Living in the Shire! 6/17/13

We're certainly feeling the summer here. Also Germany doesn't believe in Air Conditioning...that's something different here. But yeah, I'm here in my new area with my new companion. It's so crazy! But it's really good. The ward has been sooooo excited for us. They haven't had sisters for over ten years, so everyone was really excited. They like all went and decorated our apartment for us and hung up curtains and made us cupcakes and put cute little notes and flowers everywhere. And on Sunday they were all running and hugging us. They were very excited, lol. But it's way cool to have a ward so enthused! Sister Wilson and I are really lucky. We have a really cool ward and a big area to work in. It takes about two hours to drive from the south part of the area to the northern part, but it's cool because we can see the countryside! We were both in really big cities for the last two transfers, so it's really cool to drive around. It seriously looks like the Shire!! There are just beautiful green hills everywhere. I'll take some pics this week and send them next time.

So when we got to Hanau one of the ward members came and picked us up, and the first thing that she asked was if we could sing. And we were like...yeah, we can a little. And so she was like come sing in my choir!! So she has this little old lady choir she directs, and she asked us if we could come sing in her concert on Saturday, and we said okay because it was service and hopefully we could get referrals or something from it. Anyway, we drove up and went to this little church, and there were a bunch of old ladies and they were singing pretty easy choir songs. So we practiced for a little bit and it was super weird...Haha. Then we all went out and drove some more, and after speeding away from this huge bull that was guarding the road we got to this other huge church, and it was like some party there! There were a lot of people and all these drinks and this fancy weird jazz music playing...and we sang there. And it was sooo weird. Haha! We didn't get home until like 10:30. It was quite an experience. We had no idea what was going on all night. Oh man...I feel like those situations happen more than not on missions. You're just suddenly there and you're not really sure how you got there or what's happening. Lol

Anyway, it's way beautiful and awesome out here! Sister Wilson and I are excited to get started opening this area. There's so much potential, and our Bishop is awesome and we just got a new ward mission leader, so we're hoping that everything will just explode in this area and we can start bringing people to the Gospel. It's been a long, crazy, awesome week, and I hope you all have a fun week!

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Shipton

Crazy Weather in Germany 6/10/13

It's been such a long, crazy week! The weather has been two extremes. It's been SUPER hot and humid for a couple days, but then the other day it started raining like crazy. It's nice to have the cool-down. The only downside to the hot weather is that it's sticky heat that you can't get rid of, and we walk around a lot, so we're just walking and are sticky all over. But it's better than walking around in the freezing cold rain! Germany doesn't know what it wants, haha. It has been flooding a lot in southern Germany. We're completely 100% fine here, but southern Germany is crazy right now. Scary! Hope the missionaries down there are doing okay. 

Transfer Day

I'm already on my third transfer...grossss. I just got here yesterday! And yeah, we recite D&C 4 every Zone Training and Zone Conference. We recited it every day at the MTC. We also have a short lesson about it every week in District Meeting! Lol, D&C 4 is ingrained into my soul right now. German and English. Oh, speaking of new transfer, I'm going away from Frankfurt!! :( I'm going to miss it so much. I'm going to open Hanau with Sister Wilson, a Sister who was in the MTC with me. I am soooo sad to be leaving Frankfurt and Sister Imbach. We had so much fun together! But I was just in Hanau last week for PDay, so maybe it was a sign! Lol. But hopefully it'll be good. The Bishop from Hanau called me yesterday and has already set up an appointment for us on Friday, the day after transfers, so that is a super good sign. That's my sad face when I found out I was leaving Frankfurt (the map of it is there. Auf Wiedersehen, liebe Frankfurt!!).

Also it was ward conference yesterday, and the Stake President was there. He is brand new, only a month or so, but he gave an AMAZING talk. It was basically a call to repentance, haha. He read 2 Nephi 1:23 and talked so much about missionary work and how it is a commandment to share the Gospel. We LOVED it. Well, the missionaries. We'll have to see about the members! Haha. But yeah, then afterward we had Ward Council, and the Stake President was there, and he was very serious. It wasn't just talk. He got some names from the Bishop and assigned people to visit them that night. Sister Imbach and I went up to Bad Vilbel to visit someone. I'm really excited for this stake. The presidency is serious about changing it. He talked about something that President Kimball said once. "In Germany, Switzerland and in Austria, there will be hundreds of stakes, HUNDREDS! And we want you to count on that, look forward to it and help with it. In Europe there can also be dozens of temples if you start to prepare yourselves and the people around you." So the stake president told us that the time is now--we just have to qualify for those blessings. We're just praying a lot for these members here! 

Everything is going really great over here. I'm just sad to be going. But it's where the Lord needs us! So I just have to find out why I need to go to Hanau right now. 

Our District

It's going to be a crazy great week! We're just praying that we can get everything done in time before I leave on Thursday. I'm going to miss everyone here so much! I'll take a picture with one of our investigators this week. Oh man...he is just crazy. I'm so sad to leave him! But yeah, it's been a great, hot, cold, crazy week. Sister Imbach and I are going to take naps today. Yaaaay! 

In front of a schloss in Hanau

In front of Brothers Grimm Memorial

Hope everyone has a fun week, and I hope you get the pics and the video! First one is in front of a schloss in Hanau, and the second is in front of the Brothers Grimm memorial thing in Hanau as well with some other sisters.

Life in Germany 6/3/13

It's been a crazy week. I went on a split at the beginning of this week with the sisters from Mainz, and it was really really crazy. Sister Imbach and I traveled down on Monday night, and it's about an hour long train ride. We get there and split, and the new sister (Sister Fuller) and I rode back up to Frankfurt together while Sister Imbach stayed in Mainz. Sister Fuller and I were about five minutes away from the apartment when I realized I didn't have the keys!! Ugghhh Sister Imbach had the keys and they were still in Mainz. It was already like 9:30, which is the time that we have to be home, so we got off a train right away and caught one heading back. But then Sister Fuller thought she had lost her name badge at the last stop so we had to get off again and go back another stop and look. Then she found it in her pocket. And so it was almost 10, and I called the zone leaders and told them, and they told us to stay with the sisters that are over the International ward here in Frankfurt. Or if we can't, we have to call President and tell him what's going on, haha. So we decided to stay with those sisters, and that included hopping a fence in a skirt to get to their apartment. It was so nice to have somwhere to sleep, but that meant that we had nowhere to go all day long. Poor Sister Fuller had to carry her overnight bag around Frankfurt all day, and it was one of those days where we were running for trains and busses and streetcars all day long. And then the sisters weren't able to make it from Mainz to Frankfurt until like 10:00 that night, so we had to sit at the church for a couple hours. Blehhh. It was a long day. Poor Sister Fuller! Not a very good experience in Frankfurt, haha. But it was good. We learned a lot! Like always make sure you pass the keys off to your companion. 

I think Sister Imbach and I have too much fun sometimes, haha. Transfer calls are this week! I think we'll be together at least one more transfer, though. But it's sooo crazy. How have 6 weeks gone by already?? I've learned a lot from this transfer, and it's definitely been really fun. 

We were dumb and didn't budget our money very well this month, so we had hardly any food this last week. We had a bag of potatoes and some milk and some applesauce and some cheese...and that's about it, haha. We ate a lot of potatoes. Good thing I love them! Also a member fed us sushi last night. BLEH. I do not like sushi. I ate it all, but...noooo. Never again. Sister Imbach loves it, though, and the lady was like, 'Hey, come back sometime and we can make sushi again and you can have more!' And I was dying inside and the raw fish in my belly was like swimming around. Grosss. But now we have money so we can buy food, and we'll be better at budgeting. We have learned our lesson, haha. 

Today for PDay we're going up to Hanau, which is the Grimm Brothers city I guess. I'm excited. I should get some pictures there and have pics for next week! Hope that creepy guy doesn't come back, though. Ugh creepers. Also HAHA. Four eyes...hehehe. :) No you'll look beautiful with glasses! I'm looking forward to the picture. Sounds like everyone is doing really well over there! (Besides Josh, I guess, who looked like he was dying.) Hope you all have fun in Oregon. Give hugs to everyone from me! 

The German is coming along fine. A lot of mistakes, but I can't learn any other way, I guess! Haha. It's just a lot of speaking and more speaking to get the sentence patterns down and the conjugations right. But I'm definitely a million times better than I was in the MTC! Jade isn't there anymore, is she? I think she should be out in the field by now. I hope she's doing well! 

If there's one thing I've been realizing these past couple months, it's how perfect the Atonement is. It is amazing! I think I'm just barely beginning to scratch the surface of it all, but seriously, how amazing is it! It's the thing that ties our whole Gospel together, and it's the thing that allows people to change and repent and be forgiven. It's so crazy to think how merciful God and Christ are, and everyone is constantly sinning and thinking that they know better. But They still love us anyway!! haha. I think of that thing Elder Holland said at the last conference, 'Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it.' Everything God and Christ done has been and will be for us, but even then They know that we are going to make mistakes and do stupid things, and even then They gave us something else--the Atonement. Crazy!! I am so grateful for it and so glad that I get to spend this time just focusing on things like this and spend my whole day trying to understand and studying amazing aspects of the Gospel. It's true, okay??