Hey Parentals!
I thought I’d try this out this week and just write both of you together! Let me know what you think, if you like it or not. I just feel like I repeat things sometimes and you both read each other’s anyways! If the paragraph is for someone specific or I’m answering one of you maybe I’ll just put your name at the beginning of the paragraph? We shall see, I just think I may be able to write more if it’s just one letter :)
This week has been absolutely amazing and ABSOLUTELY tiring. I’m so exhausted haha. Like I took a 2 hour nap this morning and I barely remembered afterwards that I’d already read my scriptures and showered. It was a gooooood nap, but let’s not get ahead, I want to tell you everything!!
That was so incredibly hard leaving Elmshorn. I just love those people so much, I have to go back! I made them a German promise that I would! (They are very serious about commitments and promises here! I like that about the culture!) Jenny and Ruben took us to the train station and they told me their secret: they are having a BOY! AND ITS ACTUALLY TWO!!! Oh, my goodness, I’m so excited for them, I feel like I just KNEW they were having twins! I’d always tease her about it, but she was really good and never broke character! Anyway, I love them a bunch and I’m excited for them. They were the last ones I saw in Elmshorn. Oh, and they gave me another set of the German plan of salvation like the one Mom made for me because I somehow lost “death”. I mean, the PofS isn’t the PofS without death. Haha that sounds funny.
I traveled with a couple missionaries to Berlin, and the trip was not bad at all! We fit all of our suitcases and baggage into a private room thing on the car and we were just squished in there. That was pretty funny, I got pictures of it for proof!
That was a huge culture shock when I got to Berlin, Oh. My. Goodness. Just the central train station alone is SO big, it’s like comparable to Mall of America big! Okay, like half of it but still! I feel like my jaw was just dropping every time I turned my head. There are so many people here! There is so much to see, this place is HUGE!
STLs and ZLs help out at the train station during transfer day, so we were there for a good long time. I had so much fun seeing all of the sisters and the missionaries coming through and running around helping people with their luggage on and off of trains! A sister missed her train and another sister got lost somewhere between Hamburg and Berlin (apparently we always lose somebody on transfer day! haha) but it all worked out and it was all good. I really like helping out with that!
The first day was a huge blur I’m not even sure what we did but, man, we did a lot. This area is crazy busy, and the sisters before have worked so hard to build this program and find and teach people here. Oh, right now I remember, we took one of our investigators, Malice (pronounced Mah-leetz-ah) to the stop smoking workshop. She is on baptismal date for April 15th and we are working really hard to help her, she wants it so bad! More about her to come! Then we picked up more sisters from the train station and they stayed with us for the night because they still had another 3 hours to go to get to Greifswald, and we didn’t want them out at midnight.
The funniest thing ever happened with those sisters- we met a brother! I seriously love Africans, they are the best. We get out of the train and I see this guy looking really confused because there was something wrong with the tracks. Anyway, we started talking and found out he’s from Zimbabwe and does river rafting tours there! And he’s a member of our church! He converted 4 years ago, and he loves it! The funny part was actually when he told us about his job. I’m used to people having like manual labor jobs here, right. So, when he said he did rafting, for some reason I thought he meant like building attics and working on roofing. So, I totally asked him the wrong questions about his job and everyone looked at me weird but then we changed the subject and I didn’t even get it until like 15 minutes later when he was gone. Yeah totally embarrassing but hey we are all friends with him on Facebook now, so I have connections in Zimbabwe when we want to go river rafting there! :D
The rest of the week was just tons and tons of good stuff. We set goals upon goals upon goals and then narrowed them down to simple achievable goals for the zone, our sisters, the district and ourselves. One of our district goals was to do 100 pushups everyday (we have some army elders, and they said that keeps you in shape) so I did that on Friday and then could not move my arms for like 3 days hahha. But our goals are good, and we are ready to work hard! We've already seen so many miracles with finding and trying to give all we've got! For example, we set the goal to find at minimum 1 contact every day. It actually isn’t hard to do, we even accomplished it today on pday! We ride a ton of public transportation, so talking with people on busses, ubahns and trains is the way to go! For example:
1. Marile. We get on the ubahn and sit next to her. Sister Hansen pulled the classic give-them-a-compliment-to-start-a-conversation thing and the girl was like, wait, do we know each other? I recognize you! After talking, we established that we didn’t, but that she knows know the missionaries are! She’s Peruvian, and her grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins are all Mormon! She even has some on a mission and one that got married in a temple! How cool, how GOLDEN! I straight up asked her if she’d want to meet up and learn more about her family’s beliefs and she said yes! I'm excited, I hope that it works to meet with her this week.
2. My very first day, I met Katrin. She’s German and we just had the best time on the bus! We connected instantly and just laughed and talked! We exchanged contact info, I’m not too sure that she’s super interested, but she sure brightened my day!
3. Paris! Sister Hansen used like the 2 Persian sentences she knows and struck up a conversation with these girls! The even invited us to their brother’s wedding in May hahah.
4. Ohhh today was so cool. We were just walking out of a store (I will def tell you about that one!) and H wanted döner so we were just in this shop waiting for her döner, and this guy was sitting eating and tried talking to us in pretty broken German. I thought he was a normal Turk guy hanging out in a döner shop, but he was actually from South Africa and spoke English! That was a shock! But he was trying to talk to us about our name badges, and then when we could speak in English, he asked us all kinds of questions! We ended up staying for a while, and he was just so amazed with what we did and wanted to come with us for a day to see what we did! And wanted to meet our "group" of missionaries! I can’t describe it well enough, but it was super cool! We are probably going to arrange for the elders to teach him, but he’s going to come to lunch with the district after district meeting on Wednesday! How funny is that?! He’s super golden, I’m calling that he is the next one baptized.
Okay, so I’ll give you a little run down of the area and our top investigators. So, Malice is about 65 years old. She has the craziest story. She has 5 kids, and 4 of them are all converts to the church. They all ran into the church and accepted it over time! Malice had it pretty hard and has been pretty cold and against it for years. Lately, her heart has just been softened and she’s been accepting it! She has changed so many things in her life and wants to turn things around. She even said on Sunday that she believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet! Apparently, she’s been against that for years, saying there is no way that prophets are still on the earth today! She wants to be baptized and is developing her testimony and preparing herself for that. The only hold back right now is with smoking. She’s smoked for 40 years of her life, that’s not easy to stop. We are all here to support her, and we are even going to suggest to her that we’d be willing to give up chocolate until her baptism to support! (I know right! That’s crazy! I probably really should though) We are going to keep seeing miracles with her though.
Then there is Kathryn. She’s 16 years old and was actually found by one of my MTC teachers! Her mom is less active aka wants nothing to do with the church, but Kathryn showed interest. She has now read the Book of Mormon THREE times! That’s 3 times more than I read it by the time I was 16! She is so cool. The only thing is that she goes to the catholic church, and with confirmation or communion or whatever it is when you turn 17, you get a lot of money and it’s a social thing, so she kinda wants to do that. But I see something so so special in her and I know that she will accept the gospel eventually. She’s so sweet and we had a really awesome lesson with her last week :)
Then there is Sabrina. I actually haven’t met her yet, I’ll meet her tonight! She actually found one of our Christmas cards and called the sisters! She is really searching for the truths, she goes to a lot of different churches. The sisters said in the last week she’s made a ton of progress and they can see the spirit testifying to her. So yeah, more updates next week because I haven’t met her yet! But I found out she’s vegan and super hipster so there’s that!
The ward is amazing. There’s 3 of the typically large families, and I learned so many names on Sunday! That’s always one of my goals, to try to greet everyone by name. This ward has probably 80-90 active goers, so I think I can get the majority by the end of the transfer. I keep challenging Elder Neale, the other new missionary in the ward to see who can learn them faster! But he wouldn’t accept my challenge. Too chicken.
Speaking of missionaries, this district is like, the district of districts. We have an AWESOME, motivated district leader, Elder King. It was just the smoothest run district meeting I’ve had so far, and it was super fun! We have a 10-man district- 4 sisters and 6 elders! It’s a party- a righteous party! I’m excited to work with them, we are already homies and family. I just love how they all are willing to be obedient and not push the rules, and they are super fun. I laughed so hard when we said "Our Purpose" during dm because we are all language missionaries basically, so people said it in Turkish, Spanish, Persian and German! I was laughing so hard by the end, it sounded so funny. Cool that we have so many languages!
Sister Hansen is so cool! She works so hard and loves talking to people too! We put together our transfer plan and which exchanges, we are only seeing each other for a solid 3 days of the week for the rest of the transfer lol. I had no idea how worked the STLs are, it’s absolutely crazy! I’ve learned so much already, and I feel really happy about the potential I’m going to reach while I’m here.
To answer Mom:
You can totally send me packages to my house address!! In fact, that is way more fun because then I get it right away! The only problem is if we get transferred, but I’m not going anywhere for a while! Also, I’ve been meaning to tell you about this: AMAZON. PRIME. Sister Hansen says that whenever her mom wants to send her something, she just orders it on amazon prime and it gets there in like 2 days! and shipping is super cheap! You just have to be careful about that with like clothing and stuff because I’d probably have a hard time figuring out how to return stuff but it is a great way to send your lovely daughter American treats and fun stuff every once in a while (hint hint) ;)
Uhhhh I have 0 time to learn the piano! Sadly yeah, now isn’t the time I just can sit down and play. I’ve been playing some ukelele at night and can play a bunch of primary songs! I’m super happy that I picked this up, I really like it and it’s a great stress reliever and relaxation thing at night! I do love the piano, and I’ll keep working on it when I can! Music is the best though! I feel like I sing all the time now, huh I never thought about that. I never used to sing in public or in front of people!
hahah Oh Martin, he’s a funny dude. He'll be baptized someday. But yeah, I do really like this area, we only teach women! The elders teach the guys!
I really liked your thoughts on judging, you are absolutely right. Most people have a reason for doing the things they do, others may be uninformed or misinformed.
I hope I can be more like Sister Pattberg throughout life. She’s a good one, I do remember you saying that. I also want to be more like you, because you are nice to everyone and want everyone to be loved and taken care of :)
woah send a picture of Mackenzie and her BF! Is she still doing good? I hope he’s a good guy, she really deserves the world. I love that girl!
ahhhhhhhhhhh I love the baby videos and pictures. Totally send videos, lots and lots! I even liked the one of the kitty! It’s funny how happy that made me to see our kitchen floor! #littlethings
Totally send me a pair of those new garments! I actually just figured out that we have access to order garments online, it’s through lds.org!
Thanks for all of the things throughout the week! Your letter made my day, I really loved it and loved hearing from you! Thanks for all of the effort and time you put in to make me feel so loved!
To answer Dad:
Ohhhhh I totally know who that dude is! He is super super awesome! I remember him always being super sweet to his son and taking really good care of him. He’s a good man.
Wait do we have priesthood session in the spring or is it the women’s session? I guess either way I’ll listen to the one they give this session! That’s true, Culvers is kinda a thing you know. I’m sure, no matter what, it’s going to be a good uplifting time! Do the missionaries have anybody they are bringing to conference? Will it be streamed for them? It’s always a bit frustrating when it isn’t streamed at our church because then we have to explain to investigators that we don’t have church on Sunday but to travel to a different one. Maybe that’s just a German thing idk. How is that guy doing that is on baptismal date? I wanna hear more about him, that’s really exciting for the Blaine ward! :)
Oh, my goodness haha you need the Area Book Planner app. That basically sounds like a normal day for us, and we only manage through planning it out! Thank you for all you give to the ward and the Lord, I know he is blessing you for it.
I did an interesting thing with my scripture study this last week and have really loved it! We are having a "Jesus transfer", aka it’s all about the Easter initiative, so I decided to focus my study on Christ. I got a new Book of Mormon again, and just put my last one on hold. I didn’t want to start at the beginning again, so I just started where I left off in Jacob. I have 4 things I’m highlighting, which is an idea I actually got in Preach my Gospel! But I highlight 1. the names/pronouns of Jesus Christ 2. His actual words (or when prophets say "thus saith the Lord") 3. his attributes and 4. doctrines and principles taught in the Book of Mormon. It has completely changed my study and I’ve learned so much from that! I’m going to try to finish this one in 2 transfers, and I think I’ll be a different person by the end of it.
Well, I love you parentals! I think this was a bit of a novel haha. but I’m happy, I just need to adjust fast because I’m really, really tired! I love life in Berlin and I love being a missionary. My life just seems natural like this now, and I’m really grateful that I decided to go and to keep pushing through hard times throughout.
I love you a million Amazon packages and Grandma’s cookies sent to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 000 Berlin, Germany xxxxx (hint hint hint ;)
Love, Macey
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