Hello!

Happy Pday!

This week was a great one, full of miracles and happiness! There were of course hard times, but I don_t want to talk about them. I'll just tell you about the good ones :]

On Monday, SIster Peine and I got a temporary 3rd companion, Sister Avanezijan. She was born in Albainia, but her family now lives in Münchin, Germany. She has been in our mission for 2 transfers now waiting for her visa to come through. Her real mission call was to the Mesa Arizona Temple Visitors Center, but we're glad she's been with us! She serves in Dresden but needed to come to Berlin to have an interview for her Visa at the US EMbassy. We were very glad to have her with us for a little bit! After picking her up at the train station, we went to Family Home Evening with the Elders and one of their Investigators, Vanessa, where Sister Peine had her first time taking the lead in the lesson and she did a wonderful job teaching the Plan of Salvation. Then we three Sisters were off for another Family Home Evening with a less active member, Schwester Hein. It was again talking about the Plan and the Spirit was very strong. We sang, talked, read the scriptures, cried and ate delicious cheese cake together. Then it was time to come home for a slumber party! We moved the 4 matteresses in the apartment to the living room and Sister Curtis slept on the new couch. (New couch story: Sister Kosak came and visited us last week adn said we need a couch. On Saturday night Sister Peine and I walked into our apartment after work, saw the living room, walked back out to make sure it was the right apartment, them walked back in to enjoy all the new furniture. Not only did we get a new couch, but new dest chairs, lamps, and the old arm chairs redecorated to our room with a little study corner there made. Fun surprize!)

Tuesday was my 11 month mark! I feel old but brand new at the same time. To 'celebrate' we had a joint teach lesson from the member referal we got last Sunday! It went well, there were answers given that we knew came directly from the SPirit, and having the Member there to bear his testimony was wonderful! On Saturday we had another lesson with this man, Frank, and we didn't get to the lesson we had planned so that we could answer his questions from what he read in teh Book of Mormon and bear testimny about it. He said he does have a desire to know it's true and started reading and praing everaday!

Wednesday was maybe my favorite day this week. We had District Meeting and then did District Finding together. We did the Finding in Lankwitz area this time. The Sisters had splits again and of course we put the two new missionaries together again! OUr goal was that each companionsip would place a Book of Mormon. I went off with Sister Thorton who serves in Dahlem. We met the most amazing family, Family Pecí ! It is a mother and  young daughter. When we first started toalking to the mother she wasn't super interested, but her little girl kept saying "mom, we NEED this book!!"  So then the mom stopped and really listened. We were able to talk to them for about 20 minutes and made out an appointment! They were one of the first we talked to and we still had a while till meeting up with the others and so we whipped out another Book of Mormon and gave that one out too! When we came back together, Sister Peine and Sister Brown also gave away 2 Books of Mormon!! And also made out an appointment! How cool is that!! The Elders weren't able to place thiers, but that's what team work is for.

Thursday was the appointment with Family Pecí and it went amazingly. The little girl kept asking really good questions. Turns out that the mom doesn't even really know if God is there but her daughter knows. The daughter is the spiritual leader in the house and insures that there is a prayer said over every meal and every night because it makes her feel good and she knows it's the right thing to do. Her Mom is now interested to figure out what is right so she can help her daughter. Both are wonderful and already making progress. I've never really felt that I've met "prepared people" much, maybe 2, but this family is definately prepared! I could only pray and thank Heavenly Father that we can teach them. And also pray that we will continue to help them pregress back to Him.

Friday was plannind and Less Active member day. That was also very good day! It ended with an appointment with an active lady in the ward witht he Elders for dinner. We talked about how we could help her with missionary work and it was great!

Saturday was an adventure. I ran in a 7k race in Berlin. Yup. Pretty cool beans. We have been encouraged to try new creative ideas to get the name of the Church out. I made a joke to Sister Curtis that we should get a team together to run in the Berlin Half Marathon. This joke was taken seriously and became pretty big.

But instead of a half marathon, we decided on the 7k since we only had a week and a half to prepare. We made Tshirts that on the front have a red tie and a missionary badge and on the back are scriptures from Isaiah "run and not be weary, walk and not faint" and alma "in the strength of the Lord, you can do all things" and Mormon.org website. More people decided they wanted to run after we printed the shirts so they wore the mormon helping hands vests. It was a new way to get the name out! We were cheerleaders for other runners and sang songs and there were even 2 investigators that came and a member to help us! Two of our Elders actually placed in the race too. Not bad :] Most of the missionaries in the Berlin North and South Zones ran :]

Then after the race we had a service project back in Lankwitz with a Friend of the Church (not yet an investigator, but almost) and a lesson with Frank.

Sunday was church and was also Ward Council. I felt a little bad in Ward Council because we overshadowed the Elders pretty badly this week and the ward council was saying things like "I thought we were doing OK with missionary work, and then the Sisters came! This is what missionary work is!" I didn't want that to happen. But our teaching pool is now significantly larger then the Elders who have both been here since before Thanksgiving. OUr ward mission leader almost cried when we gave him a copy of our progress record and he saw it was two pages. I think the Elders felt bad. But on the other side it was the first time that on my mission i've felt that the ward looks up to the sisters as much as the elders. Before it's kind of been more the attitude that elders are better and that sisters should have just stayed home and get married. I once heard a joke that said "Sisters do twice as much work for half the credit of Elders." It hasn't been too bad really, but now I feel that with all the sisters the members are recognising that sisters are as much messengers of God as the Elders are. and when everyone works together, then the Work increases. 

For our lunch appointment on Sunday, we went to the Stake President's house. Their oven was broken so the wait was longer than norlmal and Sister Peine and I didn't want to just sit there so we rounded up their three oldest kids, daughters ages 17 and 12 and a son age 9, and went out to put pass along cards in the mailboxes on their street. It was so much fun! 

I am looking forward to this week, it should be another great one! I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you!

 Love, 

Sister Walker 

My 5 for this week is 5 Sisters! We had a sleep over on MOnday night with Sister Avanezijan. in the picture are Sister Curtis on the couch, Sisters Munfrd, Avanezijan, me and Peine on the floor. yay slumber parties!