Sister Downing Does Deutschland

Ich habe nie geplant, eine Mission zu dienen. Um ganz offen zu sein, habe ich sogar nie geplant, in der Kirche zu bleiben. Ich bin als ein Mitglied der Kirche aufgewachsen, aber ich habe nie gefühlt, dass sie für mich wahr ist. Ich habe nicht gedacht, dass Gott mich lieben könnte, so wie ich bin, oder dass ich in seiner Kirche gehören würde. Die Sister Missionarinnen, die in meiner Gemeinde gedient haben, haben mich eingeladen, im Buch Mormon zu lesen. Sie haben mir erzählt, dass ich persönliche Fragen stellen muss, während ich lese. Die größte Frage, die ich hatte, war "ist das der ort wo ich sein soll?" Als ich im 1 Nephi 11 gelesen habe, hat mich der 17 vers sehr beeindruckt. "Ich weiß, dass er seine Kinder liebt; aber die Bedeutung von allem weiß ich nicht." Dieser Vers wurde zu meinem Fundament meines Zeugnisses. Ich habe noch keine Antworten für all meine Fragen bekommen, aber ich weiß, ohne Zweifel, dass Gott mich liebt. Er liebt alles an mir, schon die ganz...

Howdy friends! 🤠 Last week we spent our pday with the district and it was pretty hype! We played soccer, ultimate frisbee, basketball, volleyball, and chair soccer. And let me tell ya we went hard! Every muscle in my body was sore for a couple days, plus I bruised my hip after I totally ate it during soccer on the mossy turf haha. I've missed playing sports so much and even being sore felt so nice!! As always we had lessons with friends this week and it's so awesome seeing them progress. Our friends are pretty amazing! For example, our car wouldn't start so we said a prayer asking for guidance and help as to what we needed to do. After the prayer we decided to call our friend who is a mechanic. He recommended a bunch of things to try and finally the car started! So yeah basically our friends are all miracles Other than that, this week was basically just a lot of driving and dress wearing. We had stake conference this weekend, zone conference on Tuesday, and interviews with...

Wow I can't believe it's already pday again! Time really flies when you're grinding for God lol This week we had some pretty good lessons with our friends. One of them ended with the member who drives our friend mentioning a Taufdatum 😯 but we're taking our time because this friend is completely new to Christianity and we want to make sure he understands the gospel more fully. But we love members who are hyper involved in the missionary work! We got to see the Bonn Sisters lots this week which is always a party. Last pday we went shopping together and then got fries and some fire matching fits 🍔 Then we overnighted and carpool karaoke-d our way to district council with our fantabulous covers of some Disney bops. They also ended up joining one of our lessons this week and we helped them with a youth activity they put on We went klingeling and had a couple pretty cool conversations. We met one guy towards the beginning, around the tenth door, and we'll be going back...

Hey hey party people!! This week was a little funky but we survived and now you get to hear a little bit about it We went on Austausch this week and I stayed in Euskirchen with Sister Mackey. She's been my STL every transfer so far which is kinda nice since we already know each other. Makes it a little less stressful. But what was stressful though was being in Euskirchen and having to know where I'm going. Apparently I rely on Sister Nielsen a little too much haha This week we had a couple lessons with friends. Some of them went really well, others not so much lol. None were horrible tho so dubs. We also visited some members. My two favorite visits were having lunch with the branch president's family, especially his little kiddos, and making brownies with an inactive family We had a district finding activity in Bonn which was pretty fun. I got to explore a little bit, win the district finding challenge with Sister Cook, and talk to people about Jesus! Pretty fire day! But t...

It's only been a couple days and not a whole lot has happened but here we go. Also I couldn't think of an interesting subject line so sorry On Sunday I got to introduce myself in sacrament meeting and meet the branch I'm serving in now. It's a pretty small one but filled with some pretty cool people! We had a couple appointments with members this week and went to the Jungen Damen Aktivität. Everyone has been so awesome and I can't wait to get to know them all better! Since we don't have too too many contacts in our phone, we decided to text all of them and see who would be interested in meeting. We got about halfway through when we realized we had way more than we thought! So we're taking a break from that and focusing on the people we did text cause we actually had quite a few people respond and say they were interested! Hopefully we'll be able to meet with them and maybe make some new friends! Today we spent the day in Köln and it was pretty epic! We v...

Don't worry, I'm still alive, sorry if I spooked ya. My pday was just moved to Saturday this week. So hiiiii This past week was wiiiiild and so so good! Last weekend was stake conference and we had some sisters overnight with us (which meant some more good food haha). I sang in the ward choir during one session which was terrifying cause I can't sing. Idk who decided that I had to do that but I did and it wasn't totally horrible. Stake conference was filled with lots of good stuff and I was surprised by how much of it I actually understood cause that much churchy German normally breaks my brain. My mission president was at stake conference on Saturday night and told me where I was being transfered to before we were supposed to find out which saved me about an hour and a half of stressing lol. It was soooo hard saying bye to the Unna ward cause they're my first ward and have a very special place in my heart. But I was also stoked to go somewhere new and start that ne...

Howdy friends! Another week, another email! Hope everyone is doing well! This week kinda flew by so I'll just give some highlights. On Sunday I gave my first talk auf Deutsch! Wiiiild. I was stressing cause we got the text about it the night before and I'm not the most confident when it comes to my German, and by that I mean I have zero confidence lol. BUT I DID IT!! I wrote it in English and translated it all by myself with minor corrections to adjective endings by my STL. Then I gave it without puking out of nervousness which I definitely consider a dub. And after church my ward was hyping me up! They all just told me that I've improved so much since coming here and that my German is way good considering I've only been here for less than three months. It was really nice to here and hopefully this experience will help with my confidence moving forward.  We also had Austausch again this week. This time I went to Essen and got to live my best quad life. It was a total pa...

Heyyo!! This week we had Zone Konferenz and it was amazing! I definitely needed that spiritual boost and literally every Thema felt like it was meant for me! It was so awesome to see a bunch of other missionaries and hear about how they're doing. We had some sisters overnight with us too which was a total party. Plus Sister Carson, one of the sisters who stayed over, is an amazing cook so we got a GOOD dinner!  We also had some fire lessons with friends this week. We met with some of our regular friends who always have such hard but good questions. We also met with two brand new friends and got to tell them a little bit about what makes our church different and so so special. As much as teaching stresses me out cause I feel like I never have the words to say what I want (English or German haha), it is magical to see the Spirit at work!! Some other highlights include the sun coming out for a bit yesterday and playing with Klaus. I had forgotten what echt sunlight felt like and it wa...

Hey hey everyone! Honestly I feel like not much has happened since last week but I'll tell y'all about two things that did We had Austausch so my STL came and hung out in Unna with me. It was super fun and we talked a lot in German. and I actually understood? and could respond?? Wild but actually way cool to see the improvement I've made cause it's hard to recognize The other big thing was going to Frankfurt. We spent a lot of time traveling on Monday but when we got there I got to see Sister Maughan!! Def a highlight even if it was only a few minutes lol. We had our interviews with President which was really good for me. And then we overnighted with a bunch of other sisters, so basically a giant sleepover with some pretty cool people. Early Tuesday morning all the missionaries who came in with me went to some government building and did legal stuff. Honestly I'm not entirely sure what we did but whatever it was means that we're now official as far as living in ...

Hallöchen liebe Freunde!! I don't really know what to say about this week but I'll give some highlights from it.  We visited the Scheuer family for lunch this week and I won the wooden peg game they have!! (I don't remember the name 😅) I was so stoked!! Schwester Scheuer told me the hard part is doing it a second time though so I'll keep y'all posted It has been so cold here, like I am freezing at all times, BUT that means that we've had a couple snowy days! Saturday night it snowed a bunch so after church on Sunday I had an epic snowball fight with the Junge Damen! We didn't declare a winner cause none of us had gloves and we couldn't feel our hands but we had so much fun!! We visited a member of our ward to read the Book of Mormon with him. This man has such a strong testimony and is such an inspiration to me. He's had a bit of a rough life and is on his last leg (like quite literally, he only has one leg 😂) but is one of the most positive people...

It's Thursday so here I am again 🤪 This past week was pretty crazy but I was able to find some pretty cool miracles!  We received a couple referrals which was exciting and we've had some fun lessons with some of our friends. My favorite one was about the Book of Mormon where I was able to testify at the end. I was tearing up, the two people we were teaching were tearing up, and the Spirit was SO strong!! Even though I was bearing my testimony, the Spirit was definitely doing most of the work because I felt it being testified to ME! It was an amazing experience and I'm so grateful that I get to be a vessel for the Lord full-time One of the girls in the ward is prepping for her mission to Canada right now and has a goal to read the Book of Mormon before she starts. We were talking about it and she told me that sometimes it's hard to stay on track with the reading schedule she has right now. We realized that we were almost at the same spot in the Book of Mormon and decide...