Dear family,

This week was...oh my heavens, I don’t even know. Crazy. Weird. Wonderful

We spent Wednesday morning in the hospital...and the rest of the day locked inside our apartment. Sister Hallmann woke up urinating blood, so we took a bus to the krankenhaus and partied there for about 2 hours. She's alright...just had an infection of some sort, so they put her on antibiotics and told her to go home. And stay there. For 3 days.

Luckily, I got permission to go on a split with the American Sisters on Thursday! Sister Brough sat inside with my sickly companion and Sister Williams and I taught Ellenore!! At the end of the lesson, we invited her to pray, which she is always willing to do...but only ever says the Lord’s Prayer. Earlier that week, we taught her that prayer is personal—a communication, not a recitation. She didn’t feel comfortable praying like that on Tuesday, but promised she would after our next lesson...AND SHE DID! 

There’s something special about hearing someone pray—REALLY PRAY—for the first time. It’s one of the things that has brought me the most joy as a missionary, for sure. 

On Friday, we had a lesson planned with a woman named Oshi. One of our primary kids got baptized the Saturday before last, and a member (Schwester Thompson) invited her to come. After the taufe, Sister Hallmann and I invited her to come to church...and she came to that too!! We got her address and set up an appointment. She lives in a village called Rodalben (a little over an hour away). Neither sister Hallmann nor I heard the name called over the train intercom, and we TOTALLY MISSED OUR STOP. 15-20 minutes had passed before we realized we needed to get off and turn around. The train going back didn’t come for another 30 minutes, so by the time we got into the village, we were already an hour late for the appointment. We logged her address into our navi...and found out that we had a 30 minute walk ahead of us. However, that 30 minutes turned into an hour because OUR NAVI IS INCOMPETANT...or so we thought. We finally made it to her street and realized that the apartment number she'd given us didn’t exist. So we called Sister Thompson, who described the building, and sure enough, there it was at the end of the street. As we approached it, both Sister Hallmann and I felt incredibly uneasy BUT WE HAD A POTNETIAL INVESTIGATOR ON THE LINE (no, obviously I didn’t learn anything from The Sarratov Approach). It’s hard to explain, but there was a very real force pushing me in the other direction...which I chose to ignore. We found her name on the klingle, and reluctantly went up to her room. We were standing at her door...and neither one of us was moving a muscle. After about 10 seconds, we both looked at each other and were like "We gotta get out of here". We bolted down the stairs and out of the building, took a look at a sign on the door outside...and found out that the building we were so obviously prompted to leave...was a mental institution. 

A MENTAL INSTITUTION. 

LIKE REALLY SISTER THOMPSON? 

REALLY!? 

WOULD YOU LIKE TO PURCHASE A ROOM RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR FRIEND BECAUSE DR. SISTER TERRY THINKS YOU ARE INSANE. 

We called Sister Eldridge afterwards and she was like "that explains why Sister Thompson was so adamant about not going when I asked if she'd be joining you two for the lesson!" 

The members might not care too much about our well-being...but luckily the spirit has our backs!!

Then Saturday rolled around. Ohhhhh Saturday. The Eldridges called in the morning to inform us that there'd be some big left-wing right-wing political demonstrations...and the protesters would be coming right down out street. We walked outside to contact a potential investigator a little while later and were pretty much surrounded by cops. The Eldridges called us back a little while later and were like "umm yeah, we're picking you up and getting you out of Kaiserslautern today" (THE MEMBERS DO CARE— DONT WORRY MOM). We ended up visiting a couple families in the branch who live way out in no-man’s land and never get visitors. CRAZY STORY: The Kalweits (an elderly couple we stopped by on) have a bunch of pictures in their family room. I was going around looking at them, and Brother Eldridge picked one up and handed it to me.

IT WAS A PICTURE OF THE UCHDORF FAMILY. 

THE KALWEITS ARE FRIENDS WITH THEM.
NOT FAIR.

When we got back to Kaiserslautern, we had a lesson with Edison. At our very first lesson with him, he brought two friends along. One was being super immature and laughing/making jokes the whole time, but the other one was actually listening and participating. Edison brought him to church last week, and brought him to the lesson on Saturday too. As we were walking to classroom in the church building, Edison turned to me and said "Hey, he wants to get baptized." I responded by laughing (my body’s natural reaction to SHOCK), but managed to pull myself together and shout "OKAY!" After our lesson with Edison, we turned to Donaldo and said "hey, we're holding a baptismal service on the 11th of April. Will you meet with us and prepare yourself to be baptized on that day?"

AND HE SAID YES!

HOW EXCITING IS THAT?!

The lord is blessing us SO MUCH!!!! (:
asdkfj;as fkjasfe I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARYYYYYYYY.

Love y’all, lots!!!
Talk to you next week <3 

- Brookie

Dearest Family,

     I think the Lord wanted me to learn patience this week. Tuesday was one of those "WHY IS NOTHING WORKING OUT?!" days. We traveled an hour and a half for a lesson with an investigator…and she didn’t answer. Came home to go by on a potential...and couldn’t find their house. Stopped by on a different potential...and she didn’t have time to meet. On Thursday, we had a 5 hour chunk of time set aside for a lesson with Ellenore (the same investigator from Tuesday)...and she cancelled a couple hours beforehand. We had a backup plan to travel to two different villages and contact 3 different potentials...2 of which didn’t answer and one we couldn’t find. Had two potentials in K-town we tried to go by...and one (again) we couldn’t find and the other we felt prompted not to contact. Friday? All of our appointments fell out...again. 
     As I was looking through my journal last night, thinking about what I’d share with y’all in my email...I realized something. 
     These past 7 days have all been really crummy ones...and I didn’t even realize it! 
     HOW COOL IS THAT!? 
     Though nothing had worked out the way we planned, the Lord blessed us with bunches of little miracles to keep us going. 

ZUM BEISPIEL: 
     We street contacted a women last week who lives in our complex. We gave her a Book of Mormon, and she gave us her last name so we could come by and teach her more! We tried to find her name on the klingles outside, but it wasn’t there! Sister Hallmann said a prayer later that night and asked Heavenly Father to let us run into her again. Wellll, we turned into our complex on Saturday afternoon…and she was outside playing with her daughter!!! We explained what had happened, that we had tried to stop by but couldn’t find her name, and she told us there was a random name on her klingle belonging to someone who had previously lived there! She clarified where in the building she lived, and we set up an appointment for tonight!! 
     On Sunday, we walked into church...and guess who was there?! SISTER FREITAG (she’s the less active we've been working with that I told y’all about the other week). We hadn’t met with her over the week, hadn’t reminded her about church or committed her to come...SHE JUST CAME BY HER OWN FREE WILL AND CHOICE. I could have EXPLODED with happiness. 
     After church, we had a lesson with her which ended early. We walked home, contacting unterwegs, and made it back to our place a tiny bit early, so we continued up the street a little ways. Outside a house was a middle-aged women gardening with a child. We crossed the street and greeted them. After introducing ourselves, we asked if they were religious. The lady said she was evangelish, then motioned to the little girl with her and said "she’s not, though…wasn’t baptized as a baby--she needs to be able to decide for herself". I exclaimed that we feel the same way, which seemed to catch her off guard. The rockin' Sister Hallmann introduced the Book of Mormon to her after that, which she accepted! In addition, she said we could come over and teach her more about what we believe! To add another level of AWESOME to the story, I actually saw them outside working a few days ago and had the thought to talk to them, but kept walking because they were chatting with a neighbor...so glad Heavenly Father gave us another chance to meet!!!(: 

     Anyway, Wish us luck this week...pray that things work out a little better than they did last week, please!!!
     I love y’all lots. 
     I can’t wait to see your beautiful faces on skype in T-2 months <3 

- Brookie

Familyyyy

OH MEINE GUTE...MY GOLDEN IS GERMAN.

We went up to Frankfurt for the train the trainers meeting on Thursday night. I was talking to the Spendlove’s niece while all the newbies were in orientation and she was like "dude, did you see that super cute German golden?" and I thought super cute German golden? Dang. Whoever gets her is so lucky! ...and you can bet your bottom that all the other trainers were thinking the same thing.

Then, the paring meeting rolled around. Let me explain how such meetings work.

We have a couple themas by the APs, the mission president and his wife....which no one really listens to because we're all too busy FREAKING OUT about who our new companion is going to be. After the themas, the APs bring out 2 stacks of paper. One stack contains pictures of the goldens--the other, pictures of the trainers. The APs then hold up a picture of a golden, ask them to stand, then hold up the picture of their trainer. INTENSE RIGHT?!

When they held up our pictures, Sister Hallman and I FREAKED (she told me afterwards that the night before, she had prayed and asked Heavenly Father to give her one of three trainers and I was one of them). It was funny, though...the APs are both buddies of mine and Elder Allen, after having called Sister Hallman’s name, looked RIGHT AT ME with a huge grin on his face...aka he COMPLETELY SPOILED THE SURPRISE...but that’s okay. 

Anyway, everyone pretty much hates me (hehehe). It’s a dream come true to get a native as a comp when you’re serving foreign! Sad to say, though, I don’t think we'll be together for too long! Sister Hallman is serving in the St. George visitor’s center mission and just here on visa wait...so she'll probably be outta here in about 6 weeks or so. She's never been to the MTC, so she’s really unfamiliar with Preach My Gospel/the discussions and has no idea what the rules are. In other words, the Lord has given me the responsibly of teaching her literally EVERYTHING she needs to know. No pressure. Luckily for me, she’s a little SPONGE. Just soaks everything right in!!

We've already seen bunches of miracles together! We had dinner with a member scheduled at 17:00 on Saturday...and food didn’t end up being ready until 18:00. After about 20 minutes of waiting, I asked the mom if it’d be okay if we went and did some doors in the area then come back. As we were dooring, I saw a yellow house (people who live in yellow houses are ALWAYS nice)...so we klingled it! A young lady greeted us at the door. We introduced ourselves, and her response took us both by surprise! She explained that she was raised a member of the church, but had fallen away as she got older. We asked her if she still believes the church is true...and she said yes! She said that she moved to the village where we were over the summer with her husband and had no idea where a church building even was or how to get there...to which I responded "WE CAN HOOK YOU UP WITH PEOPLE WHO KNOW". She had no idea that her neighbors were members...and her neighbors had no idea about her, either! Crazy, huh!?

Later that night, we were walking home from the church, contacting unterwegs. We got to our apartment about 6 minutes early. We looked up and down the street, but there was absolutely no one out. We hesitated, debating whether we should just go inside, but decided to keep walking up the empty road. Then, out of nowhere, a lady comes walking our way with her dog. We stopped her, introduced the Book of Mormon and not only did she accept it, but gave us her address so we could come by and share more!!!

This week wasn’t all dandelions and roses, though. Bertrand dropped us. We had a lesson with him last Tuesday. As we sat down to begin, I could tell that something was very clearly wrong. After the prayer I asked him what was up. He said "I was going to say yes to the question you’ve been asking me about getting baptized, so I decided to research your church more" ...and it all went downhill from there. He accused us of lying to him. Accused us of hiding stuff from him. We did our best to address his concerns, but it was no use. He was hearing us, but he wasn’t listening. We bore testimony, we shared scriptures, I even explained that because he was SO CLOSE to accepting the invitation to be baptized, Satan was pulling out all the stops to prevent him from doing so. It was all in vain, though. He left us saying that he was going to back to praying and asking God to lead him to the truth. We promised him that God had already done so--but he was convinced otherwise.

I spent the rest of the day in tears. I thought, “Why does Satan get to be so loud, while the spirit remains so soft? Why does he get to have so much power? And why, why, why, is he so accessible?” The next morning, I was reading in D&C. Chapter 75 verses 3-4 say:

"It is my will that you should go forth and...labor with your might--lifting up your voices with the sound of a trump"

And I thought, wow. How frustrating must it be to be God? He’s probably up there thinking "Yes. The adversary is loud...so I’ve asked you to be louder. How many people have you stood by in silence? How many people have you sat next to without saying a word? How many people have you ignored in passing? Speak up! Don’t just match the adversary’s noise--MASK IT. Lift up your voice with the sound of a trump! Preach my Gospel! And preach it loud!"

And, rest assured, Sister Hallman and I have been doing just that.

Love y’all lots!!!!
Talk to you next week!!!
PS: HAPPY 6 MONTHS TO ME. See y’all in a year!! <3

- Brookie


PS: SHOUT OUT TO MY BRILLIANT, BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFULLY WONDERFUL SISTER FRIEND EMMA TERRY FOR GETTING ACCEPTED INTO BYU. Yes world, I know. I know it’s not fair that she is drop dead gorgeous AND intelligent...but you’re just going to have to get over it. And for all you BYU boys who are planning on snagging a piece of Emma pie--BACK THE HECK OFF. She’s my squishy. Get your own. LOVE YOU, WHITE CHOCOLATE. SO PROUD OF YOU <3