And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.
Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! (Alma 36: 17-20, The Book of Mormon) As we keep our heart and mind focused on the good things, there is no room left for the bad. As y'all are enjoying spring and celebrating Easter this upcoming week, take a look at http://www.mormon.org/easter and check out the video (it's only 2 1/2 minutes long). Love, Sister Wahlquist The three small town Idaho girls went hiking to some old German ruins! :) It feels like I spent more time this week not in Heidelberg than in it. I got to go spend Tuesday to Wednesday morning in Mannheim with the lovely Sister Morse! Splits are just super cool, first off you almost always see miracles and you get to meet awesome sisters. Then bright and early Thursday morning we headed off to Frankfurt with the Gublers (our wonderful senior couple) for zone conference. Zone conference is where lots of missionaries get together with the mission president and we have a big meeting with training from other missionaries and local church leaders. And for a special surprise of the day, we got to watch the movie 'Meet the Mormons'. Really people, if you haven't seen it yet, GO! It's a good one :) Man, I am so incredibly grateful that I get to be in the best place on Earth sharing the best message on Earth. Christ lives! Love, Sister Wahlquist Miniature Bibles!!! Whoot whoot! Purchase of the week, probably purchase of the year. These are the things that missionaries get excited about :) General Conference, die Zeit ist nicht mehr fern! (Sorry... things just sound better in German.) Not long now! Food for thought....
And when the priests left their labor to impart the word of God unto the people, the people also left their labors to hear the word of God. And when the priest had imparted unto them the word of God they all returned again diligently unto their labors; and the priest, not esteeming himself above his hearers, for the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner; and thus they were all equal, and they did all labor, every man according to his strength. (Alma 1:26, The Book of Mormon) One thing that I have heard a lot in my time in Germany is, "Sorry, I don't have any time." And as our mission has really been focusing on how we use our time this month, I have thought a lot about the topic. As we look at the example above, we see that making time is our choice. It is all about where our priorities are. We've all got time. Twenty four hours every day to be exact. And we get to choose what to do with that time. How we spend our time shows us exactly what we consider to be important. What do we do first? Our math homework or catch up on our favorite TV show? How are you choosing to spend your time? We get to choose, we just don't get to choose the consequences. Love y'all! Sister Wahlquist PS: no pictures this week, I forgot to take any... oops haha Sister Zenger's birthday was this week!! So we had it all planned out to have her favorite meal- tacos. We bought all the things we needed on Monday, and looked forward to Friday. Friday comes and finaly at around 8:15pm we had some time to eat. We start to pull things out, and we realize we have no flours to make the tortillas!! Bah! Stores were already closed and too far away anyway, what could we do? Then we thought about the little train station kiosk a couple hundred yards from our apartment. We have talked to the man there a lot, maybe he would have some tortilla chips and we could salvage this into some nachos. So we go running(literally) out the door worried that he might be closing up soon. We get there and explain the situation to him. And he said 'Wait, I have just the thing!' And goes into the stand and comes out with these huge Turkish tortilla things. It's the little things in life that mean the most. :) Flash Back Moment! This week I was blessed with the opportunity to go on a split with Sister Williams in Kaiserslautern. That's right, the same Sister Williams that was one of my companions in the MTC! It was so amazing to get to work together again and to see how much we have learned and changed since the MTC. So we met this man on a train about 3 weeks ago. He was interested in learning more about the church so we had set up a few times to meet with him, but it just never seemed to work out. Then out of the blue, he called us on Saturday to tell us that he was on his way to the church right then to check out the building from the outside and then would meet us there on Sunday!! Hope, something we shouldn't let go of :) Happy Spring! Love, Sister Wahlquist This Thursday, Sister Godwin headed on out to Maniz. That means we are back to two.
The sun is coming!! Do you know what that means?! Garden Service!! It was so much fun to go help a member of our ward get her front yard looking in tip top shape for Spring! (Playing around in the dirt, that is our kind of party) But I have to say, I love what her husband said. "Because you Sisters came here to serve and help me out, it means that I have time to go and help the Cross family move." How true is that, because we took the time to serve, they have a great looking front yard (which they probably would have had a hard time finding the time to do themselves) and it helped him have the time to go help others. What an amazing ripple affect doing good has :) So don't ever feel like what you have to contribute isn't enough. If we all just do our own small parts, it will spread joy to all. Just like a ripple spreading out on a pond after just a few small stones are thrown in. Have a great week! Sister Wahlquist Pictures. Because it is Monday. So of course we went hiking to some ruins :) And found a super cool town with an awesome look out! That's right folks! I'm learning Spanish!! Ok not really... But there is a little Spanish congregation here in Heidelberg that we get to work with. And let me tell ya what, they just steal your heart!! Meet them once and it's all the motivation you need to learn a little Spanish. If there is one thing I have learned in my time here, (Ok, I've learned like a zillion and a half things, but one of them...) it is that kindness and love know no language barrier.
Speaking of love, Happy Valentines day everyone!! I hope you all found a fun way to celebrate. Naturally, we went to a bakery and found something pink and heart shaped. And in honor of the season how about a wonderful definition of love from the Book of Mormon: And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. (Moroni 7:45) And last news for the week, the sunshine in my soul is finally being reflected in the world outside!! The sun was shining brightly almost every day this week :)! Spring is on it's way. Have a marvelous week! Sister Wahlquist Morning hikes, I guess so could say it's our thing. I don't even want to know how many steps we climbed... We just kept going up and up and up and look, we found winter! I thought this week I would share a few thoughts on gratitude. Why? Because I feel SO incredibly blessed and grateful. I live in an amazing city with such rich history. I get to talk to and meet the most amazing people every single day. There is a bakery around every corner. And life is just plain good.
So most of these thoughts come from a talk from Thomas S. Monson, the Prophet and President of our church. You can read the whole thing here: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/the-divine-gift-of-gratitude?lang=eng He quotes a few verses from the Bible A little background- a large group of people came to Christ to be healed and taught. They have been with him for 3 days and haven't had anything to eat. (Matthew 15:32-38) 32 Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way. 33 And his disciples say unto him, Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude? 34 And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes. 35 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. 36 And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 37 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. 38 And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children. Instead of seeing what he didn't have, Christ was grateful for that which he did have. He says a prayer of gratitude and a miracle follows. How often do we wait to see the miracle before being grateful? And then a quote from a Greek philosopher: “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” A grateful person is a happy person. I invite you all to give it a try. Instead of seeing what is lacking, have an Attitude of Gratitude. Have a great week! Love, Sister Wahlquist We didn't know what to do for our P-day today, but we knew we wanted to have fun. So we decided to run to an old Nazi amphitheater to watch the sunrise. We woke up to snow. We decided to go anyway. We went for a great hike/run through the snow. We didn't find the amphitheater, or the sun.. But we did find fun :) And this tower that we climbed which gave a great view of snow covered Heidelberg! Ya know what I love? Getting to meet tons of awesome people and hear their stories. Everyone has such a cool story to tell and great experiences to share. I love it! I find it so sad when I hop on a train or a bus and everyone is sitting there in silence, or with headphones in, or playing around on their smart phone. As people get on the specifically seek out a spot where no one else is nearby. I have met so many awesome people by breaking through this silence and saying hello. A woman from England that loves music, a retired man that hasn't decided where to get off yet because he is just gonna go hike somewhere....
Take advantage of these opportunities people! Get to know those around you. I guarantee you will learn something. Not much time this week, sorry y'all. But here are some pictures of an old castle to make you feel better :) |