Hey Familie! and HAPPY BIRFDAY; DADDY-O!
Today Cottbus is DEAD. As in not a store is open in sight and hardly any people are on the street--everyone is celebrating Reformations Tag and from what I understand, it's big here in the East and it's a good excuse to not have to work or go to school, and thus, everyone wants to meet with us today, on our beloved Pday. Which is not very fun, so we're probably going to give ourselves a longer Pday tomorrow, seeing how we only have time for emails today. That's why we're emailing a bit later in the day than usual! We were at an elderly member's house and she wanted to show us how to make Amerikaners, some delicious cookies that she's pretty well-known for. Apparantly she puts rum in them! I don't think Sis. Allen and I will be putting any in ours no matter what! It was funny because as she was setting the dough on the pan, she kept licking the dough and made us try it and we're thinking, "ack! there's rum in this!" but it was pretty funny. It's weird; I would've never guessed that Germans cook with so much alkohol, or at least have so many random things with alchol inside! Zum Beispiel, I don't know HOW OFTEN our investigators give us chocolate. That's totally fine, natülich, one sister always says, "Etwas für die Seele!" when she gives us some, but our investigators, meine gute, we always have to check the wrappers, and almost 50% of the time we have to say no thanks, or chuck 'em because they've got alkohol in 'em! Meeeine gute.
But hey! This week went by so abnormally fast! I'm sure it went by faster for Sis. Allen. She has 2 weeks left but she's still a hard worker; she doesn't want the end of her mission to get in the way but we can't control how all the members always ask her and her mom sends emails that say "trunky alert!" as the subject! She's always a really good example and knows how to balance hard work and good fun.
Guess what, though? Apparantly Sis. Allen and I are on a roll, because our outside-H&M-kontakt, Sven is now our investigator! We met him actually outside a movie theater and talked with him for a while about our missionary work, since Germans here sometimes find it highly fascinating that we're willing to do missionary work--in Germany--auf deutsch--and in Cottbus, which they find komisch. But we talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and he interrupted us at one point and said, "well can I read this book?" and I'm thinking, "well lemme pull out the copy we brought just for you from my backpack, shall we?" We don't have a set next appointment because he travels a lot for work, but he was very eager to start reading and to meet up again with more questions.
Tuesday was phenomenal, because we had our temple trip! It was an all-day affair, we had to take the train from here to Dresden and then to Freiberg, but it was so worth it! They insisted that I had English translation since I'm still pretty frisch so that was okay, but I felt like most of it I could follow auf deutsch. There was definitely a lot of old people, and then our little distrikt of 6 elders and us 2 sisters. There was one lady there that was soo happy to see us sisters and she told us that two sisters were the ones that taught her the gospel, and so when she sees sisters she just feels all excited again! She literally flitted around everwhere like a fairy godmother or something, and constantly waving at us, saying, "seee-stas!"
Wednesday we had DCM in Görlitz so that meant more travel, and such.
Plus I went on my first Tausch this Thursday and got back Friday afternoon in BERLIN! I was in the Tiergarten area, which is literally smack dab in the middle of Berlin, so I got to see a lot of craaazy people. It was actually a bit weird to OYM because just about every other person was Muslim or flaming, so that was interesting. I was paired up with Sis. Openshaw who used to serve in Cottbus before I arrived so I told her all about the same investigators that we know and the members. We didn't do a whole bunch because either our Termins fell through or she didn't want to venture too far from the scheduled routes because she's only been there for a transfer and was afraid we'd get lost--and she didn't even bring along a map! But everything was pretty fun! We were actually called by the senior missionaries to get to the church ASAP, which was so worth it, because these two little 17yr. olds were there wanting to interview us and other church leaders for some Abitur projekt for school and they were doing a project on our church! I thought it was pretty interesting that they picked us to do research on, but also that they were brave enough to come the church to ask for interviews! So that was flippin' awesome, we got to tell them basic core beliefs, share our testimonies and it was all just really fun! Berlin Tiergarten is crazy but they get to teach a lot of students and their Institute is huge and fun, I got to meet a couple of really friendly members my age and their English was super good! So we were mainly travelling around, there's a huge zoo that we passed a lot but we didn't get to see much else that is Berlinisch, but hopefully I'll make it up there soon for Ptag with Sis. Allen!
Anna has been one of my favorite parts of the week! She was so flippin excited for us to come over, and she wanted us to cook with her, and meet her kids and husband, so we've met the family and they all loved us, it was crazy awesome! We didn't get much of a chance to talk to the husband about our church, it was mainly time for him to get to know us; I think he was a bit hesitant to meet us, mostly because he thought his English wasn't good enough! We're always somehow the town meanace, it's funny how people are frightened by us big bad sisters. But I think everything's good and we've already got a time this week set up to meet! It's just ridiculous how prepared Anna is for this gospel. She said that she was already approached by missionaries in Hungary but didn't have time to meet them, and she actually already has a BoM in Hungarian that her GRANDMOTHER gave her! And she brought it with her here! So before we got there, she had already read bits and pieces! Heavenly Father has already done a good amount of work for us, and we're so excited to teach her more. We're bring the member friend with us this week so that she can talk to us sisters and Sis. Schmidt all together, and one of Sis. Schmidt's friends offered to watch all the kids so that we could have a deeper conversation, I guess. We're be-yond excited!
Saturday was also a big day, meeting with Marina & Bernd a couple investigating the church and Evidence. M&B keep inviting us to restaurants and it's hard to pull out the BoM when we do go, so we have to do something about that, but they're super nice. Evidence is also doing really well, but we're going to need to review the first lesson again, because he's still confused about certain things and we want to get him more excited to read the Book of Mormon since he's a student and I'm sure REALLY doesn't have time for any extra reading!
Sunday was be-yond busy with a whopping 8 investigators at church! It's crazy being a missionary on Sundays because we do 2 day's worth of work in one, and everyone wants to talk to us all at once, we have to entertain and juggle all our wonderful investigators, plus the members want to talk to us, ack! Being popular takes work! ;) And on top of all of this--we had someone actually come to visit the church to investigate--a student from Berlin studying here in Cottbus. He was contacted by elders a YEAR ago and still remembered it enough to actually come to church! He's flippin busy so we can't meet with him right away, but all the members were asking us about our "new investigator" and we had to tell them he's just as much new to us as he is for them! Our bishop is alway really happy with us, and if anything good in our ward happens it's the sisters' fault. Fine by me!
I don't have any updates on really any of our other investigators, especially Christina because we're meeting with her tommorrow and we're gathering all our wits so we can invite her to give up smoking without backing off so easily. And I've been working on my knitting so hopefully she won't rip it all out! Haha, least of my worries.
It's amazing how much we've got done in Cottbus this week with all the travelling outside of Cottbus! I was out of Cottbus for two day's worth spread out over four days! But my overall feeling this week has been feelings of gratitude; Heavenly Father's spoiling me rotten and I'm just trying to collect all the blessings he's sending our way! I know that these kind of miracles don't happen in every area all the time, so I'm savoring every day I have here in Cottbus. Even the weather is pretty nice! Fall here is absolutely gorgeous and it's been hardly cold or even windy, pretty handy for us Sisters!
To answer dad's question: I don't think a lot of people here don't think we're Christians, and I don't think they would care otherwise because we really only talk to two or maybe 3 glaublig people a week--everyone else is Atheist, or just say so because they don't want to believe in anything. If anything, people always think we're J-Ws which you can understand is so annoying! Often if people actally stop and talk to us, they ask us if we're a part of that church and we say heeeck-to-the-no, all auf deutsch of course!
Anyway, I think that's about it. I'm just super happy with Anna's progress and it goes to show that members are so important in this work, too. We would've neeever met Anna if it weren't for Sis. Schmidt and it reminds me to be helpful to future missionaries in future wards to help them find people too!
Have a good week this week, and treat dad well on his Geburtstag! I love you guys!!
love,
Whit
About Me
- WhitMissionBlog
- Wie geht's! As a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Berlin Germany mission, I'm bound to have lots of fun experiences!
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
The work continues...
This past week was flippin insane so I hope I can remember all the good stuff that's happened! The week seemed to go by pretty fast but still super great. When I look everyday for miracles they always seem to find us!
We have a goal every week to make out 7 appointments, or one a day, of just meeting people on the street and finding those with interest to actually meet with us so we can teach and give them a Book of Mormon, and this week was our first week of getting a perfect 7, so I know it' possible! Of course not all of them turned out perfectly but to talk to people and share testimonies is why I'm here. One in particular was amazing because an American heard us speaking English while we were cutting through our Altstadt and he stopped and wanted to talk because we spoke English. But he called over his friend passing by, a German, and we made out an appointment with him! It's cool to see that the Lord knows where we're going and where to send blessings. This situation was just bizzare because it all happened majorly outside of our beloved H&M (i have yet to check it out!!) because some Elders came to visit us to do Visa stuff and one is sort of a problem Elder, who was a jerk and was like, "I'm going to H&M" and his companion had no choice but to follow--he's a Senior comp that I swear I have no patience for because he just breaks the rules and everyone knows it but it's hard to discipline him, y'know? Like he wanted to go and it wasn't our Pday and used his funds to go to a leadership training mtg on a stupid suit. Ugh. Anyway, while we were waiting for him to be done being a jerk-wad, this whole situation just unfolded. Even though we were in a frustrating situation, the Lord sent us random people to still let us do our missionary work. And the companion that was outside waiting with us was SO happy to actually be doing work, even when it wasn't "his" Termin, y'know? He's one of the most positive Elders I've ever seen.
My favorite part of the week was meeting with our new investigator, ANNA or the Hungarian Mutti. She was a member referral that we met 2 weeks ago while visiting said member and she speaks really good English and yup, she's from Hungary. She officially wanted us to teach her more, and her whole family, because she wants something to bind her family together and after hearing our testimonies about families and how we're so close because of the gospel and what it teaches us. It was cool for me to see something that I have that Anna desperately wants. She has moved a lot and is currently going through the "settling in" phase of moving and her children miss Hungary and she's waiting for furniture and stuck with a messy house trying to find a place for everything. Sound familiar? I told her about our experiences with moving and how no matter where we were in the world, we had the gospel and I had my family, and she lit up like a Christmas tree. How cool is it that the Lord knew she needed to hear that? We told our member all of the good news and she teared up in joy to see that her friend is willing and yearning to learn about the gospel. She even has other referrals in mind that she wants to share! Our members are fired up about missionary work, but to see her sooo happy about her friend meant a lot to us! This Friday we get to meet ANNA again with her family; look how blessed Sis. Allan and I are! We get to teach a FAMILY!
Haha, CHRISTINE on the other hand, not so fun, but it's teaching me patience, that's for sure! Dad, we asked a doctor in the ward, and we pretty much feel like, yeah, it's all Quatsch, she's off her rocker with the whole "the doctor says I shouldn't stop smoking" bit, but it's hard to call her bluff without being rude I guess. But we taught her about baptism and invited her to baptism, and haha, she throws another curve-ball. See, we wanted to either commit her to baptism or "give her a break" and neither of those things happened. She says she wants to be baptized in FOUR years when all of her kids are 8 (her girl and her boyfriend's kids, ugh such drama) "so none of them will be confused why mama and papa are baptized and they aren't" which we all know happens to tons of families all the time and kid are totally fine. So, we are going to see how serious she really is about this goal of hers and we're going to prep her by asking her to stop smoking! If she really cares about her kids, she would be responsible and stop anyway. It's sad to see that she can't even handle a whole Termin without rolling up her own (I guess it's cheaper??) and having a smoke outside. Next step is getting her to live Law of Chastity. And then of course after all of this stuff, she's all excited to knit with us. She said my stitches were too tight and just pulled it all out so I could start over, so yeah, it's fun having her turn down baptism and watch her rip out my practice work. GEDULD! haha
Dad, just to let you know, the monthy funds are put into an account that's taken care of by one of the people in the mission office. Each missionary has a card and it just gets put on the card and we can pull out what we need at local ATMs. We also though get refunded for travelling expenses so we never run out if we have a busy travel week like this one for example.
I got to for example go on my first Tausch in LEIPZIG! Or I gues, "Leipsch", they like to abbrev in Leipzig apparrantly! But Sis. Allan and the other senior comps went to a leadership meeting there and I was on a "golden Tausch" with Sis. Faerber who was actually in the MTC when I was, so that was a wonderful reunion! :) We mainly did OYMing (Open Your Mouth) and helped her make out a few appointments, visited a member and taught a lesson. Leipzig is huge and amazing! I took some pics while we were there, and I will send the camera card hopefully today or next Monday, seeing how I'm behind on that, and I figured that would be fun for Dad' bday coming up! :) This upcoming week will be lots of fun travelling, too! Another Tausch in Dresden and we get to go to the Freiberg Temple tomorrow!! Ausgezeichnet! Because we're serving so East of the mission, we get to go once a transfer, I think, which is a privilege, seeing how it's not the same for all those serving in the Western side, so I won't take it for granted!
But this last Pday I finally got to do some "sigh-seeing" in Cottbus to the Branizt Park, I forget if I spellt that right. But it's this park with a random pyramid with grass and what have you all over it in the middle of a lake, pretty random but you know how I enjoy art, no matter how crazy it is! It was actually really warm and so we walked in the walking paths they have, it was just absolutely gorgeous! There are pictures of that, too! It was just so random; apparantly the guy who set it all up died a while back and he's actually buried UNDER the lake pyramid. Creepy. And I don't even wanna know how they even do that. *shudders*
Yup! One of our Pdays I think we'll try and make it all the way to downtown Berlin and see the Checkpoint Charlie stuff and the, oh jeez I can't even remember what it's called, but just the iconic wall--thingie, roundabout with the statue, just fun stuff that Sis. Allan wants to see before she leaves, and I'm willing to join too of course! Just find the name of all that stuff and put it in so I sound like I know what I'm talking about! :P
Cool fact of the week: we had 6 investigators come to church this Sunday! Some of them came because we asked them nicely to come because we sung a duet of "Because I Have Been Given Much" during Sacrament. We also got to teach a Sunday school class for two part member couples, and it was a joy to see them both there and help the non-member wives and the less-active husbands. We got to teach about the scriptures and how they help us learn what we need to know today, and really see the whole picture of our purpose here in life rather than just a quarter of it with the Bible.
Each week just keeps getting better and better, and I think I'm pretty much over jet-lag, although Sundays are still sort of a battle of staying awake! I get bad migranes and it's hard to understand Deutsch when all I want to do is rest my eyes, but I didn't fall asleep! I'm noticing it's less and less of a problem and I want to be able to work all day on Sunday rather than sleep, so I'm not letting it get to me just yet! I also remember that they have a scene in "Errand of Angels" where the main girl almost falls asleep in a lesson and I'm like, "that's so true!" Sundays are just our longest days and we also work the hardest. Granted, I'm not tired if I'm standing up or walking around, it's just when I'm sitting and full of delicious food...and Rotkohl, meine gute.
Anyway, see how awesome the Lord is? I alway knew that Sis. Allan is the perfect 1st companion for me, but seeing what this Elder in our district has to deal with this transfer...and how patience and faithful he is, it makes me even more grateful that Sis. Allan follows all the rules and wants to, because she's shown me that yes, it's frustrating at times, but we need the miracles that we see everyday, and they don't come if we aren't willing to work for them and be obedient. I don't think sisters have much of a problem, at least I would think they don't because they're out here by choice, but I really hope Jordan doesn't get any Dummkopfs for trainers. Or just at all, because missionaries are out here to serve, not BE served, and our attitudes about our work make all the difference when it comes to finding success. I'm sure Jordan's hearing an ear-full in his mission prep class! Speaking of brothers, say hello to Nicholas and Justin for me! It's nice to know they can "beat up" people for me if I need them to! Just kidding, but my little bros are AWESOME. And I mean little as in younger, I'm sure Justin is taller than me by now? Sis. Allan's family is ALL blackbelts except her in karate, so that's pretty cool.
I'm glad to hear that Mormor is doing okay and that hopefully she can get better, but I know that it's probably über frustrating. We actually have a few widows in the ward because of the Cold War and such. I've heard stories already of how Cottbus was bombed pretty badly during all the wars going on. You hear some pretty sad stories from the members, but they keep the faith!
I'm excited to hear from you all next week! Any fun Halloween plans? Any interesting costume ideas? I'm sure Jordan's got a good idea; you pretty much have to on the college scene! I'll be having a fun Pday for sure, although we don't know what we're doing just yet. But I'm sure Dad will have a fun birthday and I hope my pictures make it there in time! :)
I love you guys and hope everyone is having a fun time. Can you believe I'm half way through my first transfer?? Holy meine gute!
I love you guys!
--Sis. Whit
P.S. I got a letter from Sis. Nelson, my MTC comp and she's serving in Friedrikdorf, giving tours for the Frankfurt Temple! Isn't that just off the chain or what? She's loving it of course, and I bet she'll see the military peeps while she's there. I've heard bits and pieces from the Elders in my MTC district and I only know that two of them that were comps are serving in the same district in Wien, Elder Dolben the Brit is in die Schweiz (no surprise there--the Americans have visa issues getting there but he doesn't) and that's all I know so far. We're just all spread out and having so much success, meine GUTE!
We have a goal every week to make out 7 appointments, or one a day, of just meeting people on the street and finding those with interest to actually meet with us so we can teach and give them a Book of Mormon, and this week was our first week of getting a perfect 7, so I know it' possible! Of course not all of them turned out perfectly but to talk to people and share testimonies is why I'm here. One in particular was amazing because an American heard us speaking English while we were cutting through our Altstadt and he stopped and wanted to talk because we spoke English. But he called over his friend passing by, a German, and we made out an appointment with him! It's cool to see that the Lord knows where we're going and where to send blessings. This situation was just bizzare because it all happened majorly outside of our beloved H&M (i have yet to check it out!!) because some Elders came to visit us to do Visa stuff and one is sort of a problem Elder, who was a jerk and was like, "I'm going to H&M" and his companion had no choice but to follow--he's a Senior comp that I swear I have no patience for because he just breaks the rules and everyone knows it but it's hard to discipline him, y'know? Like he wanted to go and it wasn't our Pday and used his funds to go to a leadership training mtg on a stupid suit. Ugh. Anyway, while we were waiting for him to be done being a jerk-wad, this whole situation just unfolded. Even though we were in a frustrating situation, the Lord sent us random people to still let us do our missionary work. And the companion that was outside waiting with us was SO happy to actually be doing work, even when it wasn't "his" Termin, y'know? He's one of the most positive Elders I've ever seen.
My favorite part of the week was meeting with our new investigator, ANNA or the Hungarian Mutti. She was a member referral that we met 2 weeks ago while visiting said member and she speaks really good English and yup, she's from Hungary. She officially wanted us to teach her more, and her whole family, because she wants something to bind her family together and after hearing our testimonies about families and how we're so close because of the gospel and what it teaches us. It was cool for me to see something that I have that Anna desperately wants. She has moved a lot and is currently going through the "settling in" phase of moving and her children miss Hungary and she's waiting for furniture and stuck with a messy house trying to find a place for everything. Sound familiar? I told her about our experiences with moving and how no matter where we were in the world, we had the gospel and I had my family, and she lit up like a Christmas tree. How cool is it that the Lord knew she needed to hear that? We told our member all of the good news and she teared up in joy to see that her friend is willing and yearning to learn about the gospel. She even has other referrals in mind that she wants to share! Our members are fired up about missionary work, but to see her sooo happy about her friend meant a lot to us! This Friday we get to meet ANNA again with her family; look how blessed Sis. Allan and I are! We get to teach a FAMILY!
Haha, CHRISTINE on the other hand, not so fun, but it's teaching me patience, that's for sure! Dad, we asked a doctor in the ward, and we pretty much feel like, yeah, it's all Quatsch, she's off her rocker with the whole "the doctor says I shouldn't stop smoking" bit, but it's hard to call her bluff without being rude I guess. But we taught her about baptism and invited her to baptism, and haha, she throws another curve-ball. See, we wanted to either commit her to baptism or "give her a break" and neither of those things happened. She says she wants to be baptized in FOUR years when all of her kids are 8 (her girl and her boyfriend's kids, ugh such drama) "so none of them will be confused why mama and papa are baptized and they aren't" which we all know happens to tons of families all the time and kid are totally fine. So, we are going to see how serious she really is about this goal of hers and we're going to prep her by asking her to stop smoking! If she really cares about her kids, she would be responsible and stop anyway. It's sad to see that she can't even handle a whole Termin without rolling up her own (I guess it's cheaper??) and having a smoke outside. Next step is getting her to live Law of Chastity. And then of course after all of this stuff, she's all excited to knit with us. She said my stitches were too tight and just pulled it all out so I could start over, so yeah, it's fun having her turn down baptism and watch her rip out my practice work. GEDULD! haha
Dad, just to let you know, the monthy funds are put into an account that's taken care of by one of the people in the mission office. Each missionary has a card and it just gets put on the card and we can pull out what we need at local ATMs. We also though get refunded for travelling expenses so we never run out if we have a busy travel week like this one for example.
I got to for example go on my first Tausch in LEIPZIG! Or I gues, "Leipsch", they like to abbrev in Leipzig apparrantly! But Sis. Allan and the other senior comps went to a leadership meeting there and I was on a "golden Tausch" with Sis. Faerber who was actually in the MTC when I was, so that was a wonderful reunion! :) We mainly did OYMing (Open Your Mouth) and helped her make out a few appointments, visited a member and taught a lesson. Leipzig is huge and amazing! I took some pics while we were there, and I will send the camera card hopefully today or next Monday, seeing how I'm behind on that, and I figured that would be fun for Dad' bday coming up! :) This upcoming week will be lots of fun travelling, too! Another Tausch in Dresden and we get to go to the Freiberg Temple tomorrow!! Ausgezeichnet! Because we're serving so East of the mission, we get to go once a transfer, I think, which is a privilege, seeing how it's not the same for all those serving in the Western side, so I won't take it for granted!
But this last Pday I finally got to do some "sigh-seeing" in Cottbus to the Branizt Park, I forget if I spellt that right. But it's this park with a random pyramid with grass and what have you all over it in the middle of a lake, pretty random but you know how I enjoy art, no matter how crazy it is! It was actually really warm and so we walked in the walking paths they have, it was just absolutely gorgeous! There are pictures of that, too! It was just so random; apparantly the guy who set it all up died a while back and he's actually buried UNDER the lake pyramid. Creepy. And I don't even wanna know how they even do that. *shudders*
Yup! One of our Pdays I think we'll try and make it all the way to downtown Berlin and see the Checkpoint Charlie stuff and the, oh jeez I can't even remember what it's called, but just the iconic wall--thingie, roundabout with the statue, just fun stuff that Sis. Allan wants to see before she leaves, and I'm willing to join too of course! Just find the name of all that stuff and put it in so I sound like I know what I'm talking about! :P
Cool fact of the week: we had 6 investigators come to church this Sunday! Some of them came because we asked them nicely to come because we sung a duet of "Because I Have Been Given Much" during Sacrament. We also got to teach a Sunday school class for two part member couples, and it was a joy to see them both there and help the non-member wives and the less-active husbands. We got to teach about the scriptures and how they help us learn what we need to know today, and really see the whole picture of our purpose here in life rather than just a quarter of it with the Bible.
Each week just keeps getting better and better, and I think I'm pretty much over jet-lag, although Sundays are still sort of a battle of staying awake! I get bad migranes and it's hard to understand Deutsch when all I want to do is rest my eyes, but I didn't fall asleep! I'm noticing it's less and less of a problem and I want to be able to work all day on Sunday rather than sleep, so I'm not letting it get to me just yet! I also remember that they have a scene in "Errand of Angels" where the main girl almost falls asleep in a lesson and I'm like, "that's so true!" Sundays are just our longest days and we also work the hardest. Granted, I'm not tired if I'm standing up or walking around, it's just when I'm sitting and full of delicious food...and Rotkohl, meine gute.
Anyway, see how awesome the Lord is? I alway knew that Sis. Allan is the perfect 1st companion for me, but seeing what this Elder in our district has to deal with this transfer...and how patience and faithful he is, it makes me even more grateful that Sis. Allan follows all the rules and wants to, because she's shown me that yes, it's frustrating at times, but we need the miracles that we see everyday, and they don't come if we aren't willing to work for them and be obedient. I don't think sisters have much of a problem, at least I would think they don't because they're out here by choice, but I really hope Jordan doesn't get any Dummkopfs for trainers. Or just at all, because missionaries are out here to serve, not BE served, and our attitudes about our work make all the difference when it comes to finding success. I'm sure Jordan's hearing an ear-full in his mission prep class! Speaking of brothers, say hello to Nicholas and Justin for me! It's nice to know they can "beat up" people for me if I need them to! Just kidding, but my little bros are AWESOME. And I mean little as in younger, I'm sure Justin is taller than me by now? Sis. Allan's family is ALL blackbelts except her in karate, so that's pretty cool.
I'm glad to hear that Mormor is doing okay and that hopefully she can get better, but I know that it's probably über frustrating. We actually have a few widows in the ward because of the Cold War and such. I've heard stories already of how Cottbus was bombed pretty badly during all the wars going on. You hear some pretty sad stories from the members, but they keep the faith!
I'm excited to hear from you all next week! Any fun Halloween plans? Any interesting costume ideas? I'm sure Jordan's got a good idea; you pretty much have to on the college scene! I'll be having a fun Pday for sure, although we don't know what we're doing just yet. But I'm sure Dad will have a fun birthday and I hope my pictures make it there in time! :)
I love you guys and hope everyone is having a fun time. Can you believe I'm half way through my first transfer?? Holy meine gute!
I love you guys!
--Sis. Whit
P.S. I got a letter from Sis. Nelson, my MTC comp and she's serving in Friedrikdorf, giving tours for the Frankfurt Temple! Isn't that just off the chain or what? She's loving it of course, and I bet she'll see the military peeps while she's there. I've heard bits and pieces from the Elders in my MTC district and I only know that two of them that were comps are serving in the same district in Wien, Elder Dolben the Brit is in die Schweiz (no surprise there--the Americans have visa issues getting there but he doesn't) and that's all I know so far. We're just all spread out and having so much success, meine GUTE!
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Whitney's current address
Whitney really appreciates all the letters she's getting. Please keep them coming.
Kirche Jesu Christi HLT
Sister Olsen
Virchowstrasse 39
03044 Cottbus
Germany
Kirche Jesu Christi HLT
Sister Olsen
Virchowstrasse 39
03044 Cottbus
Germany
Monday, October 17, 2011
The work begins....
It's weird thinking of how spread out we are this week and all the fun stuff our family gets to do! I've been mainly thinking of how happy I am that our family is still normal, because man, delving into investigators' lives is crazy because EVERYONE has a crazy story, sometimes frustrating.
For example, one of our investigators, CHRISTINE, or our knitting investigator you know, is pregnant with twins with her boyfriend--she already has a daughter with special needs and her boyfriend has four kids of his own, so OF COURSE having twins coming in sounds like the BEST idea, nah? Anyway, she told us last week that she cannot stop smoking because the doctors told her she can't, the babies are already addicted or something, and she seems pretty happy with the idea of still smoking, even though she should be upset with herself and how she's hurting her twins. Well apparantly the twins died this past week, and you know, auf Deutsch, I am working double time to really understand all this, especially medical terms or whatever, it's a foriegn set of vocab, y'know? But I heard right that she lost her twins, but she didn't seemed bothered enough at all. She told us two days after the matter, and knowing how obsessed she is with babies, she didn't even cry. Sis. Allen was shocked and almost cried, but CHRISTINE was pretty chill. And so I feel like she's not being completely honest with us about something. And I sort of got mad, I don't like being lied to, especially about something THAT BIG, and she used it as an excuse not to come to church! Ack, meine gute. Sis. Allen and I hope, quite honestly that it is true, for the twins' sake, so they don't have to live a crazy life because of the decisions of their mother, and still, all those kids, between CHRISTINE and her boyfriend, sounds like a merciful move that they died while she was only I think 3 or 4 months pregnant. So yeah, good to know that investigators lie to missionaries, but at least there are others that make progress and are much more normal!
This week has been really good for me; I know I haven't had lots of experiences with finding, but this week has been a testimony to me, that a lot of times, when we're looking for people, people are looking for US. For example, we officially have a new investigator, Evidence. He's definitely evidence that God knows we're trying to do our best! We went into the Büro to get my Anmelding taken care of (it's like a change of address and I have to do it to get my Visa), and we had to wait for nearly four hours to wait for our number, but Evidence just "happened" to be there, and asked us if we were Christians. We said yes and he delightedly started chatting with us in English (he's from Nigeria), asking if he could come to church with us. He said he's been trying to talk to people, asking about a church and he was disappointed that no one even WENT to church, and so he said he's been so happy to run into us, because he's been looking for someone like us ever since he's been here.
We gave him a tour of the Church building on Saturday and took him with us to Church and translated for him on Sunday and everything has been a really cool experience, especially for me. We gave him the first discussion and the Book of Mormon on Saturday and we could tell in many ways that he felt the Spirit; it was soo cool! It is true that if we pray, follow the schedule and goals for our area, the Lord will really put people in our path. Evidence was a very Golden example, but we've even had experiences of just actually talking to people on the streets and bearing our testimonies. I don't know if they will be interested enough to contact us, but many of them I could tell really felt something when they thought of God and how He has been a part of their lives.
As far as teaching, I'm not sure of what's normal for Cottbus, but according to Sis. Allen, we've been going above and beyond, with 11 lessons, with 10 being our goal! It is still sometimes hard to understand everything that is going on auf Deutsch, but I love teaching. For me it's the best way to get to know people and know how I can better help them. I've been getting a lot out of teaching Schwester MÜNCH or Schwester Wunder, although she's still struggling, but we're able to better pin-point to problem and help her find scriptures to help. We talk about the scriptures every night, but we know that we can only teach so much and she has to use faith-power to really get a testimony of what we have taught. She's been a member for so long, but still struggles because she's so logical and doesn't really know 100% for herself how to feel the Spirit, and it's so hard to explain how you just KNOW something is true. For me, when I feel the Spirit, I just hum; everything is jittery, and if I were allowed to, I'd probably dance to get all the energy out. I can't just sit down!
I still don't know all of our investigator's histories and how close they are to baptism, but we have a goal of extending a baptismal date commitment this week, mainly to our knitting investigator that isn't progressing much. Another problem we have with her, is as you know, she likes to knit. In the past, Sis. Allen and past sisters asked her to teach them to knit so they could all knit together and then the other half would be a lesson so that CHRISTINE would pay attention, but so far it's turning against us, where knitting takes to long, especially how our last meeting she was teaching ME, and I'm not doing too bad; I'll send pictures soon of my warped first try, but sis. Allen is calling me the knitting queen right now, so that has to be pretty good, eh? Anyway, we didn't get to our lesson at all because it was all knitting and of course her news about her dead twins. But she keeps printing things out for us, like instructions and she has even starting asking us to PAY her for the print-outs, which is just absurd. I didn't come to Germany to learn how to KNIT. So we are debating on "tchüssing" her, or "giving her a break" so to speak, because I'm not going to waste my time or the Lord's time playing games like this and being "nice"--so we're going to commit her to baptism! We know she'll probably say no, but we want to reestablish WHY we're meeting with her, and if she just wants to be knitting buddies we will go find other people who want the gospel, but if she wants to actually progress, then we can use baptism as a goal so she can do SOMETHING with what we teach her. It just isn't enough to believe, you have to follow the teachings that you learn and be responsible in a sense, so we're sort of excited for our "DTR" or as you know, "defining the relationship."
Sis. Allen has assured me that I have what's called the "Golden Syndrome"--wanting to be proficient in German, in good standing with the members, not wanting to think of home, not being tired on Sunday--all at once! I'm trying to be a trooper and get immersed in the work, but I'm also trying to be honest with myself and realize that I can't take a huge bite of Cottbus all at once, that I will get it, not immediately. Each day it gets progressively better and I can see what needs to be better and how I can do it in managable increments. It's fun changing for the better! I've thought to myself many times this week after talking with someone, ANYONE, "this is why I wanted to serve," to connect with people and help them see how the gospel can change their lives, because I know it has changed mine. Sometimes when we talk to people on the street, of course it doesn't count towards our numbers or our more concrete goals, but to see someone loose that bitter gleam in their eye and really see them think about God in a better light, it really just makes it worth-while. Yes, it is our purpose to lead and get people to baptism, but if all I can do is reintroduce God into their lives, I feel like I've accomplished a lot.
Germans, in our area especially scoff and walk off at the mention of God; a lot of them say, "I'm a child of the DDR, there is no God." It's frustrating that sometimes they really ARE rude, but we can at least say we are doing what we are told to do, and that is to talk to as many people as possible and not judging! For example, we have an investigator that has this crazy Wohnung with TONS of porcelean dolls everywhere and even a large lion stuffed animal on her couch and looks just as scary as Cruella DeVille (with the most manly smoker-voice on the planet) but she just eats the gospel up! If only her husband would let her go to church and leave the house! He's one of those "can't cook for himself" type of husbands and is "too busy" to drive his wife to church, even when she can at least take the Straßebahn, meine gute. But she likes the gospel and loves having us over. You can't really judge who will take the gospel and who won't!
The biggest miracle of the week? I survived biking in a skirt! We rode for 45min to a small dorf north of our city to visit an investigator that we normally would take the bus to reach her. I was lucky it didn't rain and we had the most GORGEOUS view, but meine gute, I was slipping all over the place with my skirt giving me grief! But 45min each way and I still did it! I looked like a doofus with the skirt, jacket, helmet, backpack appeal, but whatevs. Our Elders still tease us that we need to stop "flirting to convert" because we get a lot of college students that want to talk to us, and a few I think are actually interested in religion, meine gute. I forgot to mention; Cottbus is mainly an old-people city, but with a huge college here BTU, there's a lot of students here, too, like Evidence. They are usually the ones that will actually talk with us, but it usually means that 50% of the time they aren't German and so they need translation or they won't stay and help build up the ward that's here, y'know? But it's fun. Heavenly Father loves students, I would know from experience!
Eating appointments; we have a solid one every week and this week it was at the Bishop's house, which was nice: Rouladin (I think that's how you spell it) with the usual potatoes and gravy, and, dum dum dahh! Rotkohl! This keyboard doesn't let me spell it paa dansk, but yup! Sis. Olsen has finally had Rotkohl, something which the missioanries actually really love here. I admit it was far more pleasant than expected, but I wouln't want to make it every day, or craaave, like some Elders do here. I actually had a horrible migrane during this eating appointment and felt sick, not from food, but having a migrane, wanting sleep but trying to stay awake, it's no fun. So I actually almost gagged from eating too fast, but I am doing a good job of eating everything on my plate, no matter how many servings they give us "starving" sisters so I don't offend people from the get-go. Seriously, the members think we beg for food or something. The bishop said, "you never know when you'll get your next meal, eh?" while I'm "savoring" my Rotkohl, haha.
So I think that's it for now; today for Pday we're going to go sight-seeing I think because it's a bit chilly aber der Sonne scheint! I'm also going to finally get some winter boots! Ausgezeichnet! I've already gotten some thermal Strumphosen and they are super nice!
I'm pretty much excited for all the random things that we have planned and all the things that I'm sure will come up despite our plans. Bis nexte Woche!
love,
Whit
For example, one of our investigators, CHRISTINE, or our knitting investigator you know, is pregnant with twins with her boyfriend--she already has a daughter with special needs and her boyfriend has four kids of his own, so OF COURSE having twins coming in sounds like the BEST idea, nah? Anyway, she told us last week that she cannot stop smoking because the doctors told her she can't, the babies are already addicted or something, and she seems pretty happy with the idea of still smoking, even though she should be upset with herself and how she's hurting her twins. Well apparantly the twins died this past week, and you know, auf Deutsch, I am working double time to really understand all this, especially medical terms or whatever, it's a foriegn set of vocab, y'know? But I heard right that she lost her twins, but she didn't seemed bothered enough at all. She told us two days after the matter, and knowing how obsessed she is with babies, she didn't even cry. Sis. Allen was shocked and almost cried, but CHRISTINE was pretty chill. And so I feel like she's not being completely honest with us about something. And I sort of got mad, I don't like being lied to, especially about something THAT BIG, and she used it as an excuse not to come to church! Ack, meine gute. Sis. Allen and I hope, quite honestly that it is true, for the twins' sake, so they don't have to live a crazy life because of the decisions of their mother, and still, all those kids, between CHRISTINE and her boyfriend, sounds like a merciful move that they died while she was only I think 3 or 4 months pregnant. So yeah, good to know that investigators lie to missionaries, but at least there are others that make progress and are much more normal!
This week has been really good for me; I know I haven't had lots of experiences with finding, but this week has been a testimony to me, that a lot of times, when we're looking for people, people are looking for US. For example, we officially have a new investigator, Evidence. He's definitely evidence that God knows we're trying to do our best! We went into the Büro to get my Anmelding taken care of (it's like a change of address and I have to do it to get my Visa), and we had to wait for nearly four hours to wait for our number, but Evidence just "happened" to be there, and asked us if we were Christians. We said yes and he delightedly started chatting with us in English (he's from Nigeria), asking if he could come to church with us. He said he's been trying to talk to people, asking about a church and he was disappointed that no one even WENT to church, and so he said he's been so happy to run into us, because he's been looking for someone like us ever since he's been here.
We gave him a tour of the Church building on Saturday and took him with us to Church and translated for him on Sunday and everything has been a really cool experience, especially for me. We gave him the first discussion and the Book of Mormon on Saturday and we could tell in many ways that he felt the Spirit; it was soo cool! It is true that if we pray, follow the schedule and goals for our area, the Lord will really put people in our path. Evidence was a very Golden example, but we've even had experiences of just actually talking to people on the streets and bearing our testimonies. I don't know if they will be interested enough to contact us, but many of them I could tell really felt something when they thought of God and how He has been a part of their lives.
As far as teaching, I'm not sure of what's normal for Cottbus, but according to Sis. Allen, we've been going above and beyond, with 11 lessons, with 10 being our goal! It is still sometimes hard to understand everything that is going on auf Deutsch, but I love teaching. For me it's the best way to get to know people and know how I can better help them. I've been getting a lot out of teaching Schwester MÜNCH or Schwester Wunder, although she's still struggling, but we're able to better pin-point to problem and help her find scriptures to help. We talk about the scriptures every night, but we know that we can only teach so much and she has to use faith-power to really get a testimony of what we have taught. She's been a member for so long, but still struggles because she's so logical and doesn't really know 100% for herself how to feel the Spirit, and it's so hard to explain how you just KNOW something is true. For me, when I feel the Spirit, I just hum; everything is jittery, and if I were allowed to, I'd probably dance to get all the energy out. I can't just sit down!
I still don't know all of our investigator's histories and how close they are to baptism, but we have a goal of extending a baptismal date commitment this week, mainly to our knitting investigator that isn't progressing much. Another problem we have with her, is as you know, she likes to knit. In the past, Sis. Allen and past sisters asked her to teach them to knit so they could all knit together and then the other half would be a lesson so that CHRISTINE would pay attention, but so far it's turning against us, where knitting takes to long, especially how our last meeting she was teaching ME, and I'm not doing too bad; I'll send pictures soon of my warped first try, but sis. Allen is calling me the knitting queen right now, so that has to be pretty good, eh? Anyway, we didn't get to our lesson at all because it was all knitting and of course her news about her dead twins. But she keeps printing things out for us, like instructions and she has even starting asking us to PAY her for the print-outs, which is just absurd. I didn't come to Germany to learn how to KNIT. So we are debating on "tchüssing" her, or "giving her a break" so to speak, because I'm not going to waste my time or the Lord's time playing games like this and being "nice"--so we're going to commit her to baptism! We know she'll probably say no, but we want to reestablish WHY we're meeting with her, and if she just wants to be knitting buddies we will go find other people who want the gospel, but if she wants to actually progress, then we can use baptism as a goal so she can do SOMETHING with what we teach her. It just isn't enough to believe, you have to follow the teachings that you learn and be responsible in a sense, so we're sort of excited for our "DTR" or as you know, "defining the relationship."
Sis. Allen has assured me that I have what's called the "Golden Syndrome"--wanting to be proficient in German, in good standing with the members, not wanting to think of home, not being tired on Sunday--all at once! I'm trying to be a trooper and get immersed in the work, but I'm also trying to be honest with myself and realize that I can't take a huge bite of Cottbus all at once, that I will get it, not immediately. Each day it gets progressively better and I can see what needs to be better and how I can do it in managable increments. It's fun changing for the better! I've thought to myself many times this week after talking with someone, ANYONE, "this is why I wanted to serve," to connect with people and help them see how the gospel can change their lives, because I know it has changed mine. Sometimes when we talk to people on the street, of course it doesn't count towards our numbers or our more concrete goals, but to see someone loose that bitter gleam in their eye and really see them think about God in a better light, it really just makes it worth-while. Yes, it is our purpose to lead and get people to baptism, but if all I can do is reintroduce God into their lives, I feel like I've accomplished a lot.
Germans, in our area especially scoff and walk off at the mention of God; a lot of them say, "I'm a child of the DDR, there is no God." It's frustrating that sometimes they really ARE rude, but we can at least say we are doing what we are told to do, and that is to talk to as many people as possible and not judging! For example, we have an investigator that has this crazy Wohnung with TONS of porcelean dolls everywhere and even a large lion stuffed animal on her couch and looks just as scary as Cruella DeVille (with the most manly smoker-voice on the planet) but she just eats the gospel up! If only her husband would let her go to church and leave the house! He's one of those "can't cook for himself" type of husbands and is "too busy" to drive his wife to church, even when she can at least take the Straßebahn, meine gute. But she likes the gospel and loves having us over. You can't really judge who will take the gospel and who won't!
The biggest miracle of the week? I survived biking in a skirt! We rode for 45min to a small dorf north of our city to visit an investigator that we normally would take the bus to reach her. I was lucky it didn't rain and we had the most GORGEOUS view, but meine gute, I was slipping all over the place with my skirt giving me grief! But 45min each way and I still did it! I looked like a doofus with the skirt, jacket, helmet, backpack appeal, but whatevs. Our Elders still tease us that we need to stop "flirting to convert" because we get a lot of college students that want to talk to us, and a few I think are actually interested in religion, meine gute. I forgot to mention; Cottbus is mainly an old-people city, but with a huge college here BTU, there's a lot of students here, too, like Evidence. They are usually the ones that will actually talk with us, but it usually means that 50% of the time they aren't German and so they need translation or they won't stay and help build up the ward that's here, y'know? But it's fun. Heavenly Father loves students, I would know from experience!
Eating appointments; we have a solid one every week and this week it was at the Bishop's house, which was nice: Rouladin (I think that's how you spell it) with the usual potatoes and gravy, and, dum dum dahh! Rotkohl! This keyboard doesn't let me spell it paa dansk, but yup! Sis. Olsen has finally had Rotkohl, something which the missioanries actually really love here. I admit it was far more pleasant than expected, but I wouln't want to make it every day, or craaave, like some Elders do here. I actually had a horrible migrane during this eating appointment and felt sick, not from food, but having a migrane, wanting sleep but trying to stay awake, it's no fun. So I actually almost gagged from eating too fast, but I am doing a good job of eating everything on my plate, no matter how many servings they give us "starving" sisters so I don't offend people from the get-go. Seriously, the members think we beg for food or something. The bishop said, "you never know when you'll get your next meal, eh?" while I'm "savoring" my Rotkohl, haha.
So I think that's it for now; today for Pday we're going to go sight-seeing I think because it's a bit chilly aber der Sonne scheint! I'm also going to finally get some winter boots! Ausgezeichnet! I've already gotten some thermal Strumphosen and they are super nice!
I'm pretty much excited for all the random things that we have planned and all the things that I'm sure will come up despite our plans. Bis nexte Woche!
love,
Whit
Monday, October 10, 2011
First week in Germany
TODAY IS THE BIG P-TAG!
So yes, Monday is still Pday and so far it's been great. SO much has happened that I'll try to sum it up as much as possible, but the good thing about the real field is that I have WAY more time to write and think about what I want to say!
First off, what everyone wants to know: my first "golden" city is COTTBUS! It is in the Dresden district of my mission, so in the south-east end of my district! I don't know how to describe it, it definitely feels big to me because I'm still trying to get the hang of it, but it has 5 street bahns that go through it, so that has to be SOMEWHAT big, nah? It's got a small "Altstadt" that looks über cutesy and they were setting up things for their own Oktoberfest, although I heard that the other major Oktoberfests elsewhere are already over and done with but Cottbus decided to celebrate this weekend, so we headed back to our apt. a bit earlier than usual because there was literally NO ONE on the streets to talk to, and if so they had empty beer bottles in tow.
But something cool that happened on Wednesday was this cool "field trip" the President and his wife took us on. I can't remember the exact location, but it's not that much of a drive from the mission home I think (which did by the way had my bedding--ich LIEBE meine dune!!) but it's this section in between East and West Berlin where the Wall used to be. The wall is obviously not there anymore and we got to see part of "no man's land" which is now a young forest and covered in red mushrooms--the fairy tale kind! The line where the wall actually stood is actually now a bike path which I thought was a pretty cool idea. But we went there and read excerpts of the dedicatory prayers for Germany for missionary work. It was really awesome and we were allowed to walk around and find a spot to be alone and pray, as a sort of dedicatory prayer for our own missions and such. It was pretty cool and President said we get to come back at the end of our mission and sort of come full circle and see how we did.
Everyone doesn't call me a Greenie here; I get to be a "Golden" which sounds shinier and cooler to me, so that's why my first city is actually my "Golden city." And guess what? No hazing, yet! Cottbus seems to worship the Sisters; the ward was really happy to see us and from what I've learned from my amazing Mitarbeiterin, Sis. Allen, they're really pumped for missionary work and they really, REALLY take care of our investigators and genuinely make them feel welcome. I think it's probably because the group is a lot smaller and I'm sure the majority of them were investigators at one point or another, y'know? So yeah, we've already had 3 dinner appointments with members and they give us a TON of food!! Delicious, delicious food, no doubt. Nothing strange yet!
I love cooking again, and one of the first things I made for Sis. Allen and I was frikadellen--and I love that they already have the pork and beef mixed together! Klasse! We don't eat dinner because that's the best time to talk with people, so we eat a pretty decent lunch and I'm not even hungry. Like EVER. But because we only eat breakfast and lunch at the cutesy apartment that we have, our groceries between the two of us is only 28€ but I bet around Christmas we'll get a buttload of stuff from members. For example, we visited an old lady in the ward (EVERYONE here is old) and she made us eat I don't know HOW many cookies, and then she heard I hadn't had this particular kind of cake and so she gave us another slice of THAT, even though it was meant for someone else (it was good, but MEINE GUTE!!) and then of course tea. EVERYONE and their pooch here drinks tea--but we get the fruit teas from members. I've never really had or been into tea, but I like it, and I guess I'll get used to it. The kind we have at our apt. is really good, it's called, "flirty frog" which is a mixed fruit tea. It's a good thing we can walk everywhere, meeeine gute!
And we pretty much can; our church building (which is also really cute!) is an hour's walk, so we take the street car to church on Sundays but otherwise we just walk if we have appointments there for some of our investigators.
More about Cottbus: the city itself has only been open for 20 years (after the wall, no doubt) and as of late March, Sisters reign here! I'm actually the 5th sister to serve here, so I feel pretty awesome and I want to do some great work here. And it sounds like I'll have plenty of time to do so, because I think my first stadt they have me stay for 2 transfers, but this is Sis. Allen's LAST transfer, which means I've been sent here to TAKE OVER COTTBUS! Ack! So I REALLY am trying to learn everything and be somewhat pro in oh, say 5 weeks! Meine gute!!
And yeah, I should probably saz something about Sis. Allen, ja? Like I said she is w/ me in Cottbus for her last transfer, so she knows the Bahns here really well, but she sticks with the rules very well. Granted, life here is much less rule-oriented than the MTC (I've been listening to music ALL WEEK AND I LOVE IT!) but she knows what President expects of us, and we do great work here. She's been saying this whole time how lucky she is to have me, but I'm way lucky to have HER! She lives in Orem and will study accounting when she gets back home in mid November. I've promised her that I'd help her make those julestjerne that we make in Denmark because she's tried making them before but doesn't know how. However, she's going to help me learn how to friggin KNIT because we have a sort of ADD investigator that realz only retains what we teach her if we knit for 30-40 minutes first. She's obsessed with those knitting projects to sew clothes for babydolls, I guess. So I guess I get to learn how to knit? haha
We talk the most with Schwester Wunder, or that's what I want to call her. She struggles with her testimony, even as a member, so we call her every night to tell her about our "miracles" for the day, which has been a great way to go, because everyday we DO have a miracle! For example, we had the best lesson EVER with a woman that Sis. Allen has tried to meet with for a month, but we finally met with her (germans and their friggin Urlaubs!) and she accepted the book of mormon like it was still in it's golden plates version. She doesn't know when we can meet, but I sure hope it's very soon! She spoke a lot of English and German on and off, so that was pretty cool. Another miracle was my FIRST DOOR. Literally my first time dooring, Sis. Allen takes a picture of me and I talked to this old man and he actually let us in. Way cool--only he went from having time for us to "not having any time" for us, and Sis. Allen says that oftentimes if their children find out that they let missionaries in, they talk them out of it. But he has a Book of Mormon! Hoffnung!
We have two investigators that we give English lessons to, but we sort of weave gospel-ness in and out of the lesson. One is the Arabisch Drummer, who's pretty cool! We taught him numbers this week and he actually taught US numbers 1-10 in Arabic. I wrote down what they should sound like, but he said I didn't sound too bad! He's a funny investigator because he doesn't know a lot of English OR Deutsch, but he brings his laptop to Google Translate things he wants to say or words we say that he needs translation for. We also read a chapter from the BOM, but he reads in Arabic and we follow with our own scriptures. But I call him the Arabisch Drummer because he plays African drums and does gigs all over the place, apparantly. Waaay rad.
Our Rolling Stones investigator (who loooves Rolling Stones) also learns English from us, and he's good friends with a less-active member, erm, I guess I'll nickname him Jeans, because he shows up to church in a suitcoat and jeans. I'll think of a new one if that sounds dumb! But yeah, Rolling Stones brings us certain lyrics like, "ride on, baby" that he asks us to translate, not really buchstabiert-wise, but what they try to say, I guess. Everyone we teach can talk our ears off if we let them! Rolling Stones needs to just give up smoking and he can be baptized, meine gute.
I also got to meet the Investigating Couple in a sort of interesting way; the Frau actually invited us to her 50th birthday party, which was pretty posh in this tiny French restaurant, looked more like a cafe. It was awkward because we obviously don't know anyone there, because most of them are dear friends of the Couple or work friends. And then they want to know why WE know the Investigating Couple and we say "von der Kirche." For some reason they wanted all the guests to draw our faces on these small pieces of paper, so they really liked mine.
Herr Goat-Beard is one of my favorites, because oh meine gute, his apt is SO random! I think he served time in the German military, so he was familiar with the bases in the Frankfurt area and really liked that I knew that area. I said I lived by Kaiserslautern at first and he said, "oh, you mean Ktown?" He works as a translator, so he also speaks English, so he's pretty funny. But he's been everywhere, especially in Africa and Arabic places. So he has all of this random stuff, mostly junk, mostly valuables, too. If you can imagine, he had this collection of Kantanas on his wall above his bed (one room apt, too, so everything is crammed together) but above his collection is a little shelf with a FRAMED picture of President Uchtdorf! He also served us baklava and soda--in cow horn cups. MEINE gute. We have to get him to come to church, but he just got a puppy and he says "i can't leave him alone for more than an hour, sisters!" So he's innactive because of his dog, go figure.
So that's just a bit of how crazy-awesome Cottbus is. Meine gute, typing with a deutsch keyboard is annoying, I hope there aren't any little zz's everywhere! Everyone in my little Gemeinde is actually really impressed with my deutsch which makes me really happy that they can understand! A lot of them looked at my tag and asked me if I was from Dänemark! At least they don't ask me if I speak Dutch! But yeah, Sis. Allen is so amazing, it's like President said of Sis. Allen and I, a "match made in heaven"! She said she immediately liked me because she saw the Reeses in my package and was like, "you like those too?!"
Anyway, how was that? I was really excited to say as much as I could, so I will back-track next week if I forgot anything. So with the bike thing, the fund is for repairs and buying what they need for the bikes, but basically every city or almost every city that has missionaries already HAS bikes, so for transfers, I don't have to bring the bike with me. So it's already here, but everything is close enough that we can walk everywhere. So I haven't tried riding in a skirt yet, that remains to be seen! I pulled out money from my own account for that already and I'm sure you've seen that already. They gave me a card for my mission money and Sis. Allen has been helping me figure out when I use it, and most of the time it's things I get reimbursed for, like travel stubs for district meetings (our is in Görlitz if you wanna look it up!) but for groceries we just pull out euros and pay in cash.
Gaah, I think that's really all I can think of. NO, people don't really stop or like to listen to us, but it comes. I'm not really a great "finder" yet, but we use these awesome special passalong cards with the website www.kirche-jesu-christ.org on it. You should check it out and DEFINITELY pass it on to Sima!
I love you all and miss you guys! I never thought I'd be so lucky to serve a mission, especially in Deutschland and relive and enjoy the things I used to have before.
Tschüssie! :P
Sis. Olsen
So yes, Monday is still Pday and so far it's been great. SO much has happened that I'll try to sum it up as much as possible, but the good thing about the real field is that I have WAY more time to write and think about what I want to say!
First off, what everyone wants to know: my first "golden" city is COTTBUS! It is in the Dresden district of my mission, so in the south-east end of my district! I don't know how to describe it, it definitely feels big to me because I'm still trying to get the hang of it, but it has 5 street bahns that go through it, so that has to be SOMEWHAT big, nah? It's got a small "Altstadt" that looks über cutesy and they were setting up things for their own Oktoberfest, although I heard that the other major Oktoberfests elsewhere are already over and done with but Cottbus decided to celebrate this weekend, so we headed back to our apt. a bit earlier than usual because there was literally NO ONE on the streets to talk to, and if so they had empty beer bottles in tow.
But something cool that happened on Wednesday was this cool "field trip" the President and his wife took us on. I can't remember the exact location, but it's not that much of a drive from the mission home I think (which did by the way had my bedding--ich LIEBE meine dune!!) but it's this section in between East and West Berlin where the Wall used to be. The wall is obviously not there anymore and we got to see part of "no man's land" which is now a young forest and covered in red mushrooms--the fairy tale kind! The line where the wall actually stood is actually now a bike path which I thought was a pretty cool idea. But we went there and read excerpts of the dedicatory prayers for Germany for missionary work. It was really awesome and we were allowed to walk around and find a spot to be alone and pray, as a sort of dedicatory prayer for our own missions and such. It was pretty cool and President said we get to come back at the end of our mission and sort of come full circle and see how we did.
Everyone doesn't call me a Greenie here; I get to be a "Golden" which sounds shinier and cooler to me, so that's why my first city is actually my "Golden city." And guess what? No hazing, yet! Cottbus seems to worship the Sisters; the ward was really happy to see us and from what I've learned from my amazing Mitarbeiterin, Sis. Allen, they're really pumped for missionary work and they really, REALLY take care of our investigators and genuinely make them feel welcome. I think it's probably because the group is a lot smaller and I'm sure the majority of them were investigators at one point or another, y'know? So yeah, we've already had 3 dinner appointments with members and they give us a TON of food!! Delicious, delicious food, no doubt. Nothing strange yet!
I love cooking again, and one of the first things I made for Sis. Allen and I was frikadellen--and I love that they already have the pork and beef mixed together! Klasse! We don't eat dinner because that's the best time to talk with people, so we eat a pretty decent lunch and I'm not even hungry. Like EVER. But because we only eat breakfast and lunch at the cutesy apartment that we have, our groceries between the two of us is only 28€ but I bet around Christmas we'll get a buttload of stuff from members. For example, we visited an old lady in the ward (EVERYONE here is old) and she made us eat I don't know HOW many cookies, and then she heard I hadn't had this particular kind of cake and so she gave us another slice of THAT, even though it was meant for someone else (it was good, but MEINE GUTE!!) and then of course tea. EVERYONE and their pooch here drinks tea--but we get the fruit teas from members. I've never really had or been into tea, but I like it, and I guess I'll get used to it. The kind we have at our apt. is really good, it's called, "flirty frog" which is a mixed fruit tea. It's a good thing we can walk everywhere, meeeine gute!
And we pretty much can; our church building (which is also really cute!) is an hour's walk, so we take the street car to church on Sundays but otherwise we just walk if we have appointments there for some of our investigators.
More about Cottbus: the city itself has only been open for 20 years (after the wall, no doubt) and as of late March, Sisters reign here! I'm actually the 5th sister to serve here, so I feel pretty awesome and I want to do some great work here. And it sounds like I'll have plenty of time to do so, because I think my first stadt they have me stay for 2 transfers, but this is Sis. Allen's LAST transfer, which means I've been sent here to TAKE OVER COTTBUS! Ack! So I REALLY am trying to learn everything and be somewhat pro in oh, say 5 weeks! Meine gute!!
And yeah, I should probably saz something about Sis. Allen, ja? Like I said she is w/ me in Cottbus for her last transfer, so she knows the Bahns here really well, but she sticks with the rules very well. Granted, life here is much less rule-oriented than the MTC (I've been listening to music ALL WEEK AND I LOVE IT!) but she knows what President expects of us, and we do great work here. She's been saying this whole time how lucky she is to have me, but I'm way lucky to have HER! She lives in Orem and will study accounting when she gets back home in mid November. I've promised her that I'd help her make those julestjerne that we make in Denmark because she's tried making them before but doesn't know how. However, she's going to help me learn how to friggin KNIT because we have a sort of ADD investigator that realz only retains what we teach her if we knit for 30-40 minutes first. She's obsessed with those knitting projects to sew clothes for babydolls, I guess. So I guess I get to learn how to knit? haha
We talk the most with Schwester Wunder, or that's what I want to call her. She struggles with her testimony, even as a member, so we call her every night to tell her about our "miracles" for the day, which has been a great way to go, because everyday we DO have a miracle! For example, we had the best lesson EVER with a woman that Sis. Allen has tried to meet with for a month, but we finally met with her (germans and their friggin Urlaubs!) and she accepted the book of mormon like it was still in it's golden plates version. She doesn't know when we can meet, but I sure hope it's very soon! She spoke a lot of English and German on and off, so that was pretty cool. Another miracle was my FIRST DOOR. Literally my first time dooring, Sis. Allen takes a picture of me and I talked to this old man and he actually let us in. Way cool--only he went from having time for us to "not having any time" for us, and Sis. Allen says that oftentimes if their children find out that they let missionaries in, they talk them out of it. But he has a Book of Mormon! Hoffnung!
We have two investigators that we give English lessons to, but we sort of weave gospel-ness in and out of the lesson. One is the Arabisch Drummer, who's pretty cool! We taught him numbers this week and he actually taught US numbers 1-10 in Arabic. I wrote down what they should sound like, but he said I didn't sound too bad! He's a funny investigator because he doesn't know a lot of English OR Deutsch, but he brings his laptop to Google Translate things he wants to say or words we say that he needs translation for. We also read a chapter from the BOM, but he reads in Arabic and we follow with our own scriptures. But I call him the Arabisch Drummer because he plays African drums and does gigs all over the place, apparantly. Waaay rad.
Our Rolling Stones investigator (who loooves Rolling Stones) also learns English from us, and he's good friends with a less-active member, erm, I guess I'll nickname him Jeans, because he shows up to church in a suitcoat and jeans. I'll think of a new one if that sounds dumb! But yeah, Rolling Stones brings us certain lyrics like, "ride on, baby" that he asks us to translate, not really buchstabiert-wise, but what they try to say, I guess. Everyone we teach can talk our ears off if we let them! Rolling Stones needs to just give up smoking and he can be baptized, meine gute.
I also got to meet the Investigating Couple in a sort of interesting way; the Frau actually invited us to her 50th birthday party, which was pretty posh in this tiny French restaurant, looked more like a cafe. It was awkward because we obviously don't know anyone there, because most of them are dear friends of the Couple or work friends. And then they want to know why WE know the Investigating Couple and we say "von der Kirche." For some reason they wanted all the guests to draw our faces on these small pieces of paper, so they really liked mine.
Herr Goat-Beard is one of my favorites, because oh meine gute, his apt is SO random! I think he served time in the German military, so he was familiar with the bases in the Frankfurt area and really liked that I knew that area. I said I lived by Kaiserslautern at first and he said, "oh, you mean Ktown?" He works as a translator, so he also speaks English, so he's pretty funny. But he's been everywhere, especially in Africa and Arabic places. So he has all of this random stuff, mostly junk, mostly valuables, too. If you can imagine, he had this collection of Kantanas on his wall above his bed (one room apt, too, so everything is crammed together) but above his collection is a little shelf with a FRAMED picture of President Uchtdorf! He also served us baklava and soda--in cow horn cups. MEINE gute. We have to get him to come to church, but he just got a puppy and he says "i can't leave him alone for more than an hour, sisters!" So he's innactive because of his dog, go figure.
So that's just a bit of how crazy-awesome Cottbus is. Meine gute, typing with a deutsch keyboard is annoying, I hope there aren't any little zz's everywhere! Everyone in my little Gemeinde is actually really impressed with my deutsch which makes me really happy that they can understand! A lot of them looked at my tag and asked me if I was from Dänemark! At least they don't ask me if I speak Dutch! But yeah, Sis. Allen is so amazing, it's like President said of Sis. Allen and I, a "match made in heaven"! She said she immediately liked me because she saw the Reeses in my package and was like, "you like those too?!"
Anyway, how was that? I was really excited to say as much as I could, so I will back-track next week if I forgot anything. So with the bike thing, the fund is for repairs and buying what they need for the bikes, but basically every city or almost every city that has missionaries already HAS bikes, so for transfers, I don't have to bring the bike with me. So it's already here, but everything is close enough that we can walk everywhere. So I haven't tried riding in a skirt yet, that remains to be seen! I pulled out money from my own account for that already and I'm sure you've seen that already. They gave me a card for my mission money and Sis. Allen has been helping me figure out when I use it, and most of the time it's things I get reimbursed for, like travel stubs for district meetings (our is in Görlitz if you wanna look it up!) but for groceries we just pull out euros and pay in cash.
Gaah, I think that's really all I can think of. NO, people don't really stop or like to listen to us, but it comes. I'm not really a great "finder" yet, but we use these awesome special passalong cards with the website www.kirche-jesu-christ.org on it. You should check it out and DEFINITELY pass it on to Sima!
I love you all and miss you guys! I never thought I'd be so lucky to serve a mission, especially in Deutschland and relive and enjoy the things I used to have before.
Tschüssie! :P
Sis. Olsen
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
I'm here....
Hallo!!!
If you can imagine, I'm grinning from ear to ear right now, because I'm in the mission home right now and it's the perfect little deutsch Haus! I get to stay here over night and the first thing I noticed was the standard wooden doors and the rouladins!! Ack, I'm taking pictures of lots of German sights; the weather is beautiful and everything is absolutely wonderful. We flew from SLC to Detroit, then to Amsterdam and then here to Berlin! The flights went well and we were able to make everything with little to no worries; my Elders were a tad bit worried about Amsterdam, but I love that place! All the stores in there remind me of that ship we'd take from Germany to Denmark, and it was really different but really cool to just BE here in Germany. It's all real and AWESOME! Right now I'm not suffering from jet lag, but my energetic mission president, President Pimentel and Sister Pimentel insist I eat something and take a nap.
I'm not sure yet when my Pday is, but I'm writing now to say that I'm here, 100% stoked and excited and I feel like I'm walking into a dream; everything about Germany is here and everything I remember is within sight!
I will try to write in more detail later, because I have so much to say! All I know for sure now, is that I ALREADY LOVE the President and Sis. Pimentel, and I already feel loved and special here, especially being the only sister to come to the Berlin mission for 6 weeks, and probably not for another long while! I have to go eat lunch! Brötchen, Apfelschörle, and soup! Already at home!!!
I love you all, and as soon as humanly possible I'll send home pictures!
Ich liebe dich!
--Whit
If you can imagine, I'm grinning from ear to ear right now, because I'm in the mission home right now and it's the perfect little deutsch Haus! I get to stay here over night and the first thing I noticed was the standard wooden doors and the rouladins!! Ack, I'm taking pictures of lots of German sights; the weather is beautiful and everything is absolutely wonderful. We flew from SLC to Detroit, then to Amsterdam and then here to Berlin! The flights went well and we were able to make everything with little to no worries; my Elders were a tad bit worried about Amsterdam, but I love that place! All the stores in there remind me of that ship we'd take from Germany to Denmark, and it was really different but really cool to just BE here in Germany. It's all real and AWESOME! Right now I'm not suffering from jet lag, but my energetic mission president, President Pimentel and Sister Pimentel insist I eat something and take a nap.
I'm not sure yet when my Pday is, but I'm writing now to say that I'm here, 100% stoked and excited and I feel like I'm walking into a dream; everything about Germany is here and everything I remember is within sight!
I will try to write in more detail later, because I have so much to say! All I know for sure now, is that I ALREADY LOVE the President and Sis. Pimentel, and I already feel loved and special here, especially being the only sister to come to the Berlin mission for 6 weeks, and probably not for another long while! I have to go eat lunch! Brötchen, Apfelschörle, and soup! Already at home!!!
I love you all, and as soon as humanly possible I'll send home pictures!
Ich liebe dich!
--Whit
Monday, October 3, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
She's out of there...
I think for the past hour or so I've said, "holy meine freakin' gute" about a hundred times since reading about Jordan's mission call! HOLY MEINE FREAKING GUTE! Japan seems last the last thing I'd think of but probably the perfect mission. I'm sure he was just like me where as soon as I read the destination, I just felt something inside me say, "of COURSE I need to go to Berlin! It's perfect!" Towards the beginning of my MTC stay I was thinking I'd be a better missionary på dansk, but now that I've got 2 DAYS until Deutschland, I'm really feelin' excited to flex my deutsch and spiritual muscles and get to work. They still need training, and I have NO IDEA what I'll have struggles w/ yet (and I'm trying not to psych myself out) but I feel like I'll get the companion I need and I'll help her pick up where she left off.
Yesterday we had an In-field Orientation meeting that lasted the whole day, which was mainly workshops on how to basically have and make the most success and how to make good goals using our Key Indicators in our planners, how to work effectively with members and how to find people! I kind of wish they taught us more how to do this before, and especially get practice auf deutsch, but I think I can small-talk enough auf deutsch that maybe someone will feel sorry for me and take my pass-along card! They're really pushing for us to give out Mormon.org pass-along cards, and the new English Mormon.org is PHENOMENAL! Members can create profiles and nonmembers can look up people by race, country, interests, what have you, to get to know REAL people who are Mormon; it's to break stereotypes and people can answers FAQs about the gospel and when people pull it up they can read the church's official stand on the subject as well. It's a really good tool for people who want to know who the Mormons REALLY are, officially. I'm actually allowed to make a missionary profile on Pdays, so I might make one really soon depending on the time that I have! I heard that they even have missions make missionary Facebook profiles to contact people on FACEBOOK. Facebook! The gospel is literally circling the globe! The Mormon.org is all nice in English and hopefully soon other major languages like deutsch will get the same facelift and really reach out to people. Man oh man, sehr begeistert!
I've already packed one suitcase and I basically get today and tomorrow to be all packed and ready in between sessions, so I'm feeling good about having enough time to pack efficiently--and I'm sure I'll even have enough room for everything! I may or may not have enough room for bedding though, but that'll be a problem I'll solve when I get transferred, of course.
I talked to E. Duncan, the other Berlin elder I'm travelling with, and I think we're gonna try to call at the SLC airport on Monday, not sure how it's going to play out; our plane leaves around 11am and we report to the travel office here at the MTC around 8am, so I'm thinking that we might not call at that time, I'm hoping we do!
So if I'm going to Germany, Jordo's going to JA-PAAAN, does that mean Justin'll go to Biloxi and Nicholas will go to Denmark? Or maybe Kansas? :P I remember being in Germany and having the missionaries over and I think mom guessed that Jordan would be a missionary in China, thinking that it'd be cool to open up that country, so I think mom was pretty close? What did you guys actually guess? Where did Jordan want to go or where did he think he'd go?
One thing that I liked about yesterday was about having a super positive attitude about the work no matter where we go. Here I've met lots of state-side missionaries or missionaries w/ "oh, that's nice" missions and then there's me where I have, "good luck planting seeds" type mission. According to the people who REALLY know missionary work (that'd be the Holy Ghost, too!) that attitude is everything. If I didn't think I'll baptize anyone, I'm not going to have the attitude that'll help me find people that need baptism. "There is no pit area, only pit missionaries." Anyone can learn about and follow Christ, no matter where they come from or what religious background they have. Germany from what I've heard is really blossoming, because the missionaries are working like they KNOW they'll have success, not "hope" they have success. Germany (and I think Denmark) aren't raking in the investigators like South America, but people are starting to zurückkehren. And I think it's because the Church is really and constantly refining the missionary work so that we can be effective as soon as possible, not the last 6 months. I was also told in my meetings that they just started a new program on the mission fields, where they give companionships these new manuals on how to study, find, teach effectively, and it spans the first 12 weeks of the mission. That is exactly what I'll need, because I'd rather be told what's effective on day 1 from the First Presidency so that I can implement them, rather than learn eventually for myself and get the ball rolling. I think it'll be good for me as a "Golden"--or what the MTC is starting to call what used to be "Greenies" because it's the newbies that come in all fired up in enthusiasm and the Spirit and are rarin' to go and find! I hope I'm a Golden and not a Bronze missionary! I'm nervous about talking to people, but I'm full aware and full prepared to just have my first awkward times and just get soaked in the work. I dunno, we'll have to see what kind of state I'm in in a week or so on my first Deutschland P-TAG!
Holy. MEINE. GUTE. What a weekend already! Time has really escaped me and I can hardly believe two months have already flown by, when at first it felt like eternity and I just wanted to finally be in Deutschland, and now here's my chance! I've always wanted to go back to Germany, pick up my deutsch again, and be a missionary, and I'm so grateful to Heavenly Father that I get to have it all, and all the best way possible.
I love you all and can't wait to hear from you! Start using them international stamps! I'll definitely email you all my new, best-address-to-use address when I land and finally figure it out! Woot gemacht! Pray for me, because one of the accelerated elders (where they stay for 3 not 9 weeks because they know the language) is absolutely annoying, and by annoying I mean he acts like his shoe size, not his age. Ugh. I was very lucky to be in a zone with very hard-working and mature elders, and by mature they act like missionaries that happen to be 19, not 19 year old boys that happen to be missionaries--I'm pretty sure you've seen the difference. Tell Jordan to not be a silly Elder!
I love you all!
love,
Whitney (the super excited Schwester!)
Yesterday we had an In-field Orientation meeting that lasted the whole day, which was mainly workshops on how to basically have and make the most success and how to make good goals using our Key Indicators in our planners, how to work effectively with members and how to find people! I kind of wish they taught us more how to do this before, and especially get practice auf deutsch, but I think I can small-talk enough auf deutsch that maybe someone will feel sorry for me and take my pass-along card! They're really pushing for us to give out Mormon.org pass-along cards, and the new English Mormon.org is PHENOMENAL! Members can create profiles and nonmembers can look up people by race, country, interests, what have you, to get to know REAL people who are Mormon; it's to break stereotypes and people can answers FAQs about the gospel and when people pull it up they can read the church's official stand on the subject as well. It's a really good tool for people who want to know who the Mormons REALLY are, officially. I'm actually allowed to make a missionary profile on Pdays, so I might make one really soon depending on the time that I have! I heard that they even have missions make missionary Facebook profiles to contact people on FACEBOOK. Facebook! The gospel is literally circling the globe! The Mormon.org is all nice in English and hopefully soon other major languages like deutsch will get the same facelift and really reach out to people. Man oh man, sehr begeistert!
I've already packed one suitcase and I basically get today and tomorrow to be all packed and ready in between sessions, so I'm feeling good about having enough time to pack efficiently--and I'm sure I'll even have enough room for everything! I may or may not have enough room for bedding though, but that'll be a problem I'll solve when I get transferred, of course.
I talked to E. Duncan, the other Berlin elder I'm travelling with, and I think we're gonna try to call at the SLC airport on Monday, not sure how it's going to play out; our plane leaves around 11am and we report to the travel office here at the MTC around 8am, so I'm thinking that we might not call at that time, I'm hoping we do!
So if I'm going to Germany, Jordo's going to JA-PAAAN, does that mean Justin'll go to Biloxi and Nicholas will go to Denmark? Or maybe Kansas? :P I remember being in Germany and having the missionaries over and I think mom guessed that Jordan would be a missionary in China, thinking that it'd be cool to open up that country, so I think mom was pretty close? What did you guys actually guess? Where did Jordan want to go or where did he think he'd go?
One thing that I liked about yesterday was about having a super positive attitude about the work no matter where we go. Here I've met lots of state-side missionaries or missionaries w/ "oh, that's nice" missions and then there's me where I have, "good luck planting seeds" type mission. According to the people who REALLY know missionary work (that'd be the Holy Ghost, too!) that attitude is everything. If I didn't think I'll baptize anyone, I'm not going to have the attitude that'll help me find people that need baptism. "There is no pit area, only pit missionaries." Anyone can learn about and follow Christ, no matter where they come from or what religious background they have. Germany from what I've heard is really blossoming, because the missionaries are working like they KNOW they'll have success, not "hope" they have success. Germany (and I think Denmark) aren't raking in the investigators like South America, but people are starting to zurückkehren. And I think it's because the Church is really and constantly refining the missionary work so that we can be effective as soon as possible, not the last 6 months. I was also told in my meetings that they just started a new program on the mission fields, where they give companionships these new manuals on how to study, find, teach effectively, and it spans the first 12 weeks of the mission. That is exactly what I'll need, because I'd rather be told what's effective on day 1 from the First Presidency so that I can implement them, rather than learn eventually for myself and get the ball rolling. I think it'll be good for me as a "Golden"--or what the MTC is starting to call what used to be "Greenies" because it's the newbies that come in all fired up in enthusiasm and the Spirit and are rarin' to go and find! I hope I'm a Golden and not a Bronze missionary! I'm nervous about talking to people, but I'm full aware and full prepared to just have my first awkward times and just get soaked in the work. I dunno, we'll have to see what kind of state I'm in in a week or so on my first Deutschland P-TAG!
Holy. MEINE. GUTE. What a weekend already! Time has really escaped me and I can hardly believe two months have already flown by, when at first it felt like eternity and I just wanted to finally be in Deutschland, and now here's my chance! I've always wanted to go back to Germany, pick up my deutsch again, and be a missionary, and I'm so grateful to Heavenly Father that I get to have it all, and all the best way possible.
I love you all and can't wait to hear from you! Start using them international stamps! I'll definitely email you all my new, best-address-to-use address when I land and finally figure it out! Woot gemacht! Pray for me, because one of the accelerated elders (where they stay for 3 not 9 weeks because they know the language) is absolutely annoying, and by annoying I mean he acts like his shoe size, not his age. Ugh. I was very lucky to be in a zone with very hard-working and mature elders, and by mature they act like missionaries that happen to be 19, not 19 year old boys that happen to be missionaries--I'm pretty sure you've seen the difference. Tell Jordan to not be a silly Elder!
I love you all!
love,
Whitney (the super excited Schwester!)
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