advent time

this week began ADVENTS

You know those chocolate calenders where you take turns with your siblings eating one everyday until Christmas?? ( or in my case eat all of Olivia's when she wasn't looking.) WELL that came from GERMANY! Who knew?

This week it all began. Every week until Christmas there is a fun tradition! Which usually involves eating.. so im loving it

The members here take good care of us. This week was St. Nikolaus! Which is when the children clean their boots and set them outside overnight and in the morning find oranges and candy! The cleaning part sure sounds familiar... cough dad..... but not the candy part.

During our study in the morning we heard our doorbell ring and sure enough... in my cute cheetah ballet flats was a bag full of candy and oranges!

This week the WEINACHTSMAN ( more complicated name for Santa ) came to our ward party..

Lets just say Francesco was FREAKKKKIN OUT

All of the parents gave Santa prior a present for their kids and one by one they got called on stage..

Francesco looked at me and said '' ahhhh i hope he has one for me too!!''

Crap.

We quickly found candy and pulled a few strings and last but not least Francesco went on stage!!

He read Santa a note that said '' Liebe Weinachtsman this year i want to be BAPTIZED!!!

Ahh sweet thing.. we even set a baptism date for him in January!! 

I was such a proud mother..

Perhaps the most wild experience on my mission so far also occurred that night..

Shortly before we left for the party the missionaries all met up with some people to ride together. Well much to our surprise a new member was a 

littlebitsytipsy...

Accidentally drank alcohol at the weinachtsmark not knowing it was in the apple cider..

We were all dying of laughter because we had no clue what to do.

I wish you could have seen us all rolling up to the church together trying to keep it cool and pep talk the person into laying llowwwwww

Perhaps the most stressful part was when the bishop grabbed me and said QUICK we need background music go play the piano..

ok... confession time.... I would always go to Ian Gillettes house instead of piano lessons growing up....

well i remembered a few things and threw some fancy Christmas songs in and it sounded goooood!

They loved it..

This week all that seemed to happen was hear about people that are struggling, or about investigators and members whose lives seemed

to become more difficult ever since meeting with us... Some have trials i cant even imagine facing!

I promised everyone so many blessings that would come from the gospel.. I was just speechless when an investigator asked why he only has harder times these days...

I had no answer... there is NO answer why we struggle and face the things we do..

All i knew to do was bear my personal testimony that i KNOW without a doubt in my mind that god lives.

That in my life I've seen some of the strongest most amazing people i know face the hardest trials..

WHY?

Because God KNOWS you will prevail.. 

He knows you will become better from it.

The adversary knows your potential as well and will do anything in his power to keep you from this truth and the difference YOU will make.

God knows trials will come, but i also know he would never let us face a challenge that he knew we couldn't overcome.

He will NOT set us up to fail...

`` Some Blessings come soon, some come later. But for those who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ.. they come.´´-  Jeffrey R. Holland

For all you missionaries serving in them tropical states eye.n.v.u...( I envy you) its hitting the negative degrees over here.. Count your blessings peeps

I'm too busy trying to count my toes to make sure i still have them all from the freaking freezing frost bite..

Line of the week:

( while baking brownies for the elders for District Meeting)

Me: Hey Sister Warncke.. im gonna hop in the shower watch the brownies for me!!

Sister Warncke: Yup they look good there is smoke coming out of the oven so their cooking GREAT!

Me.. OK sounds gooo

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE IS SMOKE

Sure enough... black flames...

Turns out Celsius is alooooooooooooot different than Fahrenheit over here.. cooked them at a good 300 degrees Fahrenheit.. whoops

Scrape off a little dust, cut off the burnt parts

The elders loved em... they will eat anything

until next time...

Sister D