So this week has been AWESOME full of miracles and I don´t even know if I´ll be able to explain the half of what has happened. I have to try to catch up on my journal, I´m about a week behind. I´ll have plenty of time to do that tomorrow though.
First of all Monday we went to Sassnitz, a island in the
Baltic Sea with chalk cliffs and it is BEAUTIFUL! The day before we were
with a member family of ours with kids aged 1 and 6 and they asked if
they could come with. We didn´t really know how intense it was going to
be, but it was actually a huge hike and instead of sand on the beach it
was all rocks. I felt bad for the family because they had to hike a ton
and had a lot to carry and they didn´t really have the energy required
for this beach. Oh well. It was fun anyway, but I was sore for a couple
days.
Tuesday we went to Lambros, our Persian miracle
phone call. He is AWESOME!!!!! He converted to Christianity in Greece.
When we knocked on his door and he opened it he had the biggest smile on
his face and he yelled "OHHHHHHHH!!!!! YOU`RE HERE!!!!" He was so
excited to have someone to talk about Christ with. He lives in the home
where we found the Serbian family and where Cynthia and Vivian live and
most of the people that live in this home are Muslim so they have
nothing to do with Christ and hate Christians. They hate him especially
because he was Muslim and he became Christian. But the coolest part is
he isn´t ashamed that he´s Christian. He bore his testimony of the Bible
and said "This book has changed my life". We actually met with him
twice this week and he came to church too. The second time he met with
us he said "I´m going to invite some of my Muslim friends from down the
hall to come listen." He walked out the door and came back 2 seconds
later and said "I´m scared." but then said ".........oh well" and went
out and invited them to come listen to us. They didn´t come, but it was
so awesome that he has so much love for Christ that he is just a mini
missionary. I can even picture him as a missionary with the suit and
tag. He has the light of Christ. He just needs to accept the
restoration. He loves the Protestant church and is going to ours because
we´re the only church he can find with English speakers. So we´re
hoping he´ll feel something and really connect with the ward and then he
can find out for himself what we´re saying is true. But we came back
for our second appointment and he had read in the Book of Mormon and he
had marked it up and written in the side notes. It was awesome. After
church yesterday we went to do street contacting. We told him what we
were going to do and he asked if he could come with us. So he came with
us as we talked to people on the street about Jesus. He really likes
what we do and that we actually talk to people about Jesus on the
street. He thinks it´s really awesome. I hope he does well, he´s totally
golden.
Tuesday we also had an appointment with Svetlana. It
was a lesson of "commandments you need to accept before you can get
baptized." our district leader was there in case she was ready to get
interviewed for baptism, but after this lesson we realized she so isn´t.
She just needs time. I´m sure she will get baptized eventually, because
she really really wants to. She just needs to realize the commitment
behind the baptism. She hasn´t been to church for about a month now and
she needs to come regularly before she can get baptized. Oh well, it´ll
happen.
Wednesday was the golden finding day like I talked
about and that we fasted for. We went to Greifswald for a couple hours
to help find there and we had a really cool experience. We walked past
one street and I had a SICK feeling that we needed to back track and go
down that street. So then we turned around and went and Sister Noyes
left my side to go talk to someone. I didn´t notice and talked to the
people coming my way and talked to everyone on that street and turned
back around and saw Sister Noyes talking to a man at a table (she´d been
talking to him for about 5 minutes by that time) and I came up and
started talking to him too. Eventually we were able to give him a Book
of Mormon and make an appointment with him too. It was so good to feel
the promptings of the spirit and to follow it and find one of his
children that is ready for the Book of Mormon. Then also at the end of
the day we just "by chance" had a Persian Book of Mormon in our back
packs. We talked to 2 men and one said "I am Muslim and so is he"
pointing to the other one, and he started walking away (we assumed this
other man couldn´t speak German so this guy was kind of speaking for
him). I said "wait! What does God, or Allah mean to you?" He started
talking about what Allah meant to him. We told him we have a book that
we love to give people that talks about God and can help our faith in
him increase. We asked what language he spoke and of course, it was
Persian. We said "We have that book with us" and we pulled out the Book
of Mormon. The man that we assumed couldn´t speak German said "I have
that book at my house! Some men gave it to me! I read in that book every
day!" He had time to spout off his address and the other man pulled him
away because their tram came. We didn´t make an appointment with him,
but we know the general area of where he lives and don´t think it should
be too hard to find. There were definitely miracles seen.
Thursday I was unfortunately sick, so we didn´t get to do anything.
Friday
was very busy. We had 5 appointments. We met with Cynthia and taught
her the Plan of Salvation. She seemed to like it, although her
perception of Heaven and Hell is different, but we think she accepts
what we said. She always does, she´s awesome. Unfortunately, Vivian has
been out of town for a really long time. Hopefully she´ll get back soon.
Also this week we saw a man reading in Spanish on a
tram so we asked him what language he was reading and talked to him and
asked him if he wanted a Book of Mormon and we met with him later in the
week to give him the Book. His name is Ramses. It made me laugh because
that´s the name of the famous fighter, Nacho Libre´s nemesis. He was
really cool and hopefully he can progress too. But he won´t been in
Rostock long. Oh well.
Saturday was the long awaited transfer calls. I
found out that I will be leaving Rostock. It´s crazy, I feel like I just
got here, but at the same time like I´ve been here forever. I love the
people here so much and I love the members. I feel like I really can
call these people my friends. I am so excited to say that I´ll be
serving in Meißen (pronunced mice-en) now! It is in the near of Dresden.
It was an Elder´s program, but they kind of killed the work in the
city. (ooooooooh no, we have to live in an Elder apartment!) President
Pimentel called me and asked if I was in shock (because the Sisters
usually know pretty well which cities are open and how long each sister
has been in a city and which cities are ready for a new sister. I was
totally shocked but he told me that the Stake President in the Meißen
area noticed huge success in Cottbus when the changed it from an Elders
to a Sisters program and to maybe think about praying about changing it
in Meißen. So President prayed and prayed about it and he felt like it
was right to change it to a Sister´s city. Then he prayed and prayed to
see which Sisters could do the job and he felt very strongly that Sister
Curtis (My new companion) and I should be the ones to do the job. I
can´t explain how EXCITED I am to get the work going in this city. To
have no expectations, no idea what to do or where to go in the city. It
will just be me, Sister Curtis, a map, and the Lord. I know we´ll work
miracles there. The past 2 nights I haven´t been able to sleep too well
because I think of all these ideas I have how to get the work really
going there and to find these golden people there. I am not even the
tiniest bit nervous, I am one hundred percent thrilled. It will be an
adventure to say the least.
Yesterday was crazy. We were running around like
chickens with our heads chopped off from the time we woke up in the
morning until we went to bed. We had to teach in Relief Society and that
was interesting, but it went okay I think. It was a great day and I´ll
tell you a story from the day:
We were sitting in the tram and we hear this very
loud obnoxious language, that I like to call American English. We turn
around and ask the people where they´re from and they said Florida/
Virginia. We told them we´re from Arizona and Utah and they were so
excited to meet us. They asked what we were doing here and we told them
being missionaries for our church. They said "Oh so you pretty much know
your way around?" Then they went on to explain that they are
participating in a cruise that stops in Rostock, Sweden, Norway, and so
on. The night before a member of their group fell on the cruise ship and
broke her hip and now had to stay in the hospital in Rostock for about a
week or so. They asked if we knew how to get to the hospital and we
gladly showed them how to get there. Then we showed them how to get to
his hotel because they know absolutely nothing about the public
transportation here and no one speaks English (or at least understand
East Coast English) so no one could answer their questions and we were
able to help them around and they told us that we were an answer to
their prayers. They also said it will probably be very hard for this
lady because she loves to talk and no one can understand her so they
asked if we´d be willing to go by and talk to her so that she could have
someone to talk to because they were getting back on the cruise ship
(except the husband). But yeah, it was a miracle that we were in the
right place at the right time and we could help these people out and I´m
sure we planted a huge seed for them. That made us really happy to do,
just to serve someone in need.
That was my last week in
Rostock. I´m so glad to have finished here strong in Rostock and I feel
like the Lord has blessed me so much this week. I love Him, and He
blesses us so much when we do all He requires of it. I´ve seen it this
week especially. I´ve loved serving here in Rostock and can´t wait to
help the people in Meißen. Can´t wait til next week to tell you about
our adventures. I know this gospel is true. I can´t deny it. I love you
all!! (Sorry I can´t answer your questions! I´ll try to write a letter
tomorrow on my 7 hour train ride!)
Bruder Schmidt is doing better. He´s getting operated on tomorrow and it
doesn´t look too risky anymore. They´ve figured out a less dangerous
way to operate on it and he has a pretty low chance of going blind, but
that´s better than dying. Thanks so so much for fasting for him. I
fasted for him too and so did many ward members. I know there can be
miracles. Thanks for fasting for my friend.
Love, Sister Niebergall
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