So Germany is still pretty sweet. I'm really settled in now. Things that were once strange or extraordinary are the norm now. My german is always getting better. I can understand pretty much most everything now. Pre-mission life seems an eternity ago! I'm approaching 5 months I think. Geez!
Anyway this week was a week full of evaluation. We have lost lots of investigators and the ones we still have are, for the most part, not progressing. We did a lot of finding this week. Lots of street contacting and doors. I'm always thinking about how to do better or how to have success, how we can find more people. Made a lot of changes this week. Rededicated myself to getting up on the first alarm, switched up my study plan to be more effective, made some changes in the way we teach and contact, with more testimony and more thought provoking and application ideas. Basically I have, and we have, as a conpanionship, been trying to improve in the little things. Recommittment to put more into the work cause I want more out of it.
Not a ton to report as far as investigators.... the most promising ones have been unreachable as of late and the eternals are still there. Changes are good though. We are determined to make some changes with these people so they will start to want to excercise some faith. If not we might have to drop some. We are working mostly on finding new people, fresh people with fresh opportunities.
One cool thing from this week is we got to see some fruits of past labor. Our baptism from first transfer is doing really well lately. We meet with him twice a week and he is just super happy lately and we know it's because of the gospel. He isn't all there so sometimes he worries us but this week he talked a lot about the spirit that he felt at church and how much he has learned in the past 3 months and how he loves the people so much. That's the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and a ward that supports its new converts. It's just a really sweet feeling to see the difference in him. This week it was just really obvious and that was a real joy to see as a missionary.
This week I studied and worked on faith. A good one for this week as we need faith to build back up our investigator pool. My favorite definition of faith comes from Alma 32:21 "faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." (from my study journal) A lot of times we don't understand this concept. Faith isn't knowledge, certainly not a perfect knowledge. If we had perfect knowlegde we wouldn't need faith. It's a hope for something you can't see, something science and the senses can't prove, but is still 100% true. The fact that the 5 senses can't prove it suggests there must be another way to. That only way is the Holy Ghost. The hope of our hearts and the manifestation of the spirit can't be measured by anyone other than you. In your heart. Faith is personal. And our personal faith in the Savior Jesus Christ is what should motivate us, whether it is the faith to live a commandment, to talk to someone about the church, to forgive, to repent, to pray, or follow a prompting. We have never seen Him, but we have felt Him, and that is enough to trust Him and follow Him in faith.
Love you all! The church is true! Letters are cool too. Til next week. TSCHÜSS!
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