Be A Sunflower

Hallo!!  So much to say this week! 

Quick recap: Monday night we had fufu round two with like double the Africans, so double the fufu, and let's just say that I think fufu is more of a one-time kinda deal. 

Tuesday we had district meeting, and then some family friends of Sister Abram came to pick us up and take us out to lunch!  It was so nice of them, and they were so fun!!  It was like a mini p-day because we took them on a little tour of the city, which was cool!  

Then that night I finished packing for Sister Abram and we got her all ready to DIEEEEE. (That's missionary lingo for "she finished her mission and flew home on Wednesday.")  

Mensch, I miss her so much! (mensch = gosh)  The mission lost its best missionary on Wednesday!!  

But my golden (golden = new missionary just out of the Missionary Training Center), Sister Howsmon, is literally the cutest thing ever!!  I was praying that she would be a missionary who wanted to work hard and be obedient, and that we would get along, and hey! Prayers work!! And holy cow, she has brought so many miracles with her! Thursday and Friday we did a ton of finding, and Sister Howsmon would just walk up to people and say "HI!!!" And then stand there awkwardly smiling cuz she can't speak German yet, and people would just be so surprised and laughing at how cute and bold she was that they would stay and listen me explain what we were doing!  So, I would say we're a good team! She learns super quickly,too!  So it's great being a mom (mom = training a new missionary) to an awesome little golden. :)

I wish I could write all the miracles we have seen in the past few days, but here are just a few:

1. We were walking down the street to the church and this man stopped and asked when we have church. So we told him on Sunday's at 9:30 and then he said he would come, and so we gave him our number and then he just walked away. We were really confused because no one ever comes up to US and says they're coming to church!  Well, he actually showed up!!  So random!  So we were freaking out and all happy and stuff, and then we found out that he's a member visiting from Russia...haha!  But still I am counting it as a miracle. :)

2. Stanley came to church, as usual, and brought his German teacher with him!!  He's already being an awesome member missionary :)  She stayed for sacrament and said that it was nice!  Unfortunately, she doesn't really have an interest right now, but maybe we can change that ;)

3. This African guy named Izu has been coming to church for the past couple weeks, and I guess he is a former investigator who had a baptismal date but then disappeared, but randomly has started to come back!  So we've been teaching him a few lessons here and there, but he can be a little frustrating sometimes and it's complicated to have male investigators here without elders because all the members we could bring for joint teachers live like two hours away!  But this Sunday he came to talk to us and said that he really wants to get baptized. So we had a lesson with him and made sure he was really serious about it this time, and we set a baptismal date for Sept. 18!!  There are a few hurdles and complications we need to get over first, but I think with faith it can totally happen :)

There are tons of others but they're too long to type. Just know that we are doing awesome over here and the Lord is blessing us a ton! 

This week I read a conference talk from April 2015 called "The Lord is My Light" by Quentin L. Cook. He talks about standing strong in our faith in Christ through difficult circumstances, and how we need to always follow the Savior's example.

"Like the young sunflower, when we follow the Savior of the world, the Son of God, we flourish and become glorious despite the many terrible circumstances that surround us. He truly is our light and life."

So, be like a sunflower! :) There will always be hardships, always be trials, and our faith will always be tested!  But if we simply face the light that Christ provides for us, we will always know that there are good times ahead, and that we can make it through hard things! 

Love you all and have a great week!

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell