As far as MY Thanksgiving was concerned, as you know, NO one celebrates it here, since it's an American thing, so when we visited one of the elderly members of our ward, Sis. Raddewagen, I explained to her what we do and she was like, "you sit around and just eat?" Yeah, most people we talked to that day had no idea what Thanksgiving is, so that was kinda funny. We worked like normal all day and had some great success with dooring in Student Wohnheims (two new investigators because of it!) and we celebrated during lunch by getting Streuselschnecken at the Bäckerei and then at the end of the day around 8pm we went to the Bahnhof and got our Thanksgiving "feast"--I got the largest, most delicious Döner auf die Erde and Sis. Anderson got McDonalds! For my dessert I also got my first Magnum bar of the mission! Es lohnt sich! Don't worry, we took pictures! :) Instead of Black Friday shopping, today for Pday we plan on having fun in our local Weihnachtmarkt! Don't worry, I won't really buy anything since I'm waiting to see Dresden's big Weihnachtmarkt! We're not sure if we're doing it next Monday or the one after that, but is it okay if I pull out money for the occasion? I won't really do anything until next Monday after emails, so I will have time to wait for your response. I don't think we'll go next Monday because I think our Temple trip is next week and we can't afford to do too much travelling in one week!
This week was absolutely NUTS. We found a new appointment everyday, which meant that luckily for us, a lot of them went through, they showed up, we've been giving out Book of Mormons in all kinds of languages! But before I get ahead of myself, I'll just go day by day and that way I'll remember everything.
First off, we have goals to meet with a member once a day (at least) and visit people with birthdays, so we've been getting to know our ward better. My lieblings is Sis. Zander and Sis. Lehman--both so adorable and artsy! I think it's just standard for every awesome German to just have the coolest mugs ever. I like meeting with members because they're so lieb and so nice and the German for me comes out more quickly, too! Although it's kinda hard to quatsch auf Deutsch sometimes because I'm still learning vocab. So usually it's charades or "I don't know the word auf deutsch but it looks like..." But it's really fun! Members rock!
A funny story though; our ward roster doesn't show everyone by family, but by seperated names and such, so when we see a name in the roster, chances are we don't really know who to match the name with. This week we saw that a member had a birthday and made cookies and a card for a "Bruder Ritter" and went to the address. Well it was 100% hilarious, because "Bruder Ritter" just celebrated his 2nd birthday this week! The card is now 10x funnier because it isn't address to a kid, but to an adult. There's like 7 kids/babies in our ward, what are the chances, y'know? Everyone thought it was funny, and it was a REALLY good way to get to know a family in the ward better! haha
We also had a Conference call on Tuesday from Pres. Pimentel about our Christmas goals for the month called Der Advent der Wunder, where we've got specific goals each week that go with the advent candle tradition that we do at home. The candles represent Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love which also correspond with our missionary work Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost and Find, Teach, Baptize and Keep. Our goals go along with these things and it gives us fun things to study, and lots of miracles to look forward to!
I don't know why, but I've started to do a lot of knitting, which started because of our Knitting Investigator, but it's actually a lot more fun than I thought. I still have time to do other important things, and journalling of course, but I keep finding myself knitting! I found a Christmas star pattern and I just finished it, ack! I'm like a granny! But I only do little small projects, I don't plan on knitting scarfs or anything. Yarn is pretty cheap (.89 euro cent) but it's funny, just funny. I'll definitely send pictures!
Okay, so our cool miracle for this week had (I think) to do with dooring in the Student Wohnheims right by our apt. We were at church yesterday like usual and a student from Nigeria came in and sat by Sis. Anderson--all by himself, we've never met him before! But wait, I've met him before! He's a friend of one of our investigators, Evidence and Evidence introduced us to his friend, Arinze. Anyway, Arinze saw our card on the floor of some random Wohnung and just decided to come to church! We already plan on meeting with him because he wants to read the Book of Mormon! I think it was a major miracle, because we just did a little thing--dooring and handing out our passalong cards, but Heavenly Father did the rest! And I think he understands as well as we do, that finding ANYONE on the streets, let alone with interest, on Advent Sundays--yeah it's pretty tough. Talk about bringing people to US!
Here's another fun bit. Sis. Anderson just -happens- to be writing an Elder serving in Denmark (one of the Elders in the MTC told her to write this guy), and we decided it would be kinda funny for her to write some dansk in the letter just to throw him for a loop. So Sis. Anderson gave me sentences to translate, and by golly, I still got it! It was funny that some words just totally escaped me because I really speak and use a lot more German than I realize, and so I'm thinking to myself, "what's the word for 'will'??" and then a minute later it comes, phew! I still get letters from dansk venner serving in Denmark now or back and BYU so I get a little practice here and there with reading and writing. Sometimes our members ask me to say stuff in dansk, which is fun but weird, because I'm not perfect at deutsch, but it's hard to switch over to dansk! Mom and I will have to speak tons of deutsch and dansk when I ever come home! :P
One last thing, my favorite missionary story for this week. It's kinda a joke between us missionaries and Sis. Wunder, since she talks to us the most about our work, is that we talk to a lot more investigators, contacts off the street that AREN'T deutsch, because the Cottbusers are just like any Germans, stuck in what they want to believe (or not believe). So I find this story interesting. We were OYMing in a little park and there were two people about to walk by us, so Sis. Anderson had us split and we each talk to these guys rather than just one and miss the other. She talked to an African (there are a lot here because of the university here) and I talked to the German, both students. The German guy actually stayed and asked me questions and I got to teach him the 2nd lesson right there on the spot! A lot of times people ask me why I came alll the way from the US to talk about God and I told him that the knowledge I have makes life easier because I know that he's there to help me and I know why I'm here. He then asked, "Well then, why am I here?" and so I told him! As usual, students don't have time, and plan everything day by day, but he took my card and said he'd try and call us back to hear more before I leave (which I said Christmas because that's the end of the transfer and I don't know what'll happen after that!) But that was cool! Talking to students my age is a lot easier than talking to grumpy old people, that's for sure!
So that's the deal-i-o with me this week. We taught 22 lessons this week! That's a big number for us, and we're lovin it! We hope to stay busy and regardless we stay happy! Sis. Anderson loves missionary work and gets me pumped up for it everyday, so we're a fun team. I'm so happy everyone had an exciting Thanksgiving and everything at home is going well! I miss you guys and can't wait to hear more from you soon!
love,
Whit
About Me
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- 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, November 28, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Work, work
Holy meine gute, a pretty crazy week, but crazy weeks are WAY better than boring dull weeks! Try and catch up!
We reached a lot of our goals this week, namely finding 7 new people (one a day) that are willing to meet with us--just random people on the dark, cobblestone streets of Cottbus! We also taught 20 lessons this week, a pretty jam-packed schedule for sure, seeing how usually 15 a week is considered a good week! We have even run into people who already have a copy of a Book of Mormon which is always a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately most of those people visit Cottbus and wouldn't be able to stay and be taught but we still gave them a card and explained they could find missionaries wherever they are in the world.
We taught Anna again this week (yaaay!) and I loved our visit because she shared with us how much she loves the Family Proclamation to the World that we gave her last time and wants to find it in Hungarian and frame it on the wall, since we told her that is how we have it at home! She read it with her husband and said that was exactly how they wanted their family to be. It's an huge blessing to see them reading these things together and desiring the kind of family that I've already been blessed to have. She's on a trip right now visiting family in Hungary, but she said that she wanted to really read in the Book of Mormon and was going to read it during the car trip! Like Jordo likes to say, "squeeeee!" Spaendende!
During the middle of Tuesday we picked up my new companion, Sis. AndersOn, NOT spelled right but that's only a joke. She's from San Antonio, Texas, and so our members love that. One of our older members we visited had this big grin on his face and said in the funniest accent ever "Waahker Texaaas Rangah!" Another investigator, Bezhan, the Arabisch Drummer thought it was cool, because he GUESSED she was from Texas and when he heard he was right, he pretended to pull out two pistols and swing them around like a outlaw. People here don't know what Kansas is. At all. Haha! She is also and English major like me and likes writing poetry! She has a couple of soundtracks I like in German so it's been really fun listening to them!
So for transfers, it usually ends up that we pick up someone and stay in a dritt until the other leaves, and so for half of a day we were in a dritt, which was probably the most awkward thing ever, because I was with my beloved trainer for the last few moments before she went home, and then my NEW trainer (or in missionary lingo, my "step mom") all at once, it's just hard to explain, because you want to spend the last few moments right but you want to get to know the new companion, you know? Things are obviously good, although it's apparant that they work differently and have different views about missionary work, which none of them are bad, just different. She's not as talkative or open as Sis. Allen so I'm getting used to a new companion and showing her around Cottbus.
One thing I've noticed though is that when under pressure like this, I really DO know my way around. I still don't know when certain bahns leave and go because we use different lines all the time and from different haltestelles and what-not, but I know how to figure all that out, and I can tell where I am in the city and know how to get us there. It's weird; it's all by landmarks, NOT by the street names. We haven't been lost since I've became the "expert" of Cottbus, which has been a blessing. And the ward and investigators know me better, so I almost have to be the senior companion at times to schedule things or even report in Gemeinderat, which is pretty scary for me! So yeah, I'm the one with the map.
One thing that Sis. Anderson is serious about is Taufdatums. As a way to understand where our investigators are, she's been asking every single one if they want to be baptized. Most of them have questions they still want answered and want solid testimonies, BUT we have a "soft" Taufdatum with our Eternal Investigator, Frau Baruck for January 16th. To be honest, I don't know if that will come to pass, because she has had a Taufdatum each year for 6 years and wants her husband to be more accepting of the gospel before really getting baptized, so I really hope that it pulls through!
Let's see, ickiest thing I had to eat this week: Liverwurst spread on bread. NICHT MEIN DING. Bruder Gröscke is just notorious for making us eat the weirdest things, but I finished every last bite and had the worst after taste in my mouth. Blech!
It IS becoming much colder, so I'm wearing an average of 3 layers to keep me warm to keep up the work! Still no snow but frost in the mornings and heavy, eerie fog in the evenings (or 5pm darkness MEINE gute). It's been 1°C this whole week, just not quite cold enough to snow!
BUT, Cottbus will have it's own Weinachtmarkt that'll open this week! I'm SOOO excited! They've been setting things up for it for the past two weeks and they've already set up a huge ferris wheel and are now setting up an ice skating rink! Squeeee! Sis. Anderson and I are having our first Christmases here in Deutschland so we're suuuper excited. She had to spend her Christmas in the MTC, how rough is THAT?
Anyway, we've had some interesting lessons with investigators. We met with an older couple this past week--I've only met with them one other time, but they seem to have a lot of interest in the gospel, just haven't gotten them to actually come to church yet. However, we were in a way sabotaged with their granddaughter there visiting. Sussi, she was such a brat. She's 15 and probably the biggest brat ever, because the couple were very interested in what we had to say and she basically torched the Spirit by arguing with them. She's atheist and yet she told us, "they are Evangelisch and they will stay that way!" Meine gute, if looks could kill, Sis. Anderson and I would've died 5 times over. I can understand the protectiveness of family members, but she's this punk 15 yr. old that wouldn't even listen to what we had to say, just flipped off the handle. So yeah, that visit did not last long; we hope to visit soon WITHOUT sweet little Sussi. *cringe*
A cool miracle that happened yesterday: We wanted to visit Herr Starick our Golden investigator that talked with us over his balcony, but I never wrote down his address, Sis. Allen did, and he lives in a cluster of Wohnungs in an area I'm not too familiar with. We still wanted to visit and give him a Book of Mormon, so we decided to go with my guesses to see if we could find him and if not, we'd just email Sis. Allen and ask for the address. We went at 6pm (which of course is totally dark like it's 11pm) and without any sort of directions just went with what I was trying to remember. The cluster of Wohnungs for me is like one of those rat mazes where they all look the same. But we prayed before leaving that we would find our way--and we DID. Not because of me at all; there were times where I was literally like, "first instinct says left" and we went left, and we made it directly to his apartment. It was...pretty cool. And he was home, too! Searching for his Wohnung in the dark was totally worth it. We gave him the Book of Mormon though he's too busy to really meet with us right now (you can never really tell if they really mean "keine Zeit" or "kein Interesse") but he just kept staring at the Book of Mormon as we explained what it means to us.
Another miracle? Christine, our Knitting Investigator not only let us meet and talk to her about the gospel for 45minutes without being distracted, BUT she came to church! It was the best kind, because yesterday was the PV (primary) Programm. And it was a sweet experience, even though they only have 5 kids in the primary. We actually got to help sing 2 songs with them, so even the missionaries were involved! We're still technically on the young side of the ward; they only have 1 teenage boy that I think is a Deacon or Teacher, 2 YSAs and that's about it! Schwester Wunder's granddaughter also got to sing--she's visiting from the States (German mom and American dad) and sang "I love to see the Temple" in English which was probably the most adorable thing AUF DER ERDE. Christine's little girl, Laura actually loved the program and walked right up to the front to stand by the other kids! I think Christine was horrified but everyone thought it was really adorable.
I've also heard of crazy things wards here in Germany try to do to amp up PV prorgrams, almost like plays and being all extravigant--like in this program, they showed a song with a video and the kids sang along--auf English, which is why we got to help. I also heard from our Ward Missionary Leader that the Bischof asked him if churches in the States string Christmas lights throughout the building and he said no (he's from the States as well, served a mission in München!) and the members were mad at him that they couldn't do it! I think they think it happens stateside but nope, it doesn't, haha.
Last miracle for the week: I actually got to meet another missionary from another church. She sat by us on the train home because she heard us speaking English and she is also from Texas. It's weird to see how missionary work is done differently in other churches, but she is a really cool girl, a little older than us and plans on being here in Germany for two years. I honestly can't remember which denomination she serves for, but hey, it was incredibly awesome talking with her and seeing that she has the same desires to serve others as I do, and she wants to keep in touch! She was just a super awesome person, that of course was a random miracle. We neever come across other Americans here in Cottbus and to meet one on our train? Wunder!
So yeah, a real meaty kind of week and everything was just completely awesome. I give points to Sis. Anderson, she really trusts my sense of direction! So far so good, but she's never phased when I warn her that I'm not sure I know where I'm going! She's teaching me a lot about boldness and helping investigators actually make baptism a goal to work for rather then some distant destination. Cottbus has been waiting 4 years for a Taufe and around Christmastime couldn't be any more magical.
It's good to hear that the Olsen family is domiNATING in tae-qon-do and to hear all the miracles you have had this week, too. I love you all and miss you! I'm grateful for being in this family with the heritage that I have; I've always been grateful but to see investigators like the Hungarian Mutti who craves the kind of family that I have, it makes me all the more grateful!
Love ya!
Sis. Whit
We reached a lot of our goals this week, namely finding 7 new people (one a day) that are willing to meet with us--just random people on the dark, cobblestone streets of Cottbus! We also taught 20 lessons this week, a pretty jam-packed schedule for sure, seeing how usually 15 a week is considered a good week! We have even run into people who already have a copy of a Book of Mormon which is always a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately most of those people visit Cottbus and wouldn't be able to stay and be taught but we still gave them a card and explained they could find missionaries wherever they are in the world.
We taught Anna again this week (yaaay!) and I loved our visit because she shared with us how much she loves the Family Proclamation to the World that we gave her last time and wants to find it in Hungarian and frame it on the wall, since we told her that is how we have it at home! She read it with her husband and said that was exactly how they wanted their family to be. It's an huge blessing to see them reading these things together and desiring the kind of family that I've already been blessed to have. She's on a trip right now visiting family in Hungary, but she said that she wanted to really read in the Book of Mormon and was going to read it during the car trip! Like Jordo likes to say, "squeeeee!" Spaendende!
During the middle of Tuesday we picked up my new companion, Sis. AndersOn, NOT spelled right but that's only a joke. She's from San Antonio, Texas, and so our members love that. One of our older members we visited had this big grin on his face and said in the funniest accent ever "Waahker Texaaas Rangah!" Another investigator, Bezhan, the Arabisch Drummer thought it was cool, because he GUESSED she was from Texas and when he heard he was right, he pretended to pull out two pistols and swing them around like a outlaw. People here don't know what Kansas is. At all. Haha! She is also and English major like me and likes writing poetry! She has a couple of soundtracks I like in German so it's been really fun listening to them!
So for transfers, it usually ends up that we pick up someone and stay in a dritt until the other leaves, and so for half of a day we were in a dritt, which was probably the most awkward thing ever, because I was with my beloved trainer for the last few moments before she went home, and then my NEW trainer (or in missionary lingo, my "step mom") all at once, it's just hard to explain, because you want to spend the last few moments right but you want to get to know the new companion, you know? Things are obviously good, although it's apparant that they work differently and have different views about missionary work, which none of them are bad, just different. She's not as talkative or open as Sis. Allen so I'm getting used to a new companion and showing her around Cottbus.
One thing I've noticed though is that when under pressure like this, I really DO know my way around. I still don't know when certain bahns leave and go because we use different lines all the time and from different haltestelles and what-not, but I know how to figure all that out, and I can tell where I am in the city and know how to get us there. It's weird; it's all by landmarks, NOT by the street names. We haven't been lost since I've became the "expert" of Cottbus, which has been a blessing. And the ward and investigators know me better, so I almost have to be the senior companion at times to schedule things or even report in Gemeinderat, which is pretty scary for me! So yeah, I'm the one with the map.
One thing that Sis. Anderson is serious about is Taufdatums. As a way to understand where our investigators are, she's been asking every single one if they want to be baptized. Most of them have questions they still want answered and want solid testimonies, BUT we have a "soft" Taufdatum with our Eternal Investigator, Frau Baruck for January 16th. To be honest, I don't know if that will come to pass, because she has had a Taufdatum each year for 6 years and wants her husband to be more accepting of the gospel before really getting baptized, so I really hope that it pulls through!
Let's see, ickiest thing I had to eat this week: Liverwurst spread on bread. NICHT MEIN DING. Bruder Gröscke is just notorious for making us eat the weirdest things, but I finished every last bite and had the worst after taste in my mouth. Blech!
It IS becoming much colder, so I'm wearing an average of 3 layers to keep me warm to keep up the work! Still no snow but frost in the mornings and heavy, eerie fog in the evenings (or 5pm darkness MEINE gute). It's been 1°C this whole week, just not quite cold enough to snow!
BUT, Cottbus will have it's own Weinachtmarkt that'll open this week! I'm SOOO excited! They've been setting things up for it for the past two weeks and they've already set up a huge ferris wheel and are now setting up an ice skating rink! Squeeee! Sis. Anderson and I are having our first Christmases here in Deutschland so we're suuuper excited. She had to spend her Christmas in the MTC, how rough is THAT?
Anyway, we've had some interesting lessons with investigators. We met with an older couple this past week--I've only met with them one other time, but they seem to have a lot of interest in the gospel, just haven't gotten them to actually come to church yet. However, we were in a way sabotaged with their granddaughter there visiting. Sussi, she was such a brat. She's 15 and probably the biggest brat ever, because the couple were very interested in what we had to say and she basically torched the Spirit by arguing with them. She's atheist and yet she told us, "they are Evangelisch and they will stay that way!" Meine gute, if looks could kill, Sis. Anderson and I would've died 5 times over. I can understand the protectiveness of family members, but she's this punk 15 yr. old that wouldn't even listen to what we had to say, just flipped off the handle. So yeah, that visit did not last long; we hope to visit soon WITHOUT sweet little Sussi. *cringe*
A cool miracle that happened yesterday: We wanted to visit Herr Starick our Golden investigator that talked with us over his balcony, but I never wrote down his address, Sis. Allen did, and he lives in a cluster of Wohnungs in an area I'm not too familiar with. We still wanted to visit and give him a Book of Mormon, so we decided to go with my guesses to see if we could find him and if not, we'd just email Sis. Allen and ask for the address. We went at 6pm (which of course is totally dark like it's 11pm) and without any sort of directions just went with what I was trying to remember. The cluster of Wohnungs for me is like one of those rat mazes where they all look the same. But we prayed before leaving that we would find our way--and we DID. Not because of me at all; there were times where I was literally like, "first instinct says left" and we went left, and we made it directly to his apartment. It was...pretty cool. And he was home, too! Searching for his Wohnung in the dark was totally worth it. We gave him the Book of Mormon though he's too busy to really meet with us right now (you can never really tell if they really mean "keine Zeit" or "kein Interesse") but he just kept staring at the Book of Mormon as we explained what it means to us.
Another miracle? Christine, our Knitting Investigator not only let us meet and talk to her about the gospel for 45minutes without being distracted, BUT she came to church! It was the best kind, because yesterday was the PV (primary) Programm. And it was a sweet experience, even though they only have 5 kids in the primary. We actually got to help sing 2 songs with them, so even the missionaries were involved! We're still technically on the young side of the ward; they only have 1 teenage boy that I think is a Deacon or Teacher, 2 YSAs and that's about it! Schwester Wunder's granddaughter also got to sing--she's visiting from the States (German mom and American dad) and sang "I love to see the Temple" in English which was probably the most adorable thing AUF DER ERDE. Christine's little girl, Laura actually loved the program and walked right up to the front to stand by the other kids! I think Christine was horrified but everyone thought it was really adorable.
I've also heard of crazy things wards here in Germany try to do to amp up PV prorgrams, almost like plays and being all extravigant--like in this program, they showed a song with a video and the kids sang along--auf English, which is why we got to help. I also heard from our Ward Missionary Leader that the Bischof asked him if churches in the States string Christmas lights throughout the building and he said no (he's from the States as well, served a mission in München!) and the members were mad at him that they couldn't do it! I think they think it happens stateside but nope, it doesn't, haha.
Last miracle for the week: I actually got to meet another missionary from another church. She sat by us on the train home because she heard us speaking English and she is also from Texas. It's weird to see how missionary work is done differently in other churches, but she is a really cool girl, a little older than us and plans on being here in Germany for two years. I honestly can't remember which denomination she serves for, but hey, it was incredibly awesome talking with her and seeing that she has the same desires to serve others as I do, and she wants to keep in touch! She was just a super awesome person, that of course was a random miracle. We neever come across other Americans here in Cottbus and to meet one on our train? Wunder!
So yeah, a real meaty kind of week and everything was just completely awesome. I give points to Sis. Anderson, she really trusts my sense of direction! So far so good, but she's never phased when I warn her that I'm not sure I know where I'm going! She's teaching me a lot about boldness and helping investigators actually make baptism a goal to work for rather then some distant destination. Cottbus has been waiting 4 years for a Taufe and around Christmastime couldn't be any more magical.
It's good to hear that the Olsen family is domiNATING in tae-qon-do and to hear all the miracles you have had this week, too. I love you all and miss you! I'm grateful for being in this family with the heritage that I have; I've always been grateful but to see investigators like the Hungarian Mutti who craves the kind of family that I have, it makes me all the more grateful!
Love ya!
Sis. Whit
Monday, November 14, 2011
No transfer...
Aaaack, I really had a crazy week this week! It's been weird because nearly every day this week I've been in charge of setting up a lot of appointments because apparantly not many Goldens have the guts to call someone and ask them to meet with us over the phone, but I needed to know how to manage our time so we can meet with a lot of people in one day and give good directions or whatever. It's basically Sis. Allen transferring responsibility to me so that I know what I'm doing when she leaves this Wednesday.
I say this week has been crazy because we've had so many things planned for this week and a lot of it fell out with people being sick or not making their appointments and other crazy things we couldn't control, it's been cra-zy. But the fact that we still had 15 lessons this week is pretty good, which is still the normal, if not better than usual. So even though everyday was rearranged somehow or people "wasting" our time by saying they can't make it on time...it all still worked out!
We've had some intense lessons this week, mainly turning our investigators to the scriptures. We have quite a few investigators that are just doubting about the answers they recieve or if they can even recieve answers, and so we have been turning them to scriptures and prayer, because it says in the PMG manual (and it's so true!) that anyone no matter how much they know about Christ, they can know Him through the Book of Mormon, and if they know what Christ has done for them and that He listens to prayers and answers them, everything just falls into place.
We have had some really cool meetings with our investigators this week (the ones that actually were on time or didn't reschedule!) one in particular was Sven, our guy we met outside of H&M. He has already started reading the BoM which is AWESOME. He really doesn't have a faith to say, but he has sort of a Meinung about knowledge and how we know something is true. It was an interesting conversation, because when I talk about the scriptures, commandments anything, I always say that we have this life to really test out our faith--we have to have faith to see miracles, answers, comfort, and when we come to the middle first and ask Heavenly Father for help, He will meet us there and it works, but if we knew everthing, knew with concrete evidence that He was there, then what's the point of life? There's nothing to experience or learn about what it means to trust, love, serve and learn!I know it's fun to say and harder to do, but being able to bear my testimony in a busy coffee shop is a pretty cool experience (don't worry, Sis. Allan and I had kakao!)
We also had this really random meeting with Herr Starick, our contact we talked to outside his balcony for like 30min while dooring. He invited us to "Männerabend" which is just him and his buddies getting together and "being guys" and seeing how we wanted to meet but knew we would be out-numbered, we brought two Elders with us from our district for help. We all stood outside (and it's getting way colder now!) and gave a really brief first lesson, because yeah, probably the most awkwardly funny lesson ever. Mainly because I think H. Starick wants to know more about the church, no doubt about it, he just wanted his friends to ask for him! We're going to stop by super soon and just talk with him and not his friends but it was yeah, pretty interesting. We got to talk to five people at once, but we didn't plan on getting too much time to talk or much progress because the other guys were mindlessly standing around wondering when they can go back inside and drink. But yeah, pretty funny the circumstances and settings we get to teach! I don't know if as a Sister I'll be invited to talk about religion at a Männerabend again! :P
I can't believe I got this far in my email and haven't even said anything about our new transfer! I'm happy to say that I'm staying in Cottubs, and because of a blitz transfer right before Christmas I might potentially have Christmas somewhere else, but President promised I'd get to come back which means that I should be able to stay in Cottbus until January and I hope longer, too! Sis. Allan leaves Wednesday morning and I get my new companion tommorrow, Sis. Anderson. I hope she spells it with an "-en" because we'd be two sisters with rad Danish last names! I've talked to her on the phone for a bit and she sounds cool. All I know is that she comes from Texas and is coming here from Kiel so all I really know is that Sis. Allan says she's nice. More deets next Monday!
Ack, so this week has been mainly using the excuse of Sis. Allan leaving to meet with as many members and investigators as possible, which has been fun. Our Arabisch-speaking investigator brought us flowers and cookies this past week because even though there's a huge language barrier he's happy to be reading the BoM with us and that we help him relearn English and learn more German. Our investigators really love us! I could tell because our part-member couple (Sis. Brigitte and Bruder Kallies) cried when they had to say good-bye to Sis. Allan last night. As a missionary you're allowed into these peoples' lives and then you have to leave so soon and it's hard to accept. Luckily Sis. Allan is going home, she can add the whole ward as Facebook friends! haha
It's really cool to hear from the boys and it's even funnier to hear how Jordo is doing. It sucks I know trying to read people and what they're "really" saying when they say they have SO much homework they have to turn down a date. Girls are hard to read because they try to be nice but still lead you on because they don't flat out say no! But it sounds like mom is helping decifer the code! I took a picture for Justin the other day of this driving school ad: the cars are all orange and black and the doors swing up rather than out--some really fancy cars to practice driving in! That's the thing, here every other store is either a driving school place or a Friseur, it's absolutely ridiculous. And Germans totally ruin their hair with atrocious colors and cuts! Too many lady-mullets!!
I don't think I have any other stories for this week, everyone is still progressing though, and today we get to FINALLY meet with Anna since she was sick last week, so I'm excited for that! I'm excited for my new companion; I know that I'm lucky because all the Sisters here are serious about work and love it, so if President/Heavenly Father thinks it's a good match, I'm all for it! I am really sad to see Sis. Allan go, but I know that she will love seeing her family again and get back to school and friends. And Facebook! I've been doing really good about not getting trunky, and she hasn't been rubbing it in or anything! I feel like I've just scratched the surface and I've got limited time to help make some miracles happen.
Thanks for all the updates and I already can't wait to hear from you all next week!
I say this week has been crazy because we've had so many things planned for this week and a lot of it fell out with people being sick or not making their appointments and other crazy things we couldn't control, it's been cra-zy. But the fact that we still had 15 lessons this week is pretty good, which is still the normal, if not better than usual. So even though everyday was rearranged somehow or people "wasting" our time by saying they can't make it on time...it all still worked out!
We've had some intense lessons this week, mainly turning our investigators to the scriptures. We have quite a few investigators that are just doubting about the answers they recieve or if they can even recieve answers, and so we have been turning them to scriptures and prayer, because it says in the PMG manual (and it's so true!) that anyone no matter how much they know about Christ, they can know Him through the Book of Mormon, and if they know what Christ has done for them and that He listens to prayers and answers them, everything just falls into place.
We have had some really cool meetings with our investigators this week (the ones that actually were on time or didn't reschedule!) one in particular was Sven, our guy we met outside of H&M. He has already started reading the BoM which is AWESOME. He really doesn't have a faith to say, but he has sort of a Meinung about knowledge and how we know something is true. It was an interesting conversation, because when I talk about the scriptures, commandments anything, I always say that we have this life to really test out our faith--we have to have faith to see miracles, answers, comfort, and when we come to the middle first and ask Heavenly Father for help, He will meet us there and it works, but if we knew everthing, knew with concrete evidence that He was there, then what's the point of life? There's nothing to experience or learn about what it means to trust, love, serve and learn!I know it's fun to say and harder to do, but being able to bear my testimony in a busy coffee shop is a pretty cool experience (don't worry, Sis. Allan and I had kakao!)
We also had this really random meeting with Herr Starick, our contact we talked to outside his balcony for like 30min while dooring. He invited us to "Männerabend" which is just him and his buddies getting together and "being guys" and seeing how we wanted to meet but knew we would be out-numbered, we brought two Elders with us from our district for help. We all stood outside (and it's getting way colder now!) and gave a really brief first lesson, because yeah, probably the most awkwardly funny lesson ever. Mainly because I think H. Starick wants to know more about the church, no doubt about it, he just wanted his friends to ask for him! We're going to stop by super soon and just talk with him and not his friends but it was yeah, pretty interesting. We got to talk to five people at once, but we didn't plan on getting too much time to talk or much progress because the other guys were mindlessly standing around wondering when they can go back inside and drink. But yeah, pretty funny the circumstances and settings we get to teach! I don't know if as a Sister I'll be invited to talk about religion at a Männerabend again! :P
I can't believe I got this far in my email and haven't even said anything about our new transfer! I'm happy to say that I'm staying in Cottubs, and because of a blitz transfer right before Christmas I might potentially have Christmas somewhere else, but President promised I'd get to come back which means that I should be able to stay in Cottbus until January and I hope longer, too! Sis. Allan leaves Wednesday morning and I get my new companion tommorrow, Sis. Anderson. I hope she spells it with an "-en" because we'd be two sisters with rad Danish last names! I've talked to her on the phone for a bit and she sounds cool. All I know is that she comes from Texas and is coming here from Kiel so all I really know is that Sis. Allan says she's nice. More deets next Monday!
Ack, so this week has been mainly using the excuse of Sis. Allan leaving to meet with as many members and investigators as possible, which has been fun. Our Arabisch-speaking investigator brought us flowers and cookies this past week because even though there's a huge language barrier he's happy to be reading the BoM with us and that we help him relearn English and learn more German. Our investigators really love us! I could tell because our part-member couple (Sis. Brigitte and Bruder Kallies) cried when they had to say good-bye to Sis. Allan last night. As a missionary you're allowed into these peoples' lives and then you have to leave so soon and it's hard to accept. Luckily Sis. Allan is going home, she can add the whole ward as Facebook friends! haha
It's really cool to hear from the boys and it's even funnier to hear how Jordo is doing. It sucks I know trying to read people and what they're "really" saying when they say they have SO much homework they have to turn down a date. Girls are hard to read because they try to be nice but still lead you on because they don't flat out say no! But it sounds like mom is helping decifer the code! I took a picture for Justin the other day of this driving school ad: the cars are all orange and black and the doors swing up rather than out--some really fancy cars to practice driving in! That's the thing, here every other store is either a driving school place or a Friseur, it's absolutely ridiculous. And Germans totally ruin their hair with atrocious colors and cuts! Too many lady-mullets!!
I don't think I have any other stories for this week, everyone is still progressing though, and today we get to FINALLY meet with Anna since she was sick last week, so I'm excited for that! I'm excited for my new companion; I know that I'm lucky because all the Sisters here are serious about work and love it, so if President/Heavenly Father thinks it's a good match, I'm all for it! I am really sad to see Sis. Allan go, but I know that she will love seeing her family again and get back to school and friends. And Facebook! I've been doing really good about not getting trunky, and she hasn't been rubbing it in or anything! I feel like I've just scratched the surface and I've got limited time to help make some miracles happen.
Thanks for all the updates and I already can't wait to hear from you all next week!
Monday, November 7, 2011
Working hard...
It was incredible to hear from all of you and to even get some PRETTY ridiculous pictures of Jordo this week, meine gute, he's having lots of fun I can tell! It's cool to see how he's liking the big fab BYU and doing absolutely insane stuff.
People here do say Guten Tag, but usually you just hear the "Tag" part. I make a concious effort to say it all the time to everyone who passes, and they're already staring at us, so it's nice to say something so it's like, "yeah I know you're checking out my nametag and no I'm not all that scary!" :P
Sís. Allen freu'd herself over that picture because she could pick out her mom in an instant. I guess it's so weird that destiny/fate just surrounds the members of the church, that you somehow know her mom and we're working together, I heard that my picture was on some facebook page and everyone was freaking out about the connections?? Something about me knowing a Sis. Rassmussen or something, it's all crazy stuff on the Facebook page or whatevs! We stir up a lot of fun here in the Berlin Mission!
So like I said, Monday was crazy because it was a holiday, but we still got to teach a part-member couple, and they showed us pics from their recent trip to Tokyo and I thought, oh wow! Jordo will get to go to so many cool places on his mission! It's too bad that he can't go outside of his mission to Tokyo itself, but they had lots of fun pictures of the food! They were visiting their son and in his apt. the kitchen table had like a little grill thingie for meat because the kitchen is THAT small that they cook stuff AT the table. Cool huh?
We had just scores of awesome lessons this week. I hope Jordo realizes that this kind of stuff doesn't really happen in other cities. Cottbus is just on fire right now and we get to just teach all these people, but the other Elders in our distrikt teach maybe 5 lessons and we teach about 16 a week. We have 11 progressing investigators and we're hoping to add another 3, it's really fun and exhilirating to just have work ALL the time to do and I feel like I'm really making a difference!
We taught Evidence this week for a short time because as any other college student, he has a huge project/presentation to work on. So we showed him the Joseph Smith video and...yeah, the Spirit was really strong. He said his favorite part was when Joseph sees God and Christ, which was great because before he was having a difficulty understanding that God, Christ, and the HG are seperate beings. He was just on fire with the BoM and wants to read it as much as he can, even as a student and give it time. We were suggesting you know a chapter a day or even 10min, but he wants to give it like 30min everyday, talk about an awesome investigator!
We got to teach Anna again as well this week, she's sooo amazing! How lucky are WE when she asks us right off the bat, how one becomes a Mormon? :)) The Lord loves Cottbus, I'm tellin ya! She's already reading on her own and didn't even wait for us to really introduce it, since she technically brought one with her from home--you know, her grandma gave her one! Ack! We sent her a card of a suggested chapter, Alma 34 and she's been there, read that, and just had some fun questions. Her kids are also adorable and they like learning about Jesus, and so we hope to give her specific BoM stories to share with her kids. She says she gets chills when she reads. And the cool thing is that most of this work has been done by the Lord, we just get to go and give her more to read! She is by far the more normal of our investigators, because she's so interested, her kids are young and adorable, and her husband is pretty much okay with her investigating, and we hope to get him more involved in the scriptures as well. He's open for being really unglaublig (as a kid religion was banned in Hungary so he just didn't grow up with religion).
Even cooler, we had Zone Conference this past Freitag! We had it in Dresden, suuuper fun! There's a post about it on the blog page http://germanyberlinmission.blogspot.com and I'm even in some of the pictures! It was really cool and I got to give my "Golden testimony" since it was my first ZoKo (Zone Konferenz). I got to see Sis. Faerber and Sis. McCappin, two sisters I knew in the MTC so that was pretty exciting! We also took home 40 new BoM auf deutsch and this guy on the bus noticed it and our nametags and immediately started asking us questions about our church and what we believe. He was super curious about Mormons and was really open. He also heard us speaking english and tried using his English, which of course is probably better than my Deutsch, but he was talking a lot slower and thinking in between every little thing and we're like, "no serious, we can deutsch! (Wir können deutsch)" THAT was fun. We get to meet with him in two weeks when he's back from a work thing. Jeez. He's also named Sven! We've got two Svens!
Random note: I guess I'm a bit crazy because I'm getting into knitting, or at least doing my own projects to show Christine when we teach her this week. I finished a pattern of a star (looks a bit Christmas-y, pitures are coming!) and now I'Ve got a fun project, I'm going to make a Deutschland flag! I'm a geek, I know.
Way cool dooring experience this past week! We talked to a man on the first floor outside his balcony for almost 40 minutes about the church, basic beliefs and all of that fun stuff. All in the dark, it looked like 9pm but it was like 6:30pm, meeeeine gute. I haven't taught a real lesson before because of dooring before, so that was a real treat for me. He wants to meet further and is really nice. He's a single father with two daughters, and so he shared with us how his daughters bring him more joy than going out and partying, which is good to hear! And his name is Herr STARick, so we had a feeling he was golden. Personally for me, OYMing and dooring is getting easier and more fun for me because I know I can just share my testimony and that is my job, to just share what I believe, and if they take our cards, even better! We are also getting into contact with some older contacts that we've had to wait awhile to talk to because of work or Urlaub. We're so excited to talk to them, especially because they remember our message and how they felt when they met us!
Those are the big things from this week and it's still blowing my mind, and the fun thing is that I get to do it all over again this week and it already looks jam-packed with blessings and miracles! I think that I'm happy with all the fun stuff I get to do, but I think for anyone it's about the attitude and why you're here to serve. A lot of our investigators are eternal investigators, like 6 years eternal, but when I was at Zoko this past Freitag, one of the Elders asked me where I was serving and I said Cottbus of course. He said, "oh, I heard that Cottbus was kinda dry"--because Cottbus used to be run by dumb Elders that our ward hated because they didn't DO their work. But we're following the rules, doing our work, building trust with members and BOOM--blessings! And I love it out here, so even when things aren't exactly lovely, like people swearing at us while dooring, who cares! We're doing our work and apparantly we're doing something right. Sis. Allen says it's "golden power" but I think it's just doing what you're out here to do.
We are going to get transfer calls this Saturday, so I will pretty much find out my new companion! I really don't want Sis. Allen to leave, and she doesn't want to leave, but we both know this transfer has been a blast. I don't think I'll be moving anywhere--Sis. Allen said that there's some shrinking and closing down of cities because of the lack of new sisters coming in and 5 blitzing out, so something might go, and there's a rumor that Cottbus might be closed for 2 weeks because of it. In either case, President promised me I could come back, I just wouldn't be in Cottbus for Christmas. But from what Sis. Allen says, he's basically promising me that I'll be here for my first three transfers, which I'm excited for, we've got so many new investigators, and I wanna see them all get baptized!
I love you guys! Talking about families with Anna always reminds me how lucky I am to have mine! Forevs!
People here do say Guten Tag, but usually you just hear the "Tag" part. I make a concious effort to say it all the time to everyone who passes, and they're already staring at us, so it's nice to say something so it's like, "yeah I know you're checking out my nametag and no I'm not all that scary!" :P
Sís. Allen freu'd herself over that picture because she could pick out her mom in an instant. I guess it's so weird that destiny/fate just surrounds the members of the church, that you somehow know her mom and we're working together, I heard that my picture was on some facebook page and everyone was freaking out about the connections?? Something about me knowing a Sis. Rassmussen or something, it's all crazy stuff on the Facebook page or whatevs! We stir up a lot of fun here in the Berlin Mission!
So like I said, Monday was crazy because it was a holiday, but we still got to teach a part-member couple, and they showed us pics from their recent trip to Tokyo and I thought, oh wow! Jordo will get to go to so many cool places on his mission! It's too bad that he can't go outside of his mission to Tokyo itself, but they had lots of fun pictures of the food! They were visiting their son and in his apt. the kitchen table had like a little grill thingie for meat because the kitchen is THAT small that they cook stuff AT the table. Cool huh?
We had just scores of awesome lessons this week. I hope Jordo realizes that this kind of stuff doesn't really happen in other cities. Cottbus is just on fire right now and we get to just teach all these people, but the other Elders in our distrikt teach maybe 5 lessons and we teach about 16 a week. We have 11 progressing investigators and we're hoping to add another 3, it's really fun and exhilirating to just have work ALL the time to do and I feel like I'm really making a difference!
We taught Evidence this week for a short time because as any other college student, he has a huge project/presentation to work on. So we showed him the Joseph Smith video and...yeah, the Spirit was really strong. He said his favorite part was when Joseph sees God and Christ, which was great because before he was having a difficulty understanding that God, Christ, and the HG are seperate beings. He was just on fire with the BoM and wants to read it as much as he can, even as a student and give it time. We were suggesting you know a chapter a day or even 10min, but he wants to give it like 30min everyday, talk about an awesome investigator!
We got to teach Anna again as well this week, she's sooo amazing! How lucky are WE when she asks us right off the bat, how one becomes a Mormon? :)) The Lord loves Cottbus, I'm tellin ya! She's already reading on her own and didn't even wait for us to really introduce it, since she technically brought one with her from home--you know, her grandma gave her one! Ack! We sent her a card of a suggested chapter, Alma 34 and she's been there, read that, and just had some fun questions. Her kids are also adorable and they like learning about Jesus, and so we hope to give her specific BoM stories to share with her kids. She says she gets chills when she reads. And the cool thing is that most of this work has been done by the Lord, we just get to go and give her more to read! She is by far the more normal of our investigators, because she's so interested, her kids are young and adorable, and her husband is pretty much okay with her investigating, and we hope to get him more involved in the scriptures as well. He's open for being really unglaublig (as a kid religion was banned in Hungary so he just didn't grow up with religion).
Even cooler, we had Zone Conference this past Freitag! We had it in Dresden, suuuper fun! There's a post about it on the blog page http://germanyberlinmission.blogspot.com and I'm even in some of the pictures! It was really cool and I got to give my "Golden testimony" since it was my first ZoKo (Zone Konferenz). I got to see Sis. Faerber and Sis. McCappin, two sisters I knew in the MTC so that was pretty exciting! We also took home 40 new BoM auf deutsch and this guy on the bus noticed it and our nametags and immediately started asking us questions about our church and what we believe. He was super curious about Mormons and was really open. He also heard us speaking english and tried using his English, which of course is probably better than my Deutsch, but he was talking a lot slower and thinking in between every little thing and we're like, "no serious, we can deutsch! (Wir können deutsch)" THAT was fun. We get to meet with him in two weeks when he's back from a work thing. Jeez. He's also named Sven! We've got two Svens!
Random note: I guess I'm a bit crazy because I'm getting into knitting, or at least doing my own projects to show Christine when we teach her this week. I finished a pattern of a star (looks a bit Christmas-y, pitures are coming!) and now I'Ve got a fun project, I'm going to make a Deutschland flag! I'm a geek, I know.
Way cool dooring experience this past week! We talked to a man on the first floor outside his balcony for almost 40 minutes about the church, basic beliefs and all of that fun stuff. All in the dark, it looked like 9pm but it was like 6:30pm, meeeeine gute. I haven't taught a real lesson before because of dooring before, so that was a real treat for me. He wants to meet further and is really nice. He's a single father with two daughters, and so he shared with us how his daughters bring him more joy than going out and partying, which is good to hear! And his name is Herr STARick, so we had a feeling he was golden. Personally for me, OYMing and dooring is getting easier and more fun for me because I know I can just share my testimony and that is my job, to just share what I believe, and if they take our cards, even better! We are also getting into contact with some older contacts that we've had to wait awhile to talk to because of work or Urlaub. We're so excited to talk to them, especially because they remember our message and how they felt when they met us!
Those are the big things from this week and it's still blowing my mind, and the fun thing is that I get to do it all over again this week and it already looks jam-packed with blessings and miracles! I think that I'm happy with all the fun stuff I get to do, but I think for anyone it's about the attitude and why you're here to serve. A lot of our investigators are eternal investigators, like 6 years eternal, but when I was at Zoko this past Freitag, one of the Elders asked me where I was serving and I said Cottbus of course. He said, "oh, I heard that Cottbus was kinda dry"--because Cottbus used to be run by dumb Elders that our ward hated because they didn't DO their work. But we're following the rules, doing our work, building trust with members and BOOM--blessings! And I love it out here, so even when things aren't exactly lovely, like people swearing at us while dooring, who cares! We're doing our work and apparantly we're doing something right. Sis. Allen says it's "golden power" but I think it's just doing what you're out here to do.
We are going to get transfer calls this Saturday, so I will pretty much find out my new companion! I really don't want Sis. Allen to leave, and she doesn't want to leave, but we both know this transfer has been a blast. I don't think I'll be moving anywhere--Sis. Allen said that there's some shrinking and closing down of cities because of the lack of new sisters coming in and 5 blitzing out, so something might go, and there's a rumor that Cottbus might be closed for 2 weeks because of it. In either case, President promised me I could come back, I just wouldn't be in Cottbus for Christmas. But from what Sis. Allen says, he's basically promising me that I'll be here for my first three transfers, which I'm excited for, we've got so many new investigators, and I wanna see them all get baptized!
I love you guys! Talking about families with Anna always reminds me how lucky I am to have mine! Forevs!
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