Mid-Mission Crisis

Come one! Come all!  Sister Thunell's super quick recap of her amazing week starts now!

This week was the best week, numbers wise, of my entire mission!! 

Let's just get right to the good stuff: we had FIVE investigators come to church!!  We have NINE progressing investigators!!  Man this place has just exploded!!  It's crazy, and I love it!! I truly love each and every one of my investigators with all my heart :) and I was literally jumping for joy when each of them walked in and sat down for Sacrament Meeting. This week we visited a lot of members, a lot of less actives members, and had a ton of lessons with members present!  Members are the key, guys!  We also introduced Nadine and Gina to the Personal Progress program and we started doing it with them and they LOVE it!!  And they have become best friends!  BRILLIANT!!  A less active member and an almost new convert - how much more perfect can it get!!  We have two new investigators, both of whom just randomly showed up at church one Sunday and now we have been teaching them the lessons!  They are drinking it all up like lemonade on the 4th of July!  So awesome.

Well, transfer calls came!  Sister Staack will be heading home since she is just serving a temporary two-transfer mission, and....the Graz elders will be shut down!!  So that means that my companionship will have to take over the entire area!!  I have had a couple meltdowns about that, but I'm fine now :)  

My new companion will be Sister Brinkerhoff, who is actually Sister Fast's companion right now in Munich!  Crazy how things circle around out here :) I'm so excited!  And to top it all off we are the Wien Sister Training Leaders again!  This coming transfer is only a five week transfer because this past one was seven weeks, so that means basically traveling every single week for tausches (splits,) and getting about four or five new investigators from the elders when they're shut down!  So much work and so little time!! It's stressful, but I can do hard things :) It will be sad to not have the elders here, though!  This coming week is gonna be a crazy one, so prayers sent this way will be greatly appreciated!  

Well, I'm going through a mid-mission crisis. Emails are getting shorter!!  My dad told me that there would be a point on my mission where emailing home would get boring and become a chore, and turns out he's right!  As usual!  But I love you all so much, and thank you for all the support :)

This morning I was listening to Elder Holland's talk from this past General Conference, "Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders Among You," and even after the fourth time I still love it so so much!  I know that Elder Holland is a true disciple of Christ, and an apostle called of God!  You should definitely go re-watch it, or watch it for the first time if you haven't already, but to summarize: NEVER FEAR, GOD IS ALWAYS NEAR. He doesn't want us to be sad, or overwhelmed, or depressed, or scared, or angry, or any of those awful feelings that come from Satan. He wants us to feel joy, and happiness, and freedom, and peace, and calmness, and laugh and smile! We all fall short, that's just a fact in life. We are all inadequate and incapable, but the good news is that in this church you get credit for trying :) God is a loving, awesome God. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can get back up when we fall. We can try as many times as we need to, and we are blessed if we just simply DESIRE to do the right thing, or to change, or to become like Him. It's so great :) don't be discouraged. Don't be gloomy. DON'T GET MAD. GET GLAD!

Also part of the mid-mission crisis, I have no pictures to send home :(  sorry, Mommy!

P.S. If anyone has any cool, creative spiritual thoughts they used on their missions, or have seen missionaries do, feel free to send them!  My go-to spiritual thoughts are feeling pretty lame!

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell