Twilight Zone

Castle

Hello, lovelies.  I just returned from a hike, which means that my fingers are grimy, my face tan (or sunburned?) and my belly full of delicious German gelato.  Oh, what a life.  We walked up to the ruins of Hohenwiel where the crumbling castle overlooks the rolling hills and zipping along the highway below are cars which look more like ants.  








And, we may or may not have taken a sunbathed cat nap on a cliff-side fortress wall.... 

As a missionary I am really trying to become more bold.  Enough with the dumb excuses-- I have less than 5 months to preach the gospel so I just need to do it!  I've really been trying to be better about talking to people in all sorts of settings, be it at the door, in the driveway, on a train, or on the street...and what's wonderful is that the more unafraid we are to open our mouths and talk to strangers, the more friends we make! 



Truly, though, as a missionary there's nothing more exhilarating than declaring your testimony of God's love with fullness of heart. 

What Happens, Happens:
  • We assembled a trampoline 
  • One night we ate delicious Indian food, went on a walk and talked about prayer
  • We spent a day with the world's coolest Sister RM who joined us in three teaching appointments and also went dooring with us 
  • We tutored a cute 12-year-old girl English
  • We accidentally slept in on Sunday because this whole daylight savings thing is still so foreign to me-- they don't have it in Arizona OR Hawaii
  • We went street finding in a beach town 



Quote of the Week:
Me: "I'm from a really hot place called Arizona."
12-year-old: "LIKE BELLA FROM TWILIGHT!!!!!!!" 

In 2002 Margaret D. Nadauld listed three things that describe a woman of faith:
  1. "A woman of faith trusts God and faces adversity with hope. She knows of His interest in her life."
  2. "A woman of faith is confident because she understands the divine plan of our Heavenly Father and her role to bless lives."
  3. "A woman of faith is fearless. She fears no evil, for God is with her."
 We have so much to aspire to.  In this life there are so many opportunities.... and though I am nervous for this next year because I don't know what the future holds for me... I do know one thing: that faith will carry me through.

I think of my role model, Esther.  In the face of absolute uncertainty, what did she do? She turned in faith to her Creator, willing to lay down everything (even her life) with the hope and the trust that His way was best.  

ALLES GUTE MEINE LIEBE 
               Sister Lundgreen

Mountains to Climb

Castle

Perched on the peak of a mount which is swaddled in snow is a castle, born by the dreams of a king.  


Neuschwanstein, the inspiration for the iconic Sleeping Beauty castle in Disneyland, overlooks a magnificent view of pine forests, glass lakes and yet another castle on just the opposite mount. 
Europe is just a dream, I'm telling you. 

Some Notable Notes:
- On Thursday we had THREE PEOPLE IN A ROW WHO ACTUALLY SAID NICE THINGS TO US AT THE DOOR EVEN THOUGH THEY WEREN'T INTERESTED.  "Hope you're successful!" "Hope everything goes well with you!" And "Sorry you had to climb the stairs all the way to the top of the apartment for me!"
- Brilliant idea from our landlady to keep the snow and leaves off the property: build a plastic dome around the house.  Unfortunately... the HOA said no.  
- After 5289 attempts I have learned that you just can't make American recipes with European ingredients and vice versa. 

Sometimes we get caught in the middle of sketchy situations:
- we were on a tram and the guy right across from me was WASTED.   He started taunting and shouting lots of slurred, cruel, horribly racist comments at these two young men and after a while one of them jumped up in defense on his friend.  I also jumped out of my seat just as fists/beer started flying.  I got mildly hit in the process of them trying to slug each other; Sister Franchino got beer on her coat.   I just bailed out the door.  Then I looked at my comp in a panic-- I realized that she would have to go THROUGH the fight to escape the tram.   Somehow she managed it. The two guys who had been picked on also jumped out-- they didn't want to get any more involved in this fight.
Cheesy Metaphor time:
 There is one song called "Mountains to  Climb" which brings back memories of my favorite year of Girls Camp, when we hiked the Grand Canyon.  It was the most physically-exerting thing I ever did; despite having trained for months in advanced, I got to a point where every muscle and joint in my legs just screamed in exhaustion. The dusty cliffside trail seemed like it would never end.  

Yet it finally did. All of us girls just collapsed on the asphalt at the top of the rim and didn't get up for like an hour; we felt crazy tired but oh-so- accomplished. We actually did it!  and the view was ABSOLUTELY. POSITIVELY. ASTOUNDING.

On Tuesday we went finding for like 5 hours and yet not a single person showed the slightest of interest.  That day was so cold that despite wearing feet warmers, my feet were still so numb that I couldn't even feel the feet warmers.  This was a pretty good example of the transfer, throughout which we had surely knocked on hundreds of doors but never by such means found someone who wanted to be taught. Meanwhile members here will tell us about their missions when they would have 8 teaching lessons in a single day....
Is it something I'm doing wrong? I wondered. Is my German bad? Can people not take me seriously because I'm as short as my twelve-year-old brother?  The classic quote that someone gave us through the intercom was "I couldn't hear what you just said but I'm not interested."

So I'm not sure the answer.  But I think of that song-- "give me mountains to climb, give me rivers to cross, give me something that's gonna make me better than I was!" I remember that Girls Camp and how despite its difficulties, we ended the trip so incredible happy... our muscles built... our relationships with one another AND our faith in our own capability both strengthened by this feat which we had accomplished together.  I think of that gorgeous view of the color-streaked, plummeting-drop canyon and how worth it the pain all felt.   


I'll admit it's not always easy facing rejection out in the cold when I'm missing my family over on the other (not-to-mention-warmer) side of the world, but I'm excited to see what experiences lie ahead.  What people am I going to meet? How am I going to grow? 











    XOXO,

                                        Sister Lundgreen

**About Neuschwanstein Castle from Wikipedia:

Neuschwanstein Castle is a nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as a homage to Richard Wagner. Ludwig paid for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, rather than Bavarian public funds.
The palace was intended as a personal refuge for the reclusive king, but it was opened to the paying public immediately after his death in 1886.[2] Since then more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle.[3] More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer.[4] The palace has appeared prominently in several movies such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Great Escape and serves as the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle[5] and later, one of the castles that inspired Disneyworld's Cinderella Castle.

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