Sister Shurts: First Week of the New Transfer

Well, it has been another eventful week here in Herne!!

Sister Davis and I have been thinking a lot about what goals we want to make for this transfer, and I just get so excited when I think about all the things that could happen I can't pick one specific goal!! haha but i'll get back to you all next week about our goals!

Biggest news for this week is that our Albanian Investigator Besmir Aliaj recieved all the lessons and had his interview and IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!!!!!! :D People... I had no idea that someones elses decision could make me so happy!! This man has willingly made so many changes in his life to follow God. He grew up in Albania where he helped take care of his family. His mother is Catholic and his Father is Muslim, but at a very young age he decided that he wanted to follow christ and although Christians are only 10% of that country he decided to follow christ. He moved to Germany about 7 months ago in search of work, and as we met him in Febuary he said that he really wanted to learn more. Since that moment he has quit smoking and drinking, and committed to so much! It is such a miracle to see the changes that people make in their lives when they turn to Christ.

We are going to have to postpone the dates for several of our other Investigators, just because they are not quite ready yet. Familie Ciu Ciu, needs to go to the City Hall to figure out what papers they need in order to get married! (we are gonna hear church bells in Herne soon!) As soon as that happens though that family is going to get baptized. Now all we are waiting for is for her daughter to get her birth certificate and then travel to Germany! We are praying very hard for Frau Hellhammer, we have not been able to get in contact with her all week, and we are not sure why, which is why we had to postpone her date- keep her in your prayers!

This week Sister Davis and I got to go and visit an old mining museum! It was soo cool, the Ruhr Gebiet in Germany is known for its mining systems. We got to wander around underground and climb onto old mining tools... (not sure if that was allowed.. but nothing said we couldnt...) It was fun to spend a little bit of time just seeing everything. Both sister Davis and I are History nuts, so we were in heaven... but underground haha!

Earlier this week I had a really cool experience, I wanted to do better at contacting people, and so that morning I had made a promise to Heavenly Father before getting up and ready for the day that I would talk to a certain amount of people. We had been out an about all day, and I was tired and we were headed home, and I was one short of my goal. Which was still really good compared to what I had been doing before. But, as we were walking home I pictured myself saying my evening prayer and saying... well Heavenly Father, I almost did it. I really wanted to make the Lord proud and show him that I could live up to my goals. So I told sister Davis that I wanted to klingle one building. So we turned a corner and found a random house. We walked up to the steps and I reached up and pushed the bottom klingle. It buzzed open and so we walked up and there was a man standing at the door. He say us and at first shook his head and in broken English said "no! no interested" I immediately thought of a talk I had just read by Elder Ballard "A fireball missionary starts when an investigator says "No!" So instead of just walking out and counting my contact I asked if at least we could show him a cool video. He shrugged his shoulders so we pulled out our BecauseHeLives cards and he searched it on his phone. While we were waiting for his internet to work I started talking and explaining the video and our purpose here. It was so cool to watch his face- as he changed from being standoffish to more and more interested! And im just like "WOO-HOO GOO SPIRIT!! WORK THAT MAGIC!" haha turns out his internet was way to slow to watch the video right there... but he said that he wanted to learn more- so we got his number, name (Thomas) and gave him a book of mormon!!! :) That was just such a cool experience because it was like heavenly father was testing me to see if I would hold up my end of the deal- and because of that he blessed me with that experience.

Ich liebe euch alle!

sister Shurts

from the scribbled notes of a sister missionary

Here we find Sister Davis in her natural state...

Family!!! I found Zwieback!! just like off Sendung mit der Maus!! as you can tell... i was a little bit more than excited- and made sister davis take a picture in the middle of the store!!!