2012, 10-29

Meine wunderbare Familie!

Ich habe euch Lieb!

Thanks for your e-mail. I love hearing about what´s happening at home. I loved reading your e-mail and I wish I could print all my e-mails because I would just love to read them over and over again. Thanks for your words of encouragement and love. You´re the best! I´m so blessed to have such an awesome family!

This week has been good. But it has been FREEZING cold I´ve been feeling better the past couple days. I had to buy cough syrup (yuck yuck), so my cough has been getting better. We had a scare for a minute that I had pneumonia, because the kid that coughed on me ended up having pneumonia. But I´ve gotten better- luckily not all forms of pneumonia are contagious. I had to relax, but I didn´t want to so I didn´t really. I´m still coughing, but my lungs don´t hurt anymore and I don´t cough as frequently. Yay for medicine!

I think the only thing that would keep Scwester Raezke from feeding us is if she were in the hospital. She is so awesome. She fed us again last week and she fed us chicken (a very uncommon meat to eat in Germany), broccoli, rot kohl, potatoes and gravy, with a fruit salad for dessert. It doesn´t sound too hard to eat, but she has A LOT of food. And it tastes so so yummy that you want to eat it, but there´s just so much food! We will be eating with her again tonight. She always loves it when we can eat all of the food. Thank goodness the Elders from our district always come with- otherwise we wouldn´t be able to schaff it. We haven´t had any pumpkin soup yet! And it surprises me because we eat with the members every day. When I was in Celle, we had one eating appointment a week and we ate pumpkin soup at every appointment. Speaking of pumpkins and Halloween, what are you doing for Halloween? or as the Germans say "hallo wien" (Wien is Vienna in German). They don´t really celebrate Halloween here, but apparently it´s getting bigger than it used to be. We met someone that said he was Satan on the street- maybe he just meant for Halloween. Hmmmm.... He wasn´t that scary though.

We´ve had a hard time finding new people this week, but we´ve been working really hard. Our bikes are serving us super well and it makes it easier to get more done faster. We´ve gone by on a lot of people that have contact with the missionaries only once and we´ve been able to contact a lot of people and find out that they don´t have interest or we have been able to make appointments and teach people. The problem is a good majority of the people that are open enough to listen to us are Muslim, so they´re not really interested in changing. But we´re still looking. There´s gotta be people out there. 

We also have like.. A BILLION less active members here in this ward. My goal is to try to contact all of them before I go home and reactivate at LEAST one. We only have a branch right now, but if everyone were active we would have a huge ward. We had an eating appointment with a member yesterday (we ate this Thai chicken with a peanut butter sauce. I got the recipe for Heather SOOOOO yummy!) Their son is 17 years old and is in a phase of "I want to be cool and fit in so in order to do that I need to smoke and drink A TON!" it made me sad to see him because he´s so little and has so much life ahead of him. But I couldn´t help but feel like that was just a silly phase he was going through and he would snap out of it quite quickly. It makes me so sad to see people that don´t live their covenants and don´t use their priesthood. That is such a HUGE blessing from our Heavenly Father and they could be blessing so many people´s lives. I hope we can help the members here realize that.

We only had one appointment with the Romanian family this week. We have been trying to get it organized that they can speak witht he Romanian missionaries and we almost have it totally finalized. We might be able to do a Skpe with the Romainian AP´s on Saturday. We are so excited and are hoping that this is what needs to happen to get them to progress more in the gospel. They love the Book of Mormon, but they´ll be able to understand the importance of it. And our ward is so awesome, they are going to be totally involved in this- one family will pick them up, another family will let us skype at their house- and hopefully we can get it figured out that we can get them to church. We still haven´t had anyone at church yet, but hopefully this will eventually change. The construction on the church is to make it bigger because there were more and more members, but right when they started the construction, 2 big families moved away and people have gone inactive so now they don´t really need it bigger- but once we´re done here they will! I´m excited to be in the Elmshorn church house- I´m still not sure which members are ours and which belong to Pinneberg. We should be starting church there this week. Oh, and it´s a regular church building.

I´m glad you like "no regrets!" It hasn´t gotten old to us either. I laugh every time. We don´t lift our legs though, I feel like that would make it ten times as dangerous, plus maybe scandelous seeing as we´re in skirts. But maybe I´ll try it. :) That´s nice that Sister O´s mom speaks highly of me... I definitely am not the best trainer and wish I could be doing better, but I´m glad that she approves. Are you and Sister O´s mom super tight? Do you go out to lunch together? That´s funny that grandma thought the picture of you was me. I want to see a picture please!

I am so glad you were able to give a talk and that the spirit was with you.  I can´t believe Rachel was willing to so spontaniously with you sing. I love speaking about the power of music. I think the foundation of my testimony came from primary songs. I love music and I love the gospel! I´m grateful every day that I get to speak to people about the plan that Heavnly Father has for them. This life isn´t coincidence. We are so blessed to know this and I hope we willingly share this with those around you (nail lady). Hope all is well with you! I know the church is true!

Love, Sister Niebergall

Yodelayheehoo!

Guten Tag euch!!

This week was good slash not good due to gesundheit problems, lets just say
last week a little 4 year old coughed into my face and I´m still suffering
and tryng to recover from that. So I was out for 2 days. That was a bummer.
But, somehow we managed to have a super awesome week anyway.

I can´t believe Alex is home. That is totally crazy. But it feels like
he´s been gone a super super long time. I swear the last time I saw
him was at a Niebergall camp out, but maybe I´m wrong. I can´t
remember. Tell him hi for me! That´s so good that they all get to be
together again.

That´s sad to hear that Pepper was put to sleep, but I´m glad to hear
he´s not in pain anymore. I´ve actually been meaning to ask about him
the last 4 weeks, but every time I get to e-mails I forget to ask. I´m
glad Rachel wasn´t there. I can´t believe they brought him out in a
towel. That last picture of Pepper was so pepper-ific, but so sad. He
looked horrible. Sad to hear how Hallie reacted. I hope she doesn´t
die of loneliness. I bet Freckles is lonely too, not having anyone to
chase.

We didn´t have bikes until Wednesday this week, but couldn´t ride them
until Friday because we didn´t have helmets. But now we have helmets
and we can ride as fast as we can. Whenever we do something risky,
like ride our bike off a curb, we yell "No regrets!" in a high squeaky
voice. It´s fun. We eat so much food at Schwester Raezke´s (our
regular Monday evening eating appointment). She is always so
disappointed with how much we eat though. She wants us to eat more.
When she asked us if we got our bikes she said "Good. Now you can eat
more". Oh man. I hope she doesn´t make a lot of food expecting us to
be able to eat more. We haven´t had anything gross, so that´s good.
Just large quantities of food. Usually we eat potatoes and a meat of
some sort, but we´ve also had tomato soup with meatballs in it (super
yummy), and we have eaten a lot of soupy stuff over rice lately. One
thing that we haven´t had that we had last year is pumpkin soup.
That´s way yummy. We´ll see what we eat today with Raezke.

I would be more than happy to come visit Linda with you when I get
back. I am really so proud of you for being such a great visiting
teacher, mom. That is something I really want to improve in, we really
need to take visiting teaching more seriously, and the sisters just
need to feel like they are loved and wanted sometimes. I´m so glad
that you have this opportunity to do member missionary work. I´m sure
because of your influence, she´ll return to the gospel someday. Way to be
awesome!

We were able to teach the Romanian family, but it is really hard to
communicate- but for some reason we were talking to each other in our
own native tongues and we were able to understand what we were trying
to say to each other, even though we didn´t understand the words. We
were able to tell them our purpose for coming by showing them
scriptures and they asked for scriptures for each of them again. I had
a feeling to give them 2 Nephi 4 (Verses 17-the end) and Carmen (the
wife of the man we spoke to on the street) started reading it out loud
and she started reading it with more and more conviction and there was
one point where all 3 of the women all started SOBBING at the same
time. And it was hard for them to read, because they were crying so
hard, but it was so amazing. The spirit poured into that room and
everyone recognized it and no one could deny it. They were saying
"amen! amen!" After they read it. It´s so sad that we can´t discuss it
with them after, but we are hoping that we can get in touch with
missionaries in Romania. We read them a scripture in Mosiah 18 "what
have you against getting baptized" but they all said "Yeah! I´ve been
baptized!" So now we need to explain authority with them, but it´s so
hard. We did find out that one of them hasn´t been baptized yet
though, she´s the one that can speak the most German, too. So we can
focus on her and then the others can hopefully follow. We want to
baptize them all at the same time. Then they introduced us to 2 more
of their family members so we will bring them a Book of Mormon
tomorrow. So we´re teaching 6 Romanians now! It´s so awesome. We love
them so much. They always tell us God sent us to them. I want to tell
them "God has sent us here to tell you to get baptized" But it´s too
bad we can´t understand each other. Pray that we can get the Romanian
missionaries involved in this. These people are ready for the gospel,
and I love them!

Unfortunately I wasn´t able to shake President Monson´s hand. But I
had a dream he came to surprise our district by coming to district
meeting and everyone was freaking out and kneeled on the ground when
he came in and he was like "what are you doing? I`m not Jesus!" and so
we stood up and an elder hugged a sister and he was like "elder, what
are you doing?" But in his patient Presiden Monson tone. Then everyone
randomly disappeared and it was just me and him and we sat in a big
lazy boy arm chair and chatted about Germany. It was a good dream. I
wish it was real.

I do want to sing an arrangement of "Stille Nacht". It´s the sally
deford arrangement and it´s kind of tricky. No one will be able to
just sight read it unless Mr. Wood happens to be there. So, if you
could can you find someone to start practicing it? It´s on
defordmusic.com under solos, and I think it´s the low voice solo.
Thank you- you´re welcome. Will you allow me to be in the choir even
though I haven´t practiced with you? I would love some of my chambies
to sing at my homecoming, but I don´t even know what song. I might
have to get back to you on that, but can you remind me next week?


The weather has actually been really good this week! I was able to go
one day without any coat or jacket, it was really nice weather. And
everyone was so much happier too. We were able to make 3 appointments
in one hour, which is like.... unheard of. I will be so happy if it
doesn´t rain- it was so nice this week.

We are having like...an impossible time getting investigators to
church. That is our bigger focus this week. Also, we just don´t have
many investigators to get to church, but we hope we can change that
soon. Plus it´s really complicated that now we meet in Pinneberg
because our church is under construction and won´t in November and
it's confusing for the investigators. I can´t wait to get into our own
church so then we don´t have to explain "We´ll be in Pinneberg for 2
weeks and then after we´ll be in Elmshorn" and I hope people will be
more willing to come when it´s in our city. It´s tricky tricky.

That´s super exciting that the Hoggans are coming over tonight! I hope
you have a great time with them. Are you going to have German dessert?
So cool that they´re in our ward!

I love my mission so so much. This week was really good, just because
we were able to work really hard and we were able to cover a lot of ground
and really able to feel the love
Heavenly Father has for His children. I have felt such an increase of
love for the people that I work with in the last little while and I
hope that it keeps growing. It´s an amazing feeling to love someone
and see them the way Heavenly Father does. I love it! I love my life!
The gospel is true, and what else could matter? It´s intersting that
you said Find, Teach, and Convert- dad. Because our motto in our
mission is Find, Teach, Baptize, and Keep. Love it. We don´t just
baptize them to get rid of them. That would be totally useless and
also heartbreaking!

I love you all so much!

Love, Sister Niebergall

I love President Monson!

Hello Family!

This week was great! I guess I´ll just start from the very beginning, because that´s a very good place to start. After I e-mailed last week we went to an eating appointment. Every Monday we eat with the same member and she STUFFS us to death. We honestly feel sick after Schwester Raezke´s. And the problem is every Tuesday afternoon we have an eating appointment too- and we´re still full from Monday evening. The 2 times we´ve been we´ve had Elders with us, but I don´t think Elders are coming this time. I hope she doesn´t make as much- I´m scared! Everything she makes is SOOO delicious and you want to eat more, but oh mensch- it just hurts. I hope we don´t get too sick from eating so much. Interesting how every day when I lived at home we had a home cooked dinner but now my body is not used to it. Too crazy. And then after we eat with this lady, we play a game that lasts about an hour or more (depending on if the missionaries work together to help one person win or not- otherwise there have been missionaries that have left her house at 11:30. This game is very similar to the game 'Sorry'). Apparently this has been the tradition with missionaries ever since this lady got baptized and I don´t think it will ever break. Just pray I don´t die of being overfed. We have an eating appointment every day but Wednesday because of district meeting.

Tuesday we had an eating appointment with our ward mission leader and his wife. The wife is so so sweet. She told this story in her testimony. She has to get some massages for some sort of therapy and as she was getting her massages, the massage therapist and she got into a conversation about the gospel. She had the feeling she needed to give her a Book of Mormon. She had a series of 6 massages and it was after the 2nd massage she decided she wanted to give her a Book of Mormon. She brought a book to the 3rd massage, but she had a different therapist. Same with the 4th and the 5th massages. She was so sad and she thought "Well, I might as well not bring the book because she probably won´t be there." But she had the feeling "Always be prepared". The cool thing is, she always had these massages right after our eating appointments with her, so we were able to encourage her and pray for her and follow up with how things went. We were so happy to finally hear in her testimony that she was able to give away a Book of Mormon and they had a conversation about the gospel the whole time she was getting a massage. Her series of 6 massages are over, but the therapist said that she probably needed a series of 6 more and requested that she be her therapist. She is so excited that she gets to continue to talk about the gospel with this lady. I went up to her after sacrament and told her good job. She is so sweet and said "I never knew how much joy it could bring to share the gospel with others. I always read my grandkid´s mission e-mails about how much joy they have, but now I know for myself how much joy it brings." I was so glad to be able to take a part in helping this dear sweet member share the gospel. It really does bring more joy than you could know until you feel it yourself!

Wednesday we ordered bikes. Hallelujah. We will probably get them tomorrow- Elmshorn is too spread out just to be on foot all the time. We´ll be able to get a lot more done now that we have bikes. We had an interesting appointment Wednesday evening. It was a man who is really fest in his faith and he was trying to convince us about his beliefs. The problem was that what he said made NO sense. I left that appointment so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is so simple even a child can understand it. There is a sentance in Preach My Gospel that I really like and it´s something like this "Our message is that God called a prophet to the earth to reveal the Plan of Salvation, and the principles of the gospel are what we need to do to return to God again one day." Our gospel is that simple. There are things in the scriptures and things that make the gospel interesting- but the core of the gospel is that we need to have faith, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end and when we do that we can return to Heavenly Father. I love the gospel. It just makes sense.

 

Thursday we had an appointment with the Romanian family. It went really really well. We read the Restoration pamphlet with them and they were always giving us thumbs up and saying "gut!" The hardest thing is we can´t answer questions that they have. We´re trying to find someone that speaks Romanian, but we´re not having much luck. But they really like the Book of Mormon. They´re so funny- they always say Hallelujah and Amen when they like something. So we know when they agree with what they read. We also saw them on Friday and gave the rest of them a Book of Mormon and each of them wanted us to find them a scripture in their book for them personally. That was cool to be directed by the spirit and give them scriptures to them that the Lord put into our minds. We really are blessed that the spirit is the same in every language. We are thinking about inviting them to be baptized at our next appointment so please pray that they can understand the importance of why they need to baptized with the right authority.

 

Saturday was President Monson!! (no, Sabine, Sabine, and Anna weren´t there as far as I know). But what an amazing experience to see the prophet of the Lord speak to the people that I love. It was so fun to see so many members from my previous wards in which I served and so many missionaries in one place, including missionaries from the Frankfurt mission that I haven´t seen since the MTC. That was a big surprise, but my heart was so full to be in a place full of so many people I love. I felt my heart so full of love while I was there and I can´t even begin to describe it. Anyway, we thought President Monson was coming to say something big because they only had it planned for a month that he´d come. But he just spoke words of encouragement and love. Not one person in that room that day can deny that President Monson loves the people of Germany. It was so sweet and tender to see him counsel them. His main topic was that Decisions Determine our Destiny and gave 4 points that will help our destiny.

 

1. Listen- Listen to parents- they are on their knees every day pleading for your benefit. Listen to them! Also listen to the spirit. When you have righteous desires, the Lord will grant you with the spirit. And one thing he said that really struck me is "Promise Heavenly Father that you´ll listen to the promptings He gives you." I hope that when I make that promise, that I´ll be able to follow through on it.

 

2. Learn- Learn by reading in the scriptures. Learn patience by reading about the Savior´s life in the New Testament. Learn what Heavenly Father wants you to learn from the people around you and your situations.

 

3. Labor- Once you listen and learn from these promptings of the spirit, you need to do something. You can´t hear these things and learn that you need to change, you need to have the courage to change it.

 

4. Love- Learn to love others around you. Try to see people as He sees them.

 

It was so amazing to listen to him speak about Jesus Christ and feel his love for the Savior. The last words he spoke to them were "Ich liebe dich". Ahhh. I wish you could have heard those words come out of his mouth. You could feel his love and the Lord´s love so strongly. The closing song was "God Be With You Til We Meet Again" And in German it´s "Aufwiedersehen." It was so sad to see all the German members sobbing as they knew they might not see him again in their homeland. But it was so amazing to hear the member´s testimonies yesterday. They spoke with all of their souls as they testified that they knew President Monson was a prophet of God. There was also a moment for me that was super short, but undenyable that I felt without a doubt that President Monson is the one that has all the keys to the priesthood and that He is the Lord´s messenger to speak words of peace and to testify of Christ. I know that he is a prophet, and I´m grateful to have the priviledge to see him live as a missionary. That isn´t too common that a missionary gets to hear the prophet speak to the people in their mission specifically. I love him and I love my Heavenly Father for blessing me with that sacred experience. I love the gospel. I love sharing it with others. And I love you!!

 

Love, Sister Niebergall

Imagine GENERAL CONFERENCE!

Hello Family!!!

Conference.
Was.
Amazing!!!!!!!

I´M SO STOKED THAT SISTERS CAN SERVE MISSIONS AT 19!!!! WOOOOO!!!!!!!! I´m sure so many more young women will be considering a mission now, and if you are DO IT!! You will never ever regret it. It´s the best thing you could do for you and your future family. You learn to communicate and most of all you learn to love! No more girls waiting around for boys while they´re on their missions- you go serve one too! Just do it. People need you. I´ve seen it, and I know it.

Okay, that´s my spiel.

Every single talk had so much I could learn from and I am so excited to work on improving myself. I will talk A LOT about conference later. I was so uplifted and inspired. We haven´t watched the Sunday afternoon session. We´ll watch that not this week, but next week. This week will be fast Sunday and I´m sure it will be an amazing fast and testimony meeting because it´s right after Conference and after seeing President Monson. I am so excited and hope to be spiritually prepared to hear what he has to say. I love the gospel! My heart is so full!

That is the correct address, dad (And you did spell Schwester right too. Gut gemacht!). You may send packages, mail, love letters, postcards, anything you want for the next 2 months there. Okay? I would be very pleased to get a few or several more letters in the little time I have. Thank you you´re welcome. Also, speaking of postcards, I just realized I sent a postcard, but I wrote it as the Gingerbread man.... Do I need to write it as myself that I saw him or what do I need to do? I just realized I might have done that wrong... Naja.

We did get our music and make up and journals and things of importance this week. Things have picked up a little more this week. We organized our contact sheets so we can find people that live in the area easier if an appointment falls out. We went to a little city called Uetersen and we had an appointment with a sweet sweet funny old lady. She didn´t have much time but really wanted us to come back. As we left she was waving, crying, and saying "Aufwiedersehen" She was someone the Elders were teaching a few months back. We´ll see if anything comes of that.

As we were waiting for the bus back to Elmshorn from Uetersen, I decided to talk to a man that passed by us. He said he didn´t speak much German and he was from Romania. I said "Jesus Christus" ,which he understood, and his eyes lit up. He said "Just a minute. I´m going to find someone that speaks better German" And literally RAN away. He came running back a couple minutes later with 2 other women. We started explaining the Book of Mormon and they were really excited about it and asked us to come over to their house. We were crammed in a little tiny room where this family lived. They were so so excited to hear us telling people about Jesus Christ. There were 4 adults and at least 3 kids that lived there. It was kind of hard to explain because of the language barrier, but they started reading their favorite bible scriptures to us. Luckily I had my German bible on me so we could communicate through the scriptures. I´m sure thats how we´re going to have to continute teaching them. They were really excited about a modern day prophet, and said they´d come to conference. Unfortunately they didn´t, but we have a new appointment for Thursday. They were all crying when we were leaving and telling us they knew we were sent from God. That was really cool. I´m excited to give them a Book of Mormon and share the message of the Restored Gospel with them. We will definitely find more families to teach and baptize. I´m so ready for it.

You asked if most people we find are from other countries or Germans. We´ve had 3 lessons with Germans and 2 with out of the countries. Finding is going kind of slow here, but it´s pretty even (german to außländer ratio) I´d have to say. We haven´t gotten bikes yet. We have to go buy some this week because they can´t get our Meißen bikes to us. You are right, the river in Hamburg is the same river that flows through Meißen. It makes me feel closer to home. In Hamburg we went window shopping, looked at old cool buildings, and walked in a tunnel under the Elbe River and heard someone yodeling! Not many people can say that! That was pretty awesome. And we rode a Ferry that was Lion King themed because the theater for Hamburg´s Broadway Lion King is right on the Elbe. You have to ride a boat to get to theater, it´s pretty cool.

You said it was supposed to rain on us this week and I just need to let you know, it very much did. We were soaking wet most of the time. It even hailed extremely hard and we didn´t have umbrellas and my coat doesn´t have a hood so we were just walking down the street and laughing at our situation. There were other people huddling for warmth in random places and were super shocked at how we just owned the runway of mud from Bahnhof to our house. It was a good time. Glad to hear it´ll be a little more dry though. One day this week our heater was broken so we were FREEZING. Luckily we have tea that keeps us warm.

Sounds like you are about ready to be in MOTAB, dad. I hear they need more 2nd tenors. Falsetto is a good thing. I look forward to hearing you singing falsetto.

We did just switch cities with the Elders. That´s fun that Sister O´s mom put pictures on facebook. The weird thing about German grocery carts is that you have to pay to use them. Then when you put them back you get your money back. We didn´t live that far away from the grocery store and had a lot of groceries to carry so we decided we´d just wheel the cart home instead of trying to carry everything and risking dropping everything.

I have also been praying fervently for the Felbers. I was able to talk with them for the first time yesterday on the phone. I talked to each of them and it was so sad to hear each one of them crying. They are enduring and doing their best, but they can´t wait for the court case on the 22nd of November so they can finally have peace. It was so sad. Sweet little Anna asked "Are we ever going to see you again?" Ahh I almost started crying when she asked that. I hope and pray that they have the courage to leave their house to see the prophet. They need that boost from the spirit. Please pray for them to be able to do that too.

There isn´t much to say about Elmshorn. It´s really rainy and the members feed you A LOT, and sometimes it smells like cookies because there is a cereal factory. There aren´t really any landmarks that you´d take pictures by or anything. No castles or Germany things. It feels pretty normal. I don´t know if it feels German normal or American normal. I can´t remember what America is like... Its weird. I would say that most German towns are totally different. They each have their own personality and Celle, Halberstadt, Rostock, Meißen, Dresden, and Elmshorn are all totally totally different. There are hardly any similarities except that Germans live there and speak German. Some speak different dialects of German, but it´s all pretty much German. :)

I´m so glad you have a fun girl´s night. Those pictures were hilarious, especially of Rachel. I could tell she was kinda freaked out. It made me smile so much. Wasn´t that such a realaxing sticky feeling?

Other than that this week, the main highlight was of course, CONFERENCE!!! I learned so much and I just ate it up. I´m so spiritually exhausted from it, but it is such a good feeling. To answer your question, mom- someone speaks in German over the speakers. I wonder how it will work at the conference this weekend- If someone will stand next to him and translate or what´ll happen there. I loved the talks from the Relief Society meeting, especially the one from Schw. Reeves. I loved the video they showed of Jesus comforting Mary and Martha and I just started crying. Usually these movies about Jesus make Him seem untouchable and so powerful that no one can really develop a relationship with Him. But this video of Mary and Martha and Christ holding them just made me realize that´s exactly how it is when we are in sorrow. He wants to hold us and comfort us and He will if we let Him. I loved that video clip, it really invited the spirit for the rest of the talks.

One thing that really hit home to me this conference was I need to learn to follow the promptings of the spirit more. I want to be someone that Heavenly Father knows He can give promptings to. I don´t want to question these promptings as my own thoughts. I want to not hesitate or postpone a prompting. I want to change my to-do list if I have to so I can help someone. I know this will take A LOT of work. It will take a lot of studying, messing up, and trying again. But I want to be Heavenly Father´s helper and I know that I need to concentrate on this. This gift might not come by the end of my mission, but I look forward to developing into someone that the Lord can hopefully trust with everything. So I have been studying in Preach My Gospel "How to Recognize and Understand the Spirit" and know that I will learn a lot from studying that and applying what I learn from there. I just pray that I don´t give up when I mess up. That is my biggest desire right now. I also learned that if someone asks us a question about our doctrine, I don´t want to dance around the answer (for example- baby baptism) I want to say exactly what we believe and be proud of what we believe. It may be an answer to their prayers and I shouldn´t be ashamed of what we believe.

I really think that there is going to be a huge explosion in the missionary work. I agree mom. The Sisters serving missions will make a really big difference and I don´t know what will happen to Snow if girls and boys can both leave pretty early. I wonder if it won´t be such a young school. Crazy! And with all the talks about missionary work and living in the world but not of it(I still haven´t even heard the Sunday afternoon session. maybe there is more) I´m sure many people have gotten a confirmation/ started seriously considering a mission, and that makes me sooooo happy!!! Nothing will bless their lives more than going. I´m sure some places that aren´t open to missionary work will be able to be opened because of this increase in missionaries. I know this revelation comes from Heavenly Father and He knows how to best help His children. So excited!

I loved President Uchtdorf´s talk about having no regrets. I want to write a sign next to my bed and on my desk that says "Today did I: a) spend meaningful time with those that matter? b) Become more of the person Heavenly Father wants me to be? c) Was I happy regardless of the circumstances?" I feel like these things are a recipe for a happy life.

I LOVED the talk from Elder Nelson "ask the missionaries". It made me ask myself if I know all the things he just told everyone to ask us about. I will study up on these things.

I loved the quote from Robert C. Gay "With justification of petty sins, Satan triumphs" Ouch. But it´s so true! We need to not give in to those silly little sins that "don´t hurt anyone" or "aren´t that bad". That means Satan is winning if you say those things, and I personally don´t want him to win.

But one of the things that hit me so hard (even though I´m not a returned missionary yet) was Elder Holland talking about how we watched our investigators get in the baptismal font and raised our arm to the square, hoping the gospel would change our life and it was most certainly meant to change our lives. Wow. Those were some strong words and I hope that when I am one day a returned missionary, that I will be converted enough to stay true to everything I´ve taught these people in Germany. That is my biggest desire. I know this gospel can change lives. It´s changed mine, and I know if you let it, it can change yours too.

I love you SOOOOO much!!

Love, Sister Niebergall

Week one in Elmshorn

Grüße aus Elmshorn!

Life in Elmshorn is good. It is a lot different than Meißen, but it´s exciting to be somewhere new and in unknown land and relying fully on the Lord. I think this is the time that Heavenly Father is trying my patience. When we first got to Meißen, we made so many new appointments and got so many new investigators off the bat. So from my "whitewashing" experience (both missionaries totally new in a totally new city), I think that the miracles will automatically come and we´ll get lots of new investigators, but that hasn´t been the case. We have been doing almost all finding- and in Meißen we didn´t even have time to find our schedule was so packed. But we are doing our best to use time wisely and effectively so that we can find the prepared here in Elmshorn. It will take patience and work, but we´ll do it. We have an amazing ward that feeds the missionaries every day (pray I don´t come home 20 pounds heavier, please) and I´ve heard they are the key to the missionary work here. We are hoping to get lots of referrals/ ask them to pray where we should do finding. It´s really crazy, in our rush to leave, we left Sister Odenwalder´s ipod behind and the CD player doesn´t work here in the apartment and we can see such a big difference in our work without music. Music, when used right, is such a wonderful tool to invite the spirit and it´s so interesting that our work has been greatly effected by the lack of music in our lives. Music is a big part both of our lives and we´re looking forward to getting music this week sometime. I´m listening to music on LDS.org right now and I can already see a huge difference in my enthusiasm and happiness. Yay music!

We only had one appointment with an investigator this week and it went really well. He is a member referral and he is really cool. His name is Herr Oldenburg. He asks great questions and really is interested. The problem is that he is so busy, so we don´t get to meet him again until November. Schade.

We are in a Branch, but it´s almost a Ward, it just needs 4 more priesthood holders. I hope we can help with that. The area is really green and really wet. It rains about every day here. The people are super nice and talk to you on the street, we teach lots of lessons on the streets, which is crazy because we taught hardly any in East Germany. The hard part is, normally when we would get to a certain point in a conversation (in East Germany) you could almost guarantee that they would make an appointment with you. With the West Germans you get to that point and think they´ll make an appointment, but then they don´t and that is rough. But we´re not giving up. We are on bikes, but right now we have Elder´s bikes, which are impossible with skirts, so we are walking.... a LOT!!! We walked about 6 miles the other day. It was crazy.

We are hoping that the Elders will be good in getting Robert to straighten up. If Robert wants to be a missionary, I think it´ll be good for him to be around Elders and see what they do. So it´ll be good for him. We only got to call Sabine and say goodbye. That was such a hard phone call. They were sobbing, but the Elders are taking care of them and they need the priesthood more accessable to them, so I´m glad they have the Elders there. The Sisters are still in Dresden, but they´re totally fine. Dresden is huge and the Sister´s apartment is very hidden. Sabine, Sabine, and Anna- I´m not sure about their safety, but they are looking into moving (of course) so it will get better for them. Just keep praying very hard for them.

Dad, you are amazingly humble. "Mom made me sound better than I was." It´s super good of you to not raise your voice at her or show your irritation. And you give her the benefit of the doubt. I don´t think she really was a ref... Naja. And too hilarious about you embarrassing Sarah at the soccer game. I´m just glad it was her and not me. I love it. I wish I could´ve witnessed it.

That´s cool that Shae and Deej are going to the dance. Too fun. Tell him he has a letter in the mail heading his direction right this second. Also, speaking of letters, I wrote Brittany about 2 weeks ago a big FAT letter... I will be so sad if it got lost. So I have not forgotten her. We haven´t watched the Relief Society broadcast yet, we´ll see it Saturday evening before the first session of conference (because of the time difference). President Monson will have 2 conferences in our mission- Hamburg and Berlin. So we won´t even have to travel that far. That makes us happy. He also will be speaking in the other missions in Germany, so no one is left out. We´re so blessed to hear him 2 weeks in a row!

Tell Mindy and Ty congrats and also tell Rob and Michelle congrats! If any of my siblings are pregnant, they are not allowed to hide that information from me like Mindy did to Michelle. Okay? okay.

We´re going to Hamburg for Pday today. I´m excited.. I don´t know what we´re doing, but we´re going there so that´s sweet.

Yesterday I was reading in a Liahona and it talked about how to make the scriptures come alive, which is something really important when you read with investigators and for the rest of my life. It talked about how you bridge the gap between them, there, and then and I, here, and today. In pretty much every scripture story you can see parallels from back then to today and then when you apply it to yourself, you can learn so much and have a wonderful spiritual experience that should come every time you read the scriptures.

I love sharing the gospel. I really am so glad I decided to do this with my life and I know if I use this time well, I can become closer to what Heavenly Father wants me to become. I know that I still have a lot of work to go though for the rest of my life, but I look forward to improving every day. I love you so much!!!

Love Sister Niebergall