SHE'S HOME!!!!!

Avoiding going to the Hotel in Frankfurt....Night before!

Sister Nielson

Secret Agent Schwester Nowak

On her way!!!

All our signs

Mom

Dad

Talin

Grandma Starr

Grandpa Starr

Ethan

Laura

Kelcie

Jamie

All back together!

Happy Girl!

Stake Map

Last sticker.....Mission Accomplished!

Dirndl form Bayern

She unpacked.....

Bis auf Wiedersehen

This week. This week was terrible. I think God was making me grateful
I am going home. We had nothing and what we did have fell out. Finals
start this week so everyone was studying last week.  Our week
consisted of a whole day of contacting with the elders, riding our
bikes up a giant hill, and walking around in the middle of nowhere for
2.5 hours because we were too lazy to go home and get our bikes.
Basically we were both very done with missionary work by Thursday.
But then everything got awesome! Friday we went to Nürnberg. There we
quazi had a district meeting, very kurz, but still happened. Then we
got together with the whole zone and did finding and a street display
all together. After finding and running into a million American
members, we went to the Mormon tabernacle choir concert! It was so
cool! It is amazing how good they sound. We didn't get to bet until
like 12 that night. I am still super tired.
Saturday we had a member appointment and we met with Gisela. Yesterday
was weird. Gisela came to church to say goodby. It made me cry. Then
we had another member appointment and met with Gisela again so she
could say goodby again.
It is so weird to think that I will not be in Germany much longer. It
makes me sad, but I am also so excited to see you all again. This week
I finished the Book of Mormon and was able to actually study my
scriptures because I wasn't reading super fast. I was reading the
introduction and thinking about faith and Beweis. I don't remember
where I read it, but somewhere I read something that brought me to the
conclusion that my faith and testimony is the Beweis that the Book of
Mormon is true and that God exists. Faith is so powerful and what is
so cool is that we can always deepen. It has been such a cool
experience to be forced to deepen my faith. Never have I questioned
what I believe more, but never before have I been more certain of what
I believe. God loves us. He has a plan. Christ is our brother and our
best friend.
Ich liebe euch! Wir sehen uns bald!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

A picture sent to me of the missionaries in Nürnberg by a spouse of a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Cool motorcycle at the street display

Motab! Don't worry. We were the very last row on the balcony. But it was still a way good seat.

Christus ist mein Herr

This week was good. It was super hot for a few days and by super hot I
mean the sun was shining and it was humid. But we made good use of
Eis.
This week was super cool. I'm not quite sure how, but it was.
Literally everything fell out this week. And yet we still had some
really good appointments, aber this next week will be interesting .
Most of our appointments last week were really good,  it ended in our
investigator telling us to wait until after exams or that they would
be moving or going to the Klinik to overcome addictions. So basically
everyone can't meet this next week. :( Except Wassam! He is usually
able to meet everyday. In fact he called us this last week to meet. We
did move his date to the 16 of July though, because he was stressing
way too much and not listening to what we were trying to teach him. He
is also working on not smoking. But he is still pretty excited about
it. He beat us to church yesterday. Eigentlich, he was the first
person at the church.
Yesterday sacrament meeting was amazing! It was super spiritual. It
was all about Jesus Christ. But before I talk about that I guess I
have to mention the fact that Saturday night at 8.30 I got a call from
the branch president asking if his counselor had already spoken to me.
Guess who got to give a talk in sacrament meeting!? Despite the
randomness of my talk and the last minute planning, sacrament meeting
was still super good. We sang, Christus ist mein Herr. I love the
words to it! It is just so powerful to sing. I even read through the
words again I okay in English and in German, and they are different in
some parts and I love both for different reasons.
1. Christus ist mein Herr, mein König hehr.
Ich sing mein Lied zu seiner Ehr,
ich heb die Stimm mit Preis und Dank,
will loben ihn mein Leben lang.
Christus ist mein Herr, des Höchsten Sohn.
Zur Erd er kam, daß hier er wohn;
heilt´ Kranke, weckte Tote auf,
ich preise seines Lebens Lauf.

2. Christus ist mein Herr: Er überwand,
hielt aller Pein und Marter stand;
er trank den bittren Kelch allein,
die Welt von Sünde zu befrein.
Christus ist mein Herr: Er weist den Pfad,
der Vater ihn verherrlicht hat.
„Folgt mir“, ruft er uns Menschen zu,
„mein Joch ist sanft, kommt, findet Ruh.“

3. Christus ist mein Herr, mein treuer Gott,
mein Fels ist er, mein Lebensbrot.
Ich liebe ihn von ganzer Seel,
er ist das Licht, der Wahrheitsquell.
Christus ist mein Herr, mein Heiland groß,
aus Satans Griff macht er mich los,
damit voll Freud und Liebe ich
bei ihm kann leben ewiglich.

4. Christus ist mein Herr, mein Heil, mein Schild,
mein Sehnen wird durch ihn gestillt.
Noch da ich ring mit Schmerz und Pein,
hör ich ihn sagen: „Du bist mein!“
Christus ist mein Herr! Nun komm, was mag;
bei ihm ich steh am großen Tag,
wenn er erscheint in Herrlichkeit,
zu herrschen in Gerechtigkeit.

1. I believe in Christ; he is my King!
With all my heart to him I’ll sing;
I’ll raise my voice in praise and joy,
In grand amens my tongue employ.
I believe in Christ; he is God’s Son.
On earth to dwell his soul did come.
He healed the sick; the dead he raised.
Good works were his; his name be praised.

2. I believe in Christ; oh blessed name!
As Mary’s Son he came to reign
’Mid mortal men, his earthly kin,
To save them from the woes of sin.
I believe in Christ, who marked the path,
Who did gain all his Father hath,
Who said to men: “Come, follow me,
That ye, my friends, with God may be.”

3. I believe in Christ--my Lord, my God!
My feet he plants on gospel sod.
I’ll worship him with all my might;
He is the source of truth and light.
I believe in Christ; he ransoms me.
From Satan’s grasp he sets me free,
And I shall live with joy and love
In his eternal courts above.

4. I believe in Christ; he stands supreme!
From him I’ll gain my fondest dream;
And while I strive through grief and pain,
His voice is heard: “Ye shall obtain.”
I believe in Christ; so come what may,
With him I’ll stand in that great day
When on this earth he comes again
To rule among the sons of men.

Jesus Christ is really absolutely amazing. Today I was studying faith.
We can have faith in a lot of things, but ONLY faith in Christ will
save us. I love the feeling you get as you can testify and say, I
believe in Christ. Christus ist mein Herr. Und ich Sister Carroll
werde den Christus nicht verleugnen. Moroni 1:3

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Bis bald!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

Gisela decided to go to the Klinik to stop smoking and drinking so I had to say goodby :)

This is part of one of the Arabic families we were working with. They don't have visas so we can't teach them :(

Pretty clouds over the Schloss

Christ's Love

This week was a week. It wasn't a good week. It wasn't a bad week. It
was just a week. I honestly can't really tell you what we did either.
We had a split. I was in Nürnberg for a day. Wassam still is excited
about getting baptized. He just doesn't want to stop smoking. We are
still working on him having the change of heart. We had a street
display this week in Coburg. That was fun. Afterwards we all got
spaghetti Eis and sister Peterson convinced us all to get the big one,
which consisted of 6 scoops of ice cream. So. Much. Eis. It was crazy.
We got fed Arabic food this week. The only problem with it was that
Wassam was supposed to be there to translate. After waiting an hour he
still wasn't there so we ate without him. Basically everything was
said through hand motions. Trying to answer a question about the three
witnesses with only hand motions did not work well. And I'm not even
positive I understood the question. I ended up just handing them
restoration pamphlets in Arabic and let them read for a while. It was
awkward.
This week we got to teach relief society. I'm pretty sure that was the
most terrifying thing I have done my whole mission. Especially since
we planned it Sunday morning right before leaving to church. I'm
pretty sure God let time move a little faster during those 40 min. so
we had enough to fill the time. Winging a Thema in district meeting or
zone conference is much easier than winging one in relief society. We
read lots of scriptures. :)
It was cool though, because we were talking about bringing back the
lost sheep. As we were teaching the picture from the restoration
pamphlet came into mind. The one with Christ hugging the little lamb.
During call ins last night, the STLs asked about Christ's love. Again
this picture came to mind. I love that that picture is on the
restoration pamphlet. Christ loves us so much! The restoration is
evidence of that. I just finished 3 Nephi in both German and English.
Once you hit where Christ is speaking you can feel the change in love.
He has so much love for us. He just wants to give us a big hug and
hold us and never let us go, just like this lamb. All we have to do is
stop squirming. I just though was so cool.
Sorry this week was short. Nothing super exciting, but it was still
good and still Germany, so can't complain.
Ich liebe euch!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

Arabic food

I've decided to start packing.... Haha nur spaß! We needed to get the book of Mormons to the street display and suitcases have wheels. :)

Elder Hudson got abducted yesterday after church by some böse Knights. Haha

Craziness, Tiredness, and miracles

This week God was literally like, "Here, start drowning in miracles!"
So remember how last week I mentioned that we were meeting with a
random Arabic guy who had a friend call us? Well all day I just keep
having the feeling that it was a guy we had already met with before.
We finished emailing and headed to Bahnhof to wait for him. He finally
showed up and we totally had met with him before! It was Adil. Me and
sister Peterson contacted him one of our first few weeks here in
Coburg. He literally handed me his Ausweis so I could get all his
information. We met with him a few times, but he stopped showing up
and wouldn't come to church, so we gave up. Well turns out he was
actually interested and just forgot how to get to the church. So we
set up a time to meet in Tuesday to take him to the church.
Tuesday we wait for him in the stadt and when they finally show up it
was not only Adil and the translator, Wassam, but also a friend
Hussain. Just before we left to walk to the church, Wassam pulls a
family over and says, "They have some Christian beliefs, you will want
to meet with them. When do you have time?" So we set up an appointment
for Wednesday and went to the church. When we got ere, we sat down and
Wassam are told us that  Adil was only Muslim because he grew up in
Iraq, but wanted to be Christian and wanted to know how to do it. So
we set a baptismal date for all three for the 2. July. Then we did a
church tour to show them the font, and at the end we checked to make
sure they understood what they had committed themselves to and we
said, "So is that ok if we work for the 2. July for all three of you?"
Wassam answered, "Three of us? There will be five! We have 2 more
friends." So that was miracle number one.
Then we left that appointment and went contacting on the fuß. As we
were walking we found this family from Slovak who I had met in Bamberg
about a month ago. I got their number to give as a referral and I gave
them a Buch Mormon. Well this time we found them in Coburg. Found out
they really don't have a place they live permanently. But they loved
the Buch Mormon and always had it with them and read every day from
it. We had 30 min before an appointment, so we ran home and picked up
another Slovak book and some pamphlets. Then we got on our bikes and
speed pedaled back to the stadt to give them the stuff. Unterwegs we
got stopped by some weird Buddist guy wearing a bed sheet as a shirt
and our phone was ringing every 30 seconds. We finally made it to our
appointment right on time. The appointment only lasted 15 min because.
He had to catch his train, but he wants to come to church. That was
tiring.
Wednesday the craziness just continued. So we met with that family
Wassam introduced us to. They were nice, but only speak Kurdisch. On
our way out, this other guy comes running out and Wassam was like, "oh
ja, they also speak Arabic. They want you to come over too. When do
you have time?" So we set an appointment for Friday.
Thursday we had zone konference in Nürnberg. We left Coburg at 7:12,
because the tech elders bought our tickets. That would not been the
train we would have picked, but we didn't have to buy the ticket, so
we were ok. Zone conference was really good. Then I had an interview
with president. Our train finally pulled into Coburg at 9:30. My brain
was so dead.
Friday we met with this other Arabic family. They are very Muslim.
This week I learned the power of referrals, because this family would
not have listened to us if we had stopped them on the street. We
wouldn't have stopped them on the street most likely. But they were so
respectful and willing to listen, because Wassam wants them to learn
about Christianity.
Saturday we were supposed to meet with Adil, Wassam, and Hussain
again, but no one showed up. When we called Wassam to see what was up
we got the text back, " I teake shaur " we gave up on waiting. Then we
weeded in Familie Wunderlich's garden. And had peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches, because Bruder Wunderlich got us basically the biggest
thing of peanut butter in the world. Then we had summer fest and Adil
showed up! We totally did not tell him about it, but he came! He needs
to learn how to read time.
Sunday Wassam came to church and smoked right in front of the church
so we had to tell him to go across the street. He came back in and
freaked out at us about the whole we don't smoke thing. We instantly
taught word of wisdom. He was having trouble accepting it so I told
him to ask God if it really did come from him. He told me he didn't
need to ask God if he should follow it or not. If I comes from God you
just do it. He is now following the word of wisdom as far as we know.
Wow that was lots sorry. But just so much! Today sister Peterson went
shopping. I read like 4.5 chapters in the Book of Mormon. I have
really just grown such a love for the Buch Mormon! It is so fun to
read. Not even the stories or the words, but simply e feeling I have
while reading it. It is so much fun! I love the Book of Mormon!
I hope you all have a good week! See miracles, but be careful what you
wish for, God tends to answer prayers in big ways sometimes :)
Ich liebe euch!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

MTC district plus elder Butler. 

Sister Peterson attempting to make some sort of dessert last night. (notice the peanut butter)

One Month!

This week was really fast. This week started with Nadir calling and
asking him to come to his bible study group he attends. So of course
we went! It was actually really good. Much better than what happened
last time I went to a bible study. It was just really hard. It makes
me so sad to see people who are honestly trying so hard to follow
Christ and really they are doing such a good job. There are just more
blessings they can get. But they are happy and it is hard to get them
to think that they need much more.
Other than that nothing super special happened. We have been having
fun with our Arabic friends. We actually got called today by someone
who had a translator on the phone who wanted to set up a time to meet
with us and learn more. It is truly amazing to see these Arabic people
who are prepared through the simple fact that they don't understand
what we tell them on the street so they want to meet to learn more
because their curiosity  it's kills them.
We had a street display in Bamberg again is week. It rained the whole
time. I got soaked. But a member came by and gave us chocolate so it
was good.
Today was spent cleaning. President decided we needed a mission wide
cleaning day, so we all cleaned today. The problem is that right now
our apartment looks worse than it did when we started, because I moved
the couch to sweep and mop under it. Then we looked at the apartment
and decided it would be super cool to move every piece of furniture to
a new spot except the couch. Rite now my bed is covered with book of
Mormons and my desk is a disaster. And we are supposed to send before
and after pictures to president of what we did today. Oops.
Other than lots of rain, nothing this week was super out of the
ordinary. Sister Peterson did whip me with her sweater yesterday. Her
question after she does these things is always, "oh does that hurt?"
So I think you could say that we get along pretty well.
This week I was supposed to be studying German, but I didn't feel like
being a missionary and decided to just randomly read through parts in
my German bibel. Sure why not. But I read in 1  Timotheus 1:5 Das Ziel
der Unterweisung ist Liebe aus reinem Herzen, gutem Gewissen und
ungeheucheltem Glauben
In English 5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure
heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:
Except I like it so much better in German. In German it says that the
goal of teaching is love. We teach, and the goal behind teaching is to
not only develop the love for who we are teaching but also to share
that love with them. And through our love we will teach.
Ich liebe euch! Viel Spaß diese Woche!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

Bibel study

Us with Sadam

Our street display. Sister Peterson was having umbrella problems. I'm short.

Us cleaning. we were able to leave the apartment so it looks better than that, but not by much.

Missionary life

This week was good. A little crazy and strange, but that's normal for
missionary life so....
This week was the week of the birthdays. Tuesday was literally spent
birthday party hopping. A member had a birthday on Monday so we were
supposed to stop by if we had time. Well..... We ended up getting
stuck in Bamberg last Monday until about 7:30. We were running to
Bahnhof to catch the bus and elder Hudson ran across the street and
thought it was a one way street so he only looked one way. Well, it
was not a one way street. Basically long story short, we missed our
bus and learned how to call the police in German. But everyone is ok.
No one died and elder Hudson only has a bruised shoulder. But because
of Monday we went by this member on Tuesday. After meeting with her
we went to go by on an investigators party. Except his was literally a
party and we were so out of place. Pretty sure we were the youngest
people there and it was super awkward. Tender Mercy: sister Peterson
wasn't feeling well right before we got to the party so we had an
excuse to only be there for a little then say goodby.

In other exciting news this week, we had a super awesome lesson with
Gisela this week! We met in the church and had a member there because
she wanted a priesthood blessing. Basically the member taught her
everything, committed her to read the Book of Mormon, committed her to
come to church, and told her she needed to think nicer thoughts about
herself. It was an awesome lesson and we didn't really have to do
anything! Then we totally priced her up for church on Sunday! We got
to church and she told us to go in first because she needed to make
some phone calls. So she walked in late. Then she didn't want to sit
next to us. Then during the sacrament we look out the window and she
had left! But we saw her just go sit on the rock she was on before so
we figured she was just on the phone again. About 5 min later we see
her get up and head towards home. I poked sister Peterson and ran out
of sacrament meeting expecting her to follow me. I get outside and
down the street before I realize that I have no companion. Luckily
Gisela walks slow and sister Peterson was pretty quick to catch up. We
were able to convince Gisela to stay and just sit in the foyer. We
were good examples this week in church. We spent the whole time in the
hall. Oops. But Gisela stayed!

Funny awkward story of the week: after our awesome appointment with
Gisela we had to run to catch a bus because it was a little longer
than we expected. There is this less active who the elders work with
named Jürgen. He has special needs and wasn't allowed to know that
sisters were back in Coburg until he saw us leave the church last
week. He now has an obsession with us. We try to keep all
conversations short. As we were running to catch the bus we saw
Jürgen! I felt really bad that we had to run and not stop to say hi,
but at the same time was grateful for the tender mercy. I said sorry
and tschüss pretty quick then realized that an even bigger tender
mercy came out of us having to run for the bus. Jürgen was using the
fence he was standing next to as a public toilet. Thank goodness we
had to catch a bus!

Miracle of the week comes from walking home one evening. We were
getting a little closer and this old Oma who always says hi and does a
cool handshake with us saw us. There was this guy walking his bike
next to us and when I saw her comming I was afraid it would put us in
an awkward situation with this guy, but I had a very distinct feeling
that it was a blessing that we were seeing this Oma. So we said hi,
did our handshake and moved on. The guy with the bike was now in from
of us and he had stopped and was waiting for us. He asked us what we
were doing. Within 10 seconds he had a Book of Mormon and we had his
contact info. We then just gave him the opportunity to ask us
questions and we had a super good conversation for like 15 min! It was
so cool! We are super excited to meet with him later.

This week I have been reading a lot in the war chapters in Alma in
both English and German. In both I am right next to each other. The
war chapters are so interesting. You go from having a really spiritual
learning from the chapters where alma teaches his sons to war. But
what has been cool to see us how much the gospel is still in the war
chapters. As I have been reading in German, I have been circling any
time something from the gospel of Jesus Christ has been mentioned:
glaube Umkehr Taufe Geist bis ans Ende ausharren. The are all over the
place. But what is really cool is how much Glauben is used in the
wars. How much faith captain Moroni has and how much faith the nephite
a have as they go into battle. It is really a testimony of how our
faith can help us with all we do.

Sorry for the long email again! Sometimes I have lots to write and
sometimes not! Ich liebe euch!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

I found Toby!!!!!! Only he had a long tail and the owner was not super excited to hear about Jesus Christ. Haha

We found a snake! At first I thought it was just a big worm, but it was totally a snake! Except it moved really weird, like it didn't know how to be a snake or something. 

Oh elders... Although the quote of the week came when we brought cookies to district meeting and elder Rowe said, " I can't I'm allergic to delicious. I'll break out in fat." He still ended up eating 2 cookies. In fact, he is the one standing up. :)

Fall out....

This week was really good and really weird. This week literally
everything fell out. I feel like I say that a lot, but this time I
mean it. If all the appointments happened this week that were supposed
to have, we would have had like 15 appointments this week. But that
didn't happen. And yet somehow we were always busy and still have
ended up with pretty normal numbers. It was cool to see how God was
willing to help us achieve our goals even though he let everything
fall out. He just filled out time with things we were not expecting.
Exciting things that happened this week was that at one point or
another, we all almost died. This week we all, elders included,
decided to try out the bikes. The elders wanted to go by on someone
pretty far so they called and asked to borrow our bikes since they
don't have any. We gave them the keys and let them have an adventure.
When we met up later to get the keys back, they told us how they got
lost and rode into a swamp that was surrounded by plants that hurt
when you touch them. Well the next day we had everything fall out and
decided not only to contact a referral, but to ride our bikes there.
It should have been a really easy ride, and it was except the path we
took took us up a giant hill and into a forest. Bikes fell over
multiple times. Sister Peterson fell over multiple times. Needless to
say it took us like an hour and a half to get there and 15 minutes to
get back. On the way back it was so much fun! I was like flying down
the hill! I was going so fast. But the bottom of the hill turned, so I
had to turn. I skidded all over the place and was positive I was going
to crash super good. I was prepared to crash in the grass, but by some
miracle I survived and was still standing by the end.
In other exciting dying stories this week, we had a street display in
Bamberg! That was actually really fun. The dying part was afterwards
when we were at the church. We had finished cleaning up and were
getting ready to leave and for some reason Sister Peterson was on the
floor. Elder Diederich had a pen and told sister Peterson to close
cover her eyes. For some unknown reason she did. And for some unknown
reason elder Diederich dropped his pen in the middle of her forehead
and now she has a little red dot. Where it hit. The death by pen
doesn't end there. Last night during call ins, I was writing out
memorized scriptures in German as a continuation of my sprach studium
and sister Peterson was talking on the other side of the room on the
phone. She was being annoying so I threw my pen at her, but not super
hard or in an attempt to hurt her, just to scare her. So she threw it
back. Only she threw it so much harder and a lot more exact. Let's
just say that we have gotten comp unity down and have matching red
marks on our foreheads, only hers is more in the middle and mine is
bigger. Luckily we didn't poke anyone's eye out.
Other than just messing around, we actually did some work and there
was some spiritualness to the week. I've learned a lot about
missionary work these last few weeks and I have become very grateful
for  how my mission started. That I learned at the beginning of my
mission that if I want things I make them happen. If I want people on
the street to give me numbers, I ask. If I want new investigators, I
meet with them. Things won't just fall into my lap. If I am working
hard, God blesses me with miracles like that, but if I just wait for
them to it won't. And that is not just for missionary work. When we want
to accomplish something, we need to work for it. Then God will step in
and make it work. With any goal, with any project we want to
accomplish we need to start on our knees and work it out with God and
then we need to get on our feet and work with God. Otherwise, it just
won't get accomplished like we want to.
Sorry for the long email! Too many crazy stories! I hope you all have
a wonderful week! Ich liebe euch!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

The start of our bike adventure

Sister Peterson falling off her bike

A killer lady bug. It was actually really nice, but it just looks evil.