Week 75 in the Field: Week 20 in Zurich:This week was Really weird. Really strange.

Meine gute. Wo geht die Zeit? Ich meine, wirklich? Es ist Montag? Wieder? Nutze die Ziet so gut wie möglich. Es gibt nur wenig davon. 

 

My goodness. Where does the time go? I mean, really? Its Monday? Use the time as good as you can. There is only a little of it. 

Wo soll ich überhaupt anfangen? So viel ist passiert deise Woche. Obwohl wir fast keine Lektionen hatten. Schade. 

 

Where shall I begin? So much happened this week even though we had almost no discussions! Shame

This week was weird. Really strange. We have seen a huge drop in the work. Every single one of our appointments has fallen out. 16/22 days. It's hard not to be discouraged. And hard to keep finding things to do. I have never felt the amount of hours in a day like I have the last 4 weeks. Rough. But I'm learning a lot  :) 

On Tuesday we had Zone Training. It was quiet, but it went considerably well. Sister Smith talked about how through Christ, we can be cleansed from sin. We all sin. That is part of our life. It was actually expected of us. That's why God supplied us with the Saviour. We need to return to Him, but no unclean thing can live in the presence of God. Because He is merciful, He gave us the means to repent so we can enter His presence: the Atonement through the Saviour. The ultimate form of repentance is through baptism; it is a "new birth". 

 

We then posed the question, "What are some sins that we can think of that could be hard to overcome?". 

We had a big glass bowl, with a glass cup in the middle, filled half way with water. We then had a Tupperware full of chocolate powder. Every time they said a sin, we sprinkled a bit of chocolate in the cup.

The bowl- the world

The glass with water- us before we sin

Powder- sin

Pitcher of water- the Savior and His Atonement

We said so many things that we could do to keep us from returning to God, the water was black. Not an ounce of purity in that poor cup. 

Then the pitcher comes into play. 

 

As we use the Atonement and repent from sin, the Saviors grace replaces all sin. We poured the water into the chocolate-filled glass until all the powder had spilled out into the bowl and the water was clean again.

The Lord is ready and willing to replace our sins with His light, if we decide to apply His love and Atonement. 

When we repent, we are separated from the world, which is what this bowl and glass was now representing. 

 

We then showed a film, From "Gang Member" to Good Man ; It was so powerful! Watch it. I then I got to share my testimony of how the Atonement has personally carried me through my mission; that it keeps me going when I literally don't think I can. It was dead quiet. It's sometimes really hard for me to open up the purest part of who I am in front of so many people. I'm worried that they'll laugh at me or that they aren't feeling the same. But, I couldn't not say it. It's amazing being able to be in such situations so often on our missions and to share such beautiful moments. 

I then had my last meeting with the Stake President. Such a great man. I've been blessed to work with him as STL. 

Wednesday. Vorbei's. Fallen out appointments. Then a miracle! I am always being so humbled. I was being hard headed and not being worthy to have the Spirit with me. But we were still blessed. We were looking for an old friend, but were so lost for like.. hours. We then found the street, and we were looking for the number. We found it. We walked to the door right as a woman was taking her kids inside. We asked if she new the person we were looking for... it was her! We introduced ourselves, and I told her that we had had the feeling that we should come visit her. She said she didn't have much time, but she let us in :) We found out that she is the ex-girlfriend of a man in our ward. The story is more complicated, but let's keep it at that. She met with the missionaries a year and a half ago. She knew the church was true and the Book of Mormon, but because of problems with the ward, she wouldn't get baptized. When the elders at the time got transferred, they lost all contact. Until us! She is amazing. She wants to be baptized! We just have to figure out what to do about the ward.  The appointment we made up for two days later fell out, but it was just a big misunderstanding. That was nice to find out cause we were really sad after showing up to her house to find out that she wasn't there. It was really rough. I am so excited to work with her for these last couple weeks :) Tender mercies. 

THEN WE SAW MAROUSSIA!! She has had her baby!! Donovan! And is soooo precious! She is healthy and strong and walking, even though she had a C-Section. She is amazing. I love that woman and her family so, so much. I think we will be good friends my whole life :) Then more fallen out appointments! Whoo hoo!

Friday. MORE FALLEN OUT APPOINTMENTS. Literally. This isn't even funny. We are trying sooo hard not to be discouraged. We know there are people out there that are looking for more. But... we can't find them. This is the hardest round of "Where's Waldo" I've played thus far on my mission. 

Saturday. Wonderful appointment with Emi. We are there every other week. She is in such a hard situation and I pray so much that everything works out for her. I love her soooo much. We had a spontan Lektion with a LA... it was nice :) Another lesson fell out after that. Go figure. Then we had a baptism :) It was so, so nice. The Spirit was so strong and the Täufling was so prepared. I got to give him a Temple Tour while I was still in Zollikofen. He said he would never be baptized.... then 8 months  later... He got really wet ;) 

Then yesterday. Too good. Two friends at church. An RM who COULD NOT speak German. And when he did, it was super American. Tooooo good. We all had a good laugh that Sacrament meeting. Charlotte also had a talk because it was her 6 year anniversary of being baptized. She did wonderfully. We went to the Russos for lunch... and we always eat toooo much there. This time was no different. I thought I was going to throw up. And then we waited for Elder Barber to Skype and we had a really nice chat with Elder Rozan. Then we went to ANOTHER eating appointment. Literally still dying. I don't ever want to eat again. Never. Bishop and his family were also invited and they were appalled that I've never had a Kabap... so we are all going together. I wanted to cry just thinking about having to eat more. But I promised. Apparently this is a really big deal. I will be eating a Kabap at least once before I leave the mission. 

That's the week. Ups and downs. As always. 

We will be going to the Temple for the last time this weekend. Looking forward to it. 

I love you all! Have a lovely weekend! and Happy St. Patty's Day tomorrow!

Sister Gilmour

xx