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