Hey everyone!
This week hasn't been too eventful so hopefully, this email doesn't bore you to death.
We now have five people on date and only one of them speaks English. I guess Spanish people are just like super ridiculous prepared. The good news is that I am starting to like teaching in Spanish and the translating and everything is going really well. Sister Costilla helped me learn my testimony in Spanish and I even got to share it with one of the people we are teaching, Sergio (from Columbia)! I think it went well, even if Sister Costilla was laughing at my pronunciation the whole time but whatever, Sergio was very kind and grateful.
We have taken a bunch of tours this week and they are probably some of the best tours I have ever given. We have been able to teach the whole restoration throughout the tours and it is so cool to be able to tell people more about the church and how learning more will change their lives! We get to take a few Spanish tours as well and I think they are so funny because they always hug me and kiss me on the cheek at the end... I think it is because I literally have no idea what I'm doing or what anybody is saying half the time and they can tell and they feel bad. But whatever, I appreciate these Spanish ladies and their kindness.
So, about converting the first lady: we had a lady come into the North Visitor's Center today and she is going to meet the Trumps for some award and she wants to give Melania a Book of Mormon in her native language and so, of course, we all that were there wrote our testimonies about it in the book. I don't have a way of following up but still, that's pretty cool.
That's all I have for this week. Love and miss you all!
Sister Moran
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Hey parents! I'm glad that we got to talk for more than seven minutes this week. It sounds like you're having so much fun in Germany!!
This week was full of EARLY EARLY MORNINGS!!! We had missionary department training on how to be good online missionaries. The big focus was on how we could give them a spiritual experience and meet their needs. We learned a lot about how to avoid hang up calls and how we could ask good inspired questions to get them talking and how we take the answers to those questions and then tailor the Bible to their needs and then we in time as we developed a trust in the first few minutes let us know if we should bring up the Book of Mormon. I have used the techniques they showed us the past few days and WOW I have seen way more success. With the two people that picked up the phone in my hour of teaching center today, they both accepted the Book of Mormon and missionaries and I set up return appointments because I was able to talk about their needs and address them. When I did that it was easy for the spirit to tell me a verse in the Book of Mormon that could relate to their life. Then I would ask to share and they would say yes and I would share and we would discuss and I would testify. Then I'd offer to have missionaries bring a free copy of the Bible and the Book of Mormon and share more about how they could find answers and it was so good and I got return appointments! So even though we had to be at the Square at 7:30 for three days it's all good because it made me a much more effective missionary.
Zone conference was this week and man oh man was it good. My main takeaway was that I need to be better. And it isn't that I'm not working hard because I am, but I could be doing more. So there you go, I'm going to do more. It was kind of like a spiritual slap in the face but in a loving way so I was okay with it. Also, President Fisher said something that I think you might like, mom! I know that you're having a hard time with Abby and to be honest so am I. But he said that we need to put it in the Lord's hands. Just say that you've done everything you can and it is now up to Him and He will take care of it, we just need to show Him that we trust Him. All we do after that is just continue to love. Hopefully, that will comfort you like it comforted me.
We've been able to teach like crazy this week. Because we have both the Spanish and the English queue we just have a lot to do in the Teaching Center which is nice. When I first came here to the mission the Square was dead and the queue was dead but now both are POPPIN so there is usually always something to do. There are literally like 700 Bible requests that we can just grab and start calling. That is what I'm talking about.
Like I mentioned earlier we have five people on a baptismal date which is awesome but it's hard to get them into the water. Out of the five, I would guess 2 to 3 will actually make it. I will be praying for these people so hopefully they can all make it.
This week we got to take a lot of tours and they have been super good. With Sister Broadbent, I feel like every time we gave the same exact tour but now we change it up and we make it much more spiritual. We do the entire restoration throughout the tour. I remember when I recommended we do that with Sister Broadbent she was like, "How are we supposed to do that on a tour?" And I was like ???? So we ended up never doing it. But with Sister Costilla, it is awesome because she isn't stuck in her ways so it's super easy to do a new route and tour every time! We took two standouts this week. The first one had two people from India, two from Ethiopia, and one from Kenya. I was the only white person which was cool. We did the whole thing and recited the First Vision and taught about prophets and how this is Jesus Christ's church and we gave them all Books of Mormon. The ones from Ethiopia wanted one in Amharic so that was pretty cool that she spoke that but even cooler is that we had it. Anyways, they took our phone number at the end and said they would call and text because they didn't want to give us their numbers and we haven't heard from them but still it was a bomb tour. The other was one that we covered today. We had a bunch of Australians, two from Germany, and two from Belgium. We ended up giving the Australians an English Book of Mormon, the Germans one auf Deutsch, and the Belgians one in Danish. We also told the Germans and the Belgians about the temple and explained the temple model because they were curious and the Australians weren't. We tried to get contact but one straight up shook his head no and backed away so that was cool. But it was still cool because these people knew like almost nothing about the church and now they know so much!! I love to give tours because it really is just a lesson in a bunch of old buildings with some history mixed in so they don't get mad and think we're just preaching to them.
I love being a missionary. Not going to lie, sometimes I get pretty down in the dumps and homesick and I just think that I want to go home. Both Sister Costilla and I were talking about how we felt that way this week but I know that this is the place for me. It's such a blessing to get to teach people from every continent! For reals though, I have taught someone from every continent of the world so far! I've even been able to teach people from China because they spoke English!! I mean, I haven't done Antarctica or anything like that, but I don't think anyone here has done that. Plus, it's cool to be here where we have all of these resources to teach people and where they are curious and WANT to know more. What a blessing.
I love you and I miss both of you so much!!! Have a great rest of your week in Germany and eat lots of German food! Also, have safe travels home. I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU SO MUCH
Love,
Em
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