"Geistig! Not gonna lie...love it when the German word comes first" - January 13, 2013 - From Schaffhausen

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!!!

December 2, 2013 - From Schaffhausen, Switzerland

Dear Family! 

I got your advent package! Thank you, thank you! What a cute missionary mom you are.

Soooo yesterday we had two people who were  going to meet us at Schaffhausen Bahnhof and walk to church with us (the chapel is not the absolute easiest to find). And . . . neither of them came and neither of them would answer their phone. That is very normal.  We almost always have people who we hope will come to church, and usually some that we're meeting so that we can walk together.

Also, ignore the random capitals. Or fix them. In German you capitalize all nouns and so sometimes this Computer decides to capitalize my letters for me. Very annoying. 

Also we saw the elders at Bahnhof waiting for two people that they had planned on walking to church with. And these two are actually investigators with baptismal Dates but they didn't come that day either. So eventually the four of us walked to church together, with no visitors. But, on the way to church we ran into one of the elders' investigators (a different one)! So we convinced him to come to church. And so that was a wonderful miracle. Then I'm sitting in Relief Society (the hour of church that is the women's meeting)... and our branch president comes and pulls me out (Sister McEwen was in Young Womens (the meeting for 12-18 year old girls)  with our one Young woman and the Young Womens president) and says there's someone here who says the sisters invited him. So I go out and I don't recognize the man at all but that's fine because we invite tons of people to church and I might not necessarily even recognize them. But when he told me his name I remembered him. When we were working on the area book once his record wiggled its way across the room. So we were asking ourselves what that record was doing there and decided to call the person (a former investigator). And he said he wanted to meet us at church. So we've called him pretty regularly, about once a week since and he finally showed up at church. He was too late for Sacrament Meeting but it was also a miracle that he showed up.

This week our ward went to the temple with the youth. So we went too but we did initiatories. (FYI - a temple ordinance that pronounces eternal blessings on the individual). And it is a little bit significant that missionaries don't wear their nametags in the temple (FYI - In the temple, everyone wears very similar white clothing as a reminder that we are all equal in the sight of the Lord).  And I just think it's cool because really everyone has a name tag on when they're doing temple work. The temple matron was one of the workers for our initiatories so that was cool. Also, I had some good conversations with our DML (mission leader for the congregation) (instead of GML because we're a branch) in the car on the way there and back. One of the things we talked about was how when he went on his mission he had only been a member for a year and had no clue about a lot of the church's doctrine. And he was just talking about his spiritual growth and about how he is always growing spiritually. He grew so much on his mission, but he has just continued to learn so much and grow so much spiritually. And he still does continue!

It reminds me of President Packer's Poem about growing old and waxing in spirituality. The problem is that if you somewhere along the way stop doing your part, you will no longer grow spiritually. The missionaries who had a testimony on their mission and came home and fell away obviously stopped reading the scriptures, praying sincerely, and going to church. Why do the scriptures go on and on about enduring to the end? Because so often that's the part we're messing up.

If you will just do the big three (read, pray, attend church meetings), things will go better for you. Yes you will still have trials. But you'll be able to deal with them better. You will have your most important questions answered. Yesterday I had an investigator ask me Point blank: "How has all this blessed your life?"

And I know how! I know God's plan for me and I know how I can return to him! I know the purpose of life, I know that I can be with my family forever, I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. How has it not blessed me?! All of my important questions are answered. And I could go on and on about other ways the Gospel has blessed my life, but I would say the number one way is that I know the answers to the questions that trouble so many people. I know my divine destiny.

Yeah okay hopefully that made sense. I love you family! A super awesome article that Sister McEwen read aloud to me in companionship study today is from the July 2012 Liahona and it's called "Never give Up." So don't ever give up, okay?