Hallo Familie!
I'm glad you are keeping track of the blog--it's an art to be a Sister and be creative with what we wear all the time! I get sick of skirts but then again, I'm so used to it, like prepping for winter with skirts--it's just a fact of life, I remember what I wore last winter and I'm good to go! It does feel extremely weird wearing pants/jeans for Pday though. Like I'm NORMAL or something.
But on Monday we went to Porta Westfalica to a Denkmal for Kaiser Wilhem somthing or another--it was a hill with a memorial and we hiked it. Fun times! It's super beautiful here in the fall so we're going through some majorly beautiful scenery--kinda like the hike to the Neuschwanstein Schloss only no snow, more trees, and no horse poo. :) Hence the weird feeling of wearing jeans. I just think they get stiff when you only wear them for service projects or hiking. But the weather was PERFECT and then the temperature dropped--we went running this week in -1°C! Talk about getting a wake up call!
On Monday we also visited a Neubekehrt for a Essenstermin and he taught us how to make REAL schnitzel like REALLY good. I took notes and we helped make 'em so I'm excited to just make Schnitzel for the rest of my life.
Oh meine Mensch, we are starting to meet 2x a week with George which means a double dose of his amazing quotes. For one thing, he's loving the Book of Mormon--he's studying it with the Bible and just can't get enough. He wants to give a Book of Mormon to his girlfriend! :)
We also tried visiting less actives that live a bit more further out in other cities--on top of Bielefeld alone, we have this huge area including Herford, Gütersloh, Herzebrock, and the furthest south we go is Clarholz--mainly to work with members and less actives, but not so much procelyting because...it's a mess trying to get to as many people as possible and not DIE while you're at it. Look me up on Google Maps, we got a big field to harvest!
Vladmir is doing well; he finally got the guts to pray for us, even though it's in Russian and we can't understand it anyway, but his son Michael had those shiny eyes after, like, he's so happy that his DAD, this tatoo'd, thick shouldered Russian just prayed to his Father in Heaven. What a great moment.
Ingo is like a rocket! Although we blew him outta the water with our 2-part thema on Gesetz der Keuchheit. We figured he might have some issues with it which was right, a little too much TMI on his part, but we were like, "well, just repent now that you know better and you gotta keep this law to be baptized..." But it's sad because he has depression which comes from a breakup he had with his girlfriend of 5 years. It's really true that when you break the law of chastity and think you can come away from that unscathed, you're wrong. It's really there to protect your heart where it's the most vunerable. I hope he really understood that connection but he is willing to commit now that he knows! Meine gute... :P But yesterday at church he bore his testimony (we have Stake Conference next Sunday) and invited the ward to his Taufe! Woot woot! That just makes us feel sooo good! He was nervous and after he was like, "Dang! I forgot to close in the name of Jesus Christ!" But we were like, "Al-les klar!"
Oh my gosh, I have to tell this story: So we were teaching the 10 commandments to the biggest Bible Profi ever, George, and we talked about Abinadi, who is George's BoM alter-ego (I'm curious as to which BoM character i most resemble...) But Sis. Child quoted King Noah when he said, "Who's God that I should..." blahblahblah, right? Oh meine GUTE, George's eyes got all big like, "OH SNAP HE JUST DID NOT SAY THAT!" And went off on King Noah! He said, "If you be asking that, you have BIG trouble! You hear the thunder, you see the lightning, you know He got one left for YOU!" hahah, we were crying we were laughing so hard. I'm laughing about it again with Sis. Child as we type. Bahaha!
Michael Mauritz is doing AWESOME. He loves coming to church and just loves the atmosphere; he's like, this is how a true church should feel--full of the Spirit but the people aren't full of themselves and there's no hypocrisy in the leadership. I mean, just the fact that they wear suits and not vestments or whatever, he just loves it. He's like buying Halloween candy for the party this Wednesday and everything. Speaking of which, I want pictures of Jordo's halloween costume! What is it with him and mustaches? Probably because he can't grow one...just joking. :P I think I'm just going to wear my red coat with the hood and be Rottkäpchen. :)
As for our British Activist, we're deciding to "Tschüss" him big time, mainly because he SO has no interest in learning for the right reasons and to be baptised. I know it seems a big "sissy" sometimes to back out because they don't do what we want or whatever, but we have limited time and we know that all he really wants to do is prove that we are wrong and überzeug US! He pulled up the internet on his TV and was like, "I wanna show you this clip I found on Youtube" And it's about Joseph Smith, Free Masons and Temples...just total GARBAGE. We were like, "No, you are not showing us that, we don't want to watch it!" There's just this...icky feeling in his apartment and it's uncomfortable and I really don't ever want to go back. You can tell when people just research things that are just absolutely void of all Spirit, like not even a particle.
But we got a spiritual boost from Schwester Krichler. Oh meine GUTE, if Barbie ever came in "German Oma" form, it would be Schw. Krichler. She made like the best Goulash and Spätzle EVER (guess who she asked for meal suggestions??) and gives us all these cooking tips and what-not. She is so tiny and adorable and she said, (it's funnier in Deutsch) "Manchmal die Leute kommt immer noch zum mir und sagt, 'Oh, immer noch so klein?' Ich denke, 'WAS für eine doofe Bemerkung!' Wie könnte ein Priestertumsträger so was sagen?" and we just tried to keep a serious face, but just BUSTED out laughing. But she started to laugh too, it was just funny. It's like my favorite Shakespeare quote, "though she be small, she is fierce!" In every city, I got my German Oma. :)
On Saturday we had a pretty legit service project for our Zone. We helped a team in Bergdorf (by Hannover) sort of help with the reconstruction of this gym that got burnt down. The structure itself is up, but we helped with a lot of construction of the inside. For the Sisters, we painted long planks of wood, just all the wood they had (they lined the walls with them like a log cabin/sauna look) with paint primer stuff and the Elders helped mostly outside cleaning and moving bleachers and hammering the wood against the walls, it was some LEGIT stuff! And at the end they gave us soda, even though I think we were the only members on the premises. Which means of course they had Bier dabei. They jokingly offered Bier to one of the Senior couple Elders, who remembers some of his Deutsch and the Elder said, "I can't drink beer!" "But it's beer with LEMON!" "But if I drink this, these missionaries will be thinking, 'no, no, no!'" "Then we'll have them all turn around!" It was pretty fun and they really appreciated having us there. They had a legit crew, but we did the stuff that really does take a while that anyone can do, like painting? But it was fun! Especially as a zone.
This Sunday was finally normal, like all three hours, no broadcasts or anything, just your three hours of good stuff. All of our favorite people came and it was SO good.
This week was pretty cool, because we got three people come ansprach US this week for information! This lady from Cameroon asked us if we were Menonites (spelling?) because of the skirts, and I'm thinking, "you see me wearing this awesome coat-scarf combo and you think I'm a Menonite?" But once she found out we were just missionaries she was like, "well what do you believe and where's your church?" So we had a good first lesson on the Straßenbahn. The other two were also Africans from Nigeria. We were walking home and I said something random in English and they called out to us and were like, "Hey, you Sisters from de Church?" We gave them instructions and everything--they live like 5min from church. A lot of times they just ask us where church is, because they feel more comfortable asking two girls that speak English and have nametags with the name "Jesus Christ" on it, so it's great. They're just super gläubig and just want to find a place to worship God while they're here in Germany for whatever reason they find themselves here.
So yeah, what a week! This week we have Tausch, leadership training and stake conference--three days going to Hannover! Blarg!
Have a great week! Ich habe euch lieb!
love,
Whit
About Me
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- Wie geht's! As a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Berlin Germany mission, I'm bound to have lots of fun experiences!
Monday, October 29, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
October is flying by...
Hallo Familie,
Well this week chewed us up and spit us out--it was SO crazy!! But we made it out just fine.
We just had a fun Pday last week--just relaxing and enjoying the weather! It's super gold and red everywhere you go so we've been taking so many pictures and the temperature hovers around 20°C and with sun, it feels GREAT. Almost like a "fake" summer for Germans! :P
But what's been really stressing us out has been figuring out Tauftermins for Ingo and Vladmir--both of them weren't fest at all and we needed to figure it out and get them to make up their minds so that we could figure out how many lessons they needed and how to break them all up, and yeah, it was crazy. For example, Ingo's original Taufdatum was yesterday, but he's not ready, he hasn't gotten all the lessons--but on Monday he INSISTED on keeping his goal, so from Monday to Wednesday we were trying to make this baptism work, but we then had to tell him, "YOU are not ready for this Sunday, and neither are WE!" So we ended up moving his baptism date to 11.Nov which is like a breath of fresh air. He's been realizing as well that he isn't quite ready. We had fears that he just wanted baptism as his clean slate, but not realizing all the things he has to do as a member of the church or a disciple of Christ. But that's all cleared up. We had worries with Vladmir because his son, who is our translator is going to Ukraine for a few weeks to meet members there and see the temple (he's what you call STILL GOLDEN) and so we wanted to try and get the baptism done before this trip, but we decided that wasn't wise, either, so he will be baptised 25 Nov--which is Vladmir's birthday! Pretty sweet to be baptised on your birthday--by your son!
Another thing was our Zone Training Meeting on Tuesday--and we had to ALSO prepare a Thema for that as well! We had to cancel a few people or schedule them later so we could sit down and plan this without going nuts. Baaaah. But we schaff'd it--and it was our first Zone Mtg in German! That was intense, but teaching in German, is of course...NOT a big deal.
I guess I should bring this up now, when I said Sis. Child was helping me, it wasn't trunkiness at all; it was looking back and hoping that I've used my time wisely and hoping that I helped enough people and really put forth all the effort I had/have. The time is going by WAY to fast and I'm enjoying every second I have. I don't really feel the need to be trunky because I'm trying to savor whatever is left!! So I hope I don't sound like a wimp or something. I am working harder, faster, and stronger than EVER before and it feels great.
So I didn't get to shake the Prophet's hand because there was too many people. But I got to see him here in Germany and that was pretty great. The other Americans in our ward were like, "yeah, it's the Prophet, pretty cool." and the Germans were like, "IT'S THE PROPHET!!!!" Because the last time he's been here has been at least 12 years or so, according to a member.
Well, because of all this stress--planning, the Zone Training Mtg and also a big meeting with the Bischofschaft, we didn't actually get to our "normal" schedule until Thursday, which was amazing--the first 3 people we talked to made out appointments with us! Pretty unusual of course, but especially for us, becuase we have the "best" problem you can have--so many Termins that we have super-limited Finding time.
We finally saw Frau Möhner again--the sweet Turkish lady we met last transfer. She's in and out of the hospital for random things, so hopefully we'll start having normal Termins again. Mensch! But she made some random Turkish food which was like super meaty lasagna-type stuff for us after our lesson. She's looking for truth and she's looking for peace.
Friday was HILARIOUS. We have a new investigator, Paul, who's also British but also an "Activist"--which means he's super weird and has weird theories but loves asking us questions. Sometimes (actually all the time) his theories conflict with the scriptures--like he thinks it's impossible to be a soldier in an army and a Christian, because of the whole "Prince of Peace" thing. But he in many ways agrees with a lot of things we believe, a bit more extreme, but sure, his intentions are pure. He asked a lot of questions that you can imagine came up from internet surfing, but we told him most of the answers and encouraged him to read in the BoM rather than online and he seemed intruigued and excited dafür. So we're happy to keep meeting with him. He's neighbors with Sis. Page who is also British, so we've found our little British Ecke. Annalies is on vacation for a while, so hopefully we'll see her soon.
We also visited Ines on her birthday--her mom asked if we could come over and teach her that day at Ines' request so that was pretty sweet. You can tell the mom loves us being the "big sisters" example for her kids.
If you can imagine, this week we taught big tatoo'd, Russian, Vladmir about das Gesetz des Keuchheit this week. A pretty hilarious dialoge to have translated...but we schaff'd it.
Saturday we met one of our contacts from the 3 that we made out on Thursday, this awesome lady who lives out in the middle of NOWHERE, but we met her husband who is also super friendly and open about us meeting with BOTH of them. So that is awesome to the MAX! That's always a win.
Let's see....we're still teaching Bru. Baumeister some English. We're helping mainly with pronunciation so we made the most difficult sentence for him to say, "Where were we?" Those W's and especially "were" is so hard for him and this time he got it and started dancing--like a Russian! It was by far the most hilarious English class auf den Erde.
My personal favorite was Sunday! Mainly because we got to watch a broadcast of Präs. Monson in Frankfurt and he gave a totally different Thema, but still pretty simple. They asked at the end to have everyone remain at their seats when the prophet left, so those people didn't even have the chance to shake his hand, shade. But Bru. Baumeister made friends with Vladmir and talked to other members in the ward--which is great because before he would leave ASAP before we could catch him and make him stay, but he stayed for a long time and he looked very happy. Michael also came--our nerdy Star Trek and NCIS fan investigator. He of course LOVED it and the ward was super friendly with him. It's so great to see the investigators just be instant friends with the members and he already acts like he's expecting on coming as often as possible. Finally made it after a few months of meeting!
The weather was also absolutely gorgeous, so we walked through a park pretty close by us and enjoyed the warm Fall weather. It was so awesome! :)
But to answer questions: Dusseldorf is still a part of the Frankfurt mission--I meant that the missionaries in the Frankfurt mission had special permission to leave their mission boundaries to head over to Hamburg for the conference--but they don't have their seperate mission.
Gaaaah, as far as Christmas...food that I miss? Honestly random dinner meals that I could make at home that doesn't really work here or I don't have the time. I guess just usual Christmas goodies, like from both sides of the family, cheetos, Reeses...sorry, I'll try to think of more this week, but I'm drawing a blank--people are already busting out Christmas goodies and I wonder how much I'll have to eat in the next few months...but a grocery store by us has humongous pumpkins perfect for Halloween so we're going to buy some next Monday. Any nice leggings that are brown or dark dark red with patterns would be cool.
Fall is here and sooo beautiful! And the Christmasmarkts are also just around the corner!!! We're excited!!
Anyway, have a super awesome week! Stay safe with the crazy weather! ICH HABE EUCH LIEEEEB!
--Whit
Well this week chewed us up and spit us out--it was SO crazy!! But we made it out just fine.
We just had a fun Pday last week--just relaxing and enjoying the weather! It's super gold and red everywhere you go so we've been taking so many pictures and the temperature hovers around 20°C and with sun, it feels GREAT. Almost like a "fake" summer for Germans! :P
But what's been really stressing us out has been figuring out Tauftermins for Ingo and Vladmir--both of them weren't fest at all and we needed to figure it out and get them to make up their minds so that we could figure out how many lessons they needed and how to break them all up, and yeah, it was crazy. For example, Ingo's original Taufdatum was yesterday, but he's not ready, he hasn't gotten all the lessons--but on Monday he INSISTED on keeping his goal, so from Monday to Wednesday we were trying to make this baptism work, but we then had to tell him, "YOU are not ready for this Sunday, and neither are WE!" So we ended up moving his baptism date to 11.Nov which is like a breath of fresh air. He's been realizing as well that he isn't quite ready. We had fears that he just wanted baptism as his clean slate, but not realizing all the things he has to do as a member of the church or a disciple of Christ. But that's all cleared up. We had worries with Vladmir because his son, who is our translator is going to Ukraine for a few weeks to meet members there and see the temple (he's what you call STILL GOLDEN) and so we wanted to try and get the baptism done before this trip, but we decided that wasn't wise, either, so he will be baptised 25 Nov--which is Vladmir's birthday! Pretty sweet to be baptised on your birthday--by your son!
Another thing was our Zone Training Meeting on Tuesday--and we had to ALSO prepare a Thema for that as well! We had to cancel a few people or schedule them later so we could sit down and plan this without going nuts. Baaaah. But we schaff'd it--and it was our first Zone Mtg in German! That was intense, but teaching in German, is of course...NOT a big deal.
I guess I should bring this up now, when I said Sis. Child was helping me, it wasn't trunkiness at all; it was looking back and hoping that I've used my time wisely and hoping that I helped enough people and really put forth all the effort I had/have. The time is going by WAY to fast and I'm enjoying every second I have. I don't really feel the need to be trunky because I'm trying to savor whatever is left!! So I hope I don't sound like a wimp or something. I am working harder, faster, and stronger than EVER before and it feels great.
So I didn't get to shake the Prophet's hand because there was too many people. But I got to see him here in Germany and that was pretty great. The other Americans in our ward were like, "yeah, it's the Prophet, pretty cool." and the Germans were like, "IT'S THE PROPHET!!!!" Because the last time he's been here has been at least 12 years or so, according to a member.
Well, because of all this stress--planning, the Zone Training Mtg and also a big meeting with the Bischofschaft, we didn't actually get to our "normal" schedule until Thursday, which was amazing--the first 3 people we talked to made out appointments with us! Pretty unusual of course, but especially for us, becuase we have the "best" problem you can have--so many Termins that we have super-limited Finding time.
We finally saw Frau Möhner again--the sweet Turkish lady we met last transfer. She's in and out of the hospital for random things, so hopefully we'll start having normal Termins again. Mensch! But she made some random Turkish food which was like super meaty lasagna-type stuff for us after our lesson. She's looking for truth and she's looking for peace.
Friday was HILARIOUS. We have a new investigator, Paul, who's also British but also an "Activist"--which means he's super weird and has weird theories but loves asking us questions. Sometimes (actually all the time) his theories conflict with the scriptures--like he thinks it's impossible to be a soldier in an army and a Christian, because of the whole "Prince of Peace" thing. But he in many ways agrees with a lot of things we believe, a bit more extreme, but sure, his intentions are pure. He asked a lot of questions that you can imagine came up from internet surfing, but we told him most of the answers and encouraged him to read in the BoM rather than online and he seemed intruigued and excited dafür. So we're happy to keep meeting with him. He's neighbors with Sis. Page who is also British, so we've found our little British Ecke. Annalies is on vacation for a while, so hopefully we'll see her soon.
We also visited Ines on her birthday--her mom asked if we could come over and teach her that day at Ines' request so that was pretty sweet. You can tell the mom loves us being the "big sisters" example for her kids.
If you can imagine, this week we taught big tatoo'd, Russian, Vladmir about das Gesetz des Keuchheit this week. A pretty hilarious dialoge to have translated...but we schaff'd it.
Saturday we met one of our contacts from the 3 that we made out on Thursday, this awesome lady who lives out in the middle of NOWHERE, but we met her husband who is also super friendly and open about us meeting with BOTH of them. So that is awesome to the MAX! That's always a win.
Let's see....we're still teaching Bru. Baumeister some English. We're helping mainly with pronunciation so we made the most difficult sentence for him to say, "Where were we?" Those W's and especially "were" is so hard for him and this time he got it and started dancing--like a Russian! It was by far the most hilarious English class auf den Erde.
My personal favorite was Sunday! Mainly because we got to watch a broadcast of Präs. Monson in Frankfurt and he gave a totally different Thema, but still pretty simple. They asked at the end to have everyone remain at their seats when the prophet left, so those people didn't even have the chance to shake his hand, shade. But Bru. Baumeister made friends with Vladmir and talked to other members in the ward--which is great because before he would leave ASAP before we could catch him and make him stay, but he stayed for a long time and he looked very happy. Michael also came--our nerdy Star Trek and NCIS fan investigator. He of course LOVED it and the ward was super friendly with him. It's so great to see the investigators just be instant friends with the members and he already acts like he's expecting on coming as often as possible. Finally made it after a few months of meeting!
The weather was also absolutely gorgeous, so we walked through a park pretty close by us and enjoyed the warm Fall weather. It was so awesome! :)
But to answer questions: Dusseldorf is still a part of the Frankfurt mission--I meant that the missionaries in the Frankfurt mission had special permission to leave their mission boundaries to head over to Hamburg for the conference--but they don't have their seperate mission.
Gaaaah, as far as Christmas...food that I miss? Honestly random dinner meals that I could make at home that doesn't really work here or I don't have the time. I guess just usual Christmas goodies, like from both sides of the family, cheetos, Reeses...sorry, I'll try to think of more this week, but I'm drawing a blank--people are already busting out Christmas goodies and I wonder how much I'll have to eat in the next few months...but a grocery store by us has humongous pumpkins perfect for Halloween so we're going to buy some next Monday. Any nice leggings that are brown or dark dark red with patterns would be cool.
Fall is here and sooo beautiful! And the Christmasmarkts are also just around the corner!!! We're excited!!
Anyway, have a super awesome week! Stay safe with the crazy weather! ICH HABE EUCH LIEEEEB!
--Whit
Monday, October 15, 2012
Fall is here..
HALLOOOOO!
So this week has been pretty crazy-ridiculous; since we didn't have to transfer, we tried having a super lokker Pday to rest from our labors and run full-speed into the next. It's been a while since we've had every day of the week open for planning--something amazing comes up, so we squish a lot of Termins into the other open days and gear up and go! But we love it, natürlich.
I think I'm starting to freak out about the fact that my transfers are numbered, and Sis. Child has been helping me keep my head on straight. It doesn't bug me all the time, but I think like with everyone, I think of how everything has gone by so wicked fast and I hope that I've done my best and if I could've put more effort and love into the work, and wondering how many miracles I can cram into the last 3 transfers that I have. The weeks are going by like days, and it's like racing downhill and there's no sign of stopping!! But talking about it helps and Sis. Child doesn't let me mess around, so it's good to have her.
Tuesday we met with Gerda, an older lady who like, wants to be baptized but has tons of things that make her nervous about it and what-not. She told us she's been having "keine Lust" to live anymore, and it freaked me OUT but apparantly she's said that before and bounced right back, but I was like, "jeez, saving lives much?!"
But Tuesday was still pretty cool; meeting with Ingo and all. He's still trying to learn about prayer and through the course of this week, we decided, leider that he needs more time to learn before this Sunday as his baptism date. He still doesn't have a strong enough testimony of God and Christ and if you can't answer the first question, then, yeah, he needs a bit more time. But definitely still in this transfer! :) He wants to be baptised SOOO sehr, and so it seems a little weird to have to hold people back and say, "Dude, you gotta believe in Christ a little bit more if you want to follow him, but we got this, keine Sorge!"
I also got to witness another miracle on Tuesday; this couple Familie Molina from Cuba, who's SUPER amazing have been waiting for months to find work and the husband sent out like 80 job applications (sound familiar?) and then this past week, four different people were calling him like crazy and he found something stable and amazing here in Bielefeld, and so they were so overwhelmed with gratitude and the Spirit. We've been telling them for weeks to hold on a little longer and have a little bit more faith and it paid off! Hopefully they''ll have enough money to afford the weekly trips to church again. But they made us a buttload of amazing spicy food to celebrate. For some reason, now is the time that they need a job and the Lord blessed them with renewed faith and patience. Great for General Conference just last weekend!
On Wednesday we taught Ines and Vladmir, both of which are doing great; Vladmir is getting a wee bit nervous for his Taufe and we might have to push that back, too. Blarg, Taufdatums are great, but we keep having to change them around! But it's a good problem to have, right? As long as they make it and want it. But Ines is turning 12 this week and we want to start teaching her about the temple. Her mom is also a convert and hasn't made it there yet, so we want to prepare them both for a mommy-daughter day in the temple and do baptisms, isn't that super neat??
On Thursday we taught our brotha, Frank, who's quotes are pretty much almost as good as General Conference quotes. We're pretty sure he's met with a few JWs because he was asking about the 144,000 deal and was asking what we believe and he was pretty troubled. So we talked it out, used scriptures and he was super relieved. Isn't it so unfair to think that God only has a limited number of his children that he wants to save?? He said, "See, you Sisters know your scriptures, you cannot defend the kingdom and not know the King." I cannot write a hundreth part of all the crazy-hilarious-inspiring stuff that we hear from Frank and George. :)
But Thursday was a pretty great day. I think my favorite part was trying to talk to people on the street, and I saw this couple, and was like, "I'm gonna talk to 'em!" wie IMMER! But I started talking to them and I thought I was gonna loose them and they were going to walk by, but then I just started saying as much as I could about the Book of Mormon and how it helps us rekindle our faith in God, and the man started to really listen. It was weird because as I turned to talk to them, the sun was like right in my eyes and they both looked so bright but they were like, "what should we do to have this book?" That's what eeeeeevery missionary wants to hear, of course. We gave them our card because I think they still wanted to "research" before just giving us their address, but they looked so intensely at the card and were really thinking about it. I was so full of the Spirit that it carried me off the rest of the day. It feels really good to just bear down pure testimony.
Friday was another stacked day--just go, meet, get out, go to the next meeting, go, go, go! I love it.
Saturday was the big Kahuna or whatever you wanna call it. Präsident Monson came into town! We rode up with Alicia and Sai--she's American married to a Fijian in the British Army and they're the COOLEST EVER. He's technically one of our investigators, even though he doesn't really know it yet. His brother is a Bishop in Fiji, though, so he knew a bit about Präs. Monson and wanted to go see him and then of course brag about it to his family. :P But we drove up to Hamburg for the big day and ended up being 1/2 hour late, but came just in time for Präs. Monson. His talk wasn't amazingly special, like expounding on doctrine or promising a flourish of new people, just a plain old, amazing talk. He said to achieve our goals we need to LISTEN (to the Spirit and those who love us), LEARN, LABOR, and LOVE. Pretty simple, but awesome! He even said, "ich liebe dich" at the end of his Ansprache and everyone was like bawling or chuckling. His presence was amazing and it pretty much caught on fire for the German members. I sorta thought, "next conference, I'll see that again in a news blurb and I'll bawl like a baby and miss my mission!" Na ja. At the end, the members swarmed up to shake his hand and everything, but all us missionaries just had a big reunion in the back so it was okay. I saw a whole bunch of Sisters and Elders I haven't seen in FOREVER--Sis. Laubaugh who served with me in Chemnitz but also a lot of other Sisters AAAAND I even saw Sis. Nelson, my MTC companion!! She got transferred to Düsseldorf and the way north part of her mission got permission to attend the Hamburg conference rather than going forever south to Frankfurt, so I got to see her totally out of surprise! It was super fantastic. Alicia and Sai of course drove us through Hamburg which is BEAUTIFUL!!! I don't know if we'll make it up there for Pday--it's 2 hours one way by train--but we drove around a bit in the fall evening air and saw all the gorgeous canals up there, and went to Bahnhof because we heard they had a KFC there. Chicken was still pretty good, but out here they don't serve the biscuits and potatoes and you know that takes a bit of the fun out of it! But Alicia was craving some legit American food so it was a win! But don't worry, I think I'll remember the canals more than the chicken, mom. :P
On Sunday we saw the last session of General Conference, so that was great; I found it interesting that so many people talked about true conversion SO much and accepting the invitation to come unto Christ (aka Taufe, Leute!) but I think that's what's gonna help us through the hard times, is the testimony and the daily acts of disciplship. You don't leave the storm shelter when you see the storm! Sounds like something George would say. I can imagine them going back to Nigeria and being the best Bischofs you've ever seen. Oh meine Mensch.
So that's the week so far! It's a lil' rainy and cold, about 13 degrees C every day. Some days we have sun and other days we don't but it's all good, my Brookstone umbrella is still in Ordnung!
Anyway, sorry if my Wishlist is a bit random, but at least on Skype I'll tell you what you got me! I haven't quite decided, but I'm narrowing it down to things that I really really want. I wanted to get a couple of soundtracks in German, but I want to know--is it possible to access German soundtracks on iTunes? If so, then it's not worth busting my butt to bring them all home, y'know? If Justin could research that for me, or something, that would be much appreciated. I hope he's got some good music for me when I get home, aka the new Step Up soundtrack! :P
Hopefully my emails are still okay; I'm starting to get into that phase where writing emails home seem a bit of a drag--not because I don't want to write, it's just like, "just another super random busy week in the neighborhood, oh and the PROPHET came!" Sort of a routine and I'd much rather just TELL you rather than whip out another frantic email. But it's all good, they'll still keep coming.
Did I tell you that Sis. Child and I run 3x a week? Oh meine GUTE. We run for 20min each time, not too bad considering my sad experiences in gym. I think we'll reconsider when it starts to snow, but for now, it's not so bad.
Anyway, thanks for writing! I love the updates from everyone and I have you in my prayers! Ich habe euch lieeeeeb!
--Sis. Whit
So this week has been pretty crazy-ridiculous; since we didn't have to transfer, we tried having a super lokker Pday to rest from our labors and run full-speed into the next. It's been a while since we've had every day of the week open for planning--something amazing comes up, so we squish a lot of Termins into the other open days and gear up and go! But we love it, natürlich.
I think I'm starting to freak out about the fact that my transfers are numbered, and Sis. Child has been helping me keep my head on straight. It doesn't bug me all the time, but I think like with everyone, I think of how everything has gone by so wicked fast and I hope that I've done my best and if I could've put more effort and love into the work, and wondering how many miracles I can cram into the last 3 transfers that I have. The weeks are going by like days, and it's like racing downhill and there's no sign of stopping!! But talking about it helps and Sis. Child doesn't let me mess around, so it's good to have her.
Tuesday we met with Gerda, an older lady who like, wants to be baptized but has tons of things that make her nervous about it and what-not. She told us she's been having "keine Lust" to live anymore, and it freaked me OUT but apparantly she's said that before and bounced right back, but I was like, "jeez, saving lives much?!"
But Tuesday was still pretty cool; meeting with Ingo and all. He's still trying to learn about prayer and through the course of this week, we decided, leider that he needs more time to learn before this Sunday as his baptism date. He still doesn't have a strong enough testimony of God and Christ and if you can't answer the first question, then, yeah, he needs a bit more time. But definitely still in this transfer! :) He wants to be baptised SOOO sehr, and so it seems a little weird to have to hold people back and say, "Dude, you gotta believe in Christ a little bit more if you want to follow him, but we got this, keine Sorge!"
I also got to witness another miracle on Tuesday; this couple Familie Molina from Cuba, who's SUPER amazing have been waiting for months to find work and the husband sent out like 80 job applications (sound familiar?) and then this past week, four different people were calling him like crazy and he found something stable and amazing here in Bielefeld, and so they were so overwhelmed with gratitude and the Spirit. We've been telling them for weeks to hold on a little longer and have a little bit more faith and it paid off! Hopefully they''ll have enough money to afford the weekly trips to church again. But they made us a buttload of amazing spicy food to celebrate. For some reason, now is the time that they need a job and the Lord blessed them with renewed faith and patience. Great for General Conference just last weekend!
On Wednesday we taught Ines and Vladmir, both of which are doing great; Vladmir is getting a wee bit nervous for his Taufe and we might have to push that back, too. Blarg, Taufdatums are great, but we keep having to change them around! But it's a good problem to have, right? As long as they make it and want it. But Ines is turning 12 this week and we want to start teaching her about the temple. Her mom is also a convert and hasn't made it there yet, so we want to prepare them both for a mommy-daughter day in the temple and do baptisms, isn't that super neat??
On Thursday we taught our brotha, Frank, who's quotes are pretty much almost as good as General Conference quotes. We're pretty sure he's met with a few JWs because he was asking about the 144,000 deal and was asking what we believe and he was pretty troubled. So we talked it out, used scriptures and he was super relieved. Isn't it so unfair to think that God only has a limited number of his children that he wants to save?? He said, "See, you Sisters know your scriptures, you cannot defend the kingdom and not know the King." I cannot write a hundreth part of all the crazy-hilarious-inspiring stuff that we hear from Frank and George. :)
But Thursday was a pretty great day. I think my favorite part was trying to talk to people on the street, and I saw this couple, and was like, "I'm gonna talk to 'em!" wie IMMER! But I started talking to them and I thought I was gonna loose them and they were going to walk by, but then I just started saying as much as I could about the Book of Mormon and how it helps us rekindle our faith in God, and the man started to really listen. It was weird because as I turned to talk to them, the sun was like right in my eyes and they both looked so bright but they were like, "what should we do to have this book?" That's what eeeeeevery missionary wants to hear, of course. We gave them our card because I think they still wanted to "research" before just giving us their address, but they looked so intensely at the card and were really thinking about it. I was so full of the Spirit that it carried me off the rest of the day. It feels really good to just bear down pure testimony.
Friday was another stacked day--just go, meet, get out, go to the next meeting, go, go, go! I love it.
Saturday was the big Kahuna or whatever you wanna call it. Präsident Monson came into town! We rode up with Alicia and Sai--she's American married to a Fijian in the British Army and they're the COOLEST EVER. He's technically one of our investigators, even though he doesn't really know it yet. His brother is a Bishop in Fiji, though, so he knew a bit about Präs. Monson and wanted to go see him and then of course brag about it to his family. :P But we drove up to Hamburg for the big day and ended up being 1/2 hour late, but came just in time for Präs. Monson. His talk wasn't amazingly special, like expounding on doctrine or promising a flourish of new people, just a plain old, amazing talk. He said to achieve our goals we need to LISTEN (to the Spirit and those who love us), LEARN, LABOR, and LOVE. Pretty simple, but awesome! He even said, "ich liebe dich" at the end of his Ansprache and everyone was like bawling or chuckling. His presence was amazing and it pretty much caught on fire for the German members. I sorta thought, "next conference, I'll see that again in a news blurb and I'll bawl like a baby and miss my mission!" Na ja. At the end, the members swarmed up to shake his hand and everything, but all us missionaries just had a big reunion in the back so it was okay. I saw a whole bunch of Sisters and Elders I haven't seen in FOREVER--Sis. Laubaugh who served with me in Chemnitz but also a lot of other Sisters AAAAND I even saw Sis. Nelson, my MTC companion!! She got transferred to Düsseldorf and the way north part of her mission got permission to attend the Hamburg conference rather than going forever south to Frankfurt, so I got to see her totally out of surprise! It was super fantastic. Alicia and Sai of course drove us through Hamburg which is BEAUTIFUL!!! I don't know if we'll make it up there for Pday--it's 2 hours one way by train--but we drove around a bit in the fall evening air and saw all the gorgeous canals up there, and went to Bahnhof because we heard they had a KFC there. Chicken was still pretty good, but out here they don't serve the biscuits and potatoes and you know that takes a bit of the fun out of it! But Alicia was craving some legit American food so it was a win! But don't worry, I think I'll remember the canals more than the chicken, mom. :P
On Sunday we saw the last session of General Conference, so that was great; I found it interesting that so many people talked about true conversion SO much and accepting the invitation to come unto Christ (aka Taufe, Leute!) but I think that's what's gonna help us through the hard times, is the testimony and the daily acts of disciplship. You don't leave the storm shelter when you see the storm! Sounds like something George would say. I can imagine them going back to Nigeria and being the best Bischofs you've ever seen. Oh meine Mensch.
So that's the week so far! It's a lil' rainy and cold, about 13 degrees C every day. Some days we have sun and other days we don't but it's all good, my Brookstone umbrella is still in Ordnung!
Anyway, sorry if my Wishlist is a bit random, but at least on Skype I'll tell you what you got me! I haven't quite decided, but I'm narrowing it down to things that I really really want. I wanted to get a couple of soundtracks in German, but I want to know--is it possible to access German soundtracks on iTunes? If so, then it's not worth busting my butt to bring them all home, y'know? If Justin could research that for me, or something, that would be much appreciated. I hope he's got some good music for me when I get home, aka the new Step Up soundtrack! :P
Hopefully my emails are still okay; I'm starting to get into that phase where writing emails home seem a bit of a drag--not because I don't want to write, it's just like, "just another super random busy week in the neighborhood, oh and the PROPHET came!" Sort of a routine and I'd much rather just TELL you rather than whip out another frantic email. But it's all good, they'll still keep coming.
Did I tell you that Sis. Child and I run 3x a week? Oh meine GUTE. We run for 20min each time, not too bad considering my sad experiences in gym. I think we'll reconsider when it starts to snow, but for now, it's not so bad.
Anyway, thanks for writing! I love the updates from everyone and I have you in my prayers! Ich habe euch lieeeeeb!
--Sis. Whit
Monday, October 8, 2012
Busy week
Hallo Familie!
Soooo happy to write to you all! Conference was pretty kick-butt and I'm excited to tell you what's what in Bielefeld.
For one thing, we had transfer calls and Sis. Child and I are staying. I was pretty sure I was staying, but Sis. Child was pretty nervous about leaving, and everyone's pretty sure that I'll be training soon. I sure hope so--I only have 3 more transfers including this one, so I don't have much time at all! Freaky!
Well Monday was a pretty fun Pday--we went to Hannover as a district and we just wandered around and took pictures in the crisp new Fall weather. It was pretty dang cold this week, but Monday was super great weather! We spent most of our time exploring and seeing the Rathaus, because it's got one of those towers that you can take an elevator up and see everything and it was pretty gorgeous! They had some models showing what Hannover looked like as an old city, just before the war, just after the war (it was completely bombed out) and what it looks like today--pretty incredible. We also visited this big store called Primark that has some pretty cool clothes for relativ cheap. For example, I got a jacket that's like a bit warmer than the tan jacket I have but not as warm as my winter coat--just a nice in between. And it's RED! Perfect for fall. :)
Well, this week was like the mother-load of lesson-fall-outs. We had like 24 lessons planned and scheduled and we only schaff'd 14 of them because people just fell out! It was frustrating but we ended up being able to visit people who really need us and such. I know 14 lessons is never BAD because I know many areas would love to see 14 lessons, but that's quite a bit of fall-outs. In the mean time, we got to meet Fr. Ilazi from Macedonia and her two little boys. We ansprach'd her last week and stopped by but she was a bit busy, but we were at least able to give her a BoM and got to know her a bit better.
But what made this week a bit...icklich was the fact that with the start of October we lost our hot water--it just for some reason went out and only for OUR apartment, not for our neighbors. And we were wondering when our Heizungs would turn on, because our house is right by a little forest and it's heavily shielded by trees so it was for this week way colder inside than it was outside! We tried calling people all day and all this week, trying to figure out who had which keys to which cellar and blah blah blah--and on Saturday, blessed blessed Saturday we got both heating and hot water! Mensch it was a bit rough, but it was also a good laugh I guess. You learn to be proactive and talk to your extremeley smelly and creepy neighbors! It got pretty stressful this week trying to figure this stupid problem out and trying to plan three baptisms at the same time...Turns out there's a bit of drama dealing with money in our Wohnung but none of it was our fault--we just got caught in the cross-fires so zu sagen but we're just pretty grateful for hot water and heat! You can only wear your hair in a french braid for so long...
So October 3rd was my 1 year mark in Germany, how BIZARRE. Like, a year ago I knew diddly SQUAT. and now maybe I know just a little bit more squat! hahah, but it's great to look back and see where I was and where I am now.
On Wednesday we made another baptismal date for George--18.November! That makes 3 baptisms in this new transfer! He said that he wasn't baptized while he lived in Africa because there's a lot of "false priests" who just perform fake miracles or preach for money and have private jets or whatever while their Gemeindes are starving, but he saw just the one time he was able to make it to church that our church is the real deal--and we know that George speaks his mind and he's very blunt, so when he says he wants to be baptized and says, "what should I do to be prepared?" he sure means it! :)
We also taught Gudrun, who's this little cute old lady who is just a bit geistig behindert by showing her the Finding Faith in Christ movie, because she learns about the gospel like a child, and she LOVED it. We let her keep the movie because she wants to show it to ALL her friends, she is so hilarious.
The other highlight this week was Ingo--he's making progress like crazy! Especially when we have good joint teachers. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and it totally made sense for him and luckily for us, REALLY lucky for us, he already follows it. He always asks questions about prayer and how to recognize answers and we have some really great conversations with him. And he's remembering a lot more than before--we were getting pretty worried that we would repeat something relativ basic and he wouldn't respond all too well--like he isn't paying attention or he's not getting it--but now things are going a lot better.
On Friday we visited Diana and Andre--both who need visits to keep them afloat. They both needed a boost and luckily for us the circumstances were perfect that we visited them at the best time possible. We also visited Vladmir, another Taufkandidat this week. His son is a convert and he's working pretty hardcore on his big, tattoo'd Russian daddy. We're helping him quit smoking and drinking but for him it's a lot easier when he lives closer to his son Michael. The two also taught us how to say, "read the book of mormon!" in Russian. It was fun trying to get the pronunciation down. Bruder Baumeister met with us later that day to help us practice and we helped him with his English. I am extremely happy because he came to two sessions of General Conference! It was great to see members go up to him to say hello after many years of sort of ducking away from members. We told him he needs to befriend Vladmir because he barely speaks German, so having another Russian guy to talk to would be super cool. And some less actives don't neccesarily need to hear "you need the church," sometimes they respond better to, "the church needs YOU!"
Saturday was of course awesome. We helped Alicia and Sai build a Klammotte from Ikea and then they taught us how to make homemade eggrolls. SO good! We weren't able to make it to the RS broadcast, but we saw the first 3 sessions of conference over Saturday and Sunday--there were a lot of members sitting in the English room to practice their English. Dad--There's a Bruder Adler in my ward, I think he's a General Authority! He's heading to Sweden this week. :) I liked the "ask the missionaries!" talk and my mind was BLOOOOOOWN about the age-changing bit. I definitely have a lot of friends that I've met out here and some back home that I'm sure were prettty dang glad to hear about that. Out here, for girls, if you study, it takes a lot time and once you start a school program, there's no 1 1/2 year break in view. For example, Sis. Schneider had to be completely done with school before going on her mission, and most girls loose their desire to go after 5 years of school and there's the danger of blocking career opportunities...so being able to go a lot earlier will be absolutley amazing. Eeeeevery mission president loves to have a legion of Sisters. Präs. Kozak said so himself! He said, (when we called about our new Taufdatum), "Meine Gute, Sis. Olsen, I would much rather have 185 Sisters in this mission!" So that's pretty exciting. They've been trying to shorten and shorten the MTC program to allow more kids to pass through, some of the groups coming in have been tested to see how prepared they are with 3 weeks of Foreign language training rather than 9, so it's either that, or maybe they'll need a second MTC in the States! Pretty exciting.
I saw a little blip about the Kansas City temple/culture celebration and also about the Brigham City Temple in the church news bit in between sessions. That was pretty amazing to see the finished deal! They showed normal shots of Kansas City, MO in generaly and THAT was weird; but super amazing to get such an amazing shout-out from the Prophet about the show! I got really emotional to know that my lil' bro was in that crowd of 3,000 youth kneeling on the floor for a miracle. Jeez, that was cool.
There was also a bit about the Christus statue in Italy and they're trying to use the same material and whatever they can to make it look as close to the original as possible. The segment was pretty cool and they showed what the temple and visitor center will look like. Gaaah, the news! We soaked it up while everyone went home.
But with Conference I definitely got a lot of insight for myself and for my investigators. Unfortunately, not many of them could make it, but Bru. Baumeister came which was a miracle. We saw a few less-actives that needed to be there, so that was great. I wrote next to most of the talks, "perfect for so-and-so!" so we'll be using some talks for our people peeps!
Anyway, here's hoping you have a great week! Ich habe euch lieb!!
--Sis. Whit
Soooo happy to write to you all! Conference was pretty kick-butt and I'm excited to tell you what's what in Bielefeld.
For one thing, we had transfer calls and Sis. Child and I are staying. I was pretty sure I was staying, but Sis. Child was pretty nervous about leaving, and everyone's pretty sure that I'll be training soon. I sure hope so--I only have 3 more transfers including this one, so I don't have much time at all! Freaky!
Well Monday was a pretty fun Pday--we went to Hannover as a district and we just wandered around and took pictures in the crisp new Fall weather. It was pretty dang cold this week, but Monday was super great weather! We spent most of our time exploring and seeing the Rathaus, because it's got one of those towers that you can take an elevator up and see everything and it was pretty gorgeous! They had some models showing what Hannover looked like as an old city, just before the war, just after the war (it was completely bombed out) and what it looks like today--pretty incredible. We also visited this big store called Primark that has some pretty cool clothes for relativ cheap. For example, I got a jacket that's like a bit warmer than the tan jacket I have but not as warm as my winter coat--just a nice in between. And it's RED! Perfect for fall. :)
Well, this week was like the mother-load of lesson-fall-outs. We had like 24 lessons planned and scheduled and we only schaff'd 14 of them because people just fell out! It was frustrating but we ended up being able to visit people who really need us and such. I know 14 lessons is never BAD because I know many areas would love to see 14 lessons, but that's quite a bit of fall-outs. In the mean time, we got to meet Fr. Ilazi from Macedonia and her two little boys. We ansprach'd her last week and stopped by but she was a bit busy, but we were at least able to give her a BoM and got to know her a bit better.
But what made this week a bit...icklich was the fact that with the start of October we lost our hot water--it just for some reason went out and only for OUR apartment, not for our neighbors. And we were wondering when our Heizungs would turn on, because our house is right by a little forest and it's heavily shielded by trees so it was for this week way colder inside than it was outside! We tried calling people all day and all this week, trying to figure out who had which keys to which cellar and blah blah blah--and on Saturday, blessed blessed Saturday we got both heating and hot water! Mensch it was a bit rough, but it was also a good laugh I guess. You learn to be proactive and talk to your extremeley smelly and creepy neighbors! It got pretty stressful this week trying to figure this stupid problem out and trying to plan three baptisms at the same time...Turns out there's a bit of drama dealing with money in our Wohnung but none of it was our fault--we just got caught in the cross-fires so zu sagen but we're just pretty grateful for hot water and heat! You can only wear your hair in a french braid for so long...
So October 3rd was my 1 year mark in Germany, how BIZARRE. Like, a year ago I knew diddly SQUAT. and now maybe I know just a little bit more squat! hahah, but it's great to look back and see where I was and where I am now.
On Wednesday we made another baptismal date for George--18.November! That makes 3 baptisms in this new transfer! He said that he wasn't baptized while he lived in Africa because there's a lot of "false priests" who just perform fake miracles or preach for money and have private jets or whatever while their Gemeindes are starving, but he saw just the one time he was able to make it to church that our church is the real deal--and we know that George speaks his mind and he's very blunt, so when he says he wants to be baptized and says, "what should I do to be prepared?" he sure means it! :)
We also taught Gudrun, who's this little cute old lady who is just a bit geistig behindert by showing her the Finding Faith in Christ movie, because she learns about the gospel like a child, and she LOVED it. We let her keep the movie because she wants to show it to ALL her friends, she is so hilarious.
The other highlight this week was Ingo--he's making progress like crazy! Especially when we have good joint teachers. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and it totally made sense for him and luckily for us, REALLY lucky for us, he already follows it. He always asks questions about prayer and how to recognize answers and we have some really great conversations with him. And he's remembering a lot more than before--we were getting pretty worried that we would repeat something relativ basic and he wouldn't respond all too well--like he isn't paying attention or he's not getting it--but now things are going a lot better.
On Friday we visited Diana and Andre--both who need visits to keep them afloat. They both needed a boost and luckily for us the circumstances were perfect that we visited them at the best time possible. We also visited Vladmir, another Taufkandidat this week. His son is a convert and he's working pretty hardcore on his big, tattoo'd Russian daddy. We're helping him quit smoking and drinking but for him it's a lot easier when he lives closer to his son Michael. The two also taught us how to say, "read the book of mormon!" in Russian. It was fun trying to get the pronunciation down. Bruder Baumeister met with us later that day to help us practice and we helped him with his English. I am extremely happy because he came to two sessions of General Conference! It was great to see members go up to him to say hello after many years of sort of ducking away from members. We told him he needs to befriend Vladmir because he barely speaks German, so having another Russian guy to talk to would be super cool. And some less actives don't neccesarily need to hear "you need the church," sometimes they respond better to, "the church needs YOU!"
Saturday was of course awesome. We helped Alicia and Sai build a Klammotte from Ikea and then they taught us how to make homemade eggrolls. SO good! We weren't able to make it to the RS broadcast, but we saw the first 3 sessions of conference over Saturday and Sunday--there were a lot of members sitting in the English room to practice their English. Dad--There's a Bruder Adler in my ward, I think he's a General Authority! He's heading to Sweden this week. :) I liked the "ask the missionaries!" talk and my mind was BLOOOOOOWN about the age-changing bit. I definitely have a lot of friends that I've met out here and some back home that I'm sure were prettty dang glad to hear about that. Out here, for girls, if you study, it takes a lot time and once you start a school program, there's no 1 1/2 year break in view. For example, Sis. Schneider had to be completely done with school before going on her mission, and most girls loose their desire to go after 5 years of school and there's the danger of blocking career opportunities...so being able to go a lot earlier will be absolutley amazing. Eeeeevery mission president loves to have a legion of Sisters. Präs. Kozak said so himself! He said, (when we called about our new Taufdatum), "Meine Gute, Sis. Olsen, I would much rather have 185 Sisters in this mission!" So that's pretty exciting. They've been trying to shorten and shorten the MTC program to allow more kids to pass through, some of the groups coming in have been tested to see how prepared they are with 3 weeks of Foreign language training rather than 9, so it's either that, or maybe they'll need a second MTC in the States! Pretty exciting.
I saw a little blip about the Kansas City temple/culture celebration and also about the Brigham City Temple in the church news bit in between sessions. That was pretty amazing to see the finished deal! They showed normal shots of Kansas City, MO in generaly and THAT was weird; but super amazing to get such an amazing shout-out from the Prophet about the show! I got really emotional to know that my lil' bro was in that crowd of 3,000 youth kneeling on the floor for a miracle. Jeez, that was cool.
There was also a bit about the Christus statue in Italy and they're trying to use the same material and whatever they can to make it look as close to the original as possible. The segment was pretty cool and they showed what the temple and visitor center will look like. Gaaah, the news! We soaked it up while everyone went home.
But with Conference I definitely got a lot of insight for myself and for my investigators. Unfortunately, not many of them could make it, but Bru. Baumeister came which was a miracle. We saw a few less-actives that needed to be there, so that was great. I wrote next to most of the talks, "perfect for so-and-so!" so we'll be using some talks for our people peeps!
Anyway, here's hoping you have a great week! Ich habe euch lieb!!
--Sis. Whit
Monday, October 1, 2012
Work, work
Haaaaallo Familie!
Our Pday was in Minden and we just played ping pong and "kicker"--what the Elders call table Fußball here. They all wanted us on their teams. We tried making real bacon and it was a success--French toast NOT so much. I guess it only works with normal bland American bread! :P I think we tried using wheat bread to be cool, but whatevs, we still ate it! It was also nice to just practice piano and blaze through all the songs I brought that I obviously have zero time to play.
We met with Ingo three times this week, and for a guy who hasn't really prayed a lot in his life, the prayers that he's been saying lately have been major blessings. He could potentially get a better "dream job" with Motorcross zu tun, and he also was able to find a new apartment and he's moving in this week. He's a pretty happy camper! We told him that we are preparing him now for the 21st of Oktober--we have a Russian guy getting baptized that day, too, so it'll be a DoppelTaufe! He was pretty excited and asked how the baptismal service will go. We've already shown him the Taufbecken but we didn't mind showing it again! :) He knows his positive turn around isn't just by chance. I mean, when a lady stops you on the street with a card with a number and says it can change your life around...that's not by accident! I don't know if I mentioned before, but one of our Neubekehrts was the lady who gave him the card, so she was really happy and blown away that her efforts is leading to a baptism!! I'm at least grateful for her! :)
Thursday was Sis. Child's birthday, so we celebrated on Wednesday at Distrikt Mtg--I made a cake and the Elders copied some of their CDs for her.
But on Wednesday we visited Frank again and he's doing SO good. He wants to know everything and is like, "I want to be a member of this church, please tell me what it is you people believe." We haven't set a fest date with him yet, but we're excited. He was a bit confused about why he has to be baptized again, but he knows it's how you become a member of this church and is all for it. And he doesn't totally understand the meaning of the Priesthood yet. But his lessons are always deep, but meaningful. I feel like everytime we meet I can write a book on all the crazy stuff we talk about and how we discover over and over again, how perfect the Plan of Salvation is and how we really truly find meaning in our lives because of it.
Thursday, for Sis. Child's birthday, we actually had...Tausch! Weird, that I couldn't be there, but we celebrated mostly on Wednesday anyway. I went to Halberstadt which is wicked far away. We all meet in Hannover and then split up to our cities. But Halberstadt is GORGEOUS. It's a car city for Sisters (so yes, Sisters can drive, y'all!) so we're just driving to different dorfs for appointments and my eyes are glued to the windows just taking in all the crazy landscapes to be had. It's a bit mountainous I guess, but it was just.. ahhh, so gorgeous! I couldn't get my camera out fast enough for my favorite Blicks, so I actually just pulled a geeky Sis. Olsen move and wrote a poem about it. But the actual appointments were hilarious. We read the BoM alloud to a blind lady and before we walk in, Sis. Abamonte was like, "don't freak out; sometimes she prays in Tongues." I just don't question things like that anymore on my mission. :P We also visited a Neubekehrt and taught him about the Priesthood some more to get him prepared to recieve the M. Priesthood--since Halberstadt is a branch of 13 people and they need more Priesthood holders. I also had to sit through the most ridiculous Gemiko ever--their GML is totally against some "newly reinforced" mission rules, and so I had to have a smack down with him. He was totally disrespectful and I was like, "I don't care what Sisters did in the past--we are obedient and we are obedient to today's rules." Do you understand that, Mr. GML? I heard about him from Sis. Laubaugh, so I was prepared. The Sisters can't be push-overs out here, so I talked to him in a polite way, but we didn't take crap from him. We really have to be frech somtimes! I respect the Sisters out here--they have patience of diamond-covered steel.
So we switched back on Friday and then went right back to work! We tried visiting Fr. Hahn again, but it seems like everytime we try to go, just to visit, someone comes and tells us to leave or they don't like us. So we meet with her, and 30min later, someone klingles and it's like a house doctor and his assistent and it's like that song--"if looks could kill, dun duuun dun, you'd be lyin' on the floor!" They were staring daggers and tried to ask her all sweetly, "Fr. Hahn, do you really want visits from these girls? They're from a totally differentchurch." and she said, "Für mich ist Gott da." Like she was on our side, but they were like, We have business here, you can LEAVE. But it makes me mad how people here are so dumb and really think we're a cult. They sometimes pride themselves in "being in the know" but they just don't know anything about us--probably why we're here, of course. But we have those geistige Ausweisses to prove that we are legit, I haven't had to use it yet, but I might have to, just to say, "We are legit, and if she wants us to flipping just come and visit her, get off our backs!" Braaaagh! So we're bustin' some chops, but trying to stay refined. Na ja. But because we got booted out earlier than expected, it actually led to a miracle--a man came up to us and asked if we were Mormon missionaries. He said that he met with Elders in Göttingen and lost contact when he moved here, and he found us and wants us to drop by! So you have to admit, we were happy for the random miracle. Especially because we went walking through a way that we of course, never walk down, so it was one of those, NOT by chance things!
Oh, we also had to teach a 50 yr. old lady about keeping the Law of Chastity. She's been hitting on this investigator-who-doesn't-want-to-be-baptized-and-is-a-total-creeper and so we thought she needed to hear it again. You would think that it would be reversed sometimes--that I would be told to remain pure and righteous from someone older than me, not giving this lekture to an old widow? Meh. But she's about on her year mark of being baptised, so she probably isn't used to it, na ja.
We also went dooring and klingeled a house with a huge American and Harley Davidson flag. Leider they weren't home but we left a note saying we appreciated the flags. :)
Oh my GOSH this week went by so FAST!
On Saturday we helped Alicia and Sai--(she's American and he's in the British Army) help pack up their kitchen to move to another flat closer to Bielefeld--and it was pretty fun. Her Mann isn't a member but loves the Sisters so hopefully soon we can get him committed to getting lessons! They also took us out to Chinese for lunch. Preeeetty sweet. There's been a lot of birthdays so we taught people, then went to deliver cards, and what-not.
Yesterday we had a feeling we needed to visit a Neubekehrt, Andre that we haven't seen or heard from in like 10 days. He was home, luckily and we found out that he hasn't been going to work or doing anything because he's really low on motivation. Especially because he got a major fine for being on a train or something and he forgot his ticket and that's hard for a student. But we shared some scriptures, (I love the promise of being able to know what to say when you need it) and it really boosted him up. Especially to hear that Präsident Monson is coming! It turns out he's not just visiting the missionaries, but pretty much anyone who can get a seat--so we called up our Bischoff and we got two seats in Hamburg!!!!!! We are flippin stoked! He's even going to take us there, so that's a tremendous help, and a LOT less expensive. I borrowed a skirt from Sis. Child to wear yesterday, and apparantly the combo i was wearing looked like a dirdl, because a few members commented on it. Maybe I just need to buy an apron and I'm good to go! :)
Yeah, I haven't really said much about Sis. Child because yeah, she's totally normal and is actually pretty hardcore. We hardly give ourselves breaks, and we always do fun things on our Pdays, na ja, but she's super motivated and pumped, and we get so much done! And we get along pretty well. It's like in the scriptures, they write one verse to say "and they were peaceful..but that's boring, right?" and spend like 70% of their writings on how wicked everyone is. So ist das Leben.
But we have a great week ahead of us! TRANSFER CALLS!!!!! It's great to hear from everyone and that Nicholas is pushing past the squeaks--someday they'll go away, someday!
Ich habe euch lieb! Have a super week!
Sis. Whit
Our Pday was in Minden and we just played ping pong and "kicker"--what the Elders call table Fußball here. They all wanted us on their teams. We tried making real bacon and it was a success--French toast NOT so much. I guess it only works with normal bland American bread! :P I think we tried using wheat bread to be cool, but whatevs, we still ate it! It was also nice to just practice piano and blaze through all the songs I brought that I obviously have zero time to play.
We met with Ingo three times this week, and for a guy who hasn't really prayed a lot in his life, the prayers that he's been saying lately have been major blessings. He could potentially get a better "dream job" with Motorcross zu tun, and he also was able to find a new apartment and he's moving in this week. He's a pretty happy camper! We told him that we are preparing him now for the 21st of Oktober--we have a Russian guy getting baptized that day, too, so it'll be a DoppelTaufe! He was pretty excited and asked how the baptismal service will go. We've already shown him the Taufbecken but we didn't mind showing it again! :) He knows his positive turn around isn't just by chance. I mean, when a lady stops you on the street with a card with a number and says it can change your life around...that's not by accident! I don't know if I mentioned before, but one of our Neubekehrts was the lady who gave him the card, so she was really happy and blown away that her efforts is leading to a baptism!! I'm at least grateful for her! :)
Thursday was Sis. Child's birthday, so we celebrated on Wednesday at Distrikt Mtg--I made a cake and the Elders copied some of their CDs for her.
But on Wednesday we visited Frank again and he's doing SO good. He wants to know everything and is like, "I want to be a member of this church, please tell me what it is you people believe." We haven't set a fest date with him yet, but we're excited. He was a bit confused about why he has to be baptized again, but he knows it's how you become a member of this church and is all for it. And he doesn't totally understand the meaning of the Priesthood yet. But his lessons are always deep, but meaningful. I feel like everytime we meet I can write a book on all the crazy stuff we talk about and how we discover over and over again, how perfect the Plan of Salvation is and how we really truly find meaning in our lives because of it.
Thursday, for Sis. Child's birthday, we actually had...Tausch! Weird, that I couldn't be there, but we celebrated mostly on Wednesday anyway. I went to Halberstadt which is wicked far away. We all meet in Hannover and then split up to our cities. But Halberstadt is GORGEOUS. It's a car city for Sisters (so yes, Sisters can drive, y'all!) so we're just driving to different dorfs for appointments and my eyes are glued to the windows just taking in all the crazy landscapes to be had. It's a bit mountainous I guess, but it was just.. ahhh, so gorgeous! I couldn't get my camera out fast enough for my favorite Blicks, so I actually just pulled a geeky Sis. Olsen move and wrote a poem about it. But the actual appointments were hilarious. We read the BoM alloud to a blind lady and before we walk in, Sis. Abamonte was like, "don't freak out; sometimes she prays in Tongues." I just don't question things like that anymore on my mission. :P We also visited a Neubekehrt and taught him about the Priesthood some more to get him prepared to recieve the M. Priesthood--since Halberstadt is a branch of 13 people and they need more Priesthood holders. I also had to sit through the most ridiculous Gemiko ever--their GML is totally against some "newly reinforced" mission rules, and so I had to have a smack down with him. He was totally disrespectful and I was like, "I don't care what Sisters did in the past--we are obedient and we are obedient to today's rules." Do you understand that, Mr. GML? I heard about him from Sis. Laubaugh, so I was prepared. The Sisters can't be push-overs out here, so I talked to him in a polite way, but we didn't take crap from him. We really have to be frech somtimes! I respect the Sisters out here--they have patience of diamond-covered steel.
So we switched back on Friday and then went right back to work! We tried visiting Fr. Hahn again, but it seems like everytime we try to go, just to visit, someone comes and tells us to leave or they don't like us. So we meet with her, and 30min later, someone klingles and it's like a house doctor and his assistent and it's like that song--"if looks could kill, dun duuun dun, you'd be lyin' on the floor!" They were staring daggers and tried to ask her all sweetly, "Fr. Hahn, do you really want visits from these girls? They're from a totally differentchurch." and she said, "Für mich ist Gott da." Like she was on our side, but they were like, We have business here, you can LEAVE. But it makes me mad how people here are so dumb and really think we're a cult. They sometimes pride themselves in "being in the know" but they just don't know anything about us--probably why we're here, of course. But we have those geistige Ausweisses to prove that we are legit, I haven't had to use it yet, but I might have to, just to say, "We are legit, and if she wants us to flipping just come and visit her, get off our backs!" Braaaagh! So we're bustin' some chops, but trying to stay refined. Na ja. But because we got booted out earlier than expected, it actually led to a miracle--a man came up to us and asked if we were Mormon missionaries. He said that he met with Elders in Göttingen and lost contact when he moved here, and he found us and wants us to drop by! So you have to admit, we were happy for the random miracle. Especially because we went walking through a way that we of course, never walk down, so it was one of those, NOT by chance things!
Oh, we also had to teach a 50 yr. old lady about keeping the Law of Chastity. She's been hitting on this investigator-who-doesn't-want-to-be-baptized-and-is-a-total-creeper and so we thought she needed to hear it again. You would think that it would be reversed sometimes--that I would be told to remain pure and righteous from someone older than me, not giving this lekture to an old widow? Meh. But she's about on her year mark of being baptised, so she probably isn't used to it, na ja.
We also went dooring and klingeled a house with a huge American and Harley Davidson flag. Leider they weren't home but we left a note saying we appreciated the flags. :)
Oh my GOSH this week went by so FAST!
On Saturday we helped Alicia and Sai--(she's American and he's in the British Army) help pack up their kitchen to move to another flat closer to Bielefeld--and it was pretty fun. Her Mann isn't a member but loves the Sisters so hopefully soon we can get him committed to getting lessons! They also took us out to Chinese for lunch. Preeeetty sweet. There's been a lot of birthdays so we taught people, then went to deliver cards, and what-not.
Yesterday we had a feeling we needed to visit a Neubekehrt, Andre that we haven't seen or heard from in like 10 days. He was home, luckily and we found out that he hasn't been going to work or doing anything because he's really low on motivation. Especially because he got a major fine for being on a train or something and he forgot his ticket and that's hard for a student. But we shared some scriptures, (I love the promise of being able to know what to say when you need it) and it really boosted him up. Especially to hear that Präsident Monson is coming! It turns out he's not just visiting the missionaries, but pretty much anyone who can get a seat--so we called up our Bischoff and we got two seats in Hamburg!!!!!! We are flippin stoked! He's even going to take us there, so that's a tremendous help, and a LOT less expensive. I borrowed a skirt from Sis. Child to wear yesterday, and apparantly the combo i was wearing looked like a dirdl, because a few members commented on it. Maybe I just need to buy an apron and I'm good to go! :)
Yeah, I haven't really said much about Sis. Child because yeah, she's totally normal and is actually pretty hardcore. We hardly give ourselves breaks, and we always do fun things on our Pdays, na ja, but she's super motivated and pumped, and we get so much done! And we get along pretty well. It's like in the scriptures, they write one verse to say "and they were peaceful..but that's boring, right?" and spend like 70% of their writings on how wicked everyone is. So ist das Leben.
But we have a great week ahead of us! TRANSFER CALLS!!!!! It's great to hear from everyone and that Nicholas is pushing past the squeaks--someday they'll go away, someday!
Ich habe euch lieb! Have a super week!
Sis. Whit
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