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