A Striking Realization

Highlights
From this week:

*Drank Coca Cola for the first time in my life!! Tastes like the candy..
*Shared my umbrella with two people as I was contacting them in the freezing rain.
*Had a guy on the train ask my age, then tell me I was running out of time if I wanted a family. He was confused as to why I was not married yet, so I told him that I hadn't found the right one, and he told me that that was the problem. In my head I was like "Well, it's not you, that's for sure!"
*We did a "wunder stunde" or "miracle hour" with a couple members in our ward and it was so much fun! That is when we go to the member's house, ask them to pick a street in their neighborhood where we should spend the next hour dooring and contacting, then kneel in prayer with them, calling down miracles, then we get down to work! So many cool conversations! 
*We went on three different splits this week, which always makes life an adventure! 


World-o-meter
This we week we met with or talked to people from:
*Nigeria

*Cyprus
*Syria
*Albania
*Turkey
*China
*Bangladesh
*Germany
*England
*Argentina
*Ghana
*Sri Lanka 
*Cameroon 
 

Deutsch:
The German word for "underestimate" is "unterschätzen" which is closely related to the word "Schatz" which means "treasure". So in a sense, to underestimate literally means to "under-treasure" or "treasure less than". How often do we "under treasure" ourselves? Or "under treasure" the efforts of the people around us? It was a good reminder to me to be a little kinder, both to myself, and to others.


It has been incredible to teach people about Christ, and see them literally change before our eyes. 

Missionaries have always talked about that, but I could never say that I had experienced it until now. It is literally life-changing. Like we don't recognize our investigators sometimes, because they look different. Haha almost.

Beautiful German Countryside

I was talking to someone on the Bahn, and he was a little flippant about God, saying that he didn't believe that God existed. We talked a little bit, and threw around some ideas, 
how God could exist,
what He would be like if He did live,
what he thought the role of God should,
how we could really recognize truth, etc, 
and finally we came to an agreement:
He agreed that it was possible that God could be real, but he could not say for sure, because he had no experiences with God. We also agreed that he could never know until he had experiences with Him. 
It was a stunning change, and it really touched me. 
Leider, he had no desire to facilitate these experiences, indicating his recognition that he would need God if something went wrong, and he preferred to wait until that point of despair strikes before he reached out for God. 
He's hoping for a sadness-free life. 
Good luck.
I was flabbergasted and asked him basically if he had anyone he loved. I then bluntly told him that they were going to die sometime, and then he would be sad. He said he'd hope for the best.
Lame.
I gave him a card and told him that when things got rough that he should call us.

Folks, let's not wait for tragedy to strike before we consider God. How egotistical is that? 
That's the real tragedy. 
And it doesn't mean that it will all be roses and lollipops, but it means that there will always, ALWAYS, be just enough strength to keep going, and find the future beautiful. One might argue that one can do that without God. To them I say, there is no way you did that without God...it's not my fault or His that you didn't recognize Him. :) 

Love always,

Sister Roderer

Out on a split during District Meeting, but I taught electronically!