Was it a good week?

A good week it was. Mission Tour was in Berlin so of course it was good! Wednesday night we went to overnight with my friend Elder Braun over in Köthen, which was of course a blast. The next morning we woke up at 4 am, walked 30 minutes through the dark street of the city to catch our train to Berlin.

Elder Johnson of the Seventy was there, and he pumped us up to help our investigators to keep commitments, it was great and I learned a ton. Also I got to see all my favorite Elders of East Germany! Great time and always fun to see Berlin.

Well looking at our numbers for this week, I was thinking “wow it wasn’t that bad of a week!”, then I went back and looked at our other numbers, and I guess that’s how they usually are. I realized that as I’ve stopped counting success with numbers I’ve found more joy in it, less stress. (For all of you number crunchers out there, yes I know why they are important). Because as long as I’m trying, success will come, and not in the ways I always want, but what I want isn’t as important as what the Lord wants. I often remind myself of the quote by Einstein:

“Many of the things you can count, don’t count. Many of the things you can’t count, really count.”                                                                                                                                        

I think that is quite true, if I think about how many lessons we DIDN’T teach, will I remember the moments I had with that member, or that drunk guy on the street. BUT we are working to build a teaching pool and to find the one that is ready for the important covenant with our Father in Heaven.

One way we are looking to accomplish this is through members! We met with a few this week, and to hear some of their conversion stories is amazing. There’s a man in our ward that when he was investigating the church back in the GDR, had a dream of him looking into a room full of people dressed in white. Not until after he joined the church, he saw a picture of the Celestial room in the Salt lake Temple, did he realize what his dream was of. He and his wife have amazing testimonies, and won’t hesitate to tell you about “the tornado that went by our house in 2001”.

Although there is a lack of investigators, I’m loving Bernburg! It’s beautiful here, I’m having a good time, a lot of cool people here. And plus, we get to pass the bears by the castle every once in a while!

This week, I invite you as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ to LOOK for the blessing and miracles you see in your week and have a good one at that.

Elder Winkel

I received a referral from my boy Elder Ferrin down in Ghana! I called
the guy up and got to talk to him, he’s from Hamburg, so I forwarded
it to the Elders there!

This week we have interviews with President Fingerle, in the one and only city of HANNOVER, I’m pumped! Hannover is one of my favorite cities, we also got permission to spend a couple of hours of our P-day there. It will be sweet.