"The Swiss say (fill in the blank), but that's not really German" - January 27, 2014 - From Schaffhausen, Switzerland

These pictures below are from the January Zurich Zone Conference

Zurich District - Edlers Fiedler, Petcu, Bergström, Lossau, Lappalainen, Kelly
Sister Miles and Sisters Lewis, Siems, Bakker, Robben

Aarau District: Elder Robertson, Pres. Miles,  Elders Paulsen, Vitel, Simon, Meyer, Oddie
Sisters Hoarau, Hilakari, LeFeuvre, Wüst

Dear FAMILY!  Remember how Max set a baptismal date for Friday? Well he's moving to America on TUESDAY. So that's not fun. So basically I got my heart broken this week. But he just needs time to be sure and I understand that. Mostly. Sort of. Okay I do, but that doesn't mean I like it.

We finally got some real live snow! It's even snowing a little bit now. I thought Utah was supposed to be the place with the really absurd weather that could never make up it's mind but we totally had a "Utah" day here. It went back and forth from being sunny to full-on snowing maybe 4 times.

So you already know about my visit with Ruedi and Sibylle and Tante Vreni! They were very good to us. We had a special cake at Tante Vreni's that is Grosi and Grosvati's favorite in their honor. 

With my Tante Vreni .... She's awesome

With Tante Vreni's #2 son Ueli and his family

(My Tante Vreni...my mom's youngest sister who is in her early 80s now, called me after the visit and I was so excited for her to tell me how happy Katie was, what a very nice companion she had, and how GOOD her German was!  My cousin and his wife speak English, but my aunt very little, so even though Katie has met Tante Vreni several times before, for them to be able to chat for several hours was WONDERFUL to hear about).

And I saw the special energy place where Ruedi works! I took pictures for you Mommy. It was really great to see them, and just to be at Tante Vreni's. 

My cousin is in charge of a large waste treatment facility in Winterthur.  Katie likes to 

consider herself an environmentalist, so I can imagine she really enjoyed this tour.  Of course Switzerland

is light years ahead of the USA in recycling etc.  Almost ALL the trash that can't be recycled is incinerated at

very high heat....and the heat generated from this plant heats the entire city hospital and several other large

buildings.  

Quotes of the week: "The Swiss say (fill in the blank), but that's not really German." - Sister Siems

One time Sister Siems randomly said while reading in the Bible during personal study: "God is so clever." True that. 

So this week! We had the best lesson ever with our friend Doris but she still isn't ready to make progress in coming to church. Doris is super great and super religious. I like her a lot. But she's really old and has a hard time with change. But anyway we had the best lesson with her. Eivonny was an amazing joint teach. (A "joint teach" just refers to bringing a member of the ward with to help teach the lesson.  Missionaries come and go, so the ward members can play such an important role in helping teach someone the Gospel) And we realized in preparing for the lesson that Doris needs to realize the DIFFERENCES between our religions. There are plenty of similarities, but if you're ever going to make a change, the DIFFERENCES are what you need to really understand. So we had already talked about the Priesthood and we've talked about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and all of that. She's been seeing the missionaries for several months now. So we started of the lesson by asking her what DIFFERENCES between the Reformierte Kirche she now attends and our church she notices. She said, "Actually not so many." Uh oh. On the one hand, that's good. We're both Christian. We both love the Bible. We both know that through Jesus Christ we can be saved. But on the other hand that is NOT GOOD. So we said, Okay Doris, let's talk about the DIFFERENCES. The Priesthood. The Book of Mormon. A living prophet. These are some major things. Jesus Christ only established one church when he was on the earth. Sometimes it's weird. Obviously there are so many good people who are not LDS who are worshiping God and living such good Christian lives. We, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, can learn from them too. I just like how President Hinckley put it. He said something like, "Bring us all the truth you have and let us add to it." And that's exactly it. We don't have to ask anyone who is already faithful in their religion to get rid of anything.

I am actually surprised that I don't seem to talk to so many atheists. We talk to a lot of people who say, "Oh that's so great that you have all that. But I already believe in Jesus Christ and I have the Bible." People like Doris. And it's hard because they are already so right. And we have Christian people tell us, "That's so great what you're doing. But don't waste your time on me, I already believe in Jesus Christ. Go find the people who don't know him." What's interesting is that my calling is to bring people closer to Christ, no matter where they are at. And the point is to tell people about our UNIQUE message, which actually isn't that Jesus Christ is our Savior, but that the church he established while he was on the earth has been restored to the earth. I have no idea if any of that made any sense. It's just hard because there are so many good people and it's challenging to help them understand that there is more truth without their feeling that we are demeaning the truth they already have.

I wrote that paragraph about the weather and since then it has gone from snowing to super sunny. See what I mean?

Yesterday we shared the Erlosungswerk message and had the funniest dinner appointment with a family in our ward. I had not laughed like that with anyone besides my companion in a long time. They live in that weird Germany part of Switzerland called Büsingen.

I am officially really attached to Schaffhausen. I know I will really love every one of my areas. I really loved Wien 1. And now I have been in Schaffhausen for 3 weeks longer than I was in Wien 1. And this branch! I just love them. These people are such a huge part of my life. I feel like a part of their ward family. Sometimes it's weird to be a missionary because you feel so dispensable. I don't even know if they will remember Sister Lewis, but I will remember them.

On Thursday Sister Siems and I brought our primary songbook and our gospel art book and the guitar to a lesson my 13-year-old friend from church, Emely. She's not an investigator but we're teaching her the new convert lessons. She's not a new convert either but she never had the lessons. So we sang all of the verses of "Follow the Prophet" (yes, in German) and looked at the pictures having to do with the prophet and talked about the story. And about following the prophet. I really liked it. It felt really good. 

Someone asked what I take with me every day.  I have no idea what other missionaries take with them every day, but it seems to vary a lot. For me it depends on if I'm having a lesson with someone who speaks English. Then I have to bring even more books. I bring the ward list, the family mission plan information and joint teach sheets, a few more lists, a BOM to give away (in German) my German BOM (plus D&C and Pearl of Great Price), sometimes my German Bible, sometimes my English Bible, hopefully not both (that never fits), my camera that I never use, three different variations of my wallet, pass-along-cards, my German dictionary, mini English BOM, PMG (a resource book called Preach My Gospel) and my journal if we have a meeting . . . ah so much stuff. And two phones. And keys, Ahhhhh. Oh and my planner. What would I do without that thing.

Well I love you family! Thanks for all your support.

Sister Siems, Max and Sister Lewis

Sister Siems is nice enough to send me a copy of the letter she sent to her family. 

I love reading about Katie, so I'll share that part here.

 ich liebe es, mit sister lewis zu arbeiten!! sie ist so süss, so natürlich und vor allem echt witzig!! wir haben echt viel spass zusammen, lachen viel und erzählen uns gegenseitig immer unsere Lebensgeschichten!! =) und sie is auch interessiert in die Sachen, die ich so erzähle.. ich hab das gefühl, ich kann ihr wirklich alles erzählen, und das is super gut.. ;) ausserdem singt sie für ihr leben gerne. wir gehen ab und zu auch mit Gitarre zu untersuchern und singen Kirchenlieder. eine Lektion mit einer jugendlichen bestand darin, dass wir folgt den Propheten gesungen haben und zu jeder geschichte bilder gezeigt haben und die geschichen erzählt hasben, damit sie Propheten besser kennenlernen kann... ;) man das macht sooo spass.

TRANSLATION!!!!

"I love working with Sister Lewis, She is so sweet, so natural and above all really funny.  
We really have a lot of fun together, laugh alot and tell each other everything about our lives.  AND she is so interestedin the things that I tell, so I have the feeling that I can really tell her everything and that is super great.  Also, she loves to sing.  We come and go to our appointments with my guitar and sing church songs along the way. During one of our lessons with a young person we sang "Follow the Prophet" together and used pictures of the prophets to teach her about them.  It was such great fun!" 

I Love Mondays!