Sister Downing Does Deutschland

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...