Monday 15 September 2014

Week 49 in the Field: Week 19 in Zollikofen: Such a Beautiful Week‏ - Missionary Obedience; Funny Watermelon

Hello :)





I am doing well :) The beginning on the week was rough with Zone Training and stuff. But the Lord always sends us beautiful things to balance out the sad. 

Monday: went to a place called Büren with the district. Was lovely :) We were all a little stressed. Sister Peacock and I were thinking a lot about obedience and, because we see things differently with this topic, it was weighing a lot on our minds for the following day. We were assigned to give an assignment in Zone Training about it. It was still a nice day, nonetheless :) Took some good photos, learned some French, and had good discussions with people.

Tuesday: Zone Training. Ugh. We gave an assignemnt, like I just mentioned. It went alright, but not as well and heartfilled as it was talked about between the two of us. People said that they all recieved a lot of good answers to questions they had, but we just didn't feel super good about it. We started off my hanging a sign on the door telling all the missionaries to go to the board and answer the question written on it. The question was: What things do we have to be obedient to on our missions? After they did that, they were told to come to be for further instruction. Only 7 people of 30 did. Ouch. Once they came to me, they were told to go up the stairs and follow the directions. If they got that far, through obedience to the rules on the sign on the door, they were met with a lovely box of swiss chocolates, available only to those who were obedient. I guess that showed the level of some peoples' desire to obey here, eh? ;) Naja. It was okay. Hard to talk about a topic from two people who view it totally different. It put a lot of stress on the two of us for the next couple of days. 

Then we went to a Sisters Conference that was in Frankfurt. ( BG: I thought she went to Frankfurt:I saw Aunt Ali and Michelle Robertson. How funny ;) It was really nice. Sonja was there with us, along with several women from the ward. They are so so helpful with her. The conference was nice, but we were just beat tired, so it was hard to listen to everything in German, especially when I knew they were missing out on so much while translating. Still good, though :)

Wednesday: Had a good discussion about love and how no one does things for God anymore, with a Muslim man Sister Wüst and I met together. It was really uplifting and inspiring. He is a lovely man. A really good father and just... a great man. He won't progress, but if ever we want to go by, we are welcome. We will invite him to the Musikalischer Abend. 
We then went to Bruno and Ava's!! Always such a hoot with the two of them. From beginning to end we do NOT stop laughing :) It was good. I actually had to use my English and call The Magic Castle in Hollywood for them. Uh. Yeah. I cannot speak professional English any longer. It was embarrassing. Also, I'm sure that was not allowed, but their English was not good enough to do it themselves, so I helped them out.



Then, they gave us melon to take home as dessert. I can't even tell you about it without laughing. It was hilarious!! We just wanted to eat the melon so badly, that we couldn't wait to eat it at home, so we ate them while waiting for the Bahn. We are so not attractive when eating melon like that. I'll send pics :) Elder Huby has the worst of me... So hopefully he doesn't send those home to his family ;) 

Sister Peacock and I also found a free Zuchetti and Squash on the side of the road. They were huge. Pictures also attached. Good times.



Thursday. Eh. Nothing. Just tracking, talking to people, and hanging up posters. Had two very lovely conversations with widowed women in the ward. They really needed us at the time. I love seeing how Heavenly Father works and gives us inspirations.

Friday. We planned. The whole day. Ouch. Until 8. Then we had a lesson with Sonja! We were all really tired, so teaching the second half of the Plan of Salvation was a little hard, but we've got time to go back over what we taught. It was lovely. Had the lesson at the von Allmens.Wonderful young family :)

Saturday: Fussball. I am not a soccer player. But I like it. I'll practice when I come back and we can have a good game together as a fam :) 

Then we had a really strange lesson with a guy we talked to on the phone the week before. Dad, you sent me verses from 5Mose, which were really helpful. I used them and I think it stumped them a bit. They weren't really the basking type, even though I think that's what they wanted to do. They were scared out of their pants! I mean... terrified! I'm only 19! I am not scary. But I think I freaked them out a bit because I was NOT going to have a Bible bash with them. I made that very clear. Whoops. They said they wanted to meet and talk about Jesus and our different testimonies and stuff? The two of them... they didn't say anything! We asked them several times if they had qeustions they wanted to ask, or anything to say... or if they wanted to fight. Nothing. So we taught them. Fine by us. Poor guys. The main guy has now texted us several times with questions that are just... I don't know where he got them from cause we certainly didn't talk about them with him. He wanted us to secure the fact that we don't believe Christ was born by a Virgin? BG: really? :):) But we do, so we didn't really get why he was asking. Things about his Salvation and stuff. We just tried telling him that to believe in Christ and try and do good things isn't enough to be saved. He doesn't get it. Which is strange to me. God is pretty mighty. I don't understand how people can think that giving their human best is good enough to live with God. We'll keep working on that.

Then that night we all came together and practiced I am a Child of God in French for the baptism we were all going to be at the next day. Was lovely.



Sunday: GREAT DAY. A less active family that we always work with came to church and we were NOT expecting that! Yay! 
BG: From Elder Huby, his side of the story-very cool!! "The second experience was on Sunday with the Familie N ! This family never went to church during the last two- three years and the elders and sisters were visited them until this sunday ! When i came in this area the Sisters and the ward said me that i needed to come to the appointment because this family was french-speaking. We went by every week but we never really see a kind of progress. Everytime they said that they wanted come to church but they never came. Only the little daughter was coming . But two weeks ago she said that she didn't want to come again alone and if she comes back that will be with her all family. This sunday we had a baptism from Interlaken ward of a man from Togo, the same country as the Family N. And we invited them to take contact with him and to come for his baptism. They said "Yes we will" . And this sunday morning .... MIRACLE... The all family came for the sacrament meeting and for the baptism. And said to us that they want to come again every sunday !! A second Miracle !

Then we gave Sonja a personal lesson about Baptism to get her ready for that evening and for her own in a few weeks. It was really good :) We had a beautiful musical number during Sacrament by Elder Huby on Violin, with another woman on Violin and her husband on the piano. It was gorgeous. Really. 

That night there was a baptism! Sonja was there, and it was really nice :) It was Sister Couper and Sister Emmersons investigator. It was all in French. Even though I didn't understand, but you could really feel the spirit. 

We had to give a really stressful Temple Tour to the man who bought all the touchscreen stuff. He made the original Temple info center (but it was way too much text, so we changed it). He didn't know that until he showed up. He wasn't so happy. He had already working with Peacock, and knew that she was a fireball. Luckily she stuck up for herself. I did, too. We were both just... stressed out. Everyone wanted to talk to us, but we had to give this tour to an unhappy man, and.... luckily the tour invited the Spirit and we were able to talk level-headed with eachother. The outcome was that ours was very good and he wanted us to continue using it. Success. 

A good week. Stressful, but good :) 

Today we are celebrating Sister Emmerson's 21 birthday with a surprise lunch after emails :) So that'll be fun and I'm sure there will be pictures to send to you next week about it :) We're glad Sister Couper is well enough to travel and be with us (she had spent some time in the hospital this week due to a kidney infection). But she's here and we are happy! 


Things are going well :) I will be staying in Zollikofen for 7 more weeks instead of 6. Hoping to get iPads soon (beacause president is going to a meeting, that's why the transfer is so long, hopefully to get more iPad deets). But that's happy cause then I'll be here for my brithday, and the Musikalischer Abend and for Sonja's baptism :)

Love you all! I hope you all have a great week :)

PS. Read Revelations 21. It's gorgeous the way the New Jerusalem is described. 
SO. MIND BLOWN. The Condescension of God. Read it. Then report back and tell me your thoughts. Cause. I don't know who God is and I don't know who Christ is. 


And. Here are some mind boggeling questions to ask yourself. I'd love it if you could answer them for me (Sister Peacock and I, actually. We have a lot of questions):
1. Is the love of god greater than or equal to the pure love of Christ?
2. Was Nephi baptised?
3. Does Satan still have control over those who will be cast into Outer Darkness?
4. The Destroying Angel. Did God just let Satan run free? Did He send Satan to the people? I don't understand. 
5. And then all the confusion that is to be found in the talk I listen above. 

Thank you :)

Sister Gilmour
xx

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