Servus aus Stuttgart

***First things first, our mission is getting Facebook, as I think I may have mentioned before. This means I will be using my original Facebook starting next week but I won't be able to respond to any personal Facebook messages outside of my mission area, I will only be able to respond through this email.

Servus!

This week was amazing and sad. Let's start with goodbyes. Wednesday was transfer day, and so we said goodbye to Sister Pugh and Elder Scalese: two missionaries whom I have been in Stuttgart with for 3 transfers (4.5 months). It was so exciting for them though; they are both going to places they have never been before! 

Thursday we visited 2 older ladies in our Ward with the Elders. It was so fun! The two women have such strong testimonies and it brightened my spirits seeing their faith and love of the gospel! It was also fun to see the contrast because one was American, spoke English, and was very energetic. The other was German, spoke German, and was very calm and collected, but they both could talk your ear off. So sweet, I love visiting them!! 

Friday we had 2 lessons, and from it we were able to find 4 new people interested in learning about Jesus Christ!! In the first lesson we had a less-active and her sister there, and we talked about the Godhead, and it was really good. She and her sister even came to church, and then she brought a friend to FHE last night!!! Our second lesson was with a Rehan, his brother, and his friend. We introduced the Book of Mormon, and they loved that we had it in their original language!! What a powerful message that is!! The Gospel will be taught to all the world, in their own language!! 

Saturday we helped a member write her talk because she was so nervous and neither German nor English is her first language! We also had our Ausstellung (street display), and it was really cold, but we had some good conversations and were able to share a little about what we believe with some people! We got our name out there!! Saturday night we also got to see Sister Harrick before she went home. Her parents came to pick her up and she got to see 3 of her companions who are serving her in Stuttgart, plus me. I was her Tausch companion once ;) 

Sunday was amazing!!! Mary (the sister of the less-active) came and she brought her less-active sister!!! Then Rehan came and brought his friend!! We were able to have a really good correlation meeting. Sister Woolsey and I had a ton of energy and everyone seemed so happy ! The lessons were really good. A member came up and befriended Rehan in Sunday School! It was so cool!! We then had a wonderful member appointment afterwards and got to know the members even better! After Church we had a lesson with Uche, and he says he seems ready to meet us and learn! We are way excited!!

Monday we had a Distrikt Meeting and FHE! So fun!!

This week I learned a little more about patience and love. When we trust in the Lord's timing and give our all to Him, He gives us what we need and desire in return! We just need to stay faithful and keep pushing through the hard times in anticipation of the good times!

Please pray for Mary and Rehan and Uche

Pictures: Fall is here, beautiful Stuttgart, our member friend Sarah, and Sister Harrick with her companions! 

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson
Alpenländische Mission

 

 

A companionship that prays together stays together

Hello friends!

I hope you all watched conference. If you didn't get the chance, or you missed a session,

I highly encourage you to go watch it and re-watch it; it was so good! 

Also we got transfer calls and we are staying together!! 

Happy Unity Day to Germany as well!!

This week:

Tausch: I went to Tübingen with Sister Fairbanks and it was so fun! Two of my previous companions served there as well as another sister from my MTC group. So that was a lot of fun to see beautiful Tübingen and to see Sister Whiting and Sister Miller's names in the apartment! We did some finding and we both learned new ideas. It was nice to mix up our subway contacting with streeting. In the evening we also had a member appointment with the Elders in Tübingen, and it was so fun. The couple was so funny and we spoke in a denglisch, which is my life, so it worked great! 

General Conference: Oh my gosh.It was so good!!! We were able to watch both morning sessions live. We even watched the Priesthood session. We were planning on doing our weekly planning Sunday morning and then we got a text from our friend Lukas that he had arrived to church early, and there was a guy there wanting to go to church and he had our card. So Lukas sat and talked with him until the Priesthood session started, then they watched it together until we showed up and joined them! It was way cool. He stayed for all of the sessions! We were also able to give him a Book of Mormon in Dutch (He is from the Netherlands)!  A kind member also made us Maultaschen for dinner in between sessions, so sweet!  

I loved President Nelson's talk!! 

Yesterday we took Distrikt Photos!!!

We are going to the Volksfest this week for P-day!! So much fun!!! We bought food and took pictures of course. I only rode one ride and wow, it made me so sick. Haha ugh, but Jeanne had fun so, Alles Gute!! 

Jeanne (Jane in English) kissed me during Institute... 

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson
Alpenländische Mission

 

 

Sister Anderson's Sacrament Meeting Talk

“The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children, 

 

“The family is ordained of God.

 

“Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.” 

 

These principles, we learn from "The Family: A Proclamation to the World".

 

“The family is ordained of God; it is the most important unit of society in time and eternity.” (Preach My Gospel,  Chapter 3, Lesson 1, Section 2) 

 

Alma 22:14 is a report of how Aaron had preached to the Lamanites. He teaches Lamoni's father about the plan of salvation through Christ. 

 

Verse 14 states: "And since man had fallen he could not merit anything of himself; but the sufferings and death of Christ atone for their sins, through faith and repentance, and so forth; and that he breaketh the bands of death, that the grave shall have no victory, and that the sting of death should be swallowed up in the hopes of glory;”

 

Through Jesus Christ, we and our families can become clean! Therefore, through Jesus Christ, we can return with our family to God!

 

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we know how important the family is. We believe it with all our hearts! But there are many people who do not as of yet know. Some are our family, our friends, and our coworkers.

 

We live in a disposable society.

 

President Uchtdorf said in his address “In Praise of Those Who Save,” “Whatever problems your family (or your friends’ families) is facing, whatever you must do to solve them, the beginning and the end of the solution is charity, the pure love of Christ. Without this love, even seemingly perfect families struggle. With it, even families with great challenges succeed.”

 

We should share our example with our friends. Our friends can learn from us! As we invite our friends to an activity or a family home evening, we help our friends come closer to Christ.

 

Now, I close with the words from President Uchtdorf:

 

“Brethren, in our efforts to save our marriages and families, as in all things, let us follow the example of the One who saves us. The Savior won ‘our souls with love.’ Jesus Christ is our Master. His work is our work. It is a saving work, and it begins in our homes.

“Love in the fabric of the plan of salvation is selfless and seeks the well-being of others. That is the love our Heavenly Father has for us.

“As we emulate the Savior’s love, He will surely bless and prosper our righteous efforts to save our marriages and strengthen our families.

“May the Lord bless you in your untiring and righteous efforts to be numbered among those who save.”

 

I am pleased to say that through Jesus Christ we can live forever with our family! This is possible through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us help our friends.

 

I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

SISTER ANDERSON

The elect don't wear name tags, but the Spirit knows

Hello family and friends,

 

Transfer calls on Saturday...... who knows?!?!?!

 

Bus Contacting – Sharon

So this week we were trying to figure out how to find new investigators because we seem to be running an all-time low of people to teach. As I was praying one night I got the distinct impression that the elect for us at this time, are on the buses and trains that we ride. Because of other appointments that we have, we don't have a ton of time to go dooring or streeting and therefore because of our other appointment we are on trains all of the time! The only problem is that I am awful at train and bus contacting – so the Lord said that's why you need to practice. 

So having not told my companion about my prayer, the next morning she was using German In Review (the German grammar book all missionaries have) to start conversations, and one girl starts helping her, and then they start talking, and by the end we have her number! We invited her to the Relief Society activity in the evening and she CAME!!! Please pray for Sharon!! *side note: Sharon thought I was a German when we first met, I was speaking to her in German and apparently I spoke so lightly and easily that she thought I was German. She was even explaining what she did as a job to me in German and then translated it for my companion (she knew my companion was learning German because of the book earlier). It wasn't until I brought up New York and said I was from there! 

 

God bless America!

So for P-day we went to the American base and played sports and ate at the food court!

#tacobell #speakingenglish It was really fun to be in America for a few hours! We played Ultimate frisbee (So fun!!! )

And then Sister C. taught us a BYU cheer and we learned how to cart-wheel.

We also got to help Sister S. with shopping at the Commissary (military grocery store). 

 

Family Home Evening! 

Last night we decided to text a bunch of people about Institute tonight, and one of the girls responded and said she could come tonight, but she couldn’t last night. So she came to FHE with her friend, and it was really fun to meet them and talk to them. We ate food and played games and talked about learning piano together!! We are excited to see them come to more activities like FHE and Institute!! 

Second talk in this ward! 

I gave a talk on Sunday. It was really spur of the moment (we found out Saturday night), but I felt like the Spirit really stepped in and helped me prepare something. The talk and words seemed to just flow together! I hope I got my message across—it was really cool! The email with my talk is coming soon, translated :) 

 

An add-on sent in a separate email:  On Saturday, I got to watch a friend from Salzburg get baptized.  She was a woman I helped teach. Sister McClellan and I were there when she first came to church and when we invited her to pray about a date to be baptized! It was amazing to watch her enter the waters of baptism (through Skype of course!) Congratulations Elena!!! 

 

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson
Alpenländische Mission

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Hello Starring Sister Anderson and Sister Woolsey

Due to the tiredness of missionary life, we are writing this email together! 

Saturday we had an amazing lesson with our main man Maxim. In this lesson we talked about the Plan of Salvation. He learned that families can and will be together forever when we follow God's plan!!!  God has given us two gifts, life and the ability to choose.
[2 Nephi 2:27] 

Interviews with President are always great and we are getting Facebook! 

Stake Conference was super uplifting; we had one girl who gave a talk solely using scriptures! President and Sister Brown spoke to us and were really inspiring as always. Our Stake President who was a German bashed all the Germans by saying they aren't willing to accept and we need to be more open and friendly towards others. We invite you to find some way this week to serve someone else. We will do it too! We would love to hear what you did, if you want to share! 

Pforzheim is a lot bigger than we thought it was! 

Women's night plus Max – Max came with us so he could translate for us into Russian, but it fell through because she wasn't "home," and we felt bad so we invited him to our girls’ dinner. It turned out to be fun, and we were able to share a spiritual thought with them all!! 

Also this week we prepared ourselves to be good wives by having Cooking lessons. We learned how to make Spätzle in 3 different ways and we learned how to make Chicken Marcela. 

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson
Alpenländische Mission

Members are the Best!!!

Hello Freunde,

Double the Appointments – Tuesday night we were going to go to a member appointment but then a potential called us—one we thought we had lost because we forgot to save his number in time—and asked if we were going to Institute so then we were in a pickle. We can't be in two places at once, or can we? We got permission from our STL's and another set of sisters was willing, so we did SPLITS or a mini- exchange! Sister Woolsey stayed at Institute, and I went to the member appointment! It was so much fun. The members were so funny, and it was fun to talk to Sister Francino for a couple of hours.

"I can’t cook, but I guess I'll learn" – Today we went and visited a part member family. The wife really wants her daughter and husband to be baptized, so we went over to introduce ourselves to the daughter and to walk around with her and hopefully find some contacts (this is the same amazing member missionary from last week). We were walking home from her daughter's school and she runs into her friend. We start talking and the topic of Indian food comes up, and the member suggests that we all go over to her house and her friend can teach us how to cook it. She also suggested later that her Italian neighbor can teach us how to make real Italian pasta. We have a set appointment for this week for the Indian food and we are going to show how to make chocolate chip cookies (USA). That evening we had a member appointment and ate this amazing pumpkin soup (I don’t even like pumpkin things) and she gave us the recipe and some pumpkin!! Then from another member we got pumpkin bread and a chocolate chip cookie recipe!! 

Wir können nicht füßball spielen. So we thought it would be a good idea to invite K. to the soccer night so we put on workout clothes and went with him. Well we did not realize that the only people who showed up were basically professionals. So Sister Woolsey played for a little while, but I just watched and we cheered on the guys!

Moser – We also visited Moser again and the Elders came and gave her a blessing.

It was really sweet. She is really sick, but man she is a trooper! Keep praying for her!

ZONE CONFERENCE – Wow I learned so much. The focus was on member work and we have been trying to improve that so we learned some new ideas!! We also learned from President and Sister Brown about basic gospel principles and the spirit was so strong! I felt like we were all fully recharged with things we need to work on and areas where we are doing really well! 

Raining us out – We were going to go to Königstrasse and do our Ausstellung, but it was raining, so we decided to do some more planning for the Ausstellung and organize it better for future rainy days. We worked on our Member binder. We are making a binder of the members and their information and pictures so that future missionaries can get to know them better! 

Members! – So on Sunday we talked with a bunch of members and I was trying to say hi to them by their name and I even learned a few new names and we made some appointments with the members at church!! We also planned a day to go out to the far end of our area and visit the members there!! We are excited!!

For P-day we went back to Ulm. Wow the flashbacks, and I climbed the Munster – finally. And I got to see two members who are still there. I got to hear an update on the area and I ran into the elders! So much fun!!

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson 
Alpenländische Mission

We are going places! 🎈

HELLO 

This week we had some amazing opportunities to meet new people; twice I just started talking to someone who was staring at us or our name tags, and then they came with us to an Institute or Family Home Evening. 

We also were able to organize a dinner appointment at one of our investigator’s house and have two members come!! It was a great fellowshipping opportunity, and we got to eat great Pakistani food. Yum!! 

We were also able to serve this week, some planned and some not.

Miracle story: This week we were doing our morning sport, working out to Insanity or T25 videos and our phone starts ringing. It is 7:15 or so in the morning. The phone says it's a member. I answer the phone, and she asks if we can come as soon as possible to help her out. So we quickly get ready and head out to her house. She picks us up from the train station and says she was asked by her neighbor to buy her water (People don't believe in tap water here, so you have to buy it in bottles), but she has a baby and no vehicle (families generally only have one vehicle, and her husband was away— the reason she called us). She said we could help her deliver the water and share a message (missionary work). Then she says another day she wants us to come back and visit a little old lady neighbor (missionary work). PLUS she has a plan to have her husband be baptized and then he baptize her daughter! Missionary work! She is our miracle member missionary!! 

We are seeing miracles by people we find and the members we are working with. This is the Lord's work!

I hope you all have a great week!! 

Picture of our stand and the food!

Alles Liebe
Sister Anderson
Alpenländische Mission