Dear family,

On Monday night, Sister Parker and I had our first split of the transfer. Sister Parker went to Bonn with Sister Gardner and I was left for the wolves here in the dirty d with Sister Carrol. Having only been in the area for four days you could say I was just slightly nervous for the inevitable disasters that would stem from my having no idea where I ever am or what I'm ever doing...However, it turned out to be a day of miracles from start to finish. 

Let's start with 3 AM, shall we? 

The alarm on my phone hasn't been on since I got here, but Sister Parker’s is always on so I just haven't worried about it. I went to bed the night before having totally forgot about it. I woke up at 3 AM to a voice saying "turn your phone alarm on"...so I did. And then I went back to sleep. And then I woke up at 6:30 like I was supposed to because THE HOLY GHOST WOKE ME UP AND REMINDED ME TO TURN ON MY ALARM. Man. He's always got my back, huh? 

After studies, we met with Kai! The Sisters met him in the train before I got here, but hadn't ever been able to set up an appointment. There was lots of confusion about where and when we were meeting, but the Lord worked everything out and we were able to have a super solid lesson!! He'd been reading in the Book of Mormon and has TONS of questions which we were able to clarify and explain. 

On our way home from meeting with him, I felt like we should get off the bus a stop early and walk the rest of the way home. When we got off the bus we saw a woman with a little boy across the street from us, so we walked over to talk with them. The lady was incredibly nice!!! We'd only been talking for about 30 seconds when she not only accepted a Book of Mormon, but gave us her address so we could stop by and talk more!! 

We continued walking home when we crossed paths with an African lady surrounded by a few kids. We stopped her, introduced ourselves, and started explaining a little bit about the church. We told her about the Book of Mormon and were like "actually, we have one in English in our apartment. It's just right around the corner! Can we go grab it real fast??" She walked with us over to our apartment, then walked us all the way back over to her house so we could know where she lives!!! She wants us to come over and teach her more!!! Yippppeeee (: 

On Thursday after zone training, we went on another split and I got to go to Munster with Sister Alves! On the way over there, we sat by a man from Africa named Mr. Johnson. We started talking to him about his family, and shortly found out that his wife had passed away a little while ago. After having just spent an entire day roll-playing teaching the plan of salvation (that's what the zone training was about), I knew it was no coincidence we were speaking with him. We asked him what he believed about life after death, and basically, he recited lesson two of preach my gospel verbatim. Like, we're talking "Christ preached to the spirits who were in prison" and everything. I couldn't believe how incredibly prepared he was. We talked to him the whole train ride home, and our response to just about everything he said was either "we believe that too" or "that's exactly what we teach as missionaries!" SUCH a neat experience. 

Basically, I'm loving life right now. This new calling is definitely teaching me a thing or two about sacrifice (any personal time I once had i.e. meal hours and bedtime is now completely taken up with meetings and phone calls and paperwork) but I honestly wouldn't have it any other way. That's what a mission’s about right? Giving it ALL to the lord. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do just that (: Sister Parker and I are working extremely hard, but having an absolute blast at the same time. I think I've laughed more these last two weeks than I have in the entire last 11 months combined. We get along really well. Probably a little too well. We may or may not stay up and pillow talk every night until like 12:30....haha shhh. 

Love y'all lots!! 
Hope you have a great week (: 

-Brookie