Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Back in Germany and it feels so good!



Guten Tag from Göppingen! I can hardly believe I'm in Germany again! I already love it here and am so excited for all the work that Sister Ackermann and I are going to do here in this little part of the vineyard.
Last week leaving Wien it was sad to say goodbye to everyone. We spent New Year's Eve with a Filipino family. We ate, sang Karaoke, and watched fireworks. They go all out with the fireworks on New Years here, it was intense. Tuesday we met with W. I will miss that girl so much. She is like a little Chinese ray of sunshine. We found a newer translation of the Book of Mormon in Chinese for her than the one she had and helped her find the Gospel Library in Chinese to put on her phone. She was so excited, now she has all the scriptures at the touch of a finger. After meeting with W, we went and ate Nepali dumplings (called momo) with B, N and S. They stuffed us to the max, it was so tasty. And we gave a Book of Mormon to one of their friends that was there :) 

On Wednesday I had to say goodbye to D. That actually wasn't too bad, because I know I will see her in the not too distant future, since she's from Virginia :) She loved the little testimony book that Sister Reid and I put together for her. We had everyone at the baptism right down their testimonies, so now she has a nice little memento of the day and also a spiritual boost whenever she needs one. 

Thursday I was on trains for a LONG time. We started with the four and a half hour train ride from Wien to Munich. Then we changed trains for the three hour ride to Stuttgart. That train was packed and we had to stand the whole time, not so fun. Then Sister Ackermann picked me up and we rode the train 40 minutes to Göppingen. Göppingen is A LOT smaller than Munich or Wien (but that's not hard because they are massive). I like it a lot. We will be doing a lot of work in the surrounding villages (or Dorf as they are called in German, probably the word I will use more often). The branch is on the smaller side, they meet in rented rooms in a commercial building. The members are all the nicest people you will ever meet. It was strange to be back in a German speaking ward, but also felt good to exercise my German muscles again.

This past weekend Sister Ackermann and I had a lot of success in a little Dorf called Schlat, about 30 minutes by bus outside of Göppingen. We tracted in a really fancy pants neighborhood (all new houses, all very nice). I doubted how much success we would have but we actually gave someone a Book of Mormon there! He had a visitor so he told us to come back later, and that we will do :) We found some other cool people in Schlat, so we will definitely be returning there later this week to follow up with them. Sister Ackermann's theory is that there is someone awesome just waiting to be baptized in Schlat, that's why we are having so much success there.


Ich weiß, dass ich an der richtige Ort bin. Ich weiß, dass diese Arbeit die Arbeit des Herrn ist. Ich bin so dankbar, hier in Göppingen zu sein und die Liebe Gottes mit den Menschen zu teilen.
 (I know that I am in the right place. I know that this is the Lord’s work. I am glad to be in Göppingen and sharing the love of God with everyone.)

Mach's gut!
--Sister Stewart

No comments:

Post a Comment