2009 Baptism Number Four

Jose Flores (on Sister Gill's right) is the newest member of our Branch. He is from Africa, studying at the University. The Elders have been teaching him and we have been blessed to be part of it. He is a sweet, humble man and we do love him.

These are some of the members of our Branch who traveled to the Baptism.

The Kitchen crew, fixing the food (or maybe just eating it).

Here we are with Jose, waiting for the train to take us back to Magdeburg.

Our favorite "stand up" comedian. Marcel was our second baptism of the year. Remind you of anyone?

It takes an hour to get home on the train. Elder Wittwer and Jose visit, Sister Vasileva makes appointments to teach as soon as they get home and Elder Stekkinger.....

..sleeps, it has been a long day (week) (month)

SWANS

The Elders gave the two biggest swans to Sister Gill for her birthday and we made the rest for our JAE Samstag Activity.

Elder Stekkinger was the master creator who directed us.

Informationsabend (Information Eveining)

This Evening was so successful that we paraded our "Standards of Excellence Banner" around our apartment. Like Moroni of old, our District president rent his shirt and we wrote and signed the standards we all agreed to follow.

We are so happy to be part of this District.

President Burkhardt and Elder Stekkinger getting ready for the Power Point presentation that explained our beliefs. We hosted 30 students from a University Christian Group who asked if they could come and learn about our Church. A missionary's dream!!



Elder Stekkinger put together a professional presentation using the missionaries and some of the Branch members.




President Burkhardt welcomed everyone and talked about our moral standards.

Sister Vasileva talked about missionary work.

Our chapel was filled to capacity. There was a good spirit and the students stayed late and enjoyed the members, the missionaries and the cookies.

Lots of questions were answered.

Finally someone who could speak English!!

Baptisms and Transfers

Early morning train ride to our Zone Conference in Berlin. Note the Elders reflection in the window taking the picture.

Our second baptism in January was Marcel Wieneke whose first contact with the church was when he came to Sven's baptism. He was baptized a week later. He is a cute boy and we love him.

A change in our District. Goodbye to Elder Orton and hello to our new District leader Elder Stekkinger. He is from Holland. Sorry the picture is so poor but it is part of the history.



Our new District Leader, Elder Stekkinger and his missionaries. He is dedicated and works hard to keep our district on the top. He was the Assistant to the President and will probably finish his mission here.



Goodbye to Sister Hoffman. She was blitzed to Bernburg. We laughed and cried togeter and we miss her.


On our way to way to the Bahnhof (train station) to go to the baptism for Shen. His mother was the one who cooked delicious Chinese dinners. Now that she is gone back to China he continues to invite us over. We helped him make dumplings the other night.



Here we are again at our third baptism in January to baptize Shen. Sister Hoffman was able to attend since she and Sister Vasileva taught him. It took him a little longer to decide to be baptized. They taught him for 2 months. Note our new roomate, Sister Liboschik next to Sister Gill. She is German and speaks very little English. We love her. We now have two German roomates.



Sister Wells got out of her comfort zone to sing alto in a duet with Elder Stekkinger for the program. They sang "Oh How Lovely Was the Morning." There were a few compliments.