subject line..bane of my existence...‏

Liebe Familie und Freunde,

Sorry for the lame subject line. The district and I went to the rittersport factory today. For those of you who don't know, Rittersport is a chocolate company that makes ridiculously good chocolate. I may or may not have bought..quite a bit..but! When in Rome?.....

So! This last week! Mensch, I don't even know what happened last week..my days all misch together here..let me grab my planner....

Ok! Well I won't bore you with the whole week...but! Things worthy of note...

We had an AWESOME appointment with one of the less active members we have been trying to meet with since day 1 here. And! She was like "by the way, I have a friend who is interested in the Gospel. I was planning on watching the restoration with him this weekend..." And! We have an appointment with the both of them tomorrow. Yay! She is SO cool. And! She swing dances! Bonus points!! :)

The Stuttgart ward also had ANOTHER baptism this week! That is one a week for the last 3 weeks. The story is actually way crazy. His name is Ralf, and he found the international elders 2 weeks ago. Wellll Ralf has a crazy story. But to make it short, he grew up an orphan, lives on the streets of Stuttgart, and is the most prepared person I have ever met where the gospel is concerned. I will admit, at first I was a little skeptical, but he is just the neatest. He even came out contacting with us last week! He straight up loves the gospel and loves the Lord. Yesterday in Sacrament, he received the Gift of the Holy Ghost and then was sustained and as we all raised our arms, he half whispered "Wow. Big familie." Those 3 words had SO much behind them because..Ralf has never had a familie. But now he does. And yes, it IS big. :)

Friday! Friday we had a...distrikt finding day! Woo! We (the 4 elders and us sisters) went finding for 4 hours. And! We found 10 potentials! Which was SO COOL! We had a goal for 9, and at the beginning, we all called somebody from our ward and asked them to pray for us. Well, when all was said and done..10. It really was a miracle. It was so neat, Elder Bodily and I were contacting this man (who we ended up teaching most of the 2nd lesson) and in the middle a man in his 20's walked by and said "mormons?" We said "We sure are!" He was in a hurry but he said "Ok, I would love to meet with you in the Birkenwaldstraße (the institute center here..)..I will give you my number..could you please call me?" A little off guard we told him we would call and he said "Promise? Don't forget!!" We promised that we wouldn't forget, and then went on teaching the other guy..hah. It was the craziest day. Maybe we'll find some investigators here after all...:) (Not that that was ever a question...ha..)

And Saturday! Was really cool. They had this giant Stake youth missionary weekend thing that they asked all the missionaries in the Zone to be at. So it did eat up most of our day, but it was worth it. It was so fun to help get the youth in the stake excited about missionary work and serving missions themselves. They have really been encouraging us to worth with the youth and the YSA's lately so..it was just lovely:)

Naja! This last week was good. Still no investigators, but we ARE making progress. I am just..so grateful for the gospel. I'm grateful to know who I am, where I came from, why i'm here, and where I am going. Sounds totally cliché but..I can't imagine living without that knowledge. i think perhaps in the Spirit world none of us quite grasped how hard it was actually going to be down here. Didn't quite grasp how many of us would get lost. But we knew that, regardless of the price, it would be worth it. And though sometimes this journey through this "Vale of tears" makes us question the very truths we are built on, if we make certain our foundation is sure, we cannot fall. Helaman 5:12. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be here on a mission, securing my foundation. I don't know what lies ahead of me on this crazy road we cal life, but I know that, in the end, it will all be worth it. Our weaknesses and trials are only there to allow us to become more like our Savior. Christ suffered for our sins and afflictions and..well...all of our mortal experiences, that we may be some day reconciled with our Father in Heaven. I am SO grateful for the power of the Atonement in my mission and my life. I am grateful for my Savior. He knows all too well all of my imperfections and loves me anyway. King Benjamin was right. We will always be in his debt. But! We can certainly give Him all that we have, in giving Him our hearts. I still LOVE the primary song, "I'm trying to be like Jesus..." I have a loooooong ways to go. But I am working on it..one baby step at a time...

Ok! I will stop carrying on and let you all get back to your busy lives. I love you all and thank you for your continuing support and prayers. I wish you all a LOVELY week!
Love,

Sister Bice