Erin's Exceptional Errand: Elder Bednar!!!!

So this week was way good! This week I learned that its all about your mindset. Which is hard because mindsets are hard to change. This week one of the times me and Sister Bunderson were talking, we were discussing how we viewed homework. As you already know, homework was extreemly important to me. I did not sleep until it was done. I stayed up late and got up early countless times. Multiple times for homework assignments that I really did not want to do. Assignments that I really had no interest in doing well, but I did them well because I couldnt stand not giving it my all. Sister Bunderson discribed this attitude best by calling it obsessive. She then told me that if I was that obessed with talking to people, I would be unstoppable and probably kill my companion. That comment made me think. What made me so obsessed with homework? Why was I so concerned about getting it done? Ya I had teachers telling me to do it, but no one was making me work so hard except myself. Why? It has been really hard here. I have a really hard time getting myself to talk to people. Then I beat myself up for not being a good misisonary. It was cool to think about missionary work like homework. The only thing that is making it so I dont act the same is my mindset. I think of homework and misisonary work as being 2 completely separate things, but in reality, I can have the same mindset about them both. And ya, mindsets are hard to change, but its ok because I dont have to do anything by myself. I just need to have the desire to change then I need to turn to Heavenly Father and He is there willing to help me. Today for Personal, I read a scripture Alma 17:10 That basically says that the Lord told the sons of Mosia to be comforted so they were. Plane and simple. They just were. Why? Because they had the mindset of desireing to be comforted. Then God helped them out. Its all about the mindset.

On another note, "Its not about the iPads". This is how Elder Bednar started his 6 hour conference. It was so good! He talked alot about how we think that the iPads will change missionary work, but they wont. He used the example of a pen. How much did a pen change missionary work? It didnt. At all. But it made it a lot easier, or at least helped out with a lot. My purpose is still my purpose, but just because I use a pen, doesnt mean that I need to have a different purpose. Thats the same with the iPads. We spent 6 hours talking about things in relation to iPads, and yet I learned so much more. It was super cool because Elder Bednar would ask a question and tell us that he didnt have an answere he was looking for. He told us that he was never going to play, "guess whats in my head" with us. It really made it cool because I learned more from what other missionaries said than what Elder Bednar said. Also on that note, we dont have the iPads.... immer noch. Why? Well apparently they are still not in Germany. Hopefully we will get them soon, but its all still up in the air. Also we dont get to keep them after our missions. Schade. But Im ok with not having the iPads yet. I thought I would have been really disappointed, but I think it will be good because we learned so much from Elder Bednar about being better missionaries and diciples of Christ that I think it would be hard to apply that and figure out ipads. I am actually really grateful.

So on to what else happend this week....... Yep thats about it. Me and Sister Bunderson were just discussing this. We felt like this week was so good and successful! Yet when we look at our planner to see what we did I cant tell you. Simply because EVERYTHING fell out. I mean we still had some appointments, but so much didnt work. You know it is going to be a good day when you get invited over to a members house for breakfast and when you get there she answeres the door with "Ich habe sie total vergessen!" It was a good morning. But actually it was! Thats the funny part!

Yesterday we had a street display just outside of Hauptbahnhof. It was way fun. Remember how I was talking about how I dont like to talk to people? Well street displays mean that I talk to people. But it just goes back to that whole mindset thing. Elder Sollis made it a game and I gave out 2 Bücher Mormon and got 2 numbers. It was so much fun! We also got rained on pretty good. We were laughing pretty hard!

Today me and Sister Bunderson went and had an adventure in Köln. We went inside the Kölner Dome since last time we just climbed it. It is pretty cool! Then we walked around for a little and got this really yummy pretzle thing. It has been a way good p day and I think it is just becasue we really havnt been rushed. We just have had so much fun! Germany it just so cool!!!!!

Have an awesome week! At least as awesome as you can not in Germany! :) Ich liebe euch!

Liebe

Sister Carroll

This is Bible study last week. I think I forgot to send the picture. Funny story. We actually found the progress record for this guy. It says specifically on it not to go to bible study unless you want to be freaked out. Too bad we didnt find it one day earlier!

Split with sis Heywood!

So this is our obsession for the last 2 p days. We just had a Aldi open up right next to our appartment. They had a big opening with cool balloons and everything. This store is so awesome compared to were we have been going. We seriously get so excited to go grocery shopping. We might have priority issues......

So this is our bathroom. I just thought you might want to see what it looks like. You might notice, there is no bathtub. There was one. I promise. But now it is not there. Why? good question. How do we shower? Better question. We go every morning and night to Ahtis appartment to shower. But Ahti is in India for a month. Guess what! We now have a key to Ahti's appartment!

This is going to get real old real fast.

Correction: it is already old.

This is called a snail. It is a creature that lives in wet places. Germany is wet. Arizona is not. Arizona does not have snails like Germany.

SNOW!!!!!!!! pink snow! Just kidding it didnt snow. It just rained really hard. Remember the really pretty pink trees. They are still really pretty and really pink. Just so is the ground and all the cars parked under them. It really looks like it snowed.