Tempel ist ein segen des Herrn

Guten Morgen,

Hope all of you are having s great week. Please send my greeting so everyone and tell them I love and miss them :) how much longer do you have left on vacation? By the time you come home you will only have 3 weeks to prepare for hunter to come home! That is insane! I still cannot believe it.

Wow we had a MLC this week it was so good. President Fingerle has changed a lot of things in the mission already. One of them is his focus on the temple. He has such a strong hope that we really can not only help the new members make it to the temple but really untimely use that as our entire mission vision.  He changed the entire new missionary conference so that when we arrive we will all go to the Freiberg temple together and then when we go home we will also end our missions there. The only sad part is, is that the temple is under renovation until next year. Lame huh? However it will be good. They created a new district called the temple district, and they are a set of Elders and a set of sisters called there to be temple Elders and Sisters. It's pretty cool if you ask me. It is kind of sad that I will miss out on it though, because it probably won't really be that different for the next 6 months or so. We have to wait for the Freiberg temple to open and then he has so many other plans he wants to implement.

Any who, I have a quick question about my home coming talk? Would it be possible to move it back one week after I get home? I only ask now because Kirstin Emailed me a few weeks ago and told me she wants to come for my homecoming/ homecoming talk, but also wants me to meet her so to say "fiancé" who is coming on the week of November 8th to visit so it would be a perfect opportunity. She also said that Mark wants to come as well, but I just have to let them both know soon so they can get plane tickets and make plans. Also I don't want to mess up any plans you might have already made, if you have or if family is planning on coming out? So I just want to let you know now so you have time to plan/ get back to me if that works or not?

I promise I am not trunky. I have been asking a lot of people what to do to just stay focused on the rest of my mission. I got some good goals and plans for how I can do that. I'll make sure that these two next transfers will be the best yet. Sister Fingerle did a really good lesson in MLC on keeping our minds off the world and focused on our purpose, and on The Lord. It was really good and helped me so much.

Hey I am sending you two talks, You both will love them. This is really the reason why president Fingerle has made so many changes in the mission.  They are so good they made me cry :) I thought a lot about dad, and grandpa. How amazing that hey all could go to the temple together.

I am so stoked for the next two transfers. We have so much ahead of us and so much to look forward too.
Please pray for these few people
Gloria - she should have her Baby this week
Lydia
Linda
Richard
Yaw

The Lord really has prepared these people to be ready. I want to quickly just share a story. On Friday when we had MLC, I thought about this comparison. One of the senior missionaries threw us his keys one day and asked, "What is that?" We replied "keys?" He then said "exactly those are keys to my house car and the church, I need all of them to be able to get where I need to go, and we need all the keys in our life as well. We receive the first key at baptism. That is the key to the church, however in order to receive the keys to God's kingdom we have to go to the temple. Without the temple we really can't get in." That was so profound to me and such a testimony builder of the importance of the temple. I thought a lot about it after, what it really means and our role as members after we go to the temple. I thought, when we go to the temple we 1) receive the key for ourselves. But 2 also it is like we receive a box of millions of keys that we can give to others. It's really is in our hands. The Lord has entrusted us with these keys, with his children's salvations. Of course they have the choice to except it or not, however we need to offer them a key into God's mansion first. They need an invitation from us. Also if we have a big box of keys, why wouldn't we want to share that with others? It would be pretty lonely in Heaven if our friends and Family were not there. That is one thing that makes me so excited about missionary work! To share eternal life with ALL those I loved and invited to be in the Kingdom of God with me, because really all of Gods children are invited to come in, it solely relies upon us, and their agency whether they come or not.

We are helping God with his work
Moses 1:39
39 for behold, this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

Oh by the way I am staying in Hannover :)

Thanks that’s about it I love you, and miss you
Liebe Grüße,
Sister Toma

 

P.S. Sorry this is a little weirdly written but this is what I wrote to my mission president this week you will love this dad :) 

 "So a few weeks ago my father was returning home from an EFY session at BYU. In the plane he sat next to a young man and when they started talking it just happened that this young man was an exchange student from Germany. Not only was he from Germany, however he just happened to be from Hannover?!? Coincidence... Totally not. Any who, as they continued to talk my dad found out he had be living in Utah with a member family for the last 14 month and was just returning home to his family. My dad sent me an email soon after about him, and said I needed to watch out for him and his family. Well a few weeks went by and no sign of them, I actually had talked to the Schutlze family about it, to see if they knew him because they do exchange programs. However they didn't know him. But another miracle happened. One week Tori Schultze came up to me and told me that she had met a woman who was talking to her school about options for them after school. When tori went up and told her she wanted to serve a mission for her church the woman responded with. "For what church do you want to serve a mission?" Tori told her she was a member and the woman was so excited to hear she was a member and went on to explain how her son had just returned from an exchange program, and that he had lived with members for the last 14 months. Tori remembered the story I told her earlier about my dad and asked the woman the name of her son. Again not by coincidence, it happened to be the mother of the boy who my dad met. Tori then got her information and son’s information so she could get in contact with them. That was probably back in the end of June. Well yesterday at church a family walked in I was standing at the door greeting members when a boy came up and asked, hey are you sister Toma? I looked at him kind of funny as if it wasn't obvious that I was wearing a name tag, however he continued on to introduce himself as Lucas the exchange student who met my father on his plane ride home. He came to church!! And brought his whole family with him. It was so wonderful. I had the opportunity to sit with him and his family, to get to know them a little better. After the church services I asked them how they liked it. The mom responded, that she loved it and that she felt it was so personal and the people were so nice and friendly. She then, asked her whole family if they would like to come back again on the 16 together as a family! How amazing!! The Lord is really preparing people out there. I know that this is not just Coincidence. We gave them our number and hopefully we can start meeting with them soon. God is so good, he really every day continues never ceases to amaze me. "