Insights and Events in the Life of Elder Harps: Woche 51

Mahlzeit!

It was a really good week this week!

Last Friday we had an excellent weekly planning session, and then split with the Zone Leaders. We split over a Five Guys that just opened here in Essen, and it was pretty good, but way way expensive haha. It'll be something for special occasions

I had an awesome split with Elder Blackner in Dortmund, where we made it a goal to talk to people we wouldn't normally talk to. There are all sorts of excuses Satan will throw in your head, and we made sure to ignore all of them! People getting in and out of cars, fixing their bikes, standing off the side of the road, or just talking in groups. We talked to them all! We were thinking to ourselves, how dumb would it be if after this life, someone walked up to us and was like, "What? You were right there and didn't give me the gospel because I was on my phone?? I'd have dropped that call so fast if you'd have just said something!". We still tried to be considerate and polite, but we made sure there wasn't anything stopping us from talking to anyone the spirit prompted us to talk to. It was an awesome split.

Laila is doing still amazing. She came to church on Sunday and had a good experience. A different African lady in our ward apparently is good friends with Laila's sister who she's living with, so they knew each other already! She's been reading and she's growing and keeping the Commandments, and she's excited for her baptism next Friday. It's going to be an awesome experience, because on the same day, the Sisters will be baptizing 3 people and the next day, the Herne Sisters will be baptizing another girl! That's going to be 5 in one weekend and we are so excited!! We are going to have to increase our goals because we'll have already reached them! God is so good. He's been really raining down miracles and he's bringing his work here forward.

We also had an excellent experience this week with making a Ward Mission Plan. We've been brainstorming really hard for weeks for ideas and plans that we could implement to help the ward get more involved in missionary work. We've really been picking our brain, trying to find something that not only everyone CAN participate in, but WILL. We finally had a legit moment of inspiration and we decided to make a Jar to help us be more accountable with doing the Europe Area Plan (the plan is: bring a friend, become temporally and spiritually self reliant, and find an ancestor). The plan is excellent, but it's hard to get people to actually do it. So we asked the Ward council what they thought of putting a jar out in the foyer where people can throw in different colored stones when they do something from the area plan. When it's full, we can celebrate together. The Ward council loved it, and there were productive ideas flying left and right. It was an awesome experience, and we are way stoked to see it in action. God is good.

Life is awesome. God's directing and hastening his work. I see his hand every day

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