Happy Fourth of July

Subject: Happy Fourth of July

Meine Familie,

Rainy and cold week...this for sure does not feel like how July is suppose to feel. So Happy Fourth of July…like I mentioned it is rainy and cold. A whole bunch of us missionaries were going to go to the Zoo to celebrate this day, but with the weather…it looks like that will not be happening. It is ok though....this coming Thursday a family invited all of the Elders and us to their home to celebrate fourth of July and have a BBQ. That will be fun.

So this week… what can I say about it. We set a baptism date with Philip…it is not until November, but we and him decided that it is best to have this time because there are still some things he needs to take care of before he can be baptized, but we have full faith that he will be able to reach this goal of being baptized on his birthday in November. So cool.

Aloysius is still amazing.  We are praying to set a firm baptism date with him some time this week or next. We also have this other investigator, Ray. When I first got here to Leipzig, Ray had a baptism date, but the second day I was here he texted us and told us that he does not want to meet any more… that was the beginning of May and so I had never met him at that point. A couple weeks ago Sister McCall felt like she should call him and so she did. He was actually very happy for her call and we set up another appointment with him. So on Tuesday we went over there and he still has a strong belief in all that we teach. He has not met with the Sisters since March, but told us that he has tried keeping all the commandments he has been taught and is still working on giving up coffee. He still has a strong desire and so we will continue meeting with him and we want to set up another baptism date with him this week, So keep them in your prayers…they are so amazing.

Doreen is an interesting girl..she is a little crazy…I won’t get into her past history though. Lol. But she is in a wheelchair and so somebody went and picked her up yesterday to bring her to the baptism. She came and enjoyed it very much. We will see what happens with her, but she is slowly moving along.

Nadine is still so amazing and such a strong new member. She brings us such joy.  She just turned 20 and told us in our last appointment that she is planning on going on a mission too….we love her so much!!!!

So Alexandra is just so blind to all of the answers she has been receiving…I am actually getting really annoyed with her. She knows this church is true and she knows it all to be true, and she has told us the experiences she has had with prayer and how strong the spirit has felt.  We made her pray with us and she did and after a long while of silence she told us that Jesus came to her and told her to trust him and yeah. She is getting all these confirmations about our church and about baptism, but she is just staying blind to them and is not taking them as her answer. Sorry I am a little annoyed with her right now, but yeah. That is what is going on with Alexandra. 



So a big plus of the week was going to the Temple on Friday. It was wonderful and I absolutely am grateful I get to serve in the zone that gets to go to the Temple once a transfer. I love it!!!

Irakli and Daniel

We also had a baptism on Sunday…It is really cool, because Irakli was baptized 4 weeks ago and he got to baptize his little brother, who is 12,  yesterday and in a couple weeks their mom will be baptized. Such a cool and amazing family.

Me and Mohammed

Mohammed is such an awesome investigator…he is so diligent in coming to our appointments.  There is a big language barrier for us, but we just sit there and let him read pamphlets and the Book of Mormon for an hour and tell him a little bit of other stuff…he is really not like other Muslims that I have met and I think he really believes in Jesus Christ as his Saviour and not just a prophet. He is so cool and so funny.  He always ask us what things mean in English from Arabic and we have to keep reminding him we do not know Arabic. but he is so cool and fun!!!

Also, a side note…we stopped this older man on the street and we were talking to people about God and he was like, I am a Jehovah Witness and if you join my church I get 50 euros. We were like ummm…no thanks and by the way we are part of the Church of Jesus Christ that he established today and was restored through a prophet in our days and he then just walked away.  It was funny and that is so dumb that they get paid for bringing people into their church.

So anyways, I decided to tell y’all some things that I miss that you cannot get in Germany….So if y’all ever want to send anything that is awesome…Cheese-its, Reese’s, graham crackers, Swedish Fish, Junior mints, Fruit snacks, mac and cheese. So yeah, that is just a few of the things…lol.

I love y’all and I am excited for the work to keep moving forward!!!

Love Sister Anderson

Elders and Sister Larkin with
their gummi bear tower.



Yummy!!!





Everyone's towers (or blobs)



Ours had a firm foundation! 

Another note:  In district meeting this week we had a gummi bear and icing activity.  With our companion, we had to build a gummi bear tower with gummi bears and icing.  The point was the icing represented "finding" and the gummi bears represented "teaching".  It was really funny and fun!

Hard week, cool people

Sent: Monday, June 27, 2011 3:53 AM
Subject: hard week, but cool people

Meine Famile,

 

"Shall we not go on in such a great cause“.   I will say I am so grateful to be in such a great cause as the gospel to spread the work of Christ to the people in Germany. Things are so great and I really love every moment of being a missionary. So many great experience to be a part of and it is so wonderful.

 

So this week…we had interviews on Tuesday and they went really great. President Pimentel is so awesome… It was funny that during my interview with him he told me, “Sister Anderson, I hate to break it to you, but you will be getting a new companion next transfer.”  Just the way he said it was pretty funny, but yes, I know I w ill be since Sister McCall will be going home at the end of this transfer. (4 more weeks).

 

We had a bit of a rough week this week with appointments falling out and so on, but we met lots of really cool people and the appointments that did not fall out were super awesome.

 

We met with Mohammed on Wednesday…we teach him German, but there is a really big language barrier because he does not really speak any German and he does not know very much English. But we gave him the Book of Mormon and he just kept reading it and saying…”this is good” lol…then, we ran into him Saturday night and he was getting high and yeah.. and then on Sunday we had another appointment again to help him more with German and we let him read a little more in the Book of Mormon and then we gave him a pamphlet of the plan of salvation…and he read it and was like "I like this" …so we do not really teach him, we just let him read in his language. Lol. But it was funny because he would say one of the words out loud in Arabic and ask what it means in English and we were like…sorry Mohammed we do not know Arabic.. And then we asked him how his night was and he was like, “you did not see the good me.”  So yeah, that is Mohammed.

 

Philipp is doing so much better  He is starting to lose his doubts about Joseph Smith…last time we met with him he said that Joseph Smith had to be a prophet because with everything that he went through he could not have been lying. He is making such great progress…still working on him to pray with us though.

 

Nadine is doing awesome…so strong and so enthusiastic about the gospel. Gocha is still strong and going to…really awesome people.

 

So the work just keeps moving forward and it is so amazing… Happy anniversary to Eric and Kiersten and I was also wondering when Grandpa Matthews birthday is?

 

I love y’all,

 

Sister Anderson  

 

Keeps on Moving Forward ...

June 20, 2011

 

Meine Familie,

Happy Fathers Day!!! Froh Vaters Tag!!!

Things are just amazing here in Leipzig! We are really seeing this work moving more and more forward in Germany. We always meet the most weirdest and the most coolest people ever. I love it. This week we went by a less active, Ronnie. He is really weird and he has 7 cats... I hate cats.

 

Nadine was confirmed



me and Sister McCall on strassenbahn
returning from Sunday dinner



Old strassenbahn

 So anyways, we met with Alosius this week and he is just rolling along...so GOLDEN! This was his 2nd appointment with us and we taught him the 3rd lesson...he believes everything we teach him is true and I asked him if he will be baptized. He told us that he does not want to rush into something so important as that, but he will for sure be baptized. I also just love his prayers. He always says the closing prayer and everytime he says, "Thank you God for sending my Sisters." I love it so so so much. He is the coolest person ever and just so active in everything we invite him to do for the ward.

Philipp is going up and down about things...He believes in God so much and has such faith that he can answer prayers...he just is not liking the whole Joseph Smith thing...but we are working on that.  We do not want to give up on him yet!

We met this way golden person this week! Her name is Beatrice and she is just rockin'. We met her on the street and as soon as she started talking I was like...you are so getting baptized. She told us that she is not baptitzed in any church yet and asked if our church baptizes!!! She is so awesome and we are looking forward to continue meeting with her.

Jamal and Mohammed are awesome! We actually teach them German! It is really fun and we love doing it. Jamal has told us that he has done some reading in the book that we gave him! Sweet!

Nadine is still so amazing! She was confirmed yesterday. She broke up with her fiance the day after her baptism...told us that she felt like it was the right thing to do. But she is just so strong in the gospel and is going to just keep on progressing.

Katrine is awesome...she has a pet spider and she wants me to hold it...I am just really scared to...maybe next time I will get up the courage to put it in my hand.

Our appointment with Doreen and Heiko was interesting. Doreen is really into the topics we talk about to her, but all Heiko wants to do is sing gospel hymns from his church with us. It is actually really annoying. We will see how this weeks appointment goes.

We had an eating appointment with Schwester Fischer and The Kolbin famile. They are really awesome. Schwester Fischer is so funny. We were like she is the funniest Grandma there is. We were talking about how some kinds of resturant will just serve you a drink with alcohol in it and we were like...how do we find out if there is alcohol in it or not.  Schwester Fischer was like ...well we will just have to drink it all to find out. lol...It was actually really funny.

 

Marcel Schmidt and Gocha
Elder Larkin is sitting behind

Things are so amazing...To end...we did have a baptism yesterday, his name is Gocha. The Elders actally taught him and his story is really crazy. This guy is from Russia and he first got intersted in the church through America politics...He really likes Mitt Romney and that other guy and saw that they had a lot of his same values. He then found out where the institute center was and that is where he came into contact with us...but he did not want to meet with any of us missionaries. Finally he told the Elders and us that he wanted to be baptized in our church...He came to church and and saw that the members really live their religion. We told him he had to take lessons from us first...the Elders shoved all the lessons into 2 lessons and he was baptized yesterday. He is about 28 and he asked me to give a talk at his baptism...so I did... I was so nervous...but I know the gift of tongues is really there!! cool!

Any who, I love y'all

love Sister Anderson!

Temple to Baptisms -- What more could you ask for in a week?!!!

Meine Familie,

So much has happened this week…where to even begin…. This for one has been a very busy, yet special week and ended on the best note ever.

First of all…last Monday we had a P-Day Omega because Elder Hale is going home so most of the Zone came to Leipzig to play sports and have a bbq. It was so much fun…not to mention I am getting much better at playing American Football. Lots of fun.

My ward Bishop is amazing…Bishop Muller and his wife are so sweet to us and every time we go over they are just so amazing…sorry, I just had to throw that into my email.

We have some really awesome ward members here…Robert is cool…he told Sister McCall that she is awesome because she taught Sister Risenmay how to be crazy and now she has taught me.  I told Robert that I was already crazy before I came here and he was like good…so then you will have to teach your next companion when Sister McCall leaves. It was funny.

On side note… We did have transfer calls on Saturday… Sister McCall and I are both staying in Leipzig…this is Sister McCall’s last transfer before she goes home.

Katrine is also an awesome member…she is a less active, but last Sunday she showed up to church because she wanted to go to the temple.  So, on Saturday she got to go to the temple for the first time!! We were so happy for her and then she came with Sister McCall and I to Hanover for Nadine’s baptism. It was so amazing… that Katrine is slowly starting to come back!!  

The Schmidt family in my ward are so awesome…they invited us over on Saturday night because they have a new Joseph Smith movie called, “Joseph Smith and the Golden Plates”.  It was a good movie…but I got to see it before any one in the United States because the actor in it is German and does not live far from Leipzig and gave the Schmidt family this movie…so it is not even out yet… It was fun.

Now for investigators… Valerie (the lady from Peru), she is slowly getting more and more interested…We were actually able to teach her the first lesson. I taught most of it and Sister McCall laughed because she told me I was teaching the 1^st lesson in English, but with German grammar…I did not even notice. Lol.  It was an amazing appointment and we found out that her Grandma is actually Mormon.

Alosuis, he is such a golden investigator. He is from Nigeria and our first appointment with him this week we taught him the first lesson.  After we showed him the Restoration film he was talking about Joseph Smith like he already believed in him and he then told us a cool experience that he had with prayer and that he knows he will receive an answer about the Book of Mormon. He is so cool and baptism is for sure in the future for him. He first came across the Book of Mormon in Scotland.  When he moved to Germany, Elders met with him for a while, but then he moved to Leipzig and lost contact and then we found him.  He told us that he reads in the Book of Mormon ever once in a while. Then at the end of our appointment he wanted to say the prayer and it was too cute because in his prayer he said “Thank you for sending me my Sisters.” It was so awesome!!!

Jamal and Mohammed are so awesome…they are from Sudan and we are actually teaching them German. It is so funny and Mohammed is so hilarious. Oh I love them so much.

We actually had an appointment with Andreas this week (his son is the one with Down syndrome that we see every Sunday).  It was a good appointment…but this week if we meet with him again we are going to try and get a lesson in.

So, on Friday I got to go to the Freiberg Temple. .. I love it so much and the spirit was so strong… I get to go once a transfer as long as I am in the Dresden or Leipzig Zone. So cool and the experience there was amazing. Such a special place.

This weekend there has been a Gothic Fest and people from all over (England, Netherlands, France etc.) come and everyone is in the weirdest Gothic costumes I have ever seen in my life… I was freaked out by some of the people and the whole city was seriously flooded in nothing but black. Freaky.

We made an appointment with this stalker guy…we are meeting with him tonight. It was so weird. Sister McCall first saw him on the stassen bahn and then when we got out we were walking to a member's apartment to take her cookies and he was slowly following behind us…I got this feeling that we should talk to him, but it was weird when he was following us. After we left the member's apartment he made a loop around and we passed him and then he continued to follow us… I still felt like we should talk to him, but it felt weird turning around to someone following us and saying, We are talking to people about Jesus Christ… We then got to our stassen bahn stop and he stopped there too…finally he walked up to us and said “Are you handing those cards out to people?”  We made an appointment with him and it was so weird.  He is from Pakistan.  Sister McCall and I  laughed about it because she said that she had a strong feeling too that we should talk to him, but she felt weird because he was following us too.  I guess if this guy is really interested, God made him talk to us. We will see how the appointment goes tonight.

Elder Walter, Irakli, Elder Hale

Irakli and me

Sister McCall, Nadine, and me

Nadine's best friend Eyvan, another friend, Sister McCall, Nadine, Nadine's fiance Sven, Nadine's mom, me

Yesterday I got to go to two baptisms. One was at 8 in the morning for Irakli. He is this golden guy that the Elders were teaching and he was baptized yesterday. So cool. Then right after that baptism Sister McCall and I went to Hanover (2 and a half hour drive).. The Auto bahn is really scary to drive on…no speed limit. We got to see our investigator Nadine baptized…it was so cool and she was so happy and I was so happy to be her missionary!!!!

The work is moving forward… I am ready to see more miracles and crazy experiences!!!!

Love Y’all

Sister Anderson

 

Moving forward

Meine familie,

Things are great here in Germany. .. The work is really moving forward and more and more people are being found every day. I am so excited for that and that we have a whole bunch of new people that are ready to hear our message...

Doreen. She is was a former investigator and we met with her this week. It was really cool. We were teaching her about the Plan of Salvation and she really loves prayer. We were teaching her and she loved everything we were telling her...until we pulled out the Book of Mormon to read from. She was very hesitant and really did not want us to read from that book. She told us she does not believe in that book and to not read from it in her home. So we put it away. Sister McCall then showed her a picture of her family. Doreen was amazed at how big it was....just like all Germans (they normally just have one or two kids). She then asked Sister McCall if they were all Mormon and she replied yes. Then a few mintutes later Doreen asked me if I had a picture of my family. Doreen is handicapped and when she saw my picture her eyes were immediately taken to Neil. She asked me about Neil and if he was born that way and what he had. . . there was then an immediate connection between us both. She then asked me if all my family was Mormon and I replied yes.. . Not a moment later she told us that she will try to read in the Book of Mormon again. It was amazing and I was so happy about how the Holy Ghost really works through people. I love it.

Tmanda and me

Charity. She is not a new investigator, but we did go visit her this week. She is just always busy and stressed out. She is african and has three kids, Chim, Tmanda, and Didi. They are crazy. It was really funny though. Tmanda was telling me that nobody likes her and asked me if Sister McCall and I ever fight (she is like 4 or 5 years old). Then she  asked me if we are always friends. It was funny... Then Tmanda was like " I know God can help me".   It was so funny and cute. I love visiting them!

Jamal. He is a new investigator I enjoyed our first appointment with him. He is from Sudan and is Muslim. But so cool. . . he is not like all the other Muslims that I have met. He is totally open to our ideas and to really read the Book of Mormon. Most Muslims just try to convince us of their religion, but Jamal is totally different. I cannot wait to continue meeting with him. Way excited for that!

Mikah is a new investigator. He is a friend of Max (a less active member) and is from Russia. We met with him this last week and Max came too. It was so awesome and we were so happy that Max got to really bear his testimony to his friend in Russian. It was so awesome and his friend is totally opened to the gospel and wants to really know if what we are saying is true. I can say that members need to get their friends more involved and let the missionaries meet with them. It really will bring more people into the church by an example of a friend.

Sophia. We have not met with her yet, but she is way cool. We met her on the street and our appointment with her is on Thursday. She is 17 years old and she is just ready to listen to our message. I am so excited for that. On the street she was telling us that the bible is so confusing and that she cannot understand it at times. We told her how the Book of Mormon has helped us to really understand the bible and how it has helped us. She is way excited for this and is totally open to the gospel.

We also had an eating appointment on Sunday and the member had a friend come over as well and we got to teach this friend a little. It was so awesome. The members here are really starting to get their friends involved. It is great. Just a word of advice... whoever said that missionaries are always hungry has lied. We are not. These people just overstuff us and we end up having to go lay down for a little while to digest. It is not good. The lady we ate with also told us she was disappointed we could not eat more... to me, if you cannot eat that much...then do not think the missionaries can. We are not meant to feel sick every Sunday after eating appointments. . . and do not feed the missionaries three desserts. lol.

Young Single Adults



Our District - Elder Angerhofer, me, Sister McCall, Elder Smith, Elder Walter, Elder Hale

 But things are so awesome and the language is really coming more and more... I can actually have conversations with people now about non church things!! lol.

Oh and I mowed a lawn the other day. It was so fun...lol!! I love it.

The work is moving forward!
 Love Y'all
Sister Anderson