Warning: A lot happened this week. The length of this email
could equate to a small fortune if I was charged per letter. Fortunately, I can
send it via email for free and talk as much as I want about rains of sweat,
water, and fish. Be ye forewarned: brevity is not my strong suit. Nor is
organization this week.
Sweat drops are falling from my face...
It was really hot this
week. Especially for someone who has never been exposed to a ton of heat and
humidity before. I suffered a mild heat stroke on Tuesday after spending hours
outside talking to people and then also got a pretty nasty sinus infection. Again.
So I had several days feeling sickly and sweaty, but that hindered us not and
we carried on in good faith and humor.
On Wednesday, it was around
35 degrees C (about 95 degrees F) and someone we were visiting gave us
hot chocolate. Just to warm our hearts a little bit. And moisturize our faces a
little more.
We had a zone conference this week too here in Leipzig and the
heat continued until that night (Thursday), when it began to POUR rain. In
fact, it poured so much that all of the straßenbahns (streetcars) stopped going. So rather
than stay stranded at our church center, Sister D and I briefly
discussed the possibility of building a boat to sail home. That idea did not go
far and we had a wonderful time walking home (safely and semi-professionally).
That concludes this week's weather reports.
Sprach studium
Every day, we have an hour where we get to study German.
Apparently I should have added some other languages to my study because I have
exhausted my meager Spanish and French vocabulary in the past couple of weeks.
Fortunately, all of the French people I've talked to can speak English as well,
but I was not so lucky with the Spaniard we found. I was able to tell him that
I had a Book of Mormon in Spanish and that I liked Jesus Christ and I
understood he was here for work. Couldn't remember the word for "to
give" in Espanol but...he has our website. The moral of this story is that
you never know when you could need to use another language. So learn some
words. Though I do not regret learning "mira los gusanos" (“look at the worms!”) ...I recommend learning useful words.
Quotes of the week
Elder B (an elder in our zone who is very funny and…individual):
"Missionaries, smile to show people that this message doesn't suck!"
Every day my brother :)
Cute little Frodo-like
child on the straßenbahn as he watched a lady running to try to make the bahn:
"Du schaffst es, du schaffst es!" (“You can do it, you can do it!”) ...bahn starts to pull away..."oh, sie hat es nicht
geschafft." (“Oh, she didn’t do it.”)
Trust me, it was adorable.
African Fish
Well, we met four more Africans this week that want to learn
more about our message and we got back in touch with the golden Chaku. We
invited them to church on Saturday and Jean-Marie showed up to sacrament
meeting the next day, looking sharp in a suit. I translated the meeting for him
and he LOVED it. He said, "I will come every week to this church until I
go home!" Which is in August. Maybe we can convince him to stay a little
longer. I love Africans. in case you forgot.
Gott ist Gott
I have felt sufficiently
humbled this week as I left important documents in unimportant places (but they
were rescued!), took us in the wrong direction for an eating appointment and
showed an hour late (but the family was forgiving!), and was physically weak
from illness (but I got better!). I ended every day knowing for sure that God
is God and that He loves His children. I love that during maybe one of my
weakest weeks, God poured down many miracles. I know He takes the simple and
weak to do great things and I know for sure that without Him, I would be able
to do about as much as an ostrich attempting to weave. Which is not very much.
I love seeing so many miracles every day. Look for the ones in your lives.
Peace out.
--
Sister
Claire Michelle Woodward
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