Tauf Goals and Member Work!

This last week I said good bye to the legendary Sister Hunter and I temporarily was companions with Jane! We took a companion picture (attached). Her fingers are making her name tag.  She is so cute! Then I welcomed Sister Woolsey!! 

Sister Woolsey comes from Southern California. She is a convert of 3 years. Her favorite color is sunset orange and she has a love for the Gospel and for sharing it like no other! I am really excited for this next transfer. We have set some amazing goals for the transfer: Some about language (we are trying for 9am-9pm German!), some about working with members, and we even set a baptismal goal!! We are ready and working hard to find those who are ready to accept the Gospel!! 

 

This week we had an amazing lesson with K. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and he came to FHE last night! Everyone was really welcoming, and he seems to understand what we are teaching. Last night we even found a video (President Monson's talk on Charity) translated into Urdu. It was really powerful, and one of the members came in a bore his testimony!! K. is amazing!!

 

Besides our amazing lesson with K., we have great plans to work with members and less-actives; we have already planned 2 appointments this week!! It is going to be good. So in short this week was full of really good planning and finding! 

 

I hope you all are doing well!! 

 

Pictures:

Jane and I

Sister Hunter and I on the car ride to the train station

Two pictures of Sister Woolsey and I (they are kind of makeshift pictures because we didn't have any haha)

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson 
Alpenländische Mission

 

 

 

 

Making Things New and Mixing It Up, Part II

Okay world of friends, here you go....

I am staying here in the wonderful land of Stuttgart, and my amazing companion is going to Switzerland to finish up training!!! She will be amazing!!

Doing Vorbei's with the Junge Damen (going by on people with the young women- this is often how I speak in Denglisch)

We started a new project this week where we take the young women and we go by on people who are less active. We are hoping it will build our trust with the young women and their families, allow them to trust us with referrals, boost their desire to serve missions, and help the less active young women that we go by on to have a desire to come back to church. Sadly this time both people did not live at the address we had for them, so it was a bust, but the young women seemed to have fun anyway. It was fun even in the rain (one of the young women's mom drove us!)  It was really fun and we are excited to do it again hopefully this week!! 

A Class A Ausstellung -  now we can compete with UNICEF 

Remember from last week how our street display was really bad, and everyone was laughing at us, so the elders packed it up? Well we planned to make changes and changes we made!! No more temple of Book of Mormons and a dusty stained table clothe. NO! We ordered a whole new banner and we simplified our table down to one question! Who are the Mormons? We had 100X more energy. We all stayed at the table and people actually approached us with questions!! It looks so good!! Our goal was to look as professional as UNICEF!! And I think we schaft (accomplished) it!! Our table is sleek and organized and we even had candy! Look at the picture below! 

We were also able to meet with quite a few members and share the Gospel with them and look for people that we can visit. It has been a great week!! 

Today is President Monson's birthday!! Go do something for someone else today and I would love to hear about what you did! 

Viel Gluck zur Sister H. in der Schweiz.

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson 
Alpenländische Mission

Making Things New and Mixing It Up!!

Hallo Friends!!!!

First things first. Transfers are coming up!  Transfers calls are on Saturday, and transfers are a day early, so next week...

MONDAY IS P-DAY and TUESDAY WILL BE TRANSFERS! Just for next week. 

Member appointments: We had quite a few member appointments this past week!! We learned of a new "spiritual thought" where we go through getting to know the members and then we ask them for people they can serve, and we see if there is someone we can help. It works really well, and we have really gotten to know the members so much better through it. We are trying a new idea this week of bringing the young women with us to go by on less-actives. We are really excited about it.

 

"Die Ausstellung": We tried doing the street display this week but it looks so sad that by the time we got back from lunch the elders had it packed up. We ran back to the center and had an emergency meeting on how to fix it. People were laughing at us because it looked so unprofessional--not the best reputation so... We have a whole plan; we ordered a banner (which took us 3 days to figure out a color--don't let 6 young adults try and pick a color that is super important )

 

Volleyball: We went and played volleyball today!! It was super fun! We all travelled to this volleyball pit on the other side of the zone and we played beach volleyball! The other district joined too and we had a barbeque and a water balloon fight! 

 

Service: So along with member work and finding on the street, we have been focusing on service. We did service for quite a few people, one in a homeless shelter, and we taught German to a refugee family! 

 

"Maxim got an answer to his prayer"! We have this amazing investigator (he is like our only consistent one ) and we had an amazing lesson on the Restoration! He asks such amazing questions and he is really thinking about all aspects!! He has been praying and he got an answer! He knows God answers our questions!! I am so excited to meet again this week! 

Jeanne made us lunch and cut Sister Hunter's hair!!! 

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson 
Alpenländische Mission

 

 

Living the dream! ☄☁️

WOW! I love being a missionary!! It is amazing!! This week we saw two people enter the covenant of baptism!!! It was so cool to watch these two wonderful people follow their faith and make the steps to return to God! 

 

We spent quite a bit of time this week "dropping" people who didn't have a ton of interest, so that we can work with people who have interest, are willing to change their lives, and come closer to Christ. 

 

On Thursday we did a service project, painting a less-active member's house, and wow, her food was so good. She made us lunch afterwards and do Ukrainians know how to cook chicken or what? Ha ha. We of course got paint all over our closes, but we got to wear shorts! Bonus!! 

 

Friday we had a lesson with our newest member, Jane!!!! We met with her and her new home teacher, who is our same age and is also a recent convert. We were planning on teaching the Restoration, but we got distracted thanks to the home teacher, ha ha. He told us all about the world politics and Germany and America. We were laughing so hard, we may not have taught much officially but we built relationships and they both shared their conversion stories!! 

 

In the afternoon on Friday, we said goodbye to one of our investigators who is moving.

It was so sad but we will keep in contact! We talked about the importance of baptism and encouraged her to keep moving despite the change in missionaries! 

 

Later in the evening on Friday we had a member appointment with an American family!!! They have the two cutest kids. We had so much fun and English is always fun too . We talked about being missionaries and being a good example to their friends!! They were literally so cute!! 

 

Saturday was the day we went to two baptisms!!! We went to a baptism for the International Sisters and that was so sweet. And then we were able to get a ride to go to Debbie's baptism. I don't know if I have talked much about her. She was investigating the Church when I was in Ulm!! She was unfortunately not well enough to meet with us when I was there, and so Sister Whiting and I sent her a spiritual thought every day, or at least we tried. I didn't know at the time, really who she was or anything, but we just tried to reach out and cheer her up a little each day. It was over 7 months later that she reached out to me via email. I had no idea how to contact her up to that point, but we have emailed back and forth every week since then! I am so proud of her, and the faith that she has to keep going despite the hardships, the setbacks, and fears! Last Saturday it was truly an honor to watch her be baptized and come up out of the water clean!! I am so grateful for the opportunity to go see that!! 

 

We also had an amazing lesson with one of our investigators on Saturday night! He seems so ready; he asks such good questions, trying to understand everything we are explaining. He is reading and praying, looking for an answer!! 

 

Sunday morning another investigator texted us back and said yes, I will meet you to go to church. We had texted a few of our investigators who we are trying to get to church, saying we could meet them in town before and go to church together. Wow!! It was really cool, I hope he enjoyed it. He was only able to stay for the first hour, but many people came over to talk to him and asked him who he was etc. It was great!! 

  

Sunday afternoon we had a lesson with a member and it was so much fun to get to know them. The father served in the Zürich mission just a few years before my dad!! The Elders did a really good spiritual thought about our goals and fun things and asked about who we could help and who they can reach out to! Encouraging them to do missionary work! 

 

Sunday evening and Monday was spent finding! Something we really need to do because we are running out of people to teach! It is amazing to see different people's responses! Lately we have been asking the question, "If you could ask God one question what would it be?" The great thing is it doesn't matter what the question is, the truth is that we CAN ask Him and we WILL get an answer because He loves us. He cares about us, just like a father on earth! 

 

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson 
Alpenländische Mission

 

Pictures:

Debbie's baptism

Beautiful Jane (Jeanne)

Beautiful German houses

Sister H. and I when we miss our stop and have to wait 20 minutes for the next bus

A random lady we stopped on the street and wanted to take a picture with us 

 

 

"Ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect." -3 Nephi 12:48

From my scripture study this week, personal thoughts and a scripture study guide thanks to my dad, I learned that Perfect means keeping covenants and using the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It doesn't mean that we can't make mistakes. 

 

This week was my first baptism of the mission! Jane was baptized this week!!! She made her first covenant with God; she is becoming perfect like the Father. 

She was so cute in white. She is so ready!! 

 

This week I learned so much as we had tausch (exchange) and zone training and Jane's baptism and confirmation!!! 

 

Wednesday we had zone training! Two missionaries from my group (we were in the MTC together) spoke about faith and baptism. They were both really good! Shout out to Sister Rasmussen and Elder Joyce! We talked about being well rounded as a missionary, how we need to be doing everything! We set a zone baptismal date of 8 this quarter, which ends Sept. 30th; and 10 for the next quarter, which is from October 1st through December 31st. They really focused on working together to get our goal and working towards future transfers, future missionaries!!

 

We also had tausch and I went to Ludwigsburg! I learned about trying to be exactly obedience, but understanding when things don't go perfectly. She taught me ways to organize our week so that we have more time in a day and don't skip our studies or eating or planning!! 

 

Then JA‌NE GOT DUNKED!!! It was so cute, the whole service went swimmingly . Elder Kaufusi came back from Munich because she asked him to baptize her! We had an amazing talk on baptism from a member in our ward and while Jane was getting ready, the ward wrote little notes for her. We are going to put them into a scrapbook for her!! We had a wonderful Gemeinde Essen (ward lunch) afterwards and it was so sweet. The next day, she received the Gift of the Holy Ghost!! Jane is so ready. She knows that Jesus is our Savior, that we can find answers through prayer and comfort through His Atonement. She is on her way! She is amazing! JANE IS A MORMON!!! 

Today we went to see a castle!! Pictures attached! 

 

One of the major things I learned from all of the events this week is the true definition of perfect. I never thought I was perfect but I was trying to be, by giving the most lessons without mistakes and awkwardness, finding a ton of potentials, know how to work with members--all by myself, because that is what I thought perfect meant. I knew it wasn't possible without Christ, but somehow that is what I was trying to do. We need to have our own personal time in the scriptures (from zone training). We need the Holy Ghost to guide us in our study (Distrikt meeting). We need to let other people inspire us but not compare ourselves to them (working with zone leaders). And we need to humble ourselves enough to hear the whisper of the Spirit and to ask for help (getting a blessing). He loves us and He is there to guide us and bring us home. 

 

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." - Matthew 5:48

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson 
Alpenländische Mission