Stuck on the train...

As Alicia our American member would say: OH MY DAAAAYS-here we go!

So this week has been a bit long and I'm pretty glad it's over and we have a new week to start fresh. 

So to start off, my email is coming in a bit late this time around because we've been doing a lot of travelling today! We have HO-HO-ZOKO tomorrow (aka Christmas package pick up!!) plus we have a Leadership Training meeting  that we have to go to in Hamburg at 8:45am. And since it takes 3-4hours to make it to Hamburg, we got permission to sleep over here with the Langenhorn Sisters....but we decided/got permission to spend most of our Pday in Hamburg!! So this email is coming to you from Hamburg. After emails, we're gonna go to Innenstadt, take lots of pictures and buy me some BOOTS! So sorry if there was any worry or concern...

So from the beginning--I helped Sis. Child "move out" so zu sagen and we had a last hurrah with our district and such for last Pday and then on Tuesday I sent Sis. Child off. She decided to take an ICE, like the really nice, fast and QUIET train to Berlin and like my worst nightmare happened. Well not the worst, but it was kinda nerve-wracking. I was helping her with her luggage into the train and the doors CLOSED. and they wouldn't open again! There's nothing worse that being stuck in a train with no ticket. But they wouldn't open again and it just pulled away from the station and Sis. Child was like..."Sis. Olsen! You're coming with me to Berlin!" That was not the case, luckily. Since it's a fast train, the next Haltestelle was HANNOVER, an hour away, but the ticket collecter was pretty barmherzig about and just told me to aussteig in Hannover and take the next train back. Um, just read this last sentence, I think that's how I really talk now, this Mischung language stuff. :) But it was fun I guess; my first time riding in an ICE and I rode for FREE! The Elders were pretty jealous. And they are also 100% jealous of Jordo's yellow power ranger investigator. :)

But I got back in time, well, actually 30min late, so my companion was a little nervous about me being late and stuff, but she understood with the extra traveling! Sis. Young is hillarious! We get along pretty great and she's got a lot of spunk and is really good about helping investigators stay focused on making progress. It's only been a really long week because...yeah time does that to you, especially how I'm the master planning person right now because I'm supposed to know where everyone is and how long it takes to get there. But despite my careful planning a lot of people ab-sag'd and said they couldn't meet or whatever which was also stressful because then I needed clever backup plans. 

On Tuesday evening we met with Vladmir and Michael and went through all the Tauffragen to see if he's prepared and it was pretty interesting. You know how you're supposed to ask if they've ever committed a crime? When it takes a sentence or two to answer that....it's not a good sign! He just mumbled something in Russian, like a couple of sentences and then Michael translates, "It wasn't totally his fault." Urrrm, awkward! But apparantly it's been taken care of; he's got lots of tatooes on his hands so it wasn't a total surprise to us. Russians, they are such random, hilarious people. But he answered everything perfectly but doesn't feel ready for baptism AGAIN. We told him if he didn't feel comfortable we wouldn't zwing him to do it or anything, but it's hard; this is the second time he put it off and I wonder if there's a problem he won't talk about, and it's hard to talk about something personal through his son, y'know? But we feel good about 23. December, so we hope it works out.

On Wednesday we still had a lot to do and it went pretty well. Like Michael Mauritz! He's making progress and he came to church again. The man gets emotional all the time, so you know he's feeling the Spirit. He really wants to know the truth and really wants to gain a testimony. He thinks he's not "good enough" for heaven but not bad enough for hell, so teaching him the 2nd lesson was interesting for him and it seemed like a big boost of Hoffnung. We also met with Adrian the Bum--he like, wants to real Pearl of Great Price but won't read in the BoM, so we're trying to help him get a testimony of the basics and he's not even doing the remotely easy stuff. Leute, the gospel isn't complicated! We also taught Valentin some Englisch (Br. Baumeister) and he was a riot. He's always uncomfortable when we ask him how he's doing because apparantly it's not part of Russian culture to just ASK people upfront about their day. WHATevs. We asked him then what people say after they say "hi" in a conversation and he said without skipping a beat, "I will kill you!" So much for Siberian humor, ne? We ended with an intense Gemeinderat, where they talk almost the whole time about missionary work, which is usually...unusual. I'm really lucky to be in a ward so focused on missionary work and making sure that we have as many joint teaches as possible. 

I do have to say, Sis. Young is my most interesting companion ever. She has a really stark feministic personality, and I'm usually the "chill" Sister, I guess, just the flexible, normal one, but we get along super well and it's pretty easy to teach with each other, especially right off the bat. She's even gonna help me find a job at BYU where she works! From how she explained it, it's super cool and super flexible, what more could I ask from a companion? She's also a major jazz fan, so things are smooth and fantastic. But yeah, Hamburg is her Golden city so she's gonna show me around and such, how lucky am I?

On Thursday, we had a strange "how about we have all of our termins fall out" sort of day, so we looked up a bunch of contacts and a referral during the day, and the only termin that didn't fall out was our Thanksgiving feast! Schön! We had a pretty great Thanksgiving with Sai and Alicia and they even brought a non-member friend from Fiji since she wanted to experience a "real American" Thanksgiving. Alicia just gave birth 5 days earlier and STILL made us dinner! The woman's crazy. :P We were pretty stuffed and pretty exhausted by Thursday from the new transfer and all, so we slept easy that night. The stress comes from having to plan everyone from all four corners of the EARTH that we usually visit and try to figure out when we can and for how long, and how much time does it take to get there, blah blah blah, and then people complain to me that we didn't visit this week...but so far no gray hairs!

Latest on Joe and Paul. Adding Sis. Young to the mix was HILARIOUS. Mainly because Paul starts off asking, questions about Temples and asks, "Does this mean anything to you?" and motions his thumb across his throat like he's slitting it, then both thumbs "slitting" his stomach in a cross or something. Weird junk. And we of course have no iDEA what he's talking about, but after a bunch of other random questions that we didn't answer, he asked, "what do you think about that?" and Sis. Young said, "Well, I actually think your questions are ridiculous, we would much rather talk to Joe about the BoM." And then boom! Back on track! It's like, if Paul even wanted to HELP Joe, he wouldn't start off asking questions or talking about random complicated junk, when really what he needs is a lesson on prayer, on our relationship with God, on faith, reaaally simple stuff, because Joe wants to find his faith again, and Paul is confusing. But Joe is also pretty snarky. For example, Paul was trying to ask us about symbols or talismen or whatever (the guy is...well...off his rocker) and Joe pipes up, "Isn't the cross a symbol?" Joe is TOTALLY on our side! He's unfortunately too shy to meet with us without Paul for a normal, spiritual lesson, so we're working on that. 

Sunday was like Barmherzigkeit served on a silver platter. Mainly after all the craziness of the week, and random planning problems and such, we had SUCH a good day of Church! We had 5 investigators come to church, Ingo got himself a white shirt and tie and was pretty proud of himself, and our Aufbau Klasse was like FULL w/ 18 people; of Neubekehrts and Untersuchern. It was a good day for us. We then went back to visit our favorite Russians, Vladmir, Michael and Valentin and it was a great spiritual experience. Mainly because Vladmir is already progressing on staying sober and clean from smoking and drinking, but Valentin bore a really stark testimony in Russian and I knew it was stark because I knew it was a testimony, I could feel it. It was burning and he told Vladmir of how he was invited to eat at Schw. Krichler's house for Mittags and we just "happened" to be there and at first he wasn't too happy to see us, but he is so happy because of the gospel and only reads in the Book of Mormon like he's investigating the Church all over again and he said, "I knew it wasn't by chance, I knew it was the Spirit." and Michael shared how he met the Sisters a little over a year ago and how happy he's been since. The guy went to the Ukraine to see the temple there! That's what he saved up his money for! After dinner, he asked, "can we talk more about the gospel before you have to leave?" I'd be glad to! So it was a pretty grand Sunday, hat sich gelohnt. :)

I'll let you know next week about Christmas packages, I should hopefully get them tomorrow, if not, we will have another Zone meeting next week with Elder Richards visiting us--apparantly it was his idea to have a Leadership Training meeting at 8:45am in Hamburg, so we'll see how it goes... But you know that I really appreciate it! 

It would actually be pretty great if my friends could write me just a quick something and send it through email or regular post for Christmas--I haven't really heard from many of them, and I know it's mostly that they're ALL GOING ON MISSIONS or are already on missions, but I feel a bit left out and just want to know how everyone's doing. I always respond to letters so I know it's not because someone is waiting on me to respond! That is my big Christmas wish!

The gospel is so simple and when people make it complicated or difficult, they've already missed the mark. The Lord asks us directly to do very simple and honestly, very wise things to help us to be happy, and when we do otherwise, we just keeping banging our heads against the wall. And I've realized that, and I'm grateful that you have set the example for me. People always ask me how I came to know that the church is true, and I always say, there was never a point when I DIDN'T think it was true! I didn't need an Abfall von Glauben to clean up my life and get me on the right track, I always knew where the path was and never wanted to go anywhere else! And like they say, being 100% obedient and faithful is easier than being 98% obedient. So ist das im Leben! So there's my little Email Thema. 

I hope you have a super great week! Ich habe euch lieb!
love,

Sis. Whit

Wet baptism

Hallo Familie!

Whaaaaaaaaaat a week. It sounds like we're a family of winners this week! 25 lessons, baaam. 

I had a bit of a scare this week, because I called Michael Mauritz this week to set up a termin and he was like, "you didn't tell me you were Mormons, how dare you--" and went off on me about how we lie just like everyone else, and it was SO abnormal because he's so nice and he feels the Spirit so strong when he comes to church, and it was like I got the call from the wrong person and I had to calmly explain to him that DOCH we told him exactly who we were and we wouldn't come all the way from America to meet with him every week to lie about ourselves. But it died down tremendously. I just had this sick feeling in my stomach--he almost "tschüssed" us or almost told us to never come again, but he said we could come over and answer his questions/concerns or whatever. How can you read in the Book of MORMON and not know we're Mormons? I just think he's really sensitive and doesn't like to be taken advantage of, so we just need to act like ourselves, because we of course wouldn't LIE about ourselves! How silly. But we invited him later this week to attend yesterday's baptism and he sounded way better, and when we met with him yesterday it was totally fine, like old times. But jeez, you don't realize how much you care about people until they rant at you and think you just spill lies! I was like, "Michael, we are your friends, and you should as us what we believe and NOT go on Wikipedia! Ask us your questions and we won't lie to you, meine gute!" But we didn't even talk about it yesterday, so I hope it's all better. 

I bet you remember from the "glory days" but this weekend we've been seeing all the kiddies walking around with their cute lanturns and singing. Süß! i remember Nicholas doing something like that, even if HE doesn'T remember it! :P

On Tuesday we had Präsident Interviews--SO worth getting up at 5:45am!! Blarg. They made a video about baptism and showed a bunch of pictures of ALL the baptisms we had this past year and it was great! It was great seeing people that I got to teach, in my own areas, but also from other areas in Berlin that I met on Tausch or I just knew about. I know a lot of Neubekehrts and it was like looking through a yearbook! My two baptisms made the video, it felt SO good. We're starting to do all of our meetings in all German now, so it's different, but of course machbar, I mean, we speak sowieso 9-9 deutsch. Interveiws themselves were super great. I didn't have any concerns, I'm just a happy little Sister doing my thing, and he was relieved, we just had like 15 minutes of studying the scriptures together, just sharing what we've been reading in the last bit. I FINALLY finished the Book of Mormon in German!! Now I'm already in Luke auf deutsch. It's interesting, the German Bible. All the verses are squished together in columns, and I have a pocket Bible (easier to take to lessons) so it's fun. But in the New Testament, you'll see a number in brackets, like, "we know verse 24 should be here, but it's not." A WHOLE verse will be missing! So I still have to use my English scriptures to see what I'm missing out on, and there's usually a chunk of JST on top of THAT. It's shown up about 5 times already. Any more proof of an Apostacy? Fun stuff. 

Anyway, it was funny; there are 2 other Sister companionships in our Zone and one pair had MAJOR comp issues and the other two had MAJOR issues with their ward, so he was relieved that Sis. Child and I are like, "we have a baptism this week! So...that means we're so doing just fine!" But Präsident told me that I was doing a really great job and I can't even remember it all, but I had a really good feeling. Every once in a while it's good to know that what I do is appreciated, oder? There's quite a few Sisters coming in, and transfer calls are this weekend...and I have a really strong desire to train, so I hope I get it--I only have two transfers left, so it's like, if I don't get to train this transfer I probably won't get to train at all...so get mom praying about it! She's good about praying about my transfer calls! :) But we made our own lunch because we are SIIIIIICK of backery it's ridiculous. So we had frikadeller, salad and cookies! :)

Wednesday was a pretty packed day it seemed--we got a text early that morning about elections and a few "gloating" texts from our politics-crazy investigators like, "huzzah, for obama!" He's not allowed to be president a third time, right? ...right?! I ironically studied the signs of the end of the world in Matthäus so that was a bit funny. Herr Bremiker is doing well, and he's progressing! Score. We also tried visiting a less active--we took a bus out in the middle of nowhere to a dorf and then WALKED to another dorf to find her--for a planned Termin and she WASN'T there! Gahhh! Good thing the view was absolutely AMAZING. Just that hazy, Fall weather with fall leaves and rolling hills--it's a great mission landscape. But it took us 45 min to walk from one dorf to the other, pretty insane. 

Let's see...Frau Keurchat is also progressing! She lives in the middle of nowhere, so we're going to see how we can help her come to church, I think she wants to, but yeah, it's a bit out there. We had a great lesson with Ines--her mom always shares really cool experiences throughout the week of sharing the gospel or how the Holy Ghost helped her with a problem and Ines, who's 12 was like, "but how does that WORK?" So we talked about it and had a great lesson. We played "mother may I" to show that getting a testimony or inviting the Spirit or following Christ or preparing to visit the temple is in steps and bad choices make us take a step back. We we so creative!

We also had an interesting walk-in. Mainly because the guy was entertained by our Amerikanisch accents. His blind mother was sitting on the couch and he was like, "We have two nice American girls to visit us!" But we still had a good Gespräch with him and we're bringing a BoM vorbei in a few days. Na ja. 

On Saturday we met with Nina, the girl from Camaroon and it was soo great! She's pretty legit. She said, "I told my mom about you two and she wants me to send a picture of you two! She's so happy there are missionaries in Germany!" I tell you, people from Africa are so full of faith and they are sometimes really sad when they come to Germany and no one believes in Christ or God and they are always like, "where is your church? I NEED to go to church!" So cool. We brought her a French BoM and she was just SO excited to get reading. Gaah! So cool!

We asked Bru. Richter to give the opening prayer for Ingo's Taufe which was hilarious, because he took it on like an Ansprache and had it all written out--and wanted to practice with us to make sure it sounded good. He...yeah, his prayer was interesting. He started out, "Liebe Brüdern und Schwestern..." and after a few seconds he stopped because the Bischof asked him to start with "Liebe Himmlische Vater" and then he just half way through addressed Ingo and wished him well with his new life as a member...it was a bit verrückt, but full of good intentions. 

We met a lot with Ingo this week to prep him for his Taufe, we didn't want any "last minute surprises" or anything...but it went great! He was SOOOO happy to be baptised and a lot of people from the ward came to support and all the old German ladies baked him stuff. The actual baptism was actually...hilarious. So we had a 17yr. old Priest do the baptism, and Ingo's...a big guy, so not only did this kid have a few issues pulling him back OUT of the water, but they put too much water in the font and Ingo made a big SPLASH and all the kids in the front with their noses to the glass got a bit soaked!! There's like a four inch gap between the glass and the carpet so it just seeped through and all the little girls just started shrieking. It was a Taufe to remember. :) And don't worry I attached pictures!

Still no snow, but we heard that this year should hopefully be a white Christmas, mal sehen!

Ich habe euch lieb! Gaah, baptisms are so amazing!
love,

Whit