4-28-15

I know I said p-day would be Wednesday, but with the Temple and an out of the way dinner apointment, we're doing emails now:)

Oh my goodness, the mission conference with Elder Bendar was the greatest thing ever!!!!  The Spirit was so strong and I learned so much.  I heard the Elder Bendar is always interactive with all the missions he goes to for talks, but nothing good have prepared me for what it was actually like.  He started of with two guidelines,  1) Write little plates.  Instead of writing down what the speaker is saying, write what the Spirit tells you.  That way your notes will be more meaningful.  You'll look back on them and actually remember where they are.  2) The speakers wouldn't mess with us.  He warned us that he would be talking with us, not at us, but that they wouldn't play "Guess what's in my head"  Elder Bednar actually warned against doing that.  He said that it drives away the Spirit and takes away agency.  You turn the person into an object to be acted upon instead of an agent to act.  With those two guidlines in place, that was one of the greatest Spritual experiences in my life.  We didn't even really talk about iPads.  Elder Bednar asked us what we think is good about them, and then what we think is bad about them.  Basically everything spoken lead back to another gospel principle and our purpose as missionaries.  Then we skimmed over everything in the two booklets they handed out about iPad uses and being safe with them.  We talked a lot about agency, repentance, pride, grace, and everything in between.  It was increadible.

As for the weather, currently it is raining.  The rest of the week was pretty sunny though.  

 Let me know how women's conference goes to.

Ich liebe dich!

Rachel

Sorry I don't know how to flip the picture around;)

Rachel is loving the spring

4-20-15

It's actually pretty fun being busy all the time.  You never have to wonder what to do.

I have never wondered about what my "water of Mormon" experience is.  I am definatly going to look for that now.  

As for getting use to girls that aren't my sisters, it's different.  At home, everyone knows everyones habits, likes, dislikes, what pushes buttons, what makes them happy, and how they react to certain things.  You don't have that with people you don't grow up with.  You have to learn about that stuff for them; you don't just know it.   Honestly, the 4 girls 1 bathroom wasn't a problem for me.

Gues what!  Bishop Anderson did this Seder Passover thing last Friday.  It was so cool.  There were two Jews who helped us figure stuff out, and Bishop did a ton a research.  He thought it would be a good idea to learn about what the Last Supper would be like and why they do things the way they do.  It was way fun and I learned a lot.  

We got a new Bishopbric this Sunday.  Bishop Anderson is PCSing next month to Spain, so a change was needed.  The new Bishop is Bishop Horner, and I think he's going to be great.  We actually teach his daughter German every Thursday. 

This week was awesome and I look forward to this one.  David A. Bednar comes this Friday!  I'm so excited!  Also, just a heads up, next week we're going to the Temple on Wednesday.  So emails will be Wednesday and later than I usually do them.  I don't know how much later. Probably 3 or more hours depending on when we get back.

Thank you so much for your love and support.  I'm so glad you're my mom.

Love,

Rachel

P.S. We helped the Elders go suit shopping last P-day.  They wanted blue European suits and needed brown shoes to go with.  That was an adventure.

4-13-15

That's so cool!  It will be so much fun to hand those out.  Even if I don't get them all out, I can leave them for the next Sisters.

This week was boring, because it was still Spring Break.  It was a good thing though.  With the American Elders closing their area, Sister Brown and I moved into their apartment.  Why?  Four girls, one bathroom.  Anyway, we moved in and got to clean!  It actually wasn't too bad.  They basically packed everything they were taking with them, and left everything else were it was.  So, it was mostly picking things up, organizing, and throwing away dirty socks.  It's been really fun making it a "Sister's apartment"

The greatest part of this week is that Perry and Sylvia came to church again!  They've come two other times, and really enjoy it.  There moving back to the States this summer, but said that they will definatly keep going there.  As for teaching them, with moving, they're super busy.  Once all of that is taken care of, they would love to have us over to teach them.  

This next week is going to be crazy.  We have something going on every night and have plenty of things to do during the day.  It's wonderful having members back.

I love you and hope you have a great week too,

Rachel

Easter

With the potential at the Bishop's house, we haven't meet with him again, because they had Spring Break also, so nobody's home.  Everyone's out on grand European adventures.

Easter was so much fun!  These wonderful American members invited all of the missionaries to their house to watch the Saterday Afternoon and Sunday Morning Sessions. (the German Sisters couldn't come, they already had arrangments.)  We had an Easter Egg Hunt, and they even set up baskets for us.  Inbetween Sessions, we played bored/card games.  Tell Dad that he would love the game Dominion.  The entire time we played it, I thought, "Dad would love this."  It's a stratagy game with multiple ways to get victory points.   We also had a Nurf Gun war.  Sister Brown totally won.  We played a German Easter game too.  It's called splay.  What you do, is you take a hard boiled egg, and two people slide their eggs across the table at each other.  Whoevers egg cracks looses.  It's a fun way to break up the shells before eating them.  It was so much fun, and I ate so much sugar.  I'm done with chocolate for a while. The Elders also discovered that if you lick the outside of a Robin Egg, you can put it on your lips like lip gloss.  

We watched the Saterday Morning Session at this sweet older couples house Saterday evening.  (The sessions aired in Germany at 6pm and 10 pm.  The Priesthood Session was at 2am.)  That was a much calmer setting and it was so much fun listening to their stories.

What Germans do for Easter, is close everything from Friday to Monday.  Nothing's open.  They also hang plastic eggs on trees and bushes.  They don't have the plastic eggs that open up, so they do what we do and hunt for their basket full of goodies.  

Transfer Calls were Saterday morning.  There will temporarily be no more American Elders in the Wiesbaden area.  I don't know why, but that's what happened.  So, in our area, there will be four Sisters and Two Elders.  When does that happen?

They also made some anouncments.  Elder Bednar will be coming to our mission on the 24 of April, and he will be talking to us about how to use technology in our missionary work.  Then we will be getting mobile devieces.  I'm not sure about details about that or anything, because everyone was freaking out.  President Stoddard also only used the term mobile devieces.

I also had a conversation with some Jehovas Witness missionaries.  It was good.  We didn't try to bash each other, just listen to the others believes.  They even asked us about what we believe about the Second Coming.  It was almost all in German too.  One of them starting speaking English when they found out we're from America, but the rest was all auf Deutsch.  And I understood most of what was said!  That was fun.

That's all for this week. I hope you all had a fantastic Easter.  

Love you,

Rachel