HaLLo hAlLO haLLo

Ok, now we can talk about the good stuff. So last week we did an exchange with the Heidelberg sisters, sisters Ransenberger and Doty. I was ssooo excited to see sister doty again! She is so great. Sister stevenson stayed in Heidelberg with sis. doty and sis. ransenberger came to Mainz with me, (i need a little bit of practice taking over the area because transfers are in 2 weeks and we are guessing that is what will happen!) So it was my first day without my trainer . . . we met the sisters in heidelberg and because we were so chatty we lost track of time and missed our train back to mainz! I was sooo mad at myself! I never do things like that! we had an appointment with this woman named Zoreida, who we've never met with before, at 1:00 and the next train didn't get back into mainz until 1:08! I didn't have her number with me either (what a great start . .. i know!) so we took the train back and just booked it to the place where we were meetting. we got there at 1:12 and didn't see anyone. We waited, but she never came. I felt terrible. Well, our next appointment wasn't until 2:30 so we took sis. ransenberger's stuff to our apartment and called zoreida and left a message telling her sorry. We ate lunch and then went to shillerplatz where we were meeting Nora. We have only met with nora once and she is golden! but it has been over a month since because she is so busy and her parents are divorced so she is always between cities (she is 17). but we finally got an appointment with her! So we went and waited and she never came. finally i called her and she said that she had come at 2:00 and waited and now was on the train back home! I was sssooo sad! We had set it up for 2:30 . . . i know we did! but i wish she would have called, we could have been there!!! yeah, so we just finding time . . . for 3 hours! which actually wasn't too bad. it was fun to find with someone new and get new ideas. Well, that evening we had an appointment with Br. Himioben out in Klein-Winternheim which takes a half-hour bus ride to get out there (and you have to pay cause it's not covered on our bus cards), so we went out there and his wife answered and said "oh, didn't my husband call you? They threw a surprise party for Br. Baader (his hometeacher) and so he went to that instead" . . . yeah, he definitely forgot to call us! I was ssssooooo sad!!! This was my first day on my own and how many people did we teach . . . 0! So we did doors out there instead for about 45 minutes and then came back home. So that was kind of a struggle, but it was fun to work with sis. ransenberger, she is really nice.
I think that the Lord was just preparing us for a busy week this week so that we would be grateful that we have lots of work and literally no time to rest! at the beginning of this week we already had 15 appointments set up. On Sunday while we were contacting we taught 2 lessons on the street and got 2 new contacts. Then yesterday, we had 3 appointments that were pretty much back to back and we had district finding time in mainz and in an hour and a half of finding time sister stevenson and I got 3 new contacts, taught 2 lessons, gave away a Book of Mormon, and set up an appointment with someone to meet again! The Lord definitely blessed us! We left the house at 10:30 am. and got home at 9:45 p.m. and literally had only a 20 minute break which we used to make phonecalls! I would rather have too much work that not enough! My favorite quote is "a busy missionary is a happy missionary" I think sister stevenson is getting sick of me saying that! but it is ssoo true! I am so grateful for the success that we have seen here and that the Lord just keeps blessing us with more and more people to teach!
So I told you about Matthias a long time ago. We met him over a month ago in the bus (he is the one who wanted to just bash on america and the war and everything and then finally asked us what our message was so we taught him a first lesson right there in the bus). Well, he only had an email address (and he showed us where he lives, (he lives in klein-winternheim so we are only out there when we teach the himiobens). We we had set up an appointment with him but had to change it and because we could only communicate through email, things got mixed up and we ended up missing eachother. We were so sad. We tried emailing him, but he never responded. We went by his house and no one was home so we left a Book of Mormon and a note in his mail box. We have been keeping him in our prayers that the Lord would help us find him again, or that some others missionaries would find him. Well last week our prayers were answered . . . Matthias called us! He left a message on our phone saying that we was so sorry about the confusion, his email stopped working. He said that he had started reading the Book of Mormon and that he thought it was interesting! He and his roommates finally decided to by a phone (a landline) so now he was able to call us! We were sssoooo excited! We called him back and set up an appointment with him, which actually was for yesterday. We met with him on the University and had an awesome lesson. He said that he would continue reading and pray about the BM. We are meeting with him again next week!
Patricia is absolutely amazing, she has had some really great experiences with prayer and is so excited about the gospel that she brought her friend with her so that her friend could learn more too! She also said that she has been telling her sister who lives in peru about the gospel so i think that we might send some missionaries to teach her too! We watched the Restoration dvd with her and told her to really pay attention to how she felt as she watched it. After it was over she said that she really felt the spirit and that she recieved an answer to her prayers about jospeh smith and the restoration. I am so excited for her. You can already see such a change in her countinance. It's so amazing how you really can see a difference when people have the light of Christ with them.
Lucy is also doing really really good. She finally came to church last week and loved it and came again this week. She is just the sweetest and most loving woman in the world. I don't have favorite investigators, i think that would be impossible to choos, but I really really love teaching lucy.
Ok, so I'm sorry that I am just giving random bits and pieces about everyone but I am just so excited about everyone.
We met with a man named Christian the other day. He is a philospher, so he likes to logic his way through everything. Everytime that sister stevenson and i would bear our testimonies and use the words "i know" he would stop us and say "no, you just believe very deeply" We of course just kept on bearing our testimonies the way we always do, but after we met with him, I thought alot about that. I know what I know, and asking me to say that i only believe, is asking me to deny the whitnesses of truth that I have recieved. I really do know, with all the sincerity of my heart, that God is our Father in Heaven, and that Jesus Christ is His son, and that only through the Atonement of Christ are we saved. I know with all my heart that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. The Book of Mormon really answers the questions of the soul and I am so grateful for the way that this Book speaks to us in the church as a whole, but also speaks to each on of us individually. I Love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love the testimonies that we are able to recieve through the power of the Holy Ghost. I especially love Moroni's promise that if we read the Book of Mormon and ask with a sincere heart if it is true, we will recieve an answer that it is true. I like to think of this promise as a "challenge". I am not afraid to challenge people to this because it's true. That's what I love about our church, we encourage people to ask questions and to think for themselves and to find out the answers, because it is all true, and if people are really sincere in their efforts, then they will recieve the same true answers every time.