Happy March!

It's been a while, but here I am again to tell y'all about my week! 

We changed our pday to Thursday this week so we could go to the Rittersport factory and the Army base in Stuttgart to buy some American food 😍 It has been a challenging, crazy, and miraculous week and a half! 

On Tuesday we had Zone Training, and afterwards I stayed in Stuttgart to tausch with Sister Jones, my third child ;) it was a fun, and much needed tausch. We visited a super cute old lady (my favorite thing to do) and then we talked the whole night long! 

Wednesday I went back to Ulm with Sister Campbell, and we visited another super cute old lady! We also got a random phone call that day from a lady who told us she wanted to get baptized! She is a former investigator, and has met with the missionaries and taken all the lessons 3 or 4 times in the past 4 years, and after a long time she has finally decided that this is the true church and that she wants to be a part of it! Such a crazy miracle! We have a baptismal date set for March 18, and we are furiously trying to get everything ready for that! Pray for her!

Thursday was donut day with Debbie, and also apparently "everyone have lots of problems and throw them on Sister Thunell day." It was one of the hardest days of my whole mission, and I spent most of it praying and begging for help to be able to help these people who needed me. I felt so overwhelmed, and like two giant mountains were just chillin on my shoulders. But as I followed the counsel that my favorite scripture says...

"And so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God. And the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I will ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions."

...the mountains did not go away but rather...

"And the burdens which were laid upon them were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord."

I became Hercules, and walked confidently with those mountains on my shoulders like two tropical colored parrots. Heavenly Father sure has a funny way of helping His spirit children learn things sometimes. Honestly, I don't know if I can say that I submitted cheerfully, or if I had all that much patience, but I tried my best and made it through. And that's all that Heavenly Father asks :) that we try our very best! And our very best is different every day.

Well, to end I'll leave you with a few of the bazillion important things I've learned on my mission so far. At my last interview with President Kohler he asked me to start making a list, and it has gotten way longer than I thought it would!

1. Patience is an ACTION word. You can't be passively patient

2. Happiness is a precious gift from God

3. Heavenly Father is ENDLESSLY merciful. Even when we make the same mistake over and over again it is still possibly to feel His love and strength pouring down upon us

4. There is no growth in the comfort zone

5. The atonement is not only for our sins, but also to strengthen us through our trials

Okay, well I love you all, and I'll write again in a couple days :) Tschüß!

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell