Well, to be honest, this week has been rough. I´ll tell you why of course. I´m trying to keep my faith and attitude up, but I really just want to cry all day.
First of all, we haven´t had contact witch Sabine, Sabine, and Anna for a week. And not because we haven´t tried. We´ve tried every day to contact them, which may be the problem. I´m really afraid that we might have been overwhelming. Now we don´t know what to do. They won´t answer phone calls or the door when we go to their house. I have really never been so heartbroken on my mission. It´s true we don´t know what is going on and maybe everything is just fine. But I am really worried. That´s really everything that´s been on my mind this week.
Tuesday we ran into Robert, he looked horrible. We could tell he hasn´t been doing good things. We tried to talk to him, but he just walked away from us. We were feeling pretty heartbroken about that too. The next day we were riding our bikes and we saw him and he waved at us and told us to come over. He told us that he has to go to jail because he wasn´t able to pay a bill for an ambulance and he is here in Germany illegally. He said that he doesn´t even know if God is there. So we ran and printed off a talk from President Uchtdorf "You Matter to Him". I hope he´s read it. We know he always feels something when he is with us because he asked us if we could come back again the next day. Which was a huge improvement from the day before where he refused to talk to us. The next day we talked to him and invited him to come to institute in Dresden. It took a lot of convincing, but he finally accepted and he brought his friend with him. They were drinking beer the whole time on the train and it was really horrible. But when they got there, I know Robert felt the spirit. Then we played ping pong with him and as we were about to leave, we remembered we needed to show him the baptismal font. We opened the doors to it and the spirit flooded the room. Robert even kind of took a step back and asked what that was. I told him the place for the Taufe. He stood staring for a minute. He didn´t want to take his eyes off of it, and he reached into his pocket and took out his phone to take a picture. I said to him "Robert, you´ll be in there one day." And he said "Yes. I know" It was super awesome and it was so great to see him feel the spirit so strongly.
That was a cool story about Alma 32 and your investigator. I have a whole list of questions that I´ve written down to ask you about your mission if I come home. I can´t wait to hear about your mission. But you can still write about experiences from your mission in your e-mails or letters. Thanks for sharing that.
For Rachel and Pepper. I asked Sister Kläy what advice I should give because she is a cat lover. She said that she had to put her cat to sleep when she was younger and she said the way her family told her was "He is really old and he has lots of problems with his health so he can´t be really happy and they will just put him to sleep and he´ll go to kitty heaven where he can be with his other brothers and sisters" That is the only thing that I can think to say. But that´s super sad. Awww Pepper.
I think Elder Roberts is serving in Berlin somewhere. I´m not too sure though, but his trainer was in the MTC at the same time as me. He´s a good Elder. I know they´ll see miracles while they are there together. With both of their faiths (I don´t know how to say that).
The language is really good, but this week I really have been trying to improve my vocabulary. I can say what I want to say, but I want to be able to use fancier words now. But I can communicate and I can understand most of the time. If I don´t understand every word I usually understand the general idea of what they are saying.
This week has been SUPER wet, but we´ve had to deal with it. Luckily we had a lot of appointments so we were inside a lot of the time it was raining. But we were in the rain quite a lot too. We haven´t heard anything about our apartment though. We work every day in Meißen, but sleep and study in Dresden. We do go to church in Meißen too. And we don´t know yet how long we´ll be in Dresden, if we´ll move back into our old apartment or if we´ll have to get a new one. No one knows anything, so we´re just chillin in Dresden til something happens.
I got a lovely letter this week. I cried my eyes out. I felt so silly, but it was SO good to hear from you and see your handwriting. It got there just fine and if you were to send other things there, they´d get there too. I also got a letter from Sister Toni, so I´m thinking this mail is more reliable. But thank you so so so so so sooooo much for sending that. It was a particularly hard day full of tears and it came just at the right time. Thank you for sending me something exactly when I needed it.
"Laughing man" A.K.A Herr Pinkert is doing great. He just accepts everything and tells us what we say is "positiv, fein, und schön" It´s really easy to teach him because he does have a little handicap, so we teach him very simply and he accepts all we say. He´s such a sweet sweet guy. We do still see dog man at least twice a week. Every time we see him we smile and wave and he waves back. He will probably get baptized all because he saw my G´s. You never know how a seed can be planted
That´s crazy how big Rachel is getting. Sheesh. Tell her to quit growing! But now I´m glad to know how old she is so I can answer people that ask. Because it´s kind of embarrassing to tell people that you don´t know how old your little sister is.
I think I want to go right back into school when I get home, because I feel like it´s a missionary´s downfall to come home and have nothing to do. I want to stay busy. But I´m still praying about it. President´s interviews are actually next week so I hope to have an answer by then.
Oh, I´m sorry about your Drowsy Chaperone audition. But just remember, that Heavenly Father sees the big picture, even with little things like a musical. You never know if you have a chance to help or serve someone that you woudln´t have been able to help them if you were busy with other things. We´ll see what happens.
So, we have to eat out every day because we have no where to keep food during the day.... so I´m pretty out of money. I´m sorry, I´m going to have to use personal money until August. Which isn´t too far away.
That story about Hannah is hilarious. Too bad she hasn´t grown out of her attitude yet, but at the same time if she had I wouldn´t be able to enjoy the Hannah stories.
I can´t believe Lilah is so big and potty training and TALKING. This is crazy!!! Oh man! Life goes so fast.
Life can be hard sometimes, but Heavenly Father still blesses us so much. Saturday was a day of being in the right place at the right time. We tried to go by on Sabine and she wasn´t there. We talked to a man by her house and he was from Sweden on vacation and was going home soon. We told him we´d meet at the trainstation. We got him a Book of Mormon and I picked up the General Conference Liahona because I want to read it and practice my German. We went to meet him at the trainstation, but then realized we didn´t specify which train station (there are 2 in Meißen) so we didn´t get to give him a book, but we were able to make out a new appointment with someone we met at the train station. Then we went to do doors on a street a member family chose for us and as we walked there we saw a man picking flowers and cherries off the ground. We went and talked to him and asked how he was. He said "Do I know you?" but we didn´t know him. Then the very first sentence he said was "Do you have something that I can read? I live in the old folk´s home around the corner and I´m always so bored" Oh boy, do we have something for you to read? We pulled out the Book of Mormon, but he said "No! That´s too thick!" Then I was trying to think if I had anything in my backpack because lately I´ve been printing off talks in German and studying them so I can learn more German. Then I realized I had the conference Liahona in my bag. I handed that to him and when he saw it (if you can remember what the conference ensign picture is- the family with the umbrellas laughing) he got so happy and kissed the cover of the Liahona. He said "if everyone were as happy as this family, the world would be such a good place." Then he explained his family has kind of abandoned him because he used to meet with the missionaries in Cottbus and they didn´t like that. And apparently his family doesn´t visit him often, but when they do they just talk about the problems. Then he said "Why can´t they just bring me flowers or bring me cookies?" I remembered Sister Curtis´s mom sent her a package with granola bars in it and Sister Curtis gave me one and I said "Do you want something sweet now?" And he got so excited when I gave him the granola bar. It was such a tender mercy in the midst of all of the hard times this week and we were able to make an appointment with him. We are so excited to see him again. But it just goes to show there are so many lonely people in the world that really just want a visit or some flowers. I hope we can keep our hearts open to see opportunities to answer someone´s prayer or just make them feel happy. I´m glad that I can help people here in Germany and see the smiles on their faces.
I love you all so so so much!
Love, Sister Niebergall
ps. Do you think maybe you can send me the conference Ensign so I can have for myself and not feel guilty for marking up the apartment´s copy and writing my thoughts in it?
pps. Sister Curtis and I were asking each other (about the cover of the conference Ensign) "Okay, what do you think is so funny that everyone is laughing at in this picture? What do you think the photographer said? ´say sassifrass´!! (name that movie HINT- it´s the same movie Jeff quoted in his e-mail)
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