"We're so unified" - February 24, 2014 - Shaffhausen, Switzerland

Hiiiiiiiiiiiii Family!!! Guess what happened this week? I don't feel like a "new" missionary anymore. Crazy, right? I know I'm almost half way through my mission!   Maybe it's because we have a golden in Schaffhausen. He is from Belgium. Also if there was an award for the "most unified companionship in the zone" Sister Siems and I would get it. Because one of our Zone leaders told me all about how it's so obvious that we both have such strong testimonies and work so well together . . . And he also told me that we have been and are the most unified companionship in the Zone. Funny. Sister Siems and I basically just joke about it and how incredibly unified we are. "I'm hungry." "Me too." "Oh my goodness we are so unified." Except we really are and we are so grateful for each other.

UNIFIED!

 I love Schaffhausen.  You asked  about my Branch President . . . his name is President Weibel. Also, I talked to someone on the bus where I just asked her how her day was and she told me that she has grown up in Schaffhausen and has never had someone in Switzerland just randomly ask her how her day was. So that was kind of cool.

Also we had a super great dinner appointment last night with some members. The husband has had a longstanding drinking problem. But he's the greatest person and he's also French. But he also always hugs me and he knows he's not supposed to hug a sister missionary. This week he even admitted it while he hugged me at stake conference in front of all the missionaries in our stake. He said, "I'm not allowed to do this but I just love you." And I love him too. His drinking has caused a lot of stress in their marriage and they knew that since they want to stay together, they needed to do something about it.  So they are really working to strengthen themselves spiritually. They are reading together in the Book of Mormon every day in French. Every morning for the last week they have done it. They told us that yesterday and I almost cried I was so happy. He is getting ready to enter a clinic to try and overcome alcoholism, but unfortunately he has been in this clinic a few times before. But they read about how Nephi and his brothers had to try more than once to get the plates from Laban, and they read 1 Nephi 3:7 and he shared that with us as our spiritual thought and I just bore my testimony to him that as he does everything he can to keep the commandments, God WILL help him. Just like it says in 1 Nephi 3:7. I was just so happy to hear that.

Hey Mommy and Daddy. Can you tell the missionaries in the stake that you want to be a joint teach for them sometime? You can do it separately or whatever but that would be so cool. I don't know maybe they have too many joint teaches.

So Sister Siems and I have this Fantasy that we need e-bikes for our area. Obviously I know that it's a completely unreasonable idea, but my idea is that then you could take them on the Train and then get off and ride for forever more easily. But it has been our impractical fantasy for a while now but then Sister Siems told a member about it and she told us all the reasons why it wasn't a good idea. While still acknowledging that it is, in theory, a good idea. And as my mommy already knows, if I already know something is impractical but I like the idea anyway then the last thing I want is to hear is all the reasons why it won't work. Oh well. (Anyone who knows Katie...this is so true.  There's a reason why we call her "quixotic")

Also you should look up pictures of Stein am Rhein. It's in my unbelievably beautiful area. Someone told me it's the best preserved alt Stadt in all of Switzerland. I haven't explored there much yet but we will have to go on a p-day. Today we went to the Rheinfall . . as you can see in the pictures.

Also Daddy I gained a new appreciation of you and all of your meetings. An experience I had recently made me think of my Daddy and his millions of church meetings and church services and how glad I am that he still decides to go to stake conference. (FYI - Remember, we are all volunteers within the church and some callings are more time intensive than others!  But we grow as we serve and it is an honor to serve each other)

And for Stake Conference (FYI - A 'Stake" is a group of wards (congregations) that are grouped together for organizational and support purposes and are under the leadership of a Stake Presidency.  Twice a year all members of a Stake come together for meetings and the speakers not only include members of the Stake, but often other church leaders as well) on Sunday we had an "Übertragung" where there was a live meeting in Salt Lake City that was broadcast to all the German-Speaking stakes I think. Elder Bednar spoke (in German! - he served a Mission here!) and Elder Hales. And some other great people. And on Saturday night they spoke ALL ABOUT MISSIONARY WORK! EIGENTLICH ERLÖSUNGSWERK (actually the Work of Salvation)! And they invited all the Young Men and Young Women to come. And they asked all the missionaries from the stake to write something to the stake about missionary work and they shared what they said. It was so powerful. And then they had all he missionaries serving in the stake do two Musical numbers. As a missionary I especially love all this focus on missionary work. Also, I am trying to plan a Musical Fireside for March 15th (coming up!) about the restoration so if you have any good ideas . . . please send them this way

So I have this friend named Peter who we also met on the train and it's cool because he got a BOM from missionaries in South Africa. And he has read the whole thing! I think I've talked about him. But he just kept telling me how amazing it is that he decided to keep the BOM at all because not so many books made the move from South Africa to Switzerland and how it must be special.

I just love being with Sister Siems....

Me: "Happy New Transfer Day Sister Siems!"

Sister Siems: "Oh that's right now that Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day have passed we have to celebrate something else. Where are the fireworks?"(Part of the ongoing tease that Americans overcelebrate everything!)

Sister Siems, in the middle of a fit of coughing/laughing: "Sister Lewis stop doing funny things - I'm dying!" Ha ha I really appreciate how funny Sister Siems thinks I am.

Also our giant finding day was cool! See pictures! Well I love you all! The gospel

is true!

I look at these pictures and I think of the courage of these young missionaries

to put themselves out there like this.   

"Ja hab ich doch gesagt" - February 17, 2014 - From Schaffhausen

Hey Family! Well I'm not transferred so you can send me all your letters now!  Happy Olympics! I have to say this is probably the most homesick I have been. Ha ha. I want to watch the olympics with you. But I'm not actually homesick now or ever. Just enjoy them for me. I realized I was in Switzerland during the last Olympic games too but I didn't notice as much because people who schedule their trek for during the Olympics don't care about them so much and I was hiking in the middle of nowhere away from TV's and newspapers and a fancy new bus showing highlights and the schedule of what's playing that day on the screen at the front. (This was during the 2012 summer Olympics while she was working for Alpenwild accompanying groups on hiking treks in the Swiss Alps).

So I forgot to mention that Sister Siems is a Mission legend and she was asked to train after one transfer in the field . . . a.k.a. she wasn't done being trained herself. So she has already had a golden and now Sister McEwen and her golden are going to work together. So our former companions are going to work together.

Today is P-Day (obviously) and so since our member wanted us to come a little later for emails I dragged Sister Siems outside and we went to this cool park and jump roped and tried doing handstands and cartwheels (and I actually got her to run most of the way to the park!). Exercise at 6:30 in the morning when it is dark and you have just gotten out of bed just isn't as much fun. So today we had fun. Even Sister Siems. It made me so happy. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LIZZY!!

Oh I forgot to tell you that Sister Siems and I sang a cappella in church last Sunday with one of our members. He sang Tenor, I sang alto, Sister Siems sang soprano. Also Sister Siems and I were asked to perform a Musical number in Zone conference. So Sister Siems had to Play the piano and sing because I didn't want to sing by myself. But we sang one of my Favorite Songs of all time, "Oh come oh come Emmanuel."

Okayyy so this week. It really was one of the most spiritual weeks of my whole life. I'm not really sure exactly why. Actually I think it was because of some really good lessons we had. I just searched my mail for "Asefash" to see if I had ever mentioned her before and it doesn't look like it. Maybe I have but not by name. She is from Ethiopia and she actually is a preacher. Sister McEwen and I met her on the train once. But now she is reading the Book of Mormon in Amharic and asking the best questions. Her questions guided us through the first part of the first lesson automatically. And obviously she is already one of Jesus Christ's biggest fans and has such a testimony of so many things and anything we said that was new to her she wrote down so she could pray about it. And we didn't even ask her to. It was such a spiritual lesson and so different from other times we had seen her when she claimed she wanted to know more about what we believe but really she just wanted to talk about herself. It was just so good and felt so great.

Also we had a great and also not-so-great lesson with our friend Hannah. THANK GOODNESS we had Lea (a young member who is going on a Mission in May!) there as a joint teach. She saved the day because Hannah didn’t want to listen to anything I said, and especially not to anything Sister Siems said. But she would listen to Lea's sweet and pure testimony. In Schweizerdeutch! The lesson went back and forth from having a bit of a spirit of contention to having this full-blown spirit of testimony.  (She told us over and over that Amulek was telling outright lies in the Book of Mormon, even after we explained the context and how what Amulek said is EXACTLY what the Bible teaches. She always reads what we invite her to read but she just searches for any inconsistencies with the Bible. And there just really aren't any. And since the Book of Mormon is another witness of Jesus Christ….well, it  just teaches us MORE! .) MY testimony was strengthened. Not just by Lea's testimony but by things that each of us said in that lesson that I know are true. At the end of the lesson we said a kneeling prayer and each of us prayed. Hannah prayed that she would have the Spirit of discernment and know if we were teaching her false doctrine. Whoa. She could see that we were all very überzeugt (convinced) of the truth of the Book of Mormon, so now she just needs to find out for herself. Then we had another lesson with her later in the week with Brother Flammia. We talked about prophets. She agreed that it made sense for us to have a Prophet on the earth today, but said she knew personally of no living Prophet. Sooooo we talked about President Monson (Thomas S. Monson is currently the prophet). Also now she is reading 3 Nephi 11-26 because if you're trying to find fault in the Book of Mormon, it certainly is harder to do when Jesus Christ Himself is speaking.

.

Okay Explanation. There is Tatiana. She is a member and our branch received her member record so President Weibel asked us to try and get ahold of her using the Information that we had. (As I've explained before, in our church you don't "pick" your congregation, you attend according to where you live.  So your church records follow you around to a new congregation depending on where you live.  This is actually such a huge blessing in our church, because we feel accountable for everyone in our congregation. Whether they come to church or not we know they need our love and support and sometimes our help so Home Teachers (pairs of adult men) and Visiting Teachers (pairs of adult women) are assigned to everyone and it is their responsibility to try and visit monthly and be aware of needs and communicate them to the leadership of the congregation).Turns out she lives at a different address than the one we had, but she did give us her real address when we talked to her on the phone. And guess what, she lives so close we walk to her house. Tatiana lives with her husband (non-member), her mother (member), her Cousin (non-member) and her two adorable Kids who are 2 and 4. Only Tatiana speaks English. The rest speak only Spanish. They are from Spain. And the best thing happened. We finally, after fall-out appointments and unanswered phone calls and voice messages and notes and forbeis (I don't even know what that's called in English. Uh, stopping by at her house), had a real lesson with Tatiana. Then we had a lesson a few days later with the whole Family reading in the BOM in Spanish and singing "Families Can be Together Forever" in Spanish. And Tatiana did some translating. I tried so say whatever Spanish I could get to come out of my mouth (which isn't a whole lot). Then the entire family came to church on Sunday. Oh and did I mention that they fed us fajitas? Do you know how happy I was? Do you know how long it has been since I had Mexican Food, particularly  guacamole? Yeah they're from Spain but they made Mexican Food for us. And it was delicious. And Sister Siems and I are in love with this Family. If you couldn't already tell.

Sister Judd goes home this week!  (Sister Judd was Kate's first companion, her trainer, and Sister Judd's 18 months of service have come to an end.) So weird. I will miss having her in the Mission but I'm excited for her to see her Family.

Quote of the week:

This is on a busy street at night while Sister Siems and I were waiting for the bus and dancing and bouncing up and down to keep warm.

Me: We look like idiots.

Sister Siems: We ARE idiots.

Ha ha ha. Then Sister Siems wedges herself between the sign that posts the bus times and a fence so that you can only see her feet, and continues jumping/dancing.

Me: What are you doing?!

Sister Siems: You said we look like idiots so I'm hiding.

I'm sure these are never as funny when you read them but I promise it was funny.

Sister Siems thought my prayer this morning was so funny that she made a Quote of the week herself:

lieber vater im himmel............ (Dear Father in Heaven....)

wir sind dankbar für unserennn.. (We are grateful for our .....)

fussuken korpun.

sister siems, wie sagt man physical body?  (how do you say physical body? FYI - we believe that our bodies are a gift from God.  We existed as spirits before we were born on earth and this is our time to learn the lessons and progress in ways that we only can because we  have physical bodies).

(Sister Siems says  "physischer körper")  (
sister lewis: ja hab ich doch gesagt  (yeah, that's what I just said....but with that American twist of sarcasm) 

Oh and Elder Lossau is leaving. He's really sad. I do not look forward to the day when I have to leave Schaffhausen. And Elder Bergström is getting a golden!

Momma, where are you at in the BOM? I encourage everyone to read the talk "Keystone of our Religion" from Ezra Taft Benson. We also talked a lot about the BOM at Zone conference, which was so good. We did this role play with all of us and President Miles teaching someone together. It was so fun.

Also we had another finding day in Zurich. I sometimes forget that there really aren't any CITIES in my area. It was so weird because I was really working in a CITY all day. But finding days are good for district unity and for learning from other missionaries. Right now the two other sisters in our district are both from Holland.

Also there is a picture of me and a GERMAN (her companion) supporting Kate Hansen (Katie's friend who competed in the Olympics in LUGE. Her friends sold t-shirts to support her in Sochi and I sent a couple to Katie) . She should be happy to know she had a German cheering for her.

Well I loooove you! Sister Lewis is happy. Hope you are too.

PS  I forgot to tell you about Valentine's Day! We had it with Sandra. We went and made lasagna with her and we took the heart decoration you sent me. The Picture is of it hanging up at Sandra's. She loved it and she was excited to keep it.  (I had to laugh reading Sister Siem’s letter home to her family.  She said how since Sister Lewis is from USA, she just has to celebrate EVERY holiday . . . implying that we are a bit over the top!)

"I locked myself in the bathroom and also called her a good cake" - September 23, 2013 from Vienna

In this letter Katie mentioned a Mormon Message from a Swiss Artist, Christian Bolt.  You can watch it here.  (FYI - There are a lot of "Mormon Messages" that are brief vignettes that introduce people to the huge diversity of people around the world that are Mormons.)

Dear Family! THANKS FOR THE PACKAGE!!  Also, some of the people that I'm grateful to have heard from since I've been in Vienna:

Wait I already said thank you for a note from Sister Sherwin and a package and note from the Robin and Allie Smilanich, right? And Hailey Darger? (these ones are still from the MTC) Also,

Linds, Joey, James Hulme, Daddy, Mommy, Dave, Uncle Randal, Aunt Janie, Grandma and Grandpa, Court

Also the ward! a.k.a. Sister Bagby

  

A quote from Elder Eyring about missionary work:

"You are called to represent the Savior. Your voice to testify becomes the same as His voice, your hands to lift the same as His hands. His work is to bless His Father’s spirit children with the opportunity to choose eternal life. So, your calling is to bless lives. That will be true even in the most ordinary tasks you are assigned and in moments when you might be doing something not apparently connected to your call. Just the way you smile or the way you offer to help someone can build their faith. And should you forget who you are, just the way you speak and the way you behave can destroy faith.

Your call has eternal consequences for others and for you. In the world to come, thousands may call your name blessed, even more than the people you serve here. They will be the ancestors and the descendants of those who chose eternal life because of something you said or did, or even what you were…….. You see, there are no small callings to represent the Lord. Your call carries grave responsibility. But you need not fear, because with your call comes great promises”.

Pres Miles sent us that quote this week. You can print it for me if you want.

Did you notice in that email from his last week how he told us the technology is a ways off so quit dreaming about it and get to work?   He told us" The new technology we have talked about and hoped for since the New Mission Presidents seminar will not be introduced into our mission for a long time. Stop dreaming about it and keep working hard. " (FYI - Over time more and more missionaries will be issued iPads, iPhones etc so that they can begin to more easily use all that technology offers to teach the Gospel.)

So this week . . .

Oh I have a new new new favorite day. But don't worry, because this time it's earlier. We've had a lot of trouble just finding Jenni a baptismal date but now she's getting baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. Since new converts are always confirmed in Sacrament Meeting and the following week is General Conference (FYI - "General Conference" occurs every October and April.  Church leadership gathers in Salt Lake City at the Conference Center and over two days there are four main two-hour sessions of talks.  So depending on where you live you can watch General Conference on the internet, on TV, in person, or through closed circuit TV at the local chapel.  Talks are translated live into 92 languages) and are then available for view or reading on the internet or in the next issue of the monthly Church Magazine.)  and the week after that she might be gone, this is the best way to do it. Sister Judd and I knew we shouldn't be the ones giving talks so we told her maybe we could do something else and now she has us singing together. That will be fun. Sister Judd is a way good singer. She was in the Musical Dance Theater program at BYU for a while until she changed her mind and now she's studying family life and she wants to be a therapist. I'm kind of nervous to sing on Saturday. We're singing "When Jesus Christ was baptized" and I sing the whole first verse by myself. Auf Deutsch. I have a lot of memorizing to do. And I'm just not that good of a singer. I just love Jenni. One day I showed Jenni the picture of the Frankfurt Temple in a member’s home and then both Elder Richman and I showed her temple pictures we had of the Manti and Salt Lake Temple.  I told her the people whose house we were at were sealed in the Frankfurt Temple andshe said she thought it would be so great to get married in the temple, but you’d really have to know you were marrying the right person since it would be for eternity.  Das stimmt, (that’s sure true) Jenni, Couldn’t have said it better myself! 

Fun fact: right before I came here to email you I ate octopus and eel. The sisters in the international ward were given some by a ward member who makes sushi for his job, and since Sister Clark doesn't like sushi, it's all mine! Yummmm.

Okay so the stake patriarch (FYI - a STAKE is a group of WARDS (congregations) that are linked together under a leadership umbrella.  The organization of the LDS Church is an amazing thing actually.  It is a way to ensure that everyone is accounted for and watched over and that there is a network of individuals to work together in support of each other.  There is NO paid ministry or leadership in the LDS Church so every role, whether it is a financial clerk, a membership clerk, a Sunday School teacher, a Bishop or a Stake President is a voluntary position called by God and issued to that individual.  Each stake has a Patriarch called and ordained. This individual has the specific responsibility to give "patriarchal blessings" to members who seek them.  Every member of the church can receive a patriarchal blessing at some point in their lives.  Each such blessing is unique and specific for that individual through the inspiration the patriarch receives through the spirit.  Most individuals ask for their Patriarchal blessing in their teenage years, but it up to each individual to determine when they would like to receive that blessing.) is in our ward and he's actually our bishop's father. He and his wife are great people and raised a great family and they had us over for dinner one time and we just really like them. So we asked if they would be there for a lesson with Jenni and then they offered to just have all of us, including Benjamin, over and they said they would feed us and we could have a lesson. So we talked about the ten commandments. And I've thought this before but Brother/Patriarch Souchek just reminds me of Grosvati! And that's not just because he's an old European grandpa who speaks German. I now know  several old European grandpas who speak German. They sound alike and he definitely sounds like Grosvati when he speaks English. And they just act alike! They're disapproving of the same things, and they disapprove in the same way (like when Benjamin is sitting there playing with his water bottle and not listening to what you're saying). He is just such a rock in the gospel! And teaching the 10 commandments with him was so fun! Everyone talked, but it was actually me and Brother Souchek who talked the most. Sister Judd told me it was my best lesson yet. I felt sort of like I did a joint teach with Grosvati, except he was LDS. Brother Souchek has really studied the scriptures, in both German and English, and I'm sure he's studied a lot of other things too. Which is exactly what Grosvati would do. It was just cool. It will be so awesome when my Grosvati chooses to embrace the fullness of the gospel.

So David wants me to email about non-church stuff so this is what I sent to him….

Dave - Thanks so much for the email. Most things I do have to do with church in one way or another, but I will tell you about the music in my life. So sometimes we go shopping on P-Days (today my goal is to find a winter coat) and I love the music in the stores! There's definitely a lot of techno. Also sometimes people have good tunes blasting from their cars. And people on the public transportation often have headphones in, and sometimes we can hear their music. The other day on the U-Bahn (an underground train) someone was listening to Bad Romance by Lady Gaga really loud. And both Sister Judd and I tried to figure out who was listening to it. It became clear that it was none other than the gray-haired, very old man standing next to us. That was funny. The music we chose to listen to has to be spiritually uplifting but Sister Judd has some CD's from Christian Rock Bands that are good. I shared a quote about that bible story where Jesus meets a woman at a well from one of those bands once. I just remember the first time I heard real music in a store here and I was pretty excited. Obviously I didn't hear any normal music while I was in the MTC. I love you!

Love,

Kate

Oh yeah quote of the week: "I locked myself in the bathroom and called her a good cake." Yes, Elder Richman, you did do both of those things at our dinner appointment (cook and cake sound similar, and he was trying to say she was a good cook ....and we still aren't totally sure what happened with the bathroom door when he locked himself in).

This is complicated, but I saw in a talk by Elder Quentin L. Cook that Elder Marion D. Hanks had this statement by Ugo Betti framed on his wall: "To believe in God is to know that all the rules will be fair, and that there will be wonderful surprises." I love that, and I really believe it.

It's time for me to start wearing tights . . . I've been avoiding it because I know as soon as I start I'll be wearing tights every day until May. Also, I love hearing church bells ringing while I’m sitting in church on Sundays.  I love being a missionary.  I’m so glad I’m here.  This place definitely feels right. 

I pray for every member of our family every night! I love you all!

To Lindsey she emailed :

Vienna is the coolest. Almost every day I ride a strassenbahn (streetcar) that goes right next to Stephan's Dome. We're doing this thing in our ward where we're going to try to eventually give all of the members all of the lessons that we teach to investigators. We're just starting and we don't spend all our time doing that so it will take a while, but it's a great project. Our ward mission leader is awesome. He's going to make a puzzle out of a picture of our ward and people can add a piece after we've taught them a lesson. It was cool because we have always been really on board as missionaries but not all of the ward council were huge fans. The relief society (FYI - LDS Church Women's service organization) president was one who wasn't quite as sold, but we were there for dinner yesterday and taught her the first lesson and she LOVED it. The Spirit was strong and she was totally feeling it. So now she's all for it.