Hi Family! Sister Siems, my new
companion, is a music whiz. She has a guitar!! Our hymns for companionship
study in the morning are now accompanied by a guitar (FYI - Missionaries spend time in individual and companionship study every morning before going out). Also she's good at the
piano and singing and the clarinet. And she's just really great.
You will love Sister Siems Mom. I'm so lucky to get
to work with her. But something way weird happened with the sister training
leader assignment. They called us as the
sister training leaders for the St. Gallen zone but we're actually in the
Zurich zone and President and Sister Miles didn't really think that through. So
now we're released. Sad, huh? We were sister training leaders for one
conference call. But I’ll get another
opportunity and this way we can focus more intently on our companionship and our
area.
I love teaching
with Sister Siems. We have had some really great lessons already. One of the
interesting things about being a missionary is that sometimes people feel like
they can tell you everything about their life. Your name badge allows them to
spill all. We went by on a referral this week where she told us all of these
awful things about her life and explained why she can't believe in God. We have
had a couple appointments like that lately. And those conversations are hard.
My life has been very good and here I am telling someone who has had everything
thrown at them in life that God loves them and that all things will turn out
for their good if they will do what is right and turn to their Father in Heaven
and rely on His Son Jesus Christ. But I know it's true!
I will miss all the
funny things Sister McEwen says. One time we were walking somewhere and it
actually really was really cold so we had a conversation that went something
like this:
Sister McEwen: How
cold must it have been for the pioneers when they walked from England to
America?
me: You think they
walked from England to America?
her: Yeah?
me: What about the
big blue wet thing?
her: They swam. You
know what I mean they walked most of the way!
Me always asking
Sister McEwen: "Do you have any more dried mango?" (We love eating
dried mango but I always eat mine too fast so then sometimes I steal hers.)
Sister McEwen and I
having full on conversations while she's brushing her teeth or eating something
and she will speak to me in tones and I have to figure out what she means.
I’d like some
basketball shorts. I had some nice ones from the BYU bookstore that are size
small and just have BYU in the corner but Sister McEwen insisted that I give
them to her.
Story:
This week we were
on way back from a fall-out appointment (That means we had an appointment but
it didn't happen. Our investigator had to go to the doctor and forgot to tell
us.) and we ran into a younger girl on the street. We started talking to her
and we asked her if she wanted to know more about God's plan for us. And she
said, "Well I already know all about that. I'm very religious." And
then we said, "Do you know the Book of Mormon?" And no, she had never
heard of it. So we gave her one and invited her to read in it and we told her
that it talks all about God's plan for us (it does!). And she was very excited
and we got her number and said we'll call in a week to see how her reading is
going.
What else. Our
branch mission leader took us to a little opera in Schaffhausen! Not quite the
Vienna opera house I'm sure but it was cool and so nice of him to take us. And
then after that we went to the most amazing church choir performance in the
Münster Kirche in Schaffhausen. The church was beautiful, the singing was so
geistig (Spiritual! Not gonna lie I actually love it when the German word for
something comes to me first. That happens a lot now.), and the atmosphere was
just so cool. It's a huge church that used to actually be a monastery and it
was dark and everyone had a candle and the words to the songs that were being
sung so that you could sing a lot if you wanted. Our GML came with us to the
church and what he said was, "What a constrast." The Münster Kirche
is quite a contrast from our cute little meeting house in Schaffhausen. An
investigator was in the choir and she invited us but we never got to see her!
But we talked on the phone yesterday so she knows we were there for part of it.
Jenni and Benjamin (Jenni is the young woman that Sister Kate and Sister Judd baptized in Vienna) are getting married civilly in April and getting married in the temple sometime
after September when she has been a member for a year. Yaaayyyyy!!!! (I know in Switzerland everyone has to get married civilly and then they can choose to also have a church wedding if they would like. In the LDS Church, a temple wedding includes very important covenants and the blessing that your union is not "til death do you part" but for eternity if you stay true to your covenants. You have to be a member for a full year before being able to get married in the temple).
What's funny is
sometimes when we talk to people they say something like, "Do you actually
find anyone here who is interested?" They just still really see themselves
as a hard people to reach with this message. And they are. But there are also
people who the Lord has prepared. And I love being a missionary here.
So I've told you
that I'm quite attached to my name tag. And we don't wear nametags in the
temple. And I think about that every time we go. Is it that nobody has a
nametag in the temple or that everybody does? I think in the temple everyone
has a nametag on. We are all helping people receive ordinances that will help
them return to live with their Father in Heaven. (In the temple everyone wears white as a reminder that all are equal in the sight of the Lord)
What else . . . Oh
yeah I love the Book of Mormon! We have an investigator who loves, loves, loves
the Bible and keeps asking why she should need anything in addition to the
Bible. And I love the Book of Mormon and I know it as well as the Pearl of
Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants, and the words of latter-day prophets are
all important. But the Book of Mormon was just so essential because how else
would anyone know that the church really was restored? The Book of Mormon is
the proof that Christ's true church is restored. I hardly ever read in the
Liahona during study but I found this amazing one from October 2011 that's all
about the BOM. You should check it out.
Love you family!!!
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