Dear Family and Friends,
The Lord has taught me some incredible things this week. It's been amazing! I love the relationship we get to have with Him, no matter how busy He may be, He always has time for us and our concerns.
This week Sister Bawden experienced one of the hardest days on my mission, work wise, and also some of the most incredible miracles of my mission. Thursday, all three of our appointments fell out. Our backup plans were tested and we were out on the street all day. It was challenging for me personally, but! I learned that I had held unrealistic expectations on myself and others. It was good to learn! At the end of the day, we'd given away 5 Books of Mormon found 2 potentials, set an appointmen with one of them, and had 7 good conversations (7 meaning conversations that lead to a discussion about God and/or Christ). We definitely talked to more than 7 people. It was a lot of work. But so worth it and the miracles were ever more sweet :).
Here, in case no one has seen it before, the buildings are full of appartments and at the front door, There is a panel of names on buttons that connect to people's doorbells called clingals. When we door, we pray, clingal a name, talk with them over the little speaker phone, and hope to be ''buzzed'' in, or that the door will electronically be unlocked. This opening is indicated by a buzzing sound. I didn't think to explain to Sister Bawden, having not remembering my first contact with a clingal, that when you hear the buzzing sound you quickly push or pull on the door to open it before the buzzing stops and the door is locked again. After clingaling one name, the door surprizingly started buzzing, and me, seeing her not react, and due to my own surprise, started quickly saying anything that came to mind in German or English that would help her to realize to ''push'' the door open. The panic I created caused her to be alarmed combined with the buzz of the door, which escaladed into a scene any citizen would burst into giggles over. I yelled, she screamed, I yelled ''push!'' she panicked and finally pushed with another scream. It was dark and we muffled our laughter the best we could as we walked up the stairs to find the door that had buzzed us in. Too good.
Sunday we had an open house from 11am-6pm. Church was only just over an hour of Sacrament Meeting due to this open house. Our meetinghouse is the third floor of a office rent building full of other offices and practices. The whole complex was doing an open house and so we participated as well. It was so exciting! I love open houses. One German man who lives in Ghana came. He's here for six weeks, met the church two months ago in Ghana and wants to be taught. Miracle.
The second miracle was a woman who came to this same open house. During our shift to stand by our sign on the bottom floor, we met this woman who was just looking around at the other companies' offices of our building. Sister Bawden stikes up conversation with her being the faithful Golden she is! She told me later she'd mustered up all her courage and asked her the 3 questions in German that she knew (I know she knows more). Conversation continued and we ended up giving her a tour, teaching her a lesson, hearing out her emotional story of her search for something more and having not yet found it, taking a Book of Mormon, and feeling lighter for the first time in a long time just BEING at our church. It was definitley a tender mercy from our Heavenly Father. His children are prepared and ready!
I know this work is true! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Sister Nicole Packer
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