Staircase to Heaven

My "Golden" is Sister Kate Hadfield and she is from Brigham City, Utah! She is a peach. hehe JK

 

I could not have been given a cooler, sweeter, more hard-working, inspired, or dedicated Golden. Golden power is real! I feel like I am not the Trainer, but that we are equal missionaries, working our feet into blisters trying to prune our part of the vineyard.

 

It's awesome.

 

We have also done a lot of running. Hence, the blisters.

 

So we had made a goal on Saturday to give out x number of pass-a-long cards, and one Book of Mormon. By the end of the day, we had totally exceeded our goal for cards, but had not yet "placed" a Book of Mormon. We were literally standing on our doorstep, about to call it a day, when Sister Hadfield was like

"Oh, hey we need to fulfill our goal."

So I turned around and saw this man walking right by our door, and I stopped him and asked him if we could talk. It turns out he was Turkish, and couldn't speak German, but he was super sweet and we said good-bye. We went inside, climbed all four flights of stairs up to our apartment, and started to unload all of our bags. I was still thinking about this guy, so I went over to our Book of Mormon "stash" and looked through the languages. There were TWO in Turkish. I grabbed one, turned to Sister Hadfield and said

"We should run back down and see if he is still nearby."

We leapt out of the door, clattering, yelling, laughing, down the staris, with the grace of a herd or Rhinos, and burst out onto the street. We ran up a block and then came to a street corner, looking up and down all of the streets. About a block down we saw a man that sort of matched the description of the man we were looking for.

"Is that him?"

"I don't know, it looks like it could be"

"He was wearing brown, right?"

So we ran down the block and up to this man, all out of breath. To our relief, it was the right man, and we gave him the Turkish Book of Mormon.

 

That sort of situation has happened more than once this week. We sure have climbed a lot of stairs! Morgen Sport: Check!! :)

 

One of my favorite "pick-up-lines" that we used this week was when we saw this man looking through some books at this outdoor library box that is near our apartment. I went up to him and was like

"Looking for something interesting to read? You should try the Book of Mormon! Here is a copy for you." He didn't take it, but we chatted for a bit about God, and that was nice.

 

Alma 34 is my reading challenge to you all for the week. I found Alma 34:16 really interesting. I want to try this this week. The idea of mercy satisfying justice I find totally wonderful. So the next time we are in a Situation where we feel justified in being angry or something, remember that mercy satisfies more than judgement ever will. :)

 

Alles gute!

 

Sister Roderer

It's a GIRL!!!

Hallo from Wiesbaden,

 

Lots of crazy things have happened this week. The biggest changes came from our Transfer call on Saturday. Our district got COMPLETELY changed. Well, as much as it possibly could have been.

 

I knew that I would be staying in Wiesbaden when we received FIVE bags of gluten-free flour randomly from a member of the American Military ward that was returning to the states. There was no way I was trucking all of that in my suitcase (that's a lie, if I were getting transferred, I would probably cart MORE) so I knew that I would stay. :)

 

Anti-stress District Meeting

Sister Eschenmann is heading back to France.

Sister Brown has been transferred to Mannheim.

Elder Strong has been transferred to Dortmund.

 

Sister Peterson is being joined by Sister Lyman.

Elder Melanson will be joined by Elder Christensen, and he will continue with his double duty as Zone Leader and District Leader/Relief Society President.

 

And my companion?

 

I'm getting a baby!

 

And her name will be "Sister" ! :)

 

My new companion will be arriving from the MTC on Wednesday, and I will go to Frankfurt to be trained on how to train, and then I will take my brand-new missionary back to Wiesbaden on Thursday.

 

It has just been a weird, crazy week in general. Lots of really awesome appointments, and miracle moments, but I will really miss Sister Eschenmann!

 

We were visiting an elderly man in an assisted living center, who we both love dearly, and Sister Eschenmann wanted to take a picture. As she was getting her camera, he leaned over to me and said

"I'll be back. I just need to go grab my teeth."

I almost died with laughter, and embarrassment. I had not noticed until that moment that he wasn't wearing teeth!

 

My thoughts from this week.

 

All you need is love, and God's love is always the answer. :)

 

Sister Roderer

The Bürgerhaus Loop

So.

We were on our way to a member's house, because I needed to practice with Elder Strong and the daughter of the members we were going to, for the musical number that we were supposed to give yesterday (due to unforeseen events, it has been pushed to next week). We had never gone there by bus, but Sister Eschenmann had written down good directions. We transferred onto the right bus, but were immediately confused, because it was FILLED with school children, probably between the ages of 8-10. We kind of looked blankly at the kids, and the kids looked at us. Had there been those conversation bubbles above our heads, they would have all said the same thing...

"?"

and then we just sat down.

Very quickly we noticed that there were no indications as to what stops were coming, or where we were stopping. In fact, we could not find a STOP button at all. After a few tense moments, as stop after stop went by, I finally asked one of the kids where the STOP button was. She pointed up. It turns out there were maybe 6 STOP buttons in the entire bus, and they were all on the ceiling.

Nothing more could be more praktisch for a bunch of mini humans.

Then things started to look familiar, so we started to relax. Then we came to a stop where like 9/10 of the kids got off. I saw the bus stop sign, and it was some other random stop, not our stop, but since we didn't have the stops plan, we had no idea how close we were.

Sister Eschenmann went up to the front and asked the bus driver

"Is this the is Bürgerhaus stop?"

He told her yes.

I clearly had seen that it was NOT Bürgerhaus, but I figured that I was just not in the secret "Bürgerhaus" Loop. So we both got off.

As I stepped off of the bus, I heard mini human voices call out to me

"Hallo!"

I whipped around, and saw two boys that I recognized from the ward. Not putting two and two together, I waved and said Hi to them too. As the bus doors shut, they called out

"And Tschüss!"

I turned to Sister Eschenmann and said,

"Hey! That was so-and-so and the so-and-so's son!"

She totally tensed, and started to whip around in circles, trying to locate a mini human that she recognized.

"Where? We need to follow them! We are going to SO-AND-SO's HOUSE!"

.    .    . 

"Erm...they're in still the bus..."

"Where??" She is still whipping around at this point.

"No! Sister Eschenmann." I stopped her movement.

"IN THE BUS!"

.   .   .

And then we both started laughing. We had no idea where we were, and no idea how close our bus stop was. In these smaller towns, it could be as much as a 10-15 bus ride between bus stops, and now, we had to go by foot.

We contacted the first person we saw, and it turns out that we were within 5 minutes walk of our destination.

We heard this week the quote "Don't travel faster than your guardian angels can fly." I'm glad that they kept up in this instance.

When Elder Bednar came to visit a few weeks ago, he said something that has really stuck with me.

"Loneliness is a reminder to approach the Lord."

That has given me so much strength. He is so tender, so loving, so perfect in His Fatherly duties.

I urge you, I challenge you, I plead with you to ask Hm for evidence of His love, or of the truth of this gospel. Or for whatever you need. He is there, and He listening.

I know, because I have felt, seen, faithed, and seen again, the power of His hand in all things.

Of this I gladly and humbly testify,

Sister Roderer

Being Bugged

Aloha from Wiesbaden!

Here is the parable for the week:

So we had some amazing lemonade at a member appointment the other week. It was freshly squeezed lemon juice, water, sugar, and finely chopped peppermint. In fact, we liked it so much that we bought a peppermint plant so that we could make it ourselves. After a couple of days, I noticed that it had a few bugs on the leaves. I ignored it. (if the bugs don't bite me and don't infest what I usually eat, and there aren't like a bjillion of them, I don't care) After a few more days, we moved the peppermint plant into another room, so that it wouldn't infest our Basil plant.

Fast forward a couple of weeks...I dared to check on the plant and it was COVERED in little green bugs, like horror movie covered. Now I cared. :)

My reaction was:

Oh, well, good-bye plant. It's been nice knowing you, you were only $1.50. Thanks for everything, Tschüss.

On the other hand, Sister Eschenmann wanted to use tape and "tape" all of the bugs off of the plant, like cat hair with a lint roller. I was skeptical, but it worked like a charm.

So there she was, saving an innocent life, and I started to feel pretty doof. I mean, I always knew that I didn't have much of a green thumb, but at that moment I felt like a plant killer.

And then I thought about it.

If my inital reaction was to chuck the plant when it got infested, what have I done in other more important situations that were similar?

What have been the bug-infested peppermint plants of your life?

I think sometimes when hard things come along, it is easy to get stuck seeing the things that bug us. hehe

Walking 20 min in the rain to meet with the Ward Mission Leader

But I think that it is always so important to remember that change is possible. I felt like I had broken the plant, and rather than fix it, I felt like it would be easier to just start over. I think that can happen with projects, goals, dreams, people, relationships, and ourselves.

Three things come to mind from that.

1) Gratitude is really the fastest way to gain perspective.

2) Service builds trust, and it is through trust that we can really begin to love.

3) Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, change is a real thing. No one needs or deserves to be "chucked" because despite the overwhelming weakness of each of us, we all have something to offer and something to give, and something to become. We need to believe that!

Walking 20 minutes uphill in the sun when the buses aren't running to meet with a dear old man in a rest home

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Sister Roderer

Curry, Zucchini, and Michelangelo

We had the awesome opportunity this week to meet with Elder Bednar as he introduced the iPads to our Mission. We don't have the iPads yet, but we sure were uplifted by the power of an apostle of the Lord. Meine Gute! The power in that room was palpable! I felt so honored to be able to be there, feast on the Spirit, and know without a doubt that I was a missionary for the fulness of the restored gospel, even the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Haha, so we got these new booklets on how to use technology in the mission field, and under Blogs it says that they should be short. Haha. Oops. I've got some work to do. :)

I just wanted to share two experiences that really meant a lot to me this week.

The first was the other day I was making Red Thai Curry for the first time (the first of many, methinks) we were at a Termin, and I was chopping zucchini. I was having way too much fun, and I tuned into the feeling, trying to figure out why chopping zucchini was so enjoyable. I realized it was because I felt like I was creating something. My initial reaction was that I was actually destroying something...

I was chopping up something that was already beautiful into rather uneven, unidentifiable shapes.

And then I thought about it.

I am sure that that little zucchini had no idea that if it had just kept on growing, it would become ugly, gross, and not good for much more than being fed to the chickens. Or it would have rotted. But I'm still pretty sure that the zucchini was offended when it got picked.

"HEY!! I was doing so well! What the grass stains do you think you are doing? Now you messed up my chance to awesome!"

But now I was chopping it even finer and would eventually add it to the most delicious spices that it could highlight and complement, and it would bring nourishment, pleasure, and contentment, and be a way to bring people together. 

That would never have happened if I hadn't chopped it into uneven pieces.

I think life can be like that sometimes. Like the bush that requires being cut back in order to produce fruit, or the field that needs to be tilled in order to be soft enough for seeds, or the seed itself that needs to crack before it can sprout, there is an element of destruction before there can be creation. Or maybe it is more of a reorganization. haha It reminds me of one of my most favorite quotes of all time:

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”
― Cynthia Occelli

I think for the Being who created the universe, and everything in it, the God who holds the beginning of the evolution of all things in His Hands, and He who understands the science behind the science, I think He gets it. I think He knows what has to break in order for us to really succeed. And I am so, so grateful for that.

The other was based on the story told in Elder Rafael Pino's talk from General Conference about the boy who watched Michelangelo work on the statue of David.

 “As the sculptor was chiseling a block of marble, a boy came every day and watched shyly. When the figure of David emerged and appeared from that stone, complete for all the world to admire, the boy asked Michelangelo, ‘How did you know he was in there?’”

I had one of those moments this week. Hehe

One of the Sisters from the American ward asked me to text her a phone number, which I was happy to do, but my fingers are so used to technology and not this prehistoric whateverness that we use (at least that is what I tell myself) that instead of sending the number, I DELETED it. Not that big of a deal out of context, but in context, to me, it was so humiliating. Like it was up there with having a Marilyn Monroe moment on Main Street in Albuquerque New Mexico.

Or worse.

I'm actually not sure.

But I thought of Michelangelo, and in my mind's eye, I looked up at heaven and in loving frustration yelled "Lord. That there was a chunk of my FACE! OUCH!!"

But it's OK. 

My face is a lot prettier now. ;)

Oodles of love,

Sister Roderer