 |
| Market Square Opening Night |
 |
| My latest addiction...it stays on my desk as I study. |
 |
| Caroline, with My Companion and Me |
Auf jedenfall…it sounds like you all had a great Thanksgiving break! Of course Taryn got a flat tire. Does that even surprise you? I think it is crazy that Elliott and Haley are at BYU and drove down with Taryn. That always seems so weird for me. Speaking of Elliott, has he gotten his mission call yet? If so, he never told me where he was going! Also, yes, I knew that Katelyn and Tim are dating mom. Do you really think I am that out of the loop! They have been dating before I left, and they are the two that faithfully email me weekly (so grateful for that), so I am updated on that. Also, yes, the family bunny was the same as the fruit. I forgot to mention the best part...Mary Agnes (the little two year old) kicked the turkey! SHE KICKED IT! And it did nothing. That little girl has no fear. Also, the new elder...he is interesting. Let’s just say that I really miss Elder Guyman and Baker. It is the start of a new transfer, though. Hopefully, it will get better.
 |
| A Camel for the Nativity |
So my week (Yes, Troy I know I write a ton, but we have more email time now then you did… First off, I got to see a camel…a real camel. Germans know how to do Christmas. They have a nativity scene set up in the Altstadt, and so they have real animals. I snuck in a picture while no one was looking. We had another good lesson with Debbie. She is reading in the Book of Mormon. We watched the Restoration DVD and she loved it. We are bringing my favorite person, Laura, along with us on Tuesday and Laura is going to try to help her quit smoking. She really wants to, but she just needs a lot of support, so the more support from the ward, the better.
 |
We had Relief Society Christmas Enrichment on Tuesday. It was so fun. All the women that are usually standoffish
were so happy and open and friendly to us.
They all want us to come over and eat with them, so needless to say, we
have a ton of member dinner appointments this week. Yay! I
had the best seat in the room. It was
next to Laura and Giovanna, and Sister Schwarm, all of which speak either
English or Spanish. We were laughing so
hard, and Giovanna really opened up. It
was great. There was amazing food and
people shared their favorite Christmas stories.
I love Christmas time! 
We also were able to go to Schwester Minerts and do service. We helped her clean. I am pretty sure she told everyone about it because we got a phone call on Saturday from Schwester Schwarm asking if we could come over and help her clean. Haha! It made me laugh.
Guess what else? I had two Thanksgiving dinners. What makes it better is that they were both with the Frankens, my favorite, crazy, Asian family. We hadn’t heard from them all transfer (they are less active). Then we received a random text in broken English asking us how we were doing. Sister Franken invited us over for dinner. We got there and she screamed and hugged us and just said, "I missed chu, I missed chu,” and then rushed us to the table and said "I take care of you. Eat.” We got to eat a ton of delicious food. She only had chicken so she wanted to make us turkey for Thanksgiving and so she invited us over again on Sunday after church. We couldn’t refuse the Frankens, could we? Haha! So…I had two Asian Thanksgivings. It was so great. She thinks I am hilarious and laughs at everything that I say, so it’s great. She told me to make sure I wore my stretchy skirt in preparation.
We had an interesting adventure on our way over there on Sunday. It turned out we caught the wrong train and
so we somehow ended up a good 45 minutes away.
Whoops! We got off at some random
little dorf, and checked our navi to see where we were. We were miles away. It was pretty embarrassing. We had to run across the station to catch the
right train and I tripped and fell straight on my face. My knee and hands were bloody and it was so
embarrassing. I got there and Sister
Franken freaked out. She just kept saying,
"Oh, oh! I take care chu, I take care of chu.” She bandaged me up like a little baby. Sister Weber couldn’t stop laughing at me. I thought it was hilarious, too. The whole meal, she just kept saying “Eat.” Mehr. I
think I ate enough for three people.
We also went tracting in Fürth.
One of the potentials asked us to come back on Tuesday. It turned out they were related to our ward mission
leader! We were pretty excited about
what could happen. We are praying that
they will be interested.
We met with a less active that has a lot of potential. The problem in Germany is that there are so
many less actives. She was baptized and
then went inactive. It breaks my heart. She said she would start reading in the Book
of Mormon again and she wants to meet every other week. We have a lot of hope for her.
And now for the Christmas Market opening. It was one of the coolest things I have ever
seen in my life! There were thousands of
people there, so unfortunately we didn’t get a super good spot. My pictures aren’t too good. We are going back this week to go explore the
markets because THERE ARE SO MANY COOL THINGS.
Seriously. The opening was
awesome. Caroline came with us, and we
went to the main square. It took place
at one of the big churches there. All
the lights were turned off, and they had a choir of little children singing. They read aloud the Christmas story of Christ’s
birth, and then the Christkinder gave a speech about the importance of
Christmas and an angel (a real person) came down from the top of the church. As the angel came down, all the Christmas
lights in the main square turned on, all the markets opened and people went
crazy. It was magical. I can’t believe I got to be there.
We were able to go back on Saturday. We decided to do a weekly street presentation. The four elders in Nürnberg made a quartet
and they sung Christmas songs by the markets while Sister Weber and I handed
out Joy to the World DVDs and talked to people.
It was really fun…and funny because the elders really weren’t that good. They thought that they were good, so I couldn’t
burst their bubble. But it definitely attracted
people, so that was good. We had some
really cool discussions, and met a girl that had met with the missionaries
before. That was cool. Some members from the ward want to go out and
do this with us this week, so that will be wonderful. 
And now for my spiritual thought…our new district leader, Elder
Bishop, gave a really cool theme on charity.
It made me think of it in a way that I hadn’t before. He asked the question, "What is the most
important thing for a missionary to have?"
My first thought jumped to faith, but he
proceeded to defend his answer of charity.
The scriptures teach that we are to have faith, hope, and charity, but
that charity is the greatest of all. He
said that our faith will one day be made perfect when we see Christ and know that
he is. Our hope will be made perfect
when we receive eternal life, but charity is something that we will need
forever. Charity is the basis on which
the world was created, and why Christ died for us. Charity is how we will change people’s lives
for the better. It’s like the quote, “People
won’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” I made this topic a big part of my study this
week, and that is one thing I really want to develop this transfer. Charity…charity for the elders, for the ward
members, for my investigators, and for everyone else. I read from Ether 12, Moroni 7-8, and also
Corinthians 12. They are all amazing. I love my mission because I get to learn so
much from other people. I am always
learning and growing. It is awesome.
 |
| Saying Goodbye to Elder Guyman |
I will send some pictures home.
This week I will take some more pictures of the Christmas market with
less people so that you can actually see what it looks like. Pictures still won’t nearly do it justice,
though. I'll let you know about Skype when
Christmas gets a little closer. We are
trying to find a family in the ward that will let us use their computers.
Ich hoffe dass euch eine ganz gute woche habt! Immer erinnen sie warum Weihnacht so wichtig
ist. Jesus Christus war geboren! Ich weiß es.
Das ist unser Botschaft und wir müssen es zur ganzen Erden erklaren. Jesus Christus lebt! Er war geboren und er ist auferstanden. Wie toll?
Ich weiß es mit meinem ganzen Herzt und Seele. Ich liebe meine Mission, ich liebe Nürnberg
und ich liebe euch. Es freue mich dass
ich hier bin und dass ich dieser Menschen helfen kann über das Evangelium zu
lernen.
Bis nächte woche!
Liebe, Savannah
No comments:
Post a Comment