This week has just been all over the place!

This week has just been all over the place!

Last Monday for Pday, me and Sister Watkins went to Köln to climb the Dome again since Sister Watkins hadnt done it yet. Then we went inside again so Sister Watkins could see it. Then on the way back to Bonn we stopped in Brühl to see the castle. We see it everytime we go to Köln on the train and me and Sister Bunderson always meant to go see it, but never did. Unfortunatly, like everything else cool here in Germany, it was closed on Monday. But we walked around in the garden outside for almost an hour! It was so cool and pretty! We kept calling it the Secret Garden, because it looked so much like how I would picture it! It was way cool. And it rained the whole time so that made it even better.

Tuesday we ran into Israel! He is a way cool investigator who never answeres his phone! We found him in Bonn and turns out he was in France. Deswegen he didnt answere his phone. But while he was in France, he met with missionaries! And went to church!!!! It was so cool! Then we got to meet with him on Friday and he was an hour and a half late to our appointment. He was a 20 min walk away, but decided to take the bus and the bus broke down so he just sat there until they finally told everyone to get off the bus. Dont know why he sat there so long, but he did. It ended up being a blessing though, because as he was walking up to meeti with us, he was on the phone with a friend. When he got off he turned to us and said, "Im sorry. I just found out that one of my friends just died. He jumped in front of the train to kill himself." Interesting way to start a lesson, but guess what lesson we had planed to teach him anyway! Erlösungs Plan!!!! We were kind of worried to teach it to him because he really tears appart what we say. Not in a mean way, just in a I want to make sure Im understanding it right way. We were worried we would have to get into so deeper doctrin that we dont know. But the whole time he just kept saying, "Really?! Thats the best news I have ever heard!!!!" It was just so cool! He was going to come to church yesterday, but he slept through his alarm so it didnt happen. He felt really bad. Hopefully next week!

This week we also ran into a guy who thought he was Jesus. The first time wasnt too bad because we were with the Elders and Elder Sollis just talked to him until he finally left. The second time it was just me and Sister Watkins, but that time he wasnt so set on convincing us he was Christ. He did ask me to marry him though..... Luckily we had an appointment to get to. 

This week we saw the magic of the Buch Mormon again! I love seeing how powerful it is! We gave one to this guy named Wahid. He is Muslim. And super nice. We got his number and I was going to call him in a few days and the next day we get a text, " Hey this is Wahid the guy you gave that book to. Ive been reading it and would like some more information on it. Can we meet sometime?" MIRACLE! No one ever does that!!! It was so cool. Of course when we met with him it was really him telling us about the Muslim religion, but we have a return appointment with him so hopefully that goes somewhere. 

I think the only other awesome thing this week was that some girls thought I was from Bayern. I got on the bus and sat down and this group of like 13 year old girls just stared at me. It was slightly awkward. I could tell they were reading my name tag and the cover of the Buch Mormon, and when one of them whispered Mormon I decieded I should say something. I told them breifly about our church because contakting 13 year olds is weird then let them get back to whatever they were doing. After a while they all quiet again and started whispering to eachother. I figured it was about me. One of them finally asked if I was from Bayern. I then talked to them a little more because they were nice. Then they got off. I was so excited that I got asked about being from somewhere in Germany though!! The goal is always anywhere but America. Anything but an English speaking country is also good, But I got Germany! They were also only 13 and just knew I sounded funny so they picked some place random to ask about,  but still! I got Germany!

This week I have been studiying a lot about Charity. It is really a big part of everything we as members do. And especially as missionaries. I read a couple talkes this week and one was by Elder M Russel Ballard. I remember him giving the talk. He talked about Bees. It is called Anxiously Engaged. It just talked about us being so focused on serving others that that is all we think about. I liked what he said at the end. "It is my humble prayer, brothers and sisters, that we sill ask in our daily prayers for the inspiration to find someone for whom we can provide some meaningful service, including the service of sharing the gospel truths and our testimonies." I thought that was so cool. Missionary work really is missionary service. We SERVE missions. One of the greatest acts of love and service we can give to someone is to show them the gospel. Even when they are not nice back about it. I dont think I have even been treated more like dirt or an unwanted pest in my life! I just smile at some one sometimes and I get a glare like "dont you dare try to talk to me" But when I just smile back and not worry about it, or go out of my comfort zone to talk to someone who didnt glare at me first, that is when I am truely serving my mission. That is when I am really helping the people here in Germany. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Dont melt in the Arizona heat too much. It may have only been really cold Saterday, but i wont rub it in. :) Ich liebe dich!

Liebe 

Sister Carroll

P.S. Athi likes us again. She isnt mad at me any more. And she came to church yesterday, so we are making progress. Her family still being not nice to her, but she is still awesome.  The Elders gave her a blessing last night. We are just loving her and trying to get her to stay in the church.  Just so you know that she doesnt hate me anymore. 

Cool building on the way back from Köln

Our Secret Garden!

Us in the Secret Garten

The castle to our secret Garten

Me and Sister Watkins with Inga. She is a way cool JAE (ysa) in our ward. She actually is from Berlin and just finished for the semester, so she wont be back until Oktober. There goes our mitbei. (joint teach) Schade 

Ice Cream with Athi

 

This week was crazy

This week was crazy. I feel like after my mission I will be the most bipolar person in the world. I can go from being so happy and excited about everything to not wanting anything to do with people in about 15 seconds. 

I guess the main thing about this week was that Athi got mad at us. But then she was ok with us, just not with the church. Then I yelled at her for not comming to the church for a baptism and now she hates me. This is the cause of my bipolarness. I love Athi. Thats the hard part. You love the people, then when they use their agency, it is the most frustrating thing ever. 

Something awesome this week though was Laeticia. She is a lady I stopped on the street at the end of a street display like a month ago. I gave her a Buch Mormon and got her number. Then she went out of town and wouldnt answere her phone. We finally got a hold of her and set up a time to meet last Sunday. She even sent us her address so we could come to her place. She lives way far from Bonn. 40 min with the train! Köln is only 30 min with the train! But then again, Bonn is a really big area. We met with her last Sunday and learned that her native languare was actually French. She has really good German though. We left and were just so happy because she was just so open to everything. She is Catholic and pretty set on that, but at the same time she is really open to what we have to say. Then she was super excited to have us come back and we told her we would get a French Buch Mormon for her. The problem was that we were out of French. So we called the elders. But elders are elders and after asking for it 3 times they still forgot up to 30 min before the train left. We went to meet with her again and appologized for not having French. We did the Restoration and she thought is made perfect sence and was really interesting. Then we met with her again Saterday and she had already started reading the German Buch Mormon and gotten to 1 Nephi 4! We finally had a French for her, but we just asked her about what she thought abaout the Buch Mormon. She mentioned how she liked that Nephi had such a personal relationship with God (never caught that before. Being taught by investigators is the best!) Then I asked if she had prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is the word of God. She asked what we ment specifically by prayer. So we read Moroni 10:3-5 and talked about how the Holy Ghost testifies of truth like the Buch Mormon. After reading Moroni, she stopped and was like, "Wow. That is so cool. I feel so moved. I didnt know I could feel like this!" We talked more about prayer then had to go catch our train so we had her say the closing prayer. Normally she prays like she is used to for the Catholic church, but this time she surprised us and prayed like we talked about! At the end of the prayer she was wipping away tears! Oh why do trains only come once an hour!!!!!! It was such a cool spiritual lesson! We get to meet with her later this week. Hopefully all continues to go well!

Then also on Saterday, after our awesome meeting with Laeticia, we went to the church for a baptism. The elders had an investigator who is Muslim get baptised. He is the coolest guy ever! His family told him that if he got baptised and came back home, they would kill him. He told them he didnt care and got baptised trotzdem. He even wants to serve a mission! The spirit was so strong at the baptism. The only problem was that I felt terrible. None of our investigators showed up and I had just yelled at Athi. I think it would have been a million times better if I hadnt had been so angry with Athi. 

Thats something I have really learned this week. Maybe even just this weekend. How much your attitude affects how the spirit is with you. I was so excited when we went to go see Laeticia Saterday becasue 1) she is cool and 2) we had just ran into Gwen who we havent seen in forever. The spirit was so strong there. Then for the baptisem, I had just yelled at Athi and gotten really frustrated with one of our other investigators and was inwardly frustrated with one of the elders investigators, ( she is really cool and the elders lost thier phone so I had to call her to find her) The baptism was good, but not as good for me as it could have been. One of the fruits of the spirit is self control (Galater 5:4 or something like that. I have it written somewhere). When you can control how you feel,but still act in a loving way to people, that is when the spirit will be able to testify to them and they will feel bad for not listening. When I am angry, it doesnt work that way. Then it is me who feels bad for being angry. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Dont do anything doof to make the spirit leave you. Thats my goal this week :) Dont die in the heat! Ich liebe euch

Liebe 

Sister Carroll

Cool tan lines from my shoes. When it is sunny here, it is really sunny. I like it better when it is cloudy.

Me and Schwester Li. She invites us over for dinner sometimes. She is really funny. there is no way to describe Sch Li.

We finally got Bücher Momon!!!!!!! We have had only one in our appartment for the last 2 weeks! Do you know how hard it is to contact without the Book of Mormon! Ich hatte keine Lust! Thats how hard!

This is French  Book of Mormons. This was funny becasue we had ordered them, but not gotten them for a while. Then we met Laeticia and the elders kept forgetting to give us the French they had. We finally got it the same day we got our order. We thought the whole box was French. It wasnt only like 10 were French. But it took so long for the elders to get us the one they had that we decided not to tell them that we got a bunch the same day. It was really funny. 

6 months!

Believe it or not, tomorrow marks 6 months on my mission! I don't
believe it. After to,or row I have no more repeats. Before this I new
I would do it again, like with Easter or with beginning summer. But
now I only have to one o everything. Next year I will be home. So
weird. Some days that sounds good. Other days it sounds scary. It is
just always weird.
This week was pretty good. I don't really remember the beginning of
the week. Thursday we had zone training in Düsseldorf. That was really
good. It was super spiritual and we just talked about the restoration.
We watched the Joseph smith movie and that just like pumped me up. It
was so good. Then everyone who is going home shared their testimonies.
That was also really good.
Then Friday we died. Friday we had no desire to do anything. Neither
did the elders. That was really funny. Not really. We just try to
forget it. You know it is a bad day when your conversation includes,
"I was thinking, when I go home....." Ya bad day.
But it is ok, because Saturday we repented and had a pretty good day!
We met this family from Ireland. The mom had no desire to talk to us.
They already have a "Mormon bible" at home. But the little girl who
was probably about 7 just was so excited to see us. She wanted a
"Mormon bible" so bad. Her mom really didn't want her to have it, but
she was basically digging through my bag to find an English one. Once
I pulled it out she ripped it from my hands! It was so cool! She was
so excited to take it home to show all her friends! She even had a way
cute accent!
Sunday we met with this way cool girl named Laticia. She lives pretty
far away, but she was so cool! She is catholic and pretty happy there,
but really open to what we had to say.
Today we went to Düsseldorf to play soccer with the elders. It was
fun. I don't think sister Watkins liked it as much as I did, but we
still had fun. Not really sure if I have any good pictures this week.
Sorry.
This week I was studying and can across the idea of praying with
integrity. Well integrity is one of those things that you just don't
really know what it is, so I decided to just see if I could come up
with a definition so I figure out what it meant to pray with
integrity. Sometimes when I want to define things I find how you would
say it in German then translate it back. Guess what the German word
for integrity is. I DONT KNOW THERES TOO MANY!!!!! Literally my whole
personal study. The one I like though was the one used in Job.
Lauterkeit. In he dictionary it means 'nothing but'. So nothing but
me. Nothing but the pure spirit inside of me. When I pray, am I
praying as me, or as who I think I am. Heavenly Father knows us for
us. We can't put a face on without him knowing it. So might as well
pray as us. I thought that was really cool.

Well I hope everyone has a wonderful week! This last week was pretty beautiful. Rain most days. It was cold on Thursday. I have heard this next week is supposed to be hot again, but I have no idea. Its raining today.

Ich liebe euch!!!!

Sister Carroll

Humidity Rant

I have learned something this week. Humidity is miserable. I can handle heat. I dont like it, but I can handle it. I have lived in Arizona long enough to know that. However, humidity is evil and I dont understand why anyone would want to deal with it. Especially without air conditioning. Lets just say, the last couple nights have been pretty miserable to sleep just becasue of how hot its been. Then you wake up just so sticky and all you were doing was laying there! I dont understand!!

Well now that that rant is over....

This week has been pretty good. I dont really know what we did. Oh I know! We had a split this week! I went to Duisberg with Sister Parker and Sister Heywood was here in Bonn with Sister Watkins. That day was really hot. It may have ended with ice cream. (Actually multiple days this week may have included Eis.) Sister Parker is a way cool missionary! It was so cool to spend the day with her! She was able to get this Russian lady to agree to take a Russian Buch Mormon. SHe was very against us, but by the end, Sister Parker was able to get her to let them come back. It was so cool!

This week we did some dooring in a nieghborhood with bigger houses this week. Ussually we avoid those neighborhoods because all those people are happy and dont want to learn more about Christ. But we did it anyway. We got 3 people to say we could come back another time! It was so cool! That hardly ever happens! Also this week the elders set 2 baptismal dates in 1 day! There is success to be found! The key is just finding it. It is so cool!

Yesterday me and Sister Watkins got SOAKED!! It was the best thing ever! Yesterday was super warm. They even made church only one hour because it was so warm. And it was fast sunday, so we were not super excited. We got a referal this week out a little farther from Bonn but we only had a street name not number. We decided just to door the whole street. We got there and it just started pouring! Then it started hailing! It was so cool! Then when it stopped it felt so good because we were wet and there was a little breeze. Then it wasnt so misereable. We never found the refural. Actually, we think we did, but she just pretended that she didnt know us. Yep, that was fun....

This week I have been studying more about humility. However, I realyized something. Humility has a secondary aspect that is not mentioned in PMG. Actually, all the Christlike attributes have a secondary aspect that is not even mentioned in PMG! I was reading a talk by Pres Uchdorf about humility and he said, "Gratitude is the catylist for all Christ like attributes" Interesting right? I read that and was like, I want to study gratitude! Then I realized that it is not in PMG. I had to study it by myself. What I did learn though was that if you want to be humble, you have to be grateful. There is no way to be humble and ingrateful. It was so interesting. 

I also finished the Book of Mormon this morning. It is always so interesting to finish it. It is amazing everything that I have learned about how powerful the Book of Mormon is. It really is so true and brings us so close to God. I love how at the end, Moroni basically said that he has warned us, so when we die and see that he was right we better hope that we have listened to him. I think the best part of finishing the Book of Mormon is that we get to start it all over again! The one thing is that I told myself that after I finished the Book of Mormon I was going to start with German next time...... I might finish it before the end of my mission. We will see.......

I hope everyone will have an awesome week! Enjoy airconditioning! I will enjoy the releife we get when it rains! 

Ich liebe euch!

Sister Carroll

Golfing last week

Me and sister Wakins hanging out in the shade

Elder Downs and Sauve being cool

I found a tree. Elder Sollis was being kind enough to push me out.

Don't have many of elder Petrus because he was taking the pictures,
but this one isn't bad

Here is Allegre, Rosy and Aimee. They didn't want to go home yet so we
took some pics

Just wanted to show you a wonderful example of the german grammer principle of genitive. We found this while dooring this week. No one was home. Schade.