September 8, 2014

Celebrating it right...
one year in Germany!

I think I need a new pair of shoes :)

Hey Familie!  Sounds like everything is going well over in the States.  This last Thursday was my year mark in Germany.  Krass, I have been away from America for a full year.  That is just weird to think.  As far as coming home, I feel more and more like I will be coming home at the end of January.  At the beginning of every Zone Conference, President gives announcements about how he encourages us to stay until the end, and that when he was younger he took block classes, and that he wouldn’t less us know until the end of September.  So as of now, I just have the mindset that I will be missing the semester by less than a month, so if that is the Lord's plan, I will just go with it.  But I would go absolutely crazy staying in Fort Collins.  I would want to go out to Provo after a week or so and live with Cassidy and McKenna and get a job and work until block classes in February or something.  That sounds good to me, so I would be fine with that.  So then I would still need a contract for winter semester.  I’ll email Cassidy and ask for her mom’s email.  So, looks like I will see you all in January!

Which really is fine with me.  We had transfer calls this week, and I will continue to train Sister Heywood in Münster for this transfer...  no surprise there.  What is really weird for me to think about is that after this transfer (yes, I know it just started) I only have 2 left.  I have officially hit the double digits.  I am on transfer 10 out of 12.  I don't know where the time has gone, but I will definitely make the best of the time I have left.  It’s just too great a place.  This week though, I realized just how awkward my whole life is as a missionary.  Dont get me wrong, it is absolutely wonderful, but I have become the queen of awkward. 

The Vermillions took us Vapianos after our
cleaning checks on Wednesday.
It was DELICIOUS. I love that place. 

Why?  Well to start, we had one of our most awkward appointments ever on Tuesday.  On Monday, we got a text from a girl named Karina.  She said she was a recent convert from Düisberg, and was in Münster for the week, and asks if she could meet up with us and read in the Book of Mormon with us.  Sounds cool, right?  Thought so, too.  So we meet her at the train station and are walking back to the church, asking her questions about her life.  She gave one-word answers and then just awkwardly laughed at the end.  Then we start reading Enos, and asking her questions, and she just stared at us.  Didn’t say anything, except laugh.  I had no clue how to make it less awkward.  So we kept it short, and then at the end, after the prayer she just sat there for another 10 minutes expecting who knows what.  We tried to make some awkward small talk but luckily our phone rang so I ran out of the room, leaving poor Sister Heywood there.  Okay, this just doesn’t do it justice.  Just know, it was awkward. 

Our gift to Aiyana so that she always
 looks towards the temple...the
Denver Temple and the
San Antonio one! 

Then we taught Aiyana the law of chastity.  My favorite!  Sad part, after that appointment, this seems like a breeze.  We had a great appointment, and she asked us questions about our dating life back home...good thing that took me about zero seconds to summarize.  She just laughed at that.  We taught it from the for Strength of Youth and talked about modesty and dating too, and she agreed to all of it.  Afterwards, she stayed back and played the piano and sang with us and just chatted.  I like this new version of Aiyana.  She loves Sister Heywood too.  She just thinks she is the cutest thing ever.  She wanted to go shopping with us one P-Day so that we could find modest skirts to wear to church.  We all know that is almost impossible in Germany.  That was a good lesson.  We also taught her about the temple and geneology on Sunday after church.  There is a temple trip a few weeks after her baptism for the Youth.  She is going to try to find a name and take it on the trip.  She is super excited to go. 

We also helped out Anna with her newspaper route again.  She started a new school and has been really stressed lately, and so we wanted to help her out.  She also didn’t come to church for a little while, so we have been worried about her.  We tried to have a lot of contact with her and her family this week.  I just love Anna.  She is just so cute, and I don’t want her to be so stressed out.  That has got to be hard, being only 16 and the only one in your family that is a member.  We will just keep working with them!  We are going over on Thursday to teach them all again, so that will be great.  I love the Toidzes.  And good news, Anna came to church! 

Thursday we had another appointment with Andreas and the elders.  They tried to make out a baptismal date for the 20th, but he kept saying that he is not ready.  I dont know how to help him, but I just love Andreas.  Today we got some more beautiful clothes from him, and ate fruit from Turkey.  It was ...  interesting. 

I just love this branch!

It was a sad week this week because we ended up dropping a couple investigators.  Hard to do when you don’t have too many to work with, but the Lord will definitely bless you when you do what is best.  Like on Saturday.  We went to a Pakistanian birthday party.  Quite the night…I will never forget.  We found this family in the area book.  They are from Pakistan.  We called them up and they invited us over last week.  There was a huge language barrier, but they are the nicest family I have ever met.  They invited us over for their son’s birthday party, so we went and that was quite the experience.  There were a ton of families there from Pakistan all speaking Urdu, but there was one family with four daughters, all raised in Germany.  We talked with them the whole time and they were just fascinated by what we do.  At the end, their mom said that they want us to come over this week and teach their familie some more…so sick!  We drop a few, and find some more.  Thank you, awkward birthday parties. 

When I came to Germany, I expected to have a language barrier between the Germans and me, but I never expected there being so many different languages here.  That isn’t even the problem.  The problem now is that all of our investigators right now (except Aiyana) aren’t even native Germans...ha-ha.  Never saw that one happening.  It has really taught me about the power of the Book of Mormon and of the spirit.  We may not be able to communicate as well as we would like, but there is power in the spirit and in the Book of Mormon.  The language of the Spirit is what really converts them, so I have had to rely on that a lot lately. 

Raphael has been gone all week.  I really miss that guy!  But we called him on Thursday to see how he was doing.  He responded by saying that he hadn’t forgotten about us and that he thought about us all the time.  He said that he has been reading in the Book of Mormon every night and thinking a lot about baptism...and this was all before we even asked him more than, "How are you doing?" He is so great.  I really want him to get back soon so that we can meet with him, because he just makes me so grateful to be a missionary.  But in the meantime, we are on the hunt for some more Raphaels and Aiyanas! 

Our last district picture of the
transfer...time has flown!

Well, another transfer is gone, but I am beyond excited for this Friday.  We are having a mission wide conference, and Elder Ballard is speaking to us.  Which means that I will get to hear from an apostle of the Lord and see all of my mission buddies.  This is like Christmas times ten.  It will be a great day!

Also, yesterday, Charles (my investigator from Heidelberg) got baptized!!!  I got to call him after his baptism, and he answered the phone saying, “Sista Teeples!  I miss ya so so much.  Thank ya for everything ya did for me.  I wont ever forget ya." Oh man, I love Charles!  And now he is baptized!  I couldn’t be happier right now. 

Gotta love the mission!  Good things happening, and even better things to come. 

I love you all, and hope that you have a GREAT week.  I will talk to you all next week. 

Bis dann!

Sister Teeples