For those of you who read along, you may remember Rachel mentioning Frau Kästle - the old, tempermental, Russian woman they visit once a week because she's lonely. Well, here's the latest in this story:
oh my goodness so frau kästle says she wants to come to church on sunday. oh dear..i'm afraid that she'd yell at people as they bear their testimonies. she yelled a few weeks ago when we were reading the Book Of Mormon and yelled that it was false. i was afraid that she'd get struck by lightening or something. anyway so we dont read the Book Of Mormon with her anymore. she likes it when we read out of the bible. its the word of God too so its all good. haha. yeah and she hates cars because they are ruining the environment so we'd have to get her to church on the bann. it'll be interesting. i dunno if shes really going to come but we're making plans just in case she really does want to come!
I can't wait to hear what happens!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Small World
Last week I found out that our good friend, Lisa Sharp, knows Rachel's mission companion - Keri Ranzenberger! Both are from Kansas City. And now today Rachel e-mails this:
sometime last week my comp and i were doing some finding time along side the Neckar River and we were heading home and decided to get some icecream. we were eating it on the bridge watching elder hopkins and elder braithwaite talk to some people. we heard some women speaking english behind us and turned around and asked where they were from. long story short one of them is named Marg Bailey and she was baptized by Kevin Doty (Shayne's cousin)!! she saw my nametag and said hey i know a doty..and blahblahblah yeah she said she was baptized by a Kevin Doty in like tennessee or someplace like that! cool huh!! and then she served a mission in germany too and was just back visiting. anyway what a small world we live in!
sometime last week my comp and i were doing some finding time along side the Neckar River and we were heading home and decided to get some icecream. we were eating it on the bridge watching elder hopkins and elder braithwaite talk to some people. we heard some women speaking english behind us and turned around and asked where they were from. long story short one of them is named Marg Bailey and she was baptized by Kevin Doty (Shayne's cousin)!! she saw my nametag and said hey i know a doty..and blahblahblah yeah she said she was baptized by a Kevin Doty in like tennessee or someplace like that! cool huh!! and then she served a mission in germany too and was just back visiting. anyway what a small world we live in!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
American Grocery Store
we went to this family in the american wards house because he's a dentist for the military and he was going to check out sister ranzenbergers tooth for her because it was really bothering her. so he couldnt tell what was wrong just by looking at it so we all got to go on post!!! (the american army base) it was awesome because apparently its considered american soil when your on base so on friday i was in america!!!!
sister clark was so nice after my comp got an xray (she needs a rootcanal) she took us to the grocery store and bought us some things. i never thought that i would ever miss an american grocery store before until we walked it. it was the most amazing thing i'd ever seen. it was beautiful! it was huge and clean and didnt smell!!! she bought us peanut butter, oreos, italian dressing and microwave popcorn!! it was the most amazing thing ever...
sister clark was so nice after my comp got an xray (she needs a rootcanal) she took us to the grocery store and bought us some things. i never thought that i would ever miss an american grocery store before until we walked it. it was the most amazing thing i'd ever seen. it was beautiful! it was huge and clean and didnt smell!!! she bought us peanut butter, oreos, italian dressing and microwave popcorn!! it was the most amazing thing ever...
Friday, April 18, 2008
Letters to the Brothers
Rachel sent the boys some letters this week. Here's a fun comment she wrote:
We have a refrigerator in our living room because the kitchen is too small. And our washing machine is in our kitchen and we don't have a dryer so we have to hang our clothes all around our apartment to dry. Crazy huh!
Another:
Germany is awesome! We play soccer every Saturday by the river. The only problem is we have to be careful not to kick the ball into the river. We did once. Elder Hopkins like climbed into the tree that was in the river and was laying on the branches trying to grab the ball. haha! The ball eventually floated back after like 10 minutes. It was pretty funny! Anyway I'm having the time of my life! Missions are awesome!!
We have a refrigerator in our living room because the kitchen is too small. And our washing machine is in our kitchen and we don't have a dryer so we have to hang our clothes all around our apartment to dry. Crazy huh!
Another:
Germany is awesome! We play soccer every Saturday by the river. The only problem is we have to be careful not to kick the ball into the river. We did once. Elder Hopkins like climbed into the tree that was in the river and was laying on the branches trying to grab the ball. haha! The ball eventually floated back after like 10 minutes. It was pretty funny! Anyway I'm having the time of my life! Missions are awesome!!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Street Preach
Street preach is when the missionaries all get together and sing and talk to people as they're walking by. It's a way to meet people and see if anyone is interested in hearing their message.
we need to find more people to teach! yesterday i contacted for the first time all by myself without sister ranzenberger right there!! i didnt even realize what i was doing and then i was like... oh my gosh she's not right next to me!! but it was totally fine. i didnt understand a thing anyone said but it was fun!!! it was at a streetpreach after zoneconference. i LOVE streetpreaches! we do them every saturday as a zone. its SO fun to be with all the other elders and to sing hymns together and watch them all contact! i feel so cool and its so powerful to see all these missionaries sing hymns and try and find people. yesterday the streetpreach was here in town so we get all the contacts that people got. hopefully something good happens. our mission president and his wife were there yesterday and even sang a little with us. it was a lot of fun!
we need to find more people to teach! yesterday i contacted for the first time all by myself without sister ranzenberger right there!! i didnt even realize what i was doing and then i was like... oh my gosh she's not right next to me!! but it was totally fine. i didnt understand a thing anyone said but it was fun!!! it was at a streetpreach after zoneconference. i LOVE streetpreaches! we do them every saturday as a zone. its SO fun to be with all the other elders and to sing hymns together and watch them all contact! i feel so cool and its so powerful to see all these missionaries sing hymns and try and find people. yesterday the streetpreach was here in town so we get all the contacts that people got. hopefully something good happens. our mission president and his wife were there yesterday and even sang a little with us. it was a lot of fun!
Observations
I asked Rachel to tell me more about Heidelberg:
grocery shopping: we have this sad little grocery store here in town by the internet cafe that I'm at right now. but I've found this organic brand that i LOVE! this brand has couscous and other really yummy food that i like! yes they do have stroopwaffles and mentos here! except i havent found the flavor of stroopwaffles that i like yet. i've only found the honey flavor. :P
observations: ok all the girls here color their hair..and not just young ones. old ladies color their hair too and its not natural! what i mean is in america most of the time when people color their hair its like a natural color and you cant tell that they color their hair. but here you can TOTALLY tell and it looks SO tacky!!! haha
the buildings here are all colorful too. when we're riding on a bus or bann you see all this color when you look out the window. i think it's really cool! i'll be sure to take a picture sometime.
oh i love the windows here! they are so cool! you can have them closed, opened so that the bottom is attached and the top opens in (as in towards the inside of the room you're in) or it can open like a door all the way into the room you're in. I'll take pictures. i think its SO cool!!!
my companion sister ranzenberger is so funny. we laugh ALL THE TIME! sometimes i think we're a little too loud..but we have fun. she's really real with me and open about what she's feeling. so if she's having a hard time with something she'll tell me. sometimes i wish she didnt just cause its nice to be with someone who is confident about everything all the time so i could feel like everything is alright. but at the same time I'm glad she does that because it kind of forces me to step up a bit. but i really do like my comp. we have a lot of fun together.
the time is flying by! this cycle (cycles are each 6 week period and at the end of the 6 weeks is transfers) is almost over! i can't believe it! but greenies (here in my mission we call them goldens) are with their trainers for 2 cycles usually. so i'll be with sister ranzenberger for a while! i do miss sister stewart though! i got to call her the other day because we got a contact from someone in her area. it was fun to talk to her!
grocery shopping: we have this sad little grocery store here in town by the internet cafe that I'm at right now. but I've found this organic brand that i LOVE! this brand has couscous and other really yummy food that i like! yes they do have stroopwaffles and mentos here! except i havent found the flavor of stroopwaffles that i like yet. i've only found the honey flavor. :P
observations: ok all the girls here color their hair..and not just young ones. old ladies color their hair too and its not natural! what i mean is in america most of the time when people color their hair its like a natural color and you cant tell that they color their hair. but here you can TOTALLY tell and it looks SO tacky!!! haha
the buildings here are all colorful too. when we're riding on a bus or bann you see all this color when you look out the window. i think it's really cool! i'll be sure to take a picture sometime.
oh i love the windows here! they are so cool! you can have them closed, opened so that the bottom is attached and the top opens in (as in towards the inside of the room you're in) or it can open like a door all the way into the room you're in. I'll take pictures. i think its SO cool!!!
my companion sister ranzenberger is so funny. we laugh ALL THE TIME! sometimes i think we're a little too loud..but we have fun. she's really real with me and open about what she's feeling. so if she's having a hard time with something she'll tell me. sometimes i wish she didnt just cause its nice to be with someone who is confident about everything all the time so i could feel like everything is alright. but at the same time I'm glad she does that because it kind of forces me to step up a bit. but i really do like my comp. we have a lot of fun together.
the time is flying by! this cycle (cycles are each 6 week period and at the end of the 6 weeks is transfers) is almost over! i can't believe it! but greenies (here in my mission we call them goldens) are with their trainers for 2 cycles usually. so i'll be with sister ranzenberger for a while! i do miss sister stewart though! i got to call her the other day because we got a contact from someone in her area. it was fun to talk to her!
Monday, April 14, 2008
Another View of Heidelberg
I was looking on the internet tonight for pictures of Heidelberg.Isn't it beautiful??! My girl is somewhere in this city.
In fact, I'm pretty sure her apartment is somewhere in this photo!
The big church on the right is called "Holy Ghost Church".
I wonder if Rachel will get to go inside it...
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Room With a View
This is a picture Rachel took looking out her apartment window. You can even see the river nearby. Beautiful!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Hello From Deutschland
last pday was SO much fun!!! ok so you've all seen pictures of the castle. well on the otherside of the river theres like a huge hill mountain thing and we climbed that! there were ruíns and this awesome old ampitheather thing that apparently was used by the nazis..cool huh! at the top of the mountain theres this old building thing that looks like a knight piece from chess. that thing was awesome! yeah so we spent the day hiking with our district. we're the only sisters. its fun our elders are awesome!
the language is coming. the bummer thing is, is that pretty much everyone that i talk to speaks ENGLISH! ug! 2 of our investigators we teach in english and then whenever we're at the church or around other missionaries we speak english. so i dont speak enough german to really help me get any better. thats not good! and i still dont understand it at all. its funny.
ok so we've only had like 1 eating appointment with a member. so i havent really tried the food because i cook for myself. except we did eat a restaurant last week for pday with the elders. and yesterday we were craving chinese food so we ate at a chinese place. that was good!
transportation... well we have bikes that we could use but seriously who wants to ride a bike in a skirt?! we walk mostly which works perfectly here because everything is really close. we also take the bus, bann and train alot. a bann is like a subway car thing that they have in newyork and whatever.
this sunday we met with a man named Stephan. he was contacted by the other sisters and we just like called him up to ask if he wanted a BOM. he said he did and we met with him sunday morning at the church before the men watched the priesthood session. we taught him a first (this guy we teach in german) and it went really well. hes just really searching for something. he even stayed a little bit and watched part of the priesthood session. (in the chapel they had the conference sessions in german and in the gym we had it in english). he said that he wants to come to church this next sunday! so hopefully we'll have all three investigators at church this sunday! pray that no one really wierd bares their testimony..hahaha!
ok so yesterday we met with Frau Kästle..hahaha. (she's the older Russian woman.) she LOVES me and hates sister ranzenberger!! hahaha i dont know why but everytime sister ranzenberger talks she like yells at her and whenever i speak she like smiles and just loves me. haha i think its because i brought my primary book and played songs on her keyboard. she loved it! she didnt even yell that much yesterday. so next time we visit her we're going to play the piano and sister ranzenberger is going to sing. shes definately just a service project. but we feel its a good thing to do. shes just so lonely. anyway its fun.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Heidelberg
So Tuesday is now my most favorite day of the week. That's when we get e-mails from Rachel! She is in Heidelberg and here is some info from her first e-mail home:
well my companion's name is sister ranzenberger and shes from kansas city, kansas. shes been out on her mission for 9 months. yeah so we were whitewashed... which means that we're both totally new to heidelburg. she was serving in another city and then we were put together and sent here. yeah so its been fun trying to find our way around here. and we dont know anyone or any of the people the sisters that were here before were teaching! ahh!!
we have 4 elders serving near us. 2 are in the english ward and the other 2 are with us in the german ward. we had to bear our testimonies this past sunday. it actually went well. i think people understood me. i cant understand a single word anyone says!!! so i just smile and nod. hahaha im sure it looks funny.
we have 2 investigators. one was working with the sisters before we got here. her name is anna and shes from england, so we teach her in english, although she understands german. the sisters before have been teaching her a long time. her husband isnt interested at all but hes totally ok with her coming to church and learning from us and stuff. so i guess we'll see where things go with anna. shes super sweet though and i think she really wants to know.
this other person we met yesterday walking across the bridge (thats over the river thats right by our apartment...arent you just totally jealous!!!) anyway so we stopped him and he said that we could speak english with him. hes from maryland and hes going to school here studying german politics. anyway it turns out that he has some lds friends that he met while he was studying in austria. yeah anyway we were just talking to him and telling him about the out-reach center that we have here. its a place the young adults can come and hang out. so he said that he totally wanted to invite his friends and come to fussball on saturday. and then he started asking about the institute class and wanted to know what we taught there and we told him that this year they were studying the Book Of Mormon and he was like..well is it like a beginners class, would it be wierd for me to come because i dont know anything. so we told him that we could teach him about the Book Of Mormon, and about the history of our church and stuff because thats what we do.
so long story short he came to FHE last night (there was free food) and he met some of the young adults and played a game with all of us and stuff and then we started teaching him and whatever. hes SO interested and has so many questions. he just like takes it all in its great! so we gave him the a copy of the Book Of Mormon and asked him to read the introduction and testimony of the witnesses and of joseph smith and stuff. we're meeting with him again tonight to teach him more! but anyway isnt that WAY cool!!!
ok so yesterday we went to visit this old lady that the sisters found and have been trying to teach. shes this old lady in a wheelchair from russia. i dont think we're going to get anywhere with her. its mostly a service thing because shes lonely. but yeah she YELLS at us. its really funny actually. shes nice but she gets mad and yells at us in german and usually she doesnt make sense. but its fun. apparently we need to stay away from cars because they are polluting the atmosphere and that makes her angry and she yells. its funny to try and figure out what things we can talk about so that she doesnt yell. she got mad at us because we didnt take the elevator up to her floor. and then when i asked if we could read a scripture about jesus and how i liked it because it shows what he has done for me..she started yelling and saying that he didnt do it just for me but he did it for everyone. its actually quite enjoyable. hahaha. but when we finally read some verses from the Book Of Mormon she got really quiet.. and also when she let me play her keyboard she got really quiet for that too. so we're thinking that next week i might bring my primary book and play primary songs for her.
well my companion's name is sister ranzenberger and shes from kansas city, kansas. shes been out on her mission for 9 months. yeah so we were whitewashed... which means that we're both totally new to heidelburg. she was serving in another city and then we were put together and sent here. yeah so its been fun trying to find our way around here. and we dont know anyone or any of the people the sisters that were here before were teaching! ahh!!
we have 4 elders serving near us. 2 are in the english ward and the other 2 are with us in the german ward. we had to bear our testimonies this past sunday. it actually went well. i think people understood me. i cant understand a single word anyone says!!! so i just smile and nod. hahaha im sure it looks funny.
we have 2 investigators. one was working with the sisters before we got here. her name is anna and shes from england, so we teach her in english, although she understands german. the sisters before have been teaching her a long time. her husband isnt interested at all but hes totally ok with her coming to church and learning from us and stuff. so i guess we'll see where things go with anna. shes super sweet though and i think she really wants to know.
this other person we met yesterday walking across the bridge (thats over the river thats right by our apartment...arent you just totally jealous!!!) anyway so we stopped him and he said that we could speak english with him. hes from maryland and hes going to school here studying german politics. anyway it turns out that he has some lds friends that he met while he was studying in austria. yeah anyway we were just talking to him and telling him about the out-reach center that we have here. its a place the young adults can come and hang out. so he said that he totally wanted to invite his friends and come to fussball on saturday. and then he started asking about the institute class and wanted to know what we taught there and we told him that this year they were studying the Book Of Mormon and he was like..well is it like a beginners class, would it be wierd for me to come because i dont know anything. so we told him that we could teach him about the Book Of Mormon, and about the history of our church and stuff because thats what we do.
so long story short he came to FHE last night (there was free food) and he met some of the young adults and played a game with all of us and stuff and then we started teaching him and whatever. hes SO interested and has so many questions. he just like takes it all in its great! so we gave him the a copy of the Book Of Mormon and asked him to read the introduction and testimony of the witnesses and of joseph smith and stuff. we're meeting with him again tonight to teach him more! but anyway isnt that WAY cool!!!
ok so yesterday we went to visit this old lady that the sisters found and have been trying to teach. shes this old lady in a wheelchair from russia. i dont think we're going to get anywhere with her. its mostly a service thing because shes lonely. but yeah she YELLS at us. its really funny actually. shes nice but she gets mad and yells at us in german and usually she doesnt make sense. but its fun. apparently we need to stay away from cars because they are polluting the atmosphere and that makes her angry and she yells. its funny to try and figure out what things we can talk about so that she doesnt yell. she got mad at us because we didnt take the elevator up to her floor. and then when i asked if we could read a scripture about jesus and how i liked it because it shows what he has done for me..she started yelling and saying that he didnt do it just for me but he did it for everyone. its actually quite enjoyable. hahaha. but when we finally read some verses from the Book Of Mormon she got really quiet.. and also when she let me play her keyboard she got really quiet for that too. so we're thinking that next week i might bring my primary book and play primary songs for her.
Pretty Much the Luckiest Person in the World
HI!!!!!!!!!! I'm in Germany!!! crazy huh! sometimes i cant believe that im actually here! i'm convinced that i'm going to get lung cancer because everyone smokes here!!! YUCK! anyway im in Heidelberg and its the most beautiful place in the world!!!! oh and guess what...yeah i live under a CASTLE!!! a real, life castle!!!! look it up online its called the Heidelberg Castle. its totally the most awesome, amazing thing in the world!!!!! and we live right next to a river too. yeah so i live next to the Neckar river, right below a real life castle. im pretty much the luckiest person in the world!
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