Sister Summer Nielsen

  Hallo Familie und Freunde! One thing I've come to realize is that  sunshine is a rare occurrence in Germany. It's always overcast here and kind of gloomy. Whenever the sun does come out though, everyone is out and about. This occurred this Sunday. We walked out of church and the sun was shining. Those who know me, know that I love the sun. So being without it is hard. But that Sunday I stood in the sun for about 10 straight minutes just soaking it all in.  Something crazy that occurred this week is that we received about 12 elders from the Ukraine mission. I guess the issue between Ukraine and Russia is really bad so they pulled all of the American missionaries out. So every single one is getting reassigned to another country in Europe. They now have to learn German and they might be permanently reassigned here.  This week we had another austauch with the STL's. This time we traveled to Würzburg. We had dinner and FHE with the Sosa's. They are a family from Me...

  This week started out with a great district council! Our district contains us, 2 sets of elders, and a senior couple that cook lunch for us every week. They're so sweet and our whole district is really tight. But our focus this week was on the talk The Challenging and Testifying Missionary. After reading that as a district we are now changing our approach with talking to people. We used to ask what brought them hope or joy, but now we're flat our testifying about our purpose. Now we tell people that we are servants of our Lord Jesus Christ and he has a message for them. We get rejected more, but it hurts less. I've found it's actually a lot easier to be straight up with people then beat around the Bush.  Then we had an Austauch with the STL's from Würzburg! They're so nice and we had a great time with them. I went with sister Webb and we met this man named Tobi that I found through Facebook. We taught him the 2nd lesson about the Plan of Salvation (the purpose...

  Hallo zusammen! This week Falko got baptized! The night before we went over to his house for a last lesson before he was baptized. His parents are very against his decision to be baptized. So that has been really hard for Falko, but he remained strong and held through! At his house, we met his dad. We wanted to know why baptism was so important to his son. We had brother Hadzik also there and he was able to answer all of his questions about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. There was such a sweet spirit there and I could tell the holy ghost was retestifying to Falko. Falko was able to bear his testimony to his father and tell him that he wanted to be baptized. It was a really spiritual uplifting night. It was also a night and day difference from the conversation brother Hadzik had with the father before we arrived. It was apparently really contentious. It wasn't until we arrived that the spirit was able to be in the home. I know it wasn't the work of sister Barden or I. T...

  Hallochen! Falko! So this past week we fasted for Falko that he would have the desire to be baptized. That's the next step for him. After our lesson and we invited him to fast as well, he said "I will fast but I don't know if God wants me to be baptized yet." We were still hopeful that he'd come around. The next day he kept asking us who would baptize him and how everything would work. We asked if he made his decision and he said yes! He got his baptismal Interview. He wanted to get baptized last weekend with a little girl who was getting baptized, but it didn't work out. So he's set to get baptized on Saturday! His journey: he was found in june through street contacting. He went to church a couple times but then fell out of communication with the elders. Then the elders right before Sister Barden and I, started teaching him. They left a note for us saying that his heart needed to be softened. When we got here, it seemed that he was really open and his h...