Christmas time is here..

Hallo Familie!

 

What a week, it was surprisingly "busy" for the week before Christmas! Can't complain with 18 lessons. :)

 

Last Pday we went to Osnabrück with our District mainly to check out the Weihnachtsmarkts there! It was pretty fun and it was great to see all the decorations out. Sis. Young bought a Pyramide and I finally found a Rauchermann! He just looks like a Bayerisch Mann with a pretzel in his hand. :) The time went by really fast, but Osnabrück is a pretty neat city--and close enough that we could use our Monatskarte to get there! Deutschland ist am besten!

 

We met with Katarina this week again and it was great! She is so sweet and open to what we have to say. She's been reading and we taught her the first lesson. We talked about the pattern of there being prophets on the earth and then the people kill them/God takes them away, and then talking about Christ and at that point after we talked about his Crucifixion, she said, "But there has to be a prophet after him, right?" As though the thought of not having any more prophets would be horrifying. It was so süß. But she's 18, so we want to introduce her to all the JAE activities and such.

 

Here's a phrase we taught Valentin this week in English--mayber Jordo can use this idea: "Be there or be square." Who'd thought that describing what "square" means would be so hilarious.

 

We still had good Termins with George, Sai, Herr Bremiker and the rest of the gang. They aren't really progressing as much as they could/should, mainly because it's the usual--we've all heard it: I'll start doing that in the New Year! You have all the time in the WORLD to read--we know you don't do anything else with your time! Mensch!

 

We also had an intersting lektion with Ines--usually they're just for her, but she had two of her neighbors over and so we had a "joint teach" on the spot! We talked about how we tell others about what we believe--which was interesting because the two neighbor kids were Catholic and the other Muslim. But we talked about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and about Jesus Christ--and the Muslim girl knew more about him than any of the other kids! She was my favorite...I think she really likes learning about Jesus but probably wouldn't get permission from her parents...

 

Saturday was a pretty interesting day--mainly because we FINALLY got to see Frau Möhner, our miracle Turkish lady from 2 transfers ago and she fed us until we burst. And still complained we didn't eat enough! It was hilarious, she accused Sis. Young of drinking so much so she wouldn't have room for the (very very delicious) food--ever heard that before? :) But she has a referral for us, so we roll with the punches. It was also a fantastic day, because Vladmir had his Taufinterview and it went SO well! We weren't sure if he was ready or even had a testimony, because if you can imagine he shows like, zero emotion. Except right after his interview. He like smiled and I realized he has like, NO teeth, except for a few gold ones. That's why his Russian sounds like glutteral sounds. :) Then we met with Joe, but by himself at his apartment with our trusty Joint Teach, Olaf (a JAE), and it was totally normal and great. He's still doing his reading. We didn't have a lot of time, but we're giving him a chance to prove himself. I haven't talked to Paul since the whole thing and I don't plan on it. Blarg.

 

Sunday was GREAT! The baptism went through and it was SUPER! It felt really good to be there to help, even though I just played the piano and such. But we loved it! The Bischof came up to us afterwards and said, "Thanks for being the best Sisters in the world!" A direct quote! I think mainly because Valentin, who wanted to take his records out when I first got there is now active again and gave a talk at Vladmir's baptism. The talks were in Russian! Michael, his son (a convert) baptized him and said the prayer in Russian, but the Geist war immer noch da! Schwester Krichler, the member who introduced us to Valentin via Essenstermin was also pretty happy to see she started something great. She said that I've been here for a while and have done a lot of good in the Gemeinde. I certainly hope so, I always wonder in the back of my mind, just because the work is going a bit slower. As in, people have been Tschüssing us, or we've tschüssed other people and since then, we've only found one new investigator, but we're still working on it. I've seen a baptism once a transfer since I've been here, which is the mission goal, so I'm pretty happy about it. :) Sis. Schneider said that Tan got the Holy Ghost yesterday and it made me SOOO happy. Stefan, a Neubekehrt that I worked a lot with, baptized him. Blessings! I'm bugging her for pictures! It's what I want since I couldn't be there. 

 

After the baptism, we were invited over to eat a Russian feast to celebrate Vladmir's big day! The little girl in the picture is Michael's niece, and she was pretty sweet. They fed us quite a bit. If anything, missionaries don't go hungry during the holidays--we got a TON of cookies and chocolate yesterday, and who knows what's in store today---we have a Weihnachtsandacht at the church later today, so it's seeing the whole ward again! I am playing a musical number for it, already nervous about it! :P 

 

Sooo....transfer calls are this upcoming Saturday, and I honestly have no idea what could possibly happen to me. Quite a few Sisters have been sent somewhere for their last transfer, and it could happen to me--I could train--pretty much anything could happen! So I'm nervous but I'll do my best no matter what.

 

I'll talk to you tomorrow 5pm my time! I'm excited! :) I thought I'd at least write something for Jordo and the rest to read.

MEEEEEEEEERRY CHRISTMAS! Fröhlich Weihnachten und eine gute Rutsch!

love,

Whit

Let it snow, let it snow....

Hallo Familie!

 

Yup, the snow! It snowed like crazy on Sunday and sort of kept going on Monday, but leider it got a little TOO warm, it's about 5-9°C and so most of it is gone. We couldn't do much on Sunday because we were moving SO SLOW trying not to die, but also, the Nahverkehr was just FR-EAKIN out and everything was late. But now, it's all slush and mush. We are hoping for more snow, we can't have a slushy Christmas!!

 

Well, this week was slightly, actually VERY VERRÜCKT.

 

For one thing, we decided to check out this little town in our area called Rheda-Wiederbock or something like that because we saw it while driving by in a train and it looked süß! Germany is awesome because even in the small towns, your chances of magically finding a MEDIVAL CASTLE are pretty good. We seriously found this cool castle with a moat! We also went to IKEA to experience the magicalness thereof. Also Sis. Young bought a box of IKEA cookies and...they're pretty good. It looked about the same as last time except they had a big area with "Swedish" decorations for Christmas. They had these house slippers that are basically in essence the Duve' blankets (I forget how it's spellt paa dansk) but in the form of booties. For €10. Gaaah, I was pretty close to getting 'em! I would probably have to wear them on the plane because I wouldn't have any room, soooo, that was the deciding factor. If anyone needs a pair, lemme know! ;)

 

Well, this week in general has been pretty frustrating, because people are of course with Christmas a little less erreichbar or able to meet, but it's WORSE because we set up Termins and then they call later to absag, so it's hard to keep everything in control. But who am I kidding, the last thing you have as a missionary is CONTROL over any situation. So ist das im Leben!

 

We do have a miracle for the week--we are teaching Katarine, an 18yr. old from the Dominican Republic! She's an old contact that we decided to got try and find. We're pretty sure she's meeting with JWs so we'll see if she really has interest, but she was beyond excited to have a Book of Mormon!

 

Our Neubekehrt, Bru. Richter (he was confirmed my first Sunday in Bielefeld) has had some recent seizure (spelling?) attacks, and he called us to let us know that he couldn't make it to church, and we invited the Bischof and his Home Teachter to come and give him a blessing. It was, a pretty amazing experience. I have such a tief Zeugnis on Priesthood and it's amazing what the brethren can do  to help others.

 

On Wednesday we took a 6:40am train to Hamburg--again! We got to have our second Zoko because Elder Richards of the Seventy came to visit! In order to get in on time, we got permission to ride with a ICE (this time with a valid ticket, not as a vagabond!) which was pretty slick! It was in essence, a 4hour Thema and then lunch. He literally talked to us for FOUR hours straight! We all were a bit brain-dead afterwards. We got to sing our duet again and it was great! We sang it in German though to represent our Mission! I liked a lot of what he was talking about, except it was just sooo much, like talking about every single aspect of missionary level where I felt like I have to fix EVERYTHING! Usually we focus on one thing and try to improve on it, but he had multiple Themas in one big Thema. But I took notes, so it's good. Elder Adler from the Seventy, who's in our ward was there, too and I sat by his wife (best joint teach EVER) during lunch. I got the packages from Brigham and Kansas! I'm pretty excited! :) I forgot that Aunt Shell was doing a 12 Days of Christmas, so I guess I'll peek in Grandpa's package and fish it out and leave everything else inside...

 

But Wednesday evening we started our Tausch, aka, I went with Sis. Curtis to Celle, her city, which is THE cutest Christmastown EVER. Their Innenstadt is just rows and rows of the Bauwekrhäusern, the traditional houses in Southern Germany and it was lightly snowing, just perfect! It was like being in a snowglobe! It's a bike city, so I had a pretty intense day of work, but I love riding bikes, no problem. Well, I like riding bikes but not with wimpy tires on ice and slush! I had a few almost-accidents, but unlike Choro Jordo, I can stay SEATED on my bike and not fall over! In a SKIRT! :P And so we did mainly OYMing around that part of town, and found Brian who should come to church on Sunday, and while we were talking to this guy in German, two random Mitglieder from IDAHO came up to us and talked to us in English! I was thinking, "Can you let us finish this app and THEN we'll talk? We're clocked in right now!" So that was random.

 

Thursday was also in Celle, so we had a couple of Termins, all of which were interesting because if there's one secret about each area, is that you meet one person and you will meet a person just like them in every other city you serve in. Seriously! The same personalities, same commitment problems, you name it. Pretty helpful for the people who pop up later in the mission and I'm like, "I've worked my tail off for someone with that same issue! Don't think I don't know your tricks!" :) But I was pretty lucky--Celle is pretty level and so it's not so hard to bike around. You can tell they had their bikes recently stolen though because the bikes we used were pretty nice and new! We did bike for 40min to a Termin, like on a path along a highway or whatever, so we dressed pretty warm for that. Which is like, heck, because you are entirely WARM AND ON FIRE from biking, but your face is pretty numb.

 

We then Tausch'd back in Hannover on Friday morning and Sis. Curtis and I got in a bit early so we went super quick through the Innenstadt in Hannover as well--also decked out for Christmas!! :) Everything is absolutely magical here.

 

But Friday was a bit rough, especially with fallen-out Termins and we met with Adrian for the last time. We had a mutual "Tschüssing" where we decided all together that he's not progressing at all and he needs to do some extensive work on HIS part on his testimony and he can call us when he's ready. He just...won't do what we ask, and that's officially a waste of our time. So it was sad but we can't give him a testimony and there's no point in trying to help him when he can't help himself. Na ja.

 

On Saturday we had a GREAT lesson with Sai and Alicia! I swear every lesson is always pumped up by cool stuff I find during personal study, but that lesson was especially great. We were talking about what the Gift of the Holy Ghost can do to affect our conversion in essence, and I remembered this thought I had while reading in the New Testament. Like, before the Pentacost, Peter was I think, sure about Christ being the Son of God, but not enough, because he didn't understand the Atonement while it was happening, and they didn't understand the Resurrection, either. Not to mention, he denied Christ three times. But after the Pentacost, he was bearing down pure testimony CONSTANTLY, quoting scripture, and standing before rulers and kings refusing to stop preaching and healing in Christ's name. The gospel turned a fisherman into an Apostle! And so we were talking about conversion and how it makes us into the people God has in mind for us to be.

 

We also had the ward Christmas party, and they had a Talent Show-type thing and they asked us to sing for it, (we didn't know it was for a Talent Show) but we came and they're like, "you're next!" And it was great and all; all the kids were on the gym floor all loud and crazy and two of the girls insisted on coming up and holding our hands while we sang, so yea, a bit different! But one lady came up to us and said, "Your song was the best out of all the other ones...no really the other stuff was...so-so..." haha! Weird compliment!

 

We also met with Vladmir--we think he's pretty set for this Sunday! Wir drücken die Daumen!

 

But guess what?? TAN GOT BAPTIZED IN CHEMNITZ YESTERDAY!!!! That made me unbelievably happy!! I'm gonna bug the Sisters there for pictures of one of my FAVORITE INVESTIGATORS! Gahha! So great.

 

So yeah, we should hopefully still have a good week, as far as things to get done and do. Mal sehen! The goal is to get in touch with Neubekehrts that have fallen off the face of the planet...

 

Elders (the ones that are now on their mission) are icky, because they're pretty much the same age as Jordan, and you find out that they're also WAY weirder than Jordan, too! Dad was pretty lucky that it didn't phase you, or that he isn't weird! haha I dunno, maybe it's a weird way of thinking about it, but these guys out here are pretty much like my brothers away from home.

 

AAAAAANyway, you'll hear more from me next week--in person! I'm pretty excited. I love you guys! Have a great week before Christmas!!

 

love,

Sis.Whit

Christmas Markets are great...

Oh Meine Mensch,

Can I start off by saying, that Jordo's earthquake story had me and my comp laughing like craaazy?! Jeeez, Elder Jordo is always a source of laughter in the Internetladen. 

Soooo... we got snowed in yesterday! It was like legit snow everywhere, and it was still snowing like crazy on our walk to church! It was sooooo great! Especially because our GML and his wife picked us up half way there! I got some new boots last Pday so it came in handy! :) All of our Termins were also blessedly close by, so we didn't have to rely on the Straßenbahns or whatever; they always go a little weird when it's the first snowfall. It just meant that there was hardly anyone who made it to church, aka, no investigators and hardly any Neubekehrts, it was weird. 

But last Pday, we went through our Weihnachtsmarkt in Bielefeld, and it was sort of, MEH, because it was mainly food and Gluhwein, and not so much Christmas-y things, but we're gonna check out another one today in a little dorf in the näher and next week we're going as a distrikit to OSNABRÜCK! It's only an hour's train ride! That's what I'll miss most about Germany, trains that go ANYWHERE!

We have been doing major "construction" on our work here in Bielefeld--called being real with ourselves and re-focusing on what we need to accomplish here in Bielefeld. For example, we visit too many "just fine" Neubekehrts that are already a year old, so to say, that really need more attention from home and visiting teachers, and they rely too much on Sisters for help! We need to focus on people like Ingo who JUST barely got baptized and such. But also we visit with less actives who really won't ever change, they just like having us over to feed us or talk to us, or whatever. So it's like, figuring out who needs us the most and making sure they get our attention first, and visit everyone else less often or not at all anymore. Which means we FINALLY have real time for finding! We really need new investigators, since we've been also "tschüssing" some that are also showing zero interest. Cutting people out always hurts because you hope that it's the right thing, or the numbers just go way down, but I've promised myself a long time ago that I wouldn't let numbers control or rule me--as in I wouldn't think we're failing because they are going down or whatever. But anyway, we're making room for miracles. 

Another sort of funny story; we visited an Ehepaar who are less-actives trying to get more active in the church and coming more regularly, and we made a spontan visit to get to know them and see where we can help. Well, half way through, the wife gets a call from her neighbor and she goes out of the Wohnung to talk to her real quick. She comes back chuckling, saying that her neighbor saw two JWs going to their apartment (aka, us) and wanted to know if she should create a diversion or something so that they could get rid of us. She had to explain to them that we're from THEIR church, and they don't want to get rid of us. Haha! The loyal neighbors have struck again! 

Friday we were able to do some real finding, which was great, I usually am not a big fan of it, mainly because it can be pretty frustrating at times, but we had a list of previous contacts and actually found three who are interested in meeting again! We were thrilled. I've been pretty confident that this week we would find someone, mainly because I just had a good feeling about it the whole week and knew that we were paving the way that our work would be filled with more meaningful Termins where we're actually meeting people to help strenghthen them and the ward, not just staying out of the cold. 

We met with Sai and Alicia this weekend as well, but it turned out more to be a Essenstermin rather than a lesson, so we didn't get in as much as we wanted, but we're totally wanting to be straight with him and get him on track--mainly because in the new year he's going to Kenya for training (he's in the British Military) so there will be a gap of meeting with Sisters, so we're gonna strike while we can!

We FINALLY met with George after a long while of not hearing from him. He's obsessed with his new "project"--helping his girlfriend get divorced from her husband! Apparantly she was forced to marry some old German guy so that she could send her parents money every month, really really horrible stuff, so he's trying to help her get divorced and her own house in Bielefeld. It's pretty honorable I'd say, except...he's like putting EVERYTHING under that on his list of priorities. Pretty frustrating, but we set a new Taufdatum for him, Feb 26th, which is, leider after I'm back home, but getting him baptized when he's ready is like, natürlich the biggest priority.

Lemme just say, reading Jordo's email today was absolutely fantastic. It's so great to hear that he's getting the ball rollin' and seeing some success! I'm excited that his Ehepaar will be baptized in Dec! If we're lucky, we'll get Vladmir baptized the SAME DAY! Dad, do you have any friends who'll be ready by Dec. 23rd??? :)

Anyway, hope you guys have a great week! Mine was a little bit bumpy with new rearranging with our schedule and the gradual decrease wegen Christmas, but we are still just blessed beyond measure. I'd rather have 2 people ready for baptism that really want it rather than a congo line of people who don't put in the commitment dafür. I love my job, what more can I say?

Ich habe euch lieb!
love,
Whit

Christmas is almost here....

Hallo Familie! 

So...this week has been a doozy! I am confident that this week will turn out better, but mainly because I need a Pday to de-stress!

So like I wrote last Monday, I spent my Pday in Hamburg! It's really SUCH an amazing city with all the really cool canals and I wish I could see more of it, but it was pretty dark by the time we got there around 3/4pm. Meine gute, it's getting so dark so soon! Anyway, EVERYONE is deckin' the halls up in HIER! Our lovely Bielefeld looks absolutely fantastic and we love walking around during our lunch hour part of the day. 

Anyway, in Hamburg, we walked through a couple of Weihnachtsmarkts, they had a LEGIT "historisches" one that just had really fancy stands and it was just practically perfect in every way. I tried to find some boots AGAIN but for some reason I can't find something that just right for missionary work--everything is high-heeled, too expensive, doesn't have thick durability or just look dorky. I think third Pday's a charm. It like, snow-rained yesterday, so I better find something! But I didn't want to spend so much time shopping in Hamburg, I wanted to enjoy Hamburg itself, but it was so great! We stayed there overnight with the Langenhorn Sisters and then went to our Ho-Ho Zoko on Tuesday. We had this super early Leadership Training Meeting at 8:45am which is why we stayed overnight--it takes like 3-4hours to get to Hamburg from here! But the leadership training meeting was about the LEGION of Sisters we'll be getting in the next few months, or just missionaries in general so it was preparing us for training. They said every single Sister would be training, but with one possible transfer to train, I don't know if that really applies to me, but I plan on asking the AP's on the 12. Dez. We are having another Zone Conference on the 12th and that's when I will be picking up my packages! I'm pretty excited. Elder Richards from the Seventy will be visiting and speaking to us, so that should be pretty exciting. 

But the actual Zone Conference was great! We had a gift exchange and you'll never guess what I gave as a White Elephant gift! A big liter bottle of Dr. Pepper! I found some in Penny and I thought of Grandpa! And Jordo--does he need some? :P But the Elder who got it was astounded and amazed. I got a little stuffed animal of a lion, no biggie, but that's how White Elephant gifts are bei missionaries. One Elder got a Santa suit and he wore it in our Zoko Bild. Dweeeeeb. But it was so great meeting with the other zones! There are people I saw that I haven't seen since I was a Golden in Cottbus! I literally saw someone from each of my old districts throughout my mission, it was SO great!

Sis. Young and I got to be the musical number, too! We sang "the First Noel" accopella (spelling?) and it was SO great, they wanted us to sing it AGAIN when Elder Richards come. But I plan on doing it again like in our apartment to record it, we did a pretty cool version of it. Sis. Young likes to sing a bit jazzy, too, so we didn't sing it "white bread" like Mr. Pellaton would call it! But still--appropriate for the chapel, keine Sorge! 

So with the stress--it felt like a lot of things fell out for no good reason and that's like, hard especially when there's nothing you did wrong, the person either forgot or decided to absag last minute, but the "few" lessons we had (few for Bielefeld) were really really incredible lessons--not just where you deliver a great message but I left a changed person. However, this week still seemed pretty long. I'm trying to break free of my worrying tendencies, but there are a lot of people to kummer, but I think enough of them don't NEED us anymore but they're just so gewohnt to Sisters coming--like Neubekehrts who are distraught that we don't come over twice a week anymore but their testimonies and progress are solid enough--and they've been baptized for at least a year! Yikes, we need more attention to our investigators!

But we met with Michael Mauritz this week, and we finally talked baptism with him, and he wants to be baptized! He's a sure but steady kind of guy, but he says that he wants to be baptized, but still wants a confirmation first. Which is...ridiculous, because he weeps openly almost everytime we bear testimony or when he's in our Sunday School class! We tried explaining to him that if he feels that way all the time and it's good feelings, that's the Spirit! Meine Mensch. But he's got an assignment to pray about a Taufdatum! We hope to have him be baptized before January because he has to go to the hospital and we're not sure for how long...but we'll help him however we can!

Had a surprisingly "tame" lesson with Joe and Paul this week. It was funny because Paul opened the door and said in a weird voice, "hellooo ladies!" and us Sisters said in unison, "We brought a friend!" aka, JOINT TEACH! Talk about fighting fire with water! So yeah, we talked mainly about prayer since Joe is starting from zero and we figured the conversation wouldn't go all weird. It was a really great experience and Joe got to know Bru. Krüger from the ward who was also a convert, so he was able to identify with him pretty well. I think Paul brought up Armeggedon like ONCE but other than that...a relativ normal lesson! Phew! 

What was even FUNNIER was after our Sunday School class, we come out and our Bischof says, "there's these two guys waiting for you in the front, one's German and the other isn't...?" and I was like, NO. FLIPPIN. WAY. Paul and Joe came to CHURCH! We were pretty surprised and nervous the whole time that Paul would get up and say something blasphemous during fast and testimony meeting, because he WOULD do such a thing! We really can't figure Paul out at all, whether he's interested but tries to come off as not being interested, if he's really trying to help Joe through our church, or if he's waiting for something bad to happen to make us look bad in front of Joe. Meine gute, we're puzzled but glad he came to Church! *shakes head* There's never a dull Sunday with this nametag...

But the best remedy for my stressful situation was our lesson with Sai and Alicia! We finally had an open conversation with him about his interest in learning--Alicia is the member and he isn't and he wants to join the church someday, he just thinks he needs a long time to do so. But before, we had to almost sneak in a spiritual thought or whatever and tip-toe around this huMONGOUS elephant in the room, but we were able to just talk about it and we really felt the Spirit and it was SUCH a spirit-led conversation. Gahhh! So awesome! So that changed my life. I still think that my work will be stressful until Sis. Young has a better idea about the area and how to get around and I don't loose my mind or whatever. Y'know, the usual!

So with the train story--I had enough time to get out if I could, the doors just refused to open themselves again, so I was frantically trying to get out for like 5 minutes without any luck. But the ticket checker understood and was pretty barmherzig, so I didn't have to pay any fines, I just had to pay €12 to get back home! 

I always say I'm from Kansas City, because it sounds cooler than "Utah"--but if they really get to know me, they know I'm an Air Force brat through and through. But picking a hometown is just way easier! 

As for a job at BYU, she works at Cougar Creations, like a copy shop right in the Wilk, and she will be contacting her boss in January to ask to work there again and she totally offered to put a word in for me, and she's done it for a ton of other people, it sounds really cool, really lokker and close to home, right? You've signed up for housing and classes already, or is it not time for it yet? But she will be at BYU in the Spring as well--she's leaving a transfer early in March to start school, so we've got post-mission plans lined up! :) 

Well, thanks for the emails wie IMMER; I really want to bring something home for the boys, and not just candy. Can you give suggestions? I'm still looking for good deals on jerseys...

So yeah, bis nächste Woche! Habe euch lieb!
love,
Whit

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

Work goes on...

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