I've just been thinking all week, "man, my parents are in Hawaii!!!" That is just so crazy. I'll admit I was a bit nervous with all of the hurricane activity lately, but I'm glad everything is going well. Those pictures were awesome! You all just look so cute and happy, I love getting pictures! Btw, that purple dress is SUPER cute on you, I've never seen it before. I'm proud of you for actually buying yourself something! Is the food truck shrimp everything you remembered it was? Did you get a big towering cup of shave ice?! When do you get back? I sent you a package last Monday (just a little one!) and the lady told me it would take about 10 days or less to get there, so I hope you actually get it! If not, nothing valuable so no worries, but it was pretty fun to send. [Yes! The shrimp was delectable! We got a few towers of shaved ice while we were there, with ice cream in the bottom! We got back on Wednesday! I love getting mail and packages so yippeeee!!!! MOM]
We worked hard this week, holy cow! I'm really really tired today, so I definitely took advantage of a relaxing day and a little nap. So did Sister Grisham. We got a new version of our Area Book app on Wednesday, so the week before we had to go through a ton of information and make sure it was all inputted correctly before it updated. Because of that, we connected a lot of dots on previous investigators and people that haven't had contact with the missionaries in quite awhile. So we devised a plan to follow up with some of these people and see if they could use some service or would want to have a lesson again. There were so many people to go through, and traveling by bus and foot takes quite a bit of time here, we really have to plan out our trips. We decided to visit this one lady that lived within walking distance, and we get there only to find that there is no such thing as a #74 on her street! I didn't want to give up, then it started pouring. I was like cmonnnn, we want to find this lady! Grisham wanted to just go home, it was already past lunch time. I decided that I was just going to check the houses with either a 7 or 4 in them. Finally we found that she was #14! We happily rang her doorbell outside her gate, only for her to peek out her door and yell "Hello! It's okay sisters, there is no need for you to come in!" and shut her door. I just stood there for a moment thinking, "Lady, I just walked in the rain for over an hour to find you, and you can't even let us ask you one simple question? We were simply going to invite her to a Relief Society activity this week!" I was just kind of dumbfounded because I thought that if I worked hard enough, we would find success. I dropped the invitation in her mailbox and walked back down the road. I looked over to Grisham and I didn't want her to feel the disappointment that I felt. I just stopped in my tracks and said, "Hey, its so pretty here, I want to take a selfie to remember this really pretty walk!" So I put on the biggest grin and turned around my attitude. It was a moment for me to realize that my happiness is dependent on ME! Just because other people don't want to listen to us doesn't mean our message isn't true or that I'm not a good missionary! I can find joy in the fact that it was a beautiful area, that I love my companion and even now we have the correct address and future missionaries can go to the correct address maybe when she is more willing to listen! Its allllll in your attitude.
Friday we had exchanges with none other than Köthen sisters aka SISTER THORPE!!! It was such a blast, I've missed her so much. They came to us, so we planned out a jam packed day because it is a very special occasion to have 4 missionaries in our area!! At first I took sister Hilton to Wilkau-Haßlau to visit a less active sister and teach a lesson. We followed up with some contacts and went back to switch. The whole thing was like an interview, she doesn't talk too much, super sweet and also a greenie like Grisham, and doing well in the language! Yeah, it did secretly really make me appreciate Grisham a little bit better... We have a good time. Then we switched and Sister Thorpe and I went out on the town! We went into Innenstadt and did some contacting, and played and sang church songs on a piano that is free to the public to use! Nobody asked us what the songs were like we hoped, but we definitely brought joy! It was a really good time to just talk though. It's funny how different things are from the MTC, yet Thorpe and I can just talk about anything. It really helped to be able to talk to someone who's going through the same monumental moments as you are. I'm really grateful for her, I think we'll stay friends for a good long time. We went back to our apartment and had pizza and turned on some Disney music. Our companions were being a little quiet and we were like THIS IS TAUSCHE!! So we moved the furniture and Sister Thorpe and I had a poppin' dance party, and even made a music video!! It was the hardest I've laughed in a long time, it was so fun! The music video makes me laugh just thinking about that, I'll definitely share that one when I get home. But the cherry on top of the night was that Thorpe cut my hair- AGAIN! In the past week I've probably cut off a grand total of 8+ inches. It's pretty short now, shortest since 2nd grade maybe!! I told her she could do anything to it, and I really like it! I'm super impressed though because she did it with paper scissors. Oh sister missionary life. I probably won't cut it again basically until I go home. It's probably shorter than yours!
Saturday was the coolest day of the entire week. We traveled to Jena (unfortunately at 6 am... That contributes to why I'm still so tired) for a zone service day! We got there at about 7:30 and the four of us sisters (we were still technically on exchanges) got right to work at the church building helping the senior couple cook breakfast! I made like 4 batches of blueberry pancakes haha! It was so fun, and Sister Thorpe and I had a blast flipping pancakes all morning. After, all 30ish of us missionaries got assigned to service projects and we probably got the COOLEST one!! Sister Grisham, Wood and Roach (Wood's trainee) and I got to clean up the outdoor theater seating for a Theaterhaus! It was loads of work but totally fun. Halfway through, the lady in charge stopped us to give us a tour! (I got really into digging the weeds out between bricks!) It was crazy cool, we kept going up and up until we were in the rafters above the pulley systems. I can cross that job off my list, way too high up! Another part that was cool was that 2 boys our age joined us after this little tour. They spoke really good English and started asking a lot of questions about the church. As we were pulling weeds again, I was able to teach about the Plan of Salvation and bear my testimony that there is life after this and we have a very important purpose on the Earth! It was awesome, even at one point I looked up and they weren't working anymore, they were just listening! They said they'd be interested in reading the Book of Mormon so I gave them the Jena elders contact information. I hope all goes well! I love being able to testify of truth! Woohoo! After the whole thing, we had an hour to kill before our train came so we walked toward Innenstadt and saw a crazy huge church! We thought that would be the coolest thing we saw but NO! We walked to the train station and on the way, we saw a CASTLE! First one I've seen in Germany. It wasn't super big, but needless to say, it was a castle. We were taking pictures of it when a guy about our age yelled out the window "Hey, you want a tour?" in English! We were like, um YES?!?!?! That was TOTALLY cool. It's actually a frat house now (kinda weird but its cool) and it had all kinds of old stuff. The fraternity actually started before the castle was built in the 1800s, but it started out centered around fencing. So yeah, they had a big fencing room and lots of old fencing gear! Tour guy was super nice and we were totally touristy about the whole thing. I wish we had more time, but it was super nice of that guy to let us see inside. We ended up having a 4 hour train ride home because they were all so spread out. We were soooo tired by the end of that, but it was a really nice day!
Well, life is good. Yes, I wore that long sleeve pink shirt when Köthen sisters came for tausch. I actually don"t need new clothes really, I have a lot. It's just nice to switch them out every once in awhile. It's been cold lately but not unbearable. I wish I would have brought a zip up sweater to wear around the house or for service projects! Oh well.
I love you lots, I wish you the best on the rest of your vacation! Sorry this email seems a bit lame, I am really tired today. I'll send pictures to make up for it!
I love you a million castle tours!!
Love, Sister Macey Ingalls
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