Life is great in Germany

Hello Family and Friends, 

 

So first the story of Jenny,  

 

Baptism of Jenny Herlitz
We first met Jenny when she walked into the Marzahn ward building one Sunday for sacrament. Her mother had been baptised a little more then a year ago and from that time on Jenny had been interested in the Church. She had met with a few missionaries as they were teaching her mother but had not yet decided to meet by herself. It just so happened to be that this Sunday was Ward Conference. The Stake President had come to talk about missionary work. He told a story about when he was on a mission he felt spiritually prompted to invite a man who was attending a Baptismal service to be baptised later that night after a few hours of meeting with the missionaries. The man accepted and later that evening entered the waters of baptism. Well being missionaries we know we were not at a baptismal service but we thought that ward conference could be a good substitute. Right after the closing prayer we walked over to Jenny. With no knowledge of her past history we followed what could have been a spiritual impression and and gave her the same offer the Stake President had done on his mission. To every ones surprise (besides ours;)  she accepted the invitation to baptism. Bishop Bredlow came up and Jenny then tried for the next 30 minutes to get the approval to be baptised. Stating that she felt that she was ready. In accordance with the wishes of the Bishop the baptism was pushed back for a few weeks so that she could first get to know the ward. The next 5 weeks Jenny spent in the Scriptures, at every church activity, and many nights of sharing her testimony with friends and us, the missionaries blessed to be able to grow beside her. Yesterday the 2nd of June 2013 Jenny Herlitz entered the waters of baptism after waiting for over month from the day that she decided she wanted to follow the example of Jesus Christ.   

 

On a more funny note; I continue to have experiences I never thought I would here in Germany, some of which are pretty funny.  One was saying a prayer over the phone with one of our investigators (in German) for her pet rat which was old and about to die. I made me think of Radish. It was a big deal to her, so we did it, and I didn't know all the words for a prayer about a rat dying, but it worked out, and she felt a lot better!  Another funny experience this week sitting in a cemetery and having lunch (we were waiting for our investigator and decided to have lunch their). we had brought a salad and some bread with cheese and meat. We realized we didn't have any forks and just kinda looked at each other.  Ha my comp thought we'd just use our fingers, but me being  real hippy sometimes was like "no we can use chop-sticks." of course we didn't have any on us, Sorry mom I left them back home on my desk. So I decided to show my little daughter a thing or two about living in the backwoods. I went and found some little sticks which we brushed off and used as chop sticks!  It worked really well to the surprise of my comp. I don't think she will ever worry about not having a fork again :) 

 

Also Sister Kriser and I are always trying to figure out what we can cut out to open up more time for us to have to teach lessons and do missionary work. We were talking about having late lunches and cutting out dinner breaks, but then we looked at our schedule and realized we only had one dinner break scheduled in because the rest of the evenings we are eating as we go, or at ward activities or investigators or member homes. We both sat for a minute trying to figure out what else we could do to open up more time and then I said "huh.. I guess we could cut out breathing :)"  ha we both laughed, because we really are going all the time, but we never seem to be able to fit everything in.  I love it, and we had a good laugh about that :)

So this week was great!  We taught some great lessons, and on Sunday our investigator Jenny was baptised along with a young girl that the other sisters have been teaching!  Jenny was so ready and excited for baptism, and it was a wonderful baptism.  She is an only child, never knew her dad, and has a pretty bad relationship with her mom.  Her mom said she would come to the baptism, but wasn't there when it started.. Jenny was pretty sad about that.  As we started singing the opening song Jenny's mom walked in.  I had a perfect view of the whole thing and it was wonderful!  She walked right up to the front, sat down by Jenny, and then Jenny turned with a look of surprise on her face, and then they both just hugged each other while Jenny Cried..  I couldn't stop smiling and tearing up myself.  I know this doesn't change everything for their relationship, but it was a good start, and made Jenny so happy.  The spirit was strong through the baptism, and overall it was just awesome!  We have really seen Jenny come a long way.  It is amazing what bringing Christ into your life will do to a person.  Jenny prays and reads her scriptures every day, and has just grown so much in the last couple of months.  Christ can and will change anyone who comes to Him and wants to be changed.  We become new, and so much better then we could be alone.  There is a quote/poem my comp loves and it goes. "A Cathedral without windows, a face without eyes, a field without flowers, an alphabet without vowels, a continent without rivers, a night without stars, and a sky without a sun--- these would not be so sad as a soul without Christ.                                                       -James L. Gordon
 
How true.  We will never come close to our full potential without Christ.  So this week lets do all we can to build our relationship with Him.  Without him, we really are nothing.  There is nothing more important that we could give our time and energy too.  I love you all, and hope it is a great week! 

 

-Sister Kimberly Bohne with help from my amazing comp Sister Kriser (Sometimes it is easier to take what your comp all ready wrote :)

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