Kinder eggs tell all! 11/18/13

Bad news--still no planner! But right now I'm using this horrible English one. It's really annoying. That's okay. The transfer is over this week! Which means...transfer calls on Saturday!! Will I stay? Will I go?? Who knows! Okay the Lord does, but as of right now I have no idea. I could see me staying, but I could also see me going. I buy Kinder Eggs to make predictions each transfer. It's basically this hollow chocolate egg, and it has a toy inside of it, and whatever the toy is is a prediction of what's going to happen. Like a couple transfers ago I got this kangaroo thing in a cage, and Sister Wilson got these wheels that wind up and spin across the floor, so I said she was shooting out of the area and I was caged in, and then it worked. And last transfer I got Ariel the princess, but she still had her fins, which meant that I was staying this world, and I stayed! So I'll be opening my Kinder Egg in a couple days to see...Witchcraft...? haha

Everyone is really busy out there! We are also really busy here. Zone Training was so fun, and this week Brother Osguthorpe is coming (he's the Sunday School president), so only the Frankfurt zone gets to go for secret training, haha. I want to stay in this Zone so badly! I hope that I stay here for Christmas. Sister Beck and I already have so many plans. Plus we have some invitations from members, and they are all super cool. We've already busted out the Christmas music. Is that bad?? Haha we have no Thanksgiving here to break everything up! Germany is already preparing itself. I can't believe I'm going to be talking to you in like one more transfer. That is so crazy. It's only been like...what...seven months? Haha. But then it's only another short four or five months until the next Mothers Day. I feel like these last nine months are just going to shooooot by so fast. 

I've learned so much about Family History out here--more than I ever did back home. I've never actually done indexing, but I've heard it's like SUPER fun. Also Germans love it because there are like a billion and one old church books from like the olden times where they would write down baptisms/deaths and stuff. The only problem is is it was all written in like Old German Script, and not many people can decipher it anymore. But they're all working on it. OH and that reminds me!

I went on a split this week. I went up to Friedrichsdorf, where the Temple is, and it was SO FUN! I got to give a temple tour!! I am sooo jealous of all the sisters that get to go to Temple Square. I know you're laughing at me, but it was seriously so fun and so spiritual, and the people who were taking the tour were asking so many questions! Man, it was sooo weird to have people asking ME about what we believe instead of me just telling them and hoping that the Spirit touches them. It was super super fun. I loved it. And it was a pretty nice day, too, so I am really happy with how everything went. Then we had dinner with these two awesome people. Anyway, it was super fun and the Sister I served with is awesome and such a sweetheart. 

First my companion; now my planner 11/11/13

It's a really good thing that missionaries carry around planners all day, because I seriously can NEVER remember what happened during the week, so I can always look back. BUT a horrible thing happened this week in which I LOST my planner. Noooooo! I am super depressed. That was probably my favorite planner. And now it's somewhere. I seriously have no idea where. Oh well. So the point is, I can't really remember what happened this week. I vaguely remember doing missionary work...and we did some service. And had missionary adventures and all that stuff. I do remember that I got my package!! So THANK YOU! I'm excited.  I don't know where I'll be for Christmas--hopefully here! I wanna stay here one more transfer, at least. But we'll see what the Lord has in mind. Transfer calls are next Saturday. 

I'm glad that you had such a good Stake Conference! Work of Salvation was the focus here, too. I LOVE IT! This ward is seriously amazing. Everyone is trying so hard! I know that the Lord will bless them as they try to share His Gospel--and the Lord will bless you, too! Just read D&C 33:8-10. Look at those promises! Sometimes I just get so amazed by how amazing the Gospel is. Amazing. Ahhh my vocabulary is depleting. Oh well.  We have Zone Training in Frankfurt tomorrow, so that is going to be fun. And I think we're going to the Temple next week...I think. Hopefully. 

And it's very cold here. Frost on the car this morning!! Noooo what's happened? I feel like it just happened overnight--I had to put my tights on and now I can never take them off. Sister Beck made the mistake one day of thinking she was fine without tights...that was a mistake. But it is definitely tights and scarves season, and it's dark all the time, so we just have to get used to that for another six months, haha. But Christmas is coming up, so that's going to be so awesome. 

Not much to report on this week, because I don't really remember. We rode some trains, talked to some people, walked around in the rain, I'm sure, prayed a lot and tried to do what Heavenly Father wants us to do. He's there for all of us, and I hope that you all know that. Have a safe week, and thanks for the update. I love you all a lot and pray for you! And we hardly ride bikes anymore because it's getting way too cold...but I will definitely make sure that we don't get separated again.

I lost my companion 11/4/13

It's definitely a lot colder here. Every day I wake up and am like, 'Maybe I won't have to wear my jacket today!' Lol and then I remember that it's actually November. But we got spoiled with really nice surprise weather at the end of October, so it's taking a little bit longer to adjust to the fact that it's like pretty much winter again. We just freeze all day long in cold rain. Speaking of November--happy 9 month mark to me! Isn't that so crazy?? That is so crazy. I'm actually freaking out a lot more than you can see/read/feel. They already sent me my approximate release date!! WHAT. (August 1) That is...no way. Anyway, we don't have to worry about that anymore, because I won't be getting anymore information until like April or something, I think. But basically I only have nine more months. Amber only has like pretty much two more months. Poor Amber. I think she's freaking out. 

Halloween was good here, too. We did some painting service for a SUPER awesome lady in our ward, and then she fed us delicious spaghetti. A couple people knocked on her door during the night, but actually there weren't too many people out. A lot of people mentioned that last year there were a lot more out trick-or-treating. So like, some people do celebrate it, but it's not as big as it is in America. But we had district meeting that day, and an Ehepaar made us lunch and fed us delicous stew and bread and brownies, so that was also really fun. OH and I forgot to say that we totally dressed up!! I dressed up as Sister Beck! And she dressed up as Sister Shipton! Isn't that genius?? Haha. Kinda lame. But it was fun. I'll send a picture. We are geniuses. 

Our Halloween Costumes

We also had a street display last week in Büdingen. It went pretty well! Gave away a lot of Book of Mormon...s? (who knows) and talked to a bunch of cool people. We got some potential people that will hopefully turn into covenant-makers and covenant-keepers! Haha. This week we are just going to try to find more people to teach. Our teaching pool is pretty small right now, so we're going to do our best to qualify for the blessings that the Lord has in store for us. Oh also last week--on Friday. It was CRAZY. So we had like three or four back-to-back appointments in different towns, so basically our entire day involved dragging our bikes on a train, riding a train, biking furiously to the appointment, biking furiously back to the train station so we wouldn't miss it, riding a train to the next town, und so weiter. So we finally took a train back to Hanau for our last appointment of the night, and I get off and just start biking because we were going to be late if we didn't hurry, and I biked for probably like...ten or fifteen minutes, looked around, and NO COMPANION. She was nowhere. So I waited for like two minutes...window-shopped for shoes...panicked inwardly...then I rode slowly back the way we came, but there was nothing. And it was pitch-black and cold and Friday night in Hanau...which is like...not the safest town in our area. So I panicked major and just like pretty much biked all around and biked to the Elders apartment to see if I could borrow their phone and try to call her (not remembering that I actually had the phone), but they weren't home, so then I was convinced that a car had hit her and she was dead. Plus I was really worried because she doesn't know her way around Hanau as well as I do, and I was scared that she got lost and was just like dead somewhere, so then I biked around some more and finally just decided to have faith in Sister Beck and go to the appointment and hope that she would somehow find her way there without me. But luckily Sister Beck is smart and found her way!! I saw her bike locked up in front of the apartment building and like sprinted to her and we were reunited! She had just walked into the appointment and was dialing the number to call me when I rang the doorbell. So that was really fun. Mostly don't lose companions on a mission. It's super scary. Basically her side of the story was just that I was biking too fast and she couldn't keep up. Sorry!!

Stake Conference was super legit. We were able to go to the Saturday night session--another dumb story that involved like too many things squished into one day and then driving to Offenbach and not being able to find parking and sprinting to the church building with like no food in our stomachs. Then Sunday session was cool too. It was held in Friedberg, so we took a train up there and walked to this big Stadthalle and had a sweet meeting with tons of people. And I got to see tons of members from Frankfurt too, so that was awesome. OH ALSO. I walked in and this sweet old Sister Missionary ran up to me and told me that she knows Grandma! Sister Johnson. She is the nicest lady ever and gave me a huge hug and told me that she's shopped at Grandma's store for like 20 years or something. So that was really cool. Anyway, afterward this really awesome family in our ward took us to their house and fed us delicious dinner, and then we went and sang with this Evangelisch Choir during their Gottesdienst. That was really funny too. 

Also so there is this other time we were knocking on doors, and we were told to go see this other family, so we went and talked to them, and he's American and she is super Catholic, but we were talking to them about Family History, and the woman was like 'Yeah, you should talk to my friend! She is like way big into family history.' So she gave us her friend's number and gave us this book all about family history that her friend had written, so we called and set up an appointment with her, and then we went over there after the street display, and this woman is like legit. Well, I mean in the family history sense. She's got this entire room dedicated to it. So we...yeah, didn't really have anything to teach her about, haha. Basically we just introduced familysearch.org and talked to her a little about her family history work. So then she like pulls out this Book of Mormon from nowhere and is like, 'Yeah, I know everything about your church. I've read your book, too. It's nice, but I like being my religion too much.' She knows pretty much everything about the church--she and her husband have traveled the world (no joke, she has this huge map covered with pins of the places they've been, and it is EVERYWHERE), so they've been to Utah plenty of times, aka Temple Square and all. So we were like, 'Yeah...so...thanks for letting us come over...' And she's like, 'Wanna come to dinner with my husband and me??' And we were like...'What really?' So they took us to this like cool little German pub thing and we ate delicious schnitzel and chicken with these two awesome strangers and everyone in there was drinking and singing German drinking songs, but luckily we sat in the non-smoking section, and she's like, 'I know you don't drink, but beer is like water here, so you gotta get used to it.' But it was way cool. They are super awesome people, just really content with their lifestyle. Which isn't bad, you know, I just wish that they could recognize how much more there is and how many more blessings are waiting for them!! Anyway.

Okay, this is turning way long, sorry. We just had a really crazy, fun week. I hope that you all have a good one. The church is true and the Lord lives and really does love us!! And one of the greatest blessings of the Atonement is that we're able to change--when we say things like, 'That's just the way I am,' we aren't recognizing the gift that Christ gave to us all. So we should take advantage of the fact that through the Atonement we can become better!! 'Come unto Christ, and be perfected in Him!!'