last email 7-4-16

What do I want for dinner?  To be completely honest, I want American
pizza.  I also really want to eat your rolls.  And an Angie's burger.
And Dad's turkey.

I'm glad you survived trek.  That must have been fun.

So, my final week in Germany.  Everything fell out, buses were missed,
I said way too many goodbyes, and Germany beat Italy in the Europe
Cup. (Which apparently never happens)

Wow.  It's the Fourth of July.  Today, Americans around the world are
being incredibly patriotic.  Me?  I'm going to enjoy my last p-day in
Germany.  I'll get to hear the fireworks from the base later on
tonight.

I really don't know what else to write.  I'm going to see y'all in a few days.

Have a happy birthday mom!

Love,

Rachel

PS-So everyone is clear, Mom gets the first hug, then Dad, then Jake, then
the rest of you lot.

6-27-16

I hope it doesn't rain on you, and have fun.  You're going to love
that you got to go on trek.

I have a few stories for you this week:

Hans got baptized last Saturday. That was happy.  He also got
confirmed.  That was happier. I nearly killed him when he was late to
sacrament meeting. I did not want to go through that again.  But he
made it.  Every time we ask him about how he feels he keeps using
words like amazing, happy, pure, etc.  He also mention that he can
feel the power of the Holy Ghost.  It's awesome.

I also taught the greatest lesson of my mission last week.  Susanne
was introduced to the Sisters through service and has slowly been
learning about the church through them and her member coworker. (He's
awesome) She's amazing.  You would love her.

Anyway, we invited her to Hans baptism, and she told us that she would
like to get baptized and wanted to know what she needed to do to do
that.  (Sister Williams was so excited.  Susanne is her deutsche mom.)
So we meet with her two days later to talk about this and explain what
we do.  During this discussion she had offered us drinks.  She said
that she k ew we don't drink tee or coffee and wanted to know if we
can't drink soda too.  We reexplain the Word of Wisdom and find out
that she thought we couldn't drink that stuff because we were
missionaries.  Finding out that she can't drink coffee was a big thing
for her.

She then asks us to give her two more big things before we left.  I
looked over at Sister Williams, she looked at me, and we went into the
Law of Chastity.

Now, I didn't want to do tithing just yet.  We were afraid she would
struggle with that and she was still recovering from the no coffee.
We thought bother of the Law of Chastity.  She's over fifty, has been
divorced for a long time, and has no interest in relationships
whatsoever.  So this would be easy, right?

Wrong.  We finish explaining everything and she just looked at us and
asks (very dramatically) "Aber was wenn ich nicht heiraten will und
ich mag mein sex!?" (For those who don't speak German:"But what about
when I don't want to get married and I like my sex!?")

All three of us lose it.  I'm laughing because I don't know what to do
with this, Sister Williams is laughing because we didn't see this
coming at all, and Susanne is laughing because...I don't really know
why.  That's just something she would do.  But we were all doubled
over for a good five minutes or so.

After that she insisted on one more.  I look at Sister Williams, and
she goes, "Why not?" And we teach tithing.

She had absolutely no problems with that one.

That's it for this week.  K-Town is amazing:)

Love,

Rachel

6-13-16

I will take the keyboard.  Gerne.

Aren't they turning sixteen soon?  That's a scary thought.

The highlight of this week was my split.  My Sister Training Leader right now happens to be my MTC companion, Sister Helmick.  So we spent an entire day together.  It was like seeing my best friend again after eternity.  It was cool seeing how we'd changed, yet we're still the same.  We still feel back into our teaching style like it was yesterday.  We balance each other so well, I love it.  It was also great to catch up with her.

Can I just say how beautiful Germany is.  Because it's beautiful.

I wish you the best of luck with Trek.  You're going to love it.

Love,

Rachel

P.S. We saw Rapunzel's Tower today

Rapunzel's Tower

Rapunzel's Tower

6-6-16

Emailing a becoming stressful.  Mostly because I don't want to do it.

Does this mean I get a book for knowing where that book was? (The girls told me all about this)

So, I'm in Kaiserslautern right now.  Otherwise known as K-Town.  One average sized city with eight missionaries roaming around.  We see at least one companionship a day.  This is what happens with a military Ward. (2 sets for German, 2 sets for English)

I'm so happy to be back in southern Germany.  Dortmund was awesome, but it wasn't pretty.  K-town is gorgeous.  We have a great view from our window too.

This week I met Hans.  He want to be baptized, so his cool.  He's friends with our bubbly new convert Katja. (She knows basically all of our investigators.) Their relationship is hilarious.

I have to start doing the "paperwork" of going home.  When I anmelded (what you do every time you go to a new city to say you live there) and asked where you have to go to abmeld (the thing you so when you leave the country so that they know you've left) the worker was super confused.  I was signing in after all.

Not to mention all the mission stuff.  They want me to send in pictures for a slide show.  You know how I feel about pictures.

I'm fine with living in Enoch.  Who said I wanted campus life anyway;). Working out the car will be entertaining.

I'm sure your week will be quiet win Michelle gone.  Enjoy it while you can!

5-30-16

I miss BB-Q turkey.  Whether it really does come from Scandinavia or not.

I'm glad you're feeling better.  That cold sounded awful.

As for my week...it started out being full of appointments, and almost
all of them fell out.  But, when they fell out and we went finding, we
talked to some fantastic people.  And a man gave Sister Van Vleet his
watch because she told him it was cool.  He refused to take it back.

I thing the best moment for me was when we were riding an U-Bahn to go
by a less active family.  We got on, an across from me sat an old man
with an Ohio shirt on.  Naturally, I asked him if he'd ever been to
Ohio.  He had not.  But he had been to Texas, and had meet Mormon
Missionaries there.  I gave him the church's address here, and he
promised that he would be at church in two weeks. (Yesterday didn't
work for him.) Then came the problem.  He was riding the bahn to the
end of the line, and we were riding it to seven stops before the end
of the line.  In other words, I had to figure out how to keep a
conversation going for twenty more minutes.  You know me Mom.  Small
talk is not my strong point.  I was terrified.

So, with a prayer in my heart I started asking him questions about his
work.  Luckily, he talked about his job and what it was like for a
long time.  I just continued praying that I would be able to
understand him enough to know what to say (his accent was really
thick), and that I could keep him talking.

My prayer was heard and I made it to our stop without a break in the
conversation.  And I learned a lot about what he does.  Not going to
lie though, I was relieved when we got off.  I can talk about God and
Christ all day in German.  Not about normal life.  Luckily God knew
that and just helped me ask questions so that the man could talk.

It's funny to think that when I'm home I'll probably be talking to
random people out of habit.

That's it for this week.  I hope everything goes well with Ana's
graduation.  And you're not that old.

Love ya!

P.S. I totally forgot to mention.  I've been transferred.  I'm going to
Kaiserslautern to work with the German branch there.  I've got five
weeks to make a difference;)

5-22-16

Guess what?  Sanaa came to church!  She's the sixteen year old we were working with.  She kind tchüssed us four weeks ago after the second lesson.  She said she needed more time.  Last Saturday was the date she was suppose to be baptized, and she thought about that the entire day.  Then she showed up to church.  In Gospel Principles, we were talking about baptism, and Brother Turek asked who's getting baptized next.  She raised her hand and said that she's getting baptized in June 18.

Looks like we have a baptismal date.

That's really the highlight of this week.

I hope you all have a great week, and I hope it doesn't rain during trek either. That wouldn't be fun.

Love you,

Rachel 

5-15-16

I want to go the temple!

Don't stress about trek.  I'm sure you're going to do great.

also, if the girls weren't driving you crazy, something would be wrong;)

My week...

Multiple people asked my companion if she could get married or asked
her on a date.  We doored into a Jehovah's Witness who let us in
thinking we were JW's too. That was an adventure trying to clear that
up. (A lot of people ask us if we're Jehovah's Witness.). And then,
the next day, we actually ran into some Jehovah's Witness
missionaries.  I also talked to a nun.  Just about how amazing it was
that she gave her life to God.  I don't have the heart to tell a nun
she should be Mormon when she has given up so much for her religion.
I've just discovered that they're really nice people.

We've give the Elders a lot of single men's numbers.  It's actually
really funny. (If you want to know why, see the first sent acne of the
second paragraph.) The Elders feel bad and are trying to get us
numbers too.  I've just noticed that girls are a lot less likely to
give you their number.

That about sums that up.  I hope you have a great week and good luck
preparing for trek!

Love,

Rachel

5-9-16

I don't know what to email either.  You guys are crazy.  I love it.

This week everything fell out, and the weather jumped ten degrees. (In Celsius mind you). We just bought a fan, because we discovered that ours is broken.  But now we have one that works.  I also encourage Sister Van Vleet's impulsive shopping.  I do that to most companions...It's actually really funny, because we get back from shopping with tons of things, but only one is mine.  It's hilarious.  I'm a terrible influence.

I hope you had a fantastic Mother's Day.  I'm so glad you're my mom.  Words can't describe how much I appreciate you.  Just know that I probably put the most thought in your souvenir then everyone else's. (And the least on the boys because they don't tell me what they want.)

I love you all!!!

5-2-2016

Michelle driving.  That's a terrifying thought.

I'm glad women's conference was so awesome.  I'll defiantly see if I can listen to those talks.

So, this week.  There was a bus strike on Wednesday.  So we walked everywhere.  10.5 miles in total.  Luckily, they always warn you when that happens, so we were able to space what we needed to do appropriately.  It was way fun though.

Yesterday was an adventure.  I have a dendency to mix these two stops up in my head.  They both with a mark saying and are right after each other.  I told Sister Van Vleet which one we needed to get off at to catch the u-bahn home.  I told her the wrong one, but didn't register that until I had gotten off and the u-bahn we were currently drove off with my companion still in it.

We only have one phone between us, which was in Sister Van Vleet's purse.  Still on silent from the appointment we just had.  So, I decided to ask someone for their phone, call the Elders, and see if they can get in contact with her. (It would be awkward if she didn't answer, and this way at least someone would know where I am) The only other person in sight was a man reading a book.  So, I interrupted him (I felt so bad) and explained the situation and asked if I could use his phone.

He doesn't speak German.

So I use charades, and call the Elders.

All in all, I spent almost fourth minutes chilling at a random bahn station while my companion had a mini heart attack, said a pray, and got a call from the Elders.

Also, Captain America Civil War was spoiled by one of our thirteen year old investigators. (Liza and Celin are twins who can't be baptized until their sixteen.  We teach them every week at their grandma's house.  She's a member.). Luckily she was talking so fast and my vocabulary outside of church related things is very limited.  So, I didn't understand all of it.  Better than the Elders who had someone give them a play by play of Star Wars.  In English.

That about sums up my week.  I can't wait to see you all on Sunday!  Bis dann!

Love,

Rachel

Add caption

4-25-2016

I will study that talk in personal study.  Sometimes I love iPads.

Let me know what terrible dreadful things happens at home while you're at women's conference this time;)

Setting up appointments across multiple cultures is entertaining.  You have those who are very good at having it planned in advanced, those who prefer to make out the appointment that morning, those who just show up and wonder why you're not there, and those who quote Isaiah 55:8 and how we can't mess with God's ways.  If he wants us to meet, we will meet.

Makes weekly planning an adventure:D

I'm starting to get terrified for college.

You will never believe what happened this week.  A few weeks ago, Elder Jones gave us a referral that we haven't been able to get a hold of.  We finally get in contact and set up an appointment at the church.  We're at the church and the Elders are there with a member because they'd received a referral for a female through the church referral manager.  We talk a bit about our referrals, and find out that it's the same person.

We wound up teaching her, because she's a sixteen year old girl.  Mom, she's amazing.  For example: we showed her a picture of President Monson and asked her if she believed that he could be a Prophet of God. Her response? "I know he is.  you can see it in his eyes." She also talked about the power she felt just by holding the Book of Mormon.

There could be potential problems with her parents, but Sanaa is earnestly seeking for the truth.  She wants to know God.  

Then there's the person you contact who asked you to repeat what you said in German.  Even though you said it in German.

We also had a Zone Training about stress relief and I spent a day on Duisberg for a split.  Poor Sister Van Vleet had to deal with getting to an appointment with the wrong address on the ward list.  She did a fabulous job of it.

I look forward to hearing about Women's Conference.  Have fun!

Love,

Rachel

4-18-2016

Sewing for trek was my favorite part.  Make something purple for me😉

Normally my weeks are pretty much the same thing day in and day out
and my emails home are terrible because I can't remember what
happened.  Not this week.

This week, we went to the doctor.

So, Sister Van Vleet has had an infection on her finger for a while,
but every time I asked about it, she said that it was fine and that it
didn't really hurt.  Then she made the mistake of mentioning it to
Sister Jones (one half of the senior couple).  She told her that she
had to call the mission nurse right now and get it looked at.

Of course, she doesn't call for a week.  Every time I brought it up,
she'd have some sort of excuse.  I finally get her to call, and we
went into he emergency room in a hospital on Tuesday.  For five hours.
Actually, we only waiting three and a half in the waiting room, then
one and a half in a patient room with Sister Van Vleet's hand soaking
in disinfectant the whole time.  It was actually really cute, at about
an hour we were joking that we were forgotten.  Then the nurse walked
in and told us that we weren't forgotten, it was just really busy that
day.

Well, the doctor shows up, and in about three minutes she tells us
that she can't do anything and we need to go see a dermatologist.

We call the mission nurse, so he could set up another appointment.
Which was on Thursday.

We go in, the wait wasn't as long, and the doctor told us that he
recommended getting an operation to have it removed.  So, unexpected
operation on a Thursday afternoon.

Now, we just have toward for it to scan over.  But until then, she
can't get her hand wet.  Which puts me on dishes duty😄 (I actually
really like doing dishes.  It's calming)

We also had random rainstorms, appointments falling out, random
Romanians calling us over to talk with them. (One called out Mormons,
and the other was in his car and asked us what church we represent.),
and buses being late/never showing up and making you late to
everything.

So ya, that was my week. You need an adventurous one every now and
then to mix things up.

Love you all, and hope that your week won't be too boring😉

Love,

Rachel

4-11-16

The weather can't decide if it's warm or cold.

This week was full of far out there go bys, a few late buses that
through everything off and made us late, and language barriers.  You
just have to love language barriers.  The best is when your street
contacting, and someone gives you this look, and says kein Deutsch.  I
know exactly how they feel.  It's terrible when you have no idea
what's going on.

We got to watch the last session of conference. I loved it.  I just
love conference.

Our Relief Society President has asked us to go by a lot of older
women who are confined to old folk homes.  They're so sweet!  There's
this one lady who has dementia really bad, and can't move or talk.  We
go in and talk to her and sing some hymns.  This last time, both
Sister Van Vleet and I had this thought of getting to see her in the
after life, happy, healthy, and telling us that we're ridiculous and
our jokes are terrible.  It was really cool when we were talking
afterwards and realized that we both had the same thought.

Old people are amazing.

I love you all!

4-4-16

Everyone laughed when Pres. Uchtdorf said that.  Looks like I'm
learning the celestial language😄

There is a phrase in German: April macht was er will. April does what
he wants.  I feel like you can replace April with Utah sometimes...
It's warming up here.  It's nice.

The Women's Session was mind blowing.  It defiantly hit home here.
There are hundreds of refugees coming on almost daily.  I've met many
and taught a few.  In fact, we're teaching a Romanian family right
now.  Luckily, we can skype the Romanian elders to help with the
language barrier.

I know Kersten's moving.  She sent me her new address.  She's so
excited, it's adorable.  And of course the Sisters think you're crazy.
That's why we love you.

This week we visited a lot of older ladies that are confined to old
folks homes.  It was nice to be able to brighten up their day a bit.
I also may join Kersten in her keep mom and dad healthy craze.

I'm glad I'm out here too.

Love,

Rachel

3-28-16

Mom! I haven't seen the General Women's session yet!  That's at two in
the morning here and they haven't sent the talks to the gospel library
app yet.  Life in a forge in country is hard.  I also won't see the
last session of conference for a bit, so no spoilers.

I actually do love that you're planning my life for me.  Just so long
as I can hug my bookshelf when I get home, I'm good.

I love Jake.

On a more serious note, I am aware of what happened in Brussels.  The
mission told us not to worry, but to avoid large crowds and stay safe.
I'm not really worried.  After all, "For he shall give His angels
charge over thee, to guard thee in all thy ways." (Psalms 91:11 with a
German translation twist)

As for this week, the most entertaining thing happened Saturday night.
So, we're walking down the street and some guy comes up and shakes our
hand.  In my brain I'm going "less active, Elder's investigator, a
member whose face I don't recognize?" Because no one else would react
to us like that.  Then he turns to my companion. "You're tall, I'm
tall.  Do you like to tango?"

I left Sister Van Vleet to explain that we're not allowed to date for
eighteen months because I was internally dying of laughter and if I
opened my mouth I would have externally been dying of laughter.

But it was cool, due to the "we can't date you, we're missionaries" we
had a twenty minute conversation about religion.  He wasn't super
interested in learning more, but it was a memorable experience.

We also learned not to go dooring on a German holiday (Karfreitag)
unless you want to be chased down the stairs by a crazy lady in
underwear.  Or have an old lady yell at you.  Germans take there free
time very seriously.

That's all for now.  I hope you all had a fantastic Easter!

Love,

Rachel

It's a good thing Rachel will send Pictures to Kersten.  She only sends me pictures of flowers.

3-21-16

I'm glad Aunt Carol is doing better.

Most entertaining conversation ever:

Us: "Do you believe in God"
Random Stranger: " I am here."
Us: "Cool, so how to worship Him?"
RS: "No, I am God.  I created this world. Etc."
Us: "..."
RS: "Do you doubt? You look like you doubt me.  I don't like people
that doubt me."
Us: "Well, yes actually.  But would you like to watch a video about your self?"

He didn't watch the video.

We also had a split this week hat shows that God cares about the one.

So first of, Sister Markl was suppose to come to Dortmund, but had to
stay in Duisburg.  Then, taking Sister Roderer home, I got on the
wrong u-bahn, but because of that, we meet Janice.

Janice is amazing.  She was very curious about what we do and the
church.  We offered to give her a tour of the church the next day and
agreed to meet at Hauptbahnhof at five.

As we were walking towards the meeting place, we both were thinking
that she probably wasn't going to show up.  That's what usually
happens.  Of course, neither of us said it out loud, but we both
thought it.

She showed up.  We wound up giving one of the most spiritual church
tours either of us have given, which is impressive seeing how I had to
give Sister Roderer a tour earlier.

It was the first time Janice has ever set foot inside any church building.

Afterwards, she told us that she needed some time, but maybe in a few
weeks she'll actually come to a church service and learn some more.

Sister Roderer needed to be in Dortmund because of how well she
connected to Janice.  I needed to mix up bahns.  There was a reason we
couldn't get any appointments for that night.  This split was for
Janice.

Other than that, I don't remember what happened this week and what
happened last month.

Have a wonderful Easter!

I love you,

Rachel

3-17-16

Ana mentioned Aunt Carol.  Is she okay?

I've never realized how blessed we are in Utah with so many temples until I got here.  I can't wait to go back to the temple.

So, we found a Romanian family.  It cool because we have a recent convert Romanian family that can translate the lessons.  (The husband speaks a little German, but translation is always nice.) not going to lie, I'm a little wary after Tina.  But, they felt the Spirit in the lesson and want to learn more.

I love your daily quotes.  They always make my day:)

I'm so excited for the new Easter video that's coming out.  Those videos are magical.  

I love you all!

Love,

 

It's a good thing Rachel sends pictures to Kersten:)

 

3-6-16

My new companion is Sister Van Vleet from Chicago.  It's been really
weird because for the first time ever my companion looks at me with
the "what did she just say" look.  But despite being new to the
mission, she already understands a lot and has great German.  She
studied it before and was actually fast tracked. Aka only two weeks in
the MTC.

I believe Dad's busy. At least he got some cake:)

Surprisingly I do have the bus system figured out.  Dortmund is
actually pretty easy compared to some cities.

The teachings going good.  We've been doing a lot of less active work
and that's been fun.

I cannot tell you weird it is to have a release date.  It's weird.

Nothing terribly exciting happened this week.  Just sending Sister
Bray home and picking Sister Van Vleet up.

Love you!!!

Sister Peterson

2-29-16

Life is treating me well.  I'm enjoying it at least:)

I know Michelle is crazy.  She makes things entertaining.  Actually, we're teaching thirteen year old twins that remind me of Michelle and Daniella.  It's kinda scary how much they remind me of them.  They're grandma's a member and they're planning on being baptized at age sixteen.

Sounds like you had a busy week.  I wish I could take a long nap.

I miss snow.  It just rains all the time.  While being freezing cold.  Life is funny like that.

I get the quotes.  I love them!  They always brighten my day.  I think it's a brilliant idea.

We had stake conference and Elder Boam of the area presidency was there.  I really like him.  He talked about how to magnify something is to simplify.  He also shared amazing stories of his ancestors and how they helped encourage and support him in the adult session.  In the Sunday session he talked about spiritual and temporal self reliance.  

Finding an ancestor and self reliance are two of the three things in the Europe Area Plan.  The other is bring a friend.  

That's it for this week:). I love you so much and hope you have a wonderful week.

Love,

Rachel

2-22-16

Um.......I don't think so.  Honestly, despite how hard high school
tried to tell us what to do, I have no idea how one goes about the
collage thing.  Going to college is still scarier than being a
missionary.

I'm so happy my family is boring.  It means I can finally get some
sleep when I go home😉

Of course Dad knew everything.  No body knows the scriptures as well as Daddy.

That's okay.  I miss the Temple too.

Monia's been in Italy the past week for work and got sick as soon as
she got home.  We're meeting with her tonight, so I'll keep you
updated.

Sister Bray also had a mini breakdown during weekly planning because
she's leaving something she knows to go to something she knew but
doesn't anymore.  So I took her out for ice cream and playing on some
swings for a few minutes.  It worked.  I mean, it's ice cream and
swings.  How more therapeutic can you get?

It's really funny how much easier talking about gospel things in
normal conversation has become.  I'm not talking about just teaching.
I'm talking about me and my companion waking down the street joking
around with each other and a gospel principle is thrown in as a part
of the joking around.  Not making fun of it out anything, more like
its a fact that everyone knows.  Like the sky is blue.  Or having
lengthy conversations about what would happen if the Nephite armies
had modern artillery. (Yes, this was with the Elders). Just things
like that.

I hope you have another fantastic week. (It doesn't have to be an
adventure to be fantastic)

Love you!

2-15-16

The city is treating me well. Everyone is super nice.  Actually, Germans in general are super nice. I like Germans.

As for what happened this week, I literally don't remember.  We had a Zone Training that was awesome, but zone events always make me forget what happened more than usual.  I don't know why.  Nothing major happened anyway.

I have my license with me.  I'll send the stuff to Dad.  I don't really need it though.  It's only good for the first six months and there are currently no Sister areas with cars, so I haven't needed to get a German one.  Which is nice, cuz I don't want to take another drivers test.

I forgot Presidents Day was a thing...

Well, that's all for this week.

Love you!

2-8-16

That's got to be crazy for Dad.  And you.  You're in my prayers.

Everything that happened this week feels like it happened forever ago.  

One highlight though is Monia.  She's a recent convert from Italy that we meet with every week to help her learn German and English.  While we can communicate with her, it's a little hard sometimes.  Italians speak way fast no matter which language they speak.  Anyway, this week she asked us to help her write down her testimony so that she could say it on Sunday.

Along comes Sunday, and she needs a little push, so Sister Bray goes up first.  Then she goes up and speaks in the best German I've ever heard her speak.  It was simple and sweet.

She came back down and was worried she did a terrible job.  Then the Relief Society president gets up and compliments her.  You should of seen Monia's face when we translated that for her. (She speaks better English than German)

Oh, another quick story.  We had a goal to get double digit less active appointments.  Because less actives are brilliant.  We were sitting at nine through very little effort of our own.  So, we decided to go by on some people we don't know.  While doing that, we had a few tell us to never come back or close the door before we even said a single word.

We picked another person, but called the Elders first because they've meet with the family before.  They said that the ward has asked us to not go by on them for a bit.  So we go somewhere else, and get let in by a sweet lady who invited us to come back.  

We called the Elders afterwards (we wanted to share our joy of not getting the door slammed in our face and reaching our goal) and they said that they'd said a pray for us after we'd hung up.

Gotta love the power of prayer

A bunch of other stuff happened too.  And Carnival started, so we're not allowed to go by Dortmund Hauptbahnhof or anything.  Poor Elders had to make sure their ties weren't cut off. (On the first day of carnival, girls cut of guys ties then kiss them)

Love you lots and I hope all goes well with the new ward.

Love,

Rachel

2-1-16

Dad's bishop.  Does that mean I don't have to give a homecoming talk?

I'll find out my release date sometime next transfer.

So, the inactive family wanting to reactivate called us almost every
day to say that they've read in the scriptures, said a prayer, or had
questions.  Satan's working hard on them though.  The cool thing was
that they recognized that and asked us for help.  We sent the Elders
to them.

We also visited another less active, and the day before the
appointment told us that she was going to have a friend over she wants
us to teach.  Less actives and in-actives are amazing.  I love working
with them.

This transfer is really weird because I know I only have six weeks
with Sister Bray.  I wish I had more.  She's so amazing and hard
working.  Our work styles are very similar and I can talk with her
about anything.

I also have to learn how to find my way around a giant city in six
weeks.  I can find the church and our apartment, so I think I'm good.

And, a German complimented my German!  First time ever.  Other people
have told me that, usually other missionaries or people from other
countries.  But to here it from a German.  That made my day.

How do you feel? Dad's bishop.

I love you and wish you the best of luck,

Love,
Rachel

What happens when I braid (Sister Bray braids) my wet hair plus humidity

 

 

 

picture

1-25-16

This week has been mental.

To start, I have to pack and said goodbye to everyone.  Because they changed transfers to Tuesday, it's a lot more crunched. The Bishop was really sweet and wanted us to come over, but it didn't work.  So he but his phone on speaker and had everyone say bye to me.  His wife made me cry.  She started out by saying "Sister Peterson, do you know what I think of you?" Then proceeded to compliment me for a good five minutes.

Then I took a four hour train ride to Dortmund.  It's basically on the opposite side of the mission, and one of the top ten largest cities in Germany.  Very different from Feucht.  They have buses and subways. But my house is purple, so I'm good.

The cool thing though, is I got to spend two days with my trainer, Sister Brown before sending her home. (Transfers changed, but the tickets for leavers was already bought.  It'll be the same for the next group too). That was an entertaining adventure.

Then it was just me and Sister Bray.  She's from Singapore, American, beautiful, and crazy.  I like her.  This is her last transfer, so we're going to make it the greatest transfer ever.

Then, on Saturday, I met the Rodrigez's.  A half American, less-active family.  We meet with them every week, but have been pretty stubborn, and hadn't been to church in a really long time.  However, this Sunday they came to church because their little girl missed Primary.  Yesterday night, we get a call from them.  The wife said that they'd been talking and realized how much happier they were after going to church and want to reactivity.  They want to life Mormon standards, go to church every week, the whole nine yards and asked us to help them do it!!!  

It's moments like this that you realize how wonderful church attendance is.  It changes lives.  People can feel the difference of when they go to church and when they don't.  And it was even cooler, because the Ward had changed it so Sacrament was first, so they came to all three hours instead of the two hours they usually do.  Which was perfect because Relief Society was perfect. They talked about Elder Hales talk, "Meeting the Challenges of Today's World" and afterwards she asked us if it's bad to mix two religions.

Church is so cool.  And I'm very grateful for their little girl who missed Primary.  Little children certainly are more in tune with the Spirit.

Wow, this is a long letter.  But like I said, this week was mental.

I'm jealous of your French toast.  But my house is purple. See:

Rachel's favorite color is purple:)

Purple.

I love you all so much!  Your awesome.

Love,

Rachel

1-18-15

Tina has not been to church.  In fact, she has not been home and her
phone number no longer works.  However, before she left a friend of
hers sat in on a lesson with her and is now investigating.  He's name
is Jesse, is from Ghana, and is married to a German with two girls.
He loves the scriptures and it's been so cool to show how the Bible
and Book of Mormon go together.

I didn't know you had to stand up for your beliefs like that.  That
must have been hard.  But I'm so glad you did.  You're the greatest
mother in the world.

I'm being transferred and head out tomorrow for Dortmund.  Which is a
4:14 train ride using the fastest train possible.  Gotta love being in
Nürnberg Zone.  Far away from everything. It's sad to say goodbye to
everyone.  This Ward is so strong and care so much about everyone.

I hit my year mark this week.  It's been interesting to look back and
see the changes.  The biggest one would be that I'm more confident in
who I am and what I stand for.  Hilary Weeks  it right.  I found God,
then I found me.

Well, that's all I can think of.  I'm really bad at this.  I don't
remember yesterday, remembering a week is a work out.

Love you all and thanks for all you do!



Celebrating the year mark with French Toast!
Thanks Sister Riser for the Pics

1-11-16

So wait.  Were you in the trailer?

Tina didn't come to church.  I don't know what else to do but keep
loving and teaching her and hope that she'll make the decision
herself.  Cuz that's the only way this is ever gonna work.

 This week was a bunch of go bys, dooring adventures, and finding
activities.  It was fun, but I don't really remember what happened.
As usual.  I'm terrible at this.

Oh, some Russian people we could really communicate with thought we were
part of the Three King thing and gave us Russian candy.

Yep, that's all I remember.

Hope y'all have a great week:)

Love,

Rachel

1-4-16

I'm so glad you're in primary again.  It finally snowed! Enough that it'll stay!

New Years was crazy.  President highly suggested we go home at six if
we didn't have any appointments.  Drunk people with fireworks is not a
good idea.  It was weird when midnight struck.  Our apartment was
positioned so that we would have to lean out our window to see
anything, plus it was super foggy.  We could hear them though.  And
see flashes of color.  Until about four in the morning.  It was crazy.

Yesterday was awesome though.  We managed to get an appointment with a
super busy inactive.  She was very open about what she struggles with
and agreed to have us reteach her the lessons.  She even pulled out
her schedule to see when we could come again.  It's not for two weeks,
but the fact that she's so open and willing is incredible.

I'm sure primary will be healing.  Watching Frozen did that for me.  I
was nervous about seeing it -I hadn't once Nicole died- but in the end
I feel like I've been able to recover more within these two weeks.

I hope you all have a great New Year.  I love you all.

Love,