Frohe Weihnachten!!!

This week has just been all over the place!
So last pday we emailed. Then our plan was to go to the Bochum
Weihnachtsmarkt, but we had found a cool very Christmas looking store
earlier in the week so we decided to stop there first. We walked in
and realized it was a thrift Flomarkt type store. At that point we
were all like ok 5 min reicht. We don't need to stay long. Then we
found some cool very German Christmas things that would normally cost
hundreds of euro at a Christmas Markt. We asked how much they cost.
€15 tops. Let's just say we did Bochum Weihnachtmarkt today. We walked
out of there with so many treasures and I only spent €20. It was so
cool!
This week we also had a split wi sister Terry. I say we because splits
this transfer were weird. Since there is a dritt for the STLs sister
Roderer and sister Johnson split with e sisters in Hamm while sister
Terry hung out with us. We finally found her Wednesday night and
finally made it home. We planed for Thursday only to have everything
fall out. We spent the whole day contacting and found all the people
who were not happy to be talked to. We attempted caroling with the
elders and again found only people who were angry with us. Then we
spent the last three hours trying to figure out how to meet up with
the other sisters and split back. It was crazy.
Saturday we finally went caroling again and this time found people who
actually liked it. It was way cool. All the old people sang with us.
We also found this guy who was so grateful. We sang for him and he
begged to give us money. Then we asked if we could sing something else
and what he would like us to sing. He requested stille Nacht heilige
Nacht. Which surprised all of us because you don't sing that song in
Germany except for in Christmas Eve. We sang it for him and he was so
touched. He was super grateful. It was awesome to see the spirit touch
him.
Today has been interesting. It started in an attempt to fix our
shower. See our bathtub hasn't been draining super good. We found some
drain cleaner in the closet, and after using a flashlight realized
that the drain was weird so we unscrewed the metal piece off the drain
and were able to clean out the drain really good. It was really cool
drain cleaner and fizzed and smoked really cool! We were so excited we
had fixed the shower! Later this morning we got a call from our
Hausmeister. Apparently the reason our drain was draining so good now
was because the water wasn't going through the drain, but instead
through the floor into the apartment under us...... So much for that
repair. Tomorrow they are coming to fix it. I guess when we unscrewed
the thing off the drain, we disconnected the pipe from the bathtub.
Oops.
This week is Christmas! I can't wait! Christmas is such an amazing
time of year. People just like talking about Christmas. For the most
part. It is so cool to see how Christ can just touch people so much!
Yesterday we met with this cool guy, Benedict. I think I told you
about him before. He has been really sick and is still sick, but he
let us just come to visit for a little. It was super cool because we
showed him the Christmas video and , well first off he commented one
the "fellow African sister", but then he talked about how God loves
all his children no matter where they are or who they are. I really
liked that idea that came from the children in the video. Make sure
you have seen the video. It doesn't count unless you have it
memorized! Nur Spaß. But me and sister Schuring defiantly quote it
while we are walking around.
I can't wait to talk to you on Friday! Bis gleich!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

Cool German Christmas thrift shop

And his is what happens when you spend all day there.....
The best part was that once the owners saw what we were doing they
brought out more cool hats and things to play with!

Zum Beispiel......

Our Christmas tree!!!!!!!

I found Arizona!!!!!!

I found a schnauzer!

Christmas!!!!!!!!

Check out what I got for 20€ last week!

Our adventure in repairing our bathtub.

Keuschheit

It's weird to think that's it's only been a week! This week was so
crazy. We had so many points where we were laughing so hard. I love it
when you can just find the joy in life. I love think the theme of this
week can be summed up as language barriers. That basically defines all
of our crazy stories. That and our theme of Keuschheit (chastity).
Awkward enough chastity has showed up more than we have wanted it to
this week. Some of the n correspondence with the language barriers,
others not. Ask me after the mission and I might be willing to share
all the stories from this week, but for now we will just share some of
them.
This week our chastity streak started with Andre. We taught him
Keuschheit at a members house. We had told the member before hand that
we would be teaching Keuschheit. He was so excited when we got to his
house. Normally they talk about police stories for ever then we start
our lesson, but he was super excited to start the lesson. It actually
ended up being a really cool lesson. The member had really thought
about what he wanted to say and he shared some really cool insights.
This week we also met some people who don't speak English. Our
investigator from Pakistan brought a friend to an appointment and then
set up a time for us to meet with this friend and another one. The
funny part is that the two friends we met with spoke to us in English.
But when we spoke English to them they didn't always understand it, so
they would translate our English for each other into English. It was
really funny. We had to speak very simply. " you phone? I call?number?
We go there? Family Germany? Family big? (Fill in country) hot?
Germany too much cold. Me house America. You Jesus? Me Jesus. Me talk
Jesus." That was a very interesting conversation. Afterwards me and
sister Schuring couldn't speak normal sentences to each other in
English or German!
We had a similar lesson with some men from India. We taught them
German and then told them about the Book of Mormon using lots of
pictures and very simple sentences. But we ended up with 6 new
investigators in one day! It was so cool!
We also met with the lady who works at the pizza place we go to every
week after district meeting. She is so nice. The funny part of that
lesson was that we had just had a way good conversation about God and
prayer. Then she wanted a picture with us so she asked the lady who
had been sitting at the table next to us the whole time to take a
picture for us. After she took the picture, she was like, " that was a
really good conversation. There is this cool website with the TRUTH
that I think you would like." She then proceeds to write down jw.org.
Me and sister Schuring just stared at each other. We then told the
lady that we were from our church and asked if she had heard of us.
She left pretty quick after she realized who we were. We laughed
pretty hard after that one.
Yesterday we had zone conference in Dortmund with elder Johnson of the
seventy.That's  why we have pday today. Last week my email got sent on
Tuesday because of internet problems again. It was really fun
yesterday. I got to see Sister Roderer! She is my new STL! It was so
awesome!
This week I listened to the face to face discussion with the piano guys.
It's on the gospel library under youth. It was super good. And it went
well with things I have been studying. In preparation for zone
conference we were asked to study the Christlike attributes in PMG.
One at really stumped me this time as I was studying was virtue. I
didn't know how I could develop virtue. Partially because I didn't
really understand what it was. What I understood was things related to
law of chastity (it just keeps coming back! :)). But really there is
more. In the face to face broadcast one of the guys talked about
virtue being having good thoughts. Ja klar. But he pointed out that
means thinking good things even about other people and especially
about yourself. When you start thinking things that are bringing you
down, like comparing yourself to others or telling yourself you aren't
good enough, you aren't being virtuous. That really made me think. Am
I being virtuous. Does virtue garnish my thoughts unceasingly? Or am I
bringing myself down? Am I have bad thoughts directed at myself? It
was a different way of looking at virtue and I really liked it. It was
a good reminder to be nice to myself. I like how the commandment is to
liebet eure Nächsten wie dich selbst (Love your neighbor as yourself).
 Das heißt, you need to treat yourself like you would treat others.
I hope you all have a wonderful week! ITS ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!!! Have a
fun time preparing for Christ! Ein Erretter ist geboren! Freut
euch!!!!!!!!
Ich liebe euch!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

No explication required.

This is Martina. She works at the pizza place. She is super cool!

These are the girls who had to translate what we said in English into
English for each other.

Zone conference! Just missing Sister Nielson to make our group complete!

This is what happens when I fall asleep for he last 5 min of studies.

This is from last week in Dortmund. Elder Taylor got transferred
though so he isn't in our Herne group anymore.

This is Elder Crossley. He replaced elder Taylor. He just got to
Germany. Can't you tell? :)

Christmas in Herne

This week was a pretty good week. We had transfers this week and me
and Sister Schuring are staying together! That means I get to have
Christmas here with the awesome members in Herne. It will be awesome!
This week we had some pretty fun adventures.
We learned how to call the police in Germany. That was an adventure.
We went to invite people to our ward Weihnachtsfest and a lady stopped
us and had us call the police for her. Apparently her Mann had just
hit her and ran off with her purse. Some girls helped us out and we
called the police and helped her find her Mann. So much for contacting
that night.
We also had a wWiehnachtsfeier! It was so much fun. A little weird,
but our phone didn't stop ringing the whole time! We had a whole bunch
of people show up. And most of them were invited by our investigators!
We had an Albanian table and an Indian table and a random African
table with guys that no one knew why they came, but we welcomed them
anyway. It was super fun! And stressful. But that's ok.
Yesterday after church we decided to go visit an investigator who
slept in and missed church. Her name is Sahitya and she is from India.
We got there and she had made us this huge meal! It was so good and
soooooooo much food. It made me think of Athi. She would have made us
similar food. What was funny though was that she gave us cola which
has caffeine in it and my body that has had caffeine a total of maybe
once thought that was interesting. Sitting still and focusing during
studies afterwards did not happen. :) there is a reason I don't drink
caffeine.
Also this week we set a baptismal date with Andre! He wants to read
the whole Book of Mormon first but he is already done with 2 Nephi and
who knows, maybe Jacob by now. He is way cool and really wants to make
sure he is done no the right thing. He asked us what the covenant was
that he would make when he got baptized. Looks like we need to go over
lesson three with him.
Today we were in Dortmund again at the Christmas Markt. It is so cool!
I got some cool stuff. And we just enjoyed everything in the Markt. It
is a lot cooler when it isn't raining. But because we spent so much
time in the Christmas Markt I don't have much time so.... Hope you
have a good week! Ich liebe euch!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

Pretty sunrise. This was probably like 9 in the morning.

German ward Christmas party

German ward Christmas party

Sahitya

Andre

Happy thanksgiving!

This weird thing happens where we do lots of things and stay busy all
week then I sit down to email and I think "we did nothing this week."
But that's ok. I'll do my best to remember.
Tuesday night and Wednesday I was in Duisburg for a split with he
sister training leader. That was super fun. When we got there that
night it was snowing! Tuesday was super cold but it didn't really snow
in Herne. But in Duisburg it was snowing! That was super cool.
Wednesday night we got back to Herne just in time for dinner with the
JD or YW. It was super fun!
Thursday was thanksgiving! We didn't do anything special. But we
decided that since no one invited us over we would go to Bochum and
get dinner at the Weihnachtmarkt. There we actually met an American
family so we got to wish them a happy thanksgiving. Then we had
bratwurst for dinner. It was an awesome thanksgiving. Then we took a
poster around Bochum that said "wofür sind wir dankbar?" And we asked
everyone what they were thankful for and had them write it on sticky
notes and put it on the poster. It was awesome! We had people just so
grateful that we had asked them to think about that.
Thursday we also had Lebenshilfe which is a service project we do
every other week. I forgot to mention it last time. We go and we sing
with people who have special needs. It is so cool because since it is
Christmas time we sing Christmas songs! In German! I love it so much!i
think it is basically my favorite thing ever.
Friday we had the coolest lesson ever! Andre, the police officer I
think I mentioned earlier, has enjoyed meeting with us. We have just
assumed it was to practice his English. We asked him last week to be
baptized and his response was that he had already been baptized.mwe
met with him this week and this time brought a member who used to be a
police officer. He explained the concept of authority in police terms.
It was such a cool lesson. It started with Andre having amazing
comments on scriptures he had read that fit perfect with our Thema.
Then the member, who is known for just talking and talking and talking
about whatever he feels like, stayed quiet until we asked him to
explain authority. In the end Andre turned to us and said. That makes
sense. I understand now. He is willing to get baptized once he knows
the Book of Mormon is true, which is hopefully soon because he read
like 5 chapters in one day.
Sunday was the Erste Advent that means that there are 4 weeks until
Christmas. It is really a cool concept that I learned about. Germans
celebrate each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas as a way to
look forward to Christ's coming. That plus the new Christmas video
came out! Did you watch it. It gets better every time you watch it.
Yesterday I was just so excited about Christ! He is really so amazing!
He is our savior and at his time of the year we really get to think
about that and share that with so many people. My favorite part of the
new video is when they say freut euch! Or rejoice! What better reason
to rejoice than because of Christ! Not even just because of his birth
or his death, but just because of him! He is amazing! I am so greatful
for Christ and this amazing time of the year.
Now that thanksgiving is over Weihnachten can officially start! Frohe
Weihnachten!
Ich liebe euch
Sister Carroll
#EinErretterIstGeboren

Dinner with the JDs

Our grateful sign

Bruder Golnick teaching Nan how to play piano

Lunch with Nan

The thanksgiving dinner

Dortmund Weihnachtsmarkt

Dortmund Weihnachtsmarkt

What happens when elders get sisters' iPads.

Weihnachtmarkt

I'm not really sure what we did this week. Nothing super amazing this week. It was cold. The Weihnachtsmarkt in Bochum opened this Thursday and we spent our dinner stunde on Saturday walking around. It was so cool! And really cold. But super cool! 

We were able to meet with Nan this week. She is super cool! We lost contact with her for the first half of the week, but we met on Saturday and she came to church on Sunday. She is amazing. It is so cool to hear her testimony, even though we don't know her super well. Although we are thinking we might move her baptism to next week because we have only met with her once and we won't be able to meet with her until Wednesday at the earliest. Plus he ward doesn't know she is getting baptized yet..... But she will get baptized!

We had a potential investigator call us this week. When we met with him he told us he needs our help. He wants us to find him a girl friend. He didn't want us to be his girlfriend, which was good, but he does want us to help him find someone. That was a really funny appointment!

We had zone training this week in Dortmund. It was really funny actually. You remember last time when we got called the night before for a Thema? Well this time we didn't get called! However when we got there, the zone leader announced, " now sister Schuring will give a Thema on the elders quorum". We thought it was a joke. Then we realized it wasn't a joke. Although it was still really funny.

Today we went to Essen and saw the Christmas Markt! It was so cool! I thought it was really cool. Everyone else thought it wasn't super cool. I just liked the whole Christmas aspect of it. I wish we could just live at the Christmas Markt! 

 This week we had a conference for all the Gemeinde rats or ward councils in the Europe area. Elder Ballard spoke along with the area presidency. One of the speakers said, " magnify does not mean to multiply. It often means to simplify." I though that was really cool. I also thought that went really good with what I have been studying this week. This week faith in Christ keeps showing up in my studies. Not just faith, but faith in Christ. There is a difference. Faith is simply who you trust. It builds confidence and helps us move forward in life. Faith in Christ, however is the thing that brings us to eternal salvation. We can't just have faith in God and hope to be saved. We need to have faith in our savior. That he is who he says he is and can do what he says he can do. Only faith in our Savior can bring us closer to him and help us reach the goal we have had all along.

Another thing mentioned at this conference that I thought was really funny was by Elder Ballard. He talked about how if we think we can get out of missionary work by dying, we are wrong. He said that the missionary work on the other side is no different than it is here. So he suggested that we get started now doing missionary work. He wants us to practice for the next life. I wish I had the actual quote because it was pretty funny, but I thought that was an interesting thought I wanted to share from what I learned this week.

 This week has been pretty good. Long and not super super eventful, but still good. Christmas is showing up everywhere and I love it! And it is starting to get really cold. Yesterday me and sister Schuring found ice ! My hands were also pretty red and numb. But I love it! 

I hope you all have wonderful weeks! Christmas video comes out Sunday! Make sure you watch it! And simplify don't multiply

Ich liebe euch!

Liebe

Sister Carroll 

Bochum Weihnachtmarkt

Essen Weihnachtmarkt

Essen Weihnachtmarkt

She said she was tired :)

Add caption

Poor Elders

This week was so long! Not really in a bad way. It was just long. I
love seeing miracles everywhere that just prove that God is looking
out for you. This week we got kicked out of the Uni by security
guards, got rained on, got some autographs from some famous police
officers, Skyped with an investigator in the alpine mission, got
rained on some more, ran into a protest, helped out freezing elders
and set a baptismal date! So much excitement and so many stories!

The security guards and the rain are pretty self explanatory. The
autographs came from an investigator. He likes sister Schuring. He is
also the chief Polizist in Bochum. Some of the officers under him do a
television show and are very famous apparently. He was so shocked that
we didn't know them. But he got us their autographs anyway. He is
pretty cool, but he also calls sister Schuring Lindsay so...... The
elders might end up with him.

The skype and the baptismal date go together. Did I tell you about Nan?
She lives in Bochum which is in our area. She went on vacation for
like 3 weeks somewhere in the alpine mission and met the missionaries.
She loved what she learned and set a baptismal date with them. But
then she had to come back to Bochum for work and school. She still has
the baptismal date for 28th November. It was awesome because president
called us and told us about her. Then the sisters called us and we set
up a Skype appointment. Then we Skyped with her to meet her and let
her get to know us. Then she showed up in Bochum on Saturday! We are
so excited for her. She is super nice and she has a baptismal date!
That was literally God handing us a baptism.

The protest and the freezing elders semi go together. Really the
protest was nothing big. It was funny timing. Friday night we had an
appointment with a member then German class where some potentials were
supposed to come to. During the appointment we got like a million
calls from the elders and some pretty good voice mails. Turns out they
left their key to the church at home and waited outside the church for
more than 2 hours in the cold until we showed up. The messages were
along the lines of, we are dying! Then the next day we were planning
on doing a finding activity in Bochum just before Nan was coming. We
got there and there were no elders. And there was a really big
protest. We called them and they didn't answers. So we did finding by
ourselves for a minute before trying to call them again. Later we got
a call from a random number that ended up being the elders using a pay
phone to find us. Turns out they accidentally locked themselves out of
he apartment with only €5 and their bus passes. Somehow we found them
and got them hot chocolate because they were sad. Then they used our
phone to call the zone leaders to get a spare key. They went to
Dortmund, still with only €5, and we spent time with Nan. Later we had
a voice mail from them using a pay phone in Dortmund telling us they
had just used the last of their money and were stranded in Dortmund.
We called the zone leaders and assumed they had made it back and
gotten to the church for their appointment, we went there and brought
apples for them. After their appointment we all went home. At like
10:15 we get a call from the elders. They had finally made it into the
apartment. Apparently the key didn't work and they had to wait for the
Hausmeister to get home. Poor elders. They are grateful for pdays.

Through all the craziness this week we did see lots of miracles. Today
I was reading president Uchtdorfs talk from women's session. Aunt Rose
says, "You see, everything else in the gospel--all the shoulds and the
musts and the thou shalts --lead to love" and I think that is so true.
Everything we are told not to do or to do, weather they be
commandments or the white handbook, are to help us love others
better. That better love helps us serve them more and bring them
closer to Christ. I thought that was really cool. I love how so much
of the gospel is love.
I hope you all have a good week! See miracles! Ich liebe euch!
Liebe
Sister Carroll

Dinner appointment at the Roths yesterday

Long, but good!

Sorry for the mix up with the emails last week. We went to Essen for
pday and missed the train back to Herne. Then we finally got to the
church at like 5:30 and had all the emails written up and the wifi
wasn't working, so when we tried to send the emails it wouldn't work.
Then I guess I found wifi later in the week, because then it sent
them. We didn't do anything special for pday. We just had dumb wifi.
But now the church has really really fast wifi. It is super nice.
This week we did a lot of finding. Which made the week really long, but
it ended good and with 4 new investigators. One day we decided to go
contacting at a Friedhof or cemetery. We stopped a guy who was leaving
and he told us he had no interest but kept asking questions.  Sister
Schuring tried to get his number and he was like, well can we just
meet now? So we went in the Freidhof and he gave us a very long and
interesting history lesson. It was super  cool. Apparently the
building at the Friedhof had been built by nazis and you could still
see their influence on it. Then as we walked around we shared the
restoration. He took a Book of Mormon at the end. We didn't get any
contact info, but it was still way cool.
Another cool lesson was yesterday. We had a lesson with this guy named
Benedict. I met him like a month ago and he finally agreed to let us
come by. We showed up and him and his wife sat down with us. We asked
if he had read and he was like, I haven't read a lot. Then he
proceeded to tell us basically the story of 1 Nephi and 3 Nephi 11 to
the end of 3 Nephi. It was so cool! He and his wife had so many
questions for us and both of them loved the Book of Mormon.
Last miracle of a his week. We had been contacting ALL DAY. We were so
tired and my German was broken. So we decided it was time for dinner
and a Pause. We sat down to eat and we're just finishing up when an
unknown number called us. Sister Schuring answered and the guy on the
other end said. You gave me this book. I need your help. I am Muslim.
I want to change my religion. Can you help me change my religion? We
were like natürlich and tried to set up an appointment. Turns out this
guy lives in Frankfurt, but he used to live in Bochum which is right
by Herne. We had met him in Bochum and given him a Book of Mormon and
he had read it and really liked it. We gave his number to the Frankfurt
elders and called him a few days afterwards to make sure he understood
what happened ( limited  English and no Deutsch ). He told us about
the man in Frankfurt who called him and how they had met. He then
thanked us for all the help and told us how happy he was that we had
helped him find this religion. It was so cool!
I love seeing how the Book of Mormon touches people's lives. It is
just a book, and yet it is so much more. This week I have been
studying about Ammon and his missionary work. It is so cool to read
about people who are doing the same thing. I really like the story of
Aaron. He goes to do missionary work and he sees no success. In fact
he gets thrown in prison. Then his brother comes with his neue bekehrt
to save him. Then he goes back to his whole town of neue bekhrts. I
think if I was Aaron I would be feeling pretty down. No success and
someone else is having so much success that he can come and save you
from your unseccess. I think something that is so hard just as people
in general is to compare ourselves. This week Elder Heiner shared a
quote with us. It was " Differences are to be celebrated not
calculated" I like how Aaron didn't calculate the differences between
him and his brother. Instead he celebrated it and was happy for him. I
am so grateful for differences. If everyone was like me, missionary
work would not get done. But there are others who fill in my
weaknesses. Who fill in the gaps.
I love you all so much! I hope you have a wonderful week!
Ich liebe euch!
Sister Carroll

Yes that is Darth Vader.

FALL

Kartoffel fest!

Our Halloween treats

Me and sister Schuring

The man at the Friedhof told us that this was evidence of the Nazis.
Do you see the nazi symbol?

SANTA!!!!! Weihnachten!

This is what happens when you go shopping with elders..... Best
shopping pday ever!