Christmas time...

Just to answer a few questions, I have not gotten my Christmas packages yet because our "HO-HO-ZO-CO" (or zone conference) is THIS FREITAG! Woot wooooot! So we will take them all home with glee on Friday. I DID get my nano this past Wednesday, so I can now say that I have it, and we've listened to the Nashville Missionary CD like a 1000 times. Right now we listen to that, some Christmas music, and we found some CDs last week that were preiswert--Sis. Anderson got the Lion King Broadway soundtrack auf deutsch and I got the deutsch soundtrack for Tangled! Nicht schlecht! Just an early Christmas present for ourselves. So we listen to a lot of deutsch, too and it's great!

Christmas parties out the wazzoo eh? We had a couple this week, too! Well actually it was a FHV aktivität with a gift exchange. It was really funny because the theme was something that gives us "nourishment" or something we enjoy--and nearly everyone brought and exchanged mugs, chocolate or Fruchtetee/tea. I'm not a big tea drinker, but with enough sugar it tastes pretty good! It was pretty fun, though; our Frau Baruck (she has a self-set baptism date on Easter) came and there were 4 or 5 other non-member friends who arrived that we got to meet. Everything was cute-sy but in a way very simple and homey. We just chatted and they made us Kinderpunsch and cookies! One sister, the daughter of Schwester Wunder came to visit from the States and brought American candy and everyone was digging around with curiousity to see what she brought. All the Sisters were like, "do you want any, Sisters?" I took a Reeses of course but other than that, I was like, "I'm fine over here with a bowl of REAL chocolate!" haha, it reminded me of mom--thumbs down with Hershey! haha, except Reeses, Reeses are still good.

Holy meine gute so much went on this week, though! It definitely involved a lot of zig-zagging all over the city and going to all 4 corners of Cottbus, and even having appointments in Spremberg!

It was pretty fun--I know there are a lot of missionaries who wish they had our problem! I don't think it's all that common in other cities in our mission--we usually have daily texts from Präsident that list 2-3 names of people who will be baptized and each week we get a prayer list of people who will be baptized that week that we pray for, but I know the Elders in our distrikt have smaller cities than we do, and so it's harder to find people to meet with as often as we do. We're lucky we're in a college town!

Wednesday was just a classic missionary-esque day. It was pretty gloomy all day, fruitless OYMing/tracting and then we had an appointment with an old contact, Bodo (he's actually pretty cool) and as soon as we get far enough from the apartment to not be worth it--freak rainstorm! We were absolutely freezing and drenched and it was literally the only day I left my umbrella at home! And of course the rain stopped a bit, followed by a cold wind, so we were a sight! We did get an appointment for that day, after lots of klingel-ing and after that, we practically raced to the nearest Straßenbahn to take us home! I figure a few days like that remind me that the work is not for the faint of heart! But now I have "The Work" soundtrack in the back of my mind and I hum it a lot, so it's kinda like soundtrack music for our work!

A pretty cool miracle for this week was our lesson with David--an old contact that we found that is a high school student, but his mom let us come in and teach him (she was too busy smoking a pack in another room). I think we got 2nd-hand smoking while teaching him, but it was pretty worth it! At first we klingeled and his mom didn't let us in, she thought we were just klingeling when we actually had an appointment, and so we were walking home, already planning what to do next, and then David comes running after us, shouting, "Are you from the Church of Jesus Christ?" I don't think I've had an investigator run after us, he must've really wanted to meet! So we taught him about the Book of Mormon and prayer since he forgot most of what he had been taught by previous Sisters. But that was pretty cool. His mom didn't blink an eye when we came in--I'm not quite sure she's all the way there, but na ja, so ist das! She has like an army of 6 ugly cats and they all tried climbing all over my backpack and my lap like zombies. Apparantly I attract cats and Sis. Anderson attracts BIG dogs. We visited a member with a huge dog and it came right up to her and plopped down right at her feet, beggin' for love.

Freitag was my fav--our Spremberg day! We fiiiiinally got to see Anna and teach her a really awesome lesson. I can tell she really loves what we teach and she loves having us over, but she's slightly concerned about her husband and if he'll accept it. I think he has potential since they both read together the Family Proclamation and both totally loved it. But we haven't gotten a chance to really teach him, either since he works, so we're trying to think of some creative ways we can solve that problem. But sinc St. Nikolas came to visit this week, we got TONS of treats from everyone, because they wanted to make sure he visited us, although we forgot to put our shoes out anyway! Anna gave us a bag of traditional treats St. Nikolas brings to the Hungarian children, lots of chocolate and lots of nuts!

We also got to meet with a friend of two members in our ward, all three are absolutely adorable like Sima! I keep thinking these ladies would totally be perfect Facebook friends for mom, haha! Should I introduce you, mom? Probably after I transfer though (if i do!). But Monika, the friend is super adorable and likes making floral designs with flowers and even just branches, acorns, pine needles, whatever she finds in her garden--and she actually made us something when we came! Everyone here has their favorite things to make for Christmas (as one member says, "we LIVE for Christmas!") and it's a good time to be a missionary because everyone wants us to not be alone or "working TOO hard" around this time. But it was mainly getting to know Monika and her getting to know us, and we will be meeting with her very soon, of course! The 2 members came with us and it was a really fun time just chatting. I've discovered that if I mention "Der Sauberer von Oz" then people register what Kansas is!

Literally everyday was just a line-up of so many appointments, with new investigators, eternal investigators, members, you name it and even though it was a lot of rushing (and sometimes a lot of eating!) it was a blast!

Sunday was also crazy! And hilarious. We had a mysterious random guy come in the church today, an old guy who just sat himself down in Sunday School and Sacrament (we have Sacrament last). I sat next to him to try and get to know him--and he doesn't speak a word of deutsch or english--just Russian! He must live with someone who translates for him, because he did not understand a word! I tried asking for his address by drawing a little house and pointing, kinda like charades and he showed me his Visa or whatever with his name and address. This guy lives further from the church than WE do (a 15min Straßenbahn ride), so he didn't just one day walk by the church and decided to see what it was about; he found out about the church somehow. He had a piece of paper with him and he shoved a pen in my hand to write on it. It already said, "Das Buch Mormon; Ein Andere Zeugnis für Jesus Christus" and I think he wanted me to translate it into Russian, but obviously the MTC forgot to teach me! He only spoke Russian to me as if he thought I could understand or speak, but we found a lady in the ward that knew a little bit of Russian (they all do, the people who lived through the DDR) and we were able to tell hime we would bring him a Book of Mormon in Russian, and we'll probably bring every pamphlet, DVD, you name it in Russian! So if you know anyone in our stake that is relatively fluent in Russian, let us know!

We also had a Christmas concert yesterday in Forst, where our Elders are serving and we sung with a choir from that ward--a pretty awesome experience. The same member who introduced us to our beloved Anna and Monika brought a friend for the Elders to teach in Forst! I told her I will call her "Sister" not "Schwester" because she's almost our third companion! That definitely pleased her.

As far as baptisms, we need as many prayers as possible. Our goal for this week as a part of our Christmas mission-wide goals is inviting every single investigator, everyone we meet with this week (besides members obviously) to baptism. EVERYONE. For us, that's 19 people!! We're in the miracle-making business, so we're really excited and really anxious for how this week will go. And really, there are some that I think need the shove to move forward and know that they are pretty much ready, and there are others that need to have baptism as a goal to work towards. So we have specific ways to still tailor it to each and every person, so we're praying for some yeses!

Gaaah! So much excitement! Today we're going to DRESDEN! I'm excited to see the big Frauenkirche and alllllllll the wonderful Christmas-ness. Speaking of fun German-ness! A Sister I met in the MTC a group after me just told me that she's serving in Heidelberg now, with the military stake! If you know anyone still up there, tell them Sis. Floyd is super awesome! I told her how we loved going down to the castle all the time and how they were in our stake back in the day! Missions are just totally off the CHAIN.

So far, no snow, I hope we have a white Christmas but the snow will just be held off until then, I forsee a lot of dooring in the near future! I'm not sure how our Christmas week will go, but we will do our best, and I know most of our investigators are staying home for the holidays (pretty much all our students) so we might still be in luck! But we already have a FULL week ahead of lessons with people learning the gospel, and even a few learning English or German, and just yeah a big bowl of crazy. But like I said, it's a problem many missionaries would love to have!

I miss you all and I look forward to talking to you super soon! It's coming up!! I love you!

love,
Sister Whit