P Day After Prophet

Guten Morgen Familie! 

Weil Kaden studiert jetzt Deutsch, ich wird auf Deutsch schreiben und er kann es übersetzen. Gut. Eine die Packetchen ist gekommen! Ich hab die Helden Kärtchen bekommen und sie sind wunderbar! Danke. Wir haben Spiele mit der Geminde und sie gespielt. 

Hehe, translation (so you can see how good his German is): Because Kaden is taking German, I'll write in German and he can translate. Good. One of the packeges came! I received the one with the Hero cards and they are wonderful! Thank you. We played games with the Ward and them. (More over that later.) 

The biggest Sunshine moment of the week, besides seeing President Monson, was on Thursday when we had an appointment with our investigator Michael. He is a student who studies in Leipzig but he and his Mom's permanent residence is in Lübbenau, a city in my area. The Elders in Leipzig have been teaching him for a while but for the past month he has been back home so we have taught him a few times. He had a baptism date in Leipzig that didn't go through and at our last meeting we asked why he wanted to be baptized. He bore the sweetest testimony of how the Book of Mormon has made him want to be a better person and how it's blessed his life. We then set a new baptismal date for here in Cottbus! For this coming Sunday. He came with us to see President Monson and he was touched by the story of the Prodical Son and said he felt it applied directly to him. He is such a good guy and will be a wonderful Priesthood holder some day soon! 


I'm a little embarrassed to say this week I was not as patient as I could have or should have been with Sister Neukomm. I was a little frustrated that she is not keeping to our new schedule we made especially for her and that she is not doing things the Doctors have suggested she do to overcome her challenges. I felt like this week she had no desire to get better. I kept focusing on what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and what she was doing that was counter productive to my goals. But then I reread my Conference notes and something that touched me from a talk by Elder Gonsalez was "Look with your heart and not with your eyes." And then during President Monson's message he focused a lot on blindness. This week I had let my selfish desires, even if they were good, get in the way of helping my Companion whom I love very much. I'm sorry, and I will make the needed changes this week to look at everyone with my heart, not just my eyes. I have also started reading the Bible all the way through this week (New Testament first, then Old Testament) and in Mark saw that he really emphasised the Lord's timing. I need to not worry about my time schedule but try to understand and work by the Lord's. That will be my focus this week. 

OK, now to talk about what you wanted to hear, the Prophet. It was so cool! The Ward rented a bus so we could all drive to Berlin together. Almost the whole ward could fit on this one bus, it was really fun! 

  We sang songs, ate chocolate and little pizza bites the Bishop made and potato salad that I made, talked, and we played games with the hero cards! Not everyone played, but many laughed and helped us. What we did was take the cards, mix them together and then without looking put it on our forehead and we had to ask questions to find who we were. It was fun! Chi-Yu and Ameen didn't know everyone so we had lessons on who people were and read their scriptures. The picture is Sister Neukomm and Chi-Yu with their cards up!

 It was very cool to see the Ward interacting with the investigators. Chi-Yu, Ameen and Michael came with us. In the picture where none of the boy are smiling, those are our investigators at the conference center. 

It was funny to have an interpreter there. President Monson would say one sentance, pause (like freeze, hands in the air) the interpritor says his sentance, then unfreeze President Monson continues like there was no pause! President Monson spoke in parables most of the time! It was so cool and was just like I have been reading in the Bible. All of them had to do with blindness. Some stories were about actual eyes-don't-work-everything-is-dark blindness, but the focus was more on self done blindness. Are we blinding ourselves with anger, prejudice, frustration, or selfishness? I felt he was talking right to me. I was being rebuked by the Prophet of God. (hehe sounds funny) But then he ended with the Prodical Son and said that he loved us, and that Heavenly Father and Christ love us. Even though I was a little blinded this week andmake other istakes, he loves me. My Father in Heaven loves me. Jesus loves me. And I know they all love you too. One cool story that he said was also about how words have an effect on our outlook. A blind man had a sign that simply read "I'm blind" and received no help, then someone changed it so it read "It's Springtime and I'm blind" and he was helped more than he thought was possible. I'm still trying to take themeaning from this but I think some of it is when we are specific in what we say, we get specific responces. WHat do you think? 

There was a choir there made up of members in the area who sang a very pretty closing song which was a mix of "Praise to the Man" and "We Thank Thee O God for the Prophet." It was very sweet. After the closing song, I asked our three investigators what they learned and all three said they didn't learn anything. What?! Then I asked them what their favorite part was. Each of them said a different thing had touched them and taught them ways to be a better person. Then they all realized that hey, they did learn something! That was nice to see. 

Another treat I had was I saw Sister Faerber! She was transfered to Dresden so she is in my Zone now. I forgot that till she was there! It was so fun :]
 I hope you all have a great week! remember I love you! 

Liebe Grüße, 
Sister Walker