Herbst is Here!!!!!

Sis. Jameson and I are wearing tights today and we wore them to church yesterday as well. I actually don't mind wearing tights, but sometimes I can't help thinking it would just be easier to wear pants. Maybe someday.

Today we cleaned the apartment and I am very proud to say that the bathroom and kitchen are SPOTLESS. I cleaned the bathroom and Sister Jameson cleaned the kitchen. Thank you to both of our mothers for teaching us how to clean. It is a valuable skill I (and the Lord) appreciate.

I just learned that I forwarded last week's email on accident. It was because I was copying the emails because I just email on my iPad and I'm too lazy to enter them in every time. Please excuse my lack of Tech Savvy.

This week was really great with three splits with three amazing companionships! Sister Anderson from the Frankfurt 2 district came with me Monday and Tuesday, then Sister Spaeth and I took over Hanau Tuesday to Wednesday, and then Sister Kryzanski and I hung out in Frankfurt from Thursday to Friday. It was kind of a busy week, but I love working with the sisters. It makes me sad because transfer calls are on Saturday and we have a lot of sisters who will probably be leaving. But it will be okay because they will go where they are needed and where they will be able to learn and grow the most. So it will be sad to say good bye, but with the Gospel, we never have to say any permanent good byes! So that's cool. :)

We met with one of our Chinese investigators, Yi, after church on Sunday. She told us about some of the stuff that she'd read about the church on the Internet and wanted to know if it was true. It lead to a really great discussion about what we do believe and how you can't believe everything on the Internet. We were able to reassure her and let her know that if she ever reads something that she's not sure about it to please ask us and we can talk about it. It was a great teaching moment, and she was way open about it and the lesson we had accompanying it was really great. I love her a ton and she is way sweet and open. She also said that she wants to be baptized! But she wants to learn everything first, so we're going to be working on that. Also, we think it might be better if we go a little slower with her. Something about no previous religious background and wanting to make sure her conversion is strong and all that. But she's solid so I know she'll get there. :)

Cool moment of the week: SISTER JAMESON GOT HER VISA!!!!!!!!!!! We only had to wait at the Ausländersamt for like, 3 hours. By she got it! She is now legally in Germany!!!!! Hooray!!!!!!! As for my visa, we're still waiting on Nürnberg to send my papers up. But Frankfurt seems to be really good at sorting out problems, so I'm not too worried about it.

It's been a great week. Last Monday seems like FOREVER ago, but the week went by way fast. It's been great, and there have been a lot of blessings this week because of missionary service.

I've been thinking a lot about divine nature lately. I've had a lot of good studies about it and what it means that I am a woman and I have a part in the Plan of Salvation. It's been really cool to learn so much and be able to then use that to love our investigators and contacts more. I have so much divine potential to become a Being like GOD. And EVERYONE ELSE HAS THAT, TOO. That is a powerful fact, and I'm still working on understanding it completely. But it really has helped me be able to have so much more love for the people we get to work with. I am so grateful for everything that our loving Heavenly Father has given to us to help us come to know Him and His Son and our parts in the Plan of Salvation better. It is a great comfort and a strength to me, and I hope to be able to share that more with the people we teach.

I set some goals for qualities that I have developed/am working on developing that I want to keep for the rest of my life based on this knowledge. It has been a great learning experience, and I hope to someday accomplish these goals because they're really important to me because I set them with help from my Heavenly Father. It's not something that I have ever actually done before, but I want to do it more now. I feel so excited to work on these things and do my best because I know for sure that the powers of Heaven on aware my side. Or rather, I am working on the same side as the powers of Heaven. Which is even better.

It is a struggle to align my will completely with the will of God. It's something that I'm working on doing more every single day. But I have seen so many blessings that come when we follow God's will. It's a pattern that I want to follow for the rest of my life because I may not always understand why, but I know that if I do it and try it and do my best to figure out why God has made it so, I can find an answer. The Gospel never ends, and neither do improvement and progression. I am so grateful for these qualities that allow us to always get better and always try again. Because even though I'm a "Missionary" and I'm supposed to be "perfect," I'm not. I fail. I screw up. Sometimes I screw up the same thing twenty times in a row. But it's okay, because as long as I learn from it and try and do it better the next time, I know that the Atonement will help me out. I'm so grateful for that.

Sorry for the spiritual rant. Sometimes there's just a lot of time and things to ponder on a mission and it's never coherent on Monday when you're supposed to write them out to your friends and family. 

I love you all! Have a fantastic day, and an absolutely incredible fall-filled week!

Liebe Grüße,
Sister John


P.S. Yes, I did notice my year mark was on Friday. No, I did not go get ice cream or celebrate formally because we didn't have time on our split. But it was a good day, and I got to pet a cat so I'll consider that a celebration. :)

A Senior Missionary Couple who works in the office has their granddaughter here visiting for two weeks so she borrowed her grandmother's Nametag and came to an appointment with us and bore AWESOME testimony. :)














Hanau split! Sister Spaeth and I got ice cream at the end but Sister Jameson is still goin strong on her no sugar goal. We're going to bake brownies and eat them with vanilla ice cream when the transfer ends.

 

Fun Fact: Hanau is the birth place of the Grimm Brothers. There is a statue of them in front of the building that was built on top of the building where they were born. Just in case you were wondering why it looked a bit too modern.

The Longest Shortest Week

Sister Estes and her Himbeer Banane Split.
She is adorable. :)

We FINALLY went shoe shopping today, but it takes forever to get anywhere in Frankfurt so I don't have a ton of time. This week went by really fast, but it also felt really long. But we got a lot of good things done, so that was awesome. :)

We met with our investigators Yi and Yb, and they are doing great! I love meeting with them because they're just happy and they just love  learning about the Gospel. They are incredible, and I love them. :)

Church on Sunday was lovely, but I was way tired because we were up late the night before. We had an awesome lesson about being honest during relief society and it was actually taught by a less-active sister that we've been working with! It was way cool, and she worked really hard to make sure she was prepared with all of the materials she needed. It was really cool to see. :)

We split with the Friedrichsdorf Sisters this week and I discovered that Sister Estes is my long, lost twin. We had a super fun split and we ended it with Eis Christina and it was delicious. :) We were going to eat there with Sister Jameson and Sister Madsen too, but..... Sister Madsen has sworn off sugar, and she convinced Sister Jameson to do the same until the end of the transfer. I have no desire to support my companion in yet another goal that I quite honestly think will fail, but I am praying for charity and strength for her to be able to do it because my strength to support her is lacking. It's fine. We'll be able to eat sugar again someday.

I love you all! Sorry this is so short, but I really hope you're having a great day and week!

Liebe Grüße,
Sister John

This Jason. He is a member from Taiwan. He is literally the best Ward Missionary and he's only eighteen. Also, pay close attention to his tie. It was my favorite thing from Sunday. :)



Saw this great sign while out contacting. Actually, I have left everything behind to serve the Lord. Or at least, I do my best to leave it all behind. I'm still trying to be completely devoted, but I think that might be a lifelong process.

Deutschland has a Tempel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom's note: I am going to assume that either the German language is taking over or the computer auto-corrected her usually flawless spelling. Anyway, she had an amazing week.

Today the International Sisters have a baptism. A family from Brazil is getting baptized and it is way exciting. They're so cute! One of the daughters is twenty-two and has a two year old daughter and she is adorable. All of the missionaries have adopted her. I promise she's only mostly spoiled. ;)

This week we had time to do finding! That never happens! It was super great even though I'm not always the best at talking to people on the street. But it's fine. I am getting better and that is what is important. We talked to some really cool, prepared people, too. So that was also neat. :)

Sister Jameson just started playing How to Train Your Dragon. I am completely distracted.

As far as miracles go, the most awesome thing happened Sunday. It starts on Saturday evening, at which time we all gathered at the church house to watch a broadcast of a cultural celebration happening in Freiberg.

Why were we watching a cultural celebration that wasn't even happening in our mission, you ask? Well, why do we ever have cultural celebrations in this church??? Because we were dedicating a Tempel! The Freiberg Tempel was re-dedicated Sunday in three sessions and it was the most marvelous thing of my life! It was broadcast to every church house in Germany on Sunday and it was so great. Präsident Uchtdorf was there and can I just tell you how much I love his German? It is beautiful to hear him speak his mother language. It confirms that it truly is the celestial language. I love German. I love Germany. I love the Tempel.

Sorry, I will try and put my thoughts in some sort of order.

The Cultural Celebration was great. Präsident Uchtdorf talked about the importance of the For the Strengh of Youth pamphlet in helping us all set and keep our standards high. The program used our Area Mission Plan and talked about the history of the Tempel and East Germany. There was a part where Präsident Uchtdorf talked about his childhood growing up in East Germany and I cried. Then, all the youth out on a presentation that told the story of the temple. Apparently, some of the church leaders would go every year to ask for permission to take a group of Saints to a Tempel in another country to receive their endowments, but they were always told no. Then one year, they were asked, "Well, why don't you just build a Tempel here in Germany?"  It was a cool story, and the program ended with all the youth holding their plastic Tempel recommend protectors and walking through the front gate of the Tempel. It was beautiful, and the Spirit was way strong.

At the Tempel dedication, it was absolutely incredible. The church really did feel like the Tempel, and we all had to show our recommends to get in. We have a correlation meeting as a district Sunday mornings and all of the Elders made the comment that it just felt so good. Sister Jameson and I had already talked about it and were too busy taking it all in. It was the one moment of on my mission where I got to go to the Tempel in Germany, and it was beautiful.

In case of any of you were wondering, the Tempel is the most holy and sacred place on the earth. It is literally the house of God, and Jesus Christ. It is the most beautiful place, and I love it so very much. I miss it even more so.

If you can't go to the Tempel right now, get there! If your recommend has expired, get a new one. If you need to meet with the Bishop of Stake President, do it! I promise you that once you've gone to theTempel, you will want to be there always, and you will always want to be worthy to be there. No sacrifice will seem too great, and no sacrifice is too great to be able to enter the House of the Lord.

I love you all. Have an awesome day, and an incredible, Spirit-filled week!

Liebe Grüße,
Sister John


No pictures this week because I am lame. Sorry! I'll make up for it next week!