Ain't Nobody Got Time For That

So, I am going to start off with a joke....
What happens when two Sisters with no fix-it-man background try to fix
a fridge???
It doesn't get fixed, but it does get very clean!

Also...what is the fastest way to convince two Sister missionaries
that they've gained weight?
Put them in an apartment filled with IKEA furniture.
It's like living in an earthquake.

So this week was filled with fantastic appointments and tons of miracles, but I have time for just a couple.

We were walking down the street, and I saw this lady and sort of smiled at her, but kept walking. Then I had the strongest impression to go back and talk to her. I did, but nothing came of it. Then later that day, we were walking away from a bus stop, and Sister Hadfield points out to me that there is a lady crying on the bench. Without hesitation, I pull a 180 and go sit down next to her and ask her what is wrong. After a couple of questions, she opens up and tells us about her life, which was something akin to that wonderful lady in the Mormon Message Refiner's Fire. We shared the scripture from Mosiah 24 and promised her that Christ could lift her burdens from her shoulders. We left a Book of Mormon with her, and kind of walked on in stunned silence. I realize now that if I hadn't followed the impression earlier to turn around, I may not have turned around this time. God answers our prayers. He fulfills our desires. I testify of that, with the power of every cell in my body. Do not doubt Him, do not sell yourselves short. Trust Him. Ain't nobody got time enough on
earth not to trust Him. Nobody. I don't care who you are or what you've experienced.
You still need Christ.
Trust Him.
Give Him time to fill you, to heal you, to complete you.
Prove Him right. He doesn't disappoint.

Also, the Atonement is legit. You never make a mistake too great that the Atonement cannot heal, if you turn it over to Christ.

I feel like I am on an eternal repeat, but that's ok, because it's true every time!!

Another miracle was showing up at a less active appointment, and her inviting a friend in to come and listen to us talk about the Plan of Salvation. Or when you have amazing members who reach out in love and really care about the work that you are doing. Or when someone comes up to you and says that he found a Book of Mormon and respects what you're doing. Or when you get low on food, and people randomly give you food, and not only food, but very specifically what you've been craving.

God is good. He will shower you with gifts. Are you ready?

My challenge is to make a record of what He gives you this week, and
SEND IT TO ME.

Love you all!

Sister Roderer

This is what happens when it suddenly gets cold in July

You study German and watch the District snuggled up in your duvets

A Fighting Chance

 Sister Hadfield and I match all of the time. All of the time. In fact, we are wearing the same top as I am typing this. We also don't mean to. We get dressed, look at each other, shrug our shoulders and start personal study.

Hallo!!

This week was so fabulous! We had really so much fun, and we saw so many miracles.

A lady randomly came to church on Sister Hadfield's first Sunday, speaking English and showing interest in what was going on. We tried for the next transfer and a half, almost every week to call, go by, klingel, leave notes pamphlets, etc. Finally we decided that we just needed to give her a break, and try again in a few weeks. Then, randomly, Sister Hadfield gets the inspiration that we should go by. I agreed, but didn't expect anything from it. We get to her house and there is a pizza delivery dude hogging up all the door bells, so we decide to sit on a bench and wait. Suddenly we see this lady come down the path toward our bench and she was like

"Do you remember me?"

Umm....yes! We've only shed blood, sweat, and tears trying to get ahold of you!

Turns out that for a couple weeks her phone was broken, so she lost our number. And her doorbell has been broken and just got fixed two weeks ago, and she's been in the hospital.

No wonder she didn't return our calls.

I wouldn't either!

She expressed appreciation for all the times we had stopped by. Like it meant a lot.

And now she has agreed to take the lessons! 

Sorry that's just one story, and it isn't very funny, but I wanted to share this thing that's been on my mind.

"This life is an experience in profound trust--trust in Jesus Christ, trust in His teachings, trust in our capacity as led by the Holy Spirit to obey those teachings for happiness now and for a purposeful, supremely happy eternal existence. To trust means to obey willingly without knowing the end from the beginning (see Proverbs 3:5-7). To produce fruit, your trust in the Lord must be more powerful and enduring than your confidence in your own personal feelings and experience...As you trust Him, exercise faith in Him, He will help you." Elder Richard G. Scott "Trust in the Lord"

This experience with this lady was exactly that. Our experience had taught us that we should give up. But we didn't. We couldn't. Because we're missionaries. And as a missionary I am here to tell you don't give up.

Don't you dare give up.

That thing, that thing that you don think is possible anymore because experience or some dumbo off of the street told you that you couldn't have it, that very thing is the thing that you deserve to have. You're a child of God. He created the blasted Universe! He science behind everything, that leaves us astounded and some wondering if God really exists, yeah, that? He is the power behind the science. And He understands it.

So don't give up.

I know there are days when you want to. I know there are days when I have wanted to, so badly it hurt.

I have felt the panic of being suffocated by fear. It's like every breath you take is fake, because what is going on around you can't be real. It's like being trapped in a fishbowl, where you can see through the the walls of your feelings to reality, but you can't get out, and the pounding of your heart echoes the pounding of your fists against the glass, but the sound itself is lost and stifled and distorted by the pressure of the water. In those moments, and I know we all have them, I wonder how the biscuit we can get out. And it always comes down to the same two things. And really just one thing, actually, but, whatever.

Us and Christ.

Yup. I said that a couple of weeks ago, but this is the theme of my mission and it should be the theme of our lives, because without Him, we'll drowned.

We need Him. Oh so desperately.

So the never ending story is how in this puny land of mortality are we supposed to come close enough, to understand enough, to try hard enough, to love enough, to even begin to be able to take His yoke upon us and give our fears to Him? I think I'll be hunting after answers for the rest of my life, but here is this week's winner.

We have to give ourselves a fighting chance.

For all the power of Heaven and Hell, we still have our agency. Our Father, in His wisdom, gave us the key to our own happiness. If we want to get out of the fishbowl, we have to believe hat we belong outside of the fishbowl. We have to choose to be there.

I know. I know, I know that it's hard. I know that sometimes it's just not that easy, but I promise you it's always possible. I know there are difficult circumstances that I can't even begin to imagine, but I still can promise you that you can choose. You still have that power, you still have that right.

Elder Bednar described our mind as a jar full of sand. There is a mix of white sand and dark red sand. The white sand represents truth, light, love hope, etc and the dark sand represents our weaknesses, our lusts, our sins. There is a tiny hole at each end of the jar, just big enough for one grain of sand. Every time we put a grain of sand of one color into the jar, a grain of the other color pops out the other side. There are tons of grains of sand, but eventually, the sand could be completely white. We just have to hang on!! Every time we try it makes a difference. Every grain of sand counts. And nothing is lost to the Lord.

Any who,

All my love!!

Sister Roderer

P.S.

Boy do I miss you all! This week I hit my 6 month mark...unbelievable. So, naturally, here is my 6 months picture. Also in a wheat field.

This is what happens when four sister missionaries eat lunch on the Rhein.

On the subject of Cows...

Hallo y'all!
Another week has flown.

We were on the bus, and a young teenager suddenly asks
"Are you Mormons?"
We turn and tell him yeah, then ask him how he's heard of us.
"They talk about you on South Park."
The smile kind of slid off of my face, because in my head I was
imagining green aliens
(later I remembered that that was the Simpsons, not South Park)
"Oh, good...."
We asked him about what he thought of God, and he told us that he
doesn't really believe because the Bible isn't big enough to answer
all of his questions. I totally light up and start talking about the
Book of Mormon. I agreed with him that questions need to be answered,
and we need to really understand what we believe, and that this book
has answers.
Once we clarified that it was free, he took it...
AND STARTED READING IT. RIGHT THERE. IN THE BUS.
We could tell he wanted us to go away so that he could read in peace!
I tried to tell him about my favorite part (the appearance of Christ
in America) and he was like
"No! Don't spoil it! I want to read it."
EH?? Who is this kid?
Also
"How long is it? Oh, 700 pages? I can promise that I can read it today."
If he can, we can too!

Also, there was this day, where we tried to follow the bus plan off of
the Internet and get to our appointment on time, and it was FALSCH and
sent us too far, and we ended up taking a bus through the countryside.
For two hours.
Through very beautiful countryside.
Just us and the bus driver.
For two hours.

What good can come from that, might you ask?
Sister Hadfield fell in love with Deutschland.
I had a cow.
Both redefining experiences.

The church is true. Love you all!

Sister Roderer

Stars

  Hallo my dears,
This what I am looking at as I am writing this email. This is why having iPads ROCKS.

I also learned that the most dangerous animal in Deutschland is the tick, and that Deutschland doesn't have any real/legit natural predators. If you ask me, small bugs that suck your blood and spread diseases seem pretty predatorial to me. :) Just know that as I am writing this, I am also totally paranoid about every little itch. I definitely feel preyed upon. Haha Oh well.

This week has been so fantastic. We worked really hard, and did all that we knew how to do, and the Lord sent us miracles. It has also been close to 100 degrees all week, so that just added loads and loads and loads of fun to our work here. I do have the most amazing foot tan line, though.

We experienced our first "flirt to convert" scenario this week, which was totally hilarious, but not something that I would either encourage or readily repeat. After some flirting nonsense on their part I asked them
"Would you like to get to know God better?"
To which they responded
"No, we would like to get to know you two better"
No can do, sonny.
But they took a Book of Mormon, and as we walked away, they yelled (in English)
"We hope the next year and a half goes by very quickly so that you can start living."
I yelled back
"We ARE living"
"No, you just think you are."
"Maybe you just think you are. Maybe you'll find something in that book if you choose to read it."
That's what I like to call missionary work, middle-school style.
 
 We did a bunch of go-bys that were pretty far away, like 1.5 hours each direction, and required a bus, a train, another bus, and feet in order to get there. We saw sooo many miracles, both at the go-bys and unterwegs. It amazes me how much success is about timing. Being at the door, waiting at the bus stop, getting lost so that you are right there when you need to talk to someone, smiling, crying, praying, trying, all of these variables make up a kind of miracle timeline. We assume way too often, in my opinion, that our weaknesses mess up our success. If we are relying on the Lord, that will never be the case. All the molecules in this tabernacle of clay can testify to that.

The other day we joined up with the American Sisters to sing hymns in Kirchgasse, which is the main shopping plaza/mall/entire street in Wiesbaden. This of course was after we went to America (the Military Base) to show our faces (and our name tags) at the German-American friendship fest they had going. This was during our dinner hour, and naturally, as often happens at these things, all four of us left with authentic German beer mugs. And then, also perfectly normal, a man came up to us and was like
"It's not very often that you see Mormon missionaries carrying beer mugs."
Ehehehe
We agreed.

 Anyway, back to the point.
We were singing, and after we finished a hymn, the ENTIRE plaza clapped for us! (almost  as awesome as the one time Sister Hadfield and I were singing together, and a Buddhist Monk came up beside us and took a picture and a video with us as we were singing.) We were able to talk to people and give out two Books of Mormon in ten minutes.
Then, we parted ways, and as Sister Hadfield and I were waiting at the bus stop, this beautiful woman comes up to us and asks
"What language were you singing just now in Kirchgasse?"
"Why, Deutsch" I reply
"What!?!? No, really? I told my fiancée that I thought for SURE you were singing in Hebrew."
uh...
Hehehe we did have some intonation problems with our harmony, so I guess it sounded Hebraic in its fundamental harmonic structure.

This email is already really long, but...

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be yourself and self-confidence and agency and obedience and all that stuff, and how it relates to fulfilling dreams and desires, because the Lord has promised that He will grant us all our righteous desires. My desires are sometimes like a frightened doe, that scurries away at the first sign of danger. Finding the trust in yourself and in God to come out of the shadows of fear into the light of self is something that is intensely difficult. It is the struggle of all humanity. We think we need programs, self-help books, seminars, classes, trainers and a host of other resources. And we do. They all have their place, and they all play their role, but it really comes down to us.

Us and the Savior.

To believe so fiercely that the elements respond, but to be so open that you can see reality outside of pent up hopes and dreams is a terrain that only Christ can travel. We would, and do get lost in the hills and valleys of our own desires. It comes too often that we cross the boundary from love to selfishness, which turns our desire to desperation.

Faith is not a desperate need to be validated, nor is it a weak show of intelligence and discipline that can be destroyed by the very thought and action that bore it.

Faith is acting beyond knowledge.

It is saying "because I trust someone smarter, kinder, better, and more experienced than me, I am willing to change the way I act and take one step at a time until I too understand the 'why' behind the 'how'." 

 

That's why covenants are so powerful. When our deepest fears and most exquisite dreams collide with a desire to be obedient, it's like all the matter within us implodes. Temporal slams into spiritual, and the force of obedience generates a sort of black hole effect that swallows up all the different parts of us until all that is left is silence and darkness. But in that aching moment of nothingness, where it feels like all that we were and are is stripped away, and our identity stands naked in its vulnerability, we suddenly realize that we can finally see the stars.

 

And that, folks, is where greatness is born.

 

Haha. I guess it doesn't actually have to be that dramatic.

 

In the words of Elder D. Todd Christofferson

 

"Divine covenants make strong Christians. I urge each one to qualify for and receive all the priesthood ordinances you can and then faithfully keep the promises you have made by covenant. In times of distress, let your covenants be paramount and let your obedience be exact. Then you can ask in faith, nothing wavering, according to your need, and God will answer. He will sustain you as you work and watch. In His own time and way He will stretch forth his hand to you, saying, “Here am I."

 

This gospel is true. It's also worth every second.

 

You are all incredible to me!

 

 

Much love,

 

Sister Roderer