The Church is True the Book is Blue

This week man...

Oh wow.

We started off pretty confident, excited for the appointments we had

set up with some new people we found. Those all fell through. I still

have not grasped the concept of telling someone you will meet them

somewhere, even giving them your number, and then not coming and

ignoring all their calls. But it's OK. We're good. I'm over it....sort

of :)

Then with all the investigators we do have, Sister Bécsi and I left each

appointment looking at each other saying, "....yeah....they are not

ready yet. We should stop meeting them."
We did have a spontaneous exchange with the St. Gallon Sisters though

and that was fun! No one had called us all transfer for exchanges or

anything so we just kind of figured we'd been forgotten out here in

Schaffhausen but then suddenly the sister training leaders from the

neighboring zone called us and said we had to do exchanges with them,

the very next morning. That was way fun. Got to work with Sister

Svovadova from the Czech Republic.

It was just one of those weeks where you get the feeling that no one

wants you here haha. We just had several conversations where people

try to throw you off or tell you you're wrong or pat you on the

shoulder and say, it's really cute what you're trying to do here but I

don't care.

Yesterday we had district finding day and a man grabbed sister Bécsi's arm and

told her he was taking her to the police. Haha oh man. He demanded to

see our ministering certificate and called the police and then they

came and it was all messy and poor Sister Bécsi had no idea what was

going on and I was just trying to handle it with my limited German...

but all is well.

It's moments like these when you treasure your personal study time

where you remind yourself of what you know to be true. Sister Bécsi

and I were talking about it a bit. We both agreed, there are lots of

things where your testimony kind of wavers and you're not always 100%

sure. But that's OK. Because then you rely on the things you DO know.

I think that's different for everybody. Sister Bécsi and I are similar

and say that the thing for us that we will always know to be true is

the Book of Mormon. I really know it's a true book. And not just that

the people that wrote it lived and all that, but that the teachings and

prophecies in it are true. I'm so grateful to have a book that I can

study and trust to be absolutely true. I think in difficult testimony-

shaking-moments of life, it's so important to remind yourself of what

you DO know, not what you're not sure of. And I'm so grateful that in

shaking moments this week, the Book of Mormon could help me stay

strong in my calling as a missionary.

Have a fabulous week!!

(Oh wait, transfer calls came and we're staying her in Schaffhausen

and I'm super pumped. Sister Bécsi and I have fun together haha)

-Sister Lehmann

Yummmm

Distrikt pday playing soccer and eating water melon

Saw the ad at Bahnhof and immediately went to the next kiosk to buy some. So good.

God Provides Little Miracles

This week was cool. 

Saturday was pretty crazy. We went to Bad Säckingen to do some District finding. That went well. Well, for the rest of the district :) After a long while of finding, sister Becsi and I said a little prayer for the last thirty minutes and we found someone! She was really cool. We'll see if that amounts to anything. We gave her number to the other Sisters. She told us that she's Jewish and that means that she's part of God's chosen people. And I was like, I know! I read about you all the time in the scriptures! Haha

Later though, we had to drive over to a member that lives pretty far away. We had already forgot to call and cancel our appointment the week before so I was feeling really badly and wanted to make sure to be extra punctual. But then all the roads had to go and be closed. It was so so frustrating I tell you what; we had to make so many u turns and detours for all these randomly closed roads. Our GPS was going crazy trying to reroute for us but nothing seemed to work out. We ended up being a solid 45 minutes late and to make matters worse our phone wasn't working so we couldn't even call to warn her. The whole time I was just praying and saying, "God, why is this not working out?" 

Well we get there but first let me give some background on Michaela. She has Down Syndrome and is so so sweet and funny. She has really great German and I always take notes because she uses the best words. Like the other week it was hilarious. We asked her if she had the opportunity to serve someone that week. She had to think about that for a little bit and then finally said, "Well I don't know if it counts but I posted a comment on facebook the other week and said, "Alle Elders auf der ganzen Welt sind kanner süß." ---"All Elders around the world are ...haha how do you translate kanner .... are super adorable" hahaha sister Bécsi and I were laughing super hard and then I was like, um yeah? I think that counts as service. You are complimenting someone. It works! So this is Michaela.

So we get there super late and she's sitting on her bed and we rush to give her a big hug, apologizing profusely and she just starts crying and crying. Oh man I felt so badly but then she started explaining herself. She said that she had just been with her roommate in town and they had just got back about 10 minutes ago. She said that she had been begging her roommate to go back home because she knew we were coming, but her roommate wouldn't listen. She told us that she was crying in town, thinking of us standing in front of her door not knowing what to do...

That was so so cool for me. I mean, God really was looking after his daughter Michaela there. She had been so sad and worried, and He made us nice and late so that everything worked out. 

My testimony was strengthened that God provides us little miracles like this for his children. He loves Michaela so much and knew what she needed and provided it for her!

Have a great week!

Last pday running into my beloved Sister Tauche...

Raclette in our bedroom cause the power goes out when we try to eat it in the kitchen

The Lord Supports us When we Share the Gospel

Hi!  This week was super great! 

On Saturday we had our Distrikt meeting and interviews with our mission president. Sister Bécsi and I had the assignment to talk about effective studying. We shared our thoughts and a lot of scriptures that talk about how the Lord will give us the words we need when talking to people, if we take time to study. 

My personal favorite was this one in D&C 100:

"5 Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men;

6 For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say.

7 But a commandment I give unto you, that ye shall declare whatsoever thing ye declare in my name, in solemnity of heart, in the spirit of meekness, in all things.

8 And I give unto you this promise, that inasmuch as ye do this the Holy Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all things whatsoever ye shall say."

To be honest, when I read that in my study, I thought to myself... hmmm... sometimes I really do just feel "confounded before men". Has the Holy Ghost really been able to bear witness through me? I prayed about it and every single day after that I really felt that scripture fulfilled. 

One day we met a Hungarian guy. Haha he could speak English but couldn't speak German, sister Bécsi can't speak English, and I can't speak Hungarian so that was funny. It was great though. He tried asking us all theses zinger questions and I know before my mission I would have been like, "Hot dang! He makes a good point!" But I don't even know how but it was great because I just felt so calm and simply addressed his question. And what made it even greater was that he had to translate what I taught and testified of to Sister Bécsi in Hungarian. Then he would try asking Sister Bécsi a zinger and then I could tell she was also speaking by the Spirit back to him. And then he had to translate what she told him back to me in English.  The next day I met a guy named Friday who had a question about organized religion and the lack of a purely Christian church. As he spoke, some verses I had read in my study that morning popped into my head and I was able to share them with him.  Neither of the guys accepted the invitation to learn more but I still just felt the Spirit and felt like what I was saying weren't my own words. 

The best though was on Saturday, meeting with one of our new investigators. She's a funny one. She is one of the more interesting persons I've met but our lesson was so spiritual so it must be important that we keep teaching her. We read Jospeh Smith's first vision together and asked her what she thought. She read it about three times again on her own and then looked at us, "Naja das ist aber wunderschön! Man spürt es, im Herz, wenn man es liest."---"well that's beautiful! You really feel it in you're heart when you read it!"

So yeah, my testimony of that was really strengthened this week, that the Lord is there and supports us in our words when we share his Gospel. 

Hope everyone has a great week!

Walking around Schaffhausen...

Hahahaha there was a bee and I didn't even notice this picture until now.

Life with a Car

Hey hey hey!

Great week here in Schaffhausen, things are moving forward!
We found 3 new investigators in the last little bit. Well, almost 4,
but then he ended up being creepy so that's not happening anymore. But
the other ones are cool! 

We found a nice mother from Lithuania with
the cutest family. Apparently her husband is a world famous handball
player. Sister Bécsi even recognized him and was pumped because he
played on the national Hungarian team for a while haha so that's cool!
Found another nice and super talkative lady who went off on some wild
tangents and made Sister Bécsi laugh the whole lesson. It was
funny, I kept looking over at Sister Bécsi and thinking she was
getting emotional but then I realized she was just desperately trying
to hold her laughter in. At one point, actually no, twice, my companion
really had to leave the room because she couldn't contain it.

And the last person was a Swiss man that loves the Bible and was really
interested to learn more about the Book of Mormon. I don't think
that's ever happened on my mission. Like ever. And while we were
showing him Moroni 10:3-5, he rummaged through his bag to find his
highlighter to underline it!  So that was cool. That has never
happened. Genuinely interested people are the best! We look forward to
meeting him again this week.

Another fun fact about Schaffhausen, WE HAVE A CAR.
So on the train ride over here from Austria, I was going on my usual
complaining rant that no sisters in the mission have access to a car.
Then someone said,
"What? I heard there was an area that opened up and now Sisters have a car."
"What area is that??"
"I think it's Schaffhausen in Switzerland."
".....wait. I'M going to Schaffhausen!! What?!?"

So yeah. I get here and it turns out the Elders and Sisters share a
car here now. But the elders here had to be emergency transferred out
so it's just me and Sister Bécsi which means we get the car all to
ourselves!! It's been great! Well, except for the fact that the Elders
left us an empty gas tank, a week later we got an email saying that we
had to change to winter tires back to the summer ones, and then last
night one of the head lights went out. Haha so yeah. That was
fabulous. But we're all good. Driving in Europe is way fun. A little
scary for not having driven in over a year but that's ok. I'm good now
:)

Have a great week!! Happy Mother's Day on Sunday!!

Pday with the Singen Sisters in a cute German town I can't remember the name of right now...

Seeing sister Lundgreen from the MTC again!

Boden See

Boden See 2

Thank you mom for the taco seasoning giving us some 10/10 tacos

Silvia, me, and Sandro, the coolest members ever. Sandro was work colleagues with Silvia right after his mission and he introduced her to the church. He was in your mission at the same time as you mom. Do you remember him?

Keep it Simple

Hi!
It was a great week. A couple cool experiences.
Last Pday for example! We had fun with our District going up to Rigi.
It was freezing because we were up in a cloud, but that's ok. All good
fun. I totally recogized it though from the time we had a family
reunion there!

Well, Pday ended and we went out finding, which wasn't the easiest in
the pouring rain haha. We started knocking one some doors but nothing
was happening. I felt like we weren't where we needed to be. Sister
Becsi and I prayed for inspiration to know where to go. As we prayed,
I felt like we should keep walking down the street where we were going
and talk to the next people we see.

Well the next people we see are three very big men standing outside of
a shop drinking and smoking. Haha. So we talked to them! Well, I had
to talk to them, because they only spoke English. It was a pretty
terrible conversation, with them kind of arguing and getting pretty
heated about organized religion and the state the world is in and all
this kind of stuff. I really couldn't even get a word in and we were
there forever. Finally though, one of them noticed my quiet companion
and asked where she was from. When they heard her tell them Hungary,
in her broken German, all of them got really quiet. One of them was
like, "Whoa, that really touched my heart." And then they started
getting all talkative again saying, "You go girl! You go serve your
mission! You go serve the Lord!" Hahaha

It has actually really been a blessing for me to work with Sister
Becsi. She has a really hard time with German, and speaks absolutely
no English except for, "Oh my gosh!" and "anyway..." haha she may or
may not have gotten that from me. But the thing is it really helps all
of our conversations stay basic, slow and simple. Which is exactly
what we need in order to feel the Spirit. I've seen phrases as simple
as "God is our loving Heavenly Father." really invite the Spirit when
we talk to someone on the street and I'm so grateful that being with
Sister Becsi is forcing me to keep it simple. This whole plan from God
really is so simple and beautiful.

There were many other great experiences, but never enough time to
write them all :)

Have a great week!

Ok so I keep forgetting to include this picture. But this is Steffi Mayer. She's the greatest. She's in Linz ward and was my fello alto singer in the choir. She also is the ward's designated tissue box. Haha let me explain. She sits on the front row in church every Sunday and whenever the speaker cries, or even begins to sound emotional, you can count on Steffi Mayer to go up and hand the person a tissue. Haha. Well, as we were saying our goodbyes I told her how much I love her dress and it always makes my day when she wears it to church. She immediately matter of factly replied, oh well, it's yours. You can have it. I obviously refused, but she refused even more and was like, come to my house tomorrow afternoon and I will give it to you with some chocolate I've been meaning to give the missionaries. This dress is from 1960. Isn't that amazing. Oh my goodness. I was feeling bad but then she reminded me how old she is now and doesn't have too much longer to live and that her dress deserves to live on longer. :)

Oh and this is something else Steffi gave me. Apparently she was in the newspaper with Patrick Swayze a little before he passed away.

Rigi with the district.

Super super windy.

Quick walk around Zurich before the end of pday

Someone in the district caught a pic of us during district finding. As you can see I'm testifying with my heart. Hahaha