Cassidy Nichole: Monday November 9, 2015 Gera, Germany

Hallo!! I'm sorry to hear that it is so cold at home. We must have switched air! It's been a nice 60-70 degree's here this week. Not even a need for a jacket!

Well, let's see if I can even remember what we did this week. It seems like a dream normally. Speaking of dreams, every time I dream of me being at home...it's in our old house. I have never once had a dream where we were in our new house. And also, I had a dream this week that a friend called me at like 10 at night to hang out and I knew that I only had 2 hours so I asked you permission, and promised that I’d be home at 12 and then you said no and made me make a scripture calendar for school. (Half missionary mode and half school, kind of funny.)

Anyway...my week!

Montag: We had a wonderful P-day and then went to an appointment with Claudia. We had done really well and stayed in contact with her this day and she said that she might not be there on time but that she'd be there 30 minutes later. So we went with Lucy. Claudia wasn't home. We called. No answer. So, we had FHE with Lucy:) she showed us where her new apartment will be! We are SO excited for her!

Dienstag: We met with Frau Dhillion and last week she asked us to talk about something from our church. SO...natürlich (naturally) we picked the temple! We had a really good lesson on the temple and then Sister Bills had the inspiration to talk about family history. Sister Bills had previously been with a companion that is in charge of teaching us how to do family history and the importance of it etc. So she knows a lot and has a very strong testimony of it. We both bore testimony of family history and showed Frau Dhillion a "my family" packet. (which we had already given her like 3 months ago) and she was SOO excited! I have NEVER seen Frau Dhillion so excited! She wants to do some family history next time we meet and is so excited to learn some things about her mom because her mom died when she was younger. Then, after the good lesson, we taught her 13 year old daughter English! She's only 13 and can have a normal conversation in English. German school...I swear. Then...Gemeinde Abend! That was fun! We brought a few things with us to put in some Christmas kits for little kids in really poor countries so that they can have a Christmas too. We were at Schwester Dörlitz's house and so we sung a few songs and then ate Abend Brot. I broke my own rule this night and asked what kind of meat I was eating. Schwester Sorge says, "blood sausage." Me, "blood sausage? So it's all blood?" Schwester Sorge, "No, that's meat, that's meat and that's meat (as she's pointing to the little pieces of meat on my slice of "meat")" Me, "so the rest is blood?" Schwester Sorge, "yeah, but it's cooked!" HA! Like that makes it any different! It actually didn't taste so bad...just don't ever ask what the meat is. Then, we had Gemi-co with Bruder Krause! He's an awesome GML (ward mission leader) and he's going to help Sister Bills and I plan an activity for the 10 and 11 year old girls in our ward because I had an idea:)

Mittwoch: Distrikt meeting. And we were allowed to have district lunch! Fun!! We then delivered a couple of thank you cards to people! Then, came home and met with Nele! Schwester Meckel is sick and so we couldn't meet with the whole family this week. But we met with Nele, talked about Joseph Smith and God! She is awesome and will pray out loud with us now, without complaining! We also tried to have another appointment with Claudia. We went with Lucy there and the same thing happened, except for Claudia sent us a text saying sorry and that it wouldn't work out for the rest of this week! I believe that she has an internship and is super busy. We've been trying really hard to stay in contact with her though. It's hard...especially when she doesn't text us back.

Donnerstag: We went to help Lucy pick out a sink for her kitchen. The night before we had helped her pick out some hair color so she could dye her hair. She did it that morning and called us in a panic because her hair looked like a fire truck! Not funny (but kind of;) but, she went and bought brown dye and dyed it over it and it was totally fixed, and it didn't look bad! But to make her day even worse...the place didn't have any kitchen stuff and she can't really afford to go anywhere else. She had kind of a crappy day. So, we went and got large pieces of pizza and then stacked the boxes on my head (see attached video). After that we went and helped Schwester Sorge in the garden with the elders! We raked leaves and pulled weeds. Then, ate potato soup. I love service! Then, the day was over...weird.

Freitag: We went and did some finding...which was weird. I haven't done that in a long time. Then off to Schwester Dörlitz! We had eggs, spinach, and potatoes. I guess it's a pretty regular meal here. Then...she gave us a whole bowl of black current berries. I'm already not a fan of any berry besides strawberry and raspberry...and this just made it worse. They were SO bitter! Sister Bills and I ended up just swallowing them whole and chugging them down with our drink! After Schwester Dörlitz, we went and helped Schwester Riemann pack some more glasses and wrapped them in newspaper. The newspapers here are interesting and there are many that have straight up porn on them. They just put all the newspapers into people’s mail boxes, so they don't buy them...anyway interesting. Then, we met with Aja! We introduced Personal Progress to her and she seems pretty excited about it! We actually found a Personal Progress book in our apartment, so we were able to give it to her! Small little miracles like that...Heavenly Father sure does know how to do his work! Then…weekly planning!! (my favorite part of the week....)

Samstag: We got to go help Lucy pick her paint for her new apartment! That is totally my realm! We went into this place that looked and smelled like Home Depot! Heavenly! We got to pick paint swatches, hold them under the different lights...ahhh...it was a good few minutes! We helped Lucy choose a color and we all settled for a coral (more red though) then, we went to her new apartment!!!!!!!!!!! :D it's so cute and bright and happy! The Spirit is already so much stronger than in her old one! She's excited and we are excited for her! We had a lesson on her floor while eating potato cake:) Lucy is wonderful! We from there made our way home, packed up and made our way to Leipzig for Stake Conference! We stayed there overnight with the Sister Training leaders. The conference was really good. There was an area 70 there and everyone talked a lot about reading scriptures as a family every day. He told a story about his wife and how she always wanted to start reading as a family, but he would make up excuses. Too tired, kids are too young, too busy, stressful day...etc. Til finally, one day, his wife was all excited about the new picture Books of Mormon that they got and asked if they could read scriptures that day. He made up another excuse and she said "Honey, if the Melchizedek Priesthood can't run this household, then the Relief Society will." And from that day on they have read scriptures every day:) It's important, and I'm proud that you do it!

Sonntag: Wow...Sunday was cool! We had to travel to this cultural hall place because the church is too small for the whole stake. We got there and there were SO many people there! Like 600! That’s the most members I've seen all together since the MTC! It was really fun because I got to see lots of people from Halle! They actually remembered me! Cool! The best thing though was, that Lucy was asked to give her testimony in Stake Conference! She did SO SO good! It was perfect and totally from the Spirit! I wonder at her every day! She is so strong and I wish that I could be as strong as she is. Then, we came home. Sister Bills wasn't feeling to good, coughing and lost her voice. So we finished our weekly planning and studied. Heavenly Father closed the week with a beautiful sunset that didn't look as good on camera so I didn't take a picture.

I've been thinking a lot about service this week. We did kind of a lot of it. To be honest, I have a hard time having the desire to do some parts of missionary work. It's very against my natural self. Sister Medley really helped me with that, because she was SO motivated all the time, to do everything! She was a really good example to me and was really great at helping me be motivated. Now that she's gone, I'm having to do it by myself and it's proving to be a little hard. However, I was talking to our district leader and asked him what he keeps as his motivation. He said, that he has a vision. He has a vision of this ward having their friends and family sitting by them in Sacrament meeting, taking of the Sacrament, and receiving the blessings that this Gospel has. That is his whole motivation. He has a vision. I’ve never had a vision. Not like that. Not for a specific area or anything. I thought it was so cool! It's a goal that you can actually see, you can play it like a movie in your mind. The way that we and the Elders have been trying to get the ward involved in our work is by doing service. The Elders have about 4 or 5 service projects a week and don't even wear missionary clothes like 2 days a week because they are so busy with service! I’m thinking about our tactic as the Ammon Project. You know, Ammon from the Book of Mormon? He went to the Lamanites and they captured him. He asked the King if he could be his servant. The king said yes, and later the king was so astounded by his faith and example that he asked questions. All Ammon did was serve and was a good example. That...is our goal. I've noticed that the hearts of the Germans are a little...hard. But one way that I've found that softens them is when we serve them. Schwester Sorge is really good at having us invite all of her garden neighbor friends to eat with us. The garden neighbors know us and talk to us every time we are over there. They ask us where we are from, they ask questions about our lives and because we LIVE the gospel it is our LIFE. With every service opportunity we have, we have the opportunity to share the Gospel. Even in Utah we can look for examples to share what we believe. I remember some kid in Jr. High was talking bad about tithing. I may have been a little sassy and told him that he had the percentage wrong and that it was actually only 10% but then I bore my testimony right after. Not a big deal. There are always opportunities. Look for ways to serve. In your family, in your school, with the ward, friends. Everyone! Do it!

I love you all so so much and I'm glad that you did so much to serve me and that you still do, so much! Love you!!

Liebe, Sister St. John