A Lame Week

well nothing super exciting has happened in the past week. sacrifice week was lame. we now have like no investigators. pete moved in düsseldorf so we have to give him to the missionaries there and all the sweet contacts we got are actually lame. and now all we have is finding time.

anyway today we are going to the ZOO! i`m SO EXCITED and then next week we are going to LEGOLAND there's like nothing to do in mönchengladbach. it's the GHETTO so we have to go other places to do cool things on pday. so we`re going to the duisburg zoo. it's suppose to be way cool!

sorry no pictures this week. i`ll take a ton at the zoo today.

A Crazy Weekend

thanks Gramma for the sweater - i LOVE it!

at zone conference, president suggested something... for this week he wants us to wake up at 6am - leave the apartment 30 minutes earlier - take only a half hour lunch - and stay out until 9:30pm instead of 9pm - on pday do everything you need to as fast as you can and then start doing missionary work again - and at the end of the week fast. now i was under the impression that he was going to make us do that. but he said that it was up to us. he said that it would be our way to ´sacrifice´ and show Heavenly Father that we want success. i`m grateful that he said it was our choice. sister olson and i decided on things that we were willing to do. so this week we are getting up at 6am - taking only 30 minutes for lunch - leaving the apartment 30 minutes earlier and on saturday we`re going to fast. it's going to be a long week.

saturday was a very interesting day. so we had NO appointments at all. just finding time all day. but the sun was out and the weather was nice so it made it easier to go outside. so we had to meet some elders at 11 to give them something they needed. so we contacted on our way to the train station and we met this guy and set up an appointment with him for like 4 that afternoon. we met up with the elders and then contacted our way over to do doors. we stopped this couple (the Beckers) and they were really interested so we set up an appointment for 2 that afternoon. so then we went home to eat (didn't get to do doors) so that we could figure out how to get to the Beckers and have lunch. as we were getting ready to leave our apartment the Beckers texted us and said that we couldn't meet today. bummer. so we decided to head into town and talk to people. sister olson had to use the restroom so we went inside a store (kaufhof) and on our way back out i had to stop at the perfumee spot and smell my favorite perfume (erin it's the CODE stuff we found in karlsruhe). as i was smelling this perfume Christiana (the nigerian woman) stopped and said HI and that she was sorry that she wasn't home last weekend. i asked if we could come over the next day to teach her and she said yes! so then we went back out onto the street and there we met two men from england - Pete and Gavin. Pete is living here in Mönchengladbach for work and Gavin was visiting him for the weekend. so they said they would listen if we could walk and talk because they were out looking for food. so we taught them a first and they were both interested. so then we invited them to church and swapped info. then we went back for our appointment at 4 but he didn't show up and then the rest of the day wasn't very exciting but cool how things turned out huh!

so then it's sunday and pete and gavin were suppose to meet us at the train station so we could take them to church. and mrs. becker was also coming to church. well pete and gavin were late and we missed the bus. but then only pete showed up - gavin was too ´tired´aka hungover. anyway so we had to walk with pete to church who was also hungover - stupid boys. but he really enjoyed church so hopefully he comes again. mrs. becker also came to church all by herself! but we weren''t there because we were walking to church and she didn't know that church was 3 hours so she left after the first hour but the ward was really good with her and she got a book of mormon and everything and we set up an appointment with her for later that day (it fell out). but yeah. so we`re having interesting success. i have gavin's email address so i`m going to send it to the office so they can send it to where he lives and he can meet with the missionaries too. what a crazy weekend!

well that's me right now. time is going by slowly. i think its because we have like nothing but finding time all day every day. it's hard to get appointments that actually work out with these people!

schwester terhaag got the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday. that was awesome to see. and bruder terhaag blessed the sacrament!

Fun Photos

Rachel at the Rheydt Palace...

...and at a church door.

Another Baptism

schwester terhaag got baptized on sunday! it was great. everything almost went perfectly. the only thing that went wrong is that someone forgot that they were suppose to give a talk so the brother who lead it gave the talk. otherwise everything was good and it was cute and wonderful.

the other 3 investigators that we got....well 2 have said that they will call us (whatever) and the other we are meeting with on wednesday.

so last saturday was Frauen Tag (woman`s day) - lamest woman`s day ever! we were in krefeld for a street preach and afterwards sister olson and i went looking for an icecream place because it was woman's day and we wanted ice cream. so we looked and looked and finally found a place that looked like they might have good ice cream. it was gross! it was like fake ice cream! and then i was eating french fries and one of the fries cut my tongue! LAME

other than that nothing new has happened. things are going good with the exception that we don't really have any investigators anymore. but we`re working on it. sister olson finally got her running shoes back and so we went jogging yesterday morning. haven't done that in a LONG time and now my legs hurt! haha but it's good we`re going to start jogging every other day.

Sister Rice

Sister Angela Rice completed her 18 month mission in Germany with Rachel and Sister Moser being her two last companions. Just so happens that she is from Bellevue - not so far away from us. So, today Rachel's parents went to hear Angela speak in her Sacrament Meeting and to meet her. It was wonderful! Angela gave me a great big hug from Rachel and we were able to visit briefly. Even though we had never actually met before , it felt we had. Rachel enjoyed serving with Sister Rice and it was an honor and a delight to be with her today! (I just wish I had remembered my camera...)

MTC Zone

the missionaries that came to germany with me!
the first time that we`ve all been together since we got here!

New Companion - Sister Olsen

i have just one new companion. sister olson. i love her to death! we get along SO well! and we're having tons of success. 3 new investigators already!

schwester terhaag is getting baptized on sunday after church! and her husband is baptizing her! he got the priesthood on sunday. it was so awesome! she bore her testimony in sacrament meeting... and she was like glowing when she was done with her interview. that's right! the church is awesome!

we haven't been able to meet with the nigerian family. no update

but we have appointments with those 3 new investigators for this week. they are all pretty sweet and seem sincere. so we'll see what happens with that.

so last week was LONG. wednesday i spent the day on the train going to frankfurt...and then coming back up here. and then on friday... we did it all over again. but that was cooler because i got to meet Elder Dallin H. Oaks!!!!!!! and guess what... the AP (assistant to the president) called the day before and asked if sister olson and i would put together a musical number for the conference. so we put a group of missionaries together and practiced when we got to the church before the conference. yeah so i sang for an APOSTLE! and i had a solo!!!! we did so good it was awesome! the train rides were fun though. and really beautiful. we rode along the rhein river and there were a ton of castles along the way that i took pictures of!

i think that we're going to have a lot of success this transfer. i'm really excited and looking forward to what happens!