Schwach zu sein ist keine Sünde

This week I learned that I cant do anything. I have learned that I am completely incompetent and I struggle being a missionary. I have so many weaknesses and shortcommings. I have so much to work on.

Wow that sounds so depressing. :)

See I have learned all those things, but I have also learned that it is ok. Me and Sister Bunderson usually end up having a scripture that we happen to share with everyone we meet with. This week we shared Alma 26:11-12 which was cool because that is my mission scripture and Sister Bunderson found it to share. See in those verses, Ammon shares how small and powerless he really is. He shares how because he is so weak, there is no way he would ever boast in his own strength. He will only ever boast in God. We focus so much on having self confidence. How many YW lessons did we have about beleiving in yourself and knowing that you are a daughter of God. We always learn that we need to know that we can do things. That is all good and everything, until you come on a mission. Sister Bunderson explained it best when she said that a mission is like being faced with a giant mirror where you can actually see all your insecurities. The only way to get over the mirror or around it is to face it and go straight at it. Since being in Germany I have really seen this. It is hard to have the confidence you learn so much about in YW when you can really see how weak and terrible you are! But just like how Ammon says that he needs God to do all things ( including being an awesome missionary), we need God to have that confidence. Sister Heywood said it best when she said, If you cant have confidence in yourself, have confidence in God because he can do everything. Have the confidence that God has confidence in you and that He will use you. And we have been studying an article in the Liahona that is called Weakness is not a sin or something like that (schwach zu sein ist keine Sünde). It is so amzing and I recommend it to everyone! We all have weaknesses! I know crazy right? And whats even crazier is that Christ had weaknesses too. I know it sounds strange. He was perfect right? Perfect in the sense that he had no sin. However he still had a physical body. He could still get sick. He was still tempted. He still felt tired. He still had emotions. Anyway, the article is really good and I just felt like I should share this with everyone since it was so helpful for me this week.

Now to what happend this week. Well, it was a pretty normal week. All was going well. We had a split with the STLs which meant that I got to hang out all day with Sister Heywood!!!! (No pics sorry I will see if she will email me one). I stayed here in Bonn and Sis Bunderson went to be with Sis Parker. So I had to know how to get around Bonn and go see people all by myself. It was stressful, but not nearly as stressful as last transfer, so that was good. We had so much fun together! We heart attacked a less active for her birthday and saw Ahti and Sch Bahr. Sch Bahr is deaf so all our communication is through writting. Sis Heywood thought that was interesting. It was just a way good time. 

So that was Thursday and when me and Sister Bunderson got home thursday night, she wasnt feeling well. Basically all morning Friday she slept because all Thursday night she stayed up thowing up. So I just got like 4 hours of personal study. Then she felt better and we went to our few appointments (luckily we werent too busy). Then Saterday she also slept all morning because she woke up really early saterday morning covered in hives. We think she was alergic to something she ate. It was so frustrating because my first response was to call Dad and I kind of cant do that so I was at a loss. But I got lots of personal study again. 

Sunday she was finally feeling better and we got a call from some random guy saved in our phone that we dont know inviting us to Bible study. We werent busy so we decided warum nicht? So Bible study. We were thinking sitting in a circle, reading scriptures, having a discussion, the result would be we would pass out a bunch of Book of Mormons. Sounds great right? No. So Bible study. The reality was that we sat in a chaple while the pastor guy gave a 30 min sermon to the 6 people there about why thier church was the true church. It was really a funny expirience. He asked if we had questions at the end and Sister Bunderson asked how you join the church since that is what the whole sermon was on and apparently you have to pass a test before you are baptized. Interesting. Also he used like 5 different translations of the bible and his logic was so confusing. We might not be going back to bible study :)

Today we played soccer! We got to wear pday clothes! It was so much fun! Sister Bunderson wants to do  it again in 2 weeks.

Cant really think of any other cool stories. We get iPads this week which will be awesome! We leave for Frankfurt at 6:15 Friday morning. We are just thankful we are not the elders in Euskirchen because they have to go to Köln first and that train leaves at 4:30. 

Everyone have an awesome week! Schönes Woche noch!

Liebe 

Sister Carroll

Carmans door after me and Sister Heywood heartattcked it

More of the beautiful thing called spring. 

A cool fountain

Dog drinking out of the fountain

Got some pics off of Sister Bundersons camera. This is from like a  week ago. There are these old phone booths that have books in them. You take one then leave one. We didnt take any, but we left a Buch Mormon.