Wochen Sechs und Sieben: MTC ✈ ---> München 🚅 ---> Ulm

Hallo Freunde,

 

FOOTBALL: I played football today!!! All the missionaries here are really into Football, okay football is kind of the international sport except in America. Anyway, they were playing and I joined in. My feet were not working well for football but I tried. Some people even passed the ball to me!

 

MIRACLE BAGS: So I only brought one bag of luggage with me and thought that would be fine, perfect, no big deal. Well that made the one bag over weight by like 5 pounds, which is like a billion dollars, and an extra bag would be free (so dumb I know) but it works out!!! I prayed and prayed and prayed for some help because I was stressing hard core that I would have to leave behind stuff I didn't want to leave behind, like my grandma's towels or something. Then my amazing companion was like isn't there a piece of luggage in the lost and found?! AHHHH, there WAS!!! AND THEY LET ME TAKE IT!!!! So I was able to have tons of extra space, which allowed me to help others take their stuff too!!! 
Literally an answer to prayer!!! Obedience brings blessings!!

 

FAMILY PICS: Our District took pictures, and let me say they were adorable!!!! (Nothing else needs to be said. I miss my MTC district because of how amazing they all were!!!)

 

TRANSITION DAY:
Too much happened to be able to adequately describe it. We flew from Manchester to London then from London to Munich. Then met the mission president and his wife and the AP's and the zone leaders for Munich. Then we tried talking to people, and they only wanted to talk in English because we were so bad. One lady didn't speak English and thought that we need money for a ticket. I understood what she was saying and I told her that we had money and a ticket, but I promise I was speaking German, but apparently not. 
Then we went to the stake center; got some training, food and stuff, and slept in a hostel.
Then to the trains and sad/happy/scared goodbyes.

My assigned town is probably the same size as Provo and Orem and similar situation where they kind of blend together. I love it here; it's awesome! I love the people and the weather and .... I am learning to love the language. 

 

FIRST APPOINTMENT:
My first investigator appointment was the second day I got here (my first full day we had four appointments). It went really well. He is a refugee and so he speaks pretty good English, which was nice, and he has a baptismal date!!! We just need to get him to church!!

 

BELLS PROCLAIM TRUTH: Our second Appointment with this gentleman (he was my first lesson too). The lesson started off with the bells ringing, which they always do on the hour, but they didn't stop for 15 MINUTES! It was insane and kind frustrating to try and talk around them. My companion and I said the bells were proclaiming that what we were saying was truth (only as a joke afterwards).

2 Hour Church and less than 35: That's church for you. We have 2 hours because we are such a small branch that in the summer there aren't enough people (they actually just decided to extend it to the end of the summer), and I counted less than 35 people in sacrament meeting, and that counted the children. We actually have quite a few children too. 

I hope all is going well there in America or wherever you are, and that you keep strong in the faith, the Lord needs us more now than ever before!!!

 

 

 

 

Heading into the Field

No email this week from Sister Anderson. Her zone flew out today for Germany. Her mission president reports from Munich that she arrived, has been fed, trained, and tucked into bed. Her first area of labor will be in Ulm, Germany, and her trainer is Sister Whiting.

Woche Fünf: When you know you have been here too long....

Hallo Welt,

 

FAT FOOD: So we eat so much here that I gained 10 pounds in 3 weeks and Elder Kull, an Elder from Hannover, Germany, gained 15-17 pounds in 5 days! Yes we are getting fat ha ha.

 

GERMAN IS A STRUGGLE: Eifer and Teufel are similar (Diligence and Devil). Well Sister Peterson wanted to bless her companion with comfort but she messed up Trost and Eifer and ended up blessing her companion with the devil. Awkward. ha ha.

 

PRANKS: So we have some pranksters in my room... Sister Howsmon and Sister Cain took Sister Rasmussen's clothes and put them in the spare room to get back at her. It was hilarious because it took her forever to find them and she thought it was hilarious!!!

 

SPIN THE BOTTLE: We played spin the bottle in class to learn comparisons with people, but the best part was everyone new what spin the bottle meant except our teacher. She didn't know what it was because she is from Germany. It was obviously an innocent game but it was hilarious.

 

SEWING LESSON 101: Elder Hartle didn't know how to sew more than a button and his tie came a little unsewed. So he asked for our help and I put the string on the needle and Sister Howsmon sewed it for him. He was so funny!!! He was like "it was so intense."

 

POURING OUT BLESSING....: Sister Howsmon, the other sisters in our room, and I were done at the temple and taking pictures and it started to rain so we walked home and it slowly got worse until it was pouring. We started running and everyone was laughing at us; skirts are flying and hair is drenched. The Elders were in front of us and started running and so we went through the gardens, and we run into the building fully drenched. It was awesome, as long as I don't get sick (it's been going around).

 

Spiritual
STORIES: Sister Howsmon and I have been telling each other stories, made up ones about our mission and they are great!!! 

My story... "Sister Howsmon and I have just arrived in Germany, we are on the bus and it's crowded with people. I look at Sister Howsmon and she smiles and says to me "None of these people know the gospel," and I say "That's what we are here for," so we walk to the back of the bus and we see an older women working on a knitting project. I ask her what she is doing and she looks confused so we point to her project. Her eyes light up and she says in a thick Bavarian accent "this is for my first grandchild!" We ask her about her grandchild and her other family and how we have come to Germany all the way from America, leaving our families for a short time, to share a message of peace and happiness. We tell her about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and the restored gospel. She says she is like I got for a church but isn't sure about the Book of Mormon. Our stop comes up and we hand her a Book of Mormon and a pass-along card asking her to visit the website."

Sister Howsmon's story (to keep it short) was about me, 8 months into the field, I am a trainer and I meet her at the bus, I get the impression to get off the train early and the we meet a guy who lost his job and has to move, we share a message with him and 2 months later, missionaries in Vienna call us and tell us that a man met 2 missionaries at a train station and is now ready to be baptized!!!

 

DEVOTIONALS: We had a devotional by the recently released Leeds Mission President. It was soooo good!!! I learned that we need to be more interesting, like if you were from Utah say "I am from the Rocky Mountains of America". So I would be from the Great Empire State of New York or something like that; obviously I need to work on it. Also I learned I need to not tell how many baptisms I have because the work is eternal so I really don't know. 

 

TEMPLES: I know that Families can be together forever and that simple truth is the central part of God's plan for us who are His literal spirit children! What a beautiful truth to know that we are children of God, a King, the Ruler of the Universe!!
https://www.lds.org/topics/plan-of-salvation/our-eternal-life/video?lang=eng

 

Liebe Sister Anderson
Alpenländisch Mission

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woche 4: Die Untersucher hören das Zeugnnis des Ferkels

Hallo meine Freunde,

Funny
GREEKERS: All the language learners are really close because we have been here for so long and we have similar schedules like meal time and Sport time and Gift of Tongues workshops together plus we were the only ones here for a little while during the transition. Anyway so often times you will find Greekers in our classroom or German in the English language classrooms. So the Greekers came and "gratified" our desks. Mine says I am Sister Anderson, not very original but cool!

APOSTASY? (just kidding): Sister Howsmon was trying to say that she was going to go to church but she said she is going against the Church by accident. Ich liebe gehen die Kirche. Ich liebe gegen die Kirche.  She was a little embarrassed but realized that she will never mess up gehen and gegen again.

LEARNING GERMAN: I learned how to make long words from Elder Freiman. Apparently in German you can just keep adding words together and as long as you have an order to it, it works and is a real word. Sister Cain and I are going to make one!!!! So excited!!!!

REPETITION FOSTERS CREATIVITY: It's so repetitious that we have themed days where we get our whole district to match like colors or stripes, we have done, blue, black and stripes. We also do weird stuff at night like dress up in winter clothes and run down the hall (only once and only one sister that wasn't me) but let me tell you the new missionaries were a little weirded out  ha ha!!!!

FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT: Sister Peterson taught Elder Wang this phrase and it was so funny. He was trying to say it and it was just the best thing ever. He is trying so hard to learn English, he is picking up on the culture too. 

Spiritual
GIFT OF TONGUES: I have realized that through the gift of Tongues that I can learn and memorize things so much easier than I would have been able to any other way. The gospel is so true. I know how powerful and wonderful our Father in Heaven is and His Beloved Son. I know that He wants His gospel to be preached to every people in their own tongue (D&C 90:11). I can see that in the 5 English language learners. Their faith and testimony is so strong and is an inspiration to me.

TENDER MERCIES: This week I challenge anyone reading this to look for a tender mercy in their life this week. I know that I have had countless tender mercies this week. The Lord is openly raining blessings and His love upon us we just need to look for them. It takes training and prayer but with practice, we will be filled with His love and mercy to us and our testimonies WILL be strengthened.

DEVOTIONALS: Shaquille Walker and his wife came and talked to us about missions and the future and it was so good. I loved how they made it personal and how the mission doesn't stop at 18 months or 2 years. We also had a devotional from 2009 in Provo from Elder Holland and it was sooooo good. I took a record 3 pages of notes on it. All about how the Holy Ghost should be our third companion. So because General Authorities don't come here very often we steal devotionals from Provo and use theirs AND they are SOOOOO GOOOD.

Love you all, you are all constantly in my thoughts and prayers.

Pictures

• My sisters on one of our many walks to the temple.
• We get bored sometimes so we took our last initial and made an acronym, yup! 
• The Greekers' graffiti.
• In order Elder Freiman, Elder Duker, Elder Santos, Elder Hartle (DL). Love all these guys; they make this place so much fun!!! They are amazing spiritually as well. 
• Elder Pèrez, Elder Wang, and I. They are some of the language learners (English). They are amazing!!! They are so happy and their testimonies are just amazing. It is a blessing to know all the English language learners. 
  

 

 

Are You Ready to Convert the World?

I said are you ready to conquer the world to my companion and then changed it to convert—hence the phrase. 

Spiritual Stories

Devotional by Eldar Bednar

He taught about how to be a Preach My Gospel missionary, but really mentioned little about the manual and talked about how a PMG missionary is a missionary for life and taught us that we need to let the Spirit teach through our personal worthiness and remembering who we represent! The devotional was so good. It taught me that we have the power of God in us and for the first time it really hit me that for the next 18 months I will be similar to the Apostles, that I have been called to represent the Lord as the Apostles have and that I must always remember that.

Testimony meeting

I love everyone's testimonies. It is really special to sit in a room of 87 people who are all ready to dedicate their lives to the Lord and preach His doctrine (2 Nephi 31 and 3 Nephi 11). I love everyone here and really wanted to give them all hugs, but they are Elders, so I got handshakes and hand hugs 

Fun stories

Devotional on Christ like attributes

We had an amazing devotional about Christ like characteristics. It was so funny because we were split up into groups and then presented about our characteristic and had to "debate" it basically explain why it's the best characteristic. Elder Hartle’s group sang a song to us, and Elder Joyce started spitting off all the attributes and why they weren't the best and it was really really funny. Elder Sly literally rapped a song about why Faith in Christ is the best. The idea was that they are all the same and they all center around Christ.

No free time for the Germans

They didn't give us exercise time because everyone else got to go out proselyting except the Germans and the Greeks and then a teacher fought to get us exercise time and then it was overruled for the Germans because we had a tablet safety meeting to go to. So we had 30 minutes of free time to walk around but we weren't supposed to change. 

Free Holy Tabs

Sister Campbell ordered Holy Tabs but she ordered the wrong size so she gave them to me because I had the size scriptures that fit and I was the only one. 

Record Heat

Last Tuesday was the hottest day England has seen in 10 years and my district decided to walk to Tesco, a 20-minute walk away :/

Color Days

So we get so bored that we do Color Days. Picture below is Blau Tag but we also had Schwartz Tag. And other districts join in.

Sorry this is so short,
LOVE Sister Anderson

Has It Been a Century or a Day....

Hello all,

Wow it has been 2 weeks since I left home and 14 days in the MTC!

I am learning more than I thought I ever could, I know how cliché that sounds but it is so true and you can't understand until you go through something similar. It is stressful but rewarding and it's helpful to know that the others in my district are going through the same thing and they are the most supportive group I could have been blessed with.

FUN STORIES

Sport: The language learners all have sport together and it is so much fun because for the past few days we have played volleyball. Missionaries aren't allowed to be competitive and keep score, and every missionary has to participate, so we have teams of like 7-9 missionaries all playing on the court at the same time and because we can't keep score there ends up being no rules and it turns into a big game of keep the volleyball up. It is so much fun. People are hitting the ball with their legs and heads; it's crazy. The coolest part I think is we have people from all over the world and all walks of life. We have the rich British missionary (well he comes from a well-off part of the UK. I don't actually know if he is wealthy), the missionary from Wisconsin, the German, the Brazilian, and one missionary is from Taiwan. Of course the Utah people too. It's just so much fun.

Maxed out MTC: We were told that normally the MTC only holds one zone at a time, so like 40 missionaries. Right now there are 87! So things are a little crazy because the MTC is overcrowded. They have two meal times because we don't have room in the cafeteria for everyone, but I don't know any different so I think it works really well.

Escaping the MTC: We leave the MTC grounds to go to the store and get stamps, etc. But the pathway to leave is behind a pretty park between the stake center and the temple (picture a picturesque garden and you are pretty close). You go through this magical garden to a gate and then you are in civilization! It really feels like you are walking through a fantasy book and your character is going through two different worlds! And in some ways it's true.

The historical race reenacted: The Apostles came to England and taught many people here. It is amazing to hear of their faith and courage. When they set a baptismal date people flocked to the river and many raced across the bridge to be the first person baptized! So some of our elders reenacted the race and raced across the bridge. The zone leader, Elder Rickard, who is from Kent, England and going to Athens, Greece, won the race.

Spiritual Experiences

The Priesthood: So I had been feeling a little off and confused with a few things and just didn't know why I was focusing on something so much. So I got a blessing and then was able to talk with Sister Cain one of the sisters in my room/distict and was able to process through it, Was eine für Segnung!

Sabbath day talks: Will Jesus weep tears of joy for me? Sister Preston talked about the Book of Mormon and how it has changed her life and how she hopes that Jesus will weep tears of joy for her when the day comes and not tears of sorrow. I hope to that I can live my life in such a way as to have Jesus weep tears of joy for me.

Temple Trip on P-Day: I just love to see the temple. I'm going inside someday.... every P-Day until it closes for cleaning! AHHHH! It's amazing to see the eyes of the people in your district light up when they enter the temple. It's a beautiful and sacred place. I feel so blessed to have temples on the Earth today and one so close while I am here at the MTC. It is so beautiful. Hence I shared so many pictures.

Two new investigators: We have new investigators, Monique and Julian! They are our teachers acting, but it's great practice! I am learning to love people that I don't know and I am learning to listen to the spirit with my companion during lessons and planning for lessons. I feel like I am way super inadequate but I think everyone thinks that.

Testimony time with mein Distrikt: It was amazing to hear the sweet testimonies of my district. I just love all of them so much! I feel like we are one big family because we all love and take care of each other like a family should. We pray together in the mornings and all throughout the day and at night. We are all constantly asking how we are doing and our district leader cares so much you can tell by the way he acts, always smiling at us!

Sehen Sie in 18 Monate.

Sister Anderson

 

Alma the Loudest, I Mean Best Distrikt

Hallo Welt,
This week has been crazy! I had no idea I could do so much and accomplish so much in one week. This week I was assigned my companion and district. My companion is Sister Howsmon and she is the sweetest kindest person. I don't think she has an evil bone in her body. She is an inspiration to me. She is always so happy and ready to serve our investigator Moritz.
Our District Leader is Elder Sommerfeld. He is so caring and sweet and he is the best district leader we could ask for. He constantly asks if we are okay and Haben Sie frage? (do you have a question?). 
   Other people in my district:
* Elder Joyce. He is so serious, at least that is what he wants you to think, but he so sweet and he is so spiritual!!!! 
* Elder Hartle. He is constantly singing and humming a tune, but it lightens the mood and he helps bring the spirit into the meetings. He loves to smile.
* Elder Ducker. He is really good with German grammar, which is super helpful since no one else is! He also tries super hard to follow the rules, which is good (we all actually are really  good at following the rules).
* Sister Cain. She is so funny. She always lightens the day and she is so sweet and is trying so hard to learn this difficult language
* Sister Rasmussen. She makes the best faces and she knows how to lighten up the mood with faces and noises. She is so sweet, she asked me and Sister Howsmon how we were doing, and we all care about each other so much.
* Sister Campbell. She has taken 6 years of German so she is really helpful with the language and pronunciation; it is super helpful! 
* Sister Peterson. She is so funny and athletic. It's fun because she is not really into skirts and make-up, but she loves exercise time. With that though she is the biggest push to get us to keep the mission rules. I love it!
* Bruder Wilkinson is so funny. He is one of our teachers. He served in the Frankfurt Mission. He is also our investigator Moritz. He loves the gospel, but he knows how to lighten the mood because it can get really intense since we are all so stressed with learning a language.
* Schwester Gäbler is our other teacher and she has the sweetest spirit ever. She is from Germany and served English speaking. It is so sweet because she puts in advice and suggestions in her German lessons and they are so sweet.
Both teachers are amazing at helping us learn the language but remember that we are not here to learn German, but to learn to be a missionary in German.
 

Big events....
1. I ate fish, it wasn't the best thing in the world but I am in England and that is what they eat so... fish and chips it is (they only had it once, over all the food is great) 
2. Sneakers.... so I didn't have any sneakers and when exercise time came I had nothing to wear and so I tried to find Sister Preston for some but she wasn't there so I found Brother Field (my pre MTC tutor) and him and some of the other teachers helped me find some they are featured below
3. It is the coolest thing when you can feel the spirit when we are singing in German. So because  the MTC is so small all meetings are done in English  and then classes are in German but my distrikt brings our song book to the meetings and we sing Auf Deutsch. Coolest thing ever. I felt the spirit so strongly when I conducted in Sacrement meeting, all those missionaries singing.
4. Our Gift of Tongues  classes are really cool, it includes us German speakers, 2 Greek elders (they are so funny, Elder Rickard is British and he is funny but hardly ever cracks a smile "only when he wants to" haha) and then 5 English learners (from Brazil, Spain, Taiwan, Czech, and Germany) Elder Freiman  is so sweet he is always wiling to help us with our language skills and answer our questions.
5. Gift of Tongues and Interpretation of Tongues is so real! It's hard to explain it but I just know more and more each day, we have been promised if we obey exactly we will receive the Gift of Tongues and it's also reassuring  that we are not the teachers the spirit is so if we mess up the spirit makes up the difference
6. DOCTRINE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER Elder Bednar taught us that if we have a question we need to answer it with doctrine and especially with investigators because applications don't convert only doctrine. So being kind to one another  is an application love one another could be the doctrine. What classifies as a doctrine is kind of up to you AS LONG AS YOU CAN FIND IT IN THE SCRIPTURES AND IS SUPPORTED BY THE SCRIPTURES!
7. Temple- we get to run past the temple during exercise time, go take pictures during free time and go inside on P-Day! I love it! It's gorgeous!!!!

Fun Facts:
1. One missionary traveled for 43 hours to get here.
2. Elder Meza; I met him at BYU and had no idea that he was coming here. The first day I saw him, I was like wait,I know you. It's been nice having a familiar face.
3. I found the spot where Oma and I played with Paige, Claire, Erin, and Seth by the temple and I took a picture with my companion in our exercise clothes. That was cool.

I hope all is well in Amerika and you all can be assured that I am being well fed, haha. I miss you all but I know that there is no where else I could be!

Guten Tag, ich liebe dieses Evangelium,

Sister Anderson

Es tut mir leid, ich lerne immer noch Deutsch
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