Take Me Magic Bus!

First of all, I should clear up the rumors. It’s true. I do come home in two weeks. I come home February 8th and will be speaking February 18th. Who knew 18 months could go by so fast. But enough of that. On to the cool stuff. 

The title for this week comes from our experience last night. We met with Petra and she lives really far North and it is a 45 minute bahn ride, which sometimes isn’t very fun. But... once ever hour a bus comes that takes the Autobahn and only takes 30 minutes and is a lot more comfortable. As we left our appointment from Petras house at 7:30 at night, the last thing I wanted to do was take the fifteen minute walk through the creepy dark paths to get the the bahn, so I pull out the phone and look for a plan to see if the bus is coming. It was.... but... in three minutes.... and the bus was an eight minute walk away. We decide to go for it and run as fast as we can and I yelled out. “Take me magic bus!” Just to realize that there was an old man with a dog across the street. I really hope he couldn’t speak English.

Our lesson with Petra was really awesome though! We taught about Baptism and Repentence and she understood so well how if we have faith that we repent and she understood so well about Jesus Christ and his role in helping us to repent and receive grace and mercy. 

We taught Roza and Ibrahim tithing this week. They fully accepted it. We also heard great news from Ibrahim! He heard back from the German government, and his degrees and PhD he received in Iraq will still be valid here in Deutschland. He just needs to finish a certain German course. Tender Mercies. 

We went on two splits this week, we were supposed to go on three, but there was a major wind storm and tons of trains fell out. The whole Duisburg train station was down. I have never seen that before. So we couldn’t have the split. 

Both splits were tons of fun, but back to back and with so many appointments and traveling, that I literally felt like I couldn’t walk one more step. 

We went by on an old lady the Relief Society president asked us to go by on. She said she was so lonely and has no guests, so she talked for an hour in a half straight. We got about five words in. Then we had to RUN out of their to catch our train in time. I feel bad for lonely old people. 

We had a fun family home evening with the Persian new converts in the ward at a members home and we tried to have them say the word refrigerator. It was hilarious!! But then they gave us harder persian words to say..... 

It was a good week. Had ward conference with a 2 hour sacrament meeting....

Trying to explain the God head to someone who believes in the trinity 

Crazy Muslim man talking to you for 25 minutes straight about the most random things 

Making cornbread! 

Finding some really cool people 

Conquered my fears of young people and doored student housing with the Elders. Which is actually really fun because they actually have cool conversations with you.

Doored into a cool German man who had read the Book of Mormon. Didn’t have interest, but was willing to talk with us. 

Love you all! 

Sister Losee 

Pictures 

...  Tiredness after splits 

...  When you have a name that auto corrects to Loser........ I see how you really feel Roza. 

.... Splits! 

How To Die of Second Hand Smoke

Happy Week of January!! 

Even though it is cold and January, we are still doing good. We might have just about died from smoke inhalation this week though. We taught three days in a row in a heavy smokers home. Our apartment smelled a little like smoke after the third day. I am really glad that our laundry is getting washed right now. But even though the smoke is rough, the people are seriously so awesome. Petra is a German who referred herself and we have taught her three times now. She is already reading and receiving revelation in the Book of Mormon and accepted a soft baptismal invitation. We are hoping to teach the Word of Wisdom and hopefully get her on a fest date in a while. The other woman is a Bulgarian and we finally got translation this week, it was so cool to see how happy she was hearing the gospel in her own language. 

We also had one of the most stressful days of my life as we spent hours trying to find people to come and give one of our investigators sick baby a blessing. The Elders couldn’t come and it was just so stressful. But the baby is blessed now and the Mother is so happy about it. I am so grateful for the Priesthood and willing members. 

We taught Roza and Ibrahim the Word of Wisdom this week!! It was awesome! We mentioned that it was a commandment revealed to Joseph Smith, and Ibrahim immediately says: Then I believe. We were a little nervous for this lesson because they drank coffee and tea. But when we mentioned that they cant drink coffee Ibrahim says: Oh .I stopped drinking coffee fifteen days ago. It was really hard at first, but now its all good. We are so excited for them and their family. The Lord really is preparing them. 

This week was also really weird because I had my last interview with President Boyer. 

other things from this week:

Accidentally dooring a building where every single person was a very strong Muslim....

Having a senior missionary couple move in!! We helped them make dinner after church on Sunday and broke the fast with them. They then insisted we stay and do some studies and planning in their living room. It felt just like being at grandma and grandpas house. :)

Eating a Persian dinner and being force fed delicious rice. 

Last pday literally just playing card games as a district. Sometimes relation really is the best medicine. 

I love you all and hope you stay warm and don't get too sad with the cloudy coldness of January! Just count your daily blessings. It helps so much! The happy people aren't the thankful people, the thankful people are the happy people. 

Sister Losee

Candlelight Dinner

This week went by so fast, I feel like I was just typing my last group email yesterday. 

We finally had our first split of the transfer, and we will be having another three next week. It feels good to get back to doing them. I split with Sister Poulsen. I would describe her as chill. We had a really fun time together and she is currently serving in Leverkusen. So we just talked all about the people and things there. It made me miss Köln. Together we had the adventure of teaching an African about the Godhead. It is so hard when someone believes in the Trinity. It’s so frustrating. But I also had a super cool experience this week where one of our investigators who is Catholic asked us to help her explain Mosiah 15. She is still confused about how Jesus Christ is called the Father and God. But I found a really cool article in the April 2002 Ensign about why Jesus is called the Father. It was sooo cool! My whole mind was literally blown, and I learned so much!!! 

This week the Relief Society had a fancy candlelight dinner activity to thank the sisters for serving an old lady in the ward who needed lots of help, well we asked to bring some investigators and the relief society president said: Well, its mostly for the sisters as thanks and we dont know about how many places we have, and so you can invite one investigator.... but we had invited two already..... we started to freak out and I got a little bitter because my thought is that getting good ward interaction and fellowshipping for our investigators is more important, and that the investigators could take my seat instead of me eating. But sadly/luckily one of them said she couldn’t come anymore. But Roza came with her seven year old daughter Laza and she loved it so much!!! They had everything so cutely decorated and men in the ward were dressed up as Italian servers and we got fed about five or six courses. It was delicious and lots of fun. Then we watched the funeral for Thomas Monson together. It was a good night. 

The senior Couple, Elder French had his birthday on Sunday. So we made cake andp all celebrated with him that night. 

We had my last Zone Conference on Wednesday. That was fun and bittersweet. For our breakout session that we were leading, we were assigned Finding Through Members, well, a member of the mission presidency gave an hour long lesson about working with/finding through members. It was pretty stressful at first because we had to work with what we had but also try not to be repetitive or make everybody really bored. 

We taught Roza and Ibrahim the beginning of the Ten Commandments this week and we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s really cool to see their understanding slowly grow and grow. But when we went there on Tuesday, the kids were CRAZY and it was a little hectic at first trying to get the super active 4 year old to calm down. But it was such a miracle during the closing prayer when he crossed his arms and prayed with us the whole time. We have also started to sing a song every time we go to help them become familiar with the German hymns to help them sing along at church. 

Oh yeah, and last pday we traveled to Essen to try out the Five Guys Burgers and Fries that opened there!!! It tasted just like in America and we all felt so American. It was greatl. :)

I hope you all have an amazing week! 

Love,

Sister Losee 

Smell the Flowers, Blow out the Candle

Happy NEW YEAR!! I am way excited but also terrified for the things that 2018 has in store! I officially go home next month, so it was sad during MLC yesterday when we made some goals and ideas for the mission for the year, when I knew I wouldn’t be there to see them all the way through. 

This was an exciting week though! Sister Schellenberg had her birthday and we ate at a delicious Italian Restaurant! 

We celebrated New Years by going to bed at 10:30! (Although, Sister Schellenberg somehow stayed asleep as world war three began at 12)

We went to bed at 10 o clock one night instead of at 10:30, but we forgot that there was a reminder alarm that goes off at 10:25 to make sure we are in bed on time, so we get woken up at 10:25 thinking it was morning. But both being really tired and disbelieving. “It can’t be morning already!?”

We taught Jennifer and I felt like a scripture master and just kept thinking of scriptures to share. That doesn’t happen very often. Jennifer also bore her testimony about worshipping no other Gods and about how crazy this world is, and you can really only trust God and the scriptures! 

Elena invited us over for dinner and we had a really good lesson. 

Ali chose to go to a New Years party with the YSA in our ward and not his friends, because he knew his friends might not make the best choices. #proudmissionarymamamoment

Roza and Ibrahim want to be baptized next month!! I am so happy for them! We followed up about how they feel at church, and they said they both just feel full and peaceful. I love this gospel and the peace it truly brings! 

I hope you all have an amazing week! Just remember how much Joy the gospel brings, and the blessings that you can receive when you obey the commandments. 

Sister Losee

So many potatoes

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

What a great week. So many miracles and so many kind members, and just lots of fun and excitement with the holidays. But way tooo much.... food!!! 

So many member appointments, so many potatoes, so much turkey, so much Rotkohl, so much yogurt and fruit. Just so much food. 

Christmas Eve was crazy! We had our service at 3:30 and had so many investigators there! And so many families had inactive children there and it was just sooo much work and so hectic, being a missionary at church is stressful, but when you have tons of investigators, and then there are not enough seats, and you are trying to greet everybody and then you are just tired. Then that evening we visited with a cute older couple and their sons came. 

Christmas Day was spent primarily just at one members home. She is from America, so I got a little taste of America, but her husband is from Germany, so don’t worry. Still lots of Germany. 

I got to Skype my family! Not too long now before we see each other in real life. 

On the 26th (second Christmas in Germany) We visited two families and had a blast at both of them. 

Last Friday we visited a Mother and her three daughters. Miracles. They are Persian and so we couldn’t teach too well. But they came to Church on Sunday and we will have translation tomorrow. But they made us dinner and were just so kind and had lots of questions. 

We taught Roza and Ibrahim again this week and they came to church. They want to be baptized!! We also all celebrated Sister Schellenbergs birthday together. (A little early because they will be gone on the actual birthday)

On Tuesday night we received an online referral and went by on it Wednesday. It’s a super cool German lady who agreed to take the lessons with us and learn more about our beliefs. It’s always fun to teach an actual German in Germany. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Sister Losee

IT‘S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!!!! So as a present to my Mom, I will write a long email. Please. You were warned.

Here are the adventures/craziness from this week!

1. WhatsApp. Okay so WhatsApp is a messaging and calling app that everybody uses in Europe because it is free when on WiFi. Well, with the advancements of Smartphones we also got this App, which has been super good to get in contact with people that don’t have phone credit. But...... it has also been really bad problem.... hahahahaha. Every day we get at least one creepy message from a strange man. The first one we got simply said hi, and then sent a picture of my name tag from when he had talked to me on the bus, another said he wanted a partner and then send an emoji of a person dancing, another said he loved us. And we just have to ignore lots of people hahaha. 
2. We had the last split of the transfer, and the second to last day of the transfer. Hahahah it was a little rough squeezing nine splits in five weeks. But we did it! This last split was really fun. Sister Lopez is from Mexico and seriously one of the most humble and loving Sisters I served with. She literally just wants to serve other people. We taught one of our investigators together who had disappeared for a couple of months but finally returned!
3. Our investigator who disappeared, she had been on vacation in her home country of Bulgaria,and the reason she extended her trip so long, was because she got baptized.... BUT NOT IN OUR CHURCH! I had never had that situation before.....
4. We taught our cute new family investigators twice this week, and the father (Ibrahim) came to church with two of the children. They loved it! Apparently they told Ibrahim they wanted to go to church every day hahaha. But basically I love this family with my whole heart. Their children are just adorable and so loving, the one son is in a wheelchair because of something wrong with his legs, but he is just so happy! When we went there last night, they buzzed us into the apartment building, and you just hear the four year old yell “LUCY!!” (Aka Losee) Then the other boy runs and hugs Sister Schellenberg, and then after the appointment, as we are walking away, we get a text message from them saying that if we need help they want to be the first ones to help. Also. Can we just also remember when last week he said he didn’t know if he thought Joseph Smith was a prophet and needed some time, but this week, after reading in the Book of Mormon says: “I believe. It makes sense. God always calls prophets. Why would he have them back then, but not today.” Basically this family is such a happy miracle. 
5. Our Family home evening game night this week. Oh boy. So much craziness and laughter and weirdness. So this week we actually had people show up. Ali and then our other investigator Aksel, but.... Aksel also brought his strange friend Nikko.... Ali was a rockstar and bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and helped to answer Aksel and Nikkos questions. Nikko though didn’t believe anything about the Book of Mormon because he read only the title page and half of the title page and said it only talks about America and that since it wasn’t from Greece (his home land) he couldn’t believe in it. Then we moved on to playing games. We tried to teach them the game signs. It proved to be waaay to complicated for Nikko hahahahha. I also think it was a struggle because we are trying to explain a semi complicated game in a language, which nobody in the room speaks natively. Then at the end of the game night, the Elders and Ali missed the bus that would get the Elders home on time, so, they took their only option. Riding in Aksels car with Nikko. Elder Folau described it like this: An Arab, a Bulgarian, a Greek, and two Americans get in a car.....hahahahah Ali described it: It was like a Horror film. 
6. Last point. Pday last week!! We had the joy of adventuring the Christmas Markets in Köln with Sister Nowak. It was so fun just to spend several hours walking around just the three of us. Sister Nowak bought us waffles in the shape of the Cathedral in Köln and we drank delicious punch and ate unhealthy candies. It was way fun. 

Well. I hope everyone has an amazing Christmas time and really remembers the reason to the season. This week we were last minute asked to give the lesson in Relief Society. It was the perfect lesson. The atonement of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ really is our Savior and Redeemer and true joy and peace can only be found through him. I love you all!

Sister Losee

How much can I pay to get extra sleep? #2

Hello family and friends! This will be a shorter email because I don’t have a lot of time. But it was a really good week. 

Highlights:

Ward Christmas party: a new family we started teaching brought their whole family it was the best! We also sang Rudolph the red nosed reindeer as missionaries and made a fool of ourselves by bellowing ho ho ho a little too manly and loud. 

IT SNOWED!! And a lot!!! On Monday there was so much snow and problems that the buses didn’t come to where we live, and we had to walk for 50 minutes through snow to get to a station for a Straßenbahn. We then had a split and barely made it to our appointment because of traffic and everything. 

Zone Conference. We had an awesome zone conference and the spirit there is just always my favorite part. Sister Schellenberg and I gave a lecture thing about addiction recovery and repentance. It was so cool to see how in each break out session we talked about such different stories and ideas. 

On Sunday I had what I think was a migraine in the middle of the night, and my sweet companion let me wake her up at 3 in the morning because when you are in so much pain you just need somebody. So church was a little rough that morning, but we made it!!! 

I successfully solved my first Rubik’s cube all by myself!! 

Pday last week was good too! We visited a Christmas market in Essen and then just came home and laid down while listening to Christmas music because we were both just so tired. 

We also had two more fun splits. I was with Sister Randall and Sister Baker. We were able to find tons of potentials and getting to know sisters is just seriously the best. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week and eat lots of Christmas chocolate!! 

Sister Losee