Hi Everyone! How's it going? I hope you're all healthy, wealthy, and wise. I'm doing pretty good...actually I'm home. I'm not Sister Smiley anymore, I'm just Anna, and quite honestly it happened really fast. I've been here for about a week now and it is still incredibly weird for me to think that my whole mission is just an insane memory now.
Anyways, I'll catch you all up on what happened so I'm not leaving anyone in the dark. My last blog post (for those of you who are not regulars) was about all the crazy train rides we were going to have to take that week, and how we were going to Singen and Munich and through Switzerland and all of that crazy stuff. Well, shortly after I sent that email off to my Dad to be posted on this blog I found out there would be a train strike that whole week. You have no idea how annoying that was. Train strikes are the worst. It makes you pretty unproductive as a missionary, in that mission. After we found out, we went to see if there was anything AT ALL that could get us to where we were going. Train strikes are weird because they do have some random trains that go every now and then, but you never really know what is actually going to happen. We already knew it would be impossible to do the exchange that we had planned that week which was a real bummer, but it could be moved to another week. The next problem though was Mission Leadership Conference (MLC) all the way in Munich. It was going to take us five different trains to get there and there was no way those were all going to go through so we got in touch with the office Elders pretty fast.
Aside from that, it was a pretty quiet week. We talked to a bunch of people, had some cool appointments and it was just a good week. As we got closer and closer to MLC though, we really needed to figure out a way to get there. Trains would just be impossible, so we moved to the next option...bus. That's right. There is a bus that goes directly from Freiburg to Munich and it takes five hours. Not gonna lie, I wasn't too excited to sit on a bus for five hours, but it was literally the only way to do it. So it was a new kind of adventure for us.
The morning we had to leave for MLC, our Mission President called me. It's hard not to freak out just a little bit when the phone is ringing and you see President Kohler's name on it. I always think "I didn't do anything wrong, what does he want?" Well, he told me that my Dad needed to talk to me at some point in the day. Nothing urgent, but he was going to call me and talk to me. Wow. No big deal. My Dad was just going to call me up on my missionary phone and chat about something. It was actually fine though. For some reason, I wasn't too nervous about it.
Anyways, we got on our bus and just as we pulled out our phone rang. It was an unknown number and because I didn't think that one through, I answered it the way I would always answer an unknown number "Hallo, Kirche Jesu Christi. Hier spricht Sister Smiley." Then my Dad says, "Hi Sister Smiley." It is so weird to have your Dad call you Sister Smiley. I don't know why it just is.
Well, my Dad talked to me about things at home and with my Mom. How he is doing and how my sisters are doing and what kind of progress my Mom is making. I would really rather not get into the details, but by the end of that call, I knew it was time for me to go home. I cannot tell you how hard it is to decide to end your mission early, even when it's just three months from your assigned return date. I had about four more hours on the bus to think about it, but there are a lot of reasons that it was right for me to be home. One of the biggest things that you teach as a missionary is "Die Familie steht im mittel punkt im plan Gottes," or, the family lies in the center of God's plan. I had been teaching that principle for thirteen months, and my time to act on that came. Also, I felt like my mindset was where I wanted it to be when I reached the point of going home from my mission. No matter when you leave your mission, it is so so so so sad. I loved being a full time missionary so much, but the fact that it was hard for me to decide to leave lets me know that I really did love doing that work and I wanted to make sure that was the case by the time I left. I hope that makes sense. Anyways, there was a lot of prayer and fasting before that went into my decision, but I knew and still do know, that it is what Heavenly Father wanted me to do at that time. I do not and will never regret that decision. It was hard and sad, but it was right.
I talked to my Mission President shortly after talking to my Dad, and he agreed that it was the right decision for me. We talked about logistics and things like that, but before he hung up, he let me know that I had served my whole mission. My whole mission was not the 18 months that we all expect. Apparently, mine was thirteen, and that is just how it was supposed to be. Sometimes, rolling with Heavenly Father's plan is hard, but you know what? If His plan is different than mine, it must be so much better because my plan was pretty good too.
So, it was weird going to MLC knowing that I wouldn't even be at the next Zone training, but it was still good. I learned a lot that I needed to hear. We got on our bus home afterwards, and I started to run around packing all of my stuff. I got back to Freiburg on Friday, and I would leave Freiburg on Sunday after church, spend the night in Munich, and fly home on Monday morning. The last 48 hours were INSANE. I had a goodbye lunch with my District on Saturday and one last teaching appointment. Not gonna lie, I'm a beast at packing. I managed to get both of my suitcases to be under the limit even though there was loads of chocolate in both of them. Church on Sunday was the worst. I basically started crying when I walked through the doors. Freiburg was a really great ward. Saying goodbye to all of them was awful. The worst part was when we sang "Gott Sei Mit Euch" in sacrament meeting (God Be With You 'til We Meet Again); not fun. My last Sacrament meeting in German. I remember my first German Sacrament meeting thinking I would never understand this language.
Well, the journey home started literally right after church. The Zone Leaders picked me up from my apartment. They threw my suitcases in the trunk and drove me to the bus station. The strike was still going on so I had to take the bus AGAIN to Munich. I hopped on the bus alone (no companion) and waved goodbye as we drove off. I got to Munich five hours later and the Office Elders picked me up from the bus station. They took me to the mission office where two of my best friends from the mission just happened to be there. Sister Arnold and Sister Mehr (my MTC comp and Sister Mehr who I trained) both ran over and I think we set a record for world's longest hug. I talked to them for a bit, and then I had my exit interview with President Kohler. Having your exit interview is so surreal. President Kohler is such a great mission president and I am so grateful for the advice and council he has given me throughout my mission.
After that, I got driven to the Kohler's house, spent the night there, ate some food, talked to their kids, and then got driven to the airport so I could take the 18 hour journey back to Chicago. The last goodbye to my mission president was kind of soul crushing, but it was how it was supposed to be. I had a super fast layover in Atlanta and was literally running through the airport to make my connection. I made it and then came that moment where you get on the escalator to go down and see if your family is there to pick you up. In that moment, I felt like I was going to cry, pass out, and throw up all at the same time. I went down and saw this strange looking group of people in matching shirts and a GIANT poster. They were my people :) I don't know how they did it, but my whole family was there along with some aunts, an uncle, and cousins. Most importantly though, my mom was there. It was in that moment that I knew being home was exactly what I was supposed to do. I'm home now trying to figure out this normal life thing. Technology is pretty hard, but it feels 100% right to be here.
I am so glad that I got to serve a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint in the Alpine German-Speaking Mission. I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that our Heavenly Father loves us so much. I hope you all know that too. If not, I would like to invite you to find out.
Have a fantastic week and MAKE GOOD CHOICES!
Love,
Sister Smiley
Pictures
Well, hello everyone! How's it going? Did something bad happen in Nepal? I am so out of the loop, but someone prayed for the people of Nepal yesterday in church and I had no idea what it was about, so I really wouldn't mind being filled in on that.
But anyways, almost everyone in our district got sick this week. I managed to avoid it, and one other Elder, but on Friday, we were all sitting in our apartments either being sick or waiting for our companions to get better. Not gonna lie, I got pretty bored, so I studied a lot of German grammar, read the scriptures, baked a bunch of brownies, and cleaned basically everything. Those days don't happened too often, but when they do, they can take a really long time. Everyone seems to slowly be on the road back to recovery, but the Elders here in Freiburg got it the worst (I think it's because they rode their bikes in the rain without coats and said they would be fine because they are Elders) and were not even able to come to church yesterday. That is not a thing that happens very much. As a missionary, you basically have to be dying to miss church. They were. But since they were gone, it meant that no one was there to teach the English speaking Sunday school class. The Elders usually do that. It did not click in my head that we would have to do it until like 10 minutes before the class. My companion was still getting over being sick and couldn't really talk...so I was on. The topic was faith in Jesus Christ which is a pretty good one, but on the spot lessons are always something special. It was in English too. I am probably the most awkward at teaching in English in the world. It is actually a miracle that I get this email written out every week because it's all going down the drain. We made it through the lesson and fortunately, our ward mission leader was there to help me out, but it was really something :)
This week, is basically the week that we fulfill our Sister Training Leader duties. It means that I will spend 19 hours on trains this week. That isn't a joke at all. We are going to Singen for exchanges and then on Thursday we are going to Munich for Mission Leadership Council. It's cool because we get to go through Switzerland, but heilige Kuh, this is the most traveling I have done my whole mission. We have an hour layover at the Basel Switzerland train station. That will be interesting. I really shouldn't complain about this because a lot of people wait their entire lives to go on trips like this, it's just going to be hard to actually get work done in our area. I'll let you know next week, how all of this goes.
But other than that, it's been a pretty mellow week. We taught our five new college student investigators this week. It was so cool. They made Raclette and we talked about the gospel while eating delicious food. Sometimes, I just feel like the most spoiled missionary ever. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon. It is such a good question to ask. Why do we need another book when we already have the Bible? People here love their bible. It is sooooo easy for a situation to turn into a bible bash, especially when your companion is as good with the bible as she is, but I have found that the more I testify about my experiences with the Book of Mormon and how it has helped me, the more interested people are in finding out for themselves. I am not trying to prove anything to anyone. I am just inviting to go for a bit of a search. It is just the coolest thing.
So yeah, I hope you all have a great week and make good choices!
Love,
Sister Smiley
Pictures: Me and Freiburg (aren't we so cute together?), my super awesome bubble gum bubble (no worries, we only chew gum in the apartment), our Raclette dinner.
Wow!
What a week! I think that this has probably been one of the coolest
weeks of my mission. I don't even know really where to begin, so I will
start with last Tuesday.
We
got six new investigators in one day!!! That is not a thing that
normally happens. We are usually lucky if we get one new investigator in
one week. It was amazing! The first person we started teaching is a
super sweet lady from Africa. She invited us into her apartment because
she could tell that we are from God and all she wants is to please Him.
We taught her and it went really well and she told us to come again the
next day, so we did, and she said that she wants to see us every week so
that she can come closer to God. That is exactly what we are here for,
so that is exactly what we will be doing.
We
were celebrating after that, but then after our eating appointment, we
still had about an hour and a half left in our day, so we hit the
streets and rang some doorbells. These two college students let us in.
They are both girls and were just genuinely curious about what our
church is. We started talking with them about the Book of Mormon and
stuff and then their third roommate came home and listened too. Then,
two more friends came over and they also wanted to listen, so next thing
we know, we are sitting around a kitchen table talking to five college
students about the restored gospel. That was one of the coolest teaching
experiences of my mission. It went really well and they invited us to
come back next Tuesday to talk more. They also told us to bring our hymn
book because they want to see our songs. We will see what happens next
Tuesday, but Sister E and I walked out of that apartment and could not
believe what had just happened. This is not South America :)
So that was Tuesday.
On
Friday, we began our journey to Munich to see Elder Bednar. For us, it
was seven hours on a train to get there. It was SO beautiful, but it
also took forever. The Elders were there too and of course we brought
snacks, but by the time we got to the Munich train station I was super
ready to walk around. The whole experience was quite surreal because
literally, our whole mission went to Munich for this conference with
Elder Bednar. There were 250 Elders and Sisters there. When we got to
Munich, everyone saw each other at the train station and of course we
all freaked out. When you get transferred, you literally have no idea if
you are ever going to see some of these missionaries again, so seeing
people is just so fun. We all ran and grabbed dinner somewhere in the
city and then met at one of the Church buildings for a short meeting
with President and Sister Kohler. They wanted to make sure that we were
as prepared as possible to be in the presence of an Apostle the next
day. They told us to stand when he walked in and out of the room and
overall, just to be professional.
After
that, we all had to go to the youth hostel around the corner to catch
some Z's. I was super exhausted from all of the socializing and travel.
We were in a room with two other sisters in our zone and it the hostel
was actually really nice. I experienced a solid handful of youth hostels
when I lived in Denmark, and some of them can be pretty nasty, but I
was actually quite impressed with this one.
In
the morning, we all scarfed down a sack breakfast and then went over to
the Church building in waves. I was in the second wave and was nervous
about getting a good seat. I'm short. It is so hard to see past a super
tall Elder when he is sitting right in front of me. We got there and the
building already seemed pretty full BUT I just walked to the second row
and asked if there was space AND THERE WAS! So we got to sit in the
second row and that was super nice. Elder Bednar was like 5 feet away
from me. It was so cool, because when he walked in, you could literally
feel the Spirit hit you like a wall. It was just amazing. The meeting
started and it was just one of the coolest things ever because it wasn't
us sitting there and being talked at. It was really like a discussion.
He asked questions and we could raise our hands and answer them. This
meeting was actually a training meeting because we are going to be
implementing more technology into our mission (iPads). But to be clear,
the meeting wasn't about iPads, it was about being more effective
missionaries.
Elder Bednar is such a powerful speaker. At the end of
it all, be bore the most pure and powerful testimony I have ever heard
of Jesus Christ. I already had a testimony that Elder Bednar is an
apostle of God, but that testimony got a heck of a lot stronger at this
conference.
Part
way through the conference, we all went outside and had lunch. It was
nice weather and we all just ate sandwiches on the grass. My district
from the MTC got together again. We haven't been all together in a year
and it was so good to see them. It is cool, because a year later, we are
all the same people with the same personalities, but you can tell that
there has been a lot of growth too. We have all had experiences that
have changed us for the better.
Anyways,
after that we all left the conference and headed home on our various
trains. We got back pretty late on Saturday night, but it was so worth
it. I feel so blessed to be here on this mission. I hope you all have a
great week and make good choices!
Love,
Sister Smiley
Pictures:
walking to an eating appointment last Wednesday, we stopped in Ulm on
the way to Munich so we ran over to the cathedral before our next train
left, my MTC district reunited.
Anyways, I'll catch you all up on what happened so I'm not leaving anyone in the dark. My last blog post (for those of you who are not regulars) was about all the crazy train rides we were going to have to take that week, and how we were going to Singen and Munich and through Switzerland and all of that crazy stuff. Well, shortly after I sent that email off to my Dad to be posted on this blog I found out there would be a train strike that whole week. You have no idea how annoying that was. Train strikes are the worst. It makes you pretty unproductive as a missionary, in that mission. After we found out, we went to see if there was anything AT ALL that could get us to where we were going. Train strikes are weird because they do have some random trains that go every now and then, but you never really know what is actually going to happen. We already knew it would be impossible to do the exchange that we had planned that week which was a real bummer, but it could be moved to another week. The next problem though was Mission Leadership Conference (MLC) all the way in Munich. It was going to take us five different trains to get there and there was no way those were all going to go through so we got in touch with the office Elders pretty fast. 
I talked to my Mission President shortly after talking to my Dad, and he agreed that it was the right decision for me. We talked about logistics and things like that, but before he hung up, he let me know that I had served my whole mission. My whole mission was not the 18 months that we all expect. Apparently, mine was thirteen, and that is just how it was supposed to be. Sometimes, rolling with Heavenly Father's plan is hard, but you know what? If His plan is different than mine, it must be so much better because my plan was pretty good too. 
After that, I got driven to the Kohler's house, spent the night there, ate some food, talked to their kids, and then got driven to the airport so I could take the 18 hour journey back to Chicago. The last goodbye to my mission president was kind of soul crushing, but it was how it was supposed to be. I had a super fast layover in Atlanta and was literally running through the airport to make my connection. I made it and then came that moment where you get on the escalator to go down and see if your family is there to pick you up. In that moment, I felt like I was going to cry, pass out, and throw up all at the same time. I went down and saw this strange looking group of people in matching shirts and a GIANT poster. They were my people :) I don't know how they did it, but my whole family was there along with some aunts, an uncle, and cousins. Most importantly though, my mom was there. It was in that moment that I knew being home was exactly what I was supposed to do. I'm home now trying to figure out this normal life thing. Technology is pretty hard, but it feels 100% right to be here. 
