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

 

How much can I pay to get extra sleep?

Happy December!!! I can’t believe how fast this month has gone by already!!! The next thing I know it will be Christmas! Okay. So crazy week this week. Here are some of the stuff:

Pday last week: We went to Dortmund and saw the Christmas Market there. It was really pretty, there was a GIANT tree, and most exciting, I bought a Russian Doll from a very nice Russian man! Then we went to a soccer stadium for the team in Dortmund. BVB. The tour was so cool, my favorite part was walking out of the tunnel while the music was playing. So great. Definitely made me feel like a soccer fan. Then we met up with the Düsseldorf Zone Leaders, the Dortmund Zone Leaders, and the APs and we emailed in a van on our four hour drive to Frankfurt for MLC Friday morning. 

MLC:We talked a lot about the Holy Ghost and about obedience. Exact Obedience really does bring miracles! 

SPLITS!: I got to split with two missionaries one after another who are going home in two weeks. It’s always so cool to ask the missionaries something they have learned from their missions and to see how each individual personal grows differently. 

On my split with Sister Johnson, we got taken out to lunch at a Chinese Buffet with some members..... so..... much..... food...... Then we used a creepy bathroom in a Döner Laden because I just had to go that bad. Hahahaha. We also just had some fun Contacting and having awkward conversations on trains haha. 

With Sister Moeller, we taught a TON of AWESOME lessons! We also got to participate in ward council, its so cool to see how really ready and willing our ward is to help and support us.

Also. This week I experienced one of the most interesting things ever!! So story time: We were planning on going to our investigators church service at 3:00 because she was dedicating her children and really wanted us to come. We asked for permission to go and the answer was yes. Then after our Church service a member invited us over for lunch and we felt like we should say yes. It would make us an hour late to Jennifers service, but we thought that would be okay. So we show up at 4:00 at the address she gave us, no one was there, but then we see an African family. Apparently they were looking for Jennifer too! Turns out Jennifer had given us all the wrong address, so we rode over with this other family to the right church, and turns out the service wasn’t actually until 5:00. So that was awesome. Man. First of all, the usher who took us to our seats, was a woman I had contacted before, and she remembered me!! Then, we were the only white people in the room. The service was fun and involved electric guitars and dancing. But it just made me so grateful for our gospel and for the truth and spirit that we have in our meetings. But it really was great fun, we were able to talk to some of her friends about the Mormons, and Jennifer was SO happy that we had come. (Hallelujah ! Hallelujah! Amen! Amen! Praise Jesus! Hallelujah! Amen. Amen. Hallelujah!) 

Also, Saturday, we had a street display in Krefeld, it was freezing cold and dark, and nobody was being nice at all. But we endured and stayed till the end. Nothing feels better than knowing you completed something that was hard. So included is a street display picture. 

Anyways. Continue to light the world and share the joy of service and Christ this holiday season!!! 

Love,

Sister Losee 

Ps. Craziness! Smart phones are entering the mission! No more having to be a WiFi hobo when trying to look up train times! 

---

It’s really cold again!

Winter is coming! Nooooooooooo

Hi family and friends! Last week was great :) we had lots of cool miracles and really fun splits. 

Last week for pday we adventures the Duisburg Christmas market and ate delicious foods and got our names written on rice for free! We also watched Johnny Lingo and laid on the ground of the church for awhile. You just get so tired sometimes hahahah. 

Then we had two splits. First I was with Sister Estes. She’s great. So hilarious and has no fear while talking to people. We also had one of the coolest contacts of my life. We talked to two men from India who I think were Muslim. We started to talk to them about Jesus Christ and the spirit was just there. And so strong too! The one man then said “I think that it’s so cool what you are all doing. And I feel like there’s something special when I talk to you. I just feel this warm peace or something. You know. Just something you can’t quite explain.” That the first time I have had someone on the street recognize and say out loud that he was feeling the spirit. We then explained how he could have that with him always and we exchanged contact information. We should hopefully be able to meet with him soon! 

I also got to split with Sister Fried. This was our second split together and we had a lot of fun teaching and contacting together. We taught Jennifer and Chao and they are both just great. We started to teach Chao about the life of Christ using the pictures in the gospel arts book. It is so fun texting someone about his life and really letting them know what Jesus Christ did for them. We also began to teach Jennifer about the Plan of Salvation and I have just such a love and appreciation for God’s plan and I especially love to testify about it on the streets contacting. 

Oh and let us not forget Saturday night! We took Ali with us to a members home for dinner and a lesson. We decided to really focus on Jesus Christ and really didn’t out where his testimony is. We read a scripture about Jesus Christ being the ultimate sacrifice, then we watched the Bible Video of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. We asked him what he had learned about Jesus Christ from the video and then asked him how he has noticed that he has grown closer to Christ. He then bore just the most beautiful testimony of how he has grown closer to Christ and how he has the desire to learn more, to change, to simply be better. It was a huge proud mama moment! 

I also talked to a man on Sunday night after tons of rejection, and he was willing to meet! He is from China and doesn’t really know much about God. We had our first lesson on Wednesday and he just had soo many questions and he is just sooo excited to learn! I love teaching so much! 

This week we also have started a ysa family home evening night because we want to get more involved with the young single adults and make more activities and events that we can bring investigators to. Ali and one other person were the only ones that showed up. but we are hoping as time goes on more people will be willing to come. Hahaha 

Well. I think that is most of my week. I can’t remember anything else too specific right now. But have a great week and don’t forget to watch the Light the World video and do the advent calendar to serve others and light the world in 25 ways over 25 days!!! 

Sister Losee 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hello friends and family!! You all might be too busy enjoying Turkey and pie and ham and stuffing and all that delicious stuff to actually read my email. But it was a really good and interesting week!!! Today for Thanksgiving we will be visiting a Christmas Market. #Germansdon’tcelebrateThanksgiving

Awkwardness: We were contacting some people and I had just introduced ourselves as missionaries to a man in front of the main train station: when I suddenly don’t remember what I was going to say. So this is how it goes: “...and we just wanted to ask what you do..... (awkwardly cant remember what I was going to say......tries to blurt out something....) in your free time?”  Man then looks at me really awkwardly and says: “I have to go” 

We went on two power splits. It was a party and a half. We got invited to two family home evenings for the first time ever, and we were able to say hi to both of them!! Sister Griffen and I went to a young couples house and played a really fun board game I use to play in college, so that was fun. 

We had a CRAZY experience as well! Yesterday we had a lunch appointment with an old couple and they just kept talking and talking and going on long tangents and whatnot so we ended up being there too long, so then we had no time to do any finding before meeting with this cool man named Serge in a cafeteria only five minutes away. We had a cool lesson and then started walking two minutes away to do some Contacting in the hour we had before our next appointment. We saw TONS of police officers, but didn't think twice because it’s Duisburg. But we were just done talking to a very awkward couple when a man jumped under a car, some people started yelling, and other people started yelling. So we hurried and walked quickly in the other direction, and we walk out of this street, that turns out was blockaded! Then we get a call from the Elders wondering where we were. Apparently there was a shooter or something and the police couldn’t find him and then we had our next appointment in this same neighborhood and just kept hearing tons of police sirens. We definitely think that maybe that eating appointment went too long for a reason, or just God definitely was helping us all day, But yeah. Crazy stuff. 

Our appointments that day were crazy awesome though! We met with a man I talked to on the train who was kind of grumpy because he said that he had previously met with Sisters on the street several years ago and had made an appointment with them but they never showed up. He also said: “Wow. You have proven me wrong already!” He totally thought we didn't believe in Jesus Christ. How? I don’t know. Because our badges clearly say Jesus Christ on them. But whatever. But we had a really cool lesson just reading scriptures from the Bible and Book of Mormon about who God and Jesus Christ are. 

Then we met with Ammar and his mom fed us incredible amounts of Arabic food and then we watched the Restoration video together and just bore hardcore testimony of Joseph Smith. He said he felt warm in his heart and that it could be truth. We are way excited for him.

We also met with a African woman this week and it was soooo cool because apparently she grew up worshiping idols because that is what her Father belied, but when she moved to Spain she learned about Jesus Christ and learned what it was like to be happy! Apparently I was in one of her dreams and told her Jesus was with her. And she also very excited told us and acted out the time that she saw Jesus Christ. Man.Gotta love Africans. 

LOVE YOU ALL!

Sister Losee

1)Leverkusen Power Split

2)Hamm Power Split

3)pday climbing a giant sculpture of a rollercoaster

4)Duisburg hahahha 

Goodbyes

Hello Everybody!!! Crazy things going down in the city of Duisburg! 

This week on Tuesday I received my new (and most likely last) companion and on Wednesday morning we sent Sister Catherall on a train to Frankfurt where she would prepare to fly back to the land of America! Last week was also crazy busy with goodbye appointments and mission meetings. 

On Thursday we had the chance to have a conference with Elder and SIster Sabin. They are amazing and the spirit there was so beautiful. He helped us to really remember why we are on a mission and why we do what we do. His scriptural knowledge was unbelievable and their life experiences and trials they have one through really helped me to see that God does only give us things to make us stronger and that he has a perfect plan for each of us. I also received a hello from Sister Sabin from my Aunt Terri serving a temple mission in England. It was also fun to see them because they live in Frankfurt and reminded me of the good ol Frankfurt International days. 

On Friday we had mission leadership council in Frankfurt with the Sabins. It was so cool because we only talked about and focused on the mission and the strengths and weaknesses and how we can improve and be better leaders. We also talked about really focusing on our investigators being converted before being baptized. It was also very early in the morning, so we traveled down Thursday night with the APs and Dortmund Zone Leaders and then got to have a giant STL overnighting party. So fun! I had to say goodbye for the last time to Sister Jenkins my trainer before I get home in February. 

On Saturday Wesel had a baptism and we took two investigators to it. It was really fun to see another ward and to see someone enter the waters of baptism. 

We had a lot of goodbye appointments and ate lots of food. 

We had the most amazing FHE of my whole entire life! We took an investigator and the husband he is a convert and it took him a really long time to finally learn the truth and be baptized. But he literally answered all of our investigators questions perfectly and helped to encourage and uplift our investigator. He has been discouraged because he hasn’t received his answers from the Holy Ghost yet. But I know he will get them one day and that he is just being prepared by the Lord.

My new companion is Sister Schellenberg. She is from American Fork Utah and is just adorable. She is super enthusiastic and ready to work. She better be because it is only a five week transfer and we have nine splits to do, and she needs to take over the area right away. 

Last week for Sister Catheralls last pday we went to Köln and saw a really cool old Gestapo prison, just wandered around, ate Mexican Döner, and took lots of pictures. 

I love that city!!

I am also entering my second to last transfer and only have 12 weeks left in I the field. WHAT!? 

Well. I hope you have a wonderful week and a wonderful Thanksgiving next week! 

Sister Losee

My address:

Kirche Jesu Christi

Sister Bonnie Losee

Rithlingerstrasse 7

47059 Duisburg Germany

(The one picture is of us doing the first three hand signals to the Ten Commandments)

Us being sad about sister Catherall leaving on her train

MLC 

Grrr

Well. I wrote a really nice email that had lots of cool things in it and some nice stories. But my iPad deleted it or lost it or something and I was left with an empty draft. I don’t have much time anymore and I have no more desire to write another group email. It was a great week and I hope you all have a great week this coming week! 

Oh yeah and pday was changed to Wednesday this week because Elder Sabin comes tomorrow. 

Sister Losee

Duisburg Days

Sorry don’t have too much time this week! We were in museum and time got ahold of us. But last week was good! I was out of the area a lot though. Which was good but also not, just because of missing lessons with investigators.  

This week I went on a split with Sister Richards in my hometown of Leverkusen! We had several lessons with recent converts, members, and a less active and it felt just so good! 

I also went on a split with Sister weigeshoff on Monday and Tuesday. We had a fun Halloween night and her fiery attitude made for some fun lessons. 

We also had zone conference this week and got to help teach missionaries about Facebook use  as a proselyting tool. The ability to keep in contact with our investigators and members has been such a blessing already. 

Let’s see. Last week we went to a strange museum that had pictures of nature for pday. That was strange. But fun nonetheless.  We also had stake conference this week and a 70 from England came. He was hilarious and also shared some stories and wisdom that I feel was pointed directly at things that could help our investigators that were there! 

I am just so grateful for inspired leaders and for the opportunity to teach and serve others. Have a great week! 

Sister Losee 

Finding is Fun !

As you can tell from the title this week, we had quite a bit of finding time. It actually was really fun finding time though! It started off with my split with Sister Freeman. We had about two hours to talk to people and we broke it up with a delicious short hot chocolate break and we even combined forces with the Elders for awhile. We talked to some pretty cool people. The first was an Chinese man who doesn’t really know about God and Jesus Christ. He said he definitely wanted to learn more! Sister Catherall was able to meet with him on Tuesday (i was in Dortmund on Tuesday) and he is apparently very excited and also very ready to learn more!!

On Saturday Sister Freeman and I went to a street display in Krefeld. It was way fun and pretty successful! I talked to one man from India and we talked all about the Book of Mormon and about Christ visiting the Americas. It is so cool when you really think about how our church has extra records of Jesus Christ and his ministry that no other church has! He was way interested and excited to learn more!

Sunday night we had some fallen out appointments, so we decided to do some dooring in the neighborhood and had someone invite us to come back! It is really funny too because she looked like the kind of person I wouldn’t have expected to have interest. We also talked to one man and when we said we were there to share a message about Jesus Christ he replied: “of course you can gladly do that!...... just not here.” Hahahahahahahahaha Germans are so funny. Gotta love it. 

This week I actually contacted an American too though!  He is from Georgia and Immediately when I contacted him I could tell he was American hahaha his German sounded like a brand new Elders. But hey, respect!  He is learning German!! 

This week I also went on a split with Sister Pack in Dortmund and we had a lot of fun together! We taught one of their new converts, who is african, and she loved me so much just because I know some stuff about African foods and a couple of Nigerian words.I just love Africans. 

This week was a good week! We saw lots of small miracles and just had fun while working hard. We also had a couple of awkward first lessons and just embraced the awkward. Mission life is literally just the strangest thing. 

I hope you all have a fantastic Halloween and a Wonderful week! 

Sister Losee

So many happy meetings!

This week was really cool because I got to say hi to a lot of old mission friends at a conference in Frankfurt. This week Elder Ballard came and the whole mission came together for the conference! Sister Catherall and I had to travel down Sunday afternoon and we overnighted at another sisters apartment. We just happened to be staying with my trainee Sister Hannig! After four hours of train rides it felt nice to stay with a familiar face who was already prepared with my favorite foods for dinner! (And breakfast) Then Monday we traveled early in the morning to Frankfurt and all met familiar faces (like my MTC companion for the first time!!!) and I even saw several members from the Frankfurt International ward because they work in the church office buildings by the church.

Elder Ballard came and was so cute! He shook all of our hands right at the beginning and asked me if I was happy. "You look happy" he said hahahaha Then he talked a lot about contacting and talking to people.

He also talked about the process of how preach my gospel was made and about truly focusing all of our studies on the basic doctrines it contains. Then we had a giant mission lunch of pizza and apples before heading out for a five hour journey back to Duisburg. We got back to Duisburg at 6:30 at night in time to teach our investigator Ali. We talked about the first points of the First lesson again and it is so cool to see the power that comes simply from talking about God as our loving Heavenly Father.

This week we also had two splits. We had a power split and brought Sister Kux and Sister Knott to our area. Sister Knott and I had a lot of fun together, she is brand new to the mission but has almost no fear and she is from Australia, so I got to learn some Australian words. Then Sister Houston and I had a split and got to  teach a new family that I contacted last week. They were so cool!! We taught only the first couple points of the first lesson and gave an overview of Gods plan and the spirit was soooo cool! They said they would come to church and would love to learn more.

Sister Catherall and I also taught one of our investigators at his house with his Mom. His Mom was so cute and made us a HUGE Arabic dinner. She didn't speak very much German at all. But her love and happiness just radiated. She also kept joking and pestering with her son (who is 25) and it just made for a happy night. We also got to start teaching him the plan of salvation. I just love the plan of salvation! That is one thing I have been noticing the longer I am on my mission, I am just coming to love the doctrine we teach more and more. Christs church and Doctrine is seriously the truth.

We also had the crazy experience of a member inviting the guy who tried to steal his bike to church. The guy said YES! And he came to church and we gave him a Book of Mormon and will hopefully be meeting with him again tonight. This will be exciting!! Hahaha he is Russian and looks exactly like all of the Russians you see on TV as the bad guys. Its great.

We also had interviews this week and I just love how much President Boyer is concerned about the people we teach and about how the work is going.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!! Halloween is coming up soon!

Love,

Sister Losee

My trip to Rome.

You wouldnt believe what happened last week!!! For pday we got permission to go to Rome!!!!

Not really.

But sort of.

We visited a Roman Museum and saw some old Roman ruins.

Close enough right?

But no. It was actually really cool. It was called Xanten. They had replicas of a coliseum and some old Roman houses. There were also the remains of a bath house and we learned how they would heat roman bath houses. Pretty cool. Then we ate Döner before heading back to Duisburg to teach a first lesson. The lesson was actually pretty cool. She is from Bulgaria and recognizes that she needs to repent and strengthen her faith in God. As we talked she kept saying : I know that I need to have the spirit with me to actually be able to learn.We will be meeting with her again this week and I am excited to see what happens.

This week we also had the first split of the transfer. Sister Johnson and I had a really good time just doing some good ol finding in Düsseldorf. We talked to a lady on a Bahn Gleis and she said she didn't believe in God. Only Coincidences. We found out more about her and she said she helps to create video games. Sister Johnson then asked if she made coincidences in her video games. The lady said: Of course! We both wanted to roast her and say, but then don't you think that we have someone like a creator that makes our coincidences too?

But we didn't so don't worry..... But I really liked the talk from General Conference that with God there are no coincidences. That has really helped me as I have adjusted to being in Duisburg and serving as an STL. God puts us where we are and gives things in our lives because that is how they are supposed to be.

Awkward moment of the week: We had to go register in Duisburg to say we live there, and as I was signing the finished paperwork i accidentally wrote Sister instead of Bonnie..... it was pretty embarrassing.....

Friday Sister Catherall and I were feeling a little stressed while doing our weekly planning. So we took an hour long break and just talked to people in the city center for awhile. It is so cool how bearing your testimony of Jesus Christ and just talking to people helps you to be happier and have more energy. We also found a couple cool people so we celebrated by eating donuts. We were then able to resume our weekly planning.

This week we also have big news! Our mission is getting Facebook! I was way apprehensive at first when I found out last week. But we had the mission leadership council and all of us leaders will be testing it out and starting to use it in the next two weeks to prepare to teach the rest of the mission and it should be a really great tool to further the work. So just a forewarning I will be getting on my Facebook account and changing my picture and friending people and stuff. So don't be alarmed!

We also had an appointment with someone that neither of us remembered contacting until we actually showed up to the lesson, so we were unprepared and didn't have the Book of Mormon in the right language for him.. he was slightly sour.... oh well. We will get him one next time.

Anyways. It was a pretty good week. Hope you all have a wonderful week too!!!

Sister Losee

P.s I totally forgot!! I found out that a man Sister Jenkins and I taught this time last year in the Frankfurt International ward got baptized on Saturday!!! I love when that happens!!! He finally made it!!!!

Just don't try new things in Duisburg

Another great week in Duisburg! The beginning of a new transfer and the wonderful smells of falling leaves.

A lot of people have been asking about how General Conference works here and how I watched it. So here it is for everyone at once:

Saturday evening we traveled to a different church (in Düsseldorf) where they broadcast it. And Saturday evening at 6 o clock we watched the saturday morning session live. Then we went home and slept. The next day (sunday morning) we once again traveled to Düsseldorf and arrived to watch the women's and priesthood sessions at 11 in the morning. Then a member gave all of the missionaries food. Then we watched the saturday evening session at 2 o'clock. After wards we went on a walk because i was really tired. Then a member fed all of the missionaries a dinner of chili and pudding. Then we once again at 6 o'clock watched the sunday morning session live. And update: We still haven't seen the sunday afternoon session. We will see it in church either this sunday or next sunday.

General Conference was way awesome this year!! I loved all of the talks about service and finding happiness by following Jesus Christ and helping others.

I dont have too much time this week, but highlights:

Teaching Elizabeth about repentance to help her quit smoking. We watched the video of the stoning of the adulterous woman and sang the song I stand all amazed. The spirit was so strong and so beautiful.

Repentance through Jesus Christ is real.

We had a ward party and the Relief society had us participate in a dance. Yeah. I am not so good at dancing hahahahahhaha.

My coat was laying on my lap on a bus ride and I didn't realize the sleeve was hanging down. Suddenly the bus smelled very strongly of alcohol. Yeah... someone spilled alcohol all over the bus and my sleeve of course fell in it.

We taught a muslim man who was very into bashing. I tried really hard to just bear testimony of what I believed and invite him to read in the Book of Mormon. (He actually did call us later and say he liked what he read.... he also said he wanted to bring us his book next time

though....)

We had a finding day this week and we decided to go somewhere new, but it was a holiday, and no one was out, and it was a bust so we had to just head back to our normal finding spots. But we did see a new part of Duisburg. Also got the phone number of a really cool lady from Romania who wanted a Book of Mormon.

Oh and last pday we just went to the soccer stadium and walked around Duisburg.

Hope you all have an amazing week!!!

Sister Losee

P.s. Did anybody else notice how I didn't complain or talk about the weather this week??!!!??!

I thought I was supposed to contact other people

Happy Almost October!!

This past transfer and the past couple weeks have just been FLYING by!  Yesterday I hit my year mark in Germany and I just love it here so much. This week was really good. A lot of cool experiences and cool
people. Also had some weird classic Duisburg experiences as well.

On Wednesday we were meeting up with the man I contacted in Dortmund on a split with Sister Weeks. Well as we were waiting for him, a drunk man contacted us and said "I want to talk to brothers and sisters"
Sister Catherall gave him the address to the church and said we had to go, but two minutes later he came back up again wanting the address again. She had to tell him twice that it was already his pocket hahaha. Drunk people.

Then we taught the first lesson to this man named Shahram and his brother that he brought along for help with translation. They told us their story and they had originally turned Christian because when
their Mom had cancer someone told them Jesus could help her. So they tried praying and she ended up feeling better and didn't have so much pain anymore, so from then on they believed in Christ. I thought that
was such a cool testimony of God truly helping us when we ask for it.  Later this same day we kept seeing a small man in all green clothing kind of following us around for a while. We had walked to a completely
different part of the city and he runs up behind us saying. "Do not panic" Turns out he is from Macedonia and was just lonely and wanted friends. We awkwardly turned him away and gave him the Elders card.
Then after this happened, a random man asked us if we had preach my gospel. "Don't worry. I am a member." Then he left after we said we only had the downloaded version with us at the time. What? Hahahahha
so much randomness.

THEN I was sitting down to talk to a man on the Bahn, but a different man tells me to come sit by him and talk to him. Me: "Do I know this man?" But turns out he is a member in a different city and just wanted
to talk because his girlfriend in Duisburg is also a member but less active and he wanted to know if we were visiting her. So random.

This week we went on our last two splits of the transfer. One of them was spent with the wonderful Sister Moeller. All but one of our appointments either didn't show up or canceled. But we did get to
teach a new convert, who had literally all of the facts of the restoration wrong hahahah. Joseph was 15, the angel Mormon gave him the plates, etc etc. Maybe this guy needs a little more help hahahahha but there is the language barrier. And how important is it really that Joseph was 14 not 15?

The second split was with cute Sister Baker in Bonn. We also had some fallen out appointments, but were able to do some finding. This town also happens to have the birth place of Beethoven. So we did contacting there and back. We were actually able to find a couple of cool people and see some music history at the same time! That is what I call multi tasking. We also had a really fun Family Home Evening and the family called on me to say the prayer: "Because you are only here for today!" They say. Sure. Sure. ;)

We also taught a really good first lesson with a woman named Gloria, she has a new born baby and 4 other kids, her house was literally the cleanest apartment I have seen of an African with that many children.
I was very impressed. How did that woman do it! But she was really cute and super excited to read in the Book of Mormon. I love when people are excited to read the Book of mormon!! For some reason that
can be such a hard commitment for many people. But it is true and helps us in our lives so much.

Well, this email is really long. I hope you all have a wonderful week!! Remember that God is there for us and that we can always Repent. There is a cool talk about Finding Strength through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. But basically we all need repentance and Jesus Christ in our lives. We all have weaknesses and temptations, but
God gives us strength to overcome those.

Love you all!

Sister Losee