The Lord works in miraculous ways :)

Just yesterday we had someone we are teaching come to church and he was all dressed up in a nice looking black suit and looked very slick.  We told him this and he said, "It is Sunday, why wouldn't I be dressed nice?"  I love that answer :)  He came for all 3 hours and everyone in the ward greeted him like he was part of the family, I love that too because that is how the members treated me too when I went to church ages ago :)  He enjoyed all 3 hours, and after sacrament he told me face to face that he received an answer from God that this church is the only true church on the Earth and that he needs to be a member asap.  And this whole time I am pretty sure that my jaw was on the ground.  Just last week he told us that it would take him a LONG LONG time for him to join the church and that we missionaries better be patient.  The Lord works in miraculous ways :)  He will be getting baptized Oktober 5th!!!!  I have a testimony that when people are ready they are ready.  It is because the Lord had prepared them from the very beginning.  I am blessed to see this miracle and to be a part of it this transfer.  I am excited to see him grow in the Gospel and to see his faith increase in Christ.  The best part of it is the way he was found.  We had met Andrea on the street and she gave us her number to call her to talk about how science and God work together.  We called her up after a couple of weeks and made an appointment.  We show up there and she brought her friend to listen too, his name is Christian!!  Our Christian!!  Then we talked a little about the Restoration and about Joseph Smith but nothing too concrete.  We ended up getting his information and calling him the following week to meet.  We met up with him and the elders and we had an awesome lesson on the Restoration in a beautiful park.  The spirit was so strong and we committed him to read the Book of Mormon and to come to church.  Sure enough, he came to church WITH Andrea, and their other friend.  That was last week, and now this week he received the confirmation from the truthfulness of the gospel and now wants to join the Family of Heavenly Father :)  I am so excited for him to experience the joy that I experience every single day.  It honestly changes lives for the better, it did for me und ich bin so dankbar dafür :)  Es hat meinen Herz verändert für Ewigkeit.  Have fun with Google Translate for that one :)  And at church yesterday, long lost Merhawi came!!  He hasn't been to church since June!!  And it was a miracle that he came too!  It rained basically all day yesterday and when he woke up he couldn't go to church because he doesn't have a umbrella.  So he didn't come for the first 2 hours of church.  But then the clouds departed, and the blue sky popped out and then he was able to come :)  I love the little things that Heavenly Father does for His children in order to come to hear His word and to feel His Spirit.  Looking at last week with no one coming to church, I honestly have a testimony and a concrete knowledge that there are always trials before we see the reward.  We always read it in the scriptures too.  For example, Ammon was the king's slave before he was able to talk and teach the king about the gospel.  (We taught Young Womens yesterday at church too so another example is from Präsident Uchtdorf.)  When we look at all the fairytales in Disney and in books, the princess or maid always has a trial before they have a "Happily Ever After."  Every single one: Cinderella and her situation with her family, Ariel losing the ability to speak, etc. We all will have trials, and we all will have heartbreaks, but the most important thing is to hold on during the storm.  During the storm we can help ourselves from being taken away by the waves.  We can talk and plead and cry to our Heavenly Father for help, for comfort, and for strength.  Through Christ's Atonement we can receive the help, the comfort, and the strength.  All we need  to do is get down on our knees and ask.  That's it.  I have done it so many times and I can tell you it works.  And I know it can help you too :)  I am grateful for all the opportunities to serve the German people and to bring them a little bit of hope and light into their day.  I am grateful to see the Lord's miracles that He performs.  I am grateful to have supportive family and friends back home and all around the world.  I love my life, and I love my Savior Jesus Christ.  :) ~Sister Tuschling **

New Adventures and Life Lessons

Splits with other sisters always makes my mind explode with new adventures and life lessons!!  Funny story, so we know that Sister Stoggard doesn't know her way around Düsseldorf very well because she is about 5 weeks old on the mission and we all know that I don't know my way around either, so every single time we got on a wrong train, Heavenly Father put someone in our path to talk and teach to.  We took an Ubahn the completely opposite direction and we ended up talking to the nicest girl I have met in Germany yet!!  She was so nice and easy going.  She gave us grapes to eat and asked really good questions.  I asked her if she had faith.  And she said not really.  I bore testimony about how I didn't either until I was invited to go to church by my best friend.  I told her that little by little my faith grew and the more I acted upon my faith the stronger it got.  She asked how  she could find her faith and how she could build it.  I told her that through prayer we can honestly know what Heavenly Father wants us to do.  I also told her that through reading scriptures we also see how our faith grows.  We introduced the Book of Mormon and of course she had to leave, but she left with a card in her hand with all the information she needs to change her life :)  I am grateful for little experiences like that.  I also am grateful for being lost, but never really being lost.  Heavenly Father is always always with us and I know that from the bottom of my heart.  That happened to us like 3 more times.  Every time we got lost, we taught someone who needed to hear from Him, and they all have cards and a mindful of precious gems to think about :)  Life lesson learned on the split: Put your wallet where you always put your wallet.  For some reason Sister Tuschling did not do this and now her wallet is somewhere in Germany on a train, or in the hands of a very confused German because it has EVERYTHING in it haha.  Lets just say that many people are praying that someone finds it and takes it to the Düsseldorf lost and found at the train station.  I never had this happen to me before and now I really have to rely on my companion :)  Thanks Sister Sprouse!! Once I got back to Dortmund it felt like home :)  And I love that feeling.  We went right away to work.  We met one of our women that we teach and she always takes us out on an adventure.  She took us to our usual park full of beautiful trees where we meet and right in the middle of the lesson, these people in 14th Century dresses and kilts for the men start setting up a circle of candles on the ground!!  We literally stopped our lesson because all 6 of our eyes were on them.  They brought a boombox and started playing music from the Lord of the Rings and Braveheart music.  We literally had no idea what was happening for the longest time.  Then we saw a man (dressed normal but with a skull pirate shirt one) who was blindfolded walking towards a woman who looked like Marian off of Robin Hood: the King of Theives or if you haven't seen that movie, she looked like Princess Laya from Star Wars.  Then a woman across from them, not in the circle full of candles, started reading from a handmade scroll and started reading from it.  Others came to join them and then we realized it was a wedding.  After about 2 minutes, the woman with the scroll was done reading and the husband kissed his bride and they all celebrated.  It was touching but yet kind of odd to see in the middle of a park haha.  I am grateful to be a witness of it.  The lesson afterwards went very well.  She ended up coming to church the next day with 2 of her friends!!  I love little moments of "Where are we right now" to feeling the spirit so strong that the person we teach is in tears because of the power of the Spirit.  I love my mission!!!!  And also Präsident Schwarz asked us last week to start reading to Book of Mormon in German and have it completed by the end of the year!! It is amazing to me how someone who didn't even know one word in German except for Gesundheit (Bless you when someone sneezes) can read a book and know what it is saying in less than 9 months.  Er ist so liebevoll :) Tschüß!!

Giving Compliments...

We learn so much on the mission about ourselves and how to help people, but really the more we help people, the more we figure things about ourselves.  I found out this week that complimenting someone on just a little thing goes a long way, and literally just showing love for people makes the difference in trust and appreciation.  One of the ladies in our Ward is such a good mom, a wonderful loving wife, and she is just so sweet to everybody that she talks to.  She gave a talk yesterday at church and it was about eternal families and it was nice and simple.  I appreciated even more because I understood everything that she said :)  But most of all you could really tell it came from her heart because she even cried a little bit during it.  I really appreciated it so after church I told her I really enjoyed it and it really moved me.  And that she did a wonderful job and then I gave her a really big Sister Tuschling hug and she looked at me and said, "that (the hug) was really nice and thank you.  I was so nervous and I don't know if it made sense or if I made it too simple."  Then right away she gave me a hug again :) After that she asked us to come on by on Thursday to her grill that she is hosting for the whole ward and told us to bring people that we are teaching!!  Gerne!! (Gladly!!)  The little things in life really do make a difference.  No matter what it is.  I also have learned more about honesty and trust this week too.  A lady that has been on the border of coming to church and not coming to church called us the other night.  She told us that she was having a problem that she hasn't had for a year and asked us personally to pray for her so she would have the strength to overcome it.  She had no doubt of what we thought, but she knew that she needed help and so she asked us because she trusted us.  And now this week we are praying like crazy to help her so that she can really become a strong member :)  I love honesty and trust!!  The coolest thing happened yesterday too!!  Man I love Sundays!! It is the day of miracles!  We went by a family that has not been to church in honestly 30 years and most people don't even know who they are.  So we decided to drop on by!  Right when they opened the door, smiles were on their faces and let us in right away.  They said next time we should call because then they would make spaghetti for us (can you tell they are from Italy??).  I loved them from the moment I looked into their eyes.  We asked how they got to know the church and they told us their conversion story.  Long story short, they were moving to Dortmund and on the way they lost most of their important items; clothes, appliances, pictures, etc. all but a blue book that they got from a couple young men years before.  They accepted to take it but never thought about reading it later.  So on their journey they couldn't understand why they lost everything they had besides this Book of Mormon.  They became curious and showed up at the church one day, had the missionaries over, and were baptized soon after.  Things happen for a reason :)  Again that same day we went by on a lady who hasn't been to church for a long time either hoping to finally reach her.  We had gone by more than 4 times and always hoped to reach her but never did.  But before we got to the door I looked at Sister Sprouse and said, "I want to meet her so bad and talk with her."  So when I kilingled the door, no answer.  I left my finger on the kilingel while Sister Sprouse was crossing her fingers on her right hand.  A few seconds went by and then she crossed her fingers with her left hand.  Thirty seconds later goes by and she crosses her legs (isn't she funny haha??).  Before we go I klingel one more time and then the magical "buzzzzz" happens.  That means someone inside lets you in!!! Woo were we happy!!!  We see her face and she wasn't too happy to see us because we came a bad time but she let us in but said "5 mintues."  We take what we can get always!!!!  We ended up staying for an hour and a half talking about Dortmund and how she loves family history and how she grew up in the church.  She is an awesome woman and has lived such a full life.  She was even part of the building of our church building back in the 60s!!  She said we could come back any time too :)  I love little miracles and tender mercies that Heavenly Father gives us.  He is so loving and merciful and He truly loves us so much, we can't even comprehend it.  I love this work and I love my Heavenly Father, and I love my Savior Jesus Christ and thank Them everyday for my life and this experience that I get to enjoy here in Germany.  Liebe, Sister Tuschling