FAMILYYYYYYYY

      

              I’m about to tell you a really awesome story. Prepare yourself. Take a seat, if you will.

              Carrie (I sent a pic of the two of us a couple weeks ago) works at a school in our area. At said school there is a speaker/ performer every Wednesday night that the kids are required to go and listen to. She talked to the head master a few months ago and asked if we could come and give a presentation about our church...and the head master agreed! Surprising, right? Anyway, we got there, had dinner...and after we ate, one of the teachers went up to Carrie and told her the head master wanted to see her. When she came back from talking to him, all she said was "guys, be careful“...apparently, Mr. Master Man was nervous our presentation would turn into a preachentation, so we went back to the auditorium, deleted a couple slides from our power point that that could come across as “preachy“ and prayed for the best...and? IT WENT GREAT! Originally, we had a Q and A session planned for afterwards, but decided to dump that idea because we figured no one would care enough to ask anything, but we finished our presentation 15 minutes early, so we had no choice but to have it...and I’m so glad we did!! We were asked some really neat questions, ranging from „why did you decide to serve a mission to “what does your church teach about repentance? “ Even better, Carrie came to church yesterday and said that people have continued to bombard her with questions over the past couple days and one kid even asked her if we could come back!! That one just about killed me. How awesome is that??

                After that, we decided we had to think of some more bomb ideas to get the work moving in this area. We had a correlation and came up with some pretty good ideas!

#1: operation Santa clause

We‘re going put elder Goodrich in a Santa suit, wrap a bunch of Joy to the World DVDs and then hand them out to people around Coburg!

#2: Preach it- Puzzle Style

We purchased a 1000 piece puzzle and wrote down a list of invitations for members to extend to their friends and family. Each invitation is worth a certain amount of puzzle pieces...and the goal is to have the whole thing completed by the 1st of June!

#3: 4 Week Program? Yes Ma‘am.

We‘ll meet with a family once a week for 4 weeks. There’s this really incredible, inspired power point that we’ll use to guide our lessons, which will all be about missionary work. The goal is for the family to have someone for us missionaries to teach by the end of the 4 weeks. Sister Hamner had 5 baptisms in her last area, all of which were direct results of this program.

   Wish us lots of luck!! The work here is incredibly slow...hopefully these ideas are effective!!

                Elder Burger finished his two years of missionary service this past week! It was really hard to say goodbye and picture him at home with his family- especially with Christmas right around the corner. Made for a pretty hard day, for sure. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about Adam and eve, though, and have found comfort and understanding as I have studied their proceedings and related them to my own life.

Home is my Garden of Eden. Just like Adam and ever, however, God needed me to leave.

But why? Why couldn‘t I stay? Why did I have to venture out into this seemingly lone and dreary world?

            For the same reason my first parents couldn’t remain in their beloved garden.

            They needed to progress.

            The needed to grow.

They needed to have certain experiences, develop specific attributes and gain particular understanding, all of which could not/ would not have been obtained had they stayed put in their garden. 

Growth is painful, though.

And progress is hard.

But verses 4 and 5 of How Firm a Foundation have comforted me a lot.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go

The rivers of sorrow shall not thee overflow

For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie

My grace all sufficient shall be thy supple

The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design

Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine

I can’t think of anything more dross consuming and gold refining than a mission. However, I know I won’t be drowned by the deep waters of homesickness and feelings of inferiority.

The lord is with me.

Always and foreverrrrr (napoleon dynamite reference)

I love y’all lots!!!

Talk to you next week!

Don’t forget to pray for meeeeee.

Love, 

Brookie

PS: Nuremburg was a BLAST. Everything was so pretty and sparkly and Christmas-y! The whole time I was thinking “oh my gosh, mom would DIE OF HAPPINESS if she were here right now“. I had my first kinder punch (SO GOOD), my first Nuremburger (I CANT EVEN) and tried marzipan (FINALLY). It’s hard being away from home during Christmas time...but if I can’t be with y’all, I’ve decided that Germany is definitely the 2nd best place to be.

LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU (: 

1 Month in the Field!

Okay. Allow me to share with you the most horrific story with you to begin this email. Sister Hamner and I were riding up to the church for correlation with the elders the other night. As we rode by the festa, we heard blood curdling screams. We looked to our left, and there was a man attacking some woman! Like, bashing her head up against a car and throwing her around. There were two ladies standing off to the side watching the whole thing take place, so we ran jumped off our bikes and ran up to them screaming 'have you called the cops!?' AND THEY HADN'T. THEY WERE REALLY JUST STANDING THERE WATCHING. So I said 'UMM STOP STANDING THERE WATCHING AND CALL THE POLICE' (the elders took our phone by accident earlier that day, so we couldn’t). Anyway, as I yelled that, the man walked back up the festa steps and sister Hamner and I ran over to check on the lady. While over there, the man came back, sister Hamner started yelling at him...AND HE STARTED TO COME AFTER US.

I have never run so fast in my entire life.

Speedy Gonzalez would have been proud.

We kept our distance until the cops came, and then took off.

Pretty scary, huh?

But hey, good news! I have some miracle stories to combat that disturbing one!

#1. We went to Bamburg for a district meeting and had a finding activity planned for afterwards. Sister Hamner and I were not too thrilled for multiple reasons. 1. We were in Bamburg aka not our area aka nothing we did would contribute to our numbers. 2. It was rainy. And cold. And the past few days had been relatively nice so we were not dressed properly for said dreary weather. & 3. It was two-o’clock and we hadn’t had lunch, so we were pretty much starving. Also, tired.

But off we went, anyway. After about 30 minutes, we were both kind of done. I had on flats, so my feet were not only drenched, but numb as well and sister Hamner just wanted to eat. As we were walking back to the church, we decided to stop and contact one last person. We walked up to a lady, complimented her boots, and then continued to talk to her for about 30 minutes! We told her all about the church, the book of Mormon, praying to know its true...AND SHE SAID SHE WANTED TO LEARN MORE. And guess what else? SHE LIVES IN OUR AREA.

As we walked back to the church, the cold didn’t phase us. The rain didn’t bother us. I didn’t think about my numb feet and sister Hamner didn’t make comments about her empty stomach...The only thing we complained about were how sore our faces were from smiling so darn big!

Gosh, it was the best.

Pray that we get to have a lesson with her soon!!

#2. Sister Hamner and I were on a train to Bamburg to meet up with the Nuremburg sisters for a split and I had the phone out making calls to confirm appointments for later that day. But my good buddy Mr. Holy ghost said 'hey, put the phone down and go talk to those two girls over there'. So I did...I introduced myself as a missionary for Die Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage, but they didn’t seem too interested in conversing, so I just gave them a Mormon.org card. I was about to walk back to my seat when one of them said 'OH! You’re a Mormon!! So you know Eva and Johanna and the keils!' and then I freaked out because I LOVE Eva and Johana and the Keils (they’re in my branch)!! They were way more willing to talk after making that connection. Best part though: Before leaving my apartment that morning, the spirit prompted me to grab some fliers for our ward Christmas party and put them in my bag. I’m SO glad I did, because I was able to give them to these 2 girls and they were super excited! Apparently, they’ve been to the church before for other activities. Pretty rockin’, huh??

#3. Similar to the previous story. We ran into an old potential investigator on a train. Again, before leaving the house, the spirit prompted me to grab fliers and again, I’m so glad I did! I was able to invite her and the 3 friends she was with! I also had the opportunity to sit with her once her friends got off the train and assess her interest/ establish expectations. She seemed really interested the first time we talked to her, but we haven’t been able to set up an appointment because she’s always too busy. There was one time she DID have time, and she was like 'we should meet up in the city and...' Like, she thought we just wanted to hang out or something. Needless to say, it was great to cross paths with her and get to talk a bit/ give her a condensed 1st lesson! She really is busy, so hopefully once her semester is over and she’s done with tests, we'll get to have an actual 1st lesson!!

As for my thanksgiving, we didn’t get invited to have dinner anywhere because- SURPRISE- they don’t celebrate American holidays outside of America! So last Monday, the elders, sister Hamner and I had an 'American thanksgiving' ...aka we made pizzas and ate ice cream. Then Thursday rolled around and we were like 'umm this is lame. We HAVE to do something today!' so we had another thanksgiving dinner and invited a couple YAE's from the branch. As hard as it was being surrounded by 5 people as opposed to 25 (and have 2 pies instead of 12)...I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. No matter where I am or who I’m with, I have a brother who is ALWAYS right beside me. On top of that, I’m surrounded by such wonderful people here. I’m thousands of miles away from Texas, but I’m beginning to feel at home here in Coburg...and I couldn’t be more thankful for that.

Anyway, I gotta go! We're going to Nuremburg today...do you know what’s in Nuremburg? THE BIGGEST CHRISTMAS MARKET IN THE WORLD THAT’S WHAT. Oh my gosh I’m so excited.

I love y’all so much and I miss you like crazy!!

Keep praying for me.

It helps.

Love, Sister Terry

PS I OFFICIALLY SURVIVED MY FIRST MONTH IN THE FIELD. WOOHOO.

Hey favorites!

     

      I took some time during personal study this past week to read the accounts of Jesus sufferings in the garden of gethsemane. Given the pretty difficult time I’ve been having, I hoped to find some comfort in these passages...and comfort I found.

     Luke 22 41-44 was particularly touching.

     Before performing the atonement, Christ asked for an out. He asked for heavenly father to take away the burden he was about to experience. God didn’t give him an out. He didn’t take away the trial. He did, however, send „an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening Him“.

I know heavenly father has been doing the same for me these past couple weeks. I know he’s been sending angels to help and uplift me...and this past week, he sent me one on THIS SIDE of the veil!! Sister Gardner. Oh my goodness. She came to Coburg for a split with me (led my first exchange! Ahh!) And it was just what I needed. Sister Gardner has been dealing with a lot of the same feelings/ emotions that I’m struggling with. One of the hardest parts about being out here is never having anyone to talk to. It’s a blessing, because I have definitely learned to rely on/ communicate more with the Lord, but it‘s also been a huge challenge...so it was nice to have sister Gardner around!!

     Okay. Wonderful story time. On our split, we planned on handing out fliers for our ward Christmas party in a complex that houses people from other countries...but when we got to sister Haase‘s house (who wanted to drive us over there/ help pass them out) she asked if we could drop one by a family that she’s super tight with first AND HOLY COW IT WAS AMAZING. I don’t even know where to begin.

     Umm...the family. Let’s start there. THEY ROCK. The parents are from Syria, but they’ve lived here in Germany for 15 years or so. They have three kids...one of which is a 3 year old son...I may or may not have spent 10 minutes on the ground playing cars with him...and it may or may not have been the highlight of my day. Anyway, they’re Muslim and absolutely 100% the sweetest people I’ve ever met in my entire life. They kept feeding us all this super delicious Middle Eastern food, so that just added to the whole experience.

     Next...sister Haase. SHE ROCKS TOO. Seriously, best missionary ever award goes to her. After inviting them to the Christmas party, she proceeded to invite them to Geminda Essen (which we have the 3rd Sunday of every month)...And then straight up invited them to join us at church every Sunday and said she‘d give them rides! LIKE OKAY THANK YOU SISTER HASSE FOR BEING THE MOST GLORIOUS CREATURE ON PLANET EARTH I FREAKING LOVE YOU SO MUCH

     And finally, the dad! When we were about to leave, we asked him if he knew anyone else that we could invite to the Christmas party and he took A WHOLE STACK of fliers, counted them, then said „actually, can I take a few more?“ and his wife invited 2 other families, too!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME. Anyway, as we were walking out, he said „We would love to have you sisters over again next week, let me give you our number so we can schedule something “AHHHHHHHHH OHHH MY GOSH IT WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MOMENT OF MY ENTIRE LIFE LIKE I ALMOST PASSED OUT. I still get giddy every time I think about it!!

 

     You know what other bible story has brought me much needed comfort this week? Christ calling His disciples to be fishers of men. In Matthew 4:19, He says „follow me, and I will make you fishers of men “The Lord didn’t say "almighty. Drop your nets, forget about fish and go feed my sheep. READY SET GO." Likewise, he didn’t say "Okay, Sister Terry, drop everything you’re doing, forget about home, boys, school and family and be a missionary and be a perfect one and be one RIGHT NOW. COME ON TIMES A TICKIN YOU ONLY HAVE 18 MONTHS GO GO GO!"

     No.

     He said "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" or in other words..."Brooke Terry, obey my will. Go to Germany, and I will make you a missionary. It'll take some time, I know it will be hard for you to leave your family and friends behind, but be patient. Over time, I will make you a fisher of men. i will turn you into the missionary we both know you can be.‘

I am so grateful for Jesus Christ. I am grateful that because of his atoning sacrifice, I’m NEVER alone in anything that I go through.

I am grateful for his support, his patience, and his love.

I am thankful for the angels he sends me, both seen and unseen.

I love y’all so much.

And? I GET TO HEAR YOUR GLORIOUS VOICES IN T-1 MONTH! I CANT WAIT!

Love, Sister Terry. The Fisher of Men in the Making.