Photos from Mainz

An old church building - apparently this is where guttenberg may have been baptized - yes the guttenberg printer guy.

P-day a few weeks ago at the Rhein River - beautiful!

Transfers and a New Companion

Transfers: saturday night we got transfer calls. one of the APs called us and told me that i'm staying in mainz and getting sister van den berg. sunday night I got a call saying that my new companion would be sister simmons. monday morning we got another call saying that i'm getting sister davis instead. we haven't received any more calls from president yet... so i think that's how transfers are taking place tomorrow. when i found out that i was getting sister davis and i got SO excited! i love sister davis!

president ninow is a great man. i'm really grateful that he took the time to calls us and ask how we felt about things and really listened to what we had to say. apparently on sunday night he called 4 sister companionships to talk about transfers because he didn't feel right about what he had originally decided. but when i talked to him on monday he said that he felt really good about everything. what a crazy first transfer for him! not to mention for us too!

guess what! there's a castle in wiesbaden!!!! (that's where our church building is... its like a 20 min train ride) the elders found it yesterday! i'm SO excited!!!!! they said that its small... but it looks like a castle! i can't wait to go next week... i told them that they HAD to show me where it is!

bruder "M" update: no baptismal date yet but we're meeting with him tonight at the schuhs. he's been looking at the baptismal questions and he said that he doesn't feel like he has a testimony of joseph smith and the restoration. so that's what we're focusing on tonight. sister stevenson and i are going to sing Oh How Lovely Was The Morning before we start teaching. we practiced this morning (sister stevenson is singing alto) and the spirit was SO strong - i almost started crying. s o hopefully i can keep myself together when we sing it tonight.

Loves Talking to People

Hello!
again 13 emails! sweet! i love it!
thanks to: Diane Linford, Lisa Sharp, Viv, Todd,Thompson, Bro. Bergholm and Wimpy for your emails this week!

Diane: funny that your husband served in the Dusseldorf Mission... that's actually an area that Sisters can serve in here in the Frankfurt Mission!

Wimp: oh dear... that's all i can say and you know what i mean! good luck sweetie ;) keep me updated!!

Marci: thanks for your letter! i loved your story from the 4th of july. welcome to my world of trains and buses that don't come at the right time and then you miss your other bus or train... haha its a fun life!

We're getting transfer calls on saturday and i could be transferred. who knows. yeah so i'm in frankfurt right now! we're doing a split and i'm going back to mainz. hopefully i can figure my way around town without sister stevenson. she's been in mainz since november so she knows her way around. we don't have to do a ton of traveling so we should be fine...hopefully haha. splits are fun though and the sister i'm with is really awesome so i'm excited.

Well i have some exciting news about one of our investigators. so we took a break last week from Bruder "M" hoping that he'd do what he needs to do like read and pray. he comes to church every sunday - he's done that ever since he met the sisters back in jan. - so we asked him what he's done this week and he was so excited to tell us that he has read everyday and prayed every morning and night and has stopped drinking coffee!!!! its a miracle! we're meeting with him on friday and hopefully we'll set up a new baptismal date with him! he was supposed to be baptized this past sunday but he wasn't ready. i think he is now!

it's been wet, rainy weather! where is the summer weather? i feel like it's summer in seattle! haha it's awesome. but i do wish it was hot and sunny for a while.

well missionary work isn't getting any easier (what a shock) ;) but i'm a lot happier! yesterday at the streetpreach i was just so happy and excited to talk to people (by myself even!). i didn't get any contacts but i felt love for the people. like when they were mean and walked away... when i told them to have a good day, i really meant it. i really wanted them to have a good day even though they didn't want to hear what i had to say. and then last night when we were doing finding time... i really didn't want to go talk to people. i was tired and it was wet so i told Heavenly Father that i didn't want to go but that i would and please help me be happy. and then i was happy. i loved the wet rainy weather and i loved talking to people.

From Michelle: anyone who knows Rachel at all

knows that she has always loved talking to people! ♥

Frankfurt Temple

Oh my goodness! 13 new emails today! holy cow! mom - what did you say on my blog?? haha. i feel very loved ;) thanks to everyone who emailed me! it was wonderful to hear from everyone and i felt very loved! i'm sure people near me thought i was crazy because i was tearing up while i was reading all the emails!

meg: thanks my love for offering to send me a hairstraightener...but i found one! i love you lots and i pray that your surgery will go well!!!

wimp: i'm glad you had fun on your trip and that you got back alright! you'll have to keep me updated about what its like living at home again ;) thanks for being so supportive and for keeping me in your prayers! just pray that i can keep going and that i'll give my whole heart to my mission! thanks sweetie!

well the temple was AMAZING last week. the session was in french though... so we had headsets. it was fun i switched the headset from english to spanish to german during the whole session. how cool that i can understand 3 different languages! speaking them is a totally different subject. haha. when i got to the celestial room i just sat there and prayed and asked Heavenly Father if I could just stay there. i didn't want to go back out into the world. i was really praying for some answers too. answers didn't come until later but i did get a peaceful feeling and strength to keep going. it's a beautiful temple and i didn't want to leave!!!

the next day we had zoneconference in frankfurt and got to meet our new mission president! he's AWESOME! i really like him and his family! i learned a lot during the conference.

Thank you to every one who wrote to Rachel!

I appreciate you!! ♥ - michelle

E-Mails Welcome

Ok friends and family out there...

my girl is having a hard time.

I try to keep her blog upbeat and happy...

But this is a hard mission.

Trust me.

She would really like to hear from you.

Please e-mail her at: tanzenrach22@googlemail.com

♥ Thank you! ♥

Long Suffering

it's hard right now because it's summer and some of our investigators have been working a lot and others have had sick kids so we're not able to meet with the progressing ones as often which isn't good. and we're not really finding new people. it's been a hard week. our spirits have been a little low... at least mine have.

oh yeah - my hairstraightener just stopped working. and i can't find one here to save my life. i found one that was like 50 euro... yeah right! i got my old one at target for like $15. they don't have anything like target here. so i have no idea where to get a new one. i might have the elders go on base and try and find one there for me. until then i've been putting mousse in my hair and letting it go curly. which worked for a few days but now its not working out so well. i feel like i look like a boy because i have to pull my hair back and i don't have bangs anymore.

oh please tell marci singleton thanks for the mentos she sent. it was really sweet and made me happy.

i'm excited because tomorrow is zone conference and we get to meet president and sister ninow! i''ve heard nothing but good things about them so i can't wait! plus we get to do a streetpreach and see tons of missionaries!

oh yeah for the 4th of july we had a BBQ with the elders and passed a football around. it was for like an hour (for our dinner break) but it was really fun! i took my shoes off and ran around in the grass. it was nice.

i tried my first brotwurst last night. i don't like sausage. it was alright but if i can avoid eating one again i wouldn't mind. but i'm in germany so i don't think i'll be able to avoid them.

here's a quote from an elder in my last district... i think it's really funny... he said ´´I prayed for long suffering, and now I'm just suffering.´´ haha i feel like that too sometimes.

Preaching in the Rain!

oh my gosh, last week we had a streetpreach in frankfurt... i haven't had so much fun at a streetpreach before in my life! it was POURING down rain and hardly any of us had umbrellas... but we kept singing and contacting! it was awesome!!!! i loved it!! my poor hymn book got all wet too so the pages are wrinkly... i like it. it reminds me of how much fun we all had. it was also fun because i got to see elders that i had become friends with my first cycle again. good times!

Missionary Work in Mainz

Bruder (Brother) and Schwester (Sister) Grünewälders are the most amazing member missionaries i've ever met! they have the missionaries over ever other monday for FHE but only if we have an investiagtor. and the reason why we go every other week is because they have non-members that they invite for FHE! so every monday they have people over for FHE who aren't members. Schwester G asked us what we wanted for dinner and i said that i haven't really had any german food yet and so she made an amazing german dinner for us! it was meat and potatoes and something else that i forgot what it was called but it was amazing!

so we're teaching this woman named ciane. schwester lourido found her while she was contacting at a streetpreach (she's the lady from my ward). anyway so schwester lourido comes to every appointment with us because ciane only speaks portugese and sister lourido speaks spanish so they can mostly understand eachother. anyway so we speak german to sister lourido and then she translates to ciane in spanish. it's been so amazing for me because i can understand everything that sister lourido says while shes translating. sometimes she forgets where she's at in the translation... so like what she's suppose to say next, and because i can understand her, i'll say in german what she needs to translate next. i hope that all made sense. but its so amazing because sister stevenson can't understand spanish so she doesnt know what sister lourido is saying... but i do and i've been able to help her translate. it's a really awesome experience for me because i feel needed and important.

also real quick we were teaching a woman named patricia who's from spain but her german is really good so we teach her in german. last lesson we were talking about the commandments ´gebote´ in german. she asked me in spanish what ´gebote´ means and then all of the sudden like without thinking i said ´mandamientos´ which is commandments in spanish. she understood and then we continued on. but again i felt totally awesome! ♥

The Army Base

i'm really excited for the 4th of july this friday! us missionaries are going to have a bbq that night! i think the elders are going to try and get sparklers from base too. its awesome having elders in the american ward... plus elder henderson is part of the army... so he can get on base without a member (i think..i dunno how they do it) but anyway so the elders are putting something together for us so we can celebrate independance day!!!!!

funny story... so i gave the elders a list of stuff that i wanted from the grocery store on base... a very detailed list so that they couldnt get anything wrong and then i asked if they understood and even clarified things on the list... yeah they got it like all wrong. hahaha never send elders to get you stuff. it was nice of them to go though. i asked for the biggest box of popcorn they could get... they bought a small box that had small bags. but there's a sister in the american ward who called us for something and said that she'd go get me popcorn and so now i have a big box of popcorn with regular sized bags. ♥