The rains came down - 7/14/14

This has been a nice very very exciting week. I think I will start with the apartment news and sweet miracles that go along with it.

Thursday: It was a nice peaceful morning in our cockroach dungeon when suddenly I get a phone call from the Kanzlers saying "Do you have the key to the new apartment? Bishop Marcus is picking you up in 2 hours." So we quickly packed everything up and bought about 10 cans of bug spray and evacuated the apartment. AHH I have never seen so many cockroaches in my life. thousands and thousands. We spent almost the entire day lifting furniture (after intense spraying) to the car and moving. It took all day and was sooo tiring and yeah. I have not felt so tired since I had a 15 hour shift working Asphalt. We get to the new apartment and we have no water and no light and no light bulbs. And our generator was too big to fit. So we went on candle light. Thankfully we have a generator that fits now and light bulbs. 

Miracles: So along with all the moving it truly is a miracle we are still alive and have not gotten sick. Especially since I have been in the dungeon for 5 months. The cockroaches were living INSIDE the water filter. They are waterproof! They are crazy. So basically the water filter hasn't been doing much and we have been drinking cockroach water for the past 5 months. It truly is a miracle that I am still healthy and alive. Also I'm so grateful that we have water. We have to go down and carry buckets up to the apartment for water and we can only do that from 8pm to 2am. But we have water which is such an awesome blessing. 

District: There has been some changes in the mission. Actually we heard the wrong news and L5 (lesson 5) is to be taught by the missionaries now. So its sweet we are basically training ourselves on how to effectively do this. Also the district is a lot happier. I am getting a long very well with the sisters and with the elders here. I think one thing that really helped was now we are doing evening prayers as a district and spending about 10 minutes of just miracles of the day. It is still a LOT of work but its good. I feel a lot less stressed since there is more happiness here. 

Investigators: We had a pretty serious lesson with Bro J. He is having a problem with smoking because of his depression and his idleness. He really just needs something to do in the day. And the family problems are just getting worse. The gospel really is his only hope. We are still working really hard to help him and are even trying to invite him to proselyte with us small so he can learn and also share his talents. But most importantly be productive. Harold is awesome haha He is soooo funny. But he is doing really good. He has been coming to church early and is really participating. Stella is doing pretty good. Lucy has been coming back to church. It was scary because she was going less active a bit. Also we have one investigator named Fatima. She is from Milan, Italy. haha She was talking about how it was hard for her to adapt to the food here because she was so used to pasta, lasagna, and pizza. And I was like no you can't do that to me haha. Oh it will be good to enjoy sweet sweet food. 

Spiritual thought: So I have been reading Jesus the Christ and I am almost finished. I was really thinking about how voluntary Christ's death was. He could have easily chosen to die even right after the garden or at anytime. It probably was a temptation just to die and return to his father where there was no suffering. But he truly endured to the end for us. He is the greatest example of enduring to the end. I was just reflecting on how sometimes I think of how hard this mission is and how easy it would be just to give up and eat cake and go back to my blissful family. But that is not the Father's will right now. I need to endure to the end so I can bless the lives of others and in turn God will bless me. So that's my small thought.

Love Elder Christian Lehr

 

oh I forgot to add the reason for the title. Yesterday it was raining SOOOO hard. IT was interesting I literally just saw a wall of water moving at me. I love the rain it's soooo sweet. So yeah that's that.

(Note from Mom: Thanks to all who pray for the missionaries. I know that all those prayers help keep them safe and able to continue to do the Lord's work.)