November 4, 2013

Feucht...pictures don't do it justice!

Hallo Familie!  Sounds like life is going well!  Alex Leonard is home from his mission?  That is crazy!  The pictures that you sent were awesome!  It sounds like he had a great mission!  It's so weird that he is already home!  I feel like he just left!  And to think that I am halfway done with my third transfer, and second in Germany!  Time goes by too quickly! 

Mom…quick note!  Katelyn made a request that you put up a status or something on my facebook once you put up a new blog post so that she can go check it out!  So…do that!  Haha!  Thanks.

I got a package this week!  It had a skirt, scarf, and blazer in it!  So thanks!  I like them all!  For my Christmas package, don’t worry about sending clothes or a satchel or anything!  I can get all of that stuff here and you wouldn’t have to pay for shipping!  All I really want are American items like peanut butter!  Then life would be good! 

Its weird to hear that Halloween was this week!  They don’t really celebrate it here!  It was really just a normal day…if any day is “normal" on your mission.  If I stay in Nürnberg next transfer, Sister Preis (who is basically my mission grandma, the nicest person ever, and the BEST cook) does a huge Thanksgiving for all of the missionaries!  Apparently, she goes all out so I hope I can stay here! 

Dad, I am so glad you found a job!  The Lord really does have a better plan than we do!  Taryn, have fun in Las Vegas this weekend!  That is sweet!

Now time for my awesome life…man oh man, I have so many good stories for you.

The view one evening on the
way home to our apartment...

First off, I swear that I have become a little ADD since I have been on my mission!  Last Monday all the missionaries were going to the Och's place to celebrate Sister Och's birthday!  The thing was, the tramline to get there was all messed up!  Elder Allen called to tell us that they would be late, and we were so lost on where to go because everything was in German.  We all know how confusing that is!  We got off our tram to switch to whatever new thing we were supposed to use.  My responsible trainer started reading the sign to see where to go.  Of course, I saw another tram leaving in one minute.  It just made sense that this was the tram we wanted.  While I was on the phone with Elder Allen, I started running towards it.  I forgot Sister Weber.  She said she looked over and saw me sprinting across the street so she started running, too!  We made it on to the Strassen bahn and the doors shut.  I was all excited that we caught the bahn, and then it began to move.  I realized that it was going the wrong way!  Whoops!  Sister Weber told me that I was not in charge of transportation anymore, because I just jump on whatever is leaving first!  We laughed pretty hard.

On Tuesday, we had a great lesson with Debbie.  First off, she actually read all of the chapters we gave to her!  She asked a ton of questions and we answered them all for her.  She liked the chapters from Alma the most, and wanted to "start at the beginning of his story" so we gave her the chapter in Mosiah where he believes the words of Abinadi.  She was excited to start reading them for when we go back tomorrow.  We then talked about personal peace and how Jesus Christ is the center of it.  The only way that we are able to find the true peace that we really desire is through Him.  We told her that she could have this peace when we have the gift of the Holy Ghost.  We then asked if she would be baptized!  She said yes!  We are going to set a date tomorrow and hopefully make a plan for her to quit smoking.  That will be the hardest part! 

We also had our first Gemiko this week.  That was our meeting with our ward mission leader.  We finally got one this last week…Bruder Domigez.  He is going to be awesome!  He has so many ideas.  He is s helping us with our street displays this weekend and our fireside.  I am really glad that we finally have a ward mission leader.  Hopefully it will help pick things up here in Nürnberg.  While I was there at our first meeting, I kept spilling all my food.  Luckily he is from South America and really good-natured.  He just laughed at me and told his wife they have eight new kids.

I also was able to go on a split in Feucht this week!  I LOVE FEUCHT!  I seriously fell in love with it.  It is this small little town, and it is just so cute.  I get to have a golden split there with Sister Lyons, my friend from the MTC, for two days this week, and I am really excited!  While there, we went to the park and asked people questions from a survey!  It was only three questions long, and the last one was really cool.  It really opens people up.  In German, it says "Stellen Sie sich vor; Gott würde Ihnen direkt eine Frage beantworten.  Was würden Sie ihn Fragen," which means, "If you could ask God any question and get a direct answer back, what would you ask Him?"  Most of the responses were either about why there was so much evil in the world, or what happens after this life, and if there was life after death.  The first one was a question I have been studying a lot in the past couple weeks.  It all comes back to the agency that God gave us.  The second one…well that was a question I have taken for granted because I have always known the answer.  It amazes me that we really do have the answers to the questions of the soul.  In Preach My Gospel, it has a page of questions of the soul…and how and where you can find the answers in the Book of Mormon.  The answers are all there.  I studied the fifteen questions they gave us this week, and the answers were all there.  The Book of Mormon truly is amazing and is the word of God.

Anyways, Sister Weber and I tried this survey here in Nürnberg on Friday, and it was quite interesting to say the least!  I went up to a nice old man in the park and asked him the first question, "Does God plan an important part in your life?”  Well, this man went from this sweet old man to Satan’s offspring, calling us idiots and ranting for ages!  He basically said that the people that wrote the Bible were idiots and that we were just puppets walking around, being brainwashed.  Let’s just say that he made his point clear that he thought we were really dumb!  The cool thing was, the whole time he was yelling at us, I just got a strong reaffirming feeling that this was all true.  There is a God, and no matter what anyone else says or tries to persuade me otherwise, I will always believe that!  Nothing can shake my faith!  We told him we hoped he had a happy day and he stormed off!  At least we tried. 

We went to visit a less active, Bruder Roland!  He just was baptized to make his wife happy and now he is all alone in an altem heim!  He reminds me so much of Grandpa Keyser!  He just makes fun of us and is crazy, so naturally I love going there!  This last week, he made fun of how big my feet were!  Thank you, Bruder Roland! 

Probably my favorite appointment this week was with the Swarms!  She lived in America for years and can speak perfect English, but her husband cannot!  The scary part was how much they reminded me of Mom and Dad!  She made fun of him for something, and he didn’t know how to respond, so he picked up the dog at the dinner table and started petting him and talking to him!  Then she made fun of him for going to the dog, and then laughed and said that she loved him for it!  Basically…a nightly occurrence at our house!  I was laughing so hard at it.

We had stake conference this week.  It was so different from our stake conferences in the states.  It was in the städthall, which was basically just a huge room in the town hall.  No one really came.  All the military wards were there, so they had the whole thing translated.  Someone would say a sentence in English or German, and then there would be someone to translate it into the other language.  It really hurt my brain.  The whole thing was on missionary work, so that was AWESOME! 

We also had a good lesson with Kathrin.  She has still yet to set a date for baptism, but we are going to try to meet with her mom too this week.  I hope that that will help with her progression!  We showed her a Mormon message and she loved it!

Well, don’t worry about me.  I love my mission!  This week is going to be weird!  I will be gone two days, and then the other days we have our street display and everything.  I am excited about that.  Oh, in preparation, I am supposed to ask for a cool family story from our ancestors, and for a family picture.  If you could send that within the next day or two, that would be AWESOME!  Thanks!  I know we have to have some cool stories! 

I really don’t know how I always have so much to say.  The thing is, this does not even begin to cover my life.  So much happens every day, and I can’t even begin to describe it!  Life is good…and crazy.  We are heading up to Rottenburg for P-day.  It is an old medieval city.  It is going to so cool!  I will take a lot of pictures, which is something that I didn’t do this past week.  Get ready for a ton of pictures next week, because I AM GOING TO FEUCHT AGAIN THIS WEEK!  Ja wohl! 

I love you all.  Have a great week!

 

Love, Savannah