We Are, That We Might Have JOY! 😄

November 12, 2019

We Are, That We Might Have JOY! 😄

Dienstag, 5th:

As a refresher, Tuesday is normally our pday, but we had it on Monday last week because this last Tuesday was our interviews with Präsident Brown! That's practically all it was, because in the morning we had studies, then we went to the church and we had homemade pumpkin creme soup (courtesy of yours truly) (it was a hit all around) (the Distrikt were angels and brought bread, butter, salad, and boiled eggs without even being asked

) for Distrikt lunch, and then we had our Distrikt meeting while Präsident pulled each of us aside to talk. This interview, we mostly talked about how we would see each other in 4 weeks, how it wasn't going to feel real when I went home, but how he was excited to party it up in the mission home. We had fun. :) He also asked me to share about 1 person who had inspired me, so I talked about Grandma Hamilton. And then, as per tradition, I cried at the end when he prayed. Ah, it just wouldn't be interviews if I didn't cry.

Mittwoch, 6th:

Happy 17 months to me! Crazy that I don't even have a full month left... AH TIME FLIES

We basically just did lots and lots of finding. We had like a 5-or-so-hours-long Ausstellung. Many funny reactions from people who weren't interested, a few cool conversations, and lots of fun pumping up the other missionaries.

Donnerstag, 7th:

We met with Lucienne, who was in a bit of distress. But we sang "Where Can I Turn For Peace?" and said a prayer with her, talked about Jesus Christ, and brought the Spirit. At the beginning she was shaking and nervous, but by the end she was as calm as we've ever seen her. We were so happy that we could help, even in a small way.

We went to do finding, but realised we were by Véronique's shop, so we decided to say a quick hello to her. She was also in need of some encouraging words, so we gave her some hugs and talked for a few minutes before helping her to close up her shop. At the end she gave us each a flower and they're still sitting on our window sill. We smile each time we see them.

Freitag, 8th:

The Assistants came to Basel for some reason, just for a couple of hours, and they asked if we could have an Ausstellung. We all said sure, why not? So we had another hours-long Ausstellung, and weirdly enough I've decided that I prefer huge chunks of finding to the little ones. I also got to see Elder Ballard again for the first time since the MTC, and my goodness has he changed. He went from being a dorky little Socal Boy to being a Germanified Spiritual Giant . I was impressed with him. Once the APs left we just kept finding.

Then it turned into what I'd call a "hard day." Basically Sister Smith and I left to go to the bathroom and decided to also grab a quick lunch so that we could relieve the others to get food while we continued the Ausstellung. But then we got a call from the other missionaries saying they wanted to do Distrikt Lunch, and we said we would meet up with them after they bought their food. But, they never called us so we spent our entire eating time looking for them. I was kind of sad/ticked/just feeling out of whack in general and it all just kind of came crashing down on me. So we did a comp study in McDonald's, and about halfway into it we got a call from the other missionaries finally telling us where they were, but we couldn't meet with them anymore. And then we saw them putting away the Ausstellung So I basically was just frustrated and sad and then because that's prime Satan time he started adding other things to it until I had an emotional breakdown in McDonald's. Gotta love those. But Sister Smith was kind enough to help me through it. (Also, because I know that bit is going to make my parents worry, I'm FINE. It was legit just one bad day, I'm doing great again.

)

We decided that I needed an emotional-booster treat, so we started walking to go get a treat. On the way, we got a voice recording from Vivianne saying that she had seen us, and that she had time to meet if we did too. So we spontaneously taught Vivianne the Word of Wisdom at Starbucks, because why not? But it really was such a good lesson, and she decided that the Word of Wisdom was great and all, but she wanted to add to it, so she's trying to go off of sugar in addition to everything else. We were thrilled!

Samstag, 9th:

We met with Reetu and taught the 10 commandments, and also did 30 second reviews of each of the first three lessons. We gave her pamphlets for each one, and also a CTR ring. She was ecstatic!

We went to Lucienne's again. Prayed, sang, drank tea, and basically just helped her to feel the Spirit again. We left right before she went to smoke a cigarette (we've managed to keep her from smoking while we're there), and Sister Smith told me that it was genius because then she would recognize the difference in spirit after we left.

Sonntag, 10th:

We had Church, and a new member came right after Sacrament meeting. She just moved here from England following revelation she had received, and isn't sure why she's supposed to be here but wants to be obedient to God. I was impressed with her. She is also going through a tough time adjusting to the cultural differences, but I'm confident that things will work out for her.

We had Gmk, which was relatively uneventful.

We went to Lucienne again and this time really only stayed for 10 minutes. Shared a spiritual thought from Relief Society and then sang a hymn and left. She let us each borrow a Beret because we didn't have hats and we told her we were going finding. I've decided I can actually kind of pull them off!

We went F.I.N.D.ing in Binningen (F.ind I.n N.ew D.estinations), and decided to do that thing where you pray at each corner and let God lead you to the person who needs to hear your message. We'll, after one prayer, we realised we were at the house of one of the members of the bishopric who hadn't come to church because his son was throwing up all night and he and his wife could barely keep up with him (eavesdropping pays off - if I hadn't listened in on the Bishop then I wouldn't have known this). So we brought them a treat that we had with us: Magenbrot (I mentioned this last week, I think.but it literally translates to stomach bread, so we thought it was kind of a funny gift). They were so grateful and we felt really good that we were able to see them for a few minutes. After that, we said more prayers, basically walked back and forth for a while, and at one point a girl on a bike passed us and Sister Smith was like, "I think we were supposed to stop her." But she was already gone. So we prayed again, and we walked one way, but then I felt like we should go back, so we walked the other direction and found the bike girl! We started talking to her, turns out he only thing she knows about our church is that her something-great grandpa was shot by a member in Salt Lake City back in the day. Great first impression. So we started talking about Freude (joy) and how wonderful it is and how living the gospel brings us joy and gave her a card that said "Menschen sind, damit sie Freude haben können." (Men are that they might have joy). At the end, we asked her for her name, and she just smiled and said, "My name is Joy!" We were blown away! I'm not sure how much our conversation will affect her, but it was definitely Testament to us that we had followed the Spirit. We went home very joyful.

Then once home, Sister Smith and I had a disagreement, but through prayer and the Spirit and constructively working through things, we ended the night happily with a back massage and a deep talk, and all was resolved.

Montag, 11th:

We had another Ausstellung, but this time it was normal length (sadly). Afterwards, Sister Smith and I and the Reinach Sisters wanted to go get lunch, and the Basel Elders tagged along. So we had a Quasi Distrikt Lunch, this time without the Pratteln Elders, but then it was a little awkward because the Reinach Sisters bailed out for the bathroom and then an appointment, so it was just Elder Koch, Elder Bast, Sister Smith, and I freezing on the bank of the Rhein eating our bread and cheese. #DoubleDate? But it was also whatever because we planned for a pass-off lesson that we were going to go to together and then waited for the guy to come (guess who ended up not coming?). So after giving the dude adequate time to show up (10 minutes was our cut off), the Elders went home to do Sprach Studium.

We waited for Vivianne, because she wrote us again and said she would have time to meet, so we spontaneously taught her about the Priesthood and Organisations in the church. It was a quickie, and honestly mostly just to catch up on her Word of Wisdom goals and Book of Mormon reading. It was nice to see her, and I think she was happy to see us, too.

Dienstag, 12th:

This morning we went to Herbstmesse (it's the last day) and I bought some treats that will hopefully last long enough to be brought home (I know at least 2 of them will). I may or may not have also bought a Beret. I've lowkey wanted one my whole mission though, so I've thought about it for 17 months and I have no regrets.

We're on our way to Grasburg Castle! We wanted to do something a little less stereotypical touristy. So we looked on Google maps for castle ruins and found this place, and it looks really cool! We weren't entirely sure it was in our mission, but it's right on the border so we're in the clear!

Tonight we have a dinner appointment with the Familie Egen, and I'm excited. It's been a while since we've been there.

~~~

Update: we're on the way home to change before the Egens. The castle ruins were cool, and I loved the hike and being out in nature. It's good for the soul!

Favorite new word: Esp, Bufanda - scarf / Deu, Habsucht - greed or avarice (directly translates to "'have' addiction", so an addiction of having things - I thought it was a cool insight) / Schwyzer Dütsch, Zvieri - snack or teatime

Favorite funny story: Probs the accidental double-date, because it was actually a lot of fun, but there's also this interaction from one of the Ausstellungen:

"How do you say 'go away' in a nice way?" - Me

"Keine Ahnung." *gestures at the ground and makes a sweeping motion* "Kannst du dich bitte entfernen?" - Elder Bast

... Several hours later...

"Geh mal weg" - Elder Bast at me

To explain, basically his answer was "can you please remove yourself" and then at the end of the Ausstellung, he told me to go away and actually used what you would normally use. I just found it funny because when put on the spot he couldn't think of the answer and his best option was "can you please remove yourself".

I guess that's mostly only funny for me. Sorry!

Favorite spiritual thought: Romans 8:28. Go ahead and ponderize that scripture (it's a good one!). And if you don't know what ponderizing is, go ahead and read this talk: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/10/my-heart-pondereth-them-continually

TLDR: I feel like it's been a month since last pday, and yet I can't make time slow down fast enough. I got my flight plans today and that was a shock. I'm trying to enjoy every bit of mission life and Switzerland that I can! I'm enduring JOYFULLY to the end.