HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
So this week . . . TRANSFER CALLS, SNOW, AND THE
TEMPLE!
As a missionary in Switzerland I have the privilege
of going to the temple once a transfer!! (FYI - "Transfers" occur every six weeks. Every six weeks you hear from the Mission President and learn where you will be serving for the next six weeks and who your companion will be. So,"a transfer" in terms of time = 6 week) So we went last week and it was great.
We got to do initiatory and a session. (FYI - I wrote a bit about temples in the post. An "initiatory" is an ordinance that every one going to the temple receives. It is essentially a summary of the many blessings our Heavenly Father has for us now and through the eternities. A "session" is an "endowment session" - an endowment is a gift - it is an approximately 90-minute teaching session that is highly symbolic in nature and reviews the Plan of Salvation, and is a time of making covenants - promises - to Heavenly Father. Just as the Parables of Jesus were highly symbolic, so is the endowment. As we participate in an endowment session it is a time to feel peace, reassurance, renew our commitments to living the Gospel and learn new things from the symbolism of the teachings.)
There's a lot of heartbreak because as a missionary
you teach someone and you just love them and want so much for them to receive all the blessings of living the Gospel and then . . . they don't progress the way you would wish them to. (FYI - Individual agency is one of the core beliefs of the LDS faith. So although missionaries eagerly seek out those wanting to learn more about our beliefs, each individual has to decide for themselves and if an "investigator" doesn't want to learn more that is obviously their choice and is respected by the missionary).
Right now we're still just trying to get over a few
heartbreaks, but honestly you almost always are as a missionary. At least I am.
I told you we don't have a baptismal date anymore with R., right? Yeah that's
one of the hard ones. But we are seeing miracles. We have a sort of
"prayer roll" so that we don't forget anyone that we want to pray
for. And we obviously pray for the people we meet with and for their needs. And
there were a few people that we prayed to have contact with again and we have
had contact with every one of them since we started praying for that. But now
there are more people that we need to pray to have contact with again.
Mom and Linds - I still have this kind of daydream
that you come help me and Sister McEwen finish cleaning and organizing
this apartment and we just get to talk! And you give me cleaning advice. (Funny, don't you think?)
So I just love love love our branch president and
his family. We were at their house for dinner yesterday and it was so great and
they're just so Swiss and adorable and they keep all the Swiss traditions and
honestly through them I'm recognizing some of the ways that my Swiss heritage
has really shaped me. Just the way my mommy raised me! Yesterday we went
through her Christmas Cookie book finding the ones that I'm used to making.
(will you send me a very detailed Mailanderli recipe? Mailanderli for
dummies?) We have baking scales but I forgot how to use them. (My parents have always made about 8 varieties of Swiss Christmas cookies and much of my Christmas season as a child was spent cracking nuts and baking. These are VERY different from your average American cookie, believe me! Mailanderlis are perhaps the most conventional of the bunch).
So this one time I was talking to a woman on the
bus and she had met missionaries before and I asked her if the other
missionaries were nice. I just wanted to know if they had made any kind of
impression on her. And we had been talking for a while at this point and she
thought I was telling her that she was nice (maybe because of my not-so-clear
German) and she said thank you and seemed very happy that I told her that. Then
she said that we (me and Sister McEwen) had a special light about us and she
asked us where in Schaffhausen our church is!! There are several
questions that I just love it when people ask me. "Where is your
church?" is one of them. Well she wasn't really wanting to meet with
us and she hasn't come to church yet, but sometimes good conversations on the
bus just mean a lot to me, as you can tell from my stories. And the fact that
she even knows there is an LDS church in Schaffhausen is great. And I
promise we teach lessons too.
We had a good lesson with an older lady that we
visit every week. There was some weird miscommunication about when we were
meeting, but Sister McEwen and I are pretty sure it was meant to be because
since she didn't realize we were coming (or rather her husband didn't) her
husband was still upstairs and so we got to talk to him a lot more than we
normally do and make friends with him. So hopefully from now on he will be less
inclined to hide from us in the basement! We also met with a potential that we
found last week and I just can't figure out how to explain to her what we
believe. I've been trying to study for it but I need to even more. She's sort
of atheist and she kept saying that she doesn't want to feel like there's a God
who has given her everything who she has to feel like she is eternally indebted
to. I mean, that's the truth, but I can see not wanting to feel like you owe
someone everything. And she also feels like energy and power is spread out, it
couldn't just belong to one all-powerful being. So yeah, if you have any ideas
you let me know. Because then we started sharing what we believe and she kind
of was just like, "You realize that this is the opposite of everything
that I just told you I believe, right?" Wellll yeahhhh. And the answer is
usually to pray about it but in teaching her how to pray it came up again that
she doesn't want to feel like she has to thank God for everything. But she
likes talking to us and she agreed to come to church next week.
Also I think you should tell the family I'm here.
It's likely that I'll be here for a while and I'm hoping I'll be in Winterthur
on austausch ("exchange" - going to another area for the day) sometime again. Also people like to visit Schaffhausen. Did I
mention it's adorable?
And yeah we did have snow. And also transfer calls
but don't worry Sister McEwen and I are staying together. But it sounds like
tons happened in Wien! Read Sister Judd's blog!! Sister Packer is headed to the
international ward in Wien, Sister Kervinen is going to Brixon,
Italy, and Sister Judd is off to Graz to replace Sister Kervinen and now she
and her new companion are sister training leaders! I love you family!!
Quote of the week is Sister McEwen talking about us
"pimping up our planners." (I'm almost absolutely sure Elders - male missionaries - don't do this! But Kate and her companions love to decorate their planners, use multiple colors etc. Funny.)
"Virtually everyone you know could be blessed
in some way by your ministering." - David L. Beck "Your Sacred Duty
to Minister"
Yeah I love that.
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