Crazy!!!

Im not quite sure how to describe this week. Crazy I guess. This week we had to deal with transfers, so Sister Bunderson had to pack and say good by to everyone. The only problem with that is that then we met with everyone in the first half of the week and no one would answere their phone for us to meet with them later. I dont really remember what happend the first half of the week other than their were multiple times were both me and Sister Bunderson were stressed out of our minds. 

Thusday morning Sister Bunderson left. The Köln sisters came and over nighted here in Bonn so I wouldnt be by myself. Sister Bunderson was supposed to go to Frankfurt with Elder Thrugood and Elder Thompson, only Elder Thompson missed his train and therefore missed the bus. That meant that his companion Elder Hinchmann was not in Bonn to be with Elder McBride once Elder Thrugood left. So that left me and the Köln sisters to be Elder McBrides companions until we could find Elder Hinchman. That was interesting. The next interesting thing was that we had to go get Elder Hinchman. The Köln sisters dont know anything about Bonn and both me and Elder McBride had just lost our trainers. That was a fun adventure trying to find how to get to Siegburg. After we got Elder Hinchmann, we had to decide what to do. Elder McBride and Hinchmann had to stay in Bonn all day instead of get back to Euskirschen, and we had no appointments so the 5 of us decided to go chalking. It was really fun and Sister Myer is really good at drawing. Then we got dinner and had ice cream and then we had to find our new companions. My new companions name is Sister Watkins. She is from Utah and was in the same MTC group as Sister Bunderson. She is really nice just not Sister Bunderson, which is ok. I just have to get used to it. 

Bonn never ceases to have miracles though. Even without Sister Bunderson. Me and Sister Watkins met with this guy named Israel. He was an hour late and when we started we thought he wasnt paying attention. Then he had a million questions about how he can have a relationship with God not just know about him. He then said (in his own words) "Im hungry! I want the truth!" He is basically the coolest. The next day Sister Watkins stopped a guy on the street who just yelled at us about how church was bad and he didnt need church. She decided just to give him a card and leave. She handed him a weil er lebt card and told him about the video and he almost started crying. He then asked for the church adress and when it was. It was just so cool!

Today for pday we went to Drachenfels mit Frauke. It is this way cool hike to a castle. It was way fun! I loved it so much! Then when we were driving back, Frauke drove back on a boat over the Rhein. She just drove the car on the boat  adn the boat drove over the river. It was so cool!

This week personal study has not been that good becasue I have been so stressed, although I did read the story by Hugh B Brown about the current bush and that was really helpful. Sometimes Heavenly Father does things that we dont think are that helpful for us, like transfering your trainer for example. Sometimes it even hurts. But Heavenly Father knows so much better than I do of what I need. I am not on a mission for me. I am here for Him. I am here to do the things He wants me to do the way he wants me to do them. Even if that means he has to "cut me down" He is the only one who knows the best way for me to grow. 

I hope everyone this week can see how Father wants you to grow. It is often not in the way you think and very often not in the way you want, but it is always the best way. 

Ich Liebe euch!

Liebe 

Sister Carroll

Me and my new comp. She is not bending down. She is actually that height. Possible shorter.  :)

Cool rainbow earlier this week. Sister Bunderson has a better one

Laura's vandelism in a German Bahn. Not good Laura. :)

Our Chalking picture.

Bonn from on top of Drachenfels

Drachenfels

Drachenfels from the middle of the Rhein

Transfers

This week was really good. It went by so fast! Last Monday we went hiking with Schwester Stein. That was so much fun and we spoke German with her all day. It is so cool to see  how much better my German is from when I got here 12 weeks ago. Which is cool because now that I have been here 2 transfers I am no longer considered a "golden". Now I am just a normal missionary. Sister Bunderson is no longer my trainer, just my companion. 

This week we started by calling all over the zone looking for anyone who want to share Book of Mormons with us. We have been giving them away so quickly! There was one day this week where we gave out 4 and could have given out 2 more, but we didnt have any more on us. It has been so cool to see that our testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown and because of that, when we share it, people are more interested. We gave away 3 Arabic this week and the guys immediatly started reading it and asking questions. That lesson ended with them asking if they could read the whole book before giving us an answere about it! We didnt even bring up anything about asking them if it was true! So cool. 

Later this week we randomly decided to go to the church. We had just been there and gone back to Bonn, but we decided to go to the church so we did. As we were walking to the church building, we ran into a guy we met forever ago. Apparently he wanted to meet with us and was hoping we were at the church so he had come with his friend to walk around the church. We got on a bus back to Bonn with them and taught a lesson on the bus. We gave them a Book of Mormon and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and they both just started freaking out. They thought it was just about the coolest thing ever! It was amazing. We are planning to meet with him later this week. Hopefully it will go well. 

Well this last week was the last week of the transfer. That means transfer calls. Because Sister Bunderson is no longer my trainer and she has been in Bonn since October it was pretty certain she was going to leave. However, we were both convinced she was staying one more transfer in Bonn. Unfortunatly we were both wrong. Sister Bunderson is leaving and going to Feucht. That is just about as far away from Bonn as you can get. I am taking over Bonn and have to be in charge of everythin here. I have only panicked a lot since Saterday. Dont worry. It will be interesting, but deffinantly a new adventure. I just am really sad to be loosing Sister Bunderson. We had so much fun together.

This week we didnt really have one scripture we have been sharing. The last couple of days we have been sharing Alma 36:17-21 when Alma is telling Helaman how drastically Christ changed his life. It was been so cool to share that and really just feel the spirit smack the member in the face. It is amazing how powerful Christ is. When we stop people on the street, they are fine to listen to us until we mention Christ. ( Wir haben ein tolles Botschaft über Jesus Christus... Ok tschüß!) It is amazing how hard Satan works against just the name of Christ and yet how powerful his name is. I love it so much!

Have an awesome week ! Ich liebe euch!

Liebe

Sister Carroll

PS - sorry no pictures this week. We didnt do much. Today Sister Bunderson just packed and went shopping because Feucht is so tiny and he wanted to go to H&M one more time before she left.

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.