Here we go again...

Peoples of the world.

I thought I would take a longer break from blogging but GUESS WHAT! I am incredibly bored. And I have this insatiable desire to have everyone listen to what I have to say. Not that it's important.

I will word-vomit as follows:

1. Being back feels totally weird and completely natural. I am at all times feeling 1,000 emotions surging through my soul and I'm not quite sure what to do with them all. Mostly I just hide in a corner of my house and nibble on Wheat Thins. Healthy? Not so sure. But it's better than thinking about wearing pants and talking to boys about something other than missionary work.

2. Coming off the plane and into my family's arms was like stepping through a veil - is it strange that my mission memories are fading so quickly? It feels like a distant memory that was maybe just a dream.

3. Oh my gosh the bread here in America is so gross.

4. I LOVE DRIVING.

5. I still can't sleep in past like 8am no matter how late I go to bed. I feel guilty not talking to people on the street. I check for my nametag at least 3 times a day. I AM WEIRD.

6. So basically the first thing everyone has said to me since I've been back is, "Oh, look at you! You are so skinny!" as if it was like the compliment of the century. I would love to rant about this some other time, but let me just advise you to NOT SAY THAT TO ME. EVER.

7. All the men here wear waaaay too big of pants.

8. I'm really tired.

9. All I want to do is write write write. I will be working on some things. I hope you all still read my blog. If you have any topic suggestions, questions, or concerns, please inform me so I have an excuse to take a long bath to ponder the creative possibilities.

10. That is all.



Peace.

You better believe I came off the plane in that dress.

March 18, 2013

And so.

I guess a lot of you are expecting some grand and marvelous "abschied" words, but I don't have much to say.

This has been the weirdest, coolest, craziest, hardest, most spiritual, most stressful time of my life, all packed into about a year and a half. Sometimes I wonder how I even managed to do it, or why the heck I thought it would be a good idea, but at the end of the day I can only look back and smile and laugh. Think about it - I just spent a significant amount of time wandering the streets of a strange land talking to cookoo crazy people all day with a girl I barely know, and speaking a language that I thought I would never learn. And somehow my heart has grown two sizes too big for me, I feel like I can barely contain the love I have for the people I've met. Well, most of them.

I don't want to talk about it anymore, I'm already starting to cry.

I want you to know that I know that God is there. I feel His presence so strongly when I testify of His love for us. I feel it even more when I testify of the divinity of His Son, Jesus Christ. I feel that I now know my Savior so much more, and I have begun to comprehend his Atonement in a way that I never would have fully grasped if it wasn't for my mission. That is due in part to the Book of Mormon, which has enabled me to strengthen my faith in Him and has been a conduit for precious revelation. I have also developed a sacred relationship to the Bible during this time, and for that I am incredibly grateful.

Thank you for all your letters, words of wisdom, support, and comfort you have given me. I can assure you that they have not only blessed my life, but also the lives of those I taught.

I love you all.

Love,
Sister Lesa Young

March 11, 2013

Oh my dayyyyys this has been the best week ever! But not for any missionary reasons. Just for fun reasons. Ha.

Ok ok ok here we go.

So last Wednesday we went to Minden (a city close to ours) to help the Elders there with an Ausstellung...I think that's a street display in English. Anyway, so as we were walking around trying to talk to people, we found a park and decided to explore it a little more. The people weren't too thrilled about talking to us, so we were just trying to enjoy the sunlight and not get too discouraged...our usual routine. AND THEN. So there were these 2 guys about our age coming down the path. I really really hate talking to more than one person at once, let alone 2 young men, so I wanted to just wait to talk to the older man behind them. But all of the sudden I had this sudden overwhelming feeling that one of them was going to listen to us, and we needed to stop them. I immediately turned to them and as I did so, one of them stopped without me having to say anything, while the other one rolled his eyes and walked away. So lucky us, we got to meet Benjamin and talk to him for awhile about how he came to believe in Jesus Christ! It was so awesome, and at the end he asked if he could come to church. Well um...YES OF COURSE. We invited him to the Elder's ward so hopefully he showed up! In any case, I definitely think it was worth it because a) he'll totally be ready for the missionaries later and b) we strengthened our faith in Christ. Win win win.

On Thursday we had Tausch with the Sisters in Celle, so I got to go up there!! It's a beautiful city, I totally recommend googling it. Also I had to ride a bike, that was the WORST. But I got over it and loved my time with Sister Curtis.

Also right before we left we went to this hamburger restaurant and watched all these fancy European business people eat their burgers and fries with a knife and fork hahaha we couldn't stop laughing. I wish I got a picture of it.

Friday was INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was splendid. We decorated the apartment and made sure all the Elders knew haha. I'm especially proud of my Elders, they wrote us such nice cards and gave us flowers and chocolate for the occasion! Then our Zone Leaders called us and told us how much they appreicated us. I love love love Women's Day, in case you were wondering.

On Saturday we went to a city called Hameln to help the other Elders in our district do finding. Hameln is famous for being the city where the story of the Pied Piper took place! It is soooooooooo cool and I took lots of pictures. Yay yay yay.

And then yesterday at church I had a big surprise...my old companion Sister Uhlig showed up!!!! She's apparently dating someone in my ward here haha. But she decided to come and visit his family/surprise me!! I was so so happy and we had a hard time leaving each other's side the entire time haha. Oh man, I miss her so much :(

Well, that's a very short summary of my amazing week. I'm going now to Bergen-Belsen (a famous concentration camp) so I don't have a lot of time to write. But I love you all!!

Love,
Sister Young

Pictures:
1. Pretty Bielefeld day

2. Me in Celle!

3. In Hameln!

March 4, 2013

Well folks, the sun is shining and I am finally zufrieden. To give you a little taste of German weather, a member just told us yesterday that there was a total of 5 hours of sunlight in the month of January. 5 HOURS. That is why all the Germans are so grumpy.

Also let me tell you something else about German culture. The old people here are SO FIT. They ride their bikes everywhere and go for jogs when they're bored and eat bio (organic) products and put us to shame. They always seem to live on the top floor of every apartment building with no elevators and pounce up those stairs like it was stepping out of bed, whereas my comp and I are gasping for air and calling to Mother Nature to save us by the time we get to their door. And they usually do it with bags of groceries (which they picked up from the market on their bike)! Ridiculous, I tell you. Ridiculous.

I digress.

Thank the heavens that this week was 10,000 times better than all the past 4 weeks combined. A lot of our lessons went through and we even had some unplanned opportunities to share the great message! An old investigator wanted to meet with us again, our one progressing investigator is committing to finding out of Thomas Monson is a prophet of God, a less active couple is preparing to go through the temple, and we had a miracle at church yesterday!! Life is hopefully going to be looking up the next couple of weeks. Halleluja.

Speaking of the church miracle, it goes a little something like this:

So a member comes up to us after Relief Society (the first hour) and explains that this guy just walked into church today and has a really interesting story. So we introduce ourselves and WOAH this man's story is crazy! His name is Andrew and he's originally from Scotland (I think) but has been in Germany for a long time. Because of recent events in his life he decided to read the Bible and became convinced of it's truthfulness. But not long after he came across a copy of another Bible which was a completely different translation, which he thought was really confusing. He ended up reading 9 different translations of the Bible and felt that the Bible lost so much of it's credibility and truthfulness because of the differing opinions and translations. At some point during this time of trying to make a logical picture of it all, he found a Book of Mormon in a flea market, bought it, read it, and knew it was true. In his words, "The Book of Mormon is true. I know it's true, and it helps me to understand the Bible so much better because I know the Bible isn't complete." When the ministers of the church he was attending found out he was reading this book, they told him he wasn't welcome anymore. He eventually found the address for our church on the website and just showed up yesterday! It was crazy!!!! And cool. So now we're meeting with him. Yay yay yay.

Miracles happen. The church is true. Bless you all.

Love,
Sister Young

February 25, 2013

And and and.

This week totally sucked. Like, big time. On Monday we made out like a million appointments by calling through contacts and not. a. single. one. went through. Usually we expect about 10 percent of those appointments to work out, but nope. God has other plans apparently.

BUT we had some major highlights!! And they made the week bearable.

I will title my list: Evidences of the Grace of God (abbreviated as EGG). You're welcome.

EGG #1) So while we were out and about one day trying to convince people to talk to us in the middle of a raging snowstorm, we stopped a man who seemed completely normal, in a German sort of way. Twas not so, we soon found out as he avoided all my direct questions about God by answering with illogical theories about the universe. Then he asked to see my hand, which he read and told me that I will live a long life! But he will die soon, according to his palm. Schade, we tried to help him understand where he's going but he just wanted our card. Also it was hilarious because my companion was totally confused the whole time haha. But hey, it's good to know I have a long life ahead of me!

EGG #2) The Zone Leaders asked me to give a workshop at Zone Conference entitled, "Answering Hard Questions: Polygamy and Women and the Priesthood." Could you have given me a better assignment?!?!?! I think not!!!!!! So for my last and final ZC I fufilled all my feminist dreams by helping the Elders stop being idiots about answering these questions. And because of the million sisters we'll be getting in the mission, they asked us to talk about how to act around/treat sisters. It was glorious, and although I could tell my Zone Leaders were nervous, they thanked me and said they really enjoyed it. And they meant it because they're a little scared of me and if it wasn't true they would have just hid in a bathroom. Ha.

EGG #3) Our one precious investigator came to church!!!! AND he liked it!!!! This was really a miracle for me, because we weren't really sure how far he would progress. Actually during the sacrament I kept thinking, "Oh cheese, if he doesn't come to church how the heck is he going to progress? What do we do?" And then after church I turned around and POOF he was there, sandwiched inbetween all of these other YSA that took care of him and translated for him!! Oh, we were so happy. He had like a million questions for us, which was great. And at the end he turned to my companion and said, "Everyone is trying really really hard to be like Jesus here." Joyous joyous day. I'm so happy our ward is so amazing!!


That is all.

I love you very much!

Love,
Sister Young

February 18, 2013

Well guess what!

There is a new member of the Bielefeld Gemeinde as of yesterday! Michael was confirmed into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I have never seen him happier, which is saying something because that man is never not happy. Ha. One time I called him to make an appointment and he was cracking jokes (as usual) and I just responded with a "uh huh" because I can never understand his jokes and I just really wanted to make out this appointment. The conversation goes as follows:
Michael: Sister Young, I just like to joke! [he was probably sensing my impatience]
Me: Yes, Michael, I know. You love jokes. But I just don't understand all your jokes. I'm sorry.
Michael: You know what I always say, 'a day without smiling is a lost day!' [apparently this is something Charlie Chaplin once said and I'm not really sure how it translates into English but he quotes this like everyday haha] Sister Young, you should be really worried if we're talking and I stop joking and laughing.
Me: I would be, of course, because the moment you stop you will probably be dead.
Michael: No matter! I have asked my sister to arrange laughing gas to be pumped into the room where my funeral service will be held!

Yes, this is our dear Michael. What a hoot.

Halleluja Deutschland doesn't celebrate Valentine's Day, so there were no weird things associated with that. At our district meeting we convinced our new district leader to let everyone bring candy for each other, and we even decorated our own valentine boxes like in elementary school! It was the best. Then we went to an American member's house and ate all-red food and played with the children! Happy Valentine's Day to me.

Other than that, this week was very very...empty. We walk around a lot and try to go by on old contacts and things, but it's been pretty dry lately. We're trying a new tactic, called "stop trying to make appointments out with people and just teach them right there on the street." Maybe some of you are thinking, "well duh" but that's just not how we've always done it. When people show interest we usually try to make out an appointment with them because if they agree to meet later, they'll make progress much faster. Well, we are sick and tired of the German mentality "I need to dip my toe in the water ALONE without meeting with anyone and I'll see if your website looks nice but even if I'm impressed I won't call you because that's too scary maybe I'll stop by the church in 10 years" barfy crap. So now we just hit the streets with Book of Mormons and stop people and teach lessons right then and there, even though we know that they won't meet with us again. But it doesn't matter! Because now they have their resources: they've felt the Spirit, they have a Book of Mormon, they know why they're reading it. Then whenever they meet missionaries at some other point in their life they'll be more open! Well, that's the plan.

I hope everyone is keeping their pants on and being good people. I love you all.

Love,
Sister Young

February 11, 2013

Hello.

Woof, I am exhausted. Really really really tired. All the days.

But hey! We had a baptism (pictured below). It was splendid and the ward prepared everything so amazingly and Michael was happy. And that's what's important.

We've been meeting with a lot of members as well, and I have enjoyed our visits with Bruder and Schwester Hoffmeister, this lovely couple who joined the church about 15 years ago and have been less active for awhile. When they moved here to Bielefeld, they expressed interest in coming back and we're helping them do just that. We're teaching the lessons all over again and helping them recognize the Spirit and it just makes me feel like a missionary. Yay.

Other than that, this week was a lot of blank days and aching feet. We tried and tried and tried but we are still failing on the whole "having people to teach" thing. Everyone is surprisingly nice on the street, but just no interest.

Our ward mission leader, after having explained our situation, said, "Well, you are Sister Young. You can just say what you want to people. Just start kicking the Germans in the pants."

I'll let you know how it goes.

Love love love,
Sister Young