Heutzutage ist Deutschland ein 'Streik'land

Here is Sister Smith, Beauty, Elder Lee, and I on the day of the baptism. 

Guten Tag!

So all this week, all the trains of Germany have been on strike, making it nearly impossible to get places!  This is like, the 3rd bahn strike that's happened since I've been here!  I saw the headline "Heutzutage ist Deutschland ein 'Streik'land" meaning, "These days, Deutschland (Germany) is a Strikeland" and I thought it was pretty funny.

Seriously though, this strike was so stressful.  We've got a woman who lives about an hour by train away, on this really obscure train, that wasn't running.  Some of the more necessary trains were running, meaning we could get to Beauty, who was baptized on Friday (I'll touch on that more later) but Frau Bl., who lives off this obscure train route, was nearly impossible to get to.  We ended up leaving in the morning one day this week and taking a good 2-3 hour bus ride there instead.  Then we took another 2-3 hour bus ride home.  But hey, we did it, and our lesson went really well.  She's seriously on of the most adorable people I've ever met.  She asks incredibly intelligent and relevant questions.  She's already read the Book of Mormon at least three times through, and she's also read the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price, so that's pretty dang spiffy.  She's been wanting to be baptized since she was younger.  She grew up on the East side of the Berlin Wall, and a member of the Church taught her how to pray as a child.  She's been trying to find connections back to the church her whole life.  She lives in a nursing home, and we think it's because she's had at least one stroke.  We met her through a ward member who works there, and once we started teaching her, she just started flying through all the lessons.  She has trouble walking, and needed permission to be baptized from her caretaker, who made it a little difficult to get to that point.  Coincidentally, however, the branch president owns the nursing home.  He will baptize her this Saturday, with the help of a selected ward member.  She can't make it into the font by herself, so there will be 2 or 3 other people in the font with her, helping her get baptized safely.  It's been a bit of a hassle getting this organized and approved, but the day is quickly approaching and I'm so excited!

So since I promised I'd touch on it, Beauty's baptism was very sweet. As a single mom of two young children, living in a country where she doesn't understand the language, along with being a refugee, Beauty can get stressed out fairly easily.  When Beauty walked into the chapel in her white baptismal clothing, however, a spirit of peace and relaxation entered with her, and she was able to enjoy the prelude music with very few interruptions from her children.

There was one interruption, however, and it was hilarious.  Victory, Beauty's 5 year old son, was sitting quietly in the chapel when Elder Lee walked in.  Elder Lee was also wearing white baptismal clothing, because he was the one baptizing Beauty.  So Elder Lee walks in and this happened:

Victory: "Mom....is that God?"
Beauty *without hesitation* "Yup."
Victory: "...Wow..."

and then it got cute.

Victory walks up to Elder Lee: "Are you God?"
Elder Lee: "No, but I'm His son, and so are you."
Victory: "Really?"
Elder Lee: "Yes."
Victory: "...Wow...."

Hahaha it honestly probably isn't as funny without the vocal inflections from Beauty, but it was definitely a memorable moment.

Other than that, Mother's Day was lovely.  We have a woman with Down's Syndrome in our ward, and she sang a Mother's Day song from the Children's songbook.  She only made it a couple of lines in before she got a bit of stage fright and became overwhelmed with emotion, but her performance, along with the hugs she gave the branch president and his wife afterward (They have basically adopted her as their child) was really touching.  And the ward applauded!  For those of you who haven't attended a Mormon church service, applauding isn't something that happens during them.  But it happened yesterday as a positive reinforcement, and it was just adorable.  Felt completely natural.

Lastly, (before pictures,) there's been a bit of a switch up, and I am back in a "drit".  A sister in our zone needed to go home early due to a family emergency, so her companion will be staying with Sister Smith and I until the end of this transfer, which is next Thursday, so that will be fun.  I'll finish my second transfer in the field having had four companions.

Okay, pictures:

A crooked shot of the Alps (or what I could see of them) From Slipplingen today:

A big old Catholic church in Radolfzell.  We went inside today. It was really pretty  -beautiful artwork and just filled with history, but it didn't seem right to take pictures inside, so I took this one outside.

And me, on the edge of the Bodensee, wishing I could get on one of the many boats there and go sailing for a bit.

It's been a good week, guys! Keep on keeping on, I'll talk to you next week :)

Sister Sally Priest

Salasaurous macht Spaß.

Guten Tag, meine lieben Freunde :) In diese Woche habe ich viele getan! Ich habe Hohentweil besucht, ein Deckefestung mit meine Mitarbeiterin gemacht, und auch viele Fotos gemacht! Ich habe so viele Spaß diese Woche gemacht :)

Alright, so last Monday, we climbed this big old hill to this big old 1100 year old castle and I took a whole bunch of photos and was very happy. I also met my old friend Humidity. I haven't seen Humidity for nearly 3 years now, and I didn't really miss it. BUT, this is Germany, and I'm teaching people about the most favorite thing in my life, so how much can I really complain?

Honestly, so much happened this week that I'm not entirely sure what to tell you. Nothing really exciting happened, I've just been really busy. Our area is pretty big, and sometimes it takes us a couple hours of buses and trains to get to a lesson.

Let me think.... On Monday-- I already told you what I did. Tuesday was a big travel day. We had a lot of lessons and probably spent about half our days on trains. Wednesday, we helped a lady in our ward move to her new apartment. It was a lot of work, but honestly, the physical labor was really relieving. I only get 30 minutes of exercise each day. That's right when I wake up, and, since I've had a cold all this week, a lot of my morning sport ended up being me wrapped in a blanket lying on the floor.... starting tomorrow, it should be more productive :)

Thursday was another long day of traveling and teaching.... Friday was pretty fun though! The Ward Mission Leader is in a band. Two, actually.... but one of them is made up of LDS people, so for May 1st (which is a holiday over here), we had this big Ward Dance night and he and his band played for us. It was way fun, and also a nice stress relief! Saturday and Sunday were also filled with lessons and travel.

This Friday, we'll be having a baptism for one of our investigators. Her name (which is fabulous) is Beauty Sunday! She comes from Nigeria and has been such an inspiration to me. She's had a really hard life and lives in a refugee home. She's very excited for this baptism (and so am I! She's the first person I've taught that I get to see get baptized!), and I'll make sure to send you guys pictures next week!

Speaking of pictures.....

I had some more fun with my manual focus. Sister Smith:

And Elder Jensen

Elders Caldwell and Jensen had the wonderful idea of climbing this 12 ft turret. Sister Smith and I walked away. 10 minutes later, we returned and they go "Uh, could you help us? We've been stuck up here for 10 minutes. Our phones and everything are on the ground and we can't get down." It made for a really great picture though. We love our Zone Leaders!

Lastly, both my companion and I were a bit sick this week. Neither of us were looking forward to weekly planning, so we decided to build a blanket fort. It definitely made a difference!

That's all I've got for this week! Tune in next week for baptism photos, more stories, and, of course, the thoughts of yours truly, Sister Priest.

OH, and I loved reading your replies :) I'm sorry if I don't have time to reply to you each individually, but seriously-- thanks for the support and kindness!

Bis nächste Woche!

Sister Sally Priest

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