6 MONTHS OUT

Another crazy week has come and gone! Every week just gets busier and busier, and it's just such a testimony to me of how much the Lord is aware of us and how much He blesses us! Miracles are surrounding us!!  And they're surrounding you too. :)  Sometimes you just have to open your eyes to see them! 

So on Wednesday we finally got in contact with Matej and Romana again after like a week and a half of calling them and emailing and texting with no answer!  We had a lesson with them that night, and THEY HAVE A NEW PUPPY!  It's SO CUTE and the size of a fat stick of butter.  

We taught them the Plan of Salvation, and with the help of our handy friend Google Translate I think they really understood!!  They said they were sorry that they didn't answer our calls or texts for a while, but that a lot of things had just popped up!  But now we are back on our regular schedule of meeting with them often :)  
Exciting thing that happened: WE GOT TO CALL THE MISSIONARIES IN THE SLOVENIAN MISSION!  It was super exciting because we had been working through President Kohler and the Slovenian Mission President to try and find the missionaries closest to where Matej and Romana live in Slovenia!  They go back every weekend so we want them to be going to church!  And it would be helpful to have some missionaries who speak their language to clarify what we have taught them. Apparently the Slovenian Mission is actually 5 different countries, and there are only 16 missionaries in Slovenia!  But we were able to give them their information, and hopefully we will be able to work together and get these guys BAPTIZED.  Also, I didn't realize this until this week, but we only live 30 minutes from the Slovenian border!  A member told us this week that she would take us there so we could take a picture with the sign that says "Welcome to Slovenia" :)

Thursday we had an awesome lesson with Nadine at a member's house!  We taught her the Plan of Salvation, and she said that it totally made sense!  We asked her to pray about it that night, so the next day we texted her and asked if she had time to pray and she said "of course I had time to pray! The Holy Ghost confirmed to me that it is true."  She is so awesome. Can't get over it. Then she came to church on Sunday and we taught her the Law of Tithing!  She also absorbed that pretty well, although we are gonna go over it again to make sure she really understands.  

Saturday we went to Wien for interviews!!  I love interviews, and they always come around at the perfect time!  President Kohler trained us on how to plan and execute a baptism, and how to fill out the paperwork and schedule the interviews and stuff, which was perfect because I've never had a baptism and Sister Staack is brand new so she obviously hasn't either, and we were both in the dark a little there!  So now we are way more prepared for Nadine's baptism. In my interview President Kohler calmed a few of my troubles, and gave me some great advice, and I came out feeling like I was SO READY to take on the rest of this transfer!  It was great :) One of the goals I made for this coming week is to wake up an hour earlier every day so I can read the Book of Mormon in German. My German is really struggling, and I've noticed it more now that I have a companion who speaks perfect German, so I'm going to do everything I can to improve!  And if that means an extra hour of language study, then fine!  I'll do it!

Random funny thing that happened this week:  We were calling through the contacts in our phone and asking them if they were interested in learning about the church, and we called this one number we didn't know and it turned out to be the senior couple serving in Munich! They were just laughing and laughing. haha :) 

This week was full of a lot of learning and growing.  I learned a lot about myself, and what I'm capable of, and I've learned a lot of patience.  I've also learned that I have WAY more reasons to be happy and thankful than to complain.  Sometimes we just get stuck in a rut and feel like the world is collapsing in on us and then we have to complain about everything and be all gloomy all the time.  I challenge you to make a list on a piece of paper of the things you have to be happy about and the things you have to complain about, and decide for yourself which list is more compelling.  I promise you that the happy list will be the one that you want to focus on more!  When times get rough, and you feel like sitting in your own poop, "get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work."  You would think that I would have learned this lesson already!  When we focus on the things that really matter, the things that have eternal worth, we will have so much more happiness than if we focus on the crappy or annoying things of life!  Think positively about yourself, and about other people. Look for the good, stop gossiping, smile more, drink some lemonade. There's so much to be happy about and to be grateful for!  I know that when we give up a little bit of ourselves, a little bit of our pride, and we press forward doing the things that Christ himself would do, we will be blessed SO IMMENSELY.  I've seen it!  I've tried it personally!  And it's hard, but it's worth it :) 

I love y'all!  Bis nächste Woche!  (See you next week!)

Liebe Grüße,
Sister Thunell