(German is taking over my English Abilities)
This week has seriously been the best week of my whole entire mission.
There is a reason missionaries are told exact obedience brings
miracles. We started the week out right with zone conference on
Tuesday. That started me off right with a desire to talk to everyone
on the trains that we took that week, and really gave me motivation to
find people who have been prepared to hear the restored gospel. Preach
my Gospel tells us to "talk to everyone!" because everyone is a child
of Heavenly Father who deserves a chance to hear the Gospel. Well we
had so many conversations started this week with a simple hello after
we or the other person sat down on the Bahn. I decided I wasn't going
to let my brain stew over what I was going to say, and instead I was
just going to start the conversation right away! Cause there have been
way too many times when too much time has passed and by the time you
actually get to the gospel goodness, they or you are getting off the
Bahn. Which is just schade.
I also took the advice given in PMG and tried to quickly lead every
convo to the restored gospel. And even when peeps didn't want to hear
how much God loves them, at least they know a little of my testimony!
And let me tell you, the lord really does bless his children. I felt
so happy this week because I was giving my ALL to serving the Lord. We
had one of the absolute most successful weeks of my mission and I
could feel how being obedient in these simple ways made a huge
difference. MAN. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK.
So after our zone training on Tuesday, we had an eating appointment
with the W family. Now this wonderful people speak very quickly,
slurred, and speak some hard core Schwäbish. Schwäbish is the dialect
of the people of Baden-Württemberg (particularly Württemberg). They
like to cut off verb endings, change words completely, and pronounce
words completely differently than they're supposed to be. Take one
example, nichts in German means nothing. Here they say netts. Nett in
German means nice, so context clues become important to tell the
difference if a true Schwaben is saying nice, or nothing. Anyway, back
to the story. With zone training we were speaking a lot of English
that morning and my brain was soooo not functioning in Deutsch. So
after saying a prayer to particularly understand the W's Schwäbish, we
dove into this appointment. And I am proud to announce that after
almost four months in Stuttgart I actually understood a large majority
of what was being said, AND was able to hold an hour and a half worth
of conversation. I'm telling you peeps, the gift of tongues is real.
Speaking of more German experiences this week. Saturday was our
stake's women conference. So all the women in the whole Stuttgart area
came here to take some classes about lots of various topics. One class
in particular was for the Relief Society presidents of the entire
stake (relief society is the organization for the women in the
church). In Germany they don't really have mortuaries so the relief
society presidents usual have to clean, dress, and prepare deceased
church member women after they pass away. So they had a class to help
these women learn how to do just that when the need arises. Well,
since our stake has an international ward with English speaking
members, I had the opportunity to translate for a woman in the
international ward for this class. So my first translating experience
was to translate for a class about dressing deceased people. But I
successfully translated so that was a miracle!!
There is a quote in Preach My Gospel (the missionary "handbook") that
if inverted pretty much described our week. It reads, well invertedly
reads, "If you raise your expectations, your effectiveness will
increase, your desire will strengthen, and you will have a greater
ability following the spirit," (PMG, pg. 10). I know that to be true.
And we can apply this in our everyday lives too.
I love you all, have a GREAT week!
-Sister Selph