbian family this last week, a mom and a dad and three sons ages 13, 11, and 8, and the grandpa, and they are so freakin cool. The boys all speak German, the dad and mom a little, and the grandpa none. But the dad does speak Macedonian, Romanian, Greek, Serbian, and like 3 other Slavic languages...we are trying to get a German-Serbian translator at church next week, so that they can understand everything. It would be so amazing. They ended our first appointment by saying--through their sons--"we want to come. We need God in our lives." Whew!!
We also found this college-age girl named Tatiana, who is really cool too. She has a TON of questions about life after death, about Angels, and about who God and Christ are. She is like, glowing golden prepared. And she is German, so the whole blond-hair Blue eyes thing...but we have a appointment with her again tomorrow. If you'd like to pray for somebody, please pray for Sarojie and his family--the Serbians--and also for Tatiana.
There is actually a list about 35 names long now of people I've taught since I got to Lauenburg--a huge number for Germany, really, especially considering that there we're no investigators when I got
here. We are having so much success it's unbelievable for a small area like this. Well, huge area, tiny towns. It's very rare that there are this many investigators. We are really being blessed. The hardest part is for the investigators to find time to meet with us though. All so freakin busy...and turning the new investigators into baptisms. That is a hard part as well. Haven't achieved that in Lauenburg yet. But we will.
I've changed my prayers by the way. I used to pray for the pain in my back to go away. And for the weather to be good. And for my companion to be less annoying. And for the people to be nicer. But now? I pray for new investigators. I pray for miracles. I pray for baptisms. And you know what? I see a difference. A BIG difference. Like, a difference that has made our program from one of the worst in the mission to a moderately successful one, basically overnight--8 weeks.
And that is the key. I came here wanting to change something. And I learned: the only thing that we can really change is ourselves. And when we do that, when we really change the way we think, the way we work, the way we pray, the way we are, then the good things start to come. That is the whole idea behind education, is it not? Change yourself, better yourself, and better the world around you.
