Mensch,
Jordo's MTC photo makes him look like such a GREEEEEENIE. :P I wonder if he did that on purpose. And Justin with braces, totally weird! I remember the day I had braces--oh yeah--ONE DAY before Halloween. Boy, was that a treat for everyone else except me, because I could only eat Reeses! Everything else hard or chewy went to the dogs. (i mean the boys! :P) I remember dad shredded up carrots for me and even that took azillion years to eat. Na ja.
But people are always amazed that we are willing to work under very strict rules. For example, Sis. Neukomm's dad was on vacation here and actually met our Branch Präsident in Berlin with a dufflebag SOO FLIPPIN FULL of Swiss cheese, chocolate, Fondu, you name it. It took both of us to carry it! But everyone was shocked that Sis. Neukomm refused to meet with her dad, and that the dad didn't want to meet, either. Total discipline, she didn't even try asking for special permission from Präsident Pimentel, just rock solid.
But something that really everyone should know, member or not, is that it's not just parents sending their kids out on missions. It's young people that CHOOSE to come and serve. You know as well as I do that no one said that I HAD to serve, or that I would be a "bad member" for choosing to stay home, and even though it's a duty of the young men, no one stuffs them in suits, slaps a nametag on them without them first deciding it's THEIR decision. We agree to the terms and rules and stress and opposition and everything else possible, because sometime in our lives we knew it would be worth it and we WANT to work. I'll be first to admit, I definitely didn't expect it to be as stressful and difficult when I began, but my testimony is stronger than that. I know that the Lord guides my every footstep and blesses me even though many times I'm too scared to talk to people or afraid of what they think of me and accepts my work even though a *very special* member lady in our ward thinks we don't give enough of our souls to this tiny branch. The Lord loves his missionaries. The Lord loves his member missionaries. And he shows his love for everyone else in the world by sending missionaries and members to them.
Ahhh, mensch, let's start at the very beginning, "it's a very good place to start" (from the DoReMi song in Sound of Music)
Monday we had Zone Sport in Berlin, and we had some extra time that I could finally get a cool Berlin t shirt! It says Berlin with rainbow letters (surprised much?) all cool and gangster-ish. It's the best Pday shirt ever. Igor, the Neubekehrt played with us and that was pretty fun. He remembered that I came to teach him during Tausch last transfer and asked for my email, which I really couldn't--I gave him my home email and warned him that I won't use it for another year--but he was really excited to see me and I was like, "why do you need my email? I only talked to you for an hour!" But he said that he was impressed with some random thing I said, (I blew his mind I think by introducing him to the Index in the BoM, which in German is both the Bible dictionary and Index together) and called me "one of my Sisters" which I guess is pretty neat. Even having a good influence on people after their baptized is just as important as the time before they're baptized.
Meine gute, Fasching came and went, and nothing cool happened here in FFO! What's the point of having a fun holiday if you don't celebrate it? I think they're still recovering from using all their energy to celebrate Christmas, and need more energy to save up for Easter. I hear that in some bigger cities they have Ostenmarkts like Weihnachtsmarkts so that'll be fun to see.
The weather has been totally unpredictable. It was really wonderfully warm on Monday and it snowed like heck on Tuesday and then on Wednesday the snow melted. What the heck? So I think that means Spring is coming soon.
On Thursday, we spent most of our day helping a family move out of their apartment and clean and stuff, so we got to wear JEANS! They have something like a cherry picker-type thing that they use to move large heavy boxes in apartments. They just send up the platform, load it up from a window and bring it down and put them in the moving truck, rather than going up and down and up and down the stairs... Pretty cool, and saves a lot of time. We then visited Rosel, the beloved "veggie lady" that you guys seem to be such a big fan of, and she made us as usual-- all-vegan food. Not really all that bad, she made something that really just tasted like chicken, but I think it was mostly like celery or something. Maybe I need some of these recipes... but she also made us routabegas, which to me tasted like potatoes. It takes skills to make food like that taste good! I took a picture of the plate, keine Sorge! She's really into being vegitarian and meditation, so she had us meditate after our spiritual thought because she thinks we were really stressed or something. (A considerable warm day and riding bikes made us actually SWEAT that day!) It wasn't too bad, I was apparantly really "relaxed" because I fell asleep! It's better than laughing at the weird intonation of the person talking on the cd she had. "breathe IIIIIINN.....and sloooowly EX-HALLLLLLE..." oh, it was funnier with the German translation that shortly followed.
So we are starting to meet with Alisher, a student here again, after a month of "not being sure if he would be around this week" with school and all. He's really smart and despite all the anti-Mormon stuff there is to read online especially now, he says that he wants to ask us all his questions and has a really strong desire to be baptized. And we have a strong desire to see him make that goal! We haven't set a firm date yet, but hopefully very, very soon.
Also Chanrith is like, our Golden investigator. His project is over in 5 days and then he wants to meet more often to learn all the lessons so he can finally be baptized. We made him a Spiritual Survival booklet to read during the "final countdown" so we can leave him in peace to get everything finished on time to get a good grade and such. But we taught him about fasting, and he's never heard of it before and obviously never tried it before but he said, "if this is what people do to follow Jesus Christ, then I will do it." Woooooah! Can I get an A-MEN? We invited him to fast this upcoming Fast Sunday about a new baptism day, which I not-so-secretly hope is within this transfer, not gonna lie.
Guess what I did this week? I knitted a flippin Swiss flag for my companion. :P
Saturday was a standard, "if anything could go wrong, it will go wrong today" day. It was really cold, rainy, aaaand the day we needed to ride bikes to get around in EHS. Oooooh joy. And not to mention I had the most horrible dooring experience I hope to ever have to endure. I mean, it's one thing having a door slammed in the face, pretty much immune to that now. But we had this lady talk to us and say we were crazy and didn't want to talk about Christ with anyone, and especially not us. Then a neighbor came in the stairway and the lady said, "do you want to talk about religion, too?" and the neighbor said, "Überhaupt nicht!" and they proceeded to say the most awful things about us and we were right there and could hear everything as we tried to just ignore them and keep knocking on doors. It really makes me think, how incredibly rude and inconsiderate people sometimes are, how they can just, ugh, treat us like vermin. i sort of had a "forgive them Father, for they know not what they do" moment, because in reality, they really don't know anything about us, even if they THINK they do, and if they knew who I really was and who I represent and what message I have to share, they wouldn't be like that. A pretty big pill to swallow.
I'm actually curious. Has there been something really big on the news or something about us? This has been the first week of my mission where we didn't find ANYONE at all to set up a new appointment. Sort of discouraging, but I'm praying for people to find that need this message RIGHT NOW, and apparantly I'm still looking for them, maybe we'll find them this week.
Yesterday was Stake Conference in Berlin--pretty neat! There was a broadcast from SLC that we watched-- two guys from the Seventy gave their talks in German (they served in Germany back in the day) so that was cool. I could understand them with their American accent but a few members in our branch was like, "I needed the translation for that guy!" But we heard some cool talks from them, Elder Russel M. Nelson and President Henry B. Eyring.
So yeah, no new apps but two potential baptisms in the future, which hey, I'm of course a lot more happier about the two baptisms, rather than being upset about the rude ladies. Every week is always a new clean start.
Well, I think that's just about it, I write quite a bit, huh? :P Thanks for your words and thanks for your prayers. My sort of "catch phrase" is always, "GEBET: ES FUNCTIONIERT!" Amen to that!
Here's hoping that I'll survive another week of FFO! Bis nächte Woche! Ich habe euch lieeeeeeeeeeeb!
love,
Sis. 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, February 27, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
We're glad you're here...
Glad that you all survived a fan-flippin-tastic week! It seems like everyone's doing something crazy like getting close to a black belt, braces or a MISSIONARY NAME TAG!!!!!
So this week was pretty amazing for me as well. We had a "normal" pday in Frankfurt Oder, but we also took some cool pictures of the Oder river--the body of water that seperates my happenin' city from POLAND. I swear, my mission just ROCKS. It's cold enough that the whole thing was frozen over, so it looks like land with snow covering it. There's a bridge that connects us to Poland and if we ask for permission, we can go there for Pdays! Pretty neat.
Valentine's Day here is a JOKE. Because no one really celebrates! I made a valentine for Sis. Neukomm and she was like, "why did you make me a card?" "Cause it's Valentinstag." "Oh. Cool." So yeah, it's not really a big deal here. We did heart-attack a Neubekehrt in our branch and that night he called us and said, "thanks for putting hearts on my door." And we were pretending we didn't do it and was like, "What? Someone put hearts on your door? That's so nice!" and he said, "Haha, yeah right--only the Sisters would do something like that!" So yeah, that was pretty funny.
We also visited a girl named Nina--she's a friend to the ward but not really officially an investigator, but we visit her, share spiritual thoughts and bake with her. We tried making "American" cookies, but Sis. Neukomm didn't like that it needed so much sugar and butter so they didn't taste good, or American. Go figure, haha.
Thursday was pretty fun! If you remember what's it's like, us Sisters helped a lady in our branch with packing, since they're moving this week. We helped for like, 4 hours just packing their Keller, but us 3 ladies got the whole thing done! Being on the go and carrying so much stuff makes the lifting not that big of a deal, and Sis. Neukomm likes packing as much stuff in boxes as she can. Moving the food storage was a bit on the difficult side--I thought my arms would just fall off.
On Friday we had Präsident Interviews--we have a few Themas and then I get to sit for a short few minutes with him and talk about the city, members and companionship, all of which are going well. He just gave me a big grin and said, "Sister Olsen, you just belong in this mission! We're glad you're here!" and gave my hand a hearty shake. That was worth all the travelling and such. But it's true; I feel like I'm really a part of something grand and fantastic and I love it. I also got a big surprise: lots and lots of mail! Letters from fabulous old roomates (Al, Jeramy and Anne), and letters from Cottbus members! I got letters from Monika (a member referral that I met a few weeks before transferring), Schwester Schmidt (the member who referred her AND Anna), and Bischof. He sent me a DVD copy of the Christmas Concert and I'm sending it home this week, since of course, I can't watch it, and I think you'll take good care of it. :) It was really really cool. Schwester Schmidt is so sweet and always asking when I'll be coming back.
Also, funny story. One of the ladies from the TRC, Brigitte (famous amongst my district for being really tough to teach and asking really difficult questions) is now a single Sister in my mission. It's a bit more hilarious for those who were in the MTC with me, so I'll have to tell my MTC comp (we write each other letters still) when it's my turn to write. She came right up to me and was like, "Sis. Olsen, I remember you!" and I said, "I sure remember you, too!" But it was neat, of course.
This weekend was sort of an intense teaching weekend with lots of lessons. We challenged one of our investigators, Bianka to set not just a baptism date, but a WEDDING date, because she has to be married first before being baptized. It's one of those things, where she wants to do both, she just has to DO it. But we're not gonna rush her or anything, but it's like, "COME ON YOU'RE SO CLOSE!" So yeah, we'll see what this week brings.
We also have this new contact or potential investigator from Vietnam--but he's 16 years old. We want to bring Roman again as a joint teach the next time we see him. But we usually teach him in the doorway and he's a pretty cool kid. We were talking about faith and prayer and he said, "it's kind of like friendship; you can't see it but you can feel it and you know it's there." and I was like, "YES! You understand!" So that's way cool, although I'd feel a lot better about it when we get to meet the parents or something so it's not like we're meeting without permission or awareness, y'know? But there's cool little surprises every day.
Church was of course, way cool. Chanrith still comes every Sunday to church and is very good about finishing his school work on Saturday so he can come with us and not fall asleep on Sundays. He has a goal of being baptized early March (still in the transfer!) but he needs to set an official day, and we still have a few commandments to teach!
We also had another surprise at church: Katrin came! I've only met her once, but we've written quite a few cards to her. She was like 90% fest on leaving the church because she thought everyone in the branch were hypocrites and yeah, lots of other --not so important-- reasons, but she came on her own and just gave me a big hug and said how much it felt good again to come to church. Being a missionary automatically makes me cool, because she hardly knows me, but I'm Sis. Olsen and therefore I get special priveleges of watching a miracle take place. So yeah, pretty intense.
Yes we have cell phones! So vital! We have one per companionship, and we have a big conference call everytime for transfer calls, it's pretty cool. It helps us keep in contact with all the students that are here, and we use texting, too, but NOT a whole lot, just because it costs a lot here.
Transportation is mainly walking, with a mix of frantic running sometimes. We use Straßenbahns and trains to get places faster and we use trains a lot to travel from Eisenhüttenstadt to Frankfurt Oder. We used bikes in Eisenüttenstadt for a while because it's so small that there's only one bus that goes every hour, and we have "Frauenfahrräder" that has a low middle bar, so we don't have to swing our legs over too high in skirts when we ride. The Elder bikes have a middle bar that is as high as my waist, so that's pretty much impossible even in pants. We stopped once the snow came, though because Germans don't believe in putting salt on the ground, just getting better tires, and it hurts REALLY BAD to bike, for the hands and the face. It's painful.
Aber zum Glück, all the snow has miraculously disappeared and it's gotten REALLY warm. Talk about the shortest winter ever! We took good pictures while we could, but today it's so warm that I wore my raincoat thingie--dressing for Spring! Woot!
So this week was pretty amazing for me as well. We had a "normal" pday in Frankfurt Oder, but we also took some cool pictures of the Oder river--the body of water that seperates my happenin' city from POLAND. I swear, my mission just ROCKS. It's cold enough that the whole thing was frozen over, so it looks like land with snow covering it. There's a bridge that connects us to Poland and if we ask for permission, we can go there for Pdays! Pretty neat.
Valentine's Day here is a JOKE. Because no one really celebrates! I made a valentine for Sis. Neukomm and she was like, "why did you make me a card?" "Cause it's Valentinstag." "Oh. Cool." So yeah, it's not really a big deal here. We did heart-attack a Neubekehrt in our branch and that night he called us and said, "thanks for putting hearts on my door." And we were pretending we didn't do it and was like, "What? Someone put hearts on your door? That's so nice!" and he said, "Haha, yeah right--only the Sisters would do something like that!" So yeah, that was pretty funny.
We also visited a girl named Nina--she's a friend to the ward but not really officially an investigator, but we visit her, share spiritual thoughts and bake with her. We tried making "American" cookies, but Sis. Neukomm didn't like that it needed so much sugar and butter so they didn't taste good, or American. Go figure, haha.
Thursday was pretty fun! If you remember what's it's like, us Sisters helped a lady in our branch with packing, since they're moving this week. We helped for like, 4 hours just packing their Keller, but us 3 ladies got the whole thing done! Being on the go and carrying so much stuff makes the lifting not that big of a deal, and Sis. Neukomm likes packing as much stuff in boxes as she can. Moving the food storage was a bit on the difficult side--I thought my arms would just fall off.
On Friday we had Präsident Interviews--we have a few Themas and then I get to sit for a short few minutes with him and talk about the city, members and companionship, all of which are going well. He just gave me a big grin and said, "Sister Olsen, you just belong in this mission! We're glad you're here!" and gave my hand a hearty shake. That was worth all the travelling and such. But it's true; I feel like I'm really a part of something grand and fantastic and I love it. I also got a big surprise: lots and lots of mail! Letters from fabulous old roomates (Al, Jeramy and Anne), and letters from Cottbus members! I got letters from Monika (a member referral that I met a few weeks before transferring), Schwester Schmidt (the member who referred her AND Anna), and Bischof. He sent me a DVD copy of the Christmas Concert and I'm sending it home this week, since of course, I can't watch it, and I think you'll take good care of it. :) It was really really cool. Schwester Schmidt is so sweet and always asking when I'll be coming back.
Also, funny story. One of the ladies from the TRC, Brigitte (famous amongst my district for being really tough to teach and asking really difficult questions) is now a single Sister in my mission. It's a bit more hilarious for those who were in the MTC with me, so I'll have to tell my MTC comp (we write each other letters still) when it's my turn to write. She came right up to me and was like, "Sis. Olsen, I remember you!" and I said, "I sure remember you, too!" But it was neat, of course.
This weekend was sort of an intense teaching weekend with lots of lessons. We challenged one of our investigators, Bianka to set not just a baptism date, but a WEDDING date, because she has to be married first before being baptized. It's one of those things, where she wants to do both, she just has to DO it. But we're not gonna rush her or anything, but it's like, "COME ON YOU'RE SO CLOSE!" So yeah, we'll see what this week brings.
We also have this new contact or potential investigator from Vietnam--but he's 16 years old. We want to bring Roman again as a joint teach the next time we see him. But we usually teach him in the doorway and he's a pretty cool kid. We were talking about faith and prayer and he said, "it's kind of like friendship; you can't see it but you can feel it and you know it's there." and I was like, "YES! You understand!" So that's way cool, although I'd feel a lot better about it when we get to meet the parents or something so it's not like we're meeting without permission or awareness, y'know? But there's cool little surprises every day.
Church was of course, way cool. Chanrith still comes every Sunday to church and is very good about finishing his school work on Saturday so he can come with us and not fall asleep on Sundays. He has a goal of being baptized early March (still in the transfer!) but he needs to set an official day, and we still have a few commandments to teach!
We also had another surprise at church: Katrin came! I've only met her once, but we've written quite a few cards to her. She was like 90% fest on leaving the church because she thought everyone in the branch were hypocrites and yeah, lots of other --not so important-- reasons, but she came on her own and just gave me a big hug and said how much it felt good again to come to church. Being a missionary automatically makes me cool, because she hardly knows me, but I'm Sis. Olsen and therefore I get special priveleges of watching a miracle take place. So yeah, pretty intense.
Yes we have cell phones! So vital! We have one per companionship, and we have a big conference call everytime for transfer calls, it's pretty cool. It helps us keep in contact with all the students that are here, and we use texting, too, but NOT a whole lot, just because it costs a lot here.
Transportation is mainly walking, with a mix of frantic running sometimes. We use Straßenbahns and trains to get places faster and we use trains a lot to travel from Eisenhüttenstadt to Frankfurt Oder. We used bikes in Eisenüttenstadt for a while because it's so small that there's only one bus that goes every hour, and we have "Frauenfahrräder" that has a low middle bar, so we don't have to swing our legs over too high in skirts when we ride. The Elder bikes have a middle bar that is as high as my waist, so that's pretty much impossible even in pants. We stopped once the snow came, though because Germans don't believe in putting salt on the ground, just getting better tires, and it hurts REALLY BAD to bike, for the hands and the face. It's painful.
Aber zum Glück, all the snow has miraculously disappeared and it's gotten REALLY warm. Talk about the shortest winter ever! We took good pictures while we could, but today it's so warm that I wore my raincoat thingie--dressing for Spring! Woot!
Monday, February 13, 2012
Crazy-good week....
Mensch-ity Mensch, MENSCH. Another crazy-good week.
Last Monday started out pretty good--if I had the choice, I'd be in Berlin every Pday doing fun stuff and being "tourist-y" but to be fair to Sis. Neukomm, we have a few "lazy" Pdays in between--where we do our errands like groceries, emails, and such, and then go home to lounge around, write letters, nap or whatever. I'm hoping next Monday we can go to Berlin again. It's such a wicked-awesome city. I must say, I OF COURSE remember eating Dunkin' Donuts when we went to Berlin as a family in '04 (it would be totally komisch for me to forget what we ate, right?) but they don't have it by the Brandenburger Tor anymore, something else--but they have one in the Zoologisher Garten Bahnhof, so we've made a trip there after District meeting, haha.
This week has been interesting--we've actually had like the standard snowfall here, some nice good snow, which means it's actually a bit warmer here, zum Glück! We're not in the negatives anymore. We've been doing snow-shoveling service for random people, including non-members related to the wardlings, which has been good for us. Sisters are just so weird, we like doing service! For example, we shoveled snow for the aunt of a member in our ward and before doing so we knocked on her door and asked if we could shovel her snow. She was like, "What? Really? Sure, if you want to!" She said she wanted to invite us over for dinner soon because of it!
I also have a piece of bittersweet news. Actually it's more good than bad. The new convert, Schwester Zimmer finally passed away this week. Sis. Neukomm and I were I think the last ones to visit her besides familiy; we dropped by to say hello, but she looked more like a breathing corpse and the evening following she finally passed away. She was such a stellar example to me, and I miss not being able to visit her like we used to. She would lie in her bed and wonder why she was stuck in bed--she wanted to be able to go to church and serve and teach, and now she can do all of that now, and not have any more pain. She was baptized just a year ago.
Thursday though was pretty fun. We got to meet a new Golden in our district--he looked pretty tired and just out of it from jet-lagged but also having a Stück of Berlin as his Golden City--a lot to take in! But Goldens are always trained by really good missionaries, he just needs to get used to the time difference. Interesting turn of events, Elder JP Turney is in my district now--his mom was my seminary teacher, and his companion is our new district leader, Elder Eggmann from Switzerland. Anyway, after our usual Distrikt meeting-ness, we headed to Eisenhüttenstadt to teach Bianka and her family. Roman, her son was more wanting to have a snow ball fight with us than hear our Thema so we agreed to have a war if he'd sit through it patiently. And JEEZ, we Sisters suited up while all the kids in their staircase gathered outside to play in the snow, and as soon as Sis. Neukomm and I entered the battlefield, we were the most popular targets! We went from black coats to white coats! But it was extremely fun, and we got the kids back pretty well. There's just something about being a missionary that makes every kid in the vacinity want to throw snow at you, meine gute.
After that, Della, a senior in highschool, (daughter of the Branch President) invited us to her talent show at her school to raise money for their Abitur or something, which was, an experience all in itself. For one thing, these kids are pretty talented and entertaining. There was one girl who danced a pretty cool routine to a cool song I like from back home, and then 5 boys "interupted" her and did a sort of "evolution of dance" type routine, but probably the most hilarious rendition that I will ever hope to see in my life. All the songs were popular American songs, and they made fun of the Twist, Thriller, Backstreet Boys, it was just hilarious! All the kids who performed sang in English, something I wasn't expecting, but Della explained that that's what kids listen to and emulate here, I guess. But the dance routine was called "Jungeballet", pretty entertaining.
Let's see--Saturday was absolutely EIN HUNDERT PROCENT VERRÜCKT. Mostly in a good way. It was one of those days where we do our planning but it all went wrong, going all the way to another city to teach Hans, just to get a prompting that we shouldn't teach him that day. It stems from what Präsident told us in our last Zone Conference, that any single investigator of the opposite sex must be taught with a joint teach, in a public place or not at all, and Sis. Neukomm shared with me that there's always a really really bad "vibe" if you will when we go there, so we took the train back home, with our whole morning down the drain. Then later that evening, we walked to our bus stop to go visit Chanrith, who already said we could come but not for very long because he's working on a project. We stopped a man on the way there on the street and ended up talking to him for 45min--pretty good for a street lesson, but he did a lot of talking, too about the problems of Germany and his Meinung about it, and in short, we missed our Straßenbahn. So we called Chanrith, appologized and asked if we could come later, he was fine with it, and so we walked the rest of the way to this stop. ComPLETELY at random, a Wunder in it's purest, raw form, one of our old contacts was there that we've been trying to get a hold of for MONTHS, Gaurov from India. He remembered our lesson about the Plan of Salvation and said that he prayed for a job like we invited him to do and found work, and wanted to hear the rest of the lesson because of it. He said that he works in Berlin and so he's never home EXCEPT for Sundays and he never puts money on his phone, which is why he was so hard to get a hold of, but he invited us to teach him yesterday, which we did. If we were on time for our Straßenbahn, we wouldn't have run into him and had such a stellar lesson yesterday. And our lesson with Chanrith went super well, too! At lunchtime on Saturday I was thinking to myself that it was the worst day ever and I was just so frustrated, and by the time the day was over, I was like, "this is like the best day EVER!" Heavenly Father can still work with verückt schedules.
Sunday was also way rad--Ward Conference and Gemeindeessen! Chanrith and Marcel came with us to church--Marcel is someone we teach that used to be a member, then became Catholic, and now wants to hear the lessons again, but had Angst about coming to church, so it was cool having him there again. There was also some cool people from Berlin to visit for the Ward Conference, the FHV Stake Präsident being a cool lady from Bristol, England who of COURSE had one of the most coolest British accents ever and she served a mission, too so she talked to me about it. We were at Gemeindeessen and she says to me, "Fill up, Sister!" Not like it was that hard! Although some of the talks in church were really...just weird, so for Chanrith, I translated like usual but also taught him more of the 3rd lesson (Das Evangelium Jesu Christi)--because when people say weird things in Church, you definitely start just teaching rather than just translating. ;P
Like I said, really cool lesson with Gaurov. He says he wants to be more religious because he used to drink, smoke and go partying too much and hated his life, but he says that he feels a lot better on the outside and inside by having a more structured life, and now that prayer has helped him, he thinks that church will help him even more. Way cool!
Sis. Neukomm also called a contact that they found before I came, and just wanted to see how she was doing. How bizarre-- because we called Sunday evening and the woman said that she needed comfort because her husband died Saturday evening just out of no where. *insert wide eyes here!* It says in PMG that the Lord is always preparing people who need us, and I've been praying in particular this whole week to find people who are prepared to meet us NOW; "planting seeds" is great, but I really want to teach some people who are READY, NOW.
So yeah, that's my life. Both of you asked me to send stories to share with the ward--are the stories I have now not cool enough? ;P You can send stuff that I have already shared, or if there's a particular story that you want me to explain more in detail or something, let me know. My goal for myself is to have an adventure everyday, and so far so good. Speaking of which, I'm almost done with mission journal #1--I brought a big blue journal that I got for Christmas from Trent & Mandy and I have like 30 more pages left in it--and I'm on page 179! I'm never really up to date, always about 11 days behind, but it's fun--lots to tell! I've been putting lots of pictures in it, too of each of my cities and companions, and wrappers of good Lindt chocolate and my favorite Fruchte Tee and other random-ocities.
So yeah, I think that's about it for the week--this upcoming week is Präsident Interviews! woot woot! It's like Zone Conference, so I'm expecting a day of good fun.
Machts gut! Bis nächtes Mal!
love,
Sis. Whit
Last Monday started out pretty good--if I had the choice, I'd be in Berlin every Pday doing fun stuff and being "tourist-y" but to be fair to Sis. Neukomm, we have a few "lazy" Pdays in between--where we do our errands like groceries, emails, and such, and then go home to lounge around, write letters, nap or whatever. I'm hoping next Monday we can go to Berlin again. It's such a wicked-awesome city. I must say, I OF COURSE remember eating Dunkin' Donuts when we went to Berlin as a family in '04 (it would be totally komisch for me to forget what we ate, right?) but they don't have it by the Brandenburger Tor anymore, something else--but they have one in the Zoologisher Garten Bahnhof, so we've made a trip there after District meeting, haha.
This week has been interesting--we've actually had like the standard snowfall here, some nice good snow, which means it's actually a bit warmer here, zum Glück! We're not in the negatives anymore. We've been doing snow-shoveling service for random people, including non-members related to the wardlings, which has been good for us. Sisters are just so weird, we like doing service! For example, we shoveled snow for the aunt of a member in our ward and before doing so we knocked on her door and asked if we could shovel her snow. She was like, "What? Really? Sure, if you want to!" She said she wanted to invite us over for dinner soon because of it!
I also have a piece of bittersweet news. Actually it's more good than bad. The new convert, Schwester Zimmer finally passed away this week. Sis. Neukomm and I were I think the last ones to visit her besides familiy; we dropped by to say hello, but she looked more like a breathing corpse and the evening following she finally passed away. She was such a stellar example to me, and I miss not being able to visit her like we used to. She would lie in her bed and wonder why she was stuck in bed--she wanted to be able to go to church and serve and teach, and now she can do all of that now, and not have any more pain. She was baptized just a year ago.
Thursday though was pretty fun. We got to meet a new Golden in our district--he looked pretty tired and just out of it from jet-lagged but also having a Stück of Berlin as his Golden City--a lot to take in! But Goldens are always trained by really good missionaries, he just needs to get used to the time difference. Interesting turn of events, Elder JP Turney is in my district now--his mom was my seminary teacher, and his companion is our new district leader, Elder Eggmann from Switzerland. Anyway, after our usual Distrikt meeting-ness, we headed to Eisenhüttenstadt to teach Bianka and her family. Roman, her son was more wanting to have a snow ball fight with us than hear our Thema so we agreed to have a war if he'd sit through it patiently. And JEEZ, we Sisters suited up while all the kids in their staircase gathered outside to play in the snow, and as soon as Sis. Neukomm and I entered the battlefield, we were the most popular targets! We went from black coats to white coats! But it was extremely fun, and we got the kids back pretty well. There's just something about being a missionary that makes every kid in the vacinity want to throw snow at you, meine gute.
After that, Della, a senior in highschool, (daughter of the Branch President) invited us to her talent show at her school to raise money for their Abitur or something, which was, an experience all in itself. For one thing, these kids are pretty talented and entertaining. There was one girl who danced a pretty cool routine to a cool song I like from back home, and then 5 boys "interupted" her and did a sort of "evolution of dance" type routine, but probably the most hilarious rendition that I will ever hope to see in my life. All the songs were popular American songs, and they made fun of the Twist, Thriller, Backstreet Boys, it was just hilarious! All the kids who performed sang in English, something I wasn't expecting, but Della explained that that's what kids listen to and emulate here, I guess. But the dance routine was called "Jungeballet", pretty entertaining.
Let's see--Saturday was absolutely EIN HUNDERT PROCENT VERRÜCKT. Mostly in a good way. It was one of those days where we do our planning but it all went wrong, going all the way to another city to teach Hans, just to get a prompting that we shouldn't teach him that day. It stems from what Präsident told us in our last Zone Conference, that any single investigator of the opposite sex must be taught with a joint teach, in a public place or not at all, and Sis. Neukomm shared with me that there's always a really really bad "vibe" if you will when we go there, so we took the train back home, with our whole morning down the drain. Then later that evening, we walked to our bus stop to go visit Chanrith, who already said we could come but not for very long because he's working on a project. We stopped a man on the way there on the street and ended up talking to him for 45min--pretty good for a street lesson, but he did a lot of talking, too about the problems of Germany and his Meinung about it, and in short, we missed our Straßenbahn. So we called Chanrith, appologized and asked if we could come later, he was fine with it, and so we walked the rest of the way to this stop. ComPLETELY at random, a Wunder in it's purest, raw form, one of our old contacts was there that we've been trying to get a hold of for MONTHS, Gaurov from India. He remembered our lesson about the Plan of Salvation and said that he prayed for a job like we invited him to do and found work, and wanted to hear the rest of the lesson because of it. He said that he works in Berlin and so he's never home EXCEPT for Sundays and he never puts money on his phone, which is why he was so hard to get a hold of, but he invited us to teach him yesterday, which we did. If we were on time for our Straßenbahn, we wouldn't have run into him and had such a stellar lesson yesterday. And our lesson with Chanrith went super well, too! At lunchtime on Saturday I was thinking to myself that it was the worst day ever and I was just so frustrated, and by the time the day was over, I was like, "this is like the best day EVER!" Heavenly Father can still work with verückt schedules.
Sunday was also way rad--Ward Conference and Gemeindeessen! Chanrith and Marcel came with us to church--Marcel is someone we teach that used to be a member, then became Catholic, and now wants to hear the lessons again, but had Angst about coming to church, so it was cool having him there again. There was also some cool people from Berlin to visit for the Ward Conference, the FHV Stake Präsident being a cool lady from Bristol, England who of COURSE had one of the most coolest British accents ever and she served a mission, too so she talked to me about it. We were at Gemeindeessen and she says to me, "Fill up, Sister!" Not like it was that hard! Although some of the talks in church were really...just weird, so for Chanrith, I translated like usual but also taught him more of the 3rd lesson (Das Evangelium Jesu Christi)--because when people say weird things in Church, you definitely start just teaching rather than just translating. ;P
Like I said, really cool lesson with Gaurov. He says he wants to be more religious because he used to drink, smoke and go partying too much and hated his life, but he says that he feels a lot better on the outside and inside by having a more structured life, and now that prayer has helped him, he thinks that church will help him even more. Way cool!
Sis. Neukomm also called a contact that they found before I came, and just wanted to see how she was doing. How bizarre-- because we called Sunday evening and the woman said that she needed comfort because her husband died Saturday evening just out of no where. *insert wide eyes here!* It says in PMG that the Lord is always preparing people who need us, and I've been praying in particular this whole week to find people who are prepared to meet us NOW; "planting seeds" is great, but I really want to teach some people who are READY, NOW.
So yeah, that's my life. Both of you asked me to send stories to share with the ward--are the stories I have now not cool enough? ;P You can send stuff that I have already shared, or if there's a particular story that you want me to explain more in detail or something, let me know. My goal for myself is to have an adventure everyday, and so far so good. Speaking of which, I'm almost done with mission journal #1--I brought a big blue journal that I got for Christmas from Trent & Mandy and I have like 30 more pages left in it--and I'm on page 179! I'm never really up to date, always about 11 days behind, but it's fun--lots to tell! I've been putting lots of pictures in it, too of each of my cities and companions, and wrappers of good Lindt chocolate and my favorite Fruchte Tee and other random-ocities.
So yeah, I think that's about it for the week--this upcoming week is Präsident Interviews! woot woot! It's like Zone Conference, so I'm expecting a day of good fun.
Machts gut! Bis nächtes Mal!
love,
Sis. Whit
Monday, February 6, 2012
Brrr.....
So it is b-b-b-b-BUM freezing cold outside! It's ridiculous getting forwarded emails from my friend in Peru of her tan lines in February and I'm adding a new layer of something or another to keep myself alive! The snow came and finally stayed last Thursday, although still not a lot, but it's still cold! It's hovering around -11/-10°C everyday, all day, and holy meine freezing gute, measuring the temperature in Celsius is always sort of depressing, because it sounds colder. M-m-m-m-menschhh!
So first news of the week: Transfer calls! Sis. Neukomm and I are staying in Eisenhüttenstadt! This is the first transfer where I'm not getting a new companion, kinda nice for a change! We're both pretty happy to stay, because at every transfer call, I always think, "I've barely scratched the surface, there's so much to be done!" But we still did the usual "spring cleaning" that happens at every beginning of a transfer.
Last Monday, we had a fun Pday in Berlin, we went and took pictures by the Brandenburger Tor which was a-mazing! We hope to keep doing fun stuff in Berlin, but we were seriously in Berlin 4 times this past week, which is a lot of travelling. It's an hour each way, and that adds up. But we plan on getting fun Berlin shirts as a companionship, so we hope to find something cool. With the cold weather, I'd much rather find cool sweatpants that say Berlin on them or something, we'll see. It was cool just to go back, because it reminds me of our family trip there in '04 and how cold it was then as well! Meine gute!
So this week I finally got around to reading some General Conference talks in the Ensign, and if Jordan hasn't read the articles from the Priesthood session, he should defnitely do it soon! There's two phenomenal talks about missionary work, and I laughed out loud at the one by Elder Holland. I felt my eyebrows singe just from reading it, and I'm already out here as a missionary! It's funny to compare and contrast (as usual) the priesthood talks from the FHV talks--where Uchtdorf tells the Sisters how special and wonderful they are, and Elder Holland is grabbing the men by the lapels and boxing their ears and telling them to get up, grow up and get to work! Haha! There's another good talk about the blessings of serving a mission that I think should heal the burn, that I really liked and I think Jordan could read that if he hasn't already. There's also a talk I found, maybe I'll make a copy of it, because I got it during Zone Conference, but it's an MTC talk I think by Bednar called something like "How to Become a Preach My Gospel Missionary" which was also superb. Bednar is also very clear and crisp with his words.
As I said, 4 times this week in Berlin, doesn't get any cooler than that! Monday for Pday, Wednesday for District meeting, and I was there Thursday-Friday for Tausch (exchanges) for a day. It was really cool--I got to spend a day with Sis. Warnke, a German Golden, which was weird for me, I haven't really worked with anyone "younger" than me on the mission, but she's totally a pro because of this new program that Jordan will use on his mission, so I have no doubts about him. We got to teach a lot that day, found a ton of people on the streets and yeah, just über awesome. One of the people we got to teach was a Neuebekehrt, named Igor, who's just awesome. He's a real bookworm and if you give him something to read, he just scans and scans and eats it up! They also had Institut at the building the night we were there, and the Senior couple made a bunch of "American food" like REAL brownies, for instance. The Elder Johnson from the Senior couple is hilarious, he just goes around to all the Institut kids and speaks German with the best American accent you can imagine; he just always says, "Mein Deutsch is ganz schlecht!" with just the goofiest grin ever.
What was even cooler--we did dooring in a student Wohnheim there, and for some reason, not many people even answered, but one of the few girls that answered the door was this Chinese girl with the cutest German ever (she's been in Germany as long as I have) and was really sweet. She's going home to China in 5 days, so we told her we'd bring her a Chinese Book of Mormon the next morning just before we would Tausch back to our normal companionships. She was so happy to have the book and since I knew I wouldn't really see her again, I was like, "Can I get a pictures with you?" And she had no problem with it--she treated us like we were life-long friends and in the pictures, she even held my hand. All of this was on Feb 3rd, my exact 6 month mark, and I just thought to myself, "This is why I'm a missionary." I mean, an American and German companionship teaching a Chinese girl--what other gospel brings such miracles? A lot of people who wouldn't hear the gospel in their own country are finding themselves studying in countries where there ARE missionaries, and like Elder Holland says, the church needs thousands of more missionaries in the next few years. That sounds a bit urgent, don't you think? Hmmmmm? So that was like the coolest Tausch EVER.
All this talk of Super Bowl-ness is weird, but fun. Sometimes I forget that things like that exist. And I was slightly surprised that dad "leaked" a bit of politics my way--you guys told me you didn't want me to worry about it while I was gone! But yeah, Germans here love Obama, even though they don't have a CLUE what politics are like in the States; they just like the idea of seeing an African American as president--but we just have to say that we aren't here to discuss politics, because as representatives that's really not part of our job. But personally, I don't care if our next President is Republican, Democrat pink, purple or blue, or wears an eyepatch or something--if the President can lead right and fix some problems with common sense, then that's fine with me!
As far as what you asked about dooring--we do it a lot now because of the cold--more people are seeking shelter inside, even though when we're out and about, we try talking to people on the streets as well. People are usually willing to talk longer at their doorstep because it's warm and they aren't rushing to anywhere in particular. We occasionally have really good conversations like the one you shared with me--how people can have different Meinungs but they sitll listen and we can teach an impromptu "lesson."
As far as our ward news goes, we've been teaching a Schwester Zimmer every week, because every convert is taught all of the lessons again after the baptism, and there were a few things she still needed to be taught, even a year after her baptism. We just finished all the lessons, when suddenly her cancer started getting worse, worse enough that she was moved to a clinic sort of specially prepared for people to die, meaning that it's really bad. She can hardly speak and is hardly there anymore because of all the drugs she's given, so we said goodbye to her yesterday and will just let her family have time with her. For me and Sis. Neukomm, we've taught her all the lessons, and as we thought about it--her greatest desire is to serve and be a "Sister" in the next life, and I don't know, maybe there are people who need her there sooner than imagined...
We finally got to meet with Chanrith after a few weeks of calling him all the time with no luck. He still wants to be baptized and wants to be baptized in early March when his papers and assignments are all taken care of--and after we teach him all that he needs to know. So yay!
We have had a craaazy week. Before it snowed we actually did a lot of biking around Eisenhüttenstadt to get to appointments, since it's big enough that we need bikes to get around, but small enough that there's only one bus that comes every 1/2 hour. That's painful to the face, but I'm actually not that bad with biking, it's pretty fun and fast, just yeah, extremely cold face. We haven't used bikes since the snow because Germans don't use salt for sidewalks really; some just sprinkle small rocks, like that helps. it just looks icky. So yeah, we get around.
So those are all the hilights of this week, there's always soemthing going on! But yeah, I'll be here for another 6 weeks at least, hoo-rah! So keep the mail coming this way please! I hope you are all having a fun week this week, and Jordan, the wait will go by faster than you think! Enjoy all the movies and stuff that you would miss in the next two weeks, and get some naps in there, too! Naps don't really exist on the mission!
Oddly enough, being on a mission sort of reminds me of my crazy gym teacher, Coach G who would always yell at us (me) when we would run on the track, "THERE'S NO WALKING IN P.E.!" And that's how it is here, there's no (time for) walking on a mission! Each day you have to get up, grow up and get to work! But being busy help others sounds pretty worth it to me. In Jacob 5 where it talks about the Olive tree allegory, at the end, the Lord asks his servants to help Him with His work, and the idea of working alongside the Lord makes it worth going outside into the bleak weather each day.
I love you all! Bis nächtes Mal!
--Sis. Whit
So first news of the week: Transfer calls! Sis. Neukomm and I are staying in Eisenhüttenstadt! This is the first transfer where I'm not getting a new companion, kinda nice for a change! We're both pretty happy to stay, because at every transfer call, I always think, "I've barely scratched the surface, there's so much to be done!" But we still did the usual "spring cleaning" that happens at every beginning of a transfer.
Last Monday, we had a fun Pday in Berlin, we went and took pictures by the Brandenburger Tor which was a-mazing! We hope to keep doing fun stuff in Berlin, but we were seriously in Berlin 4 times this past week, which is a lot of travelling. It's an hour each way, and that adds up. But we plan on getting fun Berlin shirts as a companionship, so we hope to find something cool. With the cold weather, I'd much rather find cool sweatpants that say Berlin on them or something, we'll see. It was cool just to go back, because it reminds me of our family trip there in '04 and how cold it was then as well! Meine gute!
So this week I finally got around to reading some General Conference talks in the Ensign, and if Jordan hasn't read the articles from the Priesthood session, he should defnitely do it soon! There's two phenomenal talks about missionary work, and I laughed out loud at the one by Elder Holland. I felt my eyebrows singe just from reading it, and I'm already out here as a missionary! It's funny to compare and contrast (as usual) the priesthood talks from the FHV talks--where Uchtdorf tells the Sisters how special and wonderful they are, and Elder Holland is grabbing the men by the lapels and boxing their ears and telling them to get up, grow up and get to work! Haha! There's another good talk about the blessings of serving a mission that I think should heal the burn, that I really liked and I think Jordan could read that if he hasn't already. There's also a talk I found, maybe I'll make a copy of it, because I got it during Zone Conference, but it's an MTC talk I think by Bednar called something like "How to Become a Preach My Gospel Missionary" which was also superb. Bednar is also very clear and crisp with his words.
As I said, 4 times this week in Berlin, doesn't get any cooler than that! Monday for Pday, Wednesday for District meeting, and I was there Thursday-Friday for Tausch (exchanges) for a day. It was really cool--I got to spend a day with Sis. Warnke, a German Golden, which was weird for me, I haven't really worked with anyone "younger" than me on the mission, but she's totally a pro because of this new program that Jordan will use on his mission, so I have no doubts about him. We got to teach a lot that day, found a ton of people on the streets and yeah, just über awesome. One of the people we got to teach was a Neuebekehrt, named Igor, who's just awesome. He's a real bookworm and if you give him something to read, he just scans and scans and eats it up! They also had Institut at the building the night we were there, and the Senior couple made a bunch of "American food" like REAL brownies, for instance. The Elder Johnson from the Senior couple is hilarious, he just goes around to all the Institut kids and speaks German with the best American accent you can imagine; he just always says, "Mein Deutsch is ganz schlecht!" with just the goofiest grin ever.
What was even cooler--we did dooring in a student Wohnheim there, and for some reason, not many people even answered, but one of the few girls that answered the door was this Chinese girl with the cutest German ever (she's been in Germany as long as I have) and was really sweet. She's going home to China in 5 days, so we told her we'd bring her a Chinese Book of Mormon the next morning just before we would Tausch back to our normal companionships. She was so happy to have the book and since I knew I wouldn't really see her again, I was like, "Can I get a pictures with you?" And she had no problem with it--she treated us like we were life-long friends and in the pictures, she even held my hand. All of this was on Feb 3rd, my exact 6 month mark, and I just thought to myself, "This is why I'm a missionary." I mean, an American and German companionship teaching a Chinese girl--what other gospel brings such miracles? A lot of people who wouldn't hear the gospel in their own country are finding themselves studying in countries where there ARE missionaries, and like Elder Holland says, the church needs thousands of more missionaries in the next few years. That sounds a bit urgent, don't you think? Hmmmmm? So that was like the coolest Tausch EVER.
All this talk of Super Bowl-ness is weird, but fun. Sometimes I forget that things like that exist. And I was slightly surprised that dad "leaked" a bit of politics my way--you guys told me you didn't want me to worry about it while I was gone! But yeah, Germans here love Obama, even though they don't have a CLUE what politics are like in the States; they just like the idea of seeing an African American as president--but we just have to say that we aren't here to discuss politics, because as representatives that's really not part of our job. But personally, I don't care if our next President is Republican, Democrat pink, purple or blue, or wears an eyepatch or something--if the President can lead right and fix some problems with common sense, then that's fine with me!
As far as what you asked about dooring--we do it a lot now because of the cold--more people are seeking shelter inside, even though when we're out and about, we try talking to people on the streets as well. People are usually willing to talk longer at their doorstep because it's warm and they aren't rushing to anywhere in particular. We occasionally have really good conversations like the one you shared with me--how people can have different Meinungs but they sitll listen and we can teach an impromptu "lesson."
As far as our ward news goes, we've been teaching a Schwester Zimmer every week, because every convert is taught all of the lessons again after the baptism, and there were a few things she still needed to be taught, even a year after her baptism. We just finished all the lessons, when suddenly her cancer started getting worse, worse enough that she was moved to a clinic sort of specially prepared for people to die, meaning that it's really bad. She can hardly speak and is hardly there anymore because of all the drugs she's given, so we said goodbye to her yesterday and will just let her family have time with her. For me and Sis. Neukomm, we've taught her all the lessons, and as we thought about it--her greatest desire is to serve and be a "Sister" in the next life, and I don't know, maybe there are people who need her there sooner than imagined...
We finally got to meet with Chanrith after a few weeks of calling him all the time with no luck. He still wants to be baptized and wants to be baptized in early March when his papers and assignments are all taken care of--and after we teach him all that he needs to know. So yay!
We have had a craaazy week. Before it snowed we actually did a lot of biking around Eisenhüttenstadt to get to appointments, since it's big enough that we need bikes to get around, but small enough that there's only one bus that comes every 1/2 hour. That's painful to the face, but I'm actually not that bad with biking, it's pretty fun and fast, just yeah, extremely cold face. We haven't used bikes since the snow because Germans don't use salt for sidewalks really; some just sprinkle small rocks, like that helps. it just looks icky. So yeah, we get around.
So those are all the hilights of this week, there's always soemthing going on! But yeah, I'll be here for another 6 weeks at least, hoo-rah! So keep the mail coming this way please! I hope you are all having a fun week this week, and Jordan, the wait will go by faster than you think! Enjoy all the movies and stuff that you would miss in the next two weeks, and get some naps in there, too! Naps don't really exist on the mission!
Oddly enough, being on a mission sort of reminds me of my crazy gym teacher, Coach G who would always yell at us (me) when we would run on the track, "THERE'S NO WALKING IN P.E.!" And that's how it is here, there's no (time for) walking on a mission! Each day you have to get up, grow up and get to work! But being busy help others sounds pretty worth it to me. In Jacob 5 where it talks about the Olive tree allegory, at the end, the Lord asks his servants to help Him with His work, and the idea of working alongside the Lord makes it worth going outside into the bleak weather each day.
I love you all! Bis nächtes Mal!
--Sis. Whit
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