Swimming with Honor

November 24, 2014

Wow, thanks for all the support! I keep thinking that I don't feel that far away from home. I'm just in some other land... somewhere. Ha, but not that far. It's really a blessing to feel so close to home.

My title is because it has felt as though I have been swimming this last week! So much mist and water just constantly raining down. I feel as though I'm just swimming, but with honor, of course. :)

This last week was a great one, I honestly can't remember tons of it, so I'll just give you the highlights!

Monday- We went and toured some more through Berlin! Saw the Berliner Dome, went up on top and took pics. Then saw the big huge university here that is an equivalent of Harvard, basically. Saw the Burning of the Books memorial, it's a huge room underground that they have a see-through glass window on top to look down into it. Then we went to the Rittlesport Chocolate Factory store!! It's basically like the M&M stores, where they make it all interactive and fun, to get you to buy more of their chocolate. Ha, it was awesome.

Then we went on Tausch that evening! I went with Sister Jensen, a sister training leader in East Berlin, in Marzahn. It was cool to see that side of Berlin, it's the farthest east I've been so far. And Sister Jensen is awesome, and I learned a lot from her. We went to a few appointments, and did studies. She gave me lots of tips, but also helped me see how far I've already come and see my progress in general, which was really helpful.

Then Tuesday we went to some contacts, not much luck. But as we were heading back to the U-bahn station to Tausch back, or exchange back, we were walking behind this one man who stopped and started walking with us. He curiously looked at our name tags and asked where we were from. I told him we were from America, and we're missionaries sharing a message about God and Jesus Christ. And for some reason he couldn't understand our English, so we switched to German, and he was so impressed by it, that he agreed to continue to talk to us, and basically found out that he's been searching for religion his whole life. Like a Joseph Smith type beginning. So cool! People are prepared to be put directly in our paths.

Wednesday was our district meeting, our cute little district is so fun. We have 8 people total. We had visits, and it was really windy that day... those are my only notes. Haha I did write down that the miracle for the day was the buses came oddly just in time. We were never waiting for a bus for more than 2 or so minutes. Blessing for sure that day!

Thursday we did District Finding in an area about 25 minutes by bus, South of us. It was gorgeous, but... no luck. No one was out so we made no contacts. But we made lots of progress with former investigators and were able to set up tons of appointments. One fun thing that day, we found Santa on the bus. Christmas has come early to Berlin!

Friday was planning, some appointments fell out. We watched the Restoration that night!

Saturday we had Dienst, removing installation and walls. We got really itchy after words. haha. Later in the day was an awesome spiritual lesson with our new convert, Fred. He is the coolest, where to start. He was baptized back in May, and despite having a really hard life, is still so strong in the gospel. He and his sister made us Fufu, a traditional Africa dish. It's basically potatoes, with a doughy type consistency plopped in the middle of a spicy soup. And I ate it! Woo hoo! And after eating, we talked to him about cominig to church and making that last leap of faith to quit work on Sundays. It was amazing, and he told us how he loved talking to us because of the light we have in our faces. He said, " I love having lessons because all the anger or frustrations from earlier in the day just melt away. And I can share in the light you have, and I just know I'm ok.". Wow, what a powerful influence the Holy Ghost has!

Sunday was awesome, church, lunch with some gracious members, then we get a phone call from our Zone Leader: " President needs us to be in the church at Tiergarten at 18:00. Be there!" What? We had no clue why the random phone call... except we found out later that everyone else knew, except us. Our Zone Leader likes to keep us in the dark, for fun. So after going over thousands of scenarios for the random, sudden meeting with President, we show up and guess who it is... THE PIANO GUYS!! President is way good friends with John Schmidt, and as they've been touring here, they had an extra hour or two and gave us N. Berlin Zoners a private concert/ fireside!! All 4 were there, they each bore powerful testimonies, and played " Oh Come Emmanuel" and "Bring Him Home". Wow, we are so blessed to be serving her in Berlin! And they also talked lots about the powerful influence of the Holy Ghost, and the amazing missionary type opportunities they have had.

One of my favorite thoughts, from Jon Schmidt, (who I was sitting like, 10 feet away from) was "Don't think things are a big deal! Walking up to someone on the street and just talking to them- it's normal. I have been acting like I'm good at this piano thing, and people have been believing me! They still do! Just act confident in whatever you do, and it will become a reality. People won't question it when you don't."

Ah, they are my heroes.

Well, I hope all is well, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving family!!! I hope it is just amazing! Give many thanks to everyone around you, especially to your Heavenly Father!

I am so thankful for my family, for this gospel, for the beautiful earth, for my Savior, for the people here in Germany, for prayer, for the Holy Ghost, for angels, and for the Atonement.

I love you all so much!!

Liebe Immer,

Sister Titensor