The Berlin Wall

 

Familie,

 

So a lot happened this week. 

 

* I got called a witch.

 

* I found a new delicious ice cream flavor.  It is called cookies and it is like cake batter and cookie dough and chocolate ice cream all mixed!

 

* We found a park near our house that we have been running to for Morgan Sport.  It has a big gravel trail all the way around the park.  It is like a big track.  It is perfect because we can all run around it and stay within sight and sound and still be able to go our own pace.  Sometimes getting in some good solid thinking time while running solves all my problems!

 

* I got candy thrown at my head.

 

* A man stopped us on the street and asked us if we knew anything about Joseph Smith. 
Do we!??!??!? 
He is now a new investigator.

 

* We played little game this week.  Every day I wore one of the skirts I got last week from the family who is moving.  It was quite adventurous.  We had so much fun trying to put together outfits every morning.

 

* It has rained and rained for days.  We went back to big jackets and boots and tights.  We are praying for warmer weather, seeing as it is almost June!

 

* Things in Dahlem are starting to pick up.  We taught a lot this week.  That was a big change from our weeks of white days and finding for hours.  It has been good to have the opportunity to practice teaching in German. 

 

*We got stalked for hours by a drunk man who periodically yelled crude things at us. We went to register and he followed us and then waited outside the room we were in.  We ended up sneaking out the back and calling the Elders.  The elders came to our rescue and walked home with us. So that was an adventure.

 

* We taught a drunk man.  We have been teaching him for about a week and we had an appointment the other night.  He called to tell us he would be late and then called later to tell us he was in the park in stead of our normal meeting place.  We found him and it was extremely obvious that he had been drinking way too much.  He asked me to say the opening prayer so I did.  He started making weird meditation noises and when I peeked over at him I saw him contorting into yoga poses.  I lost it and started laughing.  Then he stopped us and chastised me for laughing in a prayer.  It was rather irreverent but I'm not sure that interpretive prayer yoga is all that reverent either.  He asked me to say an apology prayer and try again.  I'm not going to lie, it was really hard to get through those prayers without laughing again! 

 

* We set a baptismal date!! YES!!!  We started meeting with a friend from one of the members in our ward.  Her name is V**** and she is 19 just like me.  We really get along well and I have loved teaching her.  She is so patient with my crazy German.  (She is also into fashion and design so she got a kick out of our crazy skirt game this week)  She is really ready for the gospel and making serious changes in her life.  She came to her friend and asked if she could start meeting with us.  It has been great that she has that support from her member friends.  After one of our lessons we just asked if she would work towards a baptismal date on June 16.  She wanted to set it for the 18 of December because that is the anniversary of her cat's death.  We compromised with June 18 which is the half birthday for her cat's death. So June 18 it is!

 

* We had two investigators come to church and one of the less active families we have been working with.  That was amazing!

  

That is pretty much all I can think of to write about. 

 

Have a great week.  I love all of you so much!

 

Love,

Sister Brown

Baking Bread

 

Siegessäule (Berlin Victory Column)

 

 

Brandenbur​ger Tor (Brandenburg Gate)

 

 

 

 

Talent shows and Toilet seats

Leibe Familie!!
 

So this week has been crazy. Last night we were brainstorming ideas of which stories we should email home and the list was enormous. We had some good ones this week!

 

 

Our Relief Society had a talent show this week. We went because one of the members was bringing her non-member friend and we also had invited some less actives we were working with. We were excited to see all of the hidden talents of the ladies in our ward.

 

So how did it go?

 

Let me tell you that a German talent show is quite different from our talent shows back home. It was very dry and serious. It was very German. There weren't any funny skits or silly dances or weird talents like licking your elbow.

 

None of that.

 

There was a lot of poetry and short stories read. One lady even read her journal to us. Lots of sisters played the organ or piano but like crazy hard core Bach pieces. That was the talent show.

 

But wait, are any of you wondering what we did for our talent?!?

 

Sister Schrade played a really jazzed up version of the Hokey Pokey on the piano and we danced and taught the ladies the dance.

 

Yes we did.

 

That is real talent :)

 

We also tausched this week. I got to go to Marzhan with Sister Kriser. We served in the MTC together and got to be really good friends.

 

 

It was so fun to spend some time with her. They also ride bikes in Marzhan so I had my first bike riding adventures in Germany. The skirt, bag, and helmet combo is really cute. Trust me! (Or don't because I have attached a picture. You can see for yourself).

 

 

I also broke a toilet seat while on Tausch. I sat on it and it snapped in two places. I didn't even know that was possible. I need to seriously lay off the Ritter Sports this week!!

 

And yes, this toilet seat does have sand and shells in it.

 

 

We did a lot of finding with our Englisch Kurs fliers. That starts in a few weeks so we have been working with the Elders to get them out. The enormous stack we started with has gone down significantly so that is good! The other night we were finding and a man was walking toward us. We made eye contact and I moved forward like I wanted to speak to him. Before I even said anything, he turned and in a deep booming voice barked out "Mahlzeit!!" (meal time) I think that was supposed to be his explanation for not talking to us. We haven't heard that one before!

 

Service this week was helping a family in our ward pack and get ready to move. My job was packing up the family library. Originally all three of us were doing this job but the other two struggled and were reassigned. Schewester Reichardt was impressed with my ability to box the books. Hello! Lee Brown is my father. I can pack a box of books!!

 

 

 

She rewarded me by letting me dig through her box of clothes she is giving away. The sisters and I pulled almost all the skirts and dresses out. Some of them need a little help but we have made it a goal to wear them all. This is Berlin. Everyone wears whatever they want! This week I will be adding some old German grandma skirts to my wardrobe choices.

 

 

Ummm..... Was noch???.........
 

I found a new favorite German thing. It is big thick vanilla chapstick that looks like a glue stick. LOVE it!

 

 

That is pretty much it for this week.

 

 

Thanks for all of your fun letters and emails. I love hearing from all of my sweet family and friends. You guys are the best!

 

 

Hope everyone has a great week and remembers to pray. (Seriously though. Beten Sie!)

 

 

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Brown

 

Here is me pretending my head is being eaten off by this weird ostrich advertisement. This is a totally normal activity to engage in after hours of finding...

 

Mother's Day

Liebe Familie,

 

This week we had interviews with President Kosak. He is still extremely intimidating for me. He is so kind and loving but he is also so big and so German.

 

My two biggest fears are him and speaking German. In the interview I had to do both!

 

I went in there pretty dang nervous. He was so great though and gave me really good advice. The first thing he asked was "Do I still have the same energetic excited Sister Brown?"

 

Yes! Yes, he does.

 

He was super encouraging and just told me to keep going because there are people in Germany just waiting for Sister Brown. I tend to be kind of a stresser. (OK that may be the biggest understatement ever!)

 

My favorite President Kosak quote is "Don't Worry!" He tells me that all the time. He just says it with a big smile and his thick German accent so it sounds like "Don't Vurry" I love it. Good advice!

We had an appointment with Görtz this week. (He was the man we found after praying about which streets to go on) We went to the address he wrote down for us and he wasn't there. The house belonged to someone else. We klingeled in anyways but no one knew who we were looking for. It was pretty discouraging because we really thought he had interest. We tried his number too but we couldn't get a call to go through. We were kind of bummed out. Then later that night we tried calling again. The number worked this time and we got through. He told us his address and we realized we had misread his handwriting. We had gone to #25 but he had written #21. So we rescheduled and went back.

 

We had a wonderful lesson. We taught about Joseph Smith and the restoration and the priesthood power. That wasn't what we had gone in there prepared to teach but that was where his questions took us. He had even been reading out of the Book of Mormon. My favorite part of the lesson was his prayer. I had the opportunity to teach him how to pray. Then I said the opening prayer and showed him how to do it. When the lesson was over I asked if he would say the closing prayer. He didn't seem too sure. He was really hesitant and took a long time to think about it. Then he just started praying. He told Heavenly Father about his trip to Spain later this week. He was really nervous about flying on the airplane and he asked that everything would be OK and he would make it safe. It was a beautiful prayer. It was straight from his heart and that is all that matters.

 

We also had a cool finding experience. I was with Sister Schrade and we walked past an outside cafe. There were two ladies sitting down and they stopped us. I LOVE when people will stop and talk to us. It is much easier to talk sometimes when you aren't the one initiating it. So this was a wonderful surprise.

 

 

They said they saw us on the corner and we looked so happy and shiny. We looked like we were glowing and so they decided they had to talk to us. So we sat down and started talking. They are sisters who have been to our church and even met with the missionaries before. They had met for lunch and were telling each other about all of their problems. They had some hefty issues and didn't know what to do.

 

That was when we showed up.

 

We started testifying of Jesus Christ and the power of the Atonement and even shared a scripture.

 

When we were done they asked if we could read another one!

 

Oh yes we can!

 

So we started reading in 3 Nephi 11 when Christ comes to the Nephites. They both just kept saying how they couldn't believe that we found them right then and how we seemed to have answers to all of their questions. They were looking for something like this and then we showed up. I just kept baring testimony of how that is a sign that God loves them both so much. He knew what they needed so he sent us there. It was so nice to be able to know that we helped someone that day. It was also so cool to see how we could be used and directed to help play a tiny role in our Heavenly Father's big plan.

 

Ich liebe missionarsarbeit!

 

 Me and Sister Schrade

 

The highlight of my week this week was skyping my family on Mother's Day. It was so great to see them and hear their voices! It will be a long wait until Christmas...

 

We are now officially in a drit. Sister Avanesjan left this morning at 4 am. I will keep you posted on the adventures being in a drit brings. Wish me luck!

 

I pray for you all every day.

Have an amazing week!

 

Ich Liebe Dich!!!

 

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Brown

 

 

Package!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

{editor's note: Sister Thornton quickly crossed out all the information on the customs form so she wouldn't know what was inside until she opened it.  Way to go Sister Thornton!!}

 

My closet is covered in German posters I made during language study. It looks like a German preschool...

4

Leibe Familie,

 

This week we turned into a 4 missionary companionship. It has been so interesting from day one. No one really knows how it is supposed to work. We are one companionship so our numbers are all together and we have the same area and teaching pool. It is just weird because we have to tausch pretty much every day. We can't go finding and dooring with four people. We look like a little missionary army. So we have to split the appointments and decide who will go to what. Planning is kind of a nightmare. It is really fun to have new sisters living with us though.

 

The Quad: Sister Thornton, me, Sister Avanesjan, Sister Schrade

 

This week we also got the new sisters from the MTC. They bring them to Lankwitz for their finding time. That is super close to us so we were asked to come and help. I was able to go finding a couple different times. I was so amazed with the sisters. They were so brave and were ready to jump right in. It was fun to watch. It was also really good for me to be able to see how far I have come this transfer. Just 6 weeks ago I was in their shoes.

 

We had a ward service project this weekend. We went and cleaned up a park. We weeded inbetween the cobblestones and raked and bagged the dead leaves. It was really fun to be all together. I worked with some of the young women in our ward. They only like to talk to me in English so they can practice but I try hard to only speak to them in German so I can get practice too. Their English is SO much better than my German! I am always so impressed.

 

 

We had some good experiences with prayer this week.

 

 

The first one was on the night before the new sisters came. We had a lot to do to get everything ready for them and then the dish washer broke. It was making weird noises and water was all over. It was kind of a mess and Sister Thornton and I were freaking out. We tried to clean it up and then to fix it but after taking it all apart we realized we didn't have any idea what we were doing. We put all the pieces back together but it wouldn't work. So then we prayed. We loaded the dishes back in and put in some soap and pressed the start button and it worked. The dishes came out clean!

 

The next one was when we went by on a contact. We had found this man in a Burger King. (For the longest time we didn't know his name so we just called him BK) We needed to give him a Book of Mormon but we were having a hard time getting in contact with him. We got to the right building and were supposed to leave it in his mailbox slot but we didn't know his last name. We looked at all the boxes and then put it in one. We prayed that we had picked the right one and that the book would end up in the right hands. Later that night we got a call that he had gotten the book!

 

The last one is the best. Sister Thornton and I were together doing finding this week. We had done a lot of finding that day and it wasn't really successful. We weren't sure what to do. So we detoured into a park and sat down and took a break. We pulled out our map and picked two streets that were by us. Then we prayed to know where to go. After the prayer Sister Thornton thought we should go to Meckelberg Straße and I thought we should go to Laubacher Straße. I was pretty confused. We had both picked a different street. What kind of an answer is that!?!? So we decided to start on Meckelberg because it was closer and then head to Laubacher. We started finding again and nothing really seemed different. We just kept going and stopping people and giving out cards. Then we finished the street and headed over to Laubacher. On our way, we ran into a man who was interested. His name is Görtz and he took a Book of Mormon and gave us his info for a return appointment. We hadn't seen anything like that all day. We were so excited. Later we pulled out the map to mark where we found him. The place where we met him was exactly inbetweeen the two streets. Exactly!

 

Yeah so God loves us and answers our prayers. Stimmt!

 

It was a good week!

I hope everyone is doing well.

Thanks for all the support and love and fun letters!

 

Love,

Sister Brown

 

Me with Sister Avanesjan

This is after 4 hours of finding when we sat down at a bus stop.

That should explain the exhausted look we're sporting!

 

 

Our ward members are super generous and always give us stuff. They have started just leaving us piles of things in a corner of the church building. Whenever we get a chance we take the load home. It is perfect for more "rug moments". This week it was a table, plant, and Jesus picture. 

 

Ritter Sports were on sale this week...