Week 15: Love Your Neighbor, Even as You Love Me

Woche 15: Love your neighbor, even as you love me
 

Opening his package from us

This week was a little better concerning the work. We still didn't have a lot of time to do certain things though.

Montag

Monday was really relaxed. The week before, we had to cut our P-Day short because we were helping someone move. So we took the time we didn't get and added it to this Monday. We were able to send out letters, take time at our shopping, and go look at winter clothing. I bought a nice pea coat that day. The rest of the day was taken to prepare for the week.

Dienstag

So, you might have noticed, but every Tuesday we have District meeting. We usually can only get in Personal and Companionship study before we have to leave. Our train takes roughly 50 minutes to Singen and we eat there. We then catch a 20 minute train to Schaffhausen. We walk to the church building from the train station. And then we start at 12:30. We start with a song and then an opening prayer. All of our meetings start and end in Deutsch. We cite our purpose, 3 Nephi 5:13(our mission scripture), and D&C 4. We talk about our prayer list, for investigators in the district. And then any business, like exchanges and such. We then have a German and English tip. Afterwards we usually have a role play. It will be centered on something specific. This week, we role played not keeping commitments. Role plays really do help. I don't always like them, but they help you clear your head and begin to focus so that when the time comes, you already have an idea of how to help them. After the role play, we have a lesson or a discussion. This weeks was on Obedience. Sister Cherrington was in charge. She related obedience to Willy Wonkas Chocolate Factory. We are the children in the story. The children begin to disobey what Willy Wonka says and are eventually stopped from progressing. Finally, Charlie is the only one. Willy Wonka looks at him and tells him that he will be the heir to this factory or kingdom. God knows what is best for us, that is why we are given commandments. We eventually sin and are stopped from progression. However,when we are obedient we will become heirs to God's kingdom. Luckily we have the Atonement because if we didn't, no one would make it. It was really good. Oh, and our meetings are all in Deutsch, 100%. Because one missionary is from Germany and can barely speak English. So the goldens speak English and then it gets translated. Afterwards I headed out on an exchange to Bad Säckingen. We took our train and then headed to one of their members houses. We did our Deutsch study there. She helped me with pronunciation by reading out of the Preach My Gospel. It was quite helpful. She then served us dinner. She cooked some fish and some rice with a cucumber tomato salad. It was really good. Unfortunately, the investigator never showed up. So we shared a different message with the members. We watched a Mormon video. It was about how we need to clean our own windows(take the beam out of our eye) before we begin to judge others. Afterwards, we went home and ate and then went to bed.

Mittwoch

Mittwoch didn't contain very much. We studied, ate, and then went to exchange back in Singen. But our train came 15 minutes late in Bad Säckingen. And then our train ended in Schaffhausen instead of Singen that day. And then we had to wait 15 minutes more. And then we eventually showed up in Singen. We then had to take another train back to Villingen. But that wasn't the end of our travels. We had to drive to Königsfeld.  When we were there, we gave out fliers to a blood drive. One of the members here developed Blood Cancer and is dying because of it. So, there was some blood drive to support patients like him. So they can have blood transfusions. It felt good to help out in some way. That took up the rest of our day.

Donnerstag

Thursday, we had an appointment with Sister B. It was nice. She is a new convert for Schwenningen 1. But we help them out with appointments since we can't meet with single women. Anyway, she made us breakfast and then gave us some eggs and bean paste. We headed straight over to Family Ziegner. She made us Curry with rice. It was pretty good. Man oh man. She is so awesome. We talked a lot about marriage and the bond for eternity. As well as families and the blessings of them. It was a really good conversation. We headed straight over to Sister B's house. We helped her store all of her wood for the winter. Meine güte, she had a lot of wood. We filled up her shed and then had to pile it under some extra space near her porch. But we finished it all. She then fed us Wursts, and some potato salad. It was really good. And then she gave some homemade cake. It was delicous. We talked for a bit and then she sent us on our way with some butter and bread.

Freitag

Friday was like a regular missionary day. We did our studies, ate, had weekly planning and then went out to contact people. I got to see some guy explain why Muslim was the best religion and it contained everything Christianity did. It was quite interesting. But he did make quite a few good points. It was all about love. And we also got to hand out a Book of Mormon. It was really cool. She asked if it could help her with all of her problems. We testified to her that it could if she had faith, read and prayed. We didn't get her number but I have faith she will call us one day. After we tracted for a bit, we went back to our apartment to change. The Young Men invited us to their activty. It is always nice to get to know the youth better.

Samstag

Saturday was such an intersting day to start off. We had personal and companionship study. And then as we were about to begin 12 week, our doorbell rang. I was so excited because I thought that package thingy finally came. We rang them in. The other Elders left and we found two Jehovah Witnesses in front of our door. We were really confused. suddenly, they started to bible bash. Asking us all sorts of ridiculous questions. The man was pulling out his Bible and whipping out scriptures and stuff. The woman came out of no where and started to bash us as well. And their questions were deep doctrinal questions. We were answering there questions without anything. We didn't have a Book of Mormon or our Bibles with us. It was pretty interesting. But we held our own. We even taught them the Plan of Salvation. They took so much of our time. We had to finish our studies and eat still. And afterwards, we got a call from a member asking if we could help their neighbors. They were repaving their driveway soon so we had to remove the cobblestone that was currently there. It took us roughly 3 hours. But they said it would have taken them 3 times as much time if it was only them. It was really nice to serve them. After we finished, we washed up and they made us Pretzels and such. They were so good.  Yes, we thanked them for the food and went back home.

Sonntag

Oh Sunday, how I love them. Church was fantastic. Our stake president was there. He spoke on our thoughts.

Need to run mom. Ich habe dich Lieb. Tschüß!

The pictures below are from when Michael got my package.  Fun stuff.  Love the smiles