The Bürgerhaus Loop

So.

We were on our way to a member's house, because I needed to practice with Elder Strong and the daughter of the members we were going to, for the musical number that we were supposed to give yesterday (due to unforeseen events, it has been pushed to next week). We had never gone there by bus, but Sister Eschenmann had written down good directions. We transferred onto the right bus, but were immediately confused, because it was FILLED with school children, probably between the ages of 8-10. We kind of looked blankly at the kids, and the kids looked at us. Had there been those conversation bubbles above our heads, they would have all said the same thing...

"?"

and then we just sat down.

Very quickly we noticed that there were no indications as to what stops were coming, or where we were stopping. In fact, we could not find a STOP button at all. After a few tense moments, as stop after stop went by, I finally asked one of the kids where the STOP button was. She pointed up. It turns out there were maybe 6 STOP buttons in the entire bus, and they were all on the ceiling.

Nothing more could be more praktisch for a bunch of mini humans.

Then things started to look familiar, so we started to relax. Then we came to a stop where like 9/10 of the kids got off. I saw the bus stop sign, and it was some other random stop, not our stop, but since we didn't have the stops plan, we had no idea how close we were.

Sister Eschenmann went up to the front and asked the bus driver

"Is this the is Bürgerhaus stop?"

He told her yes.

I clearly had seen that it was NOT Bürgerhaus, but I figured that I was just not in the secret "Bürgerhaus" Loop. So we both got off.

As I stepped off of the bus, I heard mini human voices call out to me

"Hallo!"

I whipped around, and saw two boys that I recognized from the ward. Not putting two and two together, I waved and said Hi to them too. As the bus doors shut, they called out

"And Tschüss!"

I turned to Sister Eschenmann and said,

"Hey! That was so-and-so and the so-and-so's son!"

She totally tensed, and started to whip around in circles, trying to locate a mini human that she recognized.

"Where? We need to follow them! We are going to SO-AND-SO's HOUSE!"

.    .    . 

"Erm...they're in still the bus..."

"Where??" She is still whipping around at this point.

"No! Sister Eschenmann." I stopped her movement.

"IN THE BUS!"

.   .   .

And then we both started laughing. We had no idea where we were, and no idea how close our bus stop was. In these smaller towns, it could be as much as a 10-15 bus ride between bus stops, and now, we had to go by foot.

We contacted the first person we saw, and it turns out that we were within 5 minutes walk of our destination.

We heard this week the quote "Don't travel faster than your guardian angels can fly." I'm glad that they kept up in this instance.

When Elder Bednar came to visit a few weeks ago, he said something that has really stuck with me.

"Loneliness is a reminder to approach the Lord."

That has given me so much strength. He is so tender, so loving, so perfect in His Fatherly duties.

I urge you, I challenge you, I plead with you to ask Hm for evidence of His love, or of the truth of this gospel. Or for whatever you need. He is there, and He listening.

I know, because I have felt, seen, faithed, and seen again, the power of His hand in all things.

Of this I gladly and humbly testify,

Sister Roderer