Doing great

Yuuup, on Feb 3rd, it's my 6 month mark. As I enjoy saying, HOLY MEINE FRIGGIN GUTE. That's all I have to say about that.

Wow, Jordo getting a new MTC date! I've heard about the new changes and they're actually a lot better. For one thing, I love the MTC and all, but it's a straight up Gefängnis! I couldn't wait to get out of there!! Mainly because I knew I was heading to Germany and to be there versus a small plot of MTC ness, it was almost claustrophobic or something, I had to get out! So the fact that Jordan won't have to stay for 12 weeks, I'm tellin' ya, it'd be the longest 12 weeks of his LIFE. Jordan, that's like a SEMESTER in the MTC, *shudders.* What I know they've been doing with newer missionaries here, is that instead of the 2-3 extra weeks in the MTC, he'll get the same stuff just in the form of DVD study materials that he'll do with his trainer. It's like a vamped up version of companion study--portable DVD player, anyone? It's really cool from what I'Ve heard. It really shows how much they REALLY trust missionaries these days! So don't mess it up for the rest of the new missionaries, okay?

Okay, our week was wiggity WACK.

First off, on Tuesday we had Zone Conference, which was of course TOTALLY awesome and it's really like Themas I needed this week. Also, reading the January Liahona was the best, almost every article was for me. And before my mission, I just looked at the pictures! Now I digest every word I can get, and now I'll have to wait until Präsident's interviews for our next edition, mensch. I was also really happy to get 5 letters, because of the transfer, I got letters that were sent to Cottbus by mistake and letters that people sent to the mission office because I didn't know my new address. I actually got a really nice card from Sis. Cusick! It was really nice! Tell her thank you for me! I ALSO got a letter from my favorite fav, Anna. Her daughter drew a picture of her family and me with a companion which was absolutely niedlich. Anna's letter, meine gute, so precious. She said she and the kids were really sad when they got my letter saying I moved to a new city, but she said that on Christmas they read together some stories from the Kinder Book of Mormon I gave them in Hungarian and her daughter really loved it. Ahh! But we will definitely keep in touch, I'm sure she still meets with the Sisters--otherwise I'd get on their case for it!

Also fun story: we have an investigator, Jeffrey a refugee from Africa, who met with us this past week and he's like, REALLY interested in being baptized. He's one of those investigators we thought didn't have much interest, but he keeps his commitments and reads, and even asks, "Is is okay if I bring a friend to church? I told him about the church and he wants to come." He's doing missionary work already and he doesn't know it! We asked him to pray about a date, since we've only taught him the Restoration. Pretty cool, huh?

Chanrith finally came to church after 2 weeks of not being able to set up an appoitment with him. We put a card in his Briefkasten telling him that God answers prayers for everything, even for help with finding work and finishing essays! He said it really meant a lot to him and he came to church with us, and is now friends with another investigator, Hans who tries speaking English with him. He won't really set any fest Termines with us because he's working on a paper and doesn't really know when he'll really be done, a typical student thing, I know that story. So at least we know he still wants to meet with us, this paper is just really stressing him out. But him coming to church--mirrrracle!

This week in general has been admitedly hard on both of us when it's been coming to finding. It's not easy to hear a 1000 no's and then 1 yes, because this week, the 7 yes's we found hung up the reciever when we klingled back. It's really not that fun, mainly because we spend so much time trying to find people and no one wants to be found. Which is why reading the Ensign this past month and reading in Alma has really, really been helpful. Sometimes focusing on the 1000 no's makes me blind to tiny other miracles, but just letting go of the crap that gets shoved our way helps me focus and helps me realize that Christ asks for my best, and that's what I'm trying to give. Sis. Neukomm and I have really felt like scum some moments and then good as gold the next, and it just comes with the work sometimes, because you realize as a missionary that missionaries are (gasp) NOT perfect! Mensch, so I hope Jordan realizes that if he feels overwhelmed trying to be perfect, then he knows how I feel.

But the silly thing, is that when we counted up our numbers from this past week, the number of lessons we taught and how many people came to church, we taught 22 lessons! A week of feeling like we got nothing accomplished and we exceeded our goals! So it's really a sign for me that I just have to take a chill pill and enjoy my time instead of worrying or focusing on silly things.

I realized, though, how happy my work really makes me feel when I talked to Carolin about it. She's a new convert that will turn in her mission papers this year (yay! She's so Golden!) and part of our work is continually teaching new converts everything, so they've heard all the lessons at least twice. And we taught her the basics of a Patriarchal Blessing and how they've really blessed us as missionaries. And we just went on and on about the blessings and what it's like to be a missionary--the good, the bad and the ugly! She gets really excited and just eats everything up!

Church was also great--I still have to take Advil but if I take it earlier enough, my headaches go away before they become migranes. We had 8 people come, yay! Sometimes it's hard to remind Sis. Neukomm that we actually ARE doing a great job, for the level we're at, and all the people we juggle each week. We've been also really just super human this week--we ran all the way to Bahnhof once this week and made our train just barely in 15min--what is usually a 10min Straßenbahn ride. MENSCH. Sis. Neukomm is gonna kill me! Yesterday we also biked across Eisenhüttenstadt to try and meet with a contact (pretty golden until she hung up on us) using bikes from a family in the Branch and THEN ran to Bahnhof to go back home. Although I'm way better at biking. It was a pretty wild time.

The ward is starting to warm up to me, because I don't think they realized that each of the past 4 Sundays I have to work through headaches, they thought I was always depressed or sad or not wanting to be there. GREAT, right? I've explained it before to them, especially Präsident Heitbreder, but that didn't really work, I suppose. Each new missionary bastelns these little "about me" things and posts it on the bulletin board (they keep those things for eons) and I finished mine a few weeks ago and they just now started commenting on it. It's pretty cool. And I made this cool necklace the other day and they want to know how to make it, along with the young women, and Carolin want me to help them with sewing, like making skirts and stuff. I've already warned them that any kind of sewing machine projects have always been under the supervision of an expert (that's mom, in case anyone didn't know)! So yeah, pretty random. Präsident Heitbreder even wants me to teach the youth some line dances! What the flip!? But he and his wife always have these random ideas and as long as no one reminds them, they don't remember! They're fun though.

Everyone in Germany is praying for snow. ANYTHING to make it less cold outside. Mensch, I cannot go outside without a fashionable hat anymore, it's just suicide! It's been -1 C this whole week and I think today it's colder. I don't know how much that is in Farenheit, but it's daaaang cold out there!

I think that's about it--next week should definitely be way fun--I'm going on Tausch this week with some sisters--Elders Tausch a lot more often, but with Sisters it's usually once a transfer--and I'll be serving for a day in Tiergarten (Berlin) again. Wish me luck!

I love you guys! The Church is true! Tschüüüüüüüs!

--love,
Whit

New companion

Meine gute, this week has been absolutely ridiculous!

So the new situation is, Sis. Neukomm and I are companions, but for the first time in both of our missions, neither of us are companions with a trainer, finisher, or really anyone who's been out for a really long time, so it's been crazy-ridiculous being companions with someone who's been a missionary a transfer (6 weeks) longer than me! It's actually been really, REALLY helpful for me, just to learn, and learn fast about doing effective missionary work--because when you have a more experienced companion, they just do most of the planning and it's really easy for someone like me to just let them do it and trust that they know what they're doing, because they know what works and such. However, the stress is really getting to Sis. Neukomm, even though I've told her a million times that she's so diligent and we're doing a lot of good work, but since she's all of a sudden Senior Companion, it's taking a toll on her. Tomorrow is Zone Conference, so I hope it will help us out. We work really well together, and I totally loved this past week (like every other week!) but I don't know yet what will get her out of this funk.

Fun things we did this week--English class! It's really funny hearing Germans trying to speak English, the standard accent, SO hilarious. They actually made me say the closing prayer paa dansk this week which was REALLY weird, because literally every prayer I say is in German, it's just a knee-jerk reaction, but I haven't used a lick of dansk in so long, especially in prayer, it sounded really weird! I hope mom practices with me when I get home!

Something I found in an Ensign article that might be interesting for Jordan--it's actually hilarious, because the article is called, "Confidence Tests: from fear to faith in the marriage decision" (April 2010) but I applied the first part of it to missionary work, haha! It talks about these "confidence tests" that are set up to help military guys or something test their survival and emergency skills, since in situations like that, your mind just has to click and there's no time to look up in a manual what to do in case of an emergency. There was a quote in there that really stuck out to me, that a Confidence Test, "tests what you already know." That, in a nut-shell is a mission. As a youth, following the Word of Wisdom was a knee-jerk reaction; I didn't have to think twice that I don't accept a cigarette or sip a beer, it was something I was taught and like this week, an investigator tried offering us a cigarette, and it was easy, "no." In fact, we were telling him he should STOP smoking! Anyway, the mission tests what we know as far as the gospel, it'll test what we learned in the MTC, but it will test things that we KNOW, not "think we know." And the things I know about the gospel are why I'm here in the first place!

This week we had a great lesson with Bianca and her two boys. The whole family just kidnaps us for like 3 hours, because we teach 2 investigators and a new convert, all under the same roof. I love it! Florian and Roman are like any other brothers I'Ve seen--DOOOON'T get along. And Roman has a bad habit of using his "priesthood holder" status against everyone in his family, even his dad (which you know he got a stern talking-to from our Branch President about that!) But this week we managed to successfully trick Roman into teaching Florian (a real smart-aleck--that doesn't really translate well into German!) the Plan of Salvation. HaHAaa! It was perfect. And they didn't fight or anything! It's true, and I'll keep saying it: the gospel blesses families. I mean, the gospel itself is starting to become the only thing the two brothers have in common, and as you can imagine, it makes the mom happy.

I don't know if anyone of you will have this opportunity, but this week we had a 1st lesson with a hardcore Muslim. He's a friend of one of our new converts, and boy was that lesson inTENSE. Mainly because we were talking about prophets, and this investigator believes whole-heartedly that Christ is JUST a prophet, and he was the LAST prophet. The lesson went on forever because he would take us off tangent and we would try to refocus back on our planned lesson. But I really liked this lesson, for one particular reason. We taught this lesson so we could introduce the Book of Mormon, and at one point, I found myself bearing a hardcore testimony that he would know without doubt that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that we STILL have prophets if he would read the Book of Mormon. SL-AAAM! POW! I love giving and hearing testimonies like that--Sis. Neukomm does it too. You just get tired of reasoning and trying not to argue and to bring the Spirit back, INSERT TESTIMONY. He says he likes to read and will seriously read the Book of Mormon, but he wants to talk to Ola and Ahmed because both of them used to be Muslims and then converted--so he wants to know why they "made the switch" or whatever. Man oh man.

This past Sunday was pretty cool--I got to give the talk, and I taught how Faith brings miracles, since I, as a missionary am a believer of miracles. We also had 8 investigators come to church, and more importantly, some less active members! It was pretty neat. Two investigators that speak Arabic, Cipan and Blind (yup, his name is Blind, pronounced the German way for "blind", too) came, but the member translating for them was like, "Sisters, they're totally hung over," and we said, "yeah, they said they were coming from Berlin and we figured as much." Na ja.

We also had, I kid you not THREE eating appointments yesterday. UGGGGHHH. We had a 3-course vegitarian meal (half of my plate was straight up Grönkohl), then we went to a surprise party for our Branch President, and then our GML made us a late-night dinner. HOOOOLY meine gute. BLARG. And members just don't take a hint when we say, "Ich bin wirklich SATT." So that was interesting. I at least got to play piano! It's a treat when the members have a piano and ask me to play. I'm learning a song that's like a German classic, I think it's called, "Drei Nüssen für Aschenbrödel" which is from a German fairytale, a version of Cinderella, but it's Sis. Neukomm's favorite movie, and her favorite song from that movie, and it's fun to play.

This week was a lot of visiting people and such, too. We make weekly visits to a sister with cancer and we're helping her get her Patriarchal Blessing and prep her for the Temple--it's really the main thing that gives her Hoffnung even though she has constant pain, everyday.

As far as weather--it's been raining, snowing, but just not sticking! But it's been pretty wet, for sure.

We have a goal this week to invite everyone we teach to baptism (for some, it will be the upteenth time) to see how we can help our investigators feel more "ready" and confident about it. So prayers are always an acceptable currency! :)

These computers in the library are absolutely doof and don't let me connect my camera and such to the computer, so I can't send pictures of the hats right this moment, I plan on just printing them out or something, bah! It's a pain.

I got to talk to Sis. Anderson this morning on the phone--a couple of people in Cottbus set baptism dates and I was asking who they were (a student, named Solomon and a lady that we taught every Sunday with her less-active husband)--but it was cool to hear some Cottbus updates. I wrote notes to a lot of members and investigators, and she told me that Anna and her kids cried when they got my letter, which, ACK, I hate making people cry! But yeah, every so often, I think about those special people and say an extra prayer for them. I'm excited for ZoCo post to see if any of them sent me a response back!! :)

Well, I think that's just about it this week! I'm always glad to hear from you and know that everyone's doing well and up to something grand. It's always amazing the things I've always had in my life that people here in Germany are looking for, like forever families, temple blessings, or just a quiet reassurance that there's a God and He loves me, as crazy little me! I already look forward to next week's email from you!

love,
Sis. Whit

Work continues...

Wow, glad you remembered to write me, meine gute! Haha, althought I'm sure the weekend was busy but worth it, oder? I'm so happy you got the package! Gah, I thought it would take forever to get there! I don't think I need anything from home, so when you have time just the SD card will be fine. Any pictures of home might be cool though! :)

BBBIIIIGGGG congrats for Jordo and Justin this past weekend! Woot woooooot! Justin will thank you and dad for making him get his Eagle when he's hunting for a job or needing a scholarship, both which will be gleich um die Ecke! If I was a sister missionary, I'd totally show up to do building tours, they're so much fun, and like the one dad and I went on with the Elders a few summers ago, they lead to some very spiritual moments. Sisters, especially here give our souls to our kleine Zweig. For example, we teach English classes to members/friends and we host a weekly ping pong aktivität because Präsident Heitbredder thinks we need one, so poof! We host ping pong now, but we have a handful of high-school aged investigators and new converts, so it's like a mutual activity for them to get to know each other and such. Hey, ping pong is fun, and Germans are pretty pro, so it's all way fun. Even some of the adults show up, but they fudge the rules a lot, especially Manfred our 77 yr. old "new" convert (he was baptized 3 years ago).

Chanrith, our baptism candidate is getting a few extra weeks to prepare because we haven't taught him everything he needs to know before the big day--and since English isn't his first language (he speaks Cambodian) we want to take it a bit slower so he understands just what he's about to promise, and he doesn't freak out anymore. So he will hopefully be baptized early February.

We've been doing a lot of dooring by student wohnheims lately, and meine gute, what fun. They are either very open to learn or at least very polite. As a full time student, I don't know if I would read a "strange" book given to me by missionaries on top of my studies, so it shows how much faith or interest they have! And we always manage to run into people that have already seriously gotten a Book of Mormon before! One girl went to English classes held by Elders in her native country and we'll be meeting with her this week, how random can you get? It shows that missionaries all over the world are doing their job! :P

Biggest miracle of the week: ELEVEN investigators came to church yesterday! HOOOOLY meine flippin GUTE! It basically literally doubled our numbers, with 11 members, 11 investigators, and 3 Sisters. What a dish. We brought Mariyuri (teen investigator from South America), Jeffrey (from Kenya) and Chanrith, and then 3 Arabic-speaking friends of Jeffrey (they all live in the same Ausländerheim I think) were waiting for us at Eisenhüttenstadt, plus Florian, Danny and Bianca--Danny and Bianca live together with 3 kids (Roman, Florian and Lea Sofie) and Roman is the priesthood holder and new convert who came with us on our joint teach last week. The last two are a couple that I haven't taught yet but I think are close to baptism. The "dad" coming to church and Florian coming to church was a big deal, so we three Sisters were having a ball yesterday! I hope we can keep pulling it off! :) Our GML (eh, I forget the name in English, but we meet weekly with him and go through our progress reports of our investigators) is Ahmed from Egypt so he sat in the back translating from German to Arabic, and then Sis. Lanctot and I translated for the English speakers, and yeah, we also played the musical number (Sis. Lanktot played violin and we sang along--they only have an organ and no piano) AND we taught Relief Society! What the flip!

Sunday was also Sis. Lanktot's last day, and so that's why she played violin, and we had a REALLY delicious eating appointment at Ola and Ahmed's--they made Falafel, which yeah, not sure what's in it, but it was tasty. I think in essence it's veggie burgers on top of pita bread with a spicy sauce, but it was fried so it tasted way good! I think it's mainly made of chick peas, whatever THAT is. But that was waaaay fun! They had this "fire" sauce that they forbade us to try, but had it for Hany, another Egyptian member but when an Egyptian says something is "fire hot" THAT means it could probably melt through metal or something. Hany put some on his Falafel and his voice was so dry and he was sweating (kinda like dad does) and he had a TALL glass of milk. Haha, but he says it'S worth it!

Other random news: I finally have a Visa! I can live here now, woot! They have a new system where they require a finger print, so I had to do the whole process myself, because in the past, the mission office would take care of it for us. It was complicated because I started the process in Cottbus, and because the offices are DUMB, they wouldn't transfer everything to me in Frankfurt Oder, so on Wednesday I actually had to go BACK to Cottbus for a few hours (JUST a few hours) to pick up my Visa and sign a few papers. But was a weird experience! I was there just a few weeks ago, literally! It was a nice sunny day, so it was cool to go back, even for a few hours. I even ran into some of my old investigators! I still left my heart in Cottbus, so it was kinda hard leaving, just because I was thinking of all the members I wanted to say hello to, but my favorite FAVORITE members live in Spremberg or Hoyerwerda, meh. So yeah, random, oder?

Big news: one of our new converts is going to serve a mission! She totally rocks my world. She originally wanted a patriarchal blessing and is going to get it soon, but she also got a blessing from the Branch President and he told her what she said she already knew--that her next big step is to serve a mission and she's ALL for it. Totally rad. She's basically going to do the papers and go as soon as they'll let her--right in the middle of her studies and everything! Can I hear an A-MEN?

Something I just thought about--everytime we come into Berlin (we came to Berlin today to "kill" Sis. Lanctot, or Lanc-TOT) we come into the Zoologischer Garten Haltestelle, and I'm 80% sure that we were there when we came to Berlin for Thanksgiving in '04. It looks so familiar!

So yeah, today, we killed Sis. Lanctot, and she held it together very well, she like didn't even cry or anything, but she says that it hasn't hit her yet--she feels like she's going on Tausch or something. But she was a really good companion--she and Sis. Neukomm are my "soul Sistas" (Sis. Neukomm likes to call us that in her Swiss accent) and we worked really well as a dritt--it's different, but there are some things that dritts can do that others can't--dooring multiple apartments for example! So now it's just me and the Swiss and she's the senior companion--she's a transfer older than me in Germany but I've been a missionary longer because she was only in the London MTC for 11 days, not 9 friggin weeks--and she's been here in FFO for a transfer already, so that decision was a no-brainer. She shares her Swiss chocolate with me and I share Reese's (which she LOVES) so we have lots of fun. She's the kind that knows how to work hard but really be silly and fun. Plus she studied art for a bit, so that totally blows my mind.

The hats as far as I'm sure are VERY warm and totally fine with the rules, kein Angst. They're pretty handy right now because today was our FIRST DAY OF SNOOOOOW. It was pretty weak-sauce, but the fact that it FINALLY snowed and it's cold enough to do so is sort of depressing. Nope, not really, but it means probably another layer. Right now I wear like 2 layers of socks and thermal nylons with leggings (and a skirt), three layers of sweaters/shirts, two scarves, a hat and two pairs of gloves. I look kinda like I'm serving on the North pole, but it keeps me going! The fact that I can run to all of our Bahns is a miracle--running in the summertime should be a breeze! That's the funny thing about Frankfurt Oder, we do a lot of running and our members feed us atrociously healthy food. I hope we get more meat now that Sis. Lanctot (the vegitarian) left! Haha, slightly joking. But seriously, a member fed us a salad (with the most sour grapefruits auf die Erde), pumpkin soup (which I actually like! I know!) and then a plate of mushrooms, brussel sprouts and POTATOES. Meine gute, what kind of lunch is that? But I finished it all, natürlich. Blech.

As for headaches, I don't know what to tell you--I talked about it to Sis. Lanctot and she said she had the same problem--a big migrane every Sunday. She said that it happens a lot because there's just so much stress for us that day--I mean juggling 11 investigators and making sure there's time for the members, too--and just all that German, it just really fries the brain. I drink a lot of water, but seeing how Germans don't believe in public restrooms, I try to be careful, too. I had headaches before in Cottbus, and really the only thing that worked was just taking medicine during church and just work through it. But I'm always sensitive to light and smell, and usually I feel sick when either of the two bother me. For example, going through stairwells that smell like smoke and kitty litter just ugh, makes ANY normal person sick. But I'm trying to take care of myself, trust me--I don't like being sick on Sundays! But you remember I had Sunday headaches during the summers at home, too, so I don't know what the deal is. Sis. Lanctot says it wears off eventually, but yeah, it's every Sunday and I usually notice it 1/2 way through church--every other day of the week I'm totally fine. I think everything from the week just catches up with me or something, not sure.

Well well, it was fun hearing about all the fun things you guys are up to, and I'm glad everything's going well at home. Keep on keepin' on! I love you all!

love,
Sister Whit

New area

Meine gute, second week of transfer 3! I'm noticing that I'm already sort of remembering and recognizing where we are when we're out and about, but the Straßenbahn system is still a mystery, and we never really know the times nor have a little pamphlet of all the times, so we're always running here and there!

This week we worked with a mix of people I've already met and then of course always meeting new people! We definitely have a lot to do and lots of people to visit, spanning over 3 cities!

However, this week we met and taught a really cool contact. At first he really didn't want to talk to us, and we resorted to give him our card with the internet site and our number, but Sis. Lanktot briefly taught him about the Restoration and all of a sudden became VERY interested! He said, "You know what, I think I do have time on Sunday to meet." And so we did! Sis. Neukomm and another member went to teach a young 12 yr. old investigator and Sis. Langtot, a member and I went to teach this guy. What was really cool, was that this member is a Neubekehrt named Roman, and he's only 15! He was pretty funny because he at first thought that he couldn't just GO into some stranger's house and talk about the gospel, but we had to compete with him for talking time! haha. He was very ehrlich and funny and this big muscular guy was listening to Roman give "pure testimony" as Alma did. It was pretty cool to see. If Jordan wants practice, he should definitely do joint teaching, because he can see what it's like and see how fun it can actually be! I know the Sisters wouldn't mind! :)

This week we've also been meeting a lot with Chanrith, our Taufekandidate, but we think he needs more time--English isn't his first lesson and we don't want to shove all the commandments down his throat without him fully understanding, but we found a Gospel Principles manual in Cambodian that we will give him because it explains everything he wants to understand. It's funny because when we try to commit him to start living a new commandment, he usually doesn't want to say yes off the bat because he's afraid he will break it, being human and imperfect of course. But he usually just needs time and when we recommit him a termine later, he usually says yes with no problem.

I got a sneak peak of the January Ensign (isn't that ein bißchen pathetic that us missionaries get all excited for the Ensign? haha) and there was a good article by Thomas S. Monson that I think would be good to read, especially Jordan because it's very applicable to missionaries, especially missionaries starting their mission, in my opinion. I actually don't remember what it's called but Jordo can find it--it's the "ABC's" for the New Year: Positive Attitude, Believe in Yourself and Courage. We usually read old Ensigns on the train from DCM from Berlin (woot woot) or sleep. Mostly sleep. Speaking of which, one of the main icons of Berlin, the Sieges Säule or "The victory tower" is RIGHT outside our Stake building, so we went and took pictures before DCM! It was pretty cool!

It was an interesting week--every lesson is different, and you can tell who is really interested and people who maybe aren't all that interested. We had two lessons with different students in the local Student Wohnheims and they were really interested in what we believe, but they were both warning us that they would be thinking "rationally and logically" about what we said. They both spoke English and so there were times that I could go a lot deeper and sort of argue like an English Major again, like I used to for Essays, but when the Spirit was about to go, one of us would bring us back to base and we would just bear simple testimony. Students are very open but they don't want to be tricked or something, so they want to "analyze" and I think some prepare to argue with us. But everytime we just tell them, "Here's a Book of Mormon, we have taught you how to pray, YOU find out for yourself and get your own answers if you want them." Because we can go and give the best lesson ever, but our job is to bring people to Christ, and that's usually in the form of teaching a little, but encouraging them to make their own progress, otherwise they won't want to ever change. Most of the time students just really can't understand how a bunch of young people like me are willing to pay their own way through 18 months-2 years of volunteer work, for a church! Without Facebook! Haha, watch out, Jordo!

Another interesting story, think what you will. So we visit a member in the ward that is, undoubtably on her death bed because of cancer. We visit her to make sure she's okay, especially because she was baptized this past year, but she has a solid gold testimony, she's great and has such a great attitude about everything. Well the other day, I was looking around the kitchen for measuring cups and noticed that we had a box of bendy straws in one of our cupboards and thought, "hey cool! we have bendy straws!" and later in the day I told my two companions about my "interesting" find. Well we were on our way to visit this member, and I looked in our bag of things to bring the member, because she had asked for some Stolen and such, just something she wanted to eat, and I noticed the straws inside. I said, "Does Sis. Zimmer need straws?" and Sis. Langtot said, "Yeah, I thought that's why you pointed them out--we were going to buy them today but you found this box, so we didn't have to." "Wait, when did she ask for straws?" "At our last appointment." "Really? What's the word for straws anyway?" So somehow I found these straws to take to this member even though I didn't understand the whole conversation, kinda creepy, huh? haha, sometimes the Holy Ghost has to compensate for the German I don't know yet!

Overall, a Dritt is pretty interesting. I'm really lucky that I get along really well with both companions, especially Sis. Neukomm, since we'll stay companions after Sis. Langtot goes home IN A WEEK! Craziness. But sometimes it's weird doing OYMing because 3's a crowd, so we usually split, although I still only like talking to people if there's someone else there to back me up. The other thing is just planning, because the other two are really good at planning with each other, and do most of the planning in German (we speak 80 percent German the whole week) and sometimes I feel behind and when we're rushing it sort of stresses me out, because they work things out and I sort of follow behind, but they understand that I want to NOT be the kid sister and that I want to know what's going on, and so it has so far worked out pretty well.

It is also sort of, not difficult, but hard being a new sister especially with Sis. Langtot about to leave, because I'm new and I have to re-build member relationships and show them that I'm a good missionary and I know what's going on. It's also hard because yesterday I had a pretty bad migrane and wanted to DIE during our 3 hr. New Year Ward Council. UGH. But our GML and his wife are my absolute FAVORITES--Ahmed and Ola from Egypt--they're really giggly just like me, and they always insist on making us really REALLY good spicy food. yuuum! But I think once Sis. Langtot leaves, the ward will realize that we're still here and will talk more with us and stuff. But the same thing happened with Sis. Allan and it wasn't a big deal. It was funny because we had like a break the fast for the people who had to stay for Ward Council since our Fast Sunday was yesterday--and I don't know who it was, (it wasn'T Ola!) but someone made the ickiest soup auf die Erde--some sort of really sweet soup with mushrooms, PINEAPPLE and chicken. Blegh. Us sisters ate A TON of bread, let's just say that!

Also, our ward is hilarious--we actually have quite a few kids, a few come by themselves as investigators. But one of the kids, who's ALSO named Justin got up and practically gave a talk for a testimony, only with like 15 different Themas, it was really hilarious. There was one point where he said, "We give Heavenly Father A SINGLE CRUM as our tithing, and he gives us everthing!" Talk about "and a child shall lead them"! He said a lot of pretty cool things for just a 12 yr. old, but small branches, with half of the members being kids, makes it a lot less formal--seeing how 3/4 of the testimonies were by kids and YSAs younger than me. Pretty intensely awesome.

Another missionary story. So we taught that one guy (I call him Herr P because I can'T remember how to say his last name) yesterday with Roman, and I wanted to do my best for the lesson, but I had that big migrane, and being super smart, it was the one day I left my little bottle of Advil at home. So I was only really running on Faith power. But it never fails; when I would much rather take a nap, I just have to work through the pain (and nauseousness) because as a missionary, we don't get Sunday naps, it's NOT a day of rest for us, we work double time! But no joke, after a big prayer before the appointment, I felt like I was gonna throw up, and it's worse when the flat smells like cigarette smoke, but during the whole appointment I had zero pain, nothing. As soon as we said "Amen" after the ending prayer and we left, the pain returned. But during the actual Termin itself, I was able to teach without feeling sleepy or ill. It was divine intervention!

So I guess that's all I have for this week. I honestly can't believe it's already Monday, because we've been all over the place this week--we taught 26 lessons when a usual "full" week is 20 lessons, but we managed! It's really true that if you follow the rules, especially for the daily schedule of studying, getting up, going to bed at the right time, you see miracles!

We have also not seen a lick of snow yet, and so far, that's a good thing for our work! It's still cold for sure with rain and wind, but not even a flake yet! Mal sehen! Sis. Langtot jokes that as soon as she leaves there'll be a butt-load of snow for us to wade through!

Anyway, viel Glück for Jordan and Justin--enjoy the milestones this week! It's pretty cool having 3 awesome brothers.

New Year in Germany

Phew! Endlich Pday!

LIEEEEBE Familie!

This week has been rather crazy and I'm happy to say that I survived! Woot!

The previous Pday/Christmas was pretty intense because it involved a TON of packing, but I still fit everything and more into my luggage--Sis. Olsen still fits into 2 pieces of luggage and a backpack! I did carry my bedding in a laundry bag, but my transfer was relatively cheap and easy, only one Aussteig and only an hour's train ride or so.

Once I got here I had to really squeeze my way into the apartment, since this new one is a big more smaller and not really geared for a Dritt--for example I'm sleeping on a (relatively fancy) air mattress from one of the members, and they were able to get extra bedding for me but I said I didn't need it because I had my own. Most apartments actually have bedding for 2 people, so my comps said I really didn't need my bedding but I'm determined to use it my whole mission because it's here and comfy, why not? I bring that up, because Jordan may not need bedding in his mission, either. I know all the Sisters are taken care of, not sure about the Elders, though. Another thing--tell him that he MAY need hangers in the MTC but other than that--not on a mission--everyone leaves their hangers behind (I had to for room) so unless he brings a few cheap ones he really does NOT need them.

Anyway, I unpacked everything that I actually use--like everything for the Spring/Summer are packed away and the things that I for sure use (or read) are taken out--I'll be able to maybe unpack more once Sis. Lanktot goes home in 3 weeks--but both of my comps have been SUPER nice, I love them already! They cleared space in each of their closets so that I could hand and fold things so I didn't have to live out of a suitcase for 3 weeks and I have a little table to study at until I get the big desk! But right now it's totally managable, it's great.

Being in a dritt is way fun right now, and our little branch of 20 people are LOVING it! Our members are practically legendary in this mission I think, because most people I know have served here at one point and met them. Three in particular are Achmid, Ola & Hany, all from Egypt! They speak really good German, English and of course Arabic and they are HILARIOUS! My mission is seriously so international it's flippin inSANE! Not only that, but they had us over for New Years and made us some REALLY good food! They like their food really spicy and toned it down for us, but sprinkled extra spices on their food, and I put a tiny tiny extra bit in mine to try it, pretty intensely delicious.

Another eating appointment that was really funny this week was with a couple in our Gemeinde who is known for being very "bio friendly" and really healthy. If you can imagine it, we had a 3 course dinner---ALL VEGGIES. It reminded me of Dad the "Green Giant" and how he would love that--and all of you to enjoy watching me schaff' all that healthy stuff! It would've definitely been the nightmare meal for Whitney but somehow Sis. Olsen survived. Especially how one part was saurkraut--the one thing I knew before my mission I would NOT like. I don't mean I like it, but if I have to eat it, I eat it all! haha. Our dritt definitely had bad gas the rest of the day, pretty hilarious.

So explanation time! I'm actually not doing emails in Berlin--I'm doing it here in a Uni Bibliotek for free! Pretty handy; apparantly Sisters went to Berlin in the past because they were already there to have fun in Berlin. We are always on the go because we balance 3 different cities to work in: Frankfurt Oder, Eisenhüttenstadt and Fürstenwald my comps would much rather relax at home, which we WOULD do today but we got tricked into doing a Tierpark activity with a member, more on her later.

So I technically live in Frankfurt Oder even though my area is called Eisenhüttenstadt because that's the city with the Church. It's one of those Branch buildings were it's the upstairs part of a building shared by someone else, there's like a little restaraunt underneath or something. It's been interesting trying to get my bearings in the cities--because I want to really know where we are and the Straßenbahn system, but it took me a transfer to get ONE city, now I have 3! So yeah, pretty fun. Sis. Lanktot tells me not to worry or get TOO antsy just yet.

As for my work, I came at a pretty good time! We still get to teach a lot of students and they come from everwhere! Two really cool ones come from India; we were going to meet with one, Raul but then he said to come back in a few hours because he was skyping home, and when we came back he had a friend there and they were cooking. I thought, "ugh, this might not go anywhere" because this would be Raul's second lesson. Anyway, we found out this friend had met missionaries in England, and he was VERY interested. We taught the first half of the 2nd lesson, and he really liked it, and said that there were things in his life that he knew was wrong and he wanted to change and asked us what he should do. Sis. Lanktot is really good at being sweet and bold at the same time, like bold but not like snotty or bossy or whatever. She was like, "Well, you should probably start with coming with us to church every Sunday and throwing away your cigarettes and alcohol..." but he was serious about taking her advice! We get to meet with them again in a few days.

We do have a few eternal investigators, students, and even Jasmin, a 12yr. old investigator. She's a firecracker! Her family used to investigate the church, but they sort of let it go because they didn't think they could go as a whole (huge) family by train to church, but she still comes. She's a bit hard to teach because she doesn't pay attention and has waaay too much energy, but it helps her keep up with her crazy younger siblings. You really just walk into some crazy homes sometimes!

Then there's Chanrit--from Cambodia. Our 3 lessons with him this week were actually with him in the hospital--he doesn't know any German so we had to translate some things for him since he didn't really take any medicine because he didn't know what it was or why he needed it. Pretty intense! But the Sisters have been working with him for a while and he's finally ready to be baptized! I'm finally going to see a baptism, January 14th! At first it was going to be on Jordan's birthday but then we changed it to a Saturday, but still! WOOT!

Aaaand of course, we have a member who is creating drama in our branch, who we're spending some of our Pday with today, grumble grumble. She, in my opinion has problems with everyone in the branch and thinks they should all be like her and serve others all the time, when of course, everyone has callings or work and do what they can. And because she wants all of these people to change and be a bit more "holier" like her, she wants to pull out her records. It's really ridiculous and I can't imagine someone wanting to go to that extreme to "teach the branch a lesson" when really it's not a threat for the branch, it's a threat for herself; she's the one that will miss out on blessings, not them. So as missionaries we get dragged into this and we have to pick sides--and since we represent the church and missionaries to come, we have to still be nice to her and let the members tell it like it is--because if I told her the thoughts I have about the whole thing...yeah, I would make Sisters look less sweet and loving than they really are! But it's like, if one person thinks everyone has a problem, who REALLY has the problem? But this sort of ward drama is universal, and it's a bit touchy in branches, especialls with 20 people, everyone knows everyone's problems and weaknesses. So yeah, this is where the ward and stake president takes care of it and help her start acting her age. That's the thing about being a missionary--I'm a 21 yr. old telling a 40 year old to get along with other people, to follow commandments, to go to church--does that sound like a role reversal to you? They should tell someone my age the importance of being diligent and obedient, not the other way around! Aber so ist das!

Aber na ja, a new funny story. I've noticed with Danish and German alike, that I just say a lot of things and hope the grammar makes sense, that the words are used in the right context, or the words are actually REAL words. Well, in German, I use "Dingsbums" a lot, which means like "something" or a "thingamajig" just a vague word that means I can use it a lot! Anyway, I somehow got in the habit of accidentally saying "Bumsdings" flipping the words backwards, which I tend to do a lot (remember "fump bist"/"bump fist" instead of "fist bump")--and I'm sure I've done it a lot in Cottbus, too. APPARANTLYYYY it's not an appropriate missionary word! So Sis. Neukomm is really having fun correcting my German, but we say it a lot as a joke, amongst ourselves, NOT with members! haha, you can look up "bumsen" in German yourself.

Another funny story--each city seems to have it's own schedule. I don't really know how we did it, but we managed to be super busy but still have time to make lunch while working in Cottbus, but here we're rarely home to cook or just sit down--we're always on the go! But that also means that since we don't have a booklet for Straßenbahn schedules, Sis. Lanktot will just check her watch and say, "our Bahn comes in 2 minutes!" and we have to put on our jackets and RUN LIKE FIENDS to catch it. Every day. Yesterday we were running for another Bahn and I shouted, "I'm gonna loose all my Christmas weight serving with you two!" (urm, of COURSE in English!) and they just laughed at me up ahead. They're really, really amazing, and Sis. Neukomm, the Swiss Miss who will actually be my comp once Sis. Lanktot leaves, is super awesome, we get along really well and we just click!

I'm excited that everyone in the family wrote to me, thanks a lot! It's great to hear that everyone is doing well and having fun.

I did hear about Tom Hanks coming to Eisenhüttenstadt, pretty random.

Mom also had a question as to what I purchased with Christmas money. Not all of it has been spent yet, phew, but I bought a Christmas lantern that's pretty popular here in the Berlin area, they had quite a few points, not just the 5 point stars, I'll try and show a picture, but everyone has one of these and they're plastic so they hand them outside from the highest window (kind of like the fun days in Haupstuhl, oder?) like a Nativity star. You definitely could only find them around Christmas time! I think I might use some of the money today to actually get boots that will last me TWO WINTERS and not only three months. I'm pretty lucky it hasn't snowed yet, but the boots I got (although you got me, I was a bit cheap and only spent €30) weren't built to survive Sister missionary work! Most of them are on sale now since Winter has already started and it's after Christmas, so I'll still shop like an Olsen and find a deal! At least just something waterproof!!

As for travel, just as a quick note, we buy these tickets from the DB station that lets us use all buses, Straßenbahns and trains anywhere in our 3 cities AND Berlin and the ticket covers everything--plus since it's €150 we get a reimburstment from the office so we still have funds to get everywhere and get groceries! So yeah, for a month, it's actually a good deal and I finally got mine today!

Okay, that was a suuuper long email! I just kept going and going, so much new stuff! I want to send home a postcard soon--that is, if cute little Frankfurt Oder even HAS postcards, Mal sehen.

Anyway, until next time! Thanks for being a wunderbare Familie! Have a fun week and rest of the Christmas break!)

love you!
Sis. Whit