Noteworthy Nutty Nannying

This summer for sure hasn't turned out how I expected and planned. Doesn't it always seem to go that whenever you plan something out, it goes exactly opposite? I was planning on living in Logan this summer- I was even all moved into my summer apartment. The whole time I was there it felt weird and wrong. I decided to fast about what I should do. The next morning I woke up with the thought in my head "You need to move home. You need to move home." It wouldn't go out of my head so I packed up my stuff and moved home 2 days later.

Pretty much my whole experience of being home was cleaning up around the house and watching Cake Boss with my siblings. Nothing too exciting. But I knew I was going to be a nanny in Salt Lake so that made me feel somewhat okay about being pretty dang idle.

Monday morning was the start of all the adventures being a nanny. I'm watching my cousins and living in their house and its a blast. It's a great time, I love being with these people. I am taking up quite a bit of room in their apartment, but I'm so grateful that they're letting me stay here. This summer's plan is for me to have super white teeth, be oh-so tan, and lose weight! I'm going to come back a star. Anyways. That is not my point of writing.

Monday is what my aunt called "initiation." So many things went wrong and I forgot how hard it was to be in charge of kids, seeing as I wasn't allowed to be alone with a child for a year and a half. First of all I took the children to swimming lessons. I took them on a wild goose chase to find the pool they were supposed to be at. We ended up getting to dear Drew's lesson 20-30 minutes late. Then Hannah (7 years) had her lesson and at the end of it she saw the love of her life- a boy from her Chinese class. It was like the sight of him literally took her breath away. She started hyperventilating saying "What if I never see him again!!? What if he doesn't come to swimming lessons tomorrow and I never see him again?" She begins to breathe very heavily. I say "Well, do you have his phone number so you can call him and play?" She starts breathing even HARDER and asks between deep breaths, "WHAT gasp IF gasp I gasp NEVER gasp SEE HIM gasp AGAIN!?!? HOW gasp WILL gasp I GET gasp HIS NUMBER??" I mentioned a phone book, which probably just aggravated the situation "HOW DO I gasp FIND gasp A PHONE BOOK??" Oh man, I was laughing under my breath. Good ol' elementary school crushes. I can't imagine what it would be like if college kids acted the same way about their crush.

Later that day we went swimming and oops- I forgot to sunscreen the children. And they fried and I felt so so so bad. Sweet little Lilah is a fair skinned red head girl and burns really easily. I did lather her up, but once she was done in the pool she laid on the cement to warm up and her little tankini top came up just a little bit and there was a little strip on her back that got burnt and on the back of her knees.

Then, thinking I was such a good nanny, I got the girls in a bath. I go back to whatever the heck I was doing and then about 15 minutes later I heard the dreaded voice. I recognized that voice. It's the same voice that screamed about 3 years earlier, "Trisha!! There's been a terrible accident!" And I found a big puddle of diarrhea on the ground. This time the voice screamed "Trisha!! Lilah pooped in the tub!!!" uggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.... NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Cleaned it up and prayed nothing else would happen.

That was my day of initiation. Other than that its just popcorn, crackers, bread, and everything with crumbs crushed into the carpet. Lotions spread all over the bathroom floor. That's totally doable.

Tuesday we went to 7 Peaks for Drew's birthday. I drove the van that had the side view mirror flapping in the wind the whole way. I was stressed out of my mind because I obviously couldn't tell if someone was in the lane next to me. But I survived it and had a good times at 7 Peaks with my sister Sarah. I just love having a sister that is a teenager now so that we can relate to each other, google over guys together, and watch dating shows together. It makes me so happy, I just really enjoy spending time with that girl. :) We went to Famous Dave's for Drew's birthday dinner and there was a rather dashing looking waiter there. I was still in my swimsuit so I felt very uncomfortable- I didn't want him thinking I'm always a scantly clad woman. And then I did something I've never done before... I organized the dishes on the table so that it would be easy for him to clean up and I left my number and a note for him. It said:

"Hey, I just met you

And this is crazy!

I cleaned your table

So call me maybe!"

Haven't heard from him so far, but ya know- it's all good! :)

Wednesday was Heather's day off so we went.... uh oh! SHOPPING! I had so much fun and found fun birthday presents for myself- 2 dresses, 1 skirt, and 1 cardigan. Then that night I went to institute in Sandy and listened to John Bytheway speak. Oh, it was really good. Sometimes you need a spiritual battery charge more often than just Sundays.

Yesterday it was super hard to get the kids a-movin'. Man oh man, when I was asking the kids to get dressed and get ready for the day they were moving turtle speed. Then I had to get after them and dear Drew said "I'm moving at my own pace... so..." And I got a death glare on my face and I think he got scared and was like "Dreeeeewww" And he knew immediately that he needed to get his tush in gear and get going!

Then we collected rocks in a canyon and painted them.

 

 Collecting

Time!!!

We had some way creative rocks like a pizza, and a duck. It was great fun and we only got a little messy. Here are the pictures!

Cool

 

 Paintings!

And then.... the creme de la creme...

Me own....Geburtstag! (Birthday)

Today I woke up and Hannah was waiting longingly for me to wake up so that she could give me a present. She had painted turtles on a rock for me and had cut a paper into a turtle shape and wrote the cutest note for me. It said:

"To the best girl! Happy birthday, Trisha.
I hope your day is as shiny as the sun.
You are the star that stands out in the night sky.
When all the villagers look up in the night sky then all they see is you spreading your nice words.
I love you."

Isn't that sooooooooooo sweet? Oh my gosh, I love my job!

Drew was already gone to scout camp by the time I had woken up, which meant a day with za girls! We decided we'd do girly things like...

• Facials
• Fingernails
• Hair
• Chocolate Covered Strawberries

And it was awesome. We went to Target and got all of our supplies and came back very excited to start! We started with facials. It was so cute to see how excited they were to do this. Here are the pictures:

 

 And then of course we had to lay down and listen to relaxing Enya music with cucumbers on our eyes. As we were laying down breathing oh so deeply I head a *CRUNCH*

And this is what I saw.

  Hahahaha oh man, it was so adorable. I didn't realize it was so close to snack time.

Then we had our chocolate covered strawberries. I think that was the highlight for the girls.

Then we painted our nails and did our hair. Hannah did my hair all crazy, but I feel like I did a good job on her hair.

At the end of the day, it was a great birthday and I'm glad I got to spend it with these sweet girls and that we could create some fun memories together. I just love making these girls happy!

Everyone has made my birthday so great and made me feel so special. Thanks to everyone who has gone out of their way to say happy birthday. You are all so great!

I really don't dance!

I am not a Dancer......

 

 

I don't look like this:
 

 I don't look like this:
 

 

I don't look at all like this:



 

Every Tuesday night I'm bitterly reminded that I just don't got that African soul:
 

 

I don't know what motivated me to sign up for this African Dance class, but as much as I love to dance- sometimes I just have to admit to myself that I look like a fool:

 

 

But in the meantime- imma just be an awkward dancer.
So there.

 

 

Just pretend this:

 

 

Is actually this.

 

The End.

Mission Overview.

So.... I was just thinking.

My mission went by so fast. It went a little something like this:
(Play this sentimental song while looking through these pictures)

1) Got my call.

2) Left my family.

 

3) Met my MTC companion 

4) Went to Germany!

 

5) Met my trainer. (1st city)

 

 6) 2nd city.

 

7) 3rd city and we baptized a family!

8) 4th city. Had fun with amazing Sisters!

9) Went home.

10) Saw my family- minus Jeff :(

Dude. It seriously goes so fast. It really feels like a dream. I miss it so much.

Ich liebe Deutschland!

Deutschland hat mein Herz für immer!

Hello my lovely family.

I will just say right from the beginning that this week we were SICK! AUGHAIHGIAHGIASBFKL! Dang it! That was so hard for me to stay inside when I know how little time I have left. But we still managed to get a lot done, seeing as we were sick.

We had an eating appointment with Schwester Raezke and she made ham, potatoes, brussel sprouts (no rot khol this time), and a dessert, but I can´t remember what it was. Tonight is my last eating appointment with her and I´m thinking she´s going to go all out. We´ll have to see. By the way I have absolutely no idea if this is my last e-mail or not. I would assume this is the last one.

Tuesday we had an eating appointment and we ate chili. That is pretty much something you should NEVER give missionaries. It´s tasty, but it is painful. Then we went to Schwester Bruhn´s house (the one that gave us all the referals that one time). The poor woman. Her teeth had all just barely fallen out a couple days before and it really aged her. It was pretty traumatizing for her because she´s used to being this really young looking older woman (like I would guess she´s 59 years old, but she´s 73), but now she feels so old and it was so traumatizing on her brain that she became forgetful and, yeah. It really aged her. She asked me the same question like 3 times (if I had written in her missionary book). It was really sad to see. I don´t know what to do for her. Then we went to another less active member´s house, who we´ve never met before. She lives pretty much in the boonies and she has really bad cancer and she´s had it for 10 years. She´s only 40. She is so cool though. She is a music teacher and she plays every brass instrument and is teaching herself the piano and she had tons of music and tons of CD´s, so of course, we had to jam. It was a lot of fun. She also told us all her concerns about the church- the very first concern was that she didn´t know if Joseph Smith was a prophet. Then she said she didn´t like that we say we´re all about free agency and making our own decisions, but then we have so many commandments. She vented about that for a long time. I really really wanted to say "If you know Joseph Smith is a prophet, then you´ll know that these commandments aren´t just rules he made up, but they´re from God." But for some reason I was too scared to say it. I was afraid of offending her and her not liking the Sisters. But now that I look at it, I don´t need to worry about offending someone when I feel prompted to say something. The spirit would testify and maybe help her testimony. Bummer. But I´ve learned a lesson from that.

Thursday our members were awesome and brought us the food (A soup with rice and chicken and dumplings) to our house and gave me a priesthood blessing, because I HAVE to get better, I can´t just sit around the apartment on the last weeks of my mission. I didn´t know if I should go to this other appointment with a less active member that we haven´t met yet, but we´ve cancelled on them so much that we decided not to cancel again. We went and found out that they don´t come to church because their son died in an accident and then they stopped believing in God. The spirit led us so much to say exactly what they needed to hear. It was such a neat experience to not have a clue what I was going to say, but opening my mouth and it was filled with words from our Heavenly Father. I don´t even really remember what we said, but I know we invited them with all of our hearts just to pray and ask Heavenly Father is there. I hope they did. It was a neat experience. She was from the Philipines. CooL!

Friday we had another appointment with a less active member, Bruder Brockmann, the man with the daughter (Nadja) with special needs. She was looking forward to us coming so much, so I´m glad that we went. She is so cute. It´s so sad, her mom disowned her because she has special needs and wants nothing to do with her, but Nadja wants so badly to have women around her, so I´m glad we can be there for her. Except she was sad that I´m leaving. That was really hard. She gave me a hug and told me she´d miss me. That was way sad. She´s so sweet. I hope she can get going to church soon. She really wants to go, but her dad won´t go for some reason. Then we had an eating appointment with an awesome family that have 2 girls (ages 17 and 18) that want to serve missions. We´ve set it up that we will go on splits with them this week. They are really excited. They´re also a really musical family and so we sang with her. It was awesome. I love the people here in Elmshorn. Oh they fed us chili too, by the way. 

Saturday we had an eating appointment with our Ward mission leader. They made us meat loaf and potatoes. It was yummy. Then we had an appointment with Tony and Jordan was supposed to come with, but Jordan wrote us and said he couldn´t go. So we started heading towards Tony´s, but we had a feeling that we shouldn´t go. So we didn´t. I don´t know why we had that feeling though. Naja. Then we had a ward Christmas party and it was themed "Christmas around the world" And we have a really diverse ward so people from different countries talked about how Christmas is celebrated in their country. We didn´t talk, but we sang a song. We sang one bright star, a cappella and we were both sick. But everyone was quiet and intent. We even saw people crying and coming up and telling us they felt the spirit so much. That was crazy. We didn´t think it sounded bad, but it definitely wasn´t something to rave about. Also it was awesome, a lot of members brought their friends with to the party and we talked to them and made appointments with them. Unfortunately one appointment is after I´ll be gone, but the other is this Thursday. It´s the same lady that our members invited over to eat cake and kind of overwhelmed her. She asked us if we could come to her house. So we´ll have an appointment with her, and we´re way excited about that. I see huge potential in this lady. Then the other people we made an appointment was a family from Africa. A member works with the dad and invited him to the party and he brought his wife and kids and we klicked with them way fast and that´s so cool! Another family!! Oh, we got the handwarmers too. Thanks so much! I´m sure the member will love them. And thanks for the letters. I look forward to seeing everyone.

Sunday I was feeling good again, but then Sister Odenwalder got sick. She felt so bad, but she had stayed in the house for me for the past 3 days so it was no big deal. That´s just always how it seems to go. One gets sick and when they´re better the other gets sick and it goes back and forth for awhile. So we stayed home the whole day, but the ward is so sweet, people came over and gave a priesthood blessing and called and asked how we´re doing and said they missed us. They are so nice. I really have learned the kind of member I want to be from serving here in Elmshorn. They are so amazing! I can´t say it enough!

Unfortunately, I won´t be able to see the Romanian family before I leave. I´ll just have to stay updated through Sister Odenwalder. Our week this week is totally packed. We´re making Tausch today and I´ll be with Sister Linford until tomorrow morning and then Sister Laubaugh is coming to me. It´ll be fun. Wednesday we have Zone Conference, Thursday we have Frau Stegeberg (member referal who´s daughter was going to get baptized but died), and then Schemus- a new investigator. Friday we will be doing splits with the Siems daughters and then an eating appointment with the Siems family again. Saturday we´ll have 2 eating appointments (one with GML and one with the African lady from our ward where a fish head was present) and then we´ll go by on those referals. And Sunday I´ll sing in church and speak in church. And then my last eating appointment is with Cy and Anja. I´m really excited. I love them, they´re so awesome. And that´s my plan for the week in case I don´t get to write next week. And then I go to Berlin Monday morning. Then we have a testimony meeting and eat dinner. I don´t know what else.

I love you all so much. I know this church really is the true church. It was restored to the earth from our loving Heavenly Father through a prophet Joseph Smith. I know Heavenly Father loves all his children and He has made it possible that we have direct guidance from Him in this day through a prophet. I know that Jesus Christ has really made it possible that we can return to Him and Heavenly Father one day if we take the right steps and follow the commandments. I understand the gospel so much more now, but I understand that it isn´t anything complicated, it´s so simple. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God and we can come so close to Him when we read it. I know only God can create this love that I feel for these people here in Germany. I know this is the work of God. I´m humbled and grateful that I  could be a part of it and hope that I will continue to be a missionary for the rest of my life. I will never stop giving testimony of Him. I love my Savior Jesus Christ. He is always there and He is my best friend. I love telling others about Him. I will do this for the rest of my life. I love you.

Bis Bald. Ganz Liebe Grüße (I looked that up on google translate, and it´s a super bad translation. Whatevs. Love you!!!) Aufwiedersehen!

Love, Sister Niebergall

Moroni 8:3 and 1 Corinthians 16:24

2012, 12-03

Dear family! Hello my loves!! I hope all is well with ya´lls.

This week has been pretty dang good. Monday someone roped us into doing karaoke at the opening day of the Christmas markets saying there wouldn´t be enough people there, but uh........ DOCH! There were tons of people, so we didn´t really need to go there. So we cancelled Schwester Raezke´s eating appointment for no reason. But we went over to her house and played the game that we play with her every week. It was fun. I love Schwester Raezke.

Tuesday we had Zone Conference and it was super good. I was so glad to go. Normally there are only 2 zones but this conference had 4 zones, So I got to see Sister Curtis! She´s serving in Celle now! Crazy huh! And then we had it scheduled to have the Romanian family skype, but I don´t think we planned well enough. We didn´t have anywhere to skype or anyone to drive the family. But we got that all figured out on the way from Hamburg to Elmshorn (I was crying from the pressure, there was literally so much pressure on me that the tears just came out. It was a weird sensation). Anyways, we got that luckily all organized and the person picked us up from bahnhof, the person that would pick up the family. Then she was like "we´re not going to make it in time so you need to call the Romanian missionaries and let them know we´ll be 15 minutes late. So we did and it ended up the Romanian Elders didn´t even know about it. So that was extra stressful. So they called up the Elders and asked if they could cancel their plans and come skype, which they said they could do. So then we went to pick up the family. They weren´t home. OOOOOOOOOOH man. We felt our stomachs drop. Everyone went to all this trouble and then it didn´t work out. We felt so silly. But it´s okay. That happens sometimes. Maybe the Elders needed to be in that area of town to find someone awesome: I just hope that the Elders in Romania trust us. We´ve scheduled and cancelled so many appointments, so I hope they trust to set up another skype. Otherwise we´re just going to have to hope and trust that the Lord will give them another chance to hear the gospel in Romanian sometime.

Wednesday was sitting and studying....and then I went CRAZY!!!!!!!! There was so much crap the Elders have left behind and so much crap that needed to be thrown out and cleaned that I just went crazy....And luckily we didn´t have any fest appointments because we ended up cleaning the whole day. But now our apartment feels like home. Finally.

Then Thursday we went and ate and Schwester Skrotzki´s house. I love that woman so much. She´s one of my best friends from the mission too. She has 4 kids, 19, 17, 14, and 11. And the 2 oldest are inactive, but like I´ve said in e-mails before- I think she realizes that her house needs missionary power. But anyway, the poor lady has been sick with the cold (Grippe in German is the flu. Jeff talked about how gripe in spanish is the cold. That´s kinda crazy!) Anyway. She made fish sticks and mashed potatoes and vegetables, but her 3 sons were pretty hungry and ate it all pretty fast. So we left sill a little bit hungry. Then we went to talk to our Ward mission leader and talk about our investigators. He was a little overwhelming at the class with Tessa last week, so we wanted to teach a lesson of how we can be good teachers. Needless to say it backfired because he would interrupt us and wouldn´t listen and let us talk (which is exactly the point we wanted to emphasize with him. Ironic) But oh well. They gave us caro kaffee (the wheat coffee. Not made with beans, but with wheat. It´s pretty yummy) and cake. Then we picked up an Advent´s calendar that the Seminary students made for us. It´s so cool, but more about that later, when the advent calendar begins.

Friday We had an eating appointment and ate Gyro meat over rice. It was yummy. Then we had a lesson with a less active (the man who´s daughter is special needs) We really clicked with him this time, because we had his daughter act out the story of Nephi with us and I think it touched his heart to see how we interacted with his daughter. Then he invited us to come back again. It´s so great that he likes us and trusts us and wants us to come back, but we´d be even happier if he were in church. We´re still hoping that it´ll work out. Then we had an appointment with Tony from Nigeria. We had an app with him a couple weeks back and he thought we worshiped Mormon. Well, he still has these big concerns about the Book of Mormon. We had the coolest joint teach with us and this member is also from Nigeria (Jordan), and so they immediately clicked. That made us happy. So he kept expressing his concerns about the Book of Mormon and was only talking to us and Tony said "If Christ gives me a witness then I´ll know." (and was expressing these concerns about praying and asking for some reason.) Then Jordan said "How will you know if you don´t ask?" The question stumpped him and then he said "You´re right." Then after a couple minutes Tony said "But something is ringing in my conscience that it is against what I believe" And Jordan said "You can´t just depend on the wisdom of man, bro. Ask God." And stumped him again. It was awesome. I love it when the joint teaches are just right.

Saturday was the first of the month and that means the beginning of advent´s calendars. This calendar that the Seminary made for us was awesome. They put so much effort into it. The theme for the calendar was the seminary scriptures. So they colored pictures describing the scripture mastery scriptures on lunch bag type things and then inside the lunch bag they wrote the scripture and then they wrote an assignment that we have to do during the day that relates with the scripture. So this scripture talked about needing to be strong to fight the adversary. So our assignment for the day was "In order to fight the adversary, you have to be strong! Do 50 pushups throughout the day." So we did. It´s so weird, my abs are sore, not my arms. But I´m okay with that. We also went by on a lot of the referrals and unfortunately, most of them aren´t interested, but one of them said we could try by again. Then we taught the Bornholdts (The ones that believe LA will sink into the ocean) It went really well, we had a good discussion about faith for awhile, but then the conversation just turned over to him and he said it was really pressing on him to tell us what he believes. He thinks that we need to be converted and really believe in Jesus. So then I asked if I could share my conversion story with him. I talked about when mom took me to 7-11 and asked if I even believed in Jesus, and of course I believe in Jesus! He is like the core of my testimony and I decided that I never wanted to act in a way that my mom would question if I believed in Jesus (I know I didn´t do too good of a job at that a lot of the time) but then I bore my testimony to Herr Bornholdt that I know that Jesus Christ is there and He is my best friend. I knew I couldn´t do anything else for this man except let him know that I know Christ is there and that I love Christ with all my heart. I love these people and they´re good friends, but unfortunately they don´t give us a chance to share our important message and I know if they´d listen and hear what we believe, then they could feel the truth. Don´t really know what to do about that. But oh well. Then we had another appointment with a guy that we met on the street a couple weeks ago. It´s crazy because we have had to cancel, or he´s had to cancel for the last little while, but today he called US (We thought he´d cancel again) but he called to remind us about our appointment. Crazy! Then we met him and gave him the Book of Mormon and the appointment went pretty well and we were able to schedule another appointment with him! Yay! But that is in a couple weeks because he will go to Russia. Then we had an eating appointment with Cy and Anja, and I love eating with them. I feel just like I´m at home. They have the cutest 4 year old boy and Cy reminds me of Mark Fellows. And it´s English speaking so we can really show our personalities. It was a nice time and they gave us fried chicken, (KFC style, but home made), kohl slaw, and mashed potatoes. And of course for dessert. ROOTBEER FLOATS!!! AHHHHH We were pretty excited about that. It was super yummy.

Sunday was church and fast Sunday. We were sitting next to this really awesome musical family and then we get a note from the member "I personally expect all those who are set apart from the world, with a special responsibility to bear testimony of Christ, to do so at every opportunity they get including fast Sunday. I´d love to hear from you." (don´t worry, the note wasn´t angry. He´s a super chill guy.) Normally we don´t bear our testimony on fast Sunday because we want to give the chance to members, plus we gave our testimonies last week. But we did anyway. But tons of people came up to us after and thanked us for our testimonies. So maybe we needed to say them. Then we ate at a family´s house (chicken gravy over rice and dessert was cake, then brownies, then bratapfels [cinnamon, almonds, and butter dumped inside an apple that´s core is cut out, and vanille sosse poured on top, baked in an oven. SOOOOOOOO yummy]. Then we called our Branch President and asked if there was anyone we could visit. We went by on the people he told us to (less actives) But none of them wanted to talk to us. Oh the assignment for the Advent´s calendar was to give away a copy of "The Living Christ" And bear our testimony on it. So we did some doors and I was able to hand her the living Christ, and say "I know that Jesus is there" but she didn´t have time so she went back in her house. But maybe she´ll read it and need to read what is written there. So that was a good day.

I did get your package by the way. I was SOOOOOOOOO happy! I cried when I read the letters. I love you all so much and even though you didn´t send letters too often, I think that makes the letters and packages I do get, sweeter. I feel your love so strongly through these things and I will really treasure and cherish them. I did get the Chase card too and I hope you put money on there because I´m going shopping today. I haven´t got the hand warmers package, but how much was it so that I can let Sr. Skrotzki know how much she owes you. I didn´t go to Lion King, and it won´t happen unfortunately because (I hate saying these words) not enough time. It would´ve been in German though. So cool! I´ll just have to watch in on youtube one day. No luck getting ahold of the Felbers. So sad. The money situation is back in order. It´s the beginning of the month so we all have money. I can´t believe Leslie is engaged! I´m so happy for her! Thanks for keeping me up to date. I will speak to her about this later! SO awkward that your principal came in during the switchblade part. But I´m glad she understood.

Today´s assignment is to think about God´s will. I figured that would be a good thing to write about in my e-mail. It is so important to trust completely in the Lord, but one of the hardest things to do. I heard the coolest quote at Zone Conference "Accepting things as God wants them sometimes takes more faith than to change your situation." Or something like that. But that´s so true. Heavenly Father really does see where we´ve been, where we are now, and what direction we´re going, so we really should realize that He knows what is in our path and what is best for us. I have definitely been praying for Schwester Crouch, and I´ll keep praying. But I know the Lord knows better than us. Sometimes the Lord gives us hard times so that we can know how to help others through their hard times. I know that Heavenly Father has everything perfectly organized for our benefit and vorteil. He loves us and everything that happens (even if its hard) is for our eventual happiness. I know this is true! I love you family!

Love, Sister Niebergall

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

I know where I shall stay until I die.

Hello family!

Thanks for your e-mail! It´s crazy how little time is left, but I love ever second of it and I will work until the bitter end. Or in Germany Berlin mission terms "Til I die". I´m sure you´re wondering if I got transferred and I´ll have you know I did not get transferred. I will die in Elmshorn and Sister Odenwalder will kill me and I´m sooooooo glad about that. I´ve moved around so much during my mission, I was just ready to stay and influence the people here. I don´t feel like I could have been much of an influence on someone in a new city for 4 weeks. So I´m so incredibly happy. I know there is still much to be done here before I go. Anyway, so feel free to send my card to me and also any deathbed repentance letters/ packages that you want. You know the joy of getting packages. Now multiply that by 1000 and that´s how much joy I will have to get a single letter and multiply that by a thousand billion and that´s how happy I´d be to get one. last. package. hint. hint. hint. HINT!!!!!!!!! Please?

This week went well. Monday we ate at Schwester Raezke´s and she gave us this AMAZING tomato soup that is a secret recipe, so I can never make it. DANG IT! The only problem is we feel horrible after we eat it. The Elders from our district that came with us to eat also got sick after. But it tastes so good while you´re eating it, but you hate life after.

Dienstag we went to a member to eat and they are from Sachsen and if you know anything about German dialects, Sächsisch is one of the hardest dialects to understand (Meißen and Dresden are in Sachsen, too). Anyway, they fed us cabbage and potatoes mashed up and it was pretty rank. We were still trying to recover from Raezke´s, and we both almost threw up AT the eating appointment. Luckily Heavenly Father blesses us. So after we went home and recuperated. We didn´t end up throwing up though. Luckily. Then we went and helped Timon Skrotzki with Englisch.

Wednesday was good. We had district meeting and it was a really good district meeting, it was awesome to see everyone´s motivation and desire to serve the people in their cities. Then we went to get a Bubble Tea after and on the way we saw this guy playing a guitar and someone put money in the cup and he said "Senorita" and I was like "AHH! That dude is not German or Turkish. We need to talk to him!" So after we got our bubble tea we went up to him (he was singing Billionare by Bruno Mars-english) and so while he was playing I went up and stood there watching him and asked in English "where are you from?" He was from Portugal. It was a good conversation starter. We talked about music for awhile and then he asked why we´re in Germany and then we started talking about the gospel and were able to make an appointment with him. Unfortunately he wasn´t at the appointment, but maybe we´ll see him on the streets again some day. Then we went with Schwester Bruhn and Bruder Basnak to the Russian store and he bought us a billion Russian sweets. Then we were going to have an appointment with him after, but unfortunately he was so tired from work he couldn´t anymore. But we still talked to Schwester Bruhn for awhile and she has the fear of being too far away from home, so I recommended that she get a priesthood blessing for that. And she said that was a really good idea. Then we taught an ex J-Dub named Steffie. She is 26 and really sweet. It is just hard because she isn´t really looking for truth, she just finds religion interesting and wants to talk about it with someone. It´s hard cuz we ask what she believes and (for example "Do you believe there is just one truth?") And she says no. And then we don´t know what to do after that because we don´t want to tell her she´s wrong, there is one truth. So we aren´t sure how to help her now.

Thursday we got a notification that someone found my wallet! Yay!! So we went to pick it up and EVERYTHING was still there- including the cash. We were so shocked, but so grateful. Then we had to go fix our heating in our apartment. Oh man. The life of a missionary. Then we went to a member´s house and ate tons of pancakes, but we didn´t eat a number big enough to please her. We ate about 3 pancakes (The ones she makes are super thick and sit like stones in your stomach) and she was disappointed, but we´ve given up caring, we don´t want to be so sick we can´t work. Then we went to another less active member´s house named Schwester Feudel and it was the first time we´d met her. She was really nice, but she also has a fear to go too far from home. I don´t know if that´s a real fear or an excuse. Keine Ahnung. Then we went to Gemeinde Rat (sorry, not sure what it´s called in English) and got re-reminded that there is so much to do as a missionary. So many people to care for and to please. We hope that we keep doing an okay job here in Elmshorn.

Friday we went to an eating appointment and we ate spaghetti carbonara and she asked us to teach a lesson in young women´s. Then we went to the Romanian family. We found out that Carmen and Gheorghe (the mom and dad that went to Romania) were able to find a bigger apartment, so we don´t know where they live now, but luckily we found someone that speaks Romanian that lives in Hamburg and he is coming to help us translate on Wednesday. We hope to Skype Saturday. It´s so rough not to be able to communicate with them.

Saturday. I feel so bad, I forgot my planner and I can´t remember at all what we did this week. I can´t remember what went down Saturday. OH! We had transfer calls and then we were supposed to have the appointment with this guy from Portugal, but he wasn´t there. Then we were supposed to have an eating appointment with this 92 year old member, but she had forgotten, but it was no big deal. Then we went home and prepared for our lesson for young women´s and then we went and talked to Cy and Anja about the priesthood and answer questions they may have because Cy was going to get the Melchizedek Priesthood on Sunday. It went really well. I love them so much, I just want to be best friends with them. I can´t remember if I´ve said this already, but Cy reminds me so much of Mark Fellows. Every time I´m with them I just laugh my head off. And then it makes sense to me why Mark went to Taiwan on his mission. If all Asian people are like Cy, then I bet Mark just clicked with all of them. Anyway. That was that day.

Sunday we had church. Unfortunately the less actives haven´t come back to church yet. Still are working on that. We taught our lesson in Young Women and it went really well. They asked us to talk about the process of going on a mission, so that was fun to do. I think we got a couple girls pumped up about going on a mission, so that makes us happy. It was funny, for part of our lessons we told the girls our first names, and I almost said "my name is Sister Niebergall" I´m pretty sure I said "my name is ssssstrisha Niebergall" That might be a challenge when I get home. Mal sehen. Then we had an eating appointment and we ate pork, mushrooms (I´ve grown to love mushrooms), and noodles. It was so yummy! Then we did weekly planning and then we went to a concert that our ward and the Pinneberg ward had. It was really awesome, it made me miss singing a lot.

And that was my week.

I don´t know if I´ve seen any of these wood picture box type thing. I´ll print out the picture and ask members where I could find one. The meeting with the ward mission leader´s friend is this week. We´ll see how that goes. The school schedule looks good. Can you get me the institute schedule maybe? So I can know what institute classes I can take? I bet you´re an Access Banner pro, dad. I can hardly maneuver around that website. 

  

I´m glad you liked that I made sure there was the perfect amount of colors and numbers of candy for you mom. Did the cd work? I hope it did. And I also hope you liked the cd. I don´t think you need to worry about talking to your principal about your schedule. That isn´t normal to have no break. Every other teacher gets a break. It´s hard to go without a break, and isn´t healthy. I´m pretty sure she won´t judge you for that. No worries.

I can´t believe you are getting iPADs and also that all of Jodi´s kids have iPADs. That´s crazy. Everyone has them here too and they seem to come in handy. I´m glad you´ll be able to use them for your kids learning. That sounds like it´ll be a good tool. I´m sorry you ran into that girl´s car. That sucks. Bummer. I´m glad you didn´t get arrested for your ditziness. :)

That´s funny that DJ was going to go be all high school actor on that junior high schooler´s hiney. I´m glad Sarah did a good job. I´m excited to hear this carol of the bells. 

 

Thanks so much for your support. I love the gospel. I know it´s true with all my heart. I know the Lord hears our prayers and He knows when we are crying. He loves us and He is there for us. He answers our prayers if we just come to Him. I love Him and I love the gospel. And I love you!

Love, SIster Niebergall