Tuesday, February 28, 2017

JA's

Hey there!

This week was pretty great!
Last night was especially cool. So we have quite a few cool young
people that aren't super interested in the gospel or having us
teach them but they are just good friends. For a while we've been trying to
figure out an activity or something for all the young adults that we
can invite our friends to, but there's really nothing like that here.
There used to be, but for whatever reason, the group here just kind of
fell apart and there's no real strong bond in the young adult group.
There was actually a kind of messy falling apart and it's a touchy
subject here. Wellll, luckily, Sister Frenkel comes from a ward in
Germany with a really strong young adult group. They have family home
evening together every Monday and organize it all themselves!

Like I said, this whole time, we've been trying to push for just a
family home evening night, just one, but different people here haven't
been all too helpful or supportive so finally Sister Frenkel and I
decided to just do it! We had a week to plan it all, since Sister
Frenkel is leaving soon and because of some other scheduling conflicts. I tell
you what, we never prayed so hard in our life. There were just a lot of
delicate things involved, like inactive young adults, who surprisingly
came, or the fact that almost none of the active young adults wanted
to come, or there was no real adult leader support for the evening, and also the
fact that we were inviting a lot of non-member friends of ours for whom
we wanted to have a great first experience in the church!

It went wonderfully though. Really. I don't know how to describe to
you all the little things that almost went wrong or could have gone
wrong, but it went great! I know God really helped us out on this one.
Everyone pitched in with food, everyone had a friend, or someone to
talk to. The game/spiritual thought/lesson Sister Frenkel and I had
been praying about and planned went really well and invited the
Spirit, everyone helped set up and clean up, and by the time it was
time for us to go home, everyone (seriously, this random group of the
most different personalities and backgrounds, who had almost all only
just met that night) stayed longer in the church playing games
together.

Sister Frenkel and I were skipping home. The best was this morning
when we read a text from one of the young adults here, Jakob, who had
kind of been skeptical about the whole thing, thanked us and said that
they will totally do a family home evening again. And that was really
our biggest goal, not the missionaries plan this one time thing, but
rather get the young adults excited and united again, and have them
take it from here, which they totally will.

Our friends also really had a great time and started showing more
interest in what we do as missionaries and "what makes our church
different anyway.." --which is my favorite question to answer :)
Sister Frenkel is actually leaving next week to Temple Square, which
makes me so sad, but I really know that she was sent here for a
reason. A couple reasons actually. And this was one of them, a chill
and friendly evening with friends who share your beliefs and where you
can invite your friends to also take part in the church. I know
activities aren't what this church is all about or should be based on,
but I do know that love, charity, uplifting surroundings and
supporting one another in our beliefs and lives are essential factors
to Christ's church :)


Have a great week!

Our fun mish-mosh family home evening group ❤️

So much spaghetti.... haha we sort of went a little crazy there with the spaghetti. About 8 packages I believe...

Dinner...

This is Sister North and Schwester Friedrich. Schwester Friedrich invited us and the Norths to lunch on Sunday and then took us on a walk around her home to see Schneeblümchen, cute little February flowers. So pretty :) haha she was so excited to show us the flowers! She'd planned the day for weeks, so sweet.

Tree hugger.
Our little picnic
Die Schneeblümchen (snow blossoms)
 


No comments:

Post a Comment