Mon, Mar 26, 2012

Hello family!

I can´t believe Jeff is flying to Texas today. I keep saying it to my new companion and she´s just as excited for him as I am. It seems like yesterday I was bording the plane to Germany. Time seriously flies. My trainer was about 9 months on her mission when we got together. It´s so crazy to believe that I am now just as far into my mission as she was. It flies so crazy fast and I need to embrace every moment. Thanks for the reminder about that dad. I try not to think about it :) No, it´s okay that you mentioned it. It just creates a sense of urgency in me and makes me want to get things done.

Things this week has gone really really well. Sister Noyes and I get along WONDERFULLY. She´s from Mesa, Arizona. She does like music (we say music theory jokes and point out key changes to each other. Can you say Heaven?) and we already have tons of inside jokes. I don´t think I´ve laughed like I have this past week the whole last 2 transfers. We think we´re the same people. And we had the same kind of companions last transfer so we have been through similar experiences. We don´t go joggin in the morning and we do have to eat all the things on our plates, especially at Bruder Schmidt´s.... and he feeds us a lot. Luckily we walk a lot during the day. (Is that quote from Errand of Angels, mom?) Sister Noyes actually talks a lot in German in lessons so that is VERY helpful. I was afraid I´d have to do it all by myself, but she really is really helpful. I guess my other companions assumed that I wouldn´t give much input as a new-ish missionary so they didn´t even really give me a chance to speak in German appointments. But now we´re pretty much the same age and we have to trust each other and we both have to speak. It´s going well. I´m not as overwhelmed and scared as I thought I would be. It still is sometimes quite scary, but then I just pour out my heart to the Lord and He gives me the help I need.

Sarah!!!!!!! Break a leg!!! It´s "Once Upon a Mattress" they´re doing, right? Who is the main princess thing, Beanie? The one who sings "Shy"? Picture me on the front row cheering you on, k? Wish I could see it. :)

Rostock isn´t really starting to green up much that I´ve noticed, but we´ve been in the middle of the city a lot this week and there isn´t much there to be able to tell if it´s green or not.

That would be awesome if you could copy some of the biography for me. If there are any bits about the following cities, it would be great to have info on them, because they are the Sister Cities; Berlin (Tiergarten, Eisenhüttenstadt), Cottbus, Dresden, Freiberg, Leipzig, Bremerhaven, Celle, Halberstadt, Bielefeld, Rostock, Chemniz, Langenhorn (Hamburg), Kiel. So if there´s anything about those cities in that book, that´d be awesome. I haven´t gotten anything from you guys since the package, so it very well may be lost in the mail again. You may want to send it to Berlin if I don´t get it by next week.

It´s funny that you bring up the Book of Mormon read-a-thon, because I mentioned that experience to a less active member this week. She said she was going to try it. She´s less active because she is overly busy with her studies. I forgot that I´d asked dad for a blessing too. That was a huge part of my faith that has stuck with me. It was the start of my testimony of the Book of Mormon.

We didn´t get to see the Young Women Broadcast, but I will definitely read it in the Conference Liahona. I´m SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited for conference. Last night Sister Noyes and I made invitations that we can pass out on the street for conference and invite others. We´re going to a lot of member´s houses this week and talking about conference. We´ll ask them to remember spiritual experiences they´ve had with conference, ask them to pray for a spiritual experience this conference, ask them to invite people to conference, and ask them to pray for us to find the people ready to hear the prophet´s voice. I would ask that you would do the same 1) Remember a spiritual experience from conference you´ve had 2) Pray for a spiritual experience this conference 3) Invite someone to Conference 4) Pray that the missionaries through this week can find the people that are ready to hear the prophet´s voice.  That would mean a lot to us if you could do that with us.

That is hysterical that you danced in the background of your students testing. Hahahahaha I hope you can get that into Ellen. I didn´t even think that´s embarrassing, I think that´s awesome!!! Love it!!! Let me know what happens. 

That picture Rachel drew on the board worried me when I first saw it. Really bad. Hahaha. But then the explanation of it made me relieved, but that´s waaaay too funny. Also, tell Rachel I saw a fox in a field as I was on a train this week!

That is so nice that one of the Sisters would write you guys and tell how awesome Jeff is. I wonder how she got our address.........Haha. But Jeff is such a good kid. I wish I could see him doing his missionary thing and being an awesome golden. Elder Chugg, the Elder here in Rostock who´s from Riverdale is training a Golden right now and for some reason the Berlin mission does family relationships so whoever trained you is your mother and the District Leader is your father. For Elders your trainer is your father and the oldest Sister in your District is your mother. So I´m this Elder´s mother. I´m not old enough on the mission to be a mother! Haha. Anyway, I always think about Jeff when I see this Golden and hope Jeff has as much fun as this Elder is having. His name is Elder Sniatynsky. Hard name, huh? Anyway. It´s fun to have Golden power here in Rostock.

One cool miracle was that an appointment fell out and we were with Christian and I asked him if he knew of any members that could use extra attention. He told me a few so we decided to go by on one right then. As we were walking there, we stopped a man on the street. He explained he couldn´t speak much German and we asked what his mother tongue was. He said Russian. I remembered that a couple days before I had packed a Russian Plan of Salvation pamphlet in my backpack so I gave it to him and we made an appointment. We went to the appointment and he wasn´t there, so we decided to do doors. Everyone spoke Russian in this building and couldn´t really understand us. We had this great idea, we have a less active member that speaks Russian and she´s way sweet so we want to have her come along and do doors with us, strengthen her testimony, and who knows, maybe we´ll start a Russian speaking branch here in Rostock! That´d be awesome. Anyway, it was just cool to see that if you use members, there can be miracles! We´ll see what comes of that this week.

I know God knows His children and I know that there is a living prophet on the earth. I hope that this week we will prepare ourselves for what the prophet has to say and we´ll have open hearts and we can feel the truthfulness of their words. Don´t forget the 4 things to do this week!! I love you all!!

Love, Sister Niebergall

Moving up the coporate ladder... - Mon, Mar 19, 2012

Hello hello!

 

Well, the news this week is that I am feeling much much better this week. I did, unfortunately have to take it easy for the first few days of the week and so we didn´t have as much exciting stuff happen to us as normal. I just had to go to bed early at 8 every day, except it was weird- I couldn´t actually fall asleep until my companion got into her bed. I told her that after and she said, "That´s weird, we´re like an old married couple." I´m really glad to have been able to serve with her. I´ve learned so much about myself and I consider it a huge blessing.

 

Yes, that does mean that something happened this transfer. My companion is leaving to Cottbus and I, like the title of my e-mail, am moving up the corporate ladder (in the words of my District Leader). I am now senior companion. It totally shocked me when I heard it on the transfer call. I will be companions with Sister Noyes. I know nothing about her because she´s only been out 2 transfers, so I will be her second companion. That is so weird to me because I swear I was just getting my second companion, Sister Stewart. Now I´m someone else´s second companion. I´m quite nervous, but I have 2 ways of dealing with the nerves. A) I just don´t think about all the responsibilities I will have, all the things I will have to remember, and that I will have to be the better German speaker and B) Repeat in my mind that Heavenly Father wouldn´t give this to me if He knew I couldn´t handle it. D&C 6:36. I feel like it will be a time of totally trusting in the Lord, giving Him everything I have, and seeing His hand in the work and in my life. I think it will be the transfer that I will be clay and He will be molding me in any way he wants. I look forward to finding out what the Lord wants me to become.

 

The work in Rostock is going. I feel like it´s just like missionary work in any other city in the world. Lots of fallen out appointments, lots of doing doors, street contacting, and so on. But it also has its amazing investigators. Sadly, I can´t add anyone to the list of investigators I sent you. I hope we find more people to tell you about. We didn´t get to go to Bad Doberan this week because I was kind of week and when we go it´s an all day thing because it´s a little bit of a bahn ride (30 minutes. Not that bad, but we still stay out pretty much all day.)
 

When you talked to me when I flew out, someone let me use their cell phone for a few minutes then I called mom later in the day with a calling card. You can buy them in the MTC. I still have mine, but I don´t know if would still work for Jeff, so I´ll just let him get one. They´re like $5 at the MTC bookstore.

 

I´m glad Deej got the lightsaber. I hope he had a good laugh.

 

I always make notes about what I want to write about in my e-mail dad. It works! You should try it.

 

The animals at our house seem to be the topic of the e-mail! Is Hallie getting hair all over the couch? I can´t believe she´s coming upstairs more and that she is chasing Freckles and Peper. Silly cat. And silly Freckles rolling in poo.(Sommersprossen is how you say Freckles in German).

 

That´s awesome that Amazing Race is in Germany. When we´re in Berlin, I always see people with huge backpacks while we´re at the train station and I always say "I bet they´re on Amazing Race." (But I know they´re not because there´d be a camera crew.) I have seen some pretty crazy beards and hairstyles and clothes here. People here do NOT care to fit into the crowd. They do their own thing and don´t care what others think. There are quite a lot of people here with dreadlocks. That surprises me. I also don´t think I´ve seen people building gingerbread houses or yodeling. That must be a Southern Germany thing. Sister Kläy lives by the Alps in Switzerland and a member in our ward always says the yodelers are there. She disagrees, but one day I will go visit her and yodel in the Alps. It will be epic.

 

I miss harmonizing with ya´ll. I wonder if my next companion will be musical. I haven´t had any musical companions yet. I look forward to one day having a musical companionship and we can use music to share the gospel. It´s a dream I have. 

 

I have never read Lion Witch and the Wardrobe. Actually maybe we did in 5th grade, but reading was a burden then, so I didn´t enjoy it. It´s crazy how much stuff I want to read now. I just want to read every German and English gospel book I can get my hands on. It is quite frustrating that I know I won´t be able to read all that I want in my lifetime. Maybe we can read when we go to Heaven. Mom, read and enjoy while you can. Also- I would really really love to read the part in President Monson´s biography about Germany.  I feel like it´s silly if I´m here and don´t know about the church´s history here.

 

I can´t believe it´s been a year since I got my mission call either and that others are coming on missions too. I´m so excited for all my friends (and brother) to be doing the best thing ever!

 

We didn´t ever see the homeless guy again. We couldn´t get any contact info for him because... well... he´s homeless. Maybe one day he´ll get a home and find the missionaries again and remember the good deed we did and give the missionaries an ear. We never know the seed we can plant with a simple act of service.

 

When Sister Risenmay was here we were able to walk around for maybe about an hour. She was able to see the harbor (kind of. It was at night). And yeah. That´s about all that we got to do together outside. She got a lot of reading done though. We were together for half of Tuesday, all of Wednesday, and half of Thursday. She is from San Antonio Texas. Sister Kläy´s next companion is also from San Antonio Texas. Who knows, maybe my new comp will be from Dallas. I know nothing about her.

 

I´m glad you were able to be a good example, mom. Who knows, maybe your question will make her reflect on what´s important. Thank you for your testimony. I love to hear it. I also am so grateful for the Lord´s sacrifice for me and for all of us here on the earth. It brings hope that we can be together as families forever, that we can overcome death and be resurrected and that we can overcome sin and live with our loving Father in Heaven again. We just have to obey His commandments. It´s such a simple system and our part is so small compared to the blessings that will come our way. I love Heavenly Father and that He knew I would make mistakes so He sent His Son for us. I know Jesus Christ is our Redeemer. I get to tell people that daily. I don´t think there is anything in life that could be better than what I get to do right now. I love you family! Keep being amazing!

 

Love, Sister Niebergall

I Have Sympathy - Mon, Mar 12, 2012

 ^^^  Sis Niebergall's Zone  ^^^

Hello Family!

It was good to get your e-mail! I´m glad things are going well for you all besides the sicknesses that are going around. I myself, unfortunately, was also sick this week. Hence, I have sympathy We´ll get to that later.

Actually, might as well get to that now, haha. Tuesday was Zone Conference like you all know. The whole train ride there I felt like I was going to puke. Luckily I didn´t. The whole conference I was praying that I could hold down whatever wanted to come up. That worked too. But as we traded companions around and My companion left to Eisenhüttenstadt and Sister Risenmay from Tiergarten was my companion for the next couple days I couldn´t hold it any more and I did hurl... A couple times. And another Elder from Rostock threw up just a couple minutes before me. It was weird that it struck at the same time. We thought it was maybe food poisoning, but we didn´t know why it would hit us and not everyone else that ate with us too. It still remains a mystery. Ohh! I even threw up on the train. I was sitting there feeling normal and then all the sudden I was like "Oh mensch I need to hurl!" so I ran to the bathroom. I had to go to the other box car and through a couple doors so I was praying in my heart again that I wouldn´t hurl all over and make the patrons suffer. Luckily the toilet lid was wide open when I finally made it into the bathroom. That was a tender mercy. That was a LOOOOONG ride home. I was really surprised how not-dead I look in that Zone Picture because that was a couple minutes before I threw up.

Zone Conference was awesome though! It´s always wonderful to get motivated and find some things that we need to improve. This Conference´s theme was using our time wisely. Our life on earth is so short and our life on a mission is even shorter (even though some of us like to pretend we´ll on missions for the rest of our lives because we don´t ever want to leave.) It really put into perspective of how we really need to give everything we have because it´ll be gone one day. Our President´s motto is "Start Right, Work Hard, Finish Strong" normally I applied that to the mission in general, but they talked about it as a day for day thing. We need to wake up and start right, work hard through out the day, and finish strong and not wimp out at the end of the day. I was so pumped to go work hard after Zone Conference, but unfortunately I couln´t and we had a really cruddy week. We´re ready to have an awesome week this week though.

As for tausch, it seems like everyone had a great time. I feel really bad because Sister Risenmay was in Rostock, a city she´d never been in and she had to stay in the house all day with me. As far as I know she didn´t catch the bug. Anyway, luckily we have a Senior sister that speaks German and so I sent them both to an eating appointment with a member who feeds us every week (Bruder Schmidt. He´s AWESOME!) I couldn´t let Sister Risenmay miss out on that experience.

Sadly, the rest of this week has been me trying to recouperate (I CAN´T SPELL ANYMORE). We only have a couple items of news. The lady who I gave a Book of Mormon to called and cancelled the appointment and told us never to call again and to delete her number (she seemed kind of like she had some special needs so we weren´t too devestated. She doesn´t need us to get to the Celestial Kingdom. We´re thinking someone told her we are a sect or a cult or something. Sad day.)

Another interesting that happened yesterday was we were waiting to get on the Straßen Bahn after a ward potluck and there was this crazy drunk German that came up and started yelling at this homeless guy that was sitting on the curb minding his own business. He looked sad and cold and tired. It was really sad, but we didn´t want to get into something that we weren´t involved in. We went to our apartment feeling really crappy that we didn´t at least stand up for the guy. My companion was really mad at herself for it. Then she had this brilliant idea! We had some left overs at the church from the potluck. We could go back and find him and offer him some food. We called the Elders so we wouldn´t be alone with him in the church and went and looked for him. As we were frantically searching through the streets for him, I had this thought "There aren´t many people that you can outwardly see the suffering, like with this guy. But there are many that are suffering like him on the inside. We should be looking for these people with as much urgency as we are searching for this guy." It was kind of an eye opener for me. Anyway, it ended up he was from Brazil (He looks German, it was weird) and he had some major problems. Something about politics and losing some important papers so he is just living on the streets all over Germany. We gave him some food and he ate like he was starving (4 hot dogs, a billion carrots, a package of ravioli, a few bowls of jello and I think more but I can´t remember). My companion gave him a pair of her gloves. We felt like we did such a good thing. The whole time this man was eating he had a huge smile on his face. It was awesome. It was a good way to end a stinky week.

Funny story: My companion put on her clothes before church then noticed they were wrinkely. I left into the other room and then a couple minutes later I said to myself "I smell Hot Pockets". Two seconds later my companion comes out of the room goes to the fridge and grabs a cold water bottle and puts it on her neck and says "I´m such a fool." She had tried to iron her clothes while they were on her. It was quite hilarious, I couldn´t stop laughing.

I said Jeff is having letter problems not because of his e-mails. His e-mails are great. I said he´s having letter problems because of the lack of Valentine for Rachel and the lack of quarter and dollar in his letter. That´s why I said he needs to improve his letter skills. :)

Mom, that´s a HILARIOUS dream. That isn´t something that we regularly do, although it would be fun. But there aren´t really any hills or tires around here. I also had a couple weird dreams this week. I think it was due to my illness. Anyway I had a dream that I carried Lilah up a rope ladder and there were 3 hammocks. We laid on the 2nd hammock and I tried to teach Lilah how to say Danke but she only would say thank you and it was frustrating. Then I looked up on the hammock above me and there was a HUGE spider (kind of like the Gilligan one except yellow with black legs) It had 16 eyes and I was screaming for help, but no one would help me. Finally I kicked the hammock above me and the spider flew off next to dad. He happened to have a power hose in his hand and he sprayed the spider with such force that it sprayed against a wall a considerable distance away and it flew up the wall because of the power of the water. It then landed next to mom where she poked it with her finger and said "Hmmm... I didn´t know that hose cooked animals." It was weird. Also I told D.J. that he should come on joint teach to Svetlana even though he wouldn´t understand anything, it would be a really good experience for him. Random random.

I can´t believe you still had that orange chocolate!! That´s crazy. I like the comparison to studying the scriptures. Did you pray while you were eating the chocolate? That would´ve been the perfect comparison if so! :)  

My hair really is growing like crazy. I even chopped it all off before I left the MTC. I don´t know if you could tell from the pictures at all, but it really is growing and it makes me happy. It´s super fast to scrunch it and fast as a missionary is good.

Deej looked SO snazzy in his tux. I hope he had fun. Good ol´ days of high school. They feel like forever ago, but not. Weird.

I don´t know if you´ll get a billion e-mails from that website. Sister Holbrook really enjoys it, that´s all I know. Sister Holbrook is also on the Germany Berlin mailing list so you could talk to her. She´d love that.

  

We see the Elders pretty often. I´d say 5 out of the 7 days. They are in our branch. there are 6 missionaries in this branch. 2 Sisters 2 Elders and 2 Senior Sisters. It´s really small. I´m not quite sure why we have so many, but Heavenly Father does so I won´t question it.

I love you all so much. I know that this gospel is true and that it is the only thing that brings true happiness. I hope we try more and more every day to pray to see opportunities to serve others... not only to see those opportunities but to have the courage to go through with serving them. Don´t hesitate. Help. Let´s be the answer to other´s prayers. Do it. I want to hear your experiences with it.

Also- using our time wisely isn´t just a missionary thing. It´s something for all of us. I encourage you all to see if there´s something that isn´t the best use of your time and find something useful to replace that with. There´s so much to be done in this world, so many people that need help and if we are occupied with things that don´t really matter, we´ll miss some of the sweetest moments life has to offer. I´ve seen that so often since I´ve been here. I hope you can all experience that too.

I love you! Stay awesome!

Love, Sister Niebergall

Hello Mudda Fadda and Familie - Mon, Mar 05, 2012

Guten TAAAAAG! (Do you remember that youtube video? Raisin Brahms? That´s a good one.)

It was good to hear from you all this week. Sounds like things are going well minus mom being sick and hurting her toe. What a rough combo! I hope you´re feeling better and that you´ll be on your feet again soon. Oh, as for a weather report: It´s been BEAUTIFUL here. Saturday I went without a coat or jacket and I was okay until the evening then it cooled off quite a bit. But it was awesome. We´re getting some spring fever up here and the people are much much nicer when there is sun shining.

This week has flown by. I don´t remember really what happened. But we were busy and that´s why I can´t remember what happened. But it was good so that´s all that matters. We´ve had appointments and not really any way awesome stories. Bummer. But there´s always this week.

I´m glad you had a good time at the Environmental Center. Oh good ol´ 6th grade dances. I´m sure the children appreciated your breaking of the ice with your interpretive dance. I´m also sure that I will be the same way as these 6th graders when I come home. I´ve become very awkward. Oh well, that´s a good thing, right?

It´s good that you let the little boys know not to kidnap the girls. I´d be way embarrassed if that happened to me. Good job.

Man, it seems like Jeff has a rough time with letter sending. Hopefully he gets more skilled at that. Also, I´m incredibly jealous that he got to hear Elder Holland. I guess I was at the MTC the wrong time! Have you heard Elder Holland yet, Jeff? I can´t remember.

I´m glad you got the pictures! I´ve had them printed out to send for a really long time, but it´s hard to get to a post office on Mondays because we´re busy doing other things. I decided to crack down and send you them finally because it was ridiculous that you didn´t have any from Rostock yet. I´m glad you got them. 

My companion is still doing well health-wise. This week is going to not be a normal missionary work week. We have Zone Conference tomorrow (so I can´t answer how Zone Conference was because that´s tomorrow. I will talk about it next week.) Then we´re having Tausch. My companion will be in Eisenhüttenstadt and I will be in Rostock with Sister Risenmay from Texas. We´ll meet up at Zone Conference and instead of going to our normal areas we´ll trade up and get back late Tuesday night, stay in Rostock Wednesday and trade back Thursday. So there will be a lot of traveling this week and not a whole lot of time for missionary work. It´s always good to have tausch. So we won´t get back to normal Rostock things until Friday. So we have this week and next week left of transfers. We have transfer calls March 17th. The past 2 years March 17th has been a special day for me, so we´ll see if the trend continues. (Music Therapy acceptance, mission call). I´m sure I´ll stay in Rostock since my companion has been here longer than me.

We didn´t get in contact with that family again. I´m sure we´ll see them again though. It can´t be coincidence that this whole thing happened.

Too bad that Kid History wasn´t the best. I forgot all about those movies. They´re so funny.

We actually didn´t get to go to the zoo because we couldn´t find the entrance, it was late into the day, and it was raining so none of the animals were out. We´re going to try again another day. That turtle picture was taken at a pet store. Those things were for sale! Crazy huh!

It´s crazy to think about our new Mission President. I think he would probably speak English, but I´m not really sure. We´ll see! German is going slightly better except yesterday when I was trying to bear my testimony. There is a Senior Sister who doesn´t speak any German so there was someone translating for her. It was really weird to hear myself speak in German and hear what I was saying in English. It was really distracting and I definitely didn´t give as good of a testimony as I wanted to.

I´ll give you a quick overview of our investigators who make progress.

Fadi- From Jordan. He cancelled his app this week cuz he had to clean. Dang. We´ll get him this week.

Svetlana- From Russia. She was in an abusive relationship and she really knows how to follow the Holy Ghost. That´s how she was found. She was shopping at the grocery store under our church and had a feeling to go around the corner and saw the sign for our church and went up the stairs and luckily a member was there. He invited her to church and she came. They made a baptismal date with her the first time they met with her. It´s passed that date, but she is trying to get her answer if she should get baptized. She has a lot of health problems so she´s hard to get ahold of.

Herr Bielack- From Germany. He´s a therapist and listens to everything we say (you can tell because he does active listening) and it´s very intimidating that he´s actually listening. Haha. No, he´s super cool. 

Herr Meuser- From Germany. He is atheist but is slowly but surely beginning to believe in God. He´s such a sweet guy. He also has tons of health problems.

Kofi- From Togo. You´ve heard of him already. He´s super awesome. We´re just trying to slap him in the face with our testimonies so he can see that even though he feels comfortable in his church he needs to join ours.

Mario- From Germany. He´s what we like to call an "Ewig Investigator" (He´s been investigating for an eternity.) He comes to all the activities and church, but won´t get baptized because when he was praying to find out if he should he was swimming and a cloud went over the sun. He took that as his answer. We haven´t really met with him much and we don´t really know what to do to help him realize what he needs to get baptized.

Dietmar- Also from Germany. He is interesting. He is a triplet and somehow finds a way to fit that into every conversation. I think he just wants friends more than to learn about the church. We teach him English and he is at the very basics. He can´t quite do a "hello, what´s your name?" conversation yet. He also has a slight crush on my companion. It´s hard to teach him the gospel, but we meet with him 2 to 3 times a week.

I did get the addresses, thanks for sending them.

 

As for the Book of Mormon this week- I was able to give it away actually! Every Sunday I play the piano in primary and they just sing one song. (Weird huh!) Then I go into Relief Society. Yesterday when I went into Relief Society there was an empty chair next to a lady that I didn´t recognize and my companion motioned for me to sit by her. I sat by her and chatted with her and wasn´t sure if she was a member visiting from another city or if she was a non-member. I asked lots of questions and calculated she was not a member. She told me she was shopping at this store under our church and she saw the sign for our church and went up the stairs. There are pamphlets and pass along cards there and info about church. She decided to come check church out.

I was able to sit next to her during Sacrament meeting and explain what was happening and explain that we don´t have a testimony meeting every week and things like that. Tons of people bore their testimonies on the Book of Mormon. After the meeting I said to her "You probably have a lot of questions. We do things a little differently than every other church. We´d love to meet with you and explain a little about what happened and about what we believe." She said that she would like that and she also asked if it was possible if she could get a Book of Mormon. I had a big smile on my face and thought "You sure can have this Book of Mormon that I´ve been carrying all week." She was really excited and we have an appointment with her Thursday.

It´s awesome to see how much the Lord blesses us when we are prepared. Thanks for encouraging me to carry a Book of Mormon around. I´m going to do it again this week. 

I know that this gospel is true and we are SO blessed to have a living prophet on the earth today. In about a month is General Conference! Start preparing for it now. Prayerfully think of questions or concerns you want answered or resolved and they will be addressed in Conference! I´m so excited to hear from the prophet again. I can´t believe it´s almost been 6 months since the last one. It´s flown by. I love you all! Keep being amazing!

Tschüss!

Love, Sister Niebergall

 

 

Fangen wir an mit woche 4 - Mon, Feb 27, 2012

Hello!!!!

 

First To Jeff:

It does kinda stink to have investigators drop you :( I know how you feel with the MTC investigators, even though they aren´t real you still feel so much charity for them. I love my MTC investigators still. Also, you think you will only use your shoes in the MTC, but that´s not true. You have P-Days with your zone and district and things where you go hiking or playing sports or walking around quite often as a matter of fact. Today we´re going to the zoo with our district. Also, do you have regular socks, and not just church socks? That´s something I had to bum off my companions. I felt like a loser. I remember the good days of new people coming to the zone so you notice how much your language skills are improved. Then you think about the people who are in your zone that were there a month when you got there and how good you thought their language skills were and then when you get to that point you´re like, "Oh, they were just as good as I am now. Crazy! They weren´t that great, but I have really improved!" Also, your spanish testimony looks really good to me! I´m proud of you! Keep up the awesome work!

 

Anyway! Life in Germany is grand!! I just simply love it! The weather has been HERLICH this week but today it was looking kind of cloudy. Hopefully it´s not too cold at the zoo, but we´ve endured worse so it´s no problem. My companion´s health has been really good this week. We are really grateful for that. We didn´t stay in the house longer than needed at all. We were able to get to Bad Doberan. We did more doors. We klingled someone and they were busy then but to 'please come back later', so that´s pretty good! We´re excited about that. We didn´t see Andrea because she said she´d call. If she doesn´t call sometime soon we´ll go by on her again.

 

We have interviews with our president once every 2 transfers. We have Zone Conference once a transfer. Zone Conference is next week already. I feel bad for president with how much traveling around he has to do, but he still manages to appear to have so much excitement and energy. He´s amazing. I really look up to him.

 

We don´t really split up our investigators depending on age or sex, only if our male investigators start being creepy, then we give them to the Elders and vice versa. We do have backpacks to carry things in. Maybe I´ll start to carry a Book of Mormon around. The German Book of Mormon is just a lot heavier than the English one and tends to hurt the back. I´ll carry one around this week and report to you.

 

About D.J.´s haircut--- NASTY!!! CUT THAT THING OFF YOU DON´T LOOK COOL YOU LOOK LIKE A RAT! That´s all. :) Sorry if that was rude, I have learned to be a little more bold here in Germany. But seriously Deej. Take it from me that you´ve always known has good fashion advice. Not cool. Get rid of it. I wanted to puke when I saw it. Okay. I love you still. I´m done.

 

I´m glad you got the chocolates I sent. I didn´t send those chocolates to Jeff but I sent him a little packet with some German goodies and things. I´m glad you liked the chocolate though. My personal favorite was the oreo one. Yummy! Brittany´s was a Pop Rocks one. It is so fun to eat it´s chocolate and poppy. I almost just typed poopy. Sick. Anyway, I´m not exactly sure what it´s called that´s in it, but it´s pretty much just pop rocks. I think I sent Grandma a whipped cream one. Sahnecreme. I´m glad everyone has been enjoying them. It´s kind of bad that these chocolate bars are so easily accessible. I don´t know how I´ll go back to American chocolate. I do miss Reese´s though, but that´s about it.

 

Fadi is totally awesome. We called to schedule an appointment with him, but he was out of town for the weekend. We´ll call him later today and set an appointment with him. I did ask my mission president if we´re allowed to baptize him because he´s from Jordan. He did some research and we found out it´s illegal until he has a permanant passport to stay in Germany. It breaks my heart that people kill others for changing religion and it does make me very grateful to be from America where we can have freedom of religion.

 

I do know who my new mission president is going to be. It looks like he´s Russian but was born in Germany and same with his wife. He´s currently a stake president in Moscow I think. Something like that. I´m not quite sure. I got an e-mail about him, I´ll forward it to you.

 

If I were writing e-mails from the church I´d be able to attach pictures, but I can´t from the casino. Sorry! Also, you should get on the website. This Senior Sister keeps saying "I´m so excited to hear what your mom thinks about the website." Don´t want to disappoint her!

 

That´s so sad that Rachel didn´t get a Valentine. Oh man. She probably was so devastated. That makes me sad just to hear that story cuz I can imagine how sad she probably was.

 

The cool story of the week is a long story. It goes something like this: A month or so ago we were waiting for our Straßen Bahn and there was a girl about 17 years old from Afghanistan that asked us for an Euro so she could buy a ticket for her little sister because she realized she didn´t have money. Her mom was there and her little 5 year old sister. It´s always sketchy to give people money but the Bahn was coming so we had to act fast. We gave her an Euro so they were able to get on the Bahn and sat and talked to us. Her mom didn´t speak a word of German, but this 17 year old girl was so grateful that we would give her money. We talked to her for quite awhile. She´d been here awhile and we asked her if she had made a good amount of friends. She said no because everyone avoids her because she´s from the Middle East. It´s really really sad. So we told her we play Tisch Tennis every Saturday and we´d love to have her there. We gave her our card and told her we´d love for her to come. She left saying "Finally I have friends!" We prayed so hard that she´d be there because we were excited to be her friends and to help her feel more welcome here in Germany. Anyway. She didn´t show it. We were super devistated and hoped we would be able to come in contact with her again because she was super awesome. We figured that wouldn´t be very likely because Rostock is kind of big.

 

Fast forward in time to this week. Before we left the house on Wednesday we prayed specifically in our companionship that the prepared people would be put in our path. We went to see if a less active member was home and on the way back to the S-Bahn we took a different path than we normally take because the regular one was muddy. We were walking and saw a guy and knew we had to talk to him. We talked to him about God and set an appointment with him.

 

We kept walking to the S-Bahn and as we were about to get on the S-Bahn I look to the left and see a woman and little girl sitting on a Bahn. The little girl was looking at me with a big smile on her face like she knew me. She looked really familiar to me too. Then it him me and I said to my companion "Is that the mother and sister of Tisch Tennis girl??" (Sadly we didn´t ask said 'Tisch Tennis girl' what her name was). We were already pretty much past them and I wasn´t sure. We went to wait for our S-Bahn and looked at them accross the S-Bahn tracks, seeing if it was them. My companion saw them and said "IT IS THEM!" But they were waiting for a bus. A bus pulled up and they walked up to the bus. Right then our Bahn pulled up and we couldn´t see them anymore. We were a little bummed.

 

We rode weiter in our S-Bahn and we were stopped at a certain stop and my companion looks out the window and starts flipping out and hitting my shoulder and pointing. I turned around and saw this woman, her little 5 year old daughter, AND TISCH TENNIS GIRL and most surprising of all, with the group of them was the man we just made an appointment with. That was crazy. From that moment on we started praying that that man would be at the appointment so we could come in contact with Tisch Tennis girl again and maybe start teaching their whole family! Leider, he didn´t show up to the appointment, but we have faith that we have planted a seed for their family for the future.

 

I love this gospel. It´s amazing the miracles that Heavenly Father gives us so bounteously, all we have to do is ask. I know he hears our prayers. I´m so glad to be part of this great work. I read my mission call the other day and it says "when you work with all your heart might mind and strength, the Lord will direct you to those who are ready to be baptized. I know this is a promise from God given to us missionaries through his prophet. I´m so blessed to be here. I love this gospel so much and I know it´s true. I guess I´ll give my testimony in German since Jeff gave his in Spanish.

 

Ich weiß daß das Buch Mormon wahr ist und daß es uns näher zu Gott bringt als jedes andere Buch. Ich weiß daß es ein lebendiges Prophet auf der Erde gibt und als wir sein Rat zuhören, werden wir begleitet sein. Ich weiß daß diese Arbeit das Werk Gottes ist und daß wenn wir glauben an Gott und seine Barmherzigkeit vertrauen, werden wir Wunder sehen und erleben. Ich bin so dankbar hier in Deutschland und Rostock zu dienen. Ich bete daß wir noch Wunder hier sehen werden und daß wir mehr Menschen einladen können zu Christus zu kommen. Ich hab euch alle lieb!!!!

 

(Translation for those non-German speakers per google translate)

I know that the Book of Mormon is true, and that it brings us closer to God than any other book. I know that there is a living prophet on earth, and as we listen to his advice, we will be accompanied. I know that this work is the work of God and believe that if we trust in God and his mercy, we will see and experience miracles. I am so grateful to serve here in Germany, and Rostock. I pray that we will see more miracles here, and that we can invite more people to come to Christ. I love you all!!

 

Love, Sister Niebergall