So Long, Farewell

Augsburg
It has been quite the adventure in the 2000-year-old Roman city of Augsburg... but for these April showers I'm prepared for Singen in the rain! 

Haha.

Ok, my sense of humor has seriously depleted on my mission. Yes, I am getting transferred to Singen, which is down south in Baden-Württemberg (where a number of my ancestors were born).  Since it is in the Zurich zone, I will likely be traveling often to Switzerland.  

 Summary of my week: We set more appointments for my last ten days in Augsburg than we have had the past several months (combined?).  This seems to be a trend because that happened in Vienna as well haha. It has been way cool getting to meet so many people from different religious backgrounds! We also got to attend 2 baptisms, and roleplay with the youth on how to answer tough questions. 

Augsburg

Augsburg

Augsburg 
Augsburg
A COUPLE RANDOM THINGS I LEARNED IN AUGSBURG:
  • how to clean a cat who is too fat to clean himself 
  • how to talk with strangers on the phone
  • how to botch a cake (for example forgetting the baking soda)
  • how to more comfortably public speak in German 
  • how to confuse people with your accent because they think you're sharing an ocean message instead of an Easter message  
  • how to make dooring fun 




Last night I had a dream that it was August.  It was less than 24 hours after I had stepped off the plane and I was at the Safeway behind my house... grocery shopping like a normal person with a normal life.  As I rounded 'bout the produce aisle I just started bawling-- it hit me!  The mission was over! 

It's funny because, to be completely honest, I have always looked forward to going home... not in the "homesick" sense but in the way of like "ok it will be awesome seeing my family / being a normal person again." But I felt so relieved waking up from the dream realizing that I was still in Germany with this calling.  

So put aside the exhaustion, the dirty looks, or the feelings of inadequacy when people tell me my German is bad.  Forget the days and even weeks of seemingly fruitless labor or the heartbreak when someone says they don't want to meet anymore. I LOVE THIS CHANCE THAT I HAVE HAD TO BE A MISSIONARY. Yes it is the hardest thing I have ever done... but it has changed my whole life.  My testimony has been strengthened, my endurance built, my perspectives changed.  So I am happy that I DO have these next few months, because no matter what, it is so wonderful just being able to work for 18 months with the sole purpose of bringing others (and myself!) closer to Christ. 

 Love Always,
Sister Lundgreen
A few pictures from our district P-Day in Munich last week:










Oh Little Town of Bethlehem

Augsburg
It was a winter wonderland.  Although lacking in snow, the city of Munich was bejeweled with crimson flora and laden with Christmas markets stretching from street to street. 










Just when we'd thought we'd found the end of the markets, we would turn into an alleyway and discover a whole new realm of Christmas magic in the form of Medieval-themed shops or waltzing bell-tower cuckoo-clocks. Sister Howsmon thought we'd store the precious memory in a pair of beautiful Nativity music boxes.






Transfer calls!  5 week transfers are the worst because I feel like I only just got here and yet Sister Howsmon is already leaving.  *sobbing* But as it turns out I will soon be a mother of three. #timeforaminivan. But yes I am training again IT SHALL BE FUN.
     
Notable Notes:
- In Germany, St. Nicholas doesn't give naughty children coal.... But rather he brings along his buddy Krampus.  He is so terrifying; at dinner appointments I have seen kids be disobedient, the parents warn them of Krampus coming to get them, and then the kids sitting up wide-eyed and obedient in terror.  Haha.  Last year I saw a preview for a horror movie about Krampus but didn't know he was actually a thing over here in the Alpinlandische region! Also, St. Nicholas dresses more like the pope here.
- We had our ward Christmas party and it was Bethlehem themed!  Lots of people came, dressed up in old-Jerusalem-looking apparel and ready to "buy" olives and flatbread with gold chocolate coins.  The program followed the nativity story of Luke 2, and we joined the Young Women as a choir of angels to proclaim the birth of the swaddled Savior.  



  


- Whilst on tausch, Sister Eden and I got to help do taxes 
- I don't usually wear my glasses out cause they can give me a headache, so when I wore them to church for the first time the ward mission leader's wife asked Sister Howsmon if I was the new missionary, cause she didn't recognize me at first hehe


-  Eggnog translates literally to egg liquor - you can't find it without alcohol here what a tragedy 
- Our Sunday school lesson was a mix of German, Romanian, Spanish and English 
- I make the weirdest grammar mistakes in my English nowadays 


On Tuesday we were saddened when two members texted to cancel appointments in the space of ten minutes.  So we went out finding.  It was fairly chilly as we went from door to door, asking everybody if they we could share a Christmas message, being told "no interest" more times than I could count.  But after skipping past one certain house I just felt a little uneasy, like maybe we should go back. Does it really matter? I thought.  It will just be the same as every other house.  But Sister Howsmon also turned back, commenting that she could see a young lady with a baby.  "Let's go back!" I said.  So we rang the doorbell and the lady answered super frazzled and busy.  "Should we come back another time?" Sister Howsmon asked.  I was expecting her to say no, but she legitimately paused, thought about it, and then said, "Tomorrow at the same time!" We were like whattttttt.  After she went back inside we were both ecstatic.  "This was the reason that those two appointments were cancelled, so that we would meet this lady!" If the first appointment hadn't been cancelled, then we wouldn't have been out and doored her house.  If the second appointment hadn't been cancelled, then we wouldn't be able to meet her at the same time the next day! 
  But when the next day came and we ringed her doorbell once again, she wasn't there.  Her husband was, and he was super nice and said that if his wife said it was ok then we were totally welcome to come back.  But after he closed the door we were confused. Was that NOT supposed to be the reason that those two appointments were cancelled? 
So we continued dooring.  After ringing almost all the bells of one apartment, a man let us in.  
"This is the first time I have ever been let in before!" I whispered.  
"Wait, nobody has EVER said you could come in to share a message before?"
"Well, there was ONE other time..."

   *flashback*
                                              *4 MONTHS EARLIER*

The swelling August heat squandered any hope of autumn as Sister Selph and I klingeled a Viennese apartment.  Literally every single person either didn't answer or said no.  There was one left, and I clung to the faith that maybe this would be the one.
"Hello?" a man answered through the intercom.
"Hello!  We're on our way and we're sharing a short message about the purpose of life!  Do you have five minutes that we could share that with you?"
"Well OF COURSE!" he answered, with more enthusiasm than I had ever heard.
 So we hiked up to the very top floor of the apartment.  We were panting by the time he opened his door. 
"Hi, we're missionaries--" gasping for breath "--from the Church of--"
"Oh, um..." The guy's cheeks flushed; his mouth hung a little.  "I'm so, so sorry... But, uh, my friends and I do this thing where whenever we ring each other's doorbells, we ask each other deep questions and uhhhh............" His face contorted in pity as we realized that this young dude's friends legitimately pretend to be missionaries at each other's doorsteps.  We were literally the butt of their joke.  "I'm sorry that you walked all the way up here, but I don't actually have interest." It was too unfortunate and ironic and funny for us to even be mad.


                                              *PRESENT WEEK*

So the man rung us into the apartment complex, and we walked up to his doorstep.  He seemed very surprised to see Sister Howsmon.  "Don't you remember?!" he said.  "We talked to each other a few months ago on a tram!  Normally I wouldn't have interest but that's just so cool that we ran into each other twice!" So he let us share a Christmas message right there on his doorstep; we showed the new video and testified of the importance of Christ and how we can follow Him especially in this holiday season.  He wasn't interested to learn any more about the church but he was really nice and he took one of the service advent calendars.  
Who knows- maybe the two appointments were supposed to be cancelled, so that we would go by on that woman, who wasn't supposed to be home, so that we would knock on the door of this man.  Maybe the message we shared helped him somehow.  Or maybe it was all just completely random and the appointments were cancelled for no destined reason and we just lucky running into that man again.  I don't know.  But it's good to have faith that we can make good of whatever circumstances we are thrown into, and try to be a tool in the Lord's hands wherever we are at.





At the Christmas conference this week they talked about the difference between knowing about Christ and KNOWING Christ.  Yes, it's easy to read in the New Testament and learn facts about his life.  But do we KNOW Him?  Will we recognize Him at the Judgement Bar, having followed Him with all our heart might, mind and strength?  I know this is a concept I myself am trying to understand.  But something I love so much about this year's Christmas initiative is that it doesn't focus at all on His birth, however miraculous it was.  Rather, it concentrates entirely on His life and ministry!  Christ was a perfect example for us, through His Love, His service and His great sacrifice.  I hope we can remember that this Christmas season.

Love Always, 
         Sister Lungreen

Stalactite

Austria

This week began in a a crevice of the earth, in a dank and dark cave illuminated just enough to see the  chandelier stalactites. We crept through the mouth of the ancient mountain, first noticing the fossilized bones of a 20,000-year-old bear, and then following the twisty path to discover an underground world where minerals are the paint for peculiar colors. {Perk #273 of being short: Whilst everyone else had to duck, I could walk straight and still have several inches between my head and the rock.}   In one room, water rained down from the stone ceiling into a still pool, the purest one could find.



I never cease to be amazed at the beautiful planet that our Lord created-- and the most magnificent thing is that this Being who performed such a magnificent feat is the same Being who literally cares about us and wants us to turn to Him for joy.  This week Sister Selph and I did a fast in which we prayed for miracles in our work. After about six days time we became slightly discouraged because we weren't really seeing anything.... And then suddenly the blessings just started pouring out.    Of course!  God has His own timing!  If He is willing to take A MILLION YEARS to create a colony of crystals crawling down from the ceiling of a cave... then surely we can be patient in knowing that the answers to our prayers will come eventually.

Wonders of the Week (to name just a few of many examples):

- Literally SO MANY PEOPLE whom we have been unable to make contact with for the past weeks and MONTHS we were finally able to get back in contact with.  Things ranging from us running into them on random
subways and trams to them answering our emails to them finally texting us back just with a new number.
- A man contacted us through Mormon.org asking for a Book of Mormon.
- A woman in our ward whom we had been unable to visit since my first week here finally came to our appointment without cancelling.  She is so sweet!  We read Mosiah 24 about how the Lord doesn't necessarily
take away our troubles but rather gives us the strength to make our burdens feel light.  For a long time she has been concerned that the people in the ward don't care about her (which is not true; I lost count of the number of times people asked us how she was doing) and that if she comes back to church after all this time then the people will be judgmental.  And yet when she showed up th  following Sunday, the ward members were just beaming with excitement and absolutely took her in.  Oh how they had missed her!  She stayed for all three hours and in Relief Society gave the most beautiful prayer.  She even asked us to meet again next week!
- We visited an elderly member in our ward.  We had originally planned on just dropping off a card, but she was so excited to see us that she let us in for an hour.  She was just so happy and sweet and smiley and kept bearing her testimony.  When she opened her card, she gasped because the design was of roses and roses are her favorite.


Some Other Great Things:

- MLC in Munich!  I GOT TO BE REUNITED WITH ALL MY OLD COMPANIONS plus Sister Lehmann who was BASICALLY a companion in the MTC... I love President and Sister Kohler so much and that whole conference was just a spiritual boost.  I have never been so motivated to not only be brave and do the work, but even just to improve myself as a missionary in every way.



- We got to help teach primary, which was about missionary work.  We brought Books of Mormon in 15 different languages and then all the kids were given a "call" to different countries.  This reminded me a lot of an activity we had when I was 9 or 10 which was the first time in my life when I really wanted to serve a mission.
-  Members ask us for Books of Mormon to give to people they know.
- We went to an International Multi-Religious Peace Fest.



- My understanding of German had gotten pretty good already, but now I HAVE TALKED "AUF DEUTSCH" WAY MORE THAN I EVER HAVE.


Quote of the Week:

"We have Turkeys.  Lots of Turkeys," said Teodora, whilst talking about refugees coming into Bulgaria.  I think she meant Turks.

It has been a wonderful week and my testimony has been strengthened so much. One thing that I've noticed is that the more hardworking and purposeful I am in my day, the happier I am. I invite you all to go about your life with a purpose- whether that be to learn something new, to lift others up, to follow your dreams, whatever, the choice is up to you. But we have such a short time here on earth that the less time we spend doing mediocre or even meaningless things like playing on our phones and watching TV, the more time we have to truly make ourselves something greater.

 XOXO, 
                  Sister Lundgreen

The Mission Home

Munich

Dear Family of Sister Lundgreen-

We are delighted to tell you that Sister Lundgreen arrived safely in Munich this morning!  She has been fed and trained, and is now in bed after a long day of orientation. 

We thought you might enjoy this picture from our meeting this evening. Her new companion will be Sister Price, and they will serve together in Vienna, Austria. 

We are thrilled that she is here and we are grateful for her preparation and enthusiasm.  She will be a wonderful missionary.  We love her already, and will do all we can to help her have a successful mission.  

Your daughter’s preparation day is on Mondays, and that is when she will be e-mailing you each week.  We also have a mission blog if you would like to see occasional pictures of what is occurring in the mission.  The address is:  www.alpinegermanspeakingmission.blogspot.de

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact us.  We know that the Lord will bless you and your family during the next year and a half as you support your missionary in her service. 

Sincerely,
President and Sister Kohler
Alpine German-Speaking Mission

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