Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Call me!

Hello!
This week was great.
Started off with a nice and chill PDay with the Burgdorf Sisters in Bern.
Later on we had MLC (Missionary Leadership Conference) in München for
2 days which was SO GREAT. I love my mission president and his wife
so much. President and Sister Kohler are so great. They both are
really bold and sometimes say dagger-to-the heart-stuff but if take it
well, and are humble and heed their council, you become such a better
missionary. So yeah, that was really great. I heard a lot of things
that I need to hear. I just pray that I can pass it on to the rest of
my zone as well.

It was funny, this week, Sister Eden and I were riding the train maybe
5 minutes to a neighboring town. We often sit in different seat
sections so we have more opportunities to talk to people. I  was on
the phone with a member and Sister Eden started talking to this guy.
Our stop came up pretty quickly though and I walked out of the train,
but out a door behind Sister Eden. I thought I'd just see her outside
but I was out there and she still wasn't coming and all the train
doors were closing. I was watching through the glass and she was still
talking to the guy! I ran to the button to open the doors, all the
while still trying to hold a conversation with this member on the
phone and get Sister Eden's attention. Haha thankfully she made it out
in time, but the best part is that their conversation started about
the weather or something and then led to Austrian cuisine and suddenly
our stop was there, so Sister Eden had no time to talk about
gospel/church related things, let alone even tell the guy that she was
a missionary for the church. So all she did was jump up, have to
quickly interrupt him and say, "I'm sorry, this is my stop! .....here
(handing him a pass along card) ....call me!" And ran out the train.
Hahahaha when Sister Eden told me what had happened I was dying. I
told Sister Eden that as much as I would love for the guy to call us,
I'm pretty sure all he would call us for is cause he thought Sister
Eden was flirting. And then I really hoped that actually he wouldn't
call us.

Well, that was our week! It was good! Hope everyone is doing well.

-Sister Lehmann

Bern

Bern


New MLC friends.

Me and Sister Gach each ate entire pizzas and it was wonderful. It was at this cool Italian restaurant in Munich

(PS: "Kinder" means "children" in German)

Feeling the Love of God

(August 8, 2016)

This week was a good week! Until I got a scary email from dad on
Sunday, but I'm glad to hear everything is ok :) Thank goodness.

But yeah, Monday was the 1st of August which is Switzerland's national
holiday so that was fun! We went to the Matterhorn as a district and
our investigator Leah. It was fun! Also kind of sad cause when we
first got there, it was foggy, like incredibly foggy, but then
miraculously our fervant prayers were answered and it cleared up!
There was no point when the matterhorn was really clear, but we saw
bits and pieces of it so we were happy! Then that evening, we went to
a members house who was having a party. It was great! They were all
about 3 times our age, but it was fun spending the 1st of August with
some proud Swiss citizens.

Then the rest of the week was a miracle week. Caution, this may be a long email.
We had exchanges with the Sisters in Reinarch and that was super
great. One of their investigators was actually an investigator in
Solothurn before but she moved to Reinarch at the beginning of last
transfer and now she's getting baptized!! I think I actually wrote
about her. Her names Linda, she's from the Congo and I got to teach
her once while she was in Solothurn cause she only speaks French! And
then on Tausch, exchanges, they had a lesson planned with her and I
got to see her again. So incredible to see. She really has a testimony
of the Restoration and simply cannot wait to be baptised. I was having
to translate, asking details about the baptism, when it should be and
who should baptize her, and she kind of waved off the details and was
like, I don't really care, I just want to be baptised already! So
great. She also has an incredibley sad story. She's a refugee here,
she has 3 kids still in the Congo, one with her here, and she has no
idea where her husband is, they were accidentily split up in Russia
and she hasn't seen him in a year. She has no idea if he's even still
alive. She really had given up all hope until one day the missionaries
came and invited her to come to church. She went and just cried and
cried the entire time becasue she felt God's love so so strong. Isn't
that incredible? That's the Sunday I got to teach her, and then I was
transfered, so didn't hear anything else about her, but then this
week, I got to see her again, still in an incredibly difficult life
situation, but with a real light and hope in her eyes that wasn't
there before. She was practically giving the lesson as she bore
testimony of the reality of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and of the
truthfullness of the Book of Mormon and this church. So incredible.
Then that leads to Linda's roommate while living in Solothurn, Joy.
She's from Nigeria. She is also going through an incredibly difficult
time. A couple months ago, she was also really struggling, she's all
alone here, only 25, and has a baby who has been getting sick quite a
bit. Well she was praying and praying, saying, "God I need a church. I
need to you to lead me to a church where I can feel your help and
strength and where I can pray to you." And then one day she saw the
missionaries with a ward member and ran down to them. Turns out they
were picking some other people up for church that day, and she asked
if she could come along. She went to church and loved it. She had
missed it so much, and she said that she had really felt God's
presence there. So so cool. For some reason she wasn't taught right
after that but when Sister Eden and I came, a ward member told us
about her and we called her up and now she's an investigator and
coming to church. So so cool. She also, just like Joy, already has an
incredible testimony of Jesus Christ, his Atonement, and the power of
prayer.

Well, those are just two of the many many miracles we saw this week. I
wish I could write them all. But yeah, the work here is soaring.
Sister Eden and I have had so many oppurtunites to teach. We have
found so many new investigators here it's really incredible. And guess
what, yesterday, 4 investigators came to church! Haha we were
hyperventilating a bit I think. So yeah. The work is good. The church
is true.

Sometimes Sister Eden and I get so sucked into the work and get really
hard on ourselves but then we remind ourselves, hey! We are two little
19/20 year olds in this big world, sort of on our own here, but we are
relying on the help from heaven! We are FAR from  perfect, but we are
trying! And if there's one lesson that we see over and over again in
the Book of Mormon, is that those that try their best to do what God
would have them do, miracles happen. Miracles always happen.
Have a wonderful week!

-Sister Lehmann

Our view of the Matterhorn


Us and Leah

District picture, Elder Stahle, Elder Cornetta, me, Elder Ashcroft, Sister Eden, Leah, and Elder Kilgore taking the picture

What the view should have looked like
🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭

Sunday lunch at the Pangs. She made her secret invention, avocado icecream. She just blends avocados and icecream together, it is SO GOOD.

Sister Eden straightened my hair

The process of straightening... It took a long time.

And then the next day it rained. Hahahaha

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

As Happy as Living with Heavenly Father

(August 1st, Switzerland's National Holiday)

Hi there! This week was super great!

Started off with a wonderfully chill Pday. We went to Bern and ate
Mexican food. REAL MEXICAN FOOD. It was so good oh my word, Sister
Eden and I were in heaven. Sister Eden hadn't had Mexican food in a
year. She was pretty ecstatic.


Next day we did some street contacting in Biel as a district. And then
went around the same area where we found so many new potentials last
week and found some more! It was so great.
One highlight was when we went on a hike with investigators that we
were having a hard time really having a good relationship with them.
They are quite shy, and there's a bit of a language barrier but we
invited them to go on this walk up to this little church they have in
a mountain by Solothurn and it was so great! It was a family, the mom
and her three kids, from Ethiopia. At the beginning they shyly shook
our hands and it was quite quiet but by the end we were all hugging
and the mother, Ababa, gave us a huge hug and kiss, thanking us so
much for the time we spent with her. Really such a blessing, it was
wonderful.


We also had Tausch this week! Exchanges, in English. That was so fun
cause Sister Tauche came to me in Solothurn! Haha it was so weird at
first. Back to the good old days. But better! Really, it was such a
blessing to be able to work together with Sister Tauche again. We have
made SO MUCH progress. Really, the Lord has blessed us a lot for our
efforts and we are still far from perfect, but we have improved, thank
goodness. All we could talk about the whole time was how awesome being
on a mission is haha :) We also set a goal to be a lot more creative
as we did street contacting which was so great! Like asking questions
at first about where people would rather go on vacation, where they
are happiest, and being able to talk about how happy we will be one
day when we go back to live with Heavenly Father. Anyway, hard to
explain in an email, but it made it WAY more fun for us and a lot more
comfortable for the people we were talking to.


Sorry, this is getting long, but another great thing this week was the
members we visited. We didn't have too many meal appointments by
members so we decided to go and visit some! It was wonderful! Bruder
and Schwester Melly were so great, they showed us all these tricks to
do family history, and gave us fruit and yogurt and cake, told us
their life stories, gave us chocolate and Sister Melly, who knits many
baby booties and beanies insisted that we take a set for our first
children hahaha. And Schwester Kurth also told us her life story. She
is 93 so as you can imagine we were there for a long time. Haha it was
awesome, we love her.


Have a wonderful week!!