Another Day, Another Destiny!

Liebe Familie und Freunde:

One of the greatest blessings of life is that the sun sets and rises again, giving us a brand new day! Every week has seven great chances to better ourselves and come closer to Him who gives us life. Then the week climaxes on Sunday, when covenants are renewed, the spirit is felt in greater abundance, and desire and commitment rekindled. I love it!

This week I had the chance to work with Elder Trent in Wesel and Elder Birth in Krefeld. I love these Elders! As district leader, I get to do splits with everyone in my district, and as I thought, that just makes the time fly by! It is so neat to go work with other Elders in their cities and see, similar to what I said last week, another fantastic take and perspective on missionary work. They are definitely teaching me more than I could teach them.

We met with Brother Peeters again, and what we felt afterwards was that he has gotten an answer that what we have taught is true- that is is from God and is the truth. But it doesn't match up with his knowledge or intellect or studies... and he is struggling inside to accept it. The Lord's thoughts and ways are definitely higher than ours. Sometimes, I get confused trying to figure out the Gospel logically or from science or our earthly knowledge. But the Spirit of the Lord always bears sweet witness to me that the Gospel is true- it truly is listening with the heart, a voice we feel, and knowledge gained from On High. I am so grateful for a Teacher and Instructor, who teaches and instructs that which cannot be learned from reason or books.

I am so grateful for the little miracles each day, and yesterday ended with quite a few! We traveled down to MarienPlatz after church to go by some former investigators. As we got off the bus, a former investigator was standing there, with whom we had lost contact. Her cell phone was broken and she was so excited to see us and gave us her new number! The Lord wants us to keep meeting with her! Then we were walking down by the Hogwarts church and we passed by a couple. I started to talk to the man, who brushed us off and said "Kein Intresse", no interest. Then a few seconds later, we heard someone calling after us, the wife! She asked if we were from here, and I said that Elder Friedrichs is from Germany, but I am from America... and then something beautiful graced my ears... American Englisch! ..with all the hard R's and K's and everything! She said "Oh good, me too!" She is from Kansas, and had met the missionaries there, and then lived in South Korea for a while and said the Mormon missionaries were super easy to spot! She had learned what we do and our message, but didn't have a lot of interest right then to learn more. We gave her our card and talked a little about what they were doing there and everything. She was so nice and we were able to have a great connection, just both being from America, religion and beliefs aside. I love finding and talking with people who had interactions before with missionaries. It's just one more contact to the Spirit of the Lord, one step closer for them to accept the offer to learn more, one step closer to Christ.

"Ye heralds, sound the golden trump to earth remotest bound! Go spread the news from pole to pole in all the nations round, that Jesus in the clouds above, with hosts of angels too, will soon appear His Saints to save, His enemies subdue." I know that is true! Jesus Christ will return, and the purpose of this work is to help others prepare themselves for that day: "Dear Lord, preapre my heart to stand with Thee on Zion's mount and never more to part!" (Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise, Hymn #41).

Zion is rising, her stakes are expanding. Let's lift where we stand, strengthen our neighbor!
I love this work :-)

Alles Gute, und bis nächste Woche!

--
Elder Nathan D. Garlick
German Frankfurt Mission
"Shall we not go on in so great a cause?" D&C 128:22