Miracle Week

Oh my goodness! This week has just been so amazing!!!! First it was wonderful to see you all yesterday! That was just so much fun. I wish we could do it more often. Also Mom, happy Mothers Day because I forgot to tell you yesterday. I was just too excited to see you. Also wanted to share our scripture of the week for last week. This week we have been sharing Alma 17:10. I love it so much because it is just so simple. Gott sagte seid getrost und sie waren getrost. Simple as that. God said to be comforted and they were. God can help us out with so much and he will. He tells us all the time to not fear or to be comforted. That is a comandment! Dont fear. Be comforted. He wants us to listen to Him because He knows what is best for us. It is just such a simple scripture that can be used for so much!

Now on to the miracles this week. Really, when I think back to the beginning of this week, it was miserable. I was really struggling at the beginning of this week. Monday night, I just wanted my family. Tuesday I really didnt want to do missionary work. Wednesday morning I didnt want to talk to anyone. I was really struggling. But I kept going. Both me and Sister Bunderson kept going. That whole endure to the end thing was really the beginning of this week. But, Heavenly Father still helped us out. He loves us so much that even when we are struggling to do what He wants, He still blesses us. He might even bless us more then than normal. That or we were just looking for it this week. Both valid possibilities. So Tuesday afternoon we wanted to go by on a less active in our ward, so we put his address in the navi and were about to look at how to get there when it ran out of battery. We had nothing else to do and we knew that at least this guy lived in Auerburg so we got on the strassenbahn and rode it to the end. Then we got off and just planned on asking for help, but no one was around. We decided to turn left and just start walking. Then Sister Bunderson felt to turn left again. Next thing we know, we are on the street we were looking for! It was just so cool!

Then Wednesday, we wanted to meet with this new investigator Phillip. We set up a time in the morning, but something came up last minute and he had to cancel. Later that night, EVERYTHING fell out. We were literally standing in Bonn staring at eachother going, " well now what" when we decieded to call Phillip. He was able to meet and the lesson went so well!!! 

Then Thursday we met with a guy named Simon. This is probably the coolest story of the week! So like 2 months ago, Sister Bunderson found Simon on a potential list from 2010. She decided to call him, but he was going out of town and he said to call back at the end of April. We called him this last week and set up a time to meet. Now forget about Simon for a minute. Two weeks ago we wanted to go by on another less active, but when we got to the building, we couldnt find thier name on the klingle. Somehow we got into the building and ended up dooring basically the whole building to try to find this family. In the process, we found an appartment that had a broken klingle with wires sticking out. We thought it was funny, and two little girls answered. We asked about the family we were looking for then asked if we could come back to share a message with them later. They were super nice and told us definantly to come back. We went back a few days later and they didnt answere, but we left a Buch Mormon on their doorstep. Now back to Simon. Set up this appointment. Got his address. Decided just to teach him in the doorway because he wanted us to come to his home. Found out that it was the building we had doored all the homes in and laughed. When we found his appartment we just about died. It was the broken klingle home!!!!! Not only that, but his whole family was home. Him, his wife and all 7 of his children!!!! We still cant say thanks enough in our prayers. And they are so open and accept all we say. They are just so cool!

Friday we had zone training and I broke a board in half. That was super cool. I definantly didnt think I could, but I actually did. It was a way good zone training and we had so much fun.

Yesterday we went to drop off a French Buch Mormon to Simon, because he speaks French better than German and including him we gave out 3 Book of Mormons in less than an hour! We are running low on supplies! It is just so cool. We also taught a lesson in English/German/French/Arabic yesterday afternoon. That was really interesting, but the guys were super interested and we have a return appointment for tomorrow. Better work on my Arabic! :)

Today for Pday we are going hiking. I will send pictures next week. We had to email early today so that we can go hiking with the member in our ward. I think it will be really fun.

I think that is basically everything for this week. It was just so good. It is amazing how when you look for Gods hand, you see it everywhere. Just like in a week full of tiny miracles. Have a good week! Make it a miracle week!

Liebe

Sister Carroll

cool guy playing the piano in Köln 

Pretty sunset friday night at like 8:30 at night. Sister Bunderson didnt have her camera with her so she used mine. Bonus: I have a really pretty picture on my camera. 

This is our pile of dishes this morning. I was very proud of this tower.This is what happens when you have to shower down the street and therefore have no time at night to wash the dishes. It takes about 45 min to clean the kitchen on pday. But on the plus side, you can build a cool tower of wet dishes. Hopefully they will dry :)

Happy Star Wars Day!

Happy Star Wars Day! Yep I didnt forget dont worry. This week has been so weird. There is this weird holiday here called Erste Mai or May Day. Apparently it is similar to labor day only there are these weird trees everywhere and the day Saterday there was about a million people in Bonn. It was crazy! We tried to go contacting and we just found a bunch of grumpy people. It made it slightly difficult. 

I dont know if there is any specific cool thing we did this week. This week was just way cool. We have so many days where our plans fell out but everything ended up working out better. Friday we were able to have contact with a less active simply because we went by on her earlier than we had planned which was cool. 

Oh I do have a funny story! So we got on this really crowed bus and this guy sitting across from me saw my name tag. He then proceeded to talk to me about something. Im still not quite sure what. He just kept talking forever. I even told him I didnt understand him and he just talked louder. Basically Sister Bunderson was sitting next to me lauging at me and the guy across from her was laughing as well. Now fast forward a few days and we ran into the guy who was laughing with Sister Bunderson! He asked us out to drinks. Of course we told him no but invited him to church. He also assumed we were Russian. Not sure why. After we invited him we didnt think too much of it. We invite a lot of people. Then at church yesterday we had just commented on how neither us nor the elders had investigators in church. As we were sitting in Sunday school, in walks Tofig, the guy who laughed at me. We were so surprised. He also had flowers he had picked on his way for Sister Bunderson. ( the elders might end up teaching him). He also had no interest in talking to me the whole time. I think he thinks that I cant speak German. He's not that wrong so.... 

This week the scripture we have been sharing is 1Ne 7:17 which is a really cool scripture when you actually think about it. It is the prayer Nephi says after his brothers tie him up. What is so cool is that he doesnt ask for God to take away the ropes. He askes for God to give him strenghth so he can work through it himself. Just thought that was cool!

Have an awesome week everyone! I love you! May the force be with you!!!!!

Liebe 

Sister Carroll

May Day tree. Apparently the boys put this outside thier girlfriends door for the whole month of May

Today we went to Aachen and hung out with Elder Thompson and Hinchman. We saw the Dome there and it is way cool! I think I like it better than the Köln one!

This is inside the dome. Those are all little individual tiles. It is so cool! I have so many pictures I just cant decide which to send!

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.

So I have a million pictures from the Kölner Dome today. Ask for all of them in 18 months. Ill just send some of the way cool ones. 

windows

floor

bakery where we got the really yummy pretzle things. They are hanging at the top. 

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.

Köln Cathedral

I've been meaning all week to post these pictures we got from our Secret Agent on Facebook.  She met the missionaries at the Cathedral because she heard they were going and took pictures.  I thought they were so fun.

Sister Nowak - our Secret Agent

Heading into climb the cathedral

Heading down into the cathedral before heading up the stairs.

All the Missionaries before they climbed the cathedral.  Erin's in the front, Mikayla Heywood is in the back by Erin's companion.

View of the Rhein from half-way up - one way.

View of the Rhein River from half-way up - other way.

Sister Carroll and her companion, Sister Bunderson.

Missionsarbeit macht Spaß!

Missionary work is so fun! This week we decided just to make missionary work fun. Sister Bunderson made cookies this last week to take to people and that is exactly what we did. Monday night we had about 30-40 min before we had to be home and we decided that a brother in our ward needed cookies and a spiritual thought. We were in town so in a race against the clock, we went home, frosted cookies, looked up his address, found his appartment, shared a spiritual thought in the doorway since we couldnt go in and got back home and we were only like 10 min after 9! It was awesome!

Also this week, Sister Bunderson decided to stop eating sugar. The only problem is that every week we visit an older member ,Schwester Jäkel, who cant come to church any more. She always makes us eat a whole thing of cookies. Sister Bunderson didnt want to eat the cookies, but she didnt want me to have to eat all of them and if we dont eat them Schwester Jäkel makes us eat them so Sister Bunderson would pretend to eat them then throw them in her bag! Schwester Jäkel didnt even notice!! I was trying so hard not to laugh!

Today I climbed the Kölner Dome. It is really tall! I was doing ok with heights then everyone got ahead of me and I got left alone. Then Sister Bunderson, Sister Parker and Sister Heywood came and found me. It is really cool. You go up then you can walk around the outside. I´ll have to do it another time because I just went up and then Sister Bunderson didnt want me to freak out again so I didnt go all the way around. I think I could probably do it if I went slow. It was way cool though! And the weather today is so nice. And I got to wear pants!!!! Really thats all that matters is the pants. I think it could be a terrible p-day, but if we get to wear pants its the best day ever!

It is so pretty here right now. Did you know there is this thing called spring when all the flowers bloom and the weather is nice and it isnt hot? I have discovered this time of year and it is really pretty in Germany. All the cherry trees in Alt Stat are blooming and my pictures dont even look that good! The streets are just lined with pink trees! It is so cool!

Cool story for the week! So a while ago, we met this girl named Bonciana. She speaks English like everyone else we talk to (eventually I will have to learn German) She was really interested, but everytime we tried to set up an appointment with her she said she was too busy. We kind of forgot about her until like last week when we ran into her on a bus. Turns out she really was just way busy. She works 2 jobs and goes to school. We tried again to meet with her but nothing worked. Then we ran into her again on a bus! Then we set up a time to meet finally this week, but we were so busy we had to cancel to catch a bus. On our way to the bus we ran into her again! Then the next day we ran into her again on the street! We just laugh now every time we see her! It is so funny. And we know it is supposed to happen, because every time we run into her, it is because Sister Bunderson decides to take a different road, or we really prayerfully selected an area we needed to be in to visit people. It is so cool! We will hopefully meet with her this week and actually have a lesson with her. She is way nice. 

Have an awesome week everyone! Ich liebe euch! 

Liebe

Sister Carroll

PS on my email: Also forgot in the big email but I found starr in my dictionary! It means stiff or rigid. so...... 

Temple pic from a while ago but Im just now getting it to you. Sorry

Awesome Ostern package from the best Familie in the world! It was much appreciated. The CDs are playing constantly when we are not studying or planning. 

really pretty night. I bet you cant guess that we got rained on :) Suprisingly we get rained on a lot, but  I have only been dripping wet once so....

our guinea pig friends!!! 

I forgot to tell you! We hung out with Frauke last week for P-day! We went to the history museum in Bonn. It was a way cool museum! Frauke doesnt know I took this picture though. (Hehe) She was pretending to be in charge of Germany or something like that. I was just being annoying. So nomal stuff right?

This is called spring. It exists in places other than Arizona. It is quite beautiful. 

in the dome

At the top of the Kölner Dome. It was really high. (sorry bad picture. I really didnt want to get any closer to the edge than I had to)

Frohe Ostern (Happy Easter!)

Wow its been so long! I have so many stories, but as I was finishing typing a wonderful letter, my email freaked out and made it disappear. And now I am short on time. Bummer. But I will try my best to still convey the best stories and in 18 months you can ask me about the others.

Basically me and Sister Bunderson have decided that we just need to learn how to speak ever language. We had one day last week where we taught 5 lessons all in a different language. We had lunch at a members house in German. Then we watched the Restoration in Chinese with a less active. Then we had an English new investigator. Then we had dinner at a Spanish members house with Sebastian, an investigator. Then we missed our lesson with a French new investigator which ended up being ok because when we met with him the next day we ended up running out of the appointment to "catch a train" since he just kept asking when he could meet with Sister Bunderson without me. It was a really awkward lesson and we laugh about it often.

The temple was amazing! I did the whole session in German. The repetition really helps with trying to understand it. Everyone at the temple was so nice. They all were so excited to see missionaries. Everyone stopped to say hi to us. Then we went and got scripture cases for our German scriptures. Sch Nowak commented on how she had heard about Deseret Book in Utah and she thought it was so cool. I had never thought of Deseret Book as a blessing before! Sch Nowak is so wonderful! she got us lunch and is just so kind to us.

This last week we had Zone Training and me and Sister Bunderson gave a Theme, or lesson thing, on how the Buch Mormon testifies of Christ. Then we saw the power of the Buch Mormon is a lesson with a new investigator Titus. It was the second time we had net with him and he told us in the lesson that after the first lesson he had decided to just not show up to the second one we had planned. He said he liked us, but not what we had to say. Then he told us how he read in the Buch Mormon and decided to give us another try. It was so cool!!!!

Also General Conference weekend! How awesome was that! It is so weird watching in here. The first session doesnt start until 6 at night. So Saterday we watched the first session and sunday we watched the womens conference, the second saterday session and most of the first sunday session. The internet then decided to not like us and we missed Elder Hollands talk. We will finish the last session hopefully tomorrow. It was so good though! And I watched most of the sessions in English so I understood it too!

Then we come to the highlight of our week. The part of our week that we have been discussing every 20 min. We had transfer calls Saterday morning. During transfer calls, President shared a few thoughts and announcments. One was about Elder Bednar. We have known for a while that Elder Bednar would be comming to our mission to speak on the 24 of April. This was no surprise. The surprise came when we were told the topic of his conference: Technology through missionary work. Yes we are getting iPads!!! Its official! After the conference on April 24 we will walk away with an iPad and be able to use it in our lessons! Thats in 18 days in case you were wondering. (we may or may not have a count down that we refer to every 20 min.) Do you understand how wonderful this is? When we have lessons in 5 different languages, we only need one thing, the ipad, not 3 different books so we can teach. I will be able to have English an dGerman scriptures all the time!

Oh almost forgot the other highlight of our week. Not quite as awsome, but still way fun. We had a service project this week! A member in our ward was going out of town and they have guinea pigs that needed to be fed. So we fed guinea pigs this weekend! It was so awesome. We got a pet for the weekend! They didnt like us but I was still able to hold one once. Oh and they are famous. Check out whose guinea pigs we fed. mormon.org/patrick His name is Patrick Merl and if the website doesnt work you can just search for him. 

So I dont really have time for more awesome stories, or pictures, but It was a way good week! Have a good week at home! Ich liebe dich! Dont forget to share the awesome new video with people #weilerlebt

Liebe

Sister Carroll

She surprised me with a few pictures of when they went to the Temple:

Not sure, but it's beautiful! 

Frankfurt Temple

I'm sure this one was to get the flowers in - she LOVES taking pictures of flowers.

Sister Nowak, who took them to the Temple, also sent me some pictures with this letter:

We started early in the morning to Frankfurt Tempel and after a short time on the motorway I had four deep sleeping Sisters in

my car  That was a really funny to see and I was so sad that it wasn't possible to shot a picture because I was the driver.

It was really busy on the way - Friday and Easter school holidays starts. But we were on time in the tempel.

 

All Sisters listen the Endowment in German (!!!) how wonderful ! I was very touched to sit with four Missionary Sisters in one row.

What an honor for me! The Tempel Missionary prayed for all the victims of the plane crash and that touched me too.

 

After the session we were sitting in Celestial Room together and than I showed them the Tempel. They loved it to see.

Than we walked around the Tempel area but the weather wasn't very nice and so we start on the way back.

 

After the half way we stopped at Subway and had a nice meal together and than we were at time in Leverkusen.

 

It was a wonderful time and I enjoy it soooo much. What for wonderful young women they are.

 

Have a great Easter time ...

Love,

Andrea

She LOVES Subway - I bet she was really happy!