Hello family!!
This week has been pretty
alright. Lots of fallen out appointments, but that´s the life of a
missionary. I can´t believe Tucker is going to the MTC so soon. I´m
excited for him he´ll love it! I wonder who will train him... crazy!
He needs 4-5 short sleeve shirts (according to the Elders in our city).
He doesn´t need to have Euros on hand when he gets into Germany, but he
should have enough US dollars so that he can convert it to Euros when he
gets here. That´s funny that Tucker pulled that prank on that poor
youth speaker. Haha. Just wait til his trainer does that to him but he
has to talk in German. He will get what he´s been dishing out. Haha ;)
And yes, he will have to shake my hand. If he hugs me that could cause
some issues. :) That´d be super cool though if he were one day able to
serve in Rostock and he could know Svetlana as a member and not an
investigator. That´d be really cool. But there are lots of cities for
Elders so it´s not very likely that he will. But who knows!?
Svetlana is ROCKING. It´s so crazy. We had a great
lesson with her about Joseph Smith, because for some reason she always
forgets who he is. That´s kind of important. Anyway. Hopefully she won´t
forget anymore. She also gave us 5 referals. We went by on all of them,
but none of them had interest, but she is getting excited about the
gospel and wants others to hear it too. ALSO! WAY cool thing this week,
we came out of the church after an appointment and we saw this guy that
was in a really really expensive looking suit so we decided to talk to
him because he looked sharp. Then about 1 minute later Svetlana came
around the corner and started talking to him too. (She´s kinda crazy and
LOVES to talk) so she started saying to this guy that so many people
nowadays are doing dumb things like drinking and partying and having
chastity issues and starts talking about her sons problems and about how
finally her son read the Bible with her that morning and confessed to
her that he believes God is there. Then she bore her testimony about how
her life was going really terribly but ever since she´s been meeting
with us things have been going so much better and that she knows God
lives and He can heal our wounds. We were taken aback that she was so
bold with a random stranger on the street, and I think the guy was kind
of weirded out, but it was a great experience for Svetlana to be able to
share her testimony and it was great for us to hear her conviction. We
may have to move her baptism up. She is so ready.
Question for Jeff: How much do you talk in lessons
and at eating appointments and stuff? Also, how much time do you have to
write e-mails? I feel like you write less now than in the MTC.(that´s a
cuiriostiy thing, not a bashing thing) And also your comp looks super
familiar, I don´t know why.
Our Serbian family is doing
great also! This week we took our Serbian member to their house to help
translate. When we got there, Nikolai had a hard time with Joseph Smith.
When we left he said he believed and thinks he´s a great person and
wanted to come to church. But he can´t come to church because he has
cancer and is doing chemo (can´t remember if I´ve mentioned that) so he
doesn´t have energy or strength to do that at all. If you could pray
that we find a way that we can get him to church and not be a hazard to
his health, we would love that. Also, I think it would be a little
overwhelming to the family , especially with his health as bad as it is
right now, if we were to come more than once a week. Sometimes we are in
the home more than once a week and they see us and we ask how they´re
doing, but multiple visits might be too exhausting for poor Nikolai.
Plus it´s really hard to teach them when they can´t really understand
us. Ever since the Joint teach with our serbian member I don´t think
we´ll be able to teach them anything without her. This member is also
moving soon. We don´t know what to do about that because we really NEED
her. But thanks so much for all your prayers for our investigators. We
are seeing miracles!
Investigator update. We´ve found TONS of new people.
Our most progressing are Ibraimovic´ family (Nikolai, Duda, Judah,
Natasha, Daniel) and Svetlana, but we do have others that you don´t know
about yet. We´ll solve that problem now.
Pedro: He´s from Angola and speaks Portuguese and
really good German. We´re not sure if he´s looking for answers or if
he´s looking to confuse us. He has way hard questions to answer and it
always hurts our brains after we´re done with him. He won´t take pure
testimony for an answer, he needs facts and that´s hard. We´re hoping
he´ll have prayed to know Joseph Smith is a prophet. He´s a cool guy,
but we always make sure we bring someone that can speak better German
and who is smarter than us.
Cynthia and Vivian: They´re both single mothers from
Ghana. We found them at the same place as the Serbians. We gave Cynthia
a Book of Mormon and she had read in it by the time we had a return
appointment and said it´s from God. In the middle of the appointment
Vivian came in and we asked if we should come back a different time but
Cynthia said we could stay. Had a great Restoration lesson with them and
they´re both excited about the Book of Mormon. Teach them in English.
LOTS of Arab men that are looking to get baptized so they can stay in Germany. That´s not going to happen though.
I can´t think of anyone else. I´ll fill you in later if I remember anyone.
The weather is turning really nice. We looked out
the window the other day and it looked cold and cloudy so we bundled up
real good and it was ROASTING. It is getting really green and beautiful
and it´s really fun to look for different kinds of animals on the train
ride to Bad Doberan. We´ve seen many foxes, deer, and bunnies. I´m not
sure how cold it gets in the winter. This winter wasn´t really that bad.
My thermal garments saved me. It can get really cold though as far as I
know. I think Elders are allowed to wear boots. I´d definitely wait to
buy them and the coat here though, even though it´s expensive.
We have had lots and lots of money problems. We
still are barely hanging in there moneywise. We´re hoping they may have
given us money a day early. They didn´t reimburse her, and we did tell
the mission home. We have our interviews with President this week. I´m
not sure if they´re the very final ones or not. I hope he does one last
round of interviews before he goes, but that might be too much work for
him. We´ll see. I can´t believe Tucker met President!!! That´s crazy. I
didn´t realize he was in America. That poor man travels SO much. I´ll
have to talk to President about that.
Okay, looks like we´ll be Skyping with you on the
13th of May at 12:30 your time 8:30 my time. Looking forward to it.
Can´t believe it´s that time again!
You´ll have to youtube the Hey Hiya ho song. It´s quite good. I danced to it all the time.
I´m sorry you didn´t get the reading specialist
position. That´s a bummer (Schade in German). I can bet you about had a
heart attack or peed your pants. Oh man. I´m glad your room was clean
too. Also I´m glad you left it up to the Lord. That´s really all we can
do in those kind of situations. He definitely knows 100 percent of the
time what will be best for us in the long run and what will help us
become the people He wants us to become. I read a really cool article in
the Liahona by Elder Bednar about the atonement and it had a quote
about when Nephi was tied up by his brothers: He didn´t pray that the
bands would come off of him, he prayed for the strength to burst the
bands. Here comes the quote I like "Nephi didn´t pray that the
circumstances would be changed, rather he prayed for the strength to
change the circumstances. I really liked that and I want to use the
atonement in that way more often than I do.
I´m glad you´re enjoying missionary mom e-mails. Sister
Holbrook is on there too and she´s in my city with me and she can tell
you many stories about us getting locked out and things so if you send
out a Sister Holbrook request, I´m sure she´ll answer you.
That´s so exciting that Jeff set a baptismal date
too! He is such a great missionary, I can just tell from reading his
e-mails and they make me happy. It ends up we won´t be going with these
new converts to get their blessings. That puts less stress on us
financially, so that´s okay.
I
now have 5 stuffed turtles in my bed. Most of them were gifts though.
(the one sarah and rachel won at toads, pillow pet from mark and
heather, Sister Toni sent me one too). I have bought 2. Don´t ask how
I´ll lug them around everywhere, I´ll make it work :)
I love this gospel. I know it is true. I know it can
change lives and "heal wounds" as Svetlana said. Our Father in Heaven
knows us and He wants us to be with Him. He´s given us all we have, we
owe it to Him to live our lives serving His children and helping them
see this gospel light. I love it and I know it is the true and only way!
I love you ALLLLLLL So much!
Love, Sister Niebergall
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