Sometimes I hear about the Pope...a lot - Dec. 23, 2013

Well, Monday to Tuesday...I was in Bergerdorf. On exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. Great times. Or, mostly. I just missed my companion.

Tuesday morning: Walked out of the apartment and stopped to talk some old woman on the street. She was cool and when she found out we were Mormons...well...just let me tell you. She said, ooh, I remember the Mormons during the war! (she lived World War II) She said, I remember getting my package. (care package) and you know what she told me? She will always remember the kindness and the Mormons, what they did for her. She told me to tell my ward back home (no doubt she probably thought there is only one ward in Utah), Tell them, I got my package. Well, Utah, Schwester Friedrich got her package! It was one of the coolest things to remind me of home. :D

Hamburg also has REALLY good döners...better than...Kiel. Sorry Kiel!

Had a fun eating appointment with the Elders and a member...who made fun of me...again...because I didn't like her grün kohl that one time two transfers ago! Goodness. She will never let me live it down. But she is cool, gave us Chocolate Santas. In which, Elder Larson folded a napkin and stuck it on his head and then he was the Pope. Quite interesting. Fancy that, the 'Pope' eating at our table.

Which reminds me, a guy on the bus totally told me he was the Pope. Then he said, okay not really. I am the brother-in-law of the Pope. Interesting...you sounds Russian and Pope Argentinian...Well then. 

Then again, we find people to teach by asking other people about their dogs. It was just this GIANT white FLUFFY dog and we couldn't help but to ask. Turns out her friend wants to meet with us and she already has a Book of Mormon. Well, sweet! Exciting! All because of a dog. :D

Oh, on Sunday, I was asked to give a talk for this upcoming week. I am surprised it did not come sooner. Almost 6 months out and I am barely giving a talk. Sweet, I know what I will be writing during language studies this week. Hahaha.

I am super excited for Christmas...they celebrate for 3 days! YESSSS. Plus I am going to see the Nutcracker. Even better. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week and a Merry Christmas. I pray that we may all remember the real reason for Christmas! (Some people don't even know why) Let's keep Christ in our hearts and remember to do good! I LOVE YOU ALL AND STUFF.

Love

Sister Rimmasch

Vokuhila - Dec. 16, 2013

Well....weeks are just flying by, at this rate I will be a grandma and won't even know what the heck happened. Haha.

ANYWAY

I have decided my companion is a time traveler. We were walking in the midst of the Christmas market and I saw this girl, thought it was Sister Johnson, and then was amazed she would wear a hat of such big proportions...then I realized she was actually standing right next to me...weird.

I bought a Pink Panther music box, it's pretty legit, and the sound is actually amplified when I place it on my head. It's like the music box Meg has from Germany. Put it on your head, see if it works. Haha. It really shouldn't work that way...but it does.

We had a great HoHoZoCo...*cough* I mean Christmas Zone Conference. It was great! We learned a lot and watch a movie. What?! Nooo...YES! We watched 17 Miracle and I just sat there like a happy camper because I LOVE MOVIES. Not to mention, I have watched Joy to the World more times than I would like to count. And you know what I learned, that I want YOU ALL to spread to your friends? Germany GERMANY IS A BAPTIZING MISSION. There. It's true though, I get a text almost every week with a list of names of people being baptized in the Germany Berlin mission. Pretty sweet.

Anywho, going to some appointments includes having a mass exodus on a bus and being smushed by little children about the age of my nephew, Alec. Well then. I was in the elbow of the bus when a gaggle so school children jumped on and crushed just about everyone for the whole bus ride. I even talked to one of them. She said my German was pretty good. Well, heck, thanks!

Something cool happened this week. We went street contacting...OH NO THE DREADED STREET CONTACTING. No, just listen! We decided we were going to give Book of Mormon's away. And that we did. Four copies in little than an hour. And a new investigator. I leaned to my comp, how do I talk to someone who is smoking? Just like anyone else. Duh, I should know that. I went up and opened my mouth and you know what happened?  We now have a new investigator. SIIIICK! We also walked around trying to find someone who read English we could give a copy to, turns out we live next to this thing they call a University and many people speak English. Well there you go! What a miracle that was! Super cool!

We went on a finding activity with ward members, singing in the outdoor mall. I gave out cards because my violin decided he didn't want to stay in tune for want of a warmer place. Oh well. It was good, I went out on a limb and asked this 14 year why he celebrated Christmas, he and his oh, I dunno, 6 other friends stopped and listened to me. They took my cards, they listened to me testify of Christ, the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. (They also thought my German was good, double points!) But what was important is that they hear me, and they listened. Maybe they don't meet with us, but at least for the first time in their life, they heard about Christ. (The had NO idea that Christmas was to celebrate the birth of Christ. What?! Yea, there are people out there like that.) What a cool experience!

I hope we all have a wonderful Christmas and remember the TRUE meaning of Christmas, what is stands for. Christ was born to save us and redeem us from sin and death. He is the reason for the season, let us share that with friends and family!  (All year!)

LOVE

Sister Rimmasch

Another storm?! Dec. 9, 2013

Well, it's been a week and here is the forecast of the past.

Monday: ZONE P DAY!!!!! It was sports and fun and döners and new friends! I made lots of new friends, from America, Germany, and England. Well, my friend circle just keeps getting bigger, I don't know what I am going to do with so many people. Party? We also had a great appointment with 'John' our cool investigator. He is super Bible smart. That is a super plus for him! We will be meeting again this week! We also ate our favorite döner laden and the man who works there, loves us of course. We bring in all the customers. He laugh when we got there because all the missionaries came there to eat and he asked, is this your group? hahaa, yes. Yes they are.

Tuesday: Sometimes you try beer on your mission. Hahaha, just kidding, it was non alcoholic. It is called Malz Beer (like Rootbeer, but not) and it was not my favorite...blech. Guess I know not to drink it now. Rootbeer will forever remain KING.

Wednesday: I got lost. Totally not my fault though, the street is a huge ring and nothing is ever grid systemed here, dang. Good times and fun visits. 

Thursday: Well this was definitely an interesting day. We read the WHOLE white handbook cover to cover in GERMAN for district meeting. It took SOOO long. And then we got bored so we did different accents while we read alloud. That made for some good times. Then we ate Chinese, and I will say, Chinese food is not Chinese food unless it is American Chinese food. That is all. Oh then it rage stormed and we had to stay inside the WHOLE day and went through the ENTIRE area book and made apple crisp. Aw well.

Friday: Turns out that sometimes we don't have Book of Mormons in every language, that's tough when you need one for an investigator. One day! We also helped set up for the Christmas party, that was fun!

Saturday: We bought some tickets to go to the ballet! We are going to the Nutcracker for a p-day deal thing. Yes! And then it was the Christmas party! One of our old investigators came! SWEET! It went well, I had to play some crazy German Christmas songs and then ward members were so sweet, they came and gave me hugs. Aww!

Sunday: Second Advent! Fun times! We had good times and got a referral from a member! Miracles do happen! And we had a good time at our eating appointment! Super cool! I love them all so much. Good food and nice people = happy missionary.

Sometimes you get to drive in Europe Dec. 2, 2013

Monday: DISTRICT P-DAY! We went to Vapianos where I ordered a pizza...and the pizza man made it into a heart shape!!! WHAT?! Hahahaha. No one else got a heart shape. Funny story. We also went to the Christmas Market, first day! It is pretty big and they've cool stuff!

Tuesday: We have some pretty cool members. One brought her friend over while we were there and we had a great spiritual lesson! This gave us so much hope to work with members and I believe it brings hope into our ward, that members are also missionaries.

Wednesday: Of course our first appointment fell out...lame, that's okay, I needed to eat lunch this day anyway. But we had a great lesson with our new miracle investigator 'John'. He is super cool and alread has some great spiritual experiences! He has such potential and he is nice and great and humble! We are so excited to make progress with him! He called us and made another appointment out with us the next day! We also helped Sister Zickler out for institute, she makes super good food, by the way. YUM.

Thursday: Turns out sometimes you walk from one side of the bay to the other looking for one house and realize you could have taking a bus directly there. It was SO long. It took us the WHOLE hour. Ridiculous. Anyway, after that we watched the Drive Safely DVD and received some information about driving because we needed the car the next day so we could be back to our apartment on time. We also celebrated Thanksgiving....by going to eat döners. And make Apple Crisp and Icecream. Well, it was the closest thing we could produce to being Thanksgiving. Na gut!

Friday: Sometimes, when you are in Europe under 6 months you get to drive the car. That's right, this girl, drove in Europe. It was fabulous. We had to drive up to Eckerförde for some appointments all day long and our President was very gracious to allow us to use the car this one time. It was a good day full of fun things like driving and backing up (comp backs me up). Haha. Oh well, but no worries, we were completely safe and nothing happened to us!

Saturday: First district meeting as a new district. We drove down to Neumünster with our new Ehepaar. They are super cool and really excited about missionary work! They are going to be fabulous. Our district now has 2 sets of Elders, 2 sets of Sisters, and a married couple. COOL! It was great. Afterward, we took the Ehepaar to get a döner because they haven't had one yet. Bwahahaha.

Sunday: SURPRISE! A man we met on the bus the other day came to church! He is soooo cool!! Super nice and humble and great and so excited to teach him! I was very proud of my ward, everyone came and greated him and made him feel welcome. The testimonies they bore helped him feel welcome and interested in learning about truth. :) Good job! We were given a Advents Kalendar from someone as a gift! AW! SUPER NICE! We had a good choir practice and another SURPRISE. Two food appointments in a row. So. Full! Both were really good and nice! Our members treat us pretty well and they are great. 

Other than that...going on week two of the transfer just right. SPORT ZONE P-DAY!!! WOOO

TRANSFER Nov. 25, 2013

So...sometimes we celebrate Thanksgiving a week early because our missionary couple is going home on Tuesday. Sad day. But, they had a good run here. We ate thanksgiving dinner with the YSA's and....OUR INVESTIGATOR.

John came to insitute and he is GOLDEN. We were learning about the BOM and the teacher asked him if he ever read Isiah. He said yeah, I studied it and proceeded to answer what is was about. JAW. DROP. SAY WHAT?! Yeah, that's how cool he is. ANNND afterward, he expressed that he WANTS to read the BoM.  So cool right now. I love him, he is soo humble and he even got dressed up in his Sunday Best to come meet with us. That is so cool.

Anywho, we gave ANOTHER lesson in District Meeting because we are just cool like that I guess. We gave a lesson on Alma 60-61 and how we can relate it to working with the members. I would encourage everyone reading this to go and read it NOW and decide for yourself. Particularly pay attention to Alma 61:9. It is super good. How can you relate this to your life? 

This weekend thing was a LITTLE crazy. We had Sister Training Leaders at our apartment for 2 flippin days because the trains decided to fall out...all the time. Anywho, we were on tausch (so splits) and the ONLY time I ever get lost in Kiel is when I go on tausch. Go figure. We found some interesting....abodes...cough....red...cough...lights...........(For any of you who do not get this, just forget it about it. ha.) Quite an interesting day, and then of course the STL's had to overnight, again. So I have been quite tired the past couple of days.

Practicing with the primary was fun and our GML just went up to a whole other level of cool. He sang The Spirit of God to the tune of Eye of the Tiger. WHAT?! Yes. It was beautiful and I think we should all sing it like that sometime. Or something. Ha.

We came home to a surprise at our front door on Saturday...from the Zone Leaders. A CHRISTMAS TREE. (sort of) They had done a service project and got some branches for us to make a Christmas tree!! It is pretty awesome! Just sayin. It's the beessstt.

The Primary program was SOOO CUTE!!! They are just soo adorable and I just want to hug them all and then I remembered that I have nieces and nephews and then I got sad and just missed my little babies. 

We colleged it up again for sunday dinner because we had no eating appointments, so we made......FRENCH TOAST. It was pretty awesome until I remember I don't have maple syrup. So we used Cinnomon Sugar. That was actually pretty tasty.

Oh. I guess I should mention. I will be staying in Kiel for Christmas. Any letters you have recently sent will get to me. Do not worry about it. :) I will be here AT LEAST until Jan 5th.

Love you LOTS

LOVE

Sister Rimmasch