Monday, September 14, 2009

Pay Days

Sometimes it is hard to measure success. It seems that no one is keeping score. We just work and hope. But every once in while we see a score and that keeps us going till the next time we are rewarded with a success. Yesterday the Sister Missionaries had a baptism. A young adult that they contacted through street contacting, only about three months ago. He is a refugee from Africa and speaks only English. The baptism Service was conducted all in English. A Councilor in the Bishopric conducted the service and the Bishop spoke. They did a remarkable job. Martin is a well educated young men. He lives in a group home with a lot of other refugees. To the baptism service he brought several of his friends. We hope that they too felt the wonderful Spirit that was at the baptism service.
You may have read that the Church closed the Temple in Nigeria for safety and security reasons for an undetermined period of time. There is a lot of unrest in that country and Germany has taken in a lot of refugees from that land. He is taking some schooling in Germany and hopes that he can go back sometime to his own country. The Ward has given him a very warm welcome. It was good for the ward to provide some wonderful refreshments for all of those that came to the Baptism.
Today is Sunday and he was confirmed a member of the Church. We wished we could have been there, but we had an assignment to be at the Mülheim Ward today. It is a Ward that is about an hour drive from Dortmund. Several of our Young adults live there and we were to give them some encouragement to make the effort to come to more of our activities at the center. Anina encouraged them by providing some of her home made cookies at the Sunday-School class and in her way, letting them know that they are loved. At Sacrament Meeting one of the assigned speakers did not show up, so the Bishop asked me to do double duty. It is surprising of what can be done when the Lord helps you. The Spirit was at the meeting and the message was well received.
The other wonderful thing that happened was a wedding that took place on Friday. It was a wedding or sealing that took place in the Frankfurt Temple. In fact the young couple are making their home Oberhausen. Oberhausen is located with in the Mülheim Ward. It was good to see them at the services today.
This next Friday there will be another wedding for one of our Young Adults sisters, who waited for her missionary to return from a mission. One of the barometers of success of an Out-Reach Center is the number of temple marriages that come from a center.
This next week there is another Baptism scheduled in the Hamm Ward. A lady that is originally from Vietnam, who owns a couple of restaurants is getting baptized with two of her children. The Son that is getting baptized is a young adult and has been coming to the center for the last couple of weeks.
Needless to say, with all of that activity we are keeping occupied and are enjoying our work.
We close with this week's report.


The picture shows the new convert, Cyril Martins; the two Missionaries, Sister Seiter and Sister Moline and Bishop Wojciechowski (Bishop of the Dortmund Ward).

2 comments:

The Mad Tern said...

Hi Elder and Sister Diederich-

While looking for something else, I stumbled upon your blog and loved it! There's a good reason for that. My son is Elder Lawler, one of the Meschede elders you took to Meißner-Vockerode and later helped to move. Elder Lawler told us of both experiences in his letters, but it is good to hear it all from a different viewpoint, and also, by the way, get a lot more detail. I hope you don't mind that we shared the link to your blog with some of the other Germany Hamburg Mission parents, including Sister Moline's mom, who was elated to see it!

John Lawler
Vancouver, WA, USA

The Mad Tern said...

PS Sorry you had to wear yourselves out helping with the Meschede move. I know that was a tough time for Elder Lawler, so I am sure he appreciated your coming to the rescue.