Crazy week.

Only downside of Köln is traveling. Everything is an hour away, if not
more. Buses will make you sick, and you have to take them a lot. More
than half of our proselytize time is on an u bahn or a bus haha:).

Roberto is getting baptized on October 22nd!! We met with him and he
said he knew the Book of Mormon was true and that he wanted to be
baptized! Our translator was sick so I ended up translating from
Spanish to English when he spoke and German to Spanish when sister
riser spoke. It was a lovely time, haha:). Arrepentimiento is the
hardest word to say in Spanish. I doubt that's even spelled right, but
we talked about repentance so I had to say it a ton:P. He came to
conference... And he brought his daughter! She's three and adorably
insane. We have a "geheimnis" (mystery) behind the curtains in the
cultural hall, and she would just keep asking to go see it. Kids are
really imaginative because there was literally a basketball back
there, that's it. Pierre came to conference as well. We taught him on
Thursday with schwester fondja. He fell asleep during the lesson (he's
got some sicknesses) so we ended the lesson early, and we thought we
really hadn't made a difference, that he wouldn't be any closer to
receiving an answer about the Book of Mormon, but at the end he
stopped us and told us that we had truly helped him and that he was
sorry he was so tired. It was really sweet and eye opening. He and
Roberto loved conference. They talked about how much power the men had
when the spoke, that they could feel it in their hearts. When I told
them they could watch all 5 sessions online their eyes literally
became hungry and they both pulled out pen and paper so I could write
the web address down for them (lds.org). It was such a testimony
builder to me of the blessing it is to be able to hear from men called
of God to lead his church, to know that that is happening twice a
year. If you didn't watch all of conference, don't worry. I didn't
either. That's why the Internet exsists. Go watch it now:).

More Spanish people are appearing. I used Spanish four times this
week, but it's so bad. Most of the time the people just get annoyed
that I can't speak it quickly with them and they leave:/. It will come
with time and effort.

Another crazy story. We went to actually teach Herr Schiefbahn. When
we walked in the door he brought us upstairs into another apartment
where another man was waiting at the dining room table with coffee for
each of us. We sat down. This man had done research on non church
sponsored sites and was ready to bash our church to the ground. But,
what he didn't understand, was that truth is truth and no one can
confuse it. Schwester Nowak was rapid fire back, and 5 minutes after
we got there we calmed him down and taught the first lesson, the story
of the restoration of the gospel. We killed it. We left them with a
Book of Mormon and a link to meet the Mormons in German and said "call
us when you know it's true".  When we walked out, s. Nowak turned to
me and said "your German! You found every word you needed. It was
amazing. That was really the power of God speaking through you".
Needless to say, I almost cried. We've been speaking German whenever
we're not in the apartment and it's hard. I don't feel like myself in
German, in fact I really don't feel like myself on a mission, but in a
good way. The more I speak it, the better I get, and it was really
nice to have a native German tell me that they could see the
difference. I am way too blessed. I really don't know what I did to
deserve anything I have.

Probably one of the funnier stories of the week (I know that's not a
word) was on Tuesday. We're trying to get in contact with Elisabeth.
She picks up the phone and speaks in French now, which I definitely
can't understand, haha:). So, we went to her neighborhood but she
wasn't there. We ran into a lady looking for a lost cat. So, we
prayed. We heard the cat. So I went wandering through the bushes to
find it. No, I didn't find the cat, but I did step in freshly laid dog
poop from the lady's dog who was looking for the cat. I was in cloth
shoes. Needless to say, I threw those away....

Crazy story. We met a man named Mohammad Ali a few weeks ago with a
woman named Sylvia. We never got in contact with her, and we won't
because she passed away two weeks ago. Mohammad Ali called us this
week interrogating us to know if we had contact with her. It's a
really crazy sad story, but we met with him to sort it all through. He
has a hard life. I mean hard. I remember sitting on the steps by the
Köln dome in agony because I really didn't know how I could help him.
I didn't want to shove religion down his throat  even though I
knew it would help him, but I also couldn't stay there on the steps
while he drank all night. So we went home, really confused. He called
us yesterday, mid conference, so we went to meet him. We brought an
English Book of Mormon (his native language is benjabi... Überraschung
we don't have that haha:)). When he read the intro everything became
still, in a really tangible way. He said he would read the rest and
try to understand. I know that that was the only way we could really
help him. We can't make trials go away, but we can help him to find
eternal joy, a joy that won't change based on our situation.

Coolest member family ever: the Della Corte's. She served in Ukraine
and is from Utah and he served in the Alpine mission and went to
school in Utah, so we spoke English:). They have two kids and live in
a literal fortress in the middle of a neighborhood with a moat.
They're both under thirty and they are still the most involved
missionaries I have ever seen, and their lives are incredibly blessed
for it. We all committed to taking Moroni's challenge in 10:3-5 again
to read the Book of Mormon before sister riser goes home on December
15th and to pray to know if it's true. Sister DC's sister is staying
until December 15th as well, and she said she had never really taken
that challenge and read the whole book and prayed. If you haven't ever
taken the challenge, I challenge you now to do so, and if you have, I
challenge you to do it again. If you just read two chapters a day, you
will be done by the end of the year, and then you can get on your
knees and pray, asking god if the book is true, and I know he will
tell you it is. If it wasn't I wouldn't be on a mission. And because
it is, I have eternal joy in my life, and answers to my questions. I
love the Book of Mormon so much and the power it has to change lives,
including my own. I honestly could not be doing any of this without my
testimony and reliance on the Book of Mormon.

I love you. I pray for you all the time:).

Sister Johnson