April 14, 2014 - "It's a rock" - Solothurn, Switzerland

Hi Family!  I put some new things in Dropbox. Make sure to look for the video of the song Sister Siems wrote me for my birthday. She is the best. There will also be random videos of me trying to decide on certain harmonies with Sister Siems for the musical fireside.  Also, this week I put up the pictures from the Klettergarten outing that I left out last time. 

But now I am in Solothurn and of course I have a new companion, Sister Blohm . . . I like her. I kind of get to be bossy with her and do things my way because she is more hesitant and would rather not be so much in charge. And, as you know, I kind of  like to do things my way. Her German really isn’t so good.  But actually it turns out she's only one transfer older than me, not two. But my German isn’t so good either. And we are supposed to write an email to the ward every week and write our progress record in German and send that to the ward council and we always have to write all kinds of notes in German for random reasons like if we want to thank someone or if we go by their house and they're not there. And writing in German is hard!

I got more birthday mail! Thank you to . . .

Amy

Seth

Cambria

McKaye

Kris Fredrickson

Sister Bagby

Carl Johnson

Katy

Sister Barton

Kara

The Bieglers

Granny Franny

And thank you Mommy and Daddy for my birthday package!! It made me feel special so thank you. You don't need to feel any pressure to send any more packages because there will be no more Christmases and no more birthdays and I will need your help when I get home.  And I have to pay here again to pick the package up so it ends up just being so much money.

It was fast and testimony meeting yesterday and I bore a quick testimony! I got two because Schaffhausen had theirs the week before  conference.

This week a guy randomly called us and he talked to us in English and then we met him at the Bahnhof and had a short lesson with him and then we met up with him Sunday morning to show him the way to the church. He is a very interesting person and someone I would just love to see embrace the gospel. We brought him to church, and it turned out the elders already knew him. We think what happened is that when the elders met him they gave him our pass-a-long card and then eventually he called us. But during the time we spent with him this week I learned that he is from Afghanistan and I can’t really share a lot more about him.  But he seems to be a really good person. He only stayed for Sacrament Meeting because he had to go to work but he says he will come every week now. He keeps himself very busy and doesn't have a lot of time to be taught but he is actually the Elder's investigator. I'm just impressed with him as an Auslander for a number of reasons. He is working hard on his German and in his work. He made sure that we weren't planning on taking a bus to church because he bikes and walks wherever he can

Another thing that happened this week. So Sister Blohm and I were on our way to see a less active but we had some time to get there so we were talking to everyone and we saw these two men who seemed a little lost. So I asked them is we could help them with anything. One of them looks up from whatever they were looking at on one of their phones, sees our name tags and says, "Hey I'm a member of your church." Turns out he actually is. He is from Nigeria and has been living in Italy but came to Switzerland a month ago because there isn't much work to be found in Italy. He knew all about the gospel as he has been a member for 19 years. So we called a member family who lives nearby but only the 14-year-old boy was home. But I talked to him and he tried to explain to me over the phone how to get to his house because I thought it would be great for this new member to meet some members. Eventually he just came to find us and then showed us his house, and then we set it up so that Kevin (our new friend!) could get a ride with this family to church the next day. The best part was this family lives literally a stone's throw away from the refugee house where Kevin lives.

Mom you have asked about the acceptance of Auslanders (people from outside the country; foreigners). It varies a lot. Schaffhausen was pretty good about it but they have gotten their heart broken several times by Auslanders they fellowshipped who didn't treat them well in return. They are good to Sandra though, and they don't discriminate against her at all. They just should include her more than they do but they're sort of this little branch and some of them have a hard time really including people completely. But as this story continues you will see a problem I already had with people accepting Auslanders in this word.

Kevin didn't show up to go with the family to church, and when I called him he said he didn't make it in time (I think he slept in). Sunday after the investigator Sunday School class Brüder Pauli asked to talk to me and Sister Blohm and explained how the mother of this family had spoken to him and was very worried about the situation and didn't want to always be responsible for giving this man a ride and she thought the home where he lived was dangerous and didn't want the sisters to go there. She was totally judging the situation and didn't even tell Brüder Pauli that the Auslander is a MEMBER and maybe she just didn't really know. And we didn't go to the refugee house looking for people like I think she thought. We just happened to meet Kevin on the street because Heavenly Father wanted us to. I’m sad that she was choosing to be afraid instead of helpful.

Anyway the Kevin story will have a happy ending, I'm convinced. He was so happy to have met us and he bore his testimony to us and told us about his efforts to share the gospel and how he's trying to get to the temple. We will be meeting with him this week. But meeting Kevin on the street was a very spiritual experience for me. I know Heavenly Father was aware of him and his needs. Heavenly Father knew that Kevin was in Switzerland and had been living here for the last month feeling a little lost and alone. And I know He loves me too because he allowed me to witness this miracle.

  

Want to know a secret? I started planning in my head our return trip to Switzerland/Austria together. Okay, secret's out. I know at one point you had said you were interested in picking me up, but since that doesn't work can we come the summer after I get home? I told everyone in Schaffhausen when I had to say goodbye that I would be back. And they said, "Everyone says that." And I said, "No, I really will. Hopefully in a year and a half." So just so you know . . . Ha ha what do you think? I just want to know when we will come back. This week a missionary who served in Solothurn (twice!) and who was in my district for a while in Schaffhausen came back with her family. She is from Germany. One night someone rang our doorbell at 9:30 and Sister Blohm and I were thinking, "Uh . . . Who is that?" But it was just Sister Graf stopping by! And she was just so unbelievably happy to be back in her mission with her family. She couldn't stop laughing and smiling. She had only been home 6 weeks and then they came back to visit.

At GMK Brüder Pauli asked us how our apartments are and if we really need anything. So Sister Blohm and I mentioned that we actually have two major light fixtures that are broken. And no, they do not just need replacement lightbulbs (Of course that was the elders' first question. But no we are not that dumb!). Turns out Brüder Pauli has had some electrical training, so he wanted to come take a look right then and there. That meant the elders had to come too since he can't come alone. And I'm thinking uhhh . . . our apartment is in the worst stage of my unpacking.. So they come to our apartment and yes there is something complicated going on up there on our ceiling so Brüder Pauli will have to buy something to fix it.

Elder Kelly: "Not gonna lie Sister Lewis I expected your apartment to be way cleaner."

I was so embarressed! Our GML made fun of me too. It wasn't dirty, just messy! My stuff has not all found its rightful home yet. The good news is this apartment is already much easier to keep clean than the one in Schaffhausen.

Another quote of the week:

Sister Blohm to me: "Will you please sing with your beautiful voice and not your fake one?"

While waiting for the bus one night I found this cement thing to sit on and I said, "Sister Blohm you should come sit by me. It's comfy."

Sister Blohm:

"It's a rock! Rocks are not comfy. Rocks are hard and sharp and you use them to kill people!" By the end of that sentence she was sitting on the cement thing next to me. 

While sitting on that "rock" and waiting for the bus these two boys drove up playing loud music. And our bus stop was right next to a round-a-bout.

Me: "Watch this they're going to drive around the round-a-bout a bunch of times."

And they did and tried to get our attention when they came close to the bus stop. Then they drove away.

Sister Blohm yelling after them: "Yeah that's right you leave! I'm a MISSIONARY!"

Ah it was so funny.

Sister Blohm: "This must happen to you a lot at home because you knew exactly what they were going to do. I hope they go home now because I think they are drunk. Except they can't be drunk it's a TUESDAY!" Ha ha . . .  as if no one has ever gotten drunk on a Tuesday before . . .

Sister Blohm: "How did you get this personality?"

Me: "What personality?"

Sister Blohm: "The way you are! So happy all the time!"

Awwww that's nice, huh?

Well things are going well. You should have gotten some more stories from the forwarded emails I sent you (president's and the one to the ward).

I'm right next to the JURA! Tell Greg to send me his hikes and tell him thanks for my note!

Love you Family!!

What I wrote to President Miles today:

President Miles,

Thank you for your inspired message! I love to read what you have to say to us each week. Sister Blohm and I are doing well we are just trying to figure out how to help each of our investigators really take the next step. I seem to always make a "fantasy plan" for the people I meet about how I would like them to progress, but I know that even though these people never follow my plan for them, they have made progress nonetheless. At conference last weekend I had the privilege of watching one of the less actives we work with come to watch one of the sessions and have all the questions she had asked me earlier in the week answered better than I could have ever answered them. She was there for the Sunday Morning Session and she had questions like, "Why does God allow me to suffer so much?" and "Why must I have trials?". This week she told me about how what she heard at conference really helped bring peace to her soul. Thanks for everything!