Monday, November 26, 2012

2012, 11-26

Hello me own family!! It was good to read your e-mail! This week was really good. Unfortunately I don´t have too much time so I´ll just write about the highlights.

First of all, I´ll give you our menu:

Monday: Raezke´s. Some kind of yummy beef, broccoli, rot kohl, potatoes, and a HUGE cake with manderin oranges in it. It was delicious. Elder Nathan Elmer served in Elmshorn about a year ago and he was there to visit Schwester Raezke again and she went all out for him. We had so much food. More than normal. So we had a party and it was a lot of fun to talk with everyone together.

Tuesday: Tacos with our Branch President´s family. Also. Super. Delicious. It was fun to talk about missions with him and his wife. She also served a mission.

Wednesday: No eating appointment.

Thursday: Chili con carne with a lady who has cancer. It was so amazing to be with her and hear her faith and her love for Heavenly Father, it was a great way to spend Thanksgiving. We also ate cake and wheat coffee later with our ward mission leader. 

Friday: Lasagna. So yummy! With the same family that fed us yesterday.

Saturday: African food! Aka Rice with meat in it, tortilla type things, bean sauce, and don´t worry. Fried fish heads. I was feeling sick that day and somehow Heavenly Father blessed us and we somehow didn´t have to eat it. I wanted to eat it though to say I have, but I really wasn´t feeling well and didn´t want to puke in front of our sweet member Marcia.

Sunday: WE CELEBRATED THANKSGIVING. It was so amazing and delicious. This family has a tradition of doing Thanksgiving for the missionaries. It was really nice. We had the BIGGEST turkey I´ve ever seen, stuffing, stuffed mushrooms (oh my gosh, I have to get the recipe. They were so amazing), corn, beans, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, cranberry sauce, rolls, mashed regular potatoes, and mashed sweet potatoes. Then for dessert, an amazing chocolate mousse cake pie thing, apple crisp, pumpkin pie, cherry pie, and of course...jello salad (not the pink jello stuff though. Bummer!) The only thing that was missing was mom´s cheesecake. It was so amazing and I´m so grateful to have such nice considerate members. I hope that I can be that kind of member one day.

One day we were riding our bikes and we saw this guy crossing the road and for some reason he turned around in the middle of the road, cussed (in english), and ran back the direction he just came. We rode past him and I said "That was English! We´re from America!" and then got of our bikes and chatted with him for awhile. He mentioned before we even said anything about the Book of Mormon that he loves to read and then when we brought up the Book of Mormon, he got all philosophical and tried explaining faith with philosophy and it made no sense. But basically he wanted to tell us that we can´t ever know if our church is true. And to that I say DOCH! (pretty much the most common German comeback. The most direct translation I can think of for it is "Yeah-huh!") But its too bad that he didn´t have more interest. That would´ve been a great conversion story.
 
This week was pretty wet, not because it was rainy, but because it was foggy and misty. It was pretty interesting to ride bikes in.

This week we were looking through our area book and I found this paper with referals on it from a member who had moved. He had sent out a letter to his friends to say goodbye and in this letter he said "I know you all know we´re mormon and our religion means so much to us. We´re going to send the missionaries by your house." They moved about a year ago, but I decided to call this member and ask him about this list. I said "I´m sure the Elders went by on all these people already" And he said "I wouldn´t be so sure. I didn´t ever hear back from them and I´m really disappointed. Thank you for following up on that. Please go by on them. So we got 20 referals all in one sitting. That was awesome. We went by on one of them and she said we can come back. I have a feeling we will have a lot of success with that.

Yesterday we had church and it was crazy. We had met with a member this week who just barely moved into Elmshorn from Hamburg and let him know we are back in Elmshorn (it was too hard for him to get to church in Pinneberg) and he brought a friend with. A 15 year old girl. Everyone was SO nice to her. But I feel bad cuz I think it was overwhelming for her. And somehow a rumor got out that she was going to get baptized so there were several people going up to her and saying "OH! You´re going to get baptized!! That´s great!!" And she was freaked out saying "No! I haven´t heard anything about the church at all! I just wanted to check it out!" Oh man. It was too crazy. But we were glad to meet her. I don´t know how she would´ve been if Elders were there and not Sisters to be on a girl level with her. Yeah. That was fun.

Those are pretty much the main stories of the week. It was a good week and I´m looking for a good week this week too.

The tomato soup didn´t taste bad at all! It was just so yummy that we ate so much and we ate too much. We weren´t sick from food poisoning, just overeating. You wouldn´t understand until you´ve tried this soup. Oh my gosh. It´s so good. The Russian sweets are okay. They´re a little bland. Pretty much PURE sugar. We did find these cakes though that are like strawberry shortcakes. They´re yummy.

I don´t really understand what happened with the Romanian family. I guess they still live there. We were able to find a member in Hamburg that speaks Romanian and he came this week with us. He said they don´t live there but they do live there. I said "What??" And he said "It makes sense in Romanian." HUH? It doesn´t make sense in English. So I guess they live there. They love the Book of Mormon still and are reading in it and Gheorghe was even talking to people on mormon.org. That´s so cool! He´s researching it as best as he can and he still really believes that God sent us there. So we´ll see where it goes this week.

Bubble tea is something that I LOVE! It´s like a thin milkshake with little pearl/ball like things with fruit juice in the middle and they pop in your mouth. They´re amazing. I love them. Sister Odenwalder ate the pancake at home. The lady sent them home with us, it was crazy, they were moldy the day after we got them. Naja.

The people that have fears to leave their houses don´t live that far away from the church. They even are scared to grocery shopping. It´s just a fear of being away from home. I´m not sure if she got a blessing yet. I forgot to ask.

Thank you for following the spirit and telling me what it told you to say. We will do that when we meet with her. You´re awesome mom.

I want to find out what happened with the Felber´s too. I´ve called them every day this week. Sometimes it picks up and immediately hangs up or sometimes no one answers at all. I hope to get ahold of them soon. I cant imagine not staying in touch with the people that I´ve met here on my mission. I love them way too much. I bet that breaks dad´s heart. I hope he finds them again some day.

Tell Shayna congrats!!! That´s so exciting for her! Tell her she is going to be a great missionary. I wish I could go as a joint teach with her. She´s going to come back a cow-woman. 

I hope the card gets to me soon. We´ve used up all of Sister O´s money and we are living off bread milk and cereal that was paid by her personal money. But it´ll work out. I just hate bumming off of her personal money.
 
I´m glad things are working out for school. That´s hilarious about Sarah´s NAL. Pleasse........listen.

I love you my family! I am so glad you raised me in this gospel and that I can share it with the people here in Elmshorn. I love it and I know it´s true! I may not e-mail next Monday. It might be Tuesday. We might go see Lion King in Hamburg. We´ll see. We might do that the week after. Woot! Kay. Love you!

Love, Sister Niebergall

No comments:

Post a Comment