Unterwegs Writing!

Lieber Familie und Freunde,

It might be Tuesday or Wednesday by the time you read this. Rest assured, I am actually writing this on Monday. I'll send it as soon as I'm done writing, but it won't actually send until I have wi-fi and I don't know when that will be. We just have a super full week with appointments and splits and getting two investigators ready for baptism, so we ended up with no P-Day. It's fine. It just means we'll be a bit more tired and have more motivation to get to bed on time. :)

As far as the last week goes, it was super great! We started meeting with one of the Assistant's investigators and she is so cute! She has already read a lot in the Book of Mormon and told us she re-reads everything at least twice to make sure she understands it. The coolest thing is she is completely converted to Christianity because of the Book of Mormon. Our first meeting with her was literally one of the most spiritually powerful moments of my mission. She bore her testimony to us about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and then taught us why baptism is important. She wants to be baptized so badly!!!! She has the most real intent I have ever seen. She wants a new life after baptism so badly that she was almost crying. So we set a baptismal date with her! She's going to be baptized on 5 November, which is the last Saturday of the transfer. To say that Sister Jameson and Sister Siems and I are excited is an understatement, and I don't even have the words to explain how excited our investigator is. It's going to be a great day in Frankfurt. :)

We met with a potential investigator that Sister Siems found on a split with the International Sisters this week. She is a bit older, but way sweet and kind. Sister Siems had made out an appointment for Sunday evening, and we were able to meet and teach the whole Restoration! It was really cool, because when we talked about how there were so many churches she said, "Yeah, why are there so many churches? We all believe in Christ and call ourselves Christians so why do we have so many different ways to do that?" So we talked about priesthood authority and what that means for churches and us as children of God. When we told her about Joseph Smith and how he had the same question she had and had gotten an answer she said, "I want to know what his answer was! I felt like I should go to church, so I did. But I feel like something is missing there and in all churches. I'm on the search, and I don't know what I'm looking for or where to find it." Well, ma'am, it's called the Restored Gospel and we have it. ;) We'll be meeting with her hopefully again this week, so mal schauen. We're pretty pumped, though. :)

As of yesterday, I have officially been in Germany for one year. And I don't mean to freak any of you out or anything, but I need a bit of your help. The city of Nürnberg is being super slow with sending my papers for getting a visa (yeah, I STILL don't have one) to my current city of residence, which is Frankfurt. I've been talking with the mission office and some of the church's lawyers and I have a paper that says it is not my fault that I don't have a visa, it's the city's fault, and I will be notified as soon as my papers have been sent to Frankfurt. So I'm technically legal, but it's kind of an almost-illegal status in which I am living. So here's the bit where you can help: I would really appreciate some extra prayers that Nürnberg will send my papers up to Frankfurt or wherever they need to go so that I can finally get a visa before I go home. I just don't want that process to be any more complicated than it has to, so if you have a few extra seconds in your prayers I would really appreciate it. And I know, I'm not supposed to ask for y'all back home to pray or fast or whatever for special causes but I think we can make an exception for this case. I'm not getting kicked out of the country, but I really don't want to have the risk be any higher than it has to. So yeah. Your help would be appreciated.

We had a street display in Frankfurt this week, and it was really weird. Everything was going super great and we were all talking to people and getting some great contacts with people, and then this random man dressed all in black showed up. Everyone tried to talk to him at one point or another and he was COMPLETELY SILENT. He just walked around super slowly and stared at you super creepily and would literally WALK INTO you if you didn't move. He would go out of his way to walk through conversations we had with people and stare at them and scare them away. Now, I am trying very hard not to judge this man. But he was doing it ON PURPOSE. He was LITERALLY doing his best to make our street display a failure. He would have conversations with other people like a normal person just fine. But when it came to the missionaries and us contacting, he did everything in his power to be as annoying as possible. It was super frustrating. I'm sorry. I'm done now. He is a child of God who needs extra love and help. It's just another weird mission experience. It's fine, it's fine. :P

Anyways, all-in-all, it was a great week. Right now we have two investigators with baptismal dates who will hopefully be getting baptized in two weeks. It's a bit stressful to plan everything, but they're ready to be baptized so we're going to make sure that if it doesn't go through, it will not be because we failed to do something we ought to have done.

This morning I was reading in the Book of Mormon and thinking about how powerful it is. We literally have an investigator who has been converted because of the Book of Mormon. I have never met anyone like that, and I was thinking of all the important things that are in the Book of Mormon, namely, all the parts that talk about Christ. I read Moroni chapter 10 this morning, and the verse that stuck out to me was verse 32.

32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

I've been thinking a lot about going home lately (don't worry, not in a distracting way) and the kind of person that I wanted to be by the end of my mission and the kind of person I've become now. This scripture gives me hope that even though I haven't accomplished the goal of becoming who I wanted to be by the end of my mission, I can keep working on it. All I have to do is deny myself of all ungodliness. That's it. Sometimes that's a lot, but really I just have to follow the commandments and do my best to live like the Savior. Then grace makes up the rest. That is a beautiful thing. :)

I love you all! Have a great day, and a fantastic week!!!!

Liebe Grüße,
Sister John

P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos this week. What with the now wi-fi or time to write emails really, it's just easier this way. I'll make up for it next week.

P.P.S. Along with the time constraint, I'm just going to answer he questions I've received here. Hopefully you all can figure out where your answer belongs.
1. I am fine. I am following the Spirit (at least trying to) and that is a great thing, b I am fine. Really tired, but that probably has something to do with how busy today has been and how late call-ins went last night.
2. No, I had no idea who that is but it's way cool that you might get to work with him. I really hope everything works out well.
3. The weather has been typical for a German fall. So, cold, wet, and humid. I am very grateful my companion had me invest in a good pair of boots. They have been life-savers.

Sir if I didn't answer your question/didn't have time. Hope you all have a great day!

Closed U-Bahns, Miracles, and I am Famous for Brownies Now

Last week, the biggest event in the history of the Frankfurt Missionaries' lives, was that FINALLY the U5 started running again.

This week, the saddest event in the history of the Frankfurt Missionaries' lives, is that the U5 is once again closed due to even MORE construction.


This is right outside our apartment. They are going to be working during the night. It's fine. We're going to buy comp ear muffs. 

As far as the week goes, it was super great! We had two splits, and I did a drit split win the International Sisters, and then split with Sis. Van Vleet from Wetterau in Frankfurt! It was way cool, and we saw a lot of miracles during both splits. Sister Van Vleet that me a lot about contacting and talking to everyone. 

This week, we were supposed to meet with a girl that we met with last week, but we needed some Chinese pamphlets and it was Saturday night, and our appointment was right after church. We had NO time to try run to the mission office to get some on our own. So we texted all e missionaries in Frankfurt and promised them brownies if they would let us have one of the Chinese pamphlets. About 10 seconds after we sent that text, we got a call from the Assistants asking us how many pamphlets we needed and which ones did we want? It was great. My official mark on this mission will be, "that sister who made REALLY good brownies." I think there are worse ways to be remembered. 

Mom, I did get your package. It was lovely. I keep forgetting to tell you, but thank you so much. I ate the last of the Reese's today, and I managed to make the Gardetto's last a week. Thank you. Thank you for the socks. They were exactly what I needed. More color that I can mismatch to my heart's content because we're officially in boot weather and no one can tell. :) Thank you also for your letter. I really appreciate it, and I was happy to get it. :)

This week, I have been speed reading through the book of Ether in the Book of Mormon because while there is some really great stuff about faith and trials and such, I really hate the wars and pride. Sister Jameson and I had a talk about it and how the people's pride relates to commercialism today. It also may or may not have been related to a talk about whether Christmas music was allowed in the apartment before December or not. :P 

But really, the patterns in the Book of Mormon continue today. Something devastating happens, and everyone is humbled and starts to look towards God again. As we start to rely more on Him and His power, we are blessed and our lives improve. As our lives improve, we start to get caught up in the world and in worldly things. Then we become prideful and stop looking towards God and our lives get harder, but we are too prideful to look toward God or anyone else, for that matter. Then God does something to humble us again, and we start the process over. This pattern happens in our communities, our world, and even just with us. It's interesting, and with Halloween coming, I'd like to invite you all to take the time to enjoy the season and not even start thinking about the commercialism of Christmas before it's time (which is definitely not before Halloween). 

Anyways, I love you all! Have a great day, and an awesome week!

Liebe Grüße,

Sister John


                               Split with Sister Van Vleet! She's adorable. :)

I got a letter from the Primary!!!!! It seriously made my day, and I am writing them back. But it might take it a while to cross an ocean. :)

P.S. My companions just reminded me that we had TWO zone trainings this week. WHAT. That literally feels like at least two weeks ago. But we had them. We are studying the Atonement and our relationship with the Savior as a mission this month. Both Zone Trainings were centered around that, and it was really cool to see how the Spirit was different at the different trainings. In Friedrichsdorf, we had a Zone Testimony Meeting and it was way powerful. In Frankfurt, all of the Themas were super great at highlighting a different point of the Atonement. Elder Van Dam (from my MTC group) did ten push-ups for every person in the zone to have a cookie. Even if they didn't want one. It was powerful. And he was so tired by the end of it, but it was a way powerful lesson. 
Jesus Christ already suffered for our sins and weaknesses. He has already paid the price. So don't go making life even harder for yourself by acting like He hasn't. 


I love you! Have a great week!

Conference was FANTASTIC, and Fasting Works

Wetzlar

Mom's note: there are some videos, with narration, of the cardboard machines. When I can figure out how to get them on the blog page, I will. Until then, just imagine. :}

I have been blessed with two exceedingly incredible companions. They are a blessing not just to me, but also to our area and the sisters that we work with.

This week we went on two fabulous splits. One with the Sisters in Friedrichsdorf and the other with the Sisters in Wetzlar.

Wetzlar came first and Sister Johnson took over the area for the first time and I got to accompany her. She did a fantastic job despite some anxiety, and we actually had two really great teaching appointments. We visited this absolutely adorable family and taught the Plan of Salvation and a bit of the Restoration. They have three little girls and by the end of our time there, we were best friends. The middle girl could even speak a bit of English and we had a lot of fun as I would talk to her and she would tell me in her adorable 6 year old Denglisch what she thought about it. :) All three of the girls were incredibly smart. I love them a lot. I hope the sisters can teach them more. They would have so much fun in Primary.

On our split with the Friedrichsdorf Sisters, Sister Madsen came down to Frankfurt with me and Sister Siems! It was a party with the three of us all here in Frankfurt. We went dooring because we had some extra time before an appointment, and we got let in! This super kind woman let us in and we taught her the second half of the plan of salvation! It was way cool, and a great testimony to me that we should klingel EVERY door. Her husband is a doctor so it said Dr. on the klingel and I didn't want to ring the doorbell because I thought it was a doctor's office.... But thankfully Sis. Siems did and we gave the woman there a Book of Mormon and she said that she would read it. So yeah. That was pretty cool. :)

We went shopping for P-Day. Just getting some warmer articles of clothing for my companions. The mall where we went shopping though has this HUGE set up of a cardboard machine!!!! It is in four parts, and I only filmed two. It literally stretches across all four major parts of the mall. It is SO COOL. It reminds me of 'The Boxtrolls.' It's great.

We watched the last session of Conference for the second and third hours of church. It was super great, and to be completely honest, we missed almost all of it.

We were fasting that a family we had doored into earlier in the week would accept the message that we shared with them, and also that we would be able to find some new investigators (because nothing happens in missionary work without people to teach). Well, we show up to church and Sch. Hötzl runs up to us with this teenage girl right behind her and says, "Sisters! I want to introduce you to this girl! She just got back from America and wants to be baptized!"

I do believe we can help with that. :) The Ward was great, and the Young Women's Leaders talked to her for a bit and we're going to try and help get her to the activities. She's not sure she wants to be baptized, but her exchange family in Idaho were members and I think she liked going with them. We'll see what happens. :)

The next miracle was that another member, Sch. Dong, had brought a college student that is renting her attic room while she goes to school. She is the reason we missed almost all of Conference. She sat next to Sis. Jameson and they were kind of whispering back and forth for a while and then Sis. Jameson asked me if we could go teach her in another room. So we grabbed a Chinese Book of Mormon and taught her the whole Restoration. It was so good, and we're going to be meeting with her next week with Sch. Dong dabei to translate all of the church words into Chinese.

Basically, fasting is incredible. Whenever we set goals with the Lord, and then do everything in our power to accomplish those goals, we put ourselves on God's side with a promise from Him that He will help us. It is incredible, and if you ever need some extra help, I would definitely recommend fasting.

I don't have any more time (we just went shopping but it took forever :P), but I love you! Have a fantastic week. 

Rittersport Christmas. Oh Yeah!

Liebe Grüße,
Sister John

Cool Bus!

Conference Was Great :)

I've been doing a lot of thinking this last week. Sometimes I wonder how I have time to do that because we have so much to do and not enough time to do it, but somehow there is still enough time for me to think and ponder. Sometimes I am really grateful for that, but other times I don't want to think about anything. Usually because I don't want to admit that I'm wrong or need to change. The Spirit is really good at speaking to me when I ponder. Or maybe I'm just better at listening then. Either way, I appreciate having time to ponder about life, the Gospel, and my part in the Plan of Salvation. It is a great blessing I have been given.

Today we are going to Mainz as a district for P-Day. We're going to visit the cathedral there. We were also going to visit a museum, but like all museums in Germany, it is closed. Schade. It's fine though. Mainz is a beautiful city. I'm sure there will be photos to follow.

Right now, I am sitting on a train and driving through a beautifully rainy day. The sun is peeking through the clouds, and everything is green and kind of wet. You can see hills in the distance, but no towering mountains like I was used to, and I know that there is a promise of more people and more places just beyond the next hill where you just barely can't see. It's absolutely beautiful.

My district has been super great and has taken almost every single opportunity they can to remind me that I only have three transfers after this month. I have 23 weeks left. I remember at the beginning of my mission I tried counting up all the time in different ways to make it seem not so long. To try and comfort myself that I really wouldn't be gone at long. I finally settled on measuring the time in General Conferences because I would only have three. This weekend marked number three on my mission, and it was so good, but also a bit bitter because it is the last general conference on my mission. But the messages were so good and so spiritual. I really needed every single talk. And the missionary choir on Sunday morning was so cool! Brother Eggett (the choir director) is an amazing man, and he helped change my outlook on my mission in the MTC during choir practices. He is great, and the songs were beautiful. I was especially a fan of 'Called to Serve.' :)

My favorite talk was Linda S. Reeves's talk about repentance and the Atonement. This month we're studying the Atonement and our relationship to the Savior as a mission and I am really looking forward to it. Repentance is such a joyous gift that we have been given. It is the message that we, as missionaries, share with the world. It has been so rewarding to find people who have no idea who Jesus Christ even is, and watch them grow in knowledge and trust that He lived and died for their sins so they could be clean again. It is an amazing thing, and as members of the true and living church of Jesus Christ, we get to share that knowledge with people! How incredible is that! We don't need to shout to the world that we're trying to convert them, but we can bear testimony to our friends and invite them to learn more about their Savior. That is a beautiful gift that we have been given. I wonder how much we think about sharing the Gospel like that? Food for thought.

We are now on the way back from Mainz. We ended up walking along the river for a while to a very small castle that is now a restaurant that was closed. Oh well, we got some fun pictures as a district. :)

I'm sorry I've been so weird and rambling in this email. Too much time to think is a great and terrible thing. We're going to go do a finding activity this evening and then have district meeting because no one has time to have it at any other time during the week.
#leadershipdistrict #wherearetheAPs

Anyways, I love you all. I hope that you're having a great week and that you enjoyed conference. If you didn't get to watch it, you should. It was amazing, and very spiritually filling. We still haven't seen the last session from Sunday afternoon, but I think we'll watch that sometime later this week.

Have a fantastic day, and an even better week!

Liebe Grüße,
Sister John


Transfer Day selfies! There were only 17 new missionaries this time, so it was way more manageable. Sister Siems and I got a ride with the Tech Elders when we picked up the last trainer from Hauptbahnhof!

Elder Vorimo! He went home this week.... But he was a great missionary! He was in my district when I was in Feucht/Nürnberg. He quoted the Pokemon theme song in his leaver's testimony. I have a lot of respect for him, and he is a super cool person.





This is Elder Evans. He is one of our assistants. We love him a lot. :) 










 Drit pics!!! I love my companions. We all get along so well, and we have had bonding moments one-on-one, and all together. I really love my companions. :)

Almost October!!!

I spoke too soon. The weather got warmer this week and it's been great, but we got our first tastes of fall and it was lovely. It's alright. It will come back. For now we get to enjoy a bit more sun and short-sleeves.

Transfer Calls have come and gone and guess what???? I'm staying in Frankfurt!!!!! I am super happy, but what's even better is that we're going to be in a Drit!!!!! Sis. Siems is coming up to be in a Drit with us and I am so excited! It is going to be such a blast. :)

This week, we started teaching one of the Elder's investigators and she is so sweet! Really, she is super sweet. She loves the Gospel and loves the fact that we celebrate holidays in our church (one of our her past religions didn't). She has a baptismal date, and we are way excited for her. It's going to be so good. :)

We met with our two Chinese friends after church on Sunday with a member of our ward from China. He is really great, and they are even better. They talked a lot with him in Chinese and then told us that we were going too fast and they felt too pressured. It was a very humbling lesson for us, because we didn't realize that's how they felt and we thought we were going slow. But now, we're all on the same page, and we talked about the importance of God and building a relationship with Him, so that's what they're going to work on for he next month. They're both going on vacation so we won't be able to meet with them. But we already have a time scheduled for when we'll meet again, and they're excited so I'm not too worried. :)

This week was great, and I am so excited for this next transfer. I'm sorry I don' have more things to say, but we have to pick a scripture for the mission to memorize this next month and practice for a musical number for MLC which we got the call for yesterday and it needs to be ready by Friday. Yep. It's going to be interesting to say the least. But I am really grateful for all the roles that music has played for me in my life. Sister Jameson and I spent about 2 and a half solid hours just singing hymns and primary songs to try and pick a song for Friday and I was surprised by how many I know. I'm so thankful for my primary leaders and my mother for helping me learn so many hymns and be so involved in music. We may not have done anything super acive for p-day, but we did have a lot of fun singing together and feeling the Spirit that the hymns bring. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to learn so many songs and have such great teachers who were patient enough to teach me what it means to really sing the lyrics and understand what you sing. It's been a greater blessing to learn to do the same thing in German. :) I love music and the special Spirit that we feel when we listen to or sing the hymns. We meet with an inactive member every Saturday and no matter how much or how little time we may have, we always sing with and for her and it ALWAYS brings the Spirit so powerfully. I love it. :)

If y'all want to try something this week, take just five to ten minutes every day and listen to a few hymns. See what happens when you tune out the Rock and roll and pop music and really listen to the Spirit speak. Amazing things can happen. :)

I love you all! Thanks for your great examples! Have a great week, and a fantastic day!
Liebe Grüße,
Sister John

This is Marie. We got called by a member in Kölln to ask if we could go pick her up from the airport. We literally searched for THREE HOURS and couldn't find her. Frankfurt Airport is HUGE. We were getting really worried, and then the member called us and said at Marie had finally gotten to charge her phone and get wi-fi and sent her sister a message because she had the wrong number for her sister and couldn't call her. Then we got a call from her sister telling us where she was and had been for the last three hours. Turns out she was really sick after the flight and they took her to the clinic to check her out. We ended up having to wait another 30 minutes in the waiting room and then we got to take her over to pick up her luggage and get her to her train platform. It was an interesting adventure.





Sometimes we find random churches that are kind of apostate, but pretty nonetheless. 




Missing: Dorie
Who has seen her?
A great flyer we found on our way finding this week. :)






You can't tell, but that spider is HUGE. We had to get a lot of courage to ring the doorbell on this house.... But they didn't answer so I guess it worked out.