Sister Ingalls #1!!!!!!!!!!
Man, I just love your emails. You are so uplifting to me, and I really appreciate the advice you give me!! I've grown up just a tiny bit and your advice is golden to me, you know!!
I kind of wondered about people snubbing their noses at the lunch. It really was a great idea, I just think some people expect things to be all perfect and elegant for big church activities. Eh, egal. I hope that didn't bother you! But way to go with the successful turnout! Its okay that the active members were the ones that came, they can be encouraged to share the knowledge with their friends! That's a totally awesome, lowkey way of sharing the gospel, maybe through a family home evening. Haha missionary mentality has totally taken over and I just think of all of these things as really REALLY easy ways to share the gospel!!
That blanket is SO cute!! Awh I wish I had one. I want one for Christmas next year!! :) When is Christy due? I was pretty sure this year but I actually have no idea. You sent me a picture of you, her and Janell a couple months ago and she had a teeny bump, so maybe soonish?? Speaking of Janell, how is their family doing? Were they just visiting Minnesota? I might be wrong, but I think Derrick comes home from his mission next month! Do you know if he served in the Lyon or the Paris mission? The Lyon mission covers one of my favorite sister missionary's area (will explain later :)))).
That really made me smile to see your talk notes. From what Dad told me, it was amazing :) Its actually been a really long time since I've heard you give a talk now that I think about it! I loved that you asked those rhetorical questions. They are so true though. The opposite of faith is fear. Faith is from God, and fear is from you-know-who (not Voldemort...) I've especially tango-ed with this idea. Missionary work can be really scary, its not easy just suddenly talking to everyone about Jesus! But like one of my favorite talks from this conference said, hard is a really good thing. When you do hard things, they become easier! Not because the actual task becomes simpler, but because YOU become stronger!! The more I share the gospel, the stronger I feel in doing so! I LOVE sharing the gospel! Heavenly Father has given me the strength to quickly bear my testimony when people ask who we are. I've found that the best way to get them to understand we are servants of Christ is to just bear our testimony of Him, and that His gospel was restored to the earth by his latter day prophet Joseph Smith. Yeah, I'm pumped that I still have a decent amount of time to figure out this whole missionary thing.
Quick answers to questions!:
No I haven't received your package yet, I will have the opportunity on Friday at interviews with the President! I've received quite a few letters and I'm pretty sure I addressed those an email or two ago, especially the one with the Plan of Salvation! :) I'm in the process of writing a letter, but we are only supposed to write them on Mondays!
[Responding to the question: Are you going to be able to go back to wearing high heels again or are you converted to frumpy flats for life? Heehee] HECK NO. I really miss heels. Secretly (not so secretly) on pdays we really like to go shopping and just try on the cute heels! Ah someday.... Someday....
Speaking of the letter with the Plan of Salvation cut out cards in it, we got to teach that lesson (using the cards!) to Helga this week! She's just this cute little 80 year old with the chatterbox of a squirrel. I really love her. But the lesson went well! I can't believe we didn't teach this lesson first, because she sadly told us that she lost her husband and both children over the years. She was really interested in the spirit world after this life. She said that it makes sense, her husband visited her in a dream and said that he didn't have much time, but he wanted to tell her he loved her. I love our time with Helga. It is a little difficult though, because she talks so fast and in the very hard accent of the people down here (have I ever mentioned that? The accent here makes the German like a completely other language!) Sister Grisham can't understand her at all. So I talk a lot (which isn't hard for me to do I'm a chatterbox finally now that I have a little vocab under my belt). But yeah, thank you for the cards because they were perfect with her, she loves pictures and visual things!
I have to tell you about my new marshmallow grandma. (p.s. I think I might talk about a lot of old ladies in this email, oh well, they are cute) So one of the members asked us to go visit her parents, they aren't members! We were like woo hoo, two referrals!! Looking at our Area Book, they weren't so welcoming to the last set of sisters so I wasn't so sure that this would go well. Well, we walked in and the member, Sister Schutz, said "Look Mom and Dad, I brought two angels with me to visit!" They both just gasped and awhhhh-d and oh my GOSH they were so dang cute. The father has cancer and the mom is basically blind, but that didn't stop them! We got to know them a bit and found out their basic beliefs and shared a spiritual thought from the BOM. I'm not sure they are completely open to taking lessons, but we are coming back this week to do some service (which was somewhat of our intention from the beginning) and also to read Book of Mormon stories from the easy to read children's book! So I'm super excited for that, hopefully that will open a bit of a door to taking lessons. But I called her marshmallow Gma for a reason. She hugged me like at least 12 times while I was there. She just like held on and she's like, "just call me Oma (grandma) Bauer, okay?" I WAS LIKE OKAY IF YOU INSIST. But yeah, she adopted us. p.s. I showed her my screensaver (you and dad) and she had me go up super super close to her face and she was like hmmm you look more like your dad!! It was funny. I don't know, Sister Schulz said I look more like you. Awh I just LOVE them though.
Before I keep going on with nonsense, I have to tell you about the most mission-changing experience last week. We had exchanges, and I went to Freiberg to be with Sister Bagnoud! (pronounced BAN-YOU) She's from the French speaking part of Switzerland (that's so weird to say, we say die Schweiz), and has been out just one transfer past me! She just became one of the Sister Training Leaders in Freiberg a week before we had exchanges. We switched in Chemnitz between us, and we just instantly clicked on the train ride home. We just talked about everything, and could relate really well because she also trained one transfer out. But we got back and quickly prepared a spiritual thought for a "power visit" (we plan a couple of those a week to meet members and also the less actives, I love 'em), and we just bounced ideas off of each other so well. The spiritual thought went really well, and you couldn't even tell that we weren't companions! Then we ran over to the temple (yes, the temple!!) and had dinner with a senior couple that was serving there! Its really cool, here the couples actually live in housing connected to the temple (underground tunnels). That was also super cool! Her personality is a lot like mine and even cooler, I love her so much! We were able to just energize each other, and we both said later that we were able to be our "bubbly" selves that whole time! (this is why I mentioned the cake. We ate 3 dang pieces of cake at this couples house. Granted they were small, but still.) I could go into way too much detail, but needless to say, I really needed that time with her. We were able to lift each other up in so many ways. She was struggling with fitting into a new area, and I was able to help her see that her companion and her don't need to be exactly the same to work well together (in fact, being different personalities, you tend to be able to reach more people!) She also helped me get over something really big that I just kept pushing back. I realized that my first transfer was a lot harder on me that I liked to admit and by the miracle of Heavenly Father, this 24 hours lit it like a lightning strike again! I just have to say, I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK! I think I'm beginning to find my passion in it, and how I can spread it.
Another awesome part of this exchange experience was the temple!! When I first got to Freiberg I wasn't sure how I felt, but man, just 24 hours there and I am praying that I serve there (especially with Sister Bagnoud!!!!) We had the idea late on Wednesday to possibly go for our personal study time the next morning. The Freiberg sisters usually to get to go to the temple one time in the week (lucky, right!) to the 8 am session. Well, Sister Bagnoud had already gone for the week, so we actually had to ask the mission president for permission to go. We literally both got on our knees and said a prayer before we texted him because we wanted to go so dang bad hahaha!!!! We didn't get an answer until about 10pm, when we were already in bed just in case we could go, we'd have to get up at 5:30am if we could. HE SAID YES!!! We screamed super loud and then were too excited to go to sleep. Yeah I slept like two hours that night (also their beds weren't as comfy but oh well). Mom, the temple was AMAZING. I needed it more than I ever imagined. We did a session and sat in the Celestial room for a bit. I felt the spirit stronger than I have in quite some time, it was a wonderful peaceful feeling. I never really asked Heavenly Father questions while in the Celestial room, but I felt the promptings to just start praying and asking for what I needed. I just opened my heart and told him that I wanted to know which direction I should take the missionary work in Zwickau. There are so many things, but if we spread ourselves out too thin, I fear that we won't make much progress on anything. Once I finally opened my eyes, I saw a pattern in the carpet that looked like a compass. I felt the spirit whisper the words of D&C that it doesn't matter where I go, as long as I'm walking the path of righteousness. He taught me of my personal Liahona, and that if I'm righteous, I will be lead toward good works. I can receive so many blessings through obedience; because the Liahona will only work according to the faith AND obedience of its holder. The other questions that I was really pondering and praying was how to help Sister Grisham become more. Note: she is already amazing, but I know that it is my responsibility to help her become a successful servant of Christ. The spirit whispered again to open my eyes and look. I saw the beautiful table in the middle of the room, holding a giant vase of flowers. I learned that like this table, I needed to build her up with solid bases, and then she will create her own bouquet of success and really flourish. I felt incredible peace in the temple that day. As I was leaving, I quick looked around like hmmmm any more symbols or furniture that will give me more inspiration?? haha.
Well, I thought that my emails would get shorter with time, but it sounds like they will just become longer and longer! All is well! Let me know what you like to hear! Its fun to share the silly things that happen, but my favorite is to reflect on the spiritual experiences that have went down. I know that Heavenly Father is watching over me. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the truth of Christ's gospel restored on the Earth, once again and for the last time. I look forward with hope to the day when Christ comes again. I love my eternal family and thank Heavenly Father every day for them! You are such a blessing in my life, and I LOVE you!!
I love you a million temple visits!!
Sister Macey Ingalls
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