German moment of the week: (I was hoping that these awkward moments would start to decrease by now, but they seem to be increasing..) So we were dooring the other day, and this one guy answered and I told him we had a message about Jesus Christ to share with him, and he said "Nein, ich habe kein zeit, leider." Which means "No I don't have any time, unfortunately." But I thought "leider" meant "liar" instead of "unfortunately," so I was like, "No really, we are telling the truth!! I promise! We aren't liars! The gospel is true! We have the restored church on the earth today! And prophets! And the priesthood! And The Book of Mormon!" And basically Sister Fast just started cracking up so hard, and the guy was just really confused and just said "okay bye" and shut the door.
This was a great week! Sister Fast and I are really cracking down hard and working our butts off. Monday we had a lesson with Najla, a newly baptized member who is SO AWESOME!! She wants to go on a mission (preferably to America), so we are helping her practice her English, and she is helping us practice our German by letting us teach lessons to her! Seriously love that girl :) Tuesday we had one of the best district meetings I've had on my mission so far! Our district is really like family, and the spirit was so strong this week! After that we pretty much went finding for the rest of the day, but we have made up this score/point chart to make finding more fun! Like 1 point for every "no" we get, and 10 points for every Book of Mormon we give out, and 25 points for every baptismal date we set on the street (haha.) It makes things so much more fun! Wednesday we had a member dinner appointment at the Hirschmann's. They are CRAZY! The wife is from Switzerland, and the husband is a professional dirt bike racer, and they have three little girls who are just wild. But it was so fun playing with them all night! Seriously as soon as the 4 of us walked in the door we were ATTACKED, but we had a blast being their ponies for the next couple of hours!
Thursday we had an appointment with a less active member named Rosa. She is 95, and 80% blind, so the biggest reason she is inactive is just because it's super hard for her to get to church. She is one of the loveliest women I have ever met. Her German is very clear, so I could actually understand everything she said, and I could have a normal conversation with her! She is hilarious, and sooo so sweet. We were visiting with her for 2 hours, but it felt like 30 minutes! She is very lonely so we are definitely going to make this a weekly thing, which I'm so excited about! She even gave us some ideas of how we can find more people to teach, and how we can get people to listen to us! Friday we went to a less active's house to help her prepare for a baby shower! Her name is Ketty, and she's from Peru! I seriously love finding all these random Peruvians here :)) then I can pepper them with questions about Piura (haha.) She is definitely a firecracker. We were there for about 6 hours whipping up empanadas, and cupcakes, and fruit salads, and rice, and chicken, and a million other things. She speaks to us a mile a minute, in Spanglish, with a few random German words thrown in, so I have to focus super hard to switch my German brain off and try to dust off my tiny Spanish brain and start using that. She is so cool though :) I guess she's been pretty inactive for most of her life, but she loooves the missionaries, so we are going to start visiting her more and hopefully get her to church!
Saturday we went hardcore finding. Our goal was to not go home until we got 81 no's, because if you shoot for the no's then you're less disappointed when people don't say yes, and man, it was hard! We were dooring until our brains started bleeding, and then we kept going. It was crazy, but we finally got 81 no's! And we probably doored like 200 apartments (haha.) We came home with our legs feeling like spaghetti and our noses feeling like frozen strawberries. But boy did we sleep well that night! Sunday was great! Actually one of the best Sundays of my whole mission! We met this girl, Chelsea, who is from Idaho and she's doing a study abroad program here, and guess what she's studying!! Anthropology!! I don't think I've ever met another anthropology major, so it was so cool to connect with her through that. She doesn't have school this week, and she is a little nervous about the tiny bit of German she knows, so we are planning on scooping her up and taking her with us around Graz and helping her with her German! It's gonna be great.
Today for pday you'll never guess what we did. Hiked Schlossberg!! Again! :) Still just as great. It's like the Y mountain of Graz. :)
So this week Elder Kinghorn, who is a patriarch, an ex-mission president, has served in multiple temple presidencies and as the Asst President of BYU-I for many years, told all the missionaries in our district that we should read our patriarchal blessings with new eyes this week. So I did! He told us that we should make two columns:
1. Blessings the Lord promises me
2. Things the Lord expects me to do.
It was seriously SO awesome seeing all the many things the Lord has in store for me, and so cool to see some things that maybe I should start working on more. I will challenge all of you to read your patriarchal blessing this week and make those two lists, and just see for yourself all the new things that stick out to you!
D&C 82:10 "Ich, der Herr, bin verpflichtet, wenn ihr tut, was ich sage; tut ihr aber nicht, was ich sage, so habt ihr keine Verheißung."
(English translation: I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say;
but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.)
Also, I hope your daily scripture study is going well!! I don't know about you, but I'm actually having a lot of fun doing the dot-to-dot chart as I read in the mornings!! I love the Book of Mormon!! Honestly I loved it before my mission, but I have gotten to the point now where I don't think I could get through a day without reading it. It is more important to me than breakfast...and food is very important to me!! So I'm feeling kinda bad now that I was always grumpy and half asleep during family scripture study...but hey, I still turned out okay!! I love being a missionary even though it's the hardest thing I've ever done, and sometimes I just feel like a nun. I love learning and changing and growing every single day, and I love how close I am coming to my Savior. I love Jesus Christ, and I KNOW that no matter what he is proud of me at the end of the day, even if I'm not very proud of myself. He loves me more than I could ever imagine, and during some of those hard days where I just am so hard on myself it is always so comforting to think that he is always right beside me lifting me up and smacking me back into my naturally silly and bold and happy personality. I KNOW IN WHOM I HAVE TRUSTED! :)
Love y'all! Bis später! (See ya later!)
Liebe Grüße,
P.S. Speaking of nuns...Graz is INFESTED with nuns. It's so awesome. Every time I see one I tell Sister Fast that we are gonna have a blessed day, because we saw a nun :) I WILL get a selfie with a nun before I leave here.
Sister Thunell
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