FIRST OFF- The clouds here are like nothing i've ever seen. You are all missing out!
WOOT! Also I had like 8 lbs of chocolate from my loving sister Kasandra, so I went and gave it to the kids on the plane, thez loved it and parents were pointing at their children asking if they could have some, it was great, but haha oh man I got my first insult and it was amazing! So I had like 20 pieces of candy left and I was at the back of the plane handing it to 4 kids and this old man came and took it out of their hands and gave it back to me saying "we dont take anything from Joseph Smith!" hahaha, oh mensch, then I said "my name isnt Joseph Smith and I asked another lady to please hand the candy to the kids...oh hahah so great. Hope you see the humor of it too. WELL THEN in the French airport we had like a 40 minute wait til our flight to Berlin and we were just standing there talking to ppl, complimenting their baby´s cuteness etc, and this sweet German lady (who honestly looks like Edna Mole from the Incredibles) she walked up to me and asked who we were, what our nametags were and then immediatelz asked if we believed in the old and new testaments....thenwe introduced the Book of Mormon and talked about the apostacy, she kept asking the coolest questions like what the difference was between our church and the catholic church (thats where the apostacy came in) but then discussed church and modern day prophets (all in slaughtered deutsch mind you) and she asked if there were members in Germany! I said yes, we didnt have any pass along cards or anything so I just wrotewww.lds.org and mormon.org at the front of her book of mormon and said she could find a church by here on there (I gave her my email address too....) well then she walked over to her husband and we talked to him too he talked about the Freiberg temple etc and then Elder Tanner gave me two deutsch pamphets on the plan of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ that he had, they said they would read it and they let us take a picture with them....
well then we boarded and I was out on the plane...then we landed haha an hour later in BERLIN! We got off the plane and saw where we got our bags and Präsident Pimentel and his wife and the aps and Elder Morris were waving through the window! While we were waiting for the bags, we went and saw Monica and her husband (the lady we had talked to) and I asked "wie war es?" (how was it?) they said they liked the pamphlets and immediately asked "who is the prophet after Jospeh Smith?!" yeah I know!!! they really asked that! So we talked a little longer and asked if they wanted to learn more and she wrote her address in my book (thanks Erin for the journal its been perfect) and they said hopefully you´ll serve in Freiberg! We hope you do! and I said well pray for me! and the old man said I have a feeling you will.....Well awesome start to the mission right?! We then met Präsident Pimentel and Sister Pimentel and the APs...yes mom Elder Roden! He totally knew I was his moms companions daughter and we laughed a bit about that. We got some money exchanged and loaded our bags into the big boxy blueish purplish van and sister malen and I rode with the präsident and the elders went with the aps....there were nine of us in our group (the other 14 had been there for a few hours and were apparently NAPPING! geez lucky :)
Well driving around berlin was so great, we told the präsident about us and he told us about all the sister trainers areas and we wanted to go to all of them! They were all so incredible sounding! We went straight to the mission home (yes I took a picture right when I got there)
its on the coolest cobble stone street lined with gorgeous trees and fairytale homes...we got all our checking in done, passports talked about money etc, dad they give us a debit card and we get 175€ every month. yay. THEN we went and met the other half of our group at the hotel where we all stayed that night, there´s a cool buffet style restaurant. K first off get the idea of like a `hampton inn and chuckarama out of your head) I took pictures so you all see them eventually tbut this hotel had spiral staircases up to the rooms with kcool german beds and huge windows out to the street and german shower ahhh and the buffet was so nice, so formal and very german it was a perfect first meal, we had some sort of meat and breads and potatoes and rotkohl and loveliness. Then we had pastries and this pudding amazingness. Super funny too the wall on the other side of the room had a half naked lady on it! WELCOME TO GERMANZ! haha, sister pimentel had all the sisters and she and her husband sit on the side of the table facing it haha, it wasnt too noticable but I thought it was funny. Then we headed to the mission home (where the praäsident lives obviously) but they had our huge group (biggest group of goldens mind you) head the long way back and contact ppl. IT was SO cooL! I talked to a car salesman for like 12 minutes and he took a pass a long card and talked to like 12 other ppl, the funniest one was sister dorsez held out a card to two men riding their bikes past us and the first one slowed down to take it and the guy behind him didnt stop so they crashed haha and then sister dorsey and some elders talked to them and thez set up an appointment for the aps to meet with them! the men on bikes said they thought that god caused them to crash so they could meet us. haha.
Then at the mission home we had our interviews and thats when I sent that quick email home....their home is so lovely and it was good to just sit for a second. We then all headed back to the hotel and i´ve never had a better sleep.....the pillow was like heaven.
The next morning we woke up had a very german breakfast of bread and fruit and the option of goulaush hahah that is not how you spell it and other things....delicious. We then met with the präsident and took a fieldtrip to mauerplatz where the wall and no mans land used to be....SO COOL. Gorgeous, it looked like a scene off pride and prejudice, it was raining a wee bit and I LOVED IT. We walked through what used to be no mans land and went to the ´East Germanz side`...we read the dedication from präsident monson and the rededication he just gave in Feb...So great. We then went out into the woods a bit by ourselves and dedicated ourselves to our mission. Awesome moment. Well then it was the big moment, going to the church in VBBerlin to meet our trainers, I took pictures of the lovely set up for lunch and all our bags were in the gym with the tables set up so neatly. It was such a great moment when they finished their training meeting and came out to us all the sisters hugged and Sister Calder was one of them! (she went to waterford)
and that was neat to see a familiar face! All the sisters were cool.....we took pictures (dont worry kasandra :) After lunch we moved into the chapel for Golden conference and it was great they motivated us for the work and I learned a lot, präsident spoke to us and then the big moment came, it was really dramatic with all 52 of us in there- he would have a golden go to the front and read their call of where their first area was and who their trainer was....so suspenseful!
I went down and slowly read "You have been called to serve in FREIBERG Germany with Sister Singer! ( YEAH MOM I KNOW!) Freiberg! where the temple is! Yes! (everyone was excited for me because they had all heard about my lovely convo with monica from freiberg in the airport-saidly later we found out their from leipzig,but those sisters went to their place and they werent home, so theyre going to teach them I just know it, and i´m close enough if i stay here and they accept it I could go to the baptism) ANYWAY! FREIBERG! Sister Singer and I hit it off immediately before when we were eating, so it was perfect, im still pinching myself. We then quickly left from the church with all my stuff, sister singer helping me of course, and we got to the bahnhof headed out to Freiberg!
We got to know eachother really well on the train ride....Sister Singer is SO GREAT! She looks like a combination of Sydney Monson and Sarah Standing....youll see in the pictures. Shes so sweet, I still cant pinpoint whos laugh she has, but its a familiar awesome laugh :D Shes from Texas and went to BYU studying Broadcast Journalism...Shes like 6 inches taller than me and is super sweet. This is her 6th transfer and i am her second golden! Shes been in Freiberg for 3 transfers, this is her 4th...
OKAY OUR WOHNUNG IS AMAZING. )(apartment) Its on:
Poststraße 7
09500 Freiberg
Germany
So write me here and itll be faster, if you sent it to the mission home ill only get it once every 6 weeks......lame so dont to that :) OKay so its at the top of this gorgeous buildign a street ilke the fairytales, cobblestone, gorgous shops etc, the innenstadt is just down the street and we´re on the 4th floor.
As you walk in the bathroom is immediately on the right (for good reason :) with a door between the toilet room w/a bookshelf, then a sink, shower and washer in the other. Then at the end of the short hall theres a coat rack with garbage cans and shoes and lots of coats. To the left is our bedroom...two closets with cupboard doors and shelves, a bunkbed (i get the top) and a door that opens out to a railing with a view of houses, trees and old church and mostly gorgeous sky, clouds etc....i took pictures :D then if you walk straight out of the bedroom past the coats is our wee kitchen, stove sink cupboards and then a little counter cupboards, little fridge and oh I love it. Then our big room...there´s a bar table thing with two tall stool chair things...then a little couch and 4 big square windows that open up to the street, with a big windowsill that we can sit on- ahhh its gorgous. Then we have two big desks facing eachother, and a wall of bookshelves filled with church media, scriptures in all the different languages and other missionary resources :) So thats basically it! Hope you can imagine it.
My first night I woke up wide awake around 4am and we had slept with the door open and it was raining outside, I was so happy, felt so blessed, it smelled and felt amazing and I was so excited for the next day, oh and you have the same feather doon and (the germans do everzthing better than we do ps) and you just zip the sheets around the blanket (it feels like a cloud) and same thing with the big square feather pillow) you just zip off the sheets and wash them. . . I love our apartment.
Our first day we had two appointments, on with our newly baptized miracle Sandy. She had called the temple having researched our church and said ´hi, i would like to join your church`haha, amaying right, so they called Sister Singer and she was baptized 2.5 weeks ago! So we teach all the lessons to them again to make sure thex got it all, and we talked about missionary work. Shes so great, still need to take a picture....We went grocery shopping and YES THEY HAVE PEANUT BUTTER!
yay, Kasandra can I just tell you the nutterbutters you sent me with this peanut butter are going to be the death of me...oh luckily (side note) sister singer has this thing where she cant eat very much very often or she'll get sick...so PERFECT! haha, its a great help to me, and its a walking mission, we have bikes, but yeah we just walk, you can talk to more people better that way. Grocery shopping was interesting but awesome, I love Germany.
We had another really cool appointment the other day with this girl named Ding Gu. She´s from China and has no religious backround, no concept of God at all, sister singer and sister Jensen found her doing doors at the university (yes, my area is heaven on earth, picture perfect, temple, and a university) They left her with a chinese book of mormon and the assignment to read alma 32 (faith like a seed) we reviewed it (oh and it was good because German is her second language too so so spoke a little slower than everyone else so I got everything) but she was asking the most amazing questions, like defined faith and asked if we have a church and all the details and it was appropriate to ask her if she´d like to come with us the next day to church and she said, well I know its for the people who have faith so yeah once I get it I would like to come! WHAT?! cool, she asked what we do and askeed about the music and we showed her our liedbuch, the song boko in german, and eneded up singing nearer my god to thee and showing her other church music online. Oh it was so cool, we taught her to pray and asked her to pray and then we ended with a prayer kneeling in her little apartment....yeah! really kneeling! I didnt know we really sang and kneeled with investigators, but we do! and the spirit was SO STRONG! I cannot wait to see her again, oh she asked us to bring her a book of mormon auf deutsch so she could read both the german and chinese. YES.
Church was AMAZING YESTERDAY! They do the church thing the right way over here.. first off we were walking to church (of course, about 25 minutes away) and a mitglieder (member) gave us a right up the hill, listening to the motabs in his car with his 3 boys....then EVERYONE shakes EVERYONE elses hands in the foyer and says Guten tag, guten morgen, and hugs, kisses handshakes whatever....it was such a great spirit of love and I felt so welcome, everyone knows sister singer and recognized I was the new sister, I was very welcomed and loved. The bischoff (bishop) is the coolest uy in the world I want to say he's like mmm 45? 40? oh half our ward is old people, like old old haha I love them, theyre all so classy and welcoming. Anyway the fist meeting is FHV (relief society) but yesterday it was combined with priesthood, and the bishop taught, guess on what he taught on...yes...member missionary work!!! and the whole room gave their sincere two bits and asked questions and there was such a great spirit of missionary wrok and they even mentioned taking out the new pass along cards we just got with our cell phone number on it....yayaya Freiberg is the best! Then we had sunday school where we learned about Job, I sat next to Sandy and it was funny having both of us try to find the scriptures in the German Bible, me not knowing German and her not really knowing the bible that well :)
Then Abendsmall versammlung....sacrament meeting, I was asked to give my testimony and I sat next to the relief society präsident who was talking in the meeting and she comforted me, we shared a songbook and she pretended to shake it with nervousness, it's so funny relating to someone not being able to really communicate in the same language....it was a little intimidating, a huge room full of German members, but having Sister Singer there with Sandy beaming at me, and some other members I had met and remembering my purpose, I had peace, and I simply said how I knew I had been called of a true prophet of the Lord and I love the ward already and I know that I was sent here to teach their friends and the people the have the courage to talk to, I said I know Christ is our savior and that is why I am here attempting to speak German, to tell the German people in Freiberg of Christ and his love and sacrifice and of our Heavenly Father´s love for us! It was quick, and probably less complicated then that, but such a cool opprotunity and MOM guess what! I thought of you and the story of your first sunday because the relief society (and us) and the children sang together that one saong "holding hands around the world" but they changed the words to " we are SCHWESTERS instead of Kinder" so anyway it was sweet and very comforting. After church I met the temple missionary couple who are from provo and the sister spoke english to me, and apparently her husband was a professor at BYU....and then other German members came and shook my hand and said they understood my German 'wunderbares Deutsch' it was sweet of them to say.
Then we went to our eating appointment, theres a list for the next forever of every sunday feeding us...we se went to the sweetest couple in the world's house, another Bruder from the ward came with us whos wife had just died a year ago, and I think he told like 36 stories, it was really difficult to pretend and try to understand his dialect and try to pick out words I knew, but the couple was so sweet and I got a picture with them too! My first real real Deutsch homecooked dinner, meat and wierd stick balls of bread stuff and rotkohl and sweet juice, oh it was soooo good. I love them already. Then we got a call from Sandy and she just found out her Oma just died....so we immediatelz called her and took her too the coolest members in the worlds house...haha did that sentence make sense?
anyway theres a couple in our ward, they both served in the Hamburg mission, shes from Indianna and was born in Freiberg, lived there his whole live....the Dzierzons (the D is silent) they have a 21 month old son, and theyre probably what 25-26? hes the first counselor in the bishopbric, they fed us on Saturday night and thats where we took Sandy to comfort her. It was nice and I think well I know she felt better afterwards... Then the first people we street contacted right after that set up an appointment with us for next week! it was like 8:30 at night and they were jsut heading out and Sister singer talked to the man and I talked to the woman, asking her does she believe God loves her? she didnt know, and I asked if she wanted to feel her Heavenly Fathers love and live with her family forever and she said yes...so we´re meeting with them next week! yaya! So the work is very much rolling here in Freiberg and the gospel is being taught, the members are strong and the temple is GORGEOUS, so yes mom please pull that picture of the freiberg temple back out and imagine me in front and our church right next to it!!
yay! I hope My email isnt too long and you arent bored out of your mind and the y and z are switched on German keyboards....so that might be the reason you cant read it too well :) oh today we took a train to Dresden....im in Dresden! like 8 people from our district, well maybe its our whole district, I dunno, we´re all here together about to go buy me a missionary side bag and lunch and see the place!
So this adventure is incredible and I love talking about my savior all day and I love you all!
Sorry if I didnt answer all your questions, but thanks for your prayers, and I am so safe and doing so well!!! HOPE YOU ALL ARE DOING WELL TOO! I am praying for you!
ps Mom or Dad or someone will you send this out to my mass list, I might as well be exactly obedient, no one has said I cant email other people, actually I know I can, but well I guess I just want to be a hassle haha, so if you dont mind going to my past emails and fwding this on to those emails and also to sister curtis and sister hickins from the mtc that would be lovely...ps I dont know whats up with tophs email, im sending it to topher416@gmail.com...so let me know the right one! hmmm other then that, dad will you just check my account on my pluscard w/ uccu i need to buy another midsized suitcase, the pullyup handle thingy snapped completely off! and a missionary sidebag/backpack :) So yeah THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU ALL FOREVER AND EVER!
pps sorry one other super funny thing I wanted to tell you....so of course with my and my golden beginners luck I totally offended a German without knowing it :) We were talking to two ladies in one of our dorfs at the bus stop and la di da small talk etc and as we were walking away I noticed they had flowers and I asked who they were for and she said her friends birthday....then I randomly asked, When is YOUR birthday? and she said oh, well not til next year.....and I said....oh well HAPPY BIRTHDAY early!...:Sister singer then later informed me its bad luck to wish a German happy birthday......oops. Okay bye!
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