Hello!
Highlight of the week: Sister Baird's Sons (let the auction begin)
This was so funny to me. So we were at the temple, just having finished a temple tour, and started chatting with a lady in the visitors center. She was talking about how her sons, Ryan and Johnny, had fallen away from the church, and she wanted advice on how to help him. We weren't sure exactly what to say, but we gave some suggestions, and she just kept shaking her head and saying, 'No, no...' and then she got all excited and said, 'I know, I just need to get them MARRIED to a nice Mormon girl!' and we kind of laughed a little and she said, 'Seriously! Do either of you know anyone who could marry my sons?' Sis. Thaden and I just looked at each other, going 'Uhhh....' and she said, 'She would need to be a nice girl, and speak a little German, and she doesn't have to be really pretty, but it would be nice if she was sort of pretty. In fact, if she wanted to come to Germany and get to know my sons, I have a nice apartment she could stay in. And then she could pick which son she wanted to marry!' hahahah. We were trying so hard not to laugh, but she was totally serious! Then she was talking about how great her sons were, and attractive, and had good jobs and stuff. I jokingly said that maybe I could email my family and see if anyone was interested, and she said, 'Do that! I just need to get them married. Here's my phone number...'
Anyway, so here's the classified ad:
For sale: Sister Baird's sons (Ryan or Johnny)
Age: 31 and 33
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Looking for:
A nice mormon girl (or two!) willing to come live with Sister Baird and pick one of her sons to marry.
Oh, man. Awkward. Anyway, that's about the most exciting thing that happened this week. There's not a lot of news to tell, since I just emailed a few days ago, but we did have a couple of awesome temple tours, and a great lesson with Karin! (pray for us, we're teaching her the law of chastity tomorrow). It is ridiculously cold here this week. I've gone back to three pairs of tights and two scarves.
Another funny thing, there's a song that just got really popular here (maybe it is there, too?) and we hear it everywhere. In fact, it just played here in the Internet cafe a second ago. It's a sort of catchy techno song, and the only words are 'Barbara Streisand', which are repeated once every ten seconds or so, haha. At least, we think it's saying Barbara Streisand. Maybe it's actually a random German phrase that means cucumber sandwich or something ridiculous.
OH!!!! I forgot! We did do something really cool last P-day! We went to this awesome museum called the 'Dialog Museum' in Frankfurt. It's a museum all about blindness. We met up with the elders in our distrikt and we did this tour called 'Dialog im Dunkel (conversation in the dark)', where they take you through this maze/obstacle course in pitch black. You seriously can't see a thing. And they give you blind-people canes to feel your way around with. They take you through normal things like buying fruit (and you have to feel/smell everything to know what it is), crossing a street (having to listen for the different clicking sounds from the traffic signals) and ordering stuff at a bar (good thing euro bills are different sizes!). It was so much fun! Plus our district is hilarious, so it was fun to hang out with them. Anyway, they have Dialog museums all over the world. Google it!
Well, I think that's it. We're doing pretty well here. We could still use recipes, though. :) Especially a recipe for Chocolate Chip cookies that doesn't use brown sugar, if such a thing exists. There's like... no such thing as brown sugar here.
Love you all! Hope all is well at home!
Sincerely,
Sis. Jensen
Monday, February 21, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Week 16 (I think... Right?)
Hello everyone!
Highlight for the week: I got to see Sis. Cannon again! YAY!!!!!!
So on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, we had our training meeting, which was actually really awesome, but also exhausting, haha. It went from 8 am - 6 pm all three days, and we did TONS of roleplays and practices, and my brain was exploding with German by the end, haha. But I learned a ton! It was really cool that I got to be there, actually. They invited all of the sisters in the mission, but not all the elders. Only the zone leaders, district leaders, A.P.s, etc. But anyway, since all the sisters were there, I got to see Sis. Cannon (one of my MTC companions) again! I missed her so much.
Also, all of the missionaries at the training meeting got to go to the temple on Tuesday, which was so wonderful. The whole day was a little stressful, and cramming information into our brains, and then at the temple it's just so calm and relaxing and uplifting. Also, I did everything in German this time! I totally botched it, but the german lady helping me was really nice, haha.
Oh, hope you all had a happy Valentine's day, by the way!
Okay, I have to tell you about our investigator, Karin. She is making so much progress! She has now been to church three times and stayed for the whole thing last time. She loves sunday school. Last week, she also asked for a blessing (she's having an operation in March), and she said she felt really good afterward. But man, we had a huge scare last Sunday! So, Karin was investigating the church a few years ago, but she stopped because she came to church and some random lady hugged her, and it was too much. She's just a little skittish. So we've been really careful. But on Sunday, we were sitting in sacrament meeting and the bishop was giving a talk, and he said, 'Karin Breda, will you come up here for a moment?' I think my heart actually stopped. All the blood went out of my face. But yeah, he called her up, in front of our ward of like 200 people, and had her GIVE A FIVE-MINUTE TALK. I almost died. I was praying the whole time that she wouldn't like... stop meeting with us after. But it went okay. The worst part, actually, was afterward, because everyone like... swarmed on her. She looked a little shellßshocked. The whole way home she kept saying, 'That was a little to much.'
We saw her again today, though, and she seemed fine! We were just glad she made a return appointment with us. Anyway, we taught about the word of wisdom, and the only problem she has is that she still drinks cappucinos. She stopped drinking and smoking a long time ago. She said she just likes the taste of cappuccinos and it's part of her morning ritual and stuff, but we taught about the blessings that come from living the word of wisdom, and she committed to live it! We were pretty excited. We gave her a bunch of hot chocolate packets so she could drink that instead. :)
Well, that's about it. We'll have P-day again on Monday, so I'll probably email again then. I also have Zone Conference next week, which is cool. This cycle has been really weird, schedule-wise, what with the 3-day meeting and then now ZoKo. Kind of fun, though!
Love you all,
Sis. Jensen
Highlight for the week: I got to see Sis. Cannon again! YAY!!!!!!
So on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, we had our training meeting, which was actually really awesome, but also exhausting, haha. It went from 8 am - 6 pm all three days, and we did TONS of roleplays and practices, and my brain was exploding with German by the end, haha. But I learned a ton! It was really cool that I got to be there, actually. They invited all of the sisters in the mission, but not all the elders. Only the zone leaders, district leaders, A.P.s, etc. But anyway, since all the sisters were there, I got to see Sis. Cannon (one of my MTC companions) again! I missed her so much.
Also, all of the missionaries at the training meeting got to go to the temple on Tuesday, which was so wonderful. The whole day was a little stressful, and cramming information into our brains, and then at the temple it's just so calm and relaxing and uplifting. Also, I did everything in German this time! I totally botched it, but the german lady helping me was really nice, haha.
Oh, hope you all had a happy Valentine's day, by the way!
Okay, I have to tell you about our investigator, Karin. She is making so much progress! She has now been to church three times and stayed for the whole thing last time. She loves sunday school. Last week, she also asked for a blessing (she's having an operation in March), and she said she felt really good afterward. But man, we had a huge scare last Sunday! So, Karin was investigating the church a few years ago, but she stopped because she came to church and some random lady hugged her, and it was too much. She's just a little skittish. So we've been really careful. But on Sunday, we were sitting in sacrament meeting and the bishop was giving a talk, and he said, 'Karin Breda, will you come up here for a moment?' I think my heart actually stopped. All the blood went out of my face. But yeah, he called her up, in front of our ward of like 200 people, and had her GIVE A FIVE-MINUTE TALK. I almost died. I was praying the whole time that she wouldn't like... stop meeting with us after. But it went okay. The worst part, actually, was afterward, because everyone like... swarmed on her. She looked a little shellßshocked. The whole way home she kept saying, 'That was a little to much.'
We saw her again today, though, and she seemed fine! We were just glad she made a return appointment with us. Anyway, we taught about the word of wisdom, and the only problem she has is that she still drinks cappucinos. She stopped drinking and smoking a long time ago. She said she just likes the taste of cappuccinos and it's part of her morning ritual and stuff, but we taught about the blessings that come from living the word of wisdom, and she committed to live it! We were pretty excited. We gave her a bunch of hot chocolate packets so she could drink that instead. :)
Well, that's about it. We'll have P-day again on Monday, so I'll probably email again then. I also have Zone Conference next week, which is cool. This cycle has been really weird, schedule-wise, what with the 3-day meeting and then now ZoKo. Kind of fun, though!
Love you all,
Sis. Jensen
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Training Meeting
Hello!
It's not my p-day, but I got permission to email home quickly and let you know that I won't be emailing on Monday. I'm going to a three-day training meeting! Should be fun. Actually, I hear they're pretty grueling, but I should learn a lot! Anyway, my p-day next week will be on Thursday or Friday, so expect my actual long email then.
(I guess in the past, when they've postponed p-days, concerned parents have freaked out and called the mission office to see why missionaries didn't email home, haha. Don't worry, I'm not dead!)
Things are going great up here!
Love you all,
Sis. Jensen
It's not my p-day, but I got permission to email home quickly and let you know that I won't be emailing on Monday. I'm going to a three-day training meeting! Should be fun. Actually, I hear they're pretty grueling, but I should learn a lot! Anyway, my p-day next week will be on Thursday or Friday, so expect my actual long email then.
(I guess in the past, when they've postponed p-days, concerned parents have freaked out and called the mission office to see why missionaries didn't email home, haha. Don't worry, I'm not dead!)
Things are going great up here!
Love you all,
Sis. Jensen
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Beer Shoes
And the highlight for this week is....... SISTER THADEN AND I ARE STAYING TOGETHER!!!!!!!!
We got the call this morning, and we're staying here, together, in Friedrichsdorf. I had a panic attack this morning thinking, 'crap, what if I get transferred?' Luckily, though, we're staying. So all's clear with sending letters to my same address (Hugenottenstrasse 4-A). I'm really stoked. Sis. Thaden and I have so much fun together. Also, I get the feeling like there's something we still have to do together. Maybe there is someone we're supposed to find and teach.
Things are still going well with investigators. In fact, we had three investigators at church yesterday! (A new record for us). It was wonderful. Yesterday was Fast and Testimony meeting, which we were a little nervous about, because you know how there are always a few people who get up and share a really weird testimony? Or they share false doctrine from the pulpit? Well, we have a few of those in our ward, haha. But everything went well, and the testimonies were beautiful, and the spirit was really strong!
Oh, so a couple interesting stories from this week:
1) I went to my first ever German funeral.
It was pretty much like a normal funeral in the church building. It was really small, though. Only about 12 people came. A man in our ward recently lost his daughter. He gave the eulogy. It was pretty intense, actually. Apparently his daughter had fallen away from the church, gotten into drugs and alcohol, and totally alienated everyone from her, which was why the funeral was so small. He ended his eulogy with, 'And THAT is why you ALWAYS listen to your parents. Amen.' There was quite the awkward silence afterward. The graveside part was interesting, though, because his daughter was cremated, but they still buried the urn. We were glad we were there to support the family, though, and we helped with the food/dishes afterward.
2) Beer shoes
So we have been visiting this inactive lady once every couple of weeks, but every now and then she starts acting very strange. This past week, she apparently made a huge meal for us, because she thought we were coming (though we hadn't made an appointment or anything) and then flipped out when we didn't come. We went to her house yesterday to see if she was okay and apologize, and her husband told us that she was mentally ill and had secretly stopped taking her medication. He was pretty frazzled. Midway through our appointment he was like, 'Oh, I'm sorry, would you like something to drink?' and he went in the entry way to get us some soda and knocked a bunch of glass bottles of beer off a shelf, which shattered on the floor near where we'd taken our shoes off, and soaked our shoes in BEER hahaha. Sis. Thaden got the worst of it. She picked up her shoe, poured beer out of it, and gave me this horrified look haha. Her shoes still smell like beer. We went to church right after, smelling like beer, I'm sure. Pretty funny. Well, more funny in retrospect than it was at the time, haha.
3) Transfer calls
So in addition to finding out I'm staying, we also found out that we're getting a new district leader! Our old one, Elder Collins, goes home on Wednesday. Our new district leader is Elder Hoffbauer, a native Austrian. I'm stoked because now we'll probably get to do district finding in MARBURG!!!!!!! (I've been looking for an excuse to go there ever since I found out how close it was). Our old district leader was opposed to going there, but Elder Hoffbauer loves Marburg, so my chances has improved. I'll take some pictures for you, Matt!
4) My new daring haircut
Actually, it's not that daring. But the daring part is that I cut my hair myself! I bought some haircutting scissors last week and gave myself a trim. Sis. Thaden helped. I was actually terrified to cut my own hair but it turned out to be quite cathartic.
Well, that's pretty much it. I hope all is well back home! Sounds like some crazy stuff is going down in Egypt? I got your email, mom, I'm printing it out to read later.
Love you all!
Sis. Jensen
We got the call this morning, and we're staying here, together, in Friedrichsdorf. I had a panic attack this morning thinking, 'crap, what if I get transferred?' Luckily, though, we're staying. So all's clear with sending letters to my same address (Hugenottenstrasse 4-A). I'm really stoked. Sis. Thaden and I have so much fun together. Also, I get the feeling like there's something we still have to do together. Maybe there is someone we're supposed to find and teach.
Things are still going well with investigators. In fact, we had three investigators at church yesterday! (A new record for us). It was wonderful. Yesterday was Fast and Testimony meeting, which we were a little nervous about, because you know how there are always a few people who get up and share a really weird testimony? Or they share false doctrine from the pulpit? Well, we have a few of those in our ward, haha. But everything went well, and the testimonies were beautiful, and the spirit was really strong!
Oh, so a couple interesting stories from this week:
1) I went to my first ever German funeral.
It was pretty much like a normal funeral in the church building. It was really small, though. Only about 12 people came. A man in our ward recently lost his daughter. He gave the eulogy. It was pretty intense, actually. Apparently his daughter had fallen away from the church, gotten into drugs and alcohol, and totally alienated everyone from her, which was why the funeral was so small. He ended his eulogy with, 'And THAT is why you ALWAYS listen to your parents. Amen.' There was quite the awkward silence afterward. The graveside part was interesting, though, because his daughter was cremated, but they still buried the urn. We were glad we were there to support the family, though, and we helped with the food/dishes afterward.
2) Beer shoes
So we have been visiting this inactive lady once every couple of weeks, but every now and then she starts acting very strange. This past week, she apparently made a huge meal for us, because she thought we were coming (though we hadn't made an appointment or anything) and then flipped out when we didn't come. We went to her house yesterday to see if she was okay and apologize, and her husband told us that she was mentally ill and had secretly stopped taking her medication. He was pretty frazzled. Midway through our appointment he was like, 'Oh, I'm sorry, would you like something to drink?' and he went in the entry way to get us some soda and knocked a bunch of glass bottles of beer off a shelf, which shattered on the floor near where we'd taken our shoes off, and soaked our shoes in BEER hahaha. Sis. Thaden got the worst of it. She picked up her shoe, poured beer out of it, and gave me this horrified look haha. Her shoes still smell like beer. We went to church right after, smelling like beer, I'm sure. Pretty funny. Well, more funny in retrospect than it was at the time, haha.
3) Transfer calls
So in addition to finding out I'm staying, we also found out that we're getting a new district leader! Our old one, Elder Collins, goes home on Wednesday. Our new district leader is Elder Hoffbauer, a native Austrian. I'm stoked because now we'll probably get to do district finding in MARBURG!!!!!!! (I've been looking for an excuse to go there ever since I found out how close it was). Our old district leader was opposed to going there, but Elder Hoffbauer loves Marburg, so my chances has improved. I'll take some pictures for you, Matt!
4) My new daring haircut
Actually, it's not that daring. But the daring part is that I cut my hair myself! I bought some haircutting scissors last week and gave myself a trim. Sis. Thaden helped. I was actually terrified to cut my own hair but it turned out to be quite cathartic.
Well, that's pretty much it. I hope all is well back home! Sounds like some crazy stuff is going down in Egypt? I got your email, mom, I'm printing it out to read later.
Love you all!
Sis. Jensen
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