Transfers, Service und Institute

Morgen!!!

What a crazy fortnight! So the first week of this fortnight:  Monday not much at all happened as I expected! Tuesday was transfer day and as we were staying in Bern we didn't have to do anything but missionary work, but being the great gentlemen that we are, we offered our help the Thun Sisters. Their area was closing down, so both Sisters were moving. So we had an early start to go down to Thun and help the Sisters get their bags onto the train to Zürich! It was ridiculous how heavy and big their bags were! Typical Sisters! haha! Tuesday afternoon we may have found our golden family/couple! We were dooring and this guy came to the door and he's never heard of the church before and was really interested in our message of the family!!! His wife was away with work until the weekend when he would speak to her and we could come by again next weekend! He was relatively young, so a family may be coming soon - fingers crossed!! How exciting! It really does prove how prayer works! We have a golden potential by the looks of things! I'll have to keep you posted on them!! 

We also passed our flat inspection this week! Apparently it was one of the cleanest apartments they inspected this transfer! haha! (Mom, you must have taught me well!) In other news, I'm guessing you got the picture I sent!?! Well we went by a member in the ward and that is the view from his front door!!! Crazy beautiful, right? Well this member - the other members talk about him like he's royalty or something, so we did a bit of research! It turns out his family are like the royal heirs of Canton Bern, which is a ridiculously huge Canton in Switzerland!! And they own castles all over the place! He lives on a massive piece of land with holiday homes and everything - with that stunning view I sent to you! Crazy right? 

The Stunning View

The Mountains are capped with Snow

We had Stake Conference this weekend and it was great! The Stake President is so dedicated to missionary work and especially member-missionary work, which is great!

Well, as you know, we are the JAE Elders... one of the JAE told me they know someone from Birmingham, who trained him on his mission... It turns out he served in Greece Athens and Joe Arnold was his trainer!!! Crazy stuff! Small world hey!  

We have already had snow! We were doing service 2 weeks back and it started snowing on us! It was so cold.

Our District

Week 2 of the fortnight, on P-Day we went up the Gurten again and it was pretty cool!! In the evening we had a DA with a former investigator! She's not interested in learning more at present, but wanted to feed us and get to know the new missionaries! She's cool!

Tuesday we did some service for another former investigator!! It wasn’t quite the type of service project we were expecting - it was more administrative! Weirdest service ever!!!!

I wanted to get a poppy for remembrance day tomorrow, but they don't commemorate it in Switzerland. There is an English church in Bern that does sell Poppies, but it is only open the same times as our church, so no luck with getting one this time round! :(

Institute was pretty cool this week! Instead of a lesson, every now and then they will do a 'Highlight Abend' and this time we have 3 JAE's leaving for their missions. We had JAE who have served speak for a little about their missions and experiences and advice; and then the leaving JAE's bore their testimonies. It was well cool!! Plus one of the JAE that Elder Little and I get along with has decided to start her papers. It's quite cool actually! She's been thinking about it for a while and spoke to us about it and stuff! And then when we were coming back from Stake Conference on the train, we were speaking and I asked her if she's prayed about it and she was like, yeah! And then I asked if she's been specific in her prayers and she was like 'What do you mean?' So I briefly told her about the need to pray specifically and she was amazed and said it made so much sense. So Monday we got a message from her thanking me for reminding her to pray specifically, as she hasn't felt so happy for a long time. And then Tuesday evening she told me she is going to speak to Bishop on Sunday and start her papers... How cool! I guess that's my little miracle story of the week!!

On Saturday we had this thing called 'Nacht der Religionen' It is an event throughout Bern where most of the churches across the city open up for the evening.  

So all about 'Nacht der Religionen' - It's a pretty big event in Bern.  They host these nights all over Switzerland, but this time it was the turn for Bern to host the night. 
So most of Saturday, we were helping the Ward Mission Leader set up for the evening. The evening is not allowed to be used as a Proselyting activity (which is a bit weird, considering that its an evening to speak about what we believe). Initially, we weren't invited to attend, but then our GML told us that he wanted us to be there. However, we were told "no name tags and to wear 'normal' clothes" and we were also to introduce ourselves by our first names. Now that was strange after getting used to introducing myself as Elder Robertson. I had to revert to being just "Ammon" (for one night!) It was a great evening and hopefully it will bring some referrals our way from some of the interested people.

Until then! Auf Wiedersehen!