Denn Gott hat die Welt so sehr geliebt (For God so loved the world)

How I got lucky enough to serve here I do not know.

This past week was great! My favorite day was Friday: We had 4 appointments scheduled, none of them fell out, and we found 3 new investigators! Hooray! Oh man it was an amazing day. We met first with J, who is from Africa. She had met with the Sisters a year ago. This past Sunday she came to church and said she would like to meet with us! Hooray for long lost investigators coming out of the woodwork! As J was leaving (we met with her at the church) who should walk in but W, our very favorite Chinese investigator. She was 40 minutes early :) We asked her "W, why are you so early?" She said "Well, I was out shopping and I thought 'I should stop' so I came here" Oh man I love that girl. She is so funny. Then later that evening we went to have FHE with a member in our ward. We talked about faith in Jesus Christ and then played Uno with her and her two roommates. Then afterwards her roommates told us they would like to learn more about the church! They are the cutest couple from Nepal. Our last appointment that day was with B, another member. She is from Africa. We talked more about Jesus Christ (of course). My favorite part of that lesson was that B wrote down all the scripture references we shared with her :)

During our lesson with W she asked us, "Why do you talk so much about Jesus Christ and not so much about the God?" We turned the question right around and asked her "Well, what do you think?" Then she said "Well, 'the God' (that's how she refers to Heavenly Father, always as 'the God') sent Jesus to the earth for us. And Jesus is His son, so He did all the things the God wanted to do for us" Yup, that's exactly right. It made me think more about how God and Christ really are one in purpose. Everything that Jesus did, He did because His Father commanded him to. So, when we talk about Jesus Christ, what we are really talking about is God's love for us.

Things that broke this week:

-Our cell phone. I may or may not have gotten the SIM card stuck in upside down. We had to take it into the store, where the clerk fixed it by carefully sticking a box cutter into the SIM card and pulling it out. I’ve never seen someone do that before.

-Our washer. There was a fair bit of water left in it that then spilled onto the floor. We mopped it all up. Then I had to make approximately five million phone calls to get it fixed (I'm not a fan of talking on the phone to people I don't know)

On Saturday we went to a Filipino birthday party. Some of the members were telling us how when they served their missions in the Philippines, sometimes the missionaries would live in the same building where the church meetings were. Sometimes there wasn't enough space downstairs for all the classes, so the missionaries would hold meetings in their apartment upstairs. It is so weird to think about how different a mission that must have been.

Ich weiß, dass mein Himmlischer Vater mich liebt. Er hat mich so viel schon gesegnet und ich weiß, dass er mich weiterhin segnen wird. Ich muss nur mein Bestes geben, ihm zu folgen. Es gibt so viele Beweise für seine Liebe. Das größte ist, dass er seinen Sohn Jesus Christus gab, damit wir alle eines Tages zu ihm zurückkehren können.

(I know that my Heavenly Father loves me. He has blessed me so much already and I know that he will continue to bless me. I just have to do my best to follow him. There are so many proofs of his love. The biggest is that he gave us His only son, Jesus Christ, so that we can all return to him one day.)

Mach's gut! Ich hab euch lieb! (Take care! I love you!)
--Sister Stewart