"Spiser ikke noe av dere middag?"

This weeks quote comes from a member who is in charge of the missionary dinner sign up calendar. She called all of the members to repentance in a meeting where a brother in charge of missionary work was presenting a plan for members and missionaries to better work together. Her solution was having the missionaries over to dinner to get to know us better and then the process of getting members on teaches will be a lot more natural. She stressed that dinner is such a simple thing that maybe tends to get complicated in some people's heads. She repeated again and again that missionaries will eat toast for dinner if you give it to them. This is so true with other things as well. A lot of times I will find myself thinking "if I could only have the perfect contacting approach, then people would be more interested and receptive". Then after much hesitation because I don't think that my efforts are good enough, I find that I have missed several opportunities to talk to someone that maybe was interested and ready. It is a process of letting go that expectation of perfectionism, but I have learned that the Lord magnifies our best efforts and along the way we can stop and see how much better we have become just by experiencing things that work after trial and error. 

This past week we have seen a lot of President and Søster Tew. We had Sone Konferanse on Wednesday and then a teach and dinner at the mission home. They were so nice to invite a couple of the people that we are teaching and the spirit was so powerful in their home as we talked about how central Jesus Christ is in Heavenly Father's plan. Their son in the United States was even able to skype with them and speak with them in Arabisk because he had studied middle eastern studies in college.
After the meeting on Sunday, one of the older ladies came up to us with the old mission leader and said that she has been telling the sister missionaries here for months that she is always able to go on teaches. She told us that she can go anytime, 4 o' clock in the morning even! It was great because we had a teach yesterday that we hadn't been able to find anyone to be with. We asked her right then and there and she quickly accepted. Yesterday was the best lesson that I have ever had with this man and it was because of her. Our friend is very into meditation and has a little bit too much time alone with his own thoughts. Teaching him is very difficult because he often interrupts and goes off on long tangents filled with a lot of symbolism. This lady was great though! She completely changed the atmosphere of the entire lesson with her bold testimony and her statements of gospel truth. She opened the door for Søster Zenger and I to teach him and for the first time meeting with him I felt like I was being heard. It is funny how the Lord works because I never would have thought putting an 84 year old fiery woman and a middle aged man whose life consists mainly of meditation and learning from Indiske monker together. I am so grateful that the Lord always knows better. 

Funny Highlights:
- During our lesson at the mission home, we were talking about the Holy Ghost and they thought we said Holocaust! After we realized why he was so confused, we all had a good laugh.

- Another language misunderstanding happened when someone we are teaching thought that vantro was "a lot of faith" as we were reading in the book of mormon. It actually means unbelief. A little bit different haha! Glad we cleared that up! 

- We met a man who is 94 years old and going on normal walks, active as ever. After giving him a book we took a selfie! You can decide how old he looks! 

Thank you for all of the emails, prayers, love, and support! Hope that you had a good St. Patrick's Day! Moral of the email today: find the local missionaries and find out how you can help them even in the smallest ways!
Love, Søster Starkie