A strike, a Ukulele, and a Testimony

I can't believe that yet another week has already gone by! It seems the weeks are going by far to quickly. Things are going fairly well, this week was a slow week, and  it seemed that none of our investigators could meet with us. Which was hard. Although it could be worse. My poor Zone Leaders. So on Wednesday there was public transportation strike, which was mainly in Stuttgart ( only 4 buses in Esslingen weren't driving, so it didn't effect me and Elder Heinrich too much.) Anyway, Stuttgart is rather large, and EVERYTHING was shut down. So the night before the strike my Zone leaders borrowed some bikes from members in the ward, to be used to go to all of their appointments.The next day comes, and they found themselves walking out the door a bit late. Luckily for them though ( or so they thought) they lived on the top of a huge hill, so they could make up the time by riding really fast down the hill. Which would have been totally fine, if it weren't for the incredibly sharp turn at the bottom... Yeah, so the first elder didn't make the turn and flew off on to the sidewalk, while the second, following not to far behind slammed on the brakes, but not quick enough, hit the other bike and flew up over the handlebars. Both bikes were destroyed in the process. But they both miraculously remained fairly uninjured ( they were traveling at around 40 kph ( roughly 25 mph) when they wrecked. But had some pretty good sized cuts ( they showed up at our District meaning a few days  later with some bandages claiming to have been jumped in an alley :-) ). Anyway, they made it into the newspaper with their wreck, which makes it twice in the period of 2 weeks that they were in the newspaper :-) The first time was an article about the church/missionary work. You may be able to see it ( although I think only Beth would be able to understand it) The name of the Article was Sie gehen ihren Weg des Herrn in the Stuttgart Zeitung, if anyone is interested.

Anyway, I am trying to think of anything exciting that happened this past week, but nothing is coming to mind, it was just a normal week of missionary work.  2 Nephi 29:3, if I had a dime for every time I have heard that phrase in the past few weeks... my goodness. It seems to be always the same:

 "Hi we are missiona... yeah, yeah, we know, you have your bible and that you don't need anymore. Yes we are familiar with Revelations 22:18, are you familiar with 2 Nephi 29:6? " haha I wish I could use that, but it probably wouldn't go over so well. But yeah, things are well, Frau Baumann came to church yesterday and liked it, and said that she will come again next week. Things are interesting at the moment with Frau Baumann, having heard that she has read the bible twice I assumed that she was christian, but she is very firm in her belief of Reincarnation, which is not a christian belief. So we hope that with time, coming to church, praying about the Book of Mormon, she can get a firm belief in the Plan of Salvation. She still doesn't have a baptismal date, because when we asked her if she wanted to be baptized, she said that had already been baptized so she didn't need to be. We are going to go back and review Priesthood Power and Authority, and then ask her again.

We have recently gained 2 new investigators, Mai and Steven. They both come from Nigeria, Mai has been here for 12 years, and Steven has lived here for a few months. A month or so ago, Mai had a baby girl, and named her Gift. Which in English is a sweet name to give a baby, however the poor child will be raised in Germany, where the word "Gift" means "Poison". Anyway, we met with them on Friday, and they came to church yesterday! All 3 hours! (Most of our investigators only come to Sacrament meeting, because its easier ( Sacrament meeting starts at 10.50 and for some it takes awhile to get here.)) They seemed to really enjoy it, so things are looking well in that respect. We just need to convince them to get married sooner rather than later. 

I am giving on a talk on this upcoming Sunday. And am scared to death to do so. Its easy to speak to one person in German, but it is going to be completely different speaking to 200 people in German for 10 or so minutes. But I will be fine, its just going to be pushing me well out of my comfort zone. Haha I gave a presentation in the primary! Well sort of, they were learning the names of the apostles, and Schwester Müller found out that I knew various facts about the apostles. So I told all that I knew about each apostle, which isn't much but it was enough for primary age children. Then Elder Heinrich, and Schwester Müller, and I tried to sing a poorly translated song about the apostles while Elder Heinrich played the Ukulele. We have video footage of it, but it is probably better not to share it ;-) Elder Heinrich's family will probably post it on Facebook, so if you add him as a friend under me, you might be able to see it.  Its really weird, there are only 13 kids in the entire primary! There almost more Primary children in our home ward than there are members in this ward! I am still trying to adjust to that. 

One thing recently that has come up a lot in my studies, is the atonement of Jesus Christ. A scripture that we commonly use is Alma 7:11-12. But having used a lot in the past few days, it has really caused me to stop an ponder on it. Its something that is very widely known and excepted that Jesus suffered for us. But I really wonder how much people comprehend the extent of what that means. Yesterday in a lesson with a non active member of the church, he expressed to us, that he couldn't believe in a God that would allow so much pain and sorrow to exist in this world. He wondered why it was necessary to come here and to be exposed to all of this. Naturally its for our good and for our experience, as stated in the Doctrine and Covenants, but one thing that I have thought of is that it allows us to more fully comprehend the atonement, and what it can do. We oft time take it for granted, and it is truly through trial and sorrow that we draw nearer to our Savior. How are we expected to draw nearer unto him, if we don't know Him, or don't know what he has done for us. By allowing these trials to come upon us, he allows us to become nearer to the savior, by relying on him more, and ourselves less. I am very grateful for what Jesus did for me. What a blessing it is to know that He should care for us, enough to atone, and die for us. It makes life that much more worth living, to know that someone has been where we are, and will always be there when we allow Him to be. I testify that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. That he came down and took upon himself all of our sins, iniquities and infirmities, so that we could repent, gain the help that we need, and be able to return to our Father in Heaven one day. 

Sorry that this week was a bit uneventful, hopefully there will be more to write next week!

Love,

Elder Christensen