Sunday, December 21, 2014

December 8, 2014

Somebody drew this is in the middle of
one of the ubahn stations. Pretty cool, huh?
Hello Family!  Dad, that is so exciting that you have an interview on Wednesday!  I will for sure be praying that it goes well.  I definitely hope that you get a job soon.  Taryn, I got your Germany souvenir at the Christmas market last week!  I sure hope you like it.  The rest of the family, any requests?  Besides chocolate...already planning on lots of that one.  I need ideas though. 

It's been a good week here in Frankfurt.  Our few investigators have all lost interest or dropped off of the face of the earth, so we are starting from scratch again.  Yay!  I feel like this has happened way too many times on my mission. Even though its hard right now, and it would be easier to keep meeting with them rather than having all that extra time, if we show the Lord that we want to use His time as best as possible, than He will bless us with better things.  So we are testing our faith, and definitely have a lot of extra time this upcoming week…ahhhh. 

But we have already seen one blessing.  We found a new investigator this week, named Agnes.  She is really cool.  She is from Hungary, and can only speak a little English.  The plus side of this whole international ward is that we have a way cool lady, Rita, in our ward from Hungary.  She had us over for Family Home Evening on Monday, and then joint taught with Agnes and us on Wednesday.  It was great.  We went to a restaurant called Dick & Doofs (yes, its actually called that) and had lunch, and did a "how to begin teaching" type lesson.  Agnes is one of the most humble ladies I have met.  She has had a couple hard past few years, but she said that it wasn’t until then that she really realized that there was a God.  And now she knows it and has seen him in her life so much.  We bore testimony that He loves her and that this was the way to make her relationship stronger with Him.  She is excited to learn more about our beliefs, and Rita is super excited to have someone to teach in Hungarian.  She served her mission on Temple Square about 10 years ago, and just loves being in the missionary mode again.  It is exciting!  The best part of it all, is that right after we were done with the lesson, we got in the UBahn with Agnes and this man came up to us and said, "Can I tell you something?  Your church…it’s wrong.  It’s all false.  The Book of Mormon, that is just....  I am just skeptical about the whole thing.  I would suggest you think about this whole thing again."  He then got off.  We were freaking out that Agnes would get scared off, but she looked at us, and said, "He is such a German.  Let people believe what they want."  Oh man, it was great.
 
Besides that, we spent most of our time meeting with the members and less actives.  As missionaries in our ward, we are trying to meet with every single family before Christmas to introduce this "He is the Gift" campaign, and get them to invite friends.  It is amazing how many of these families are ready and willing to do missionary work.  The hard thing is that most of them either have German friends, or work for the Church, so they only know members.  But their hearts are in the right place, and if they try, I know the Lord will bless them.  We've met with a lot of amazing families this week, and the more that I meet, the more that it makes me want to go home and just do a ton of missionary work.  Watch out friends!  Ha-ha!  One of the members we met with this week was Tia Bradley, and she is just awesome.  I figured out that she is the sister of a family I knew in Nürnberg and also that her sister-in-law is Elaine Bradley, the drummer from the Neon Trees Band!  How cool is that?  She also is very good friends with the Taylor family from Heidelberg.  Crazy connections, everywhere! 

I have also decided that my next language that I want to learn is Italian.  I LOVE the Italians in our ward.  They are hilarious.  We met with two of the families this week, and they just have so much personality and energy.  It is great.  The Pelucchis are probably my favorite family ever.  They have two teenage girls, and the mom is just hilarious.  Every time we are there, I just can’t stop laughing, and then we always have the best lesson ever.  They made us an Italian dinner (after we had already eaten a full out dinner at another family’s home that night.)  They taught me how to pray in Italian.  It’s pretty similar to Spanish.  Fun stuff!  We introduced the "He is the Gift" video to them, and then yesterday, Sister Pelucchi came up to me and told me that she went through her Facebook page and sent every one of her non-member friends a personalized message, including the link to the video.  How cool is that?!

We turned in all of our empty
water bottles today.  We had 40!  
We also had a good lesson with the Carricondos again this week.  Calling them hadn’t been working, so we decided to just stop on by.  She let us in, and we had a really good conversation.  She expressed a lot of her concerns about coming back to church, and we were able to bare strong testimony, of how church is where the Lord wants her to be and that the Lord will bless her more than she could imagine if she just tried her faith and came.  She admitted that she knew she needed to be there.  It was a really powerful lesson.  I just love that family, and want them to get reactivated.  It WILL happen before I leave. 

The new goldens also got in this week.  That was weird.  We took them out and went caroling with them and handed out “Joy to the World”.  They looked freezing and dead tired and we all sounded awful.  It was hilarious.  Hurt my ears, but I sure had fun doing it.  Elder Rock is training his last one, so he came down to Frankfurt too, and I got to see him.  That was pretty sweet. 

Our ward Christmas party was a success, but sadly no one came.  Four people said they would come, and none of them did!  That was lame sauce, especially because three of them we contacted an hour before it was starting, and they all said they would be there.  BAH.  But that’s okay.  We will just keep trying.

Well, don’t know how much more I have to say.  Except that I am also learning how to write in Old German Script.  So many random talents I am learning on the mission.  I love you all, and hope that you have a wonderful week!  Dad, can’t wait to hear about your interview.  Good luck.  You’ll do great. 

Love you,


Savannah 

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