The Standard of Truth

Dear Mom, (and those whose who get this letter forwarded to them. Most of you probably just glance over this to make sure that I am still alive, but that is okay, I still love you all :) )

                Well this week was stupendously superb. As with all successful missionary weeks, it all starts with church. 

                So this week we pretty much just invited everyone we knew to meet with us at Bern Bahnhof at 8:30 so that we could go to church together. But due to adverse conditions which will be described later, we had some "technical difficulties". Regardless we were SUPER excited to bring 4 people with us to church. Now that might not seem like a lot, but I am pretty sure it is like the record for the past 10 years here in Bern. Sad I know, but let’s focus on the positives here. So let me explain the people who came.

                First we have I________. She is from the Dominican Republic, and Elder Sonne and I (austausch) talked to her and her cousin on Tuesday on the street. She flipped out when we told her that we would give her a Book of Mormon in Spanish. Then on Thursday Elder Schiling and I (another austausch) met with her, and man she is really ready. She told us about some crazy experiences and trials in her life, but she has a lot of faith and is really sensitive for the spirit. She came to church and one of the members is from Ecudaor and he bore his testimony in Spanish, and man the spirit was strong. It was cool. 

  Second is S________. He is from Eretria, so he speaks Tiagranish, but luckily he speaks really good English as well. He is married and has a 1 year old daughter. He is cool but has some difficulties with baptism. Mainly he doesn`t believe that priesthood is necessary and that baptism should be done when we are babies. Funny side note, when he said that I asked him why Jesus was baptized when he was 30, and his answer was because Adam was 30 when he was cast out of the garten (Garden). Hahaha he definitely won creativity points, but not so doctrinally base. But he really enjoyed church as well.

                Then we had H______. He is also from Eretria, but speaks a little German, and not so much English. He came to church, but had a harder time understanding.

                Last but not least, we had K_______. He is from Sri Lanka, speaks Tamil, and English. And is friends with H_______. (We asked them how they communicate, and they said English/German mix. Hahaha just goes to show that friendships are more then words). He also had a harder time understanding at church. But hopefully they will come again next week :)

                Now about the technical difficulties. So last Sunday Elder Sanderson left his cell phone in a street car, and we were really hoping that it would turn up, but no luck. So Thursday we called the office so that they could turn off the service to the phone, and guess what? They turned off the service to the wrong phone. So on Friday we woke up and had transfer calls (we are both staying here for at least one more transfer by the way) and then at 10 o’clock am our phone stopped working. So we went to the church to use the phone there, and got a hold of the senior missionary couple responsible for the institute center in Bern, and they had a pre paid phone that they let us borrow. But until Wednesday we will have to use this prepaid phone, and it is super funny because we don`t want to use up the minutes so we call people and hang up before they can answer and hope that they call us back, because then it doesn`t charge us anything. Funny huh? But so far it has worked.

                Anyways, that was our week. Oh and on Thursday we had zone conference. That was stressful, but it worked out okay. Anyways, we had a great week, and I hope that you have a great week with your only child Sidney this week :)  The church is true, and the work here is about to EXPLODE!

Liebe

Elder Terry