Christmas in Germany

It is such an amazing experience to be spending christmas in Germany! I never thought that anything like this would ever happen to me, to be in such a beautiful place with such an awesome companion, so far away, away from family and friends on one of my favorite holidays. It is crazy. It is so so wonderful!! so many wonderful experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life! hopefully. 

Gliencke

I am leaving my first home in Germany. Gliencke has done me good!

 I have had so many amazing experiences and learned so many things that have brought me closer to my Savior Jesus Christ. I am so sad to be leaving all of the wonderful people and the loving ward. It really is like a home to me! it is so sad leaving my companion and best friend! It was an amazing 13 weeks of my life, becoming so close and learning so much from Sister Hahn!

 On the other hand, I love change, I am really excited for the adventure, for the slightly predictable, but yet so very unknown future. I have faith that it will be an amazing change. I am excited to see new places and work with new people. I know that the Lord is with me in all of my journeys. 

Brandenburger Tor!

Peace

The gospel brings so me much peace. I am so happy to be able to study and teach and learn all day long about such an amazing topic. I find myself so happy all the time, and it is a really good kind of happy, a deep down pure, full of joy happy! I love Germany more and more everyday I walk out side my apartment door and feel the humid fall air. I am so grateful for this opportunity I have to serve in Berlin!

Ich habe Berlin so viel lieb!!!

 We went to the East Side Gallery this week, and saw the remains of the wall. It was so amazing, I absolutely loved it!

East side is on the right, and west side in on the left 

Around town

This is my neighborhood. this is wear I live. I have been here for a long time, but I am still finding really pretty new scenes that I appreciate more and more every day. In German, the sky is called der Himmel, but that also means heaven, I love it because the sky really does look like heaven all the time! the big fluffy white clouds, and the deep clear blue sky. I love it so much!

I eat a pretzel just about every day! there is a good bakery next to the bahn station that we are at a lot. and the pretzels are always fresh and soft. I love them! 

Companionships

I am so grateful for all of the friendships that I am building on my mission. It is such a wonderful time in life to work with amazing people and get really close to them. I learn so much from the people that I am around, and love it so much!

Its a little bit late, but I am so so excited to welcome sister Hahn to the beautiful city of Glienicke!! We have already served together for a few weeks now, and she is so awesome! I am learning so much from her, and we are just having a blast!

after Sister Schöpf left me for a couple weeks, I got to see her again for her last weekend in Berlin! It was such a fun reunion! I am going to miss her!

YA DEUTSCHLAND!

​YA DEUTSCHLAND! 

we celebrated the win of the world cup by wearing our germany socks and then buying a soccer ball pretzel. It was such a fun experience to be in Germany when they won! It was so fun to hear everyone celebrate with screaming and yelling and fireworks! I just sat there and waited till I heard yelling! I felt like I was watching the game myself. It was pretty suspenseful!

camping out

I love Berlin! 

I am loving Berlin with my whole heart! It is such an amazing place.

We slept on our balcony in honor of the fourth of July! It was the closest we could get to feeling like we were camping in the summer time. 

New companion

This week I got a new companion. Her name is Sister Schoepf, she is from highland utah, and has been on her mission for 16 months. She is so cool, and we get along great! I will be her last companion, and will send her back to america is august. We have lots and lots of fun together! and its just been a really great week!

It has been a good four months! 4 months away from home, away from family and friends, away from the life that I know. 4 months of Berlin, of learning and speaking a new language, of teaching and preaching, of loving strangers, and making friends. It has been such an amazing experience, and I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have!!

Done with training

 So the big news for this week is that I will be getting a new companion tomorrow! That means that I am done with training, and I am a regular ole missionary! 

I am going to miss Sister Schwantes!

She was such a great trainer and I learned so much from her!

I am so grateful for the gospel! my gratitude grows as I bear testimony of the truthfulness daily. my testimony is strengthened with every conversation that I have! It is wonderful! 

HOT . HUMID . STICKY . STUFFY . STINKY.

It was a good week! I loved it! I love every minute of the work! Even though we don't have many people to teach, and not very many people like talking to us, there are many great opportunities to meet new people and share testimony. Its always a surprise when the person standing behind the door doesn't slam it shut when they realize we are from a church! then sometimes we can have a good conversation. 

More of the wall

We went to Tegel on P day, and walked around this beautiful body of water. ein see. it was really pretty, and fun to see one of the many different parts of Germany.

 We also painted pots and planted flowers for our balcony. Everyone else has flowers, we thought we would try to make our apartment look a little more European.

it is beginning to be summer weather aka. HOT. HUMID. STICKY. STUFFY. STINKY. we cruise around on our bikes in the sun a lot a lot and then members invite us in for tea and insist we drink it because it is supposed to help in the hot weather. false. who made up that rule. drink hot drinks when its hot outside?

I always crave ice water. ice doesn't really exist here. bummer!

The very hungry caterpillar

Amazing things happen every day, and we are blessed with all sorts of miracles, big and small. It is amazing work, and I love it so very much!!

really rainy days make it kinda hard to walk down dirt roads.

 sometimes, just sometimes, I find an outfit that I like.

Thanks to some American connections that I was able to find, I got some reeses peanut butter cups!!! such a good candy! 

 Who remembers the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

I was that caterpillar on thursday... It was a holiday so a lot of people were at home, and we were able to schedule three appointment with three of the member missionaries on that day. We went to the first appointment and ate through one salad 3 potatoes 5 asparagus and one bowl of ice cream. we were very full! It was great and we finished with a good spiritual thought and talked about missionary work, and then left. We went to the second members house and much to our spurprise she had a beautiful table set and said oh I hope you are hungry I made us some lunch. so we ate through one salad lots of noodles and lots of meat and sauce, and were told to eat more noodles and more sauce and more salad, so we did. then we ate through quark (its like a yogurt dessert thing with fruit in it that is good, and very german.) we were very very very fullllll and gave a spiritual thought and talked about missionary work and then left. a half our later. we went to our ward mission leaders house, who had a couple friends over from America, and they had a big dinner planned. soooo we ate through one plate of rice and curry, and then one big serving of meat, potatoes, and rotcole, and then we ate through one bowl of ice cream.

People are so good to us, and they were all so nice, that we couldn't just leave all of our food on the plate, so I prayed lots and lots that my stomach would be able to take all of this food, and I was able to make it through it. haha it was quite an experience.

It was literally awful. the facial expression my companion and I kept making to one another were priceless. you know like behind the back of the host who so kindly prepare waaaay too much food for us to eat, and still forced us to eat all of it. I was full for the next three days and the only thing that made me a little bit hungry again was because I fasted on sunday.

Berlin Zoo

We spent our P day at the Berlin zoo. It was soo fun! The walls around the cages were very small. so you can see the animals reeeaaaal good, it wasnt scary though. My three favorite animals are tigers giraffes and elephants!!!

 Life is full of so many different experiences, so many interesting experiences! and I love each day and the newness of each day, the different things that are in store for me. It is quite exciting!! you never know what you are going to get as a missionary!!

 

Time is just flying by, and I cant believe it. May was like a blink. even faster, a wink.

we have an appointment with the Russian couple tonight, and I hope it goes well! I love them so much!

3 months

The Berlin wall. This is the part of the wall that we pass every day, like it is no big deal. Our bikes take it like a crack in the sidewalk, when at one time it was nearly impossible to cross to see family members. So amazing, sad, and historical, and cool.

Also, some pictures of my neighborhood! It is so so pretty here. I feel like the only thing I am taking pictures of is the scenery, but its just because I love it so so much!

 can you believe it!? 3 months that I have been gone! yaaaa I actually can. haha it is crazy, I feel like I have been gone forever, but time is flying by! its hard to explain, but we all have those moments and times in our life, that are very difficult and challenging but we love so much we never want them to be over. That is how I have been feeling the past little while. enjoying every minute of hardships, and trials. Mostly the times are good and happy though.

some updates:

my hair is growing really fast. it is well past my shoulders.

almost all of my shoes are broken in and comfortable.

I have read through all of preach my gospel

Weather is still up and down, this week was mostly rainy.

I can talk on the phone in german now! that was a huge scary step!!

I am finding new yummy candys and treats and food every week! its great!

I think that is all.

and My english is really bad!

ya that is all.

Rainy Spring day

 Spring time is so beautiful!  This is me on a really rainy day. It is more wet than I look. haha

This is the track, just at the station I go to everyday. Hermsdorf. I liked the trees. that is how all of Germany is looking, but even more green!! 

Berliner dome

Last P day my companion and I went to the berliner dome, which is a really pretty old church that is beautiful on the inside, and then you can go up to the balcony that circles all the say around the dome, and you can look over all of Berlin. It was really really pretty and fun! I loved it lots. I love the city of Berlin! I bought a little book that talks about the Berlin wall, it has cool information about it. Every day my companion and I pass over where the wall used to stand. It is marked on the side walk with two brick lines. I think it is so interesting, how, not too long ago, we wouldnt even be able to get from our apartment to our investigators apartment. I love learning about the culture and the history, because It is so intrueging!!