Servus!!

Guten Tag from München! (Munich)

 

Wow what a week. First off, I am going to gain 100 pounds while I am here. The food here is amazing! Ahh I forgot how much I loved it. Chocolate Croissants, Manner, the pizza, the Bratwurst....ahhh so delicious. If I come back 100 pounds heavier, don't be alarmed... hahah

I love being in Germany. I am so happy. This week has really been great. My Trainer/Companion is AMAZING!! I couldn't ask for someone better. The Lord really does answer prayers because she is wonderful. She is a hard worker, obedient, and so much fun. Her name is Sis. Stowell and she is from Oklahoma and has 3 months left of the mission!

I will be her last companion most likely. We have had so much fun together and we laugh a lot. We also have a lot of goals and things we want to accomplish while we are together. I expected to get here to the Germany/Austria area and just be miserable at first because that is what everyone told me, but I have really loved it. Don't get me wrong, it still has been dang hard. Everyday I do things that make me feel so uncomfortable and awkward, but then there are things that completely make up for it. Remember my motto that I had last year? "Do one thing that scares you everyday?" Well I have to do 100 things that scare me everyday. It is an adventure that is for sure.

O MEINE GUTE!! You know the Eakers in our stake?? Jordan Eaker, who I was on youth committee with is in the same mission as me, and he serves in the same ward as me. hahah Crazy huh?? We are going to be seeing each other a lot and it is weird, fun, and nice to see a familiar face.

Well there is just so many people and things to talk about and not enough time. I feel so lucky because I get to be here for a baptism next Sunday. One of the girls we teach is named Birko. She is 24 and is just so amazing. I only met her this past week but I love her so much already. She is getting baptized next Sunday and we are so excited. I am giving the talk on Baptism too and I am kinda freaking out (because it has to be in German) but I am so happy for her. Her testimony of this gospel is so strong and she is ready. She used to be a partier and did crazy things but she has completley turned her life around. She is better than a lot of members! It is wonderful.

Something I have loved about being a missionary is the love you feel for other people. You truely love them and care for them and want to help them. It is different than just typical love, it is Christ's love. It is cool.

So German is coming along okay and a lot of times I just nodd my head and smile, and act like I understand:) haha I am understanding more and more each day. I love German and I am excited to learn more.

Also literally I am cold 24/7 here. It has been snowing a lot and German people don't really like heating their houses and buildings I guess?? haha Literally I am a frozen icecle every day. It is just so crazy how different the cultures are. But since it is so cold I am going to have to buy a warmer jacket. Hopefully we will have time to find one today.

Oh and one last thing!! I love my mission president and his wife! They are so great and came to church with us yesterday. I also bore my testimony in church which was scary but fun. They all said I spoke really good German. I think they say that to every new missionary - haha. Also we work a lot with the YSA and I love it. They want to go on splits with us a lot and help us which is great. I always think of you and dad. I hope yall can go on a mission one day and be over the YSA in another country, they would love yall!!

One funny story real quick! There is a lady from Vienna who loves the the Elders so much. She literally stalks them and she is probably 45 years old?  Her name is Frau Martina and she knows when the transfer days are and will show up to the train station in Munich so she can see all the Elders who are being transfered. She came on Thursday with bags full of stuff to give to the Elders. It was so hilarious. I was so happy I got to see her in the train station creepily walk towards the elders. Isn't that hilarious? I know I will be seeing her a lot more so I will keep yall posted with frau Martina stories.

Okay time is short and I gotta go!  I LOVE YALL!! I pray for yall everynight and I am so thankful to be yall's daughter:) (Goodness I say yall a lot)

PS- on a fun note, I walked into church on Sunday and my friend Robert from Vienna was there visiting his girlfriend!! I was so happy to see him. Here are pictures of us two. Robert asked if we could get you to post them on facebook so we can show everyone from study abroad and from Vienna.

Also, here are pictures of my apt!

LOVE YALL!!!

Elysse with Robert Degaspari- a friend of hers that she knew when she went on her study abroad to Vienna

Elysse and her new companion Sister Stowell

At the MTC!

HALLLOOO!

O Meine Gute!!!

I leave in the morning. I am freaking out but I am so excited. I just feel so extremely blessed that I am going back to Austria and Germany.

I am not going to lie, the MTC has been hard. I have gone through things I never thought I would go through, and I have experienced a lot of really hard things that I never expected either, but the Lord is making me stronger. I never thought I could have so many different trials here at the MTC, but truely they have been such a blessing. I really am grateful for the hard things I have experience because now I feel like I can overcome anything. It is kind of funny because I keep thinking in my mind " Heavenly Father, give me all you got! I can take this!" I never thought I would think this way but oh has my relationship with the Savior grown. Not once have I ever regreted coming on a mission. With each trial it just confirms my faith even more that I am suppose to be here. It truely is amazing and I love this Gospel so much. In all reality I have really loved the MTC. I have learned so many new things and have met some of the coolest people that will now be life long friends.I am so excited to serve the German people. I already feel like I have such a deep connections with them. I can just feel people waiting for me and I am so ready. I am scared, but I know I can do it with the help of the Lord!!!

So the new Deutschers came in this week and it has been such a blast!! I love seeing German speakers everywhere!! Literally over 100 came in. German speakers are taking over. They all think we are so good at German and it is awesome. We have absolutely loved getting to know them and helping them with any questions they may have. MCKAY! I WANT YOU TO GO GERMAN SPEAKING SOO BAD!!! (Sorry!! I don't want you to go French speaking, you have to come to Germany:)

So i got the best package ever today from Aubrey Hatch and Kiersten Merrill. It was a Valentines Package with all these notes from Tyson Hekking, Sean McCourtney, Paul Sabin, Paul Rassmussen, Ashley Curtis, and Mark Matthews. It was seriously the greatest package and it made me so happy!! Will you tell Aubrey and Kiersten thank you so much for me!?? Tell them it made my day and that I love all of them so much!! I seriously have the best friends in the world. I am so truly lucky.

Tell dad I will call him tomorrow morning when I get to the Salt Lake Airport!! So probably around 9 o'clock Georgia time? I will try and call you afterwards but if not I will call you when I land in Atlanta around 4. I can't wait to talk to yall!!!

"Ich bin so begeistert für meine Mission. Ich weiß diese Kirche ist wahr mit ganzem meinem Herz. Ich bin so dankbar für die Gelegenheit ich habe zu dienen. Ich habe so viel Glück! Das Buch Mormon is wahr!! Ich weiß es jeman hilfen! Ich weiß dass Joseph Smith wahr Propheten war. Ich bin so dankbar für das Sühnopfer und meine Brüder Jesus Christus. Ich weiß das Gott mich leibt. Ich sage diese dinge in Namen Jesu Christi Amen."

Love to all!

Sister Elysse Allman

Feb. 8, 2013

Okay so I have a lot to tell and not that much time, so hopefully I can fit everything in!!!!

So I fly into Atlanta Tuesday and I get there around 3:41. I'll call yall when land. I'll buy a calling card and I should be able to call you from there! I am excited!! Then I head to Germany around 5:45. I am so excited but honestly I am scared to death! Ahhhh pray for me.

O!! Have you heard anything from my mission president or anything?? The Elder going to Alpine told me that we are suppose to bring 550$ for the bike fund.

So to start off I am sick!!! I don't know what it is about this time of year, but I always get hit with some bug. I think the doctor said they were going to call you mom. I have a sinus infection and a viral throat infection..but I am taking antibiotics so hopefully it'll get better! I am just so glad this happened now than later. Also, something really fun.. we get 100 new German speakers tomorrow and all the internationals came in today!! I met about 10 Elders from Europe and mostly all of them are going to my mission! It makes me so excited. I cannot wait to meet the other new Deutschers tomorrow. There are also a ton of these Koreans that just got here and they are the cutest ever!! Everytime I see them they make me so happy. I just love asians:) haha

So remember Annika who Sister Bauer and I were able to teach last week in the TRC who knew absolutely nothing about the church??? Well she came to TRC again this Friday and we got to teach her again!! She wanted to come back again before she left back to Germany. She read everything we had asked her too and went to church. It was so cool. Well I definitely learned a tough lesson when it came to teaching her. We found out Thursday that she was coming back so I started to pray about her and think about what she needs. I felt so strongly that we should teach her about prayer and how to pray. Sister Bauer and I prepared a lesson about prayer and we felt really good about it. Then we talked to the other Elders that taught her last week too( We taught her for one hour, a set of elders taught her the other) and they said they had already taught her how to pray. That was hard because I still really wanted to teach her the lesson! But then we were talking to the teacher who introduced Annika into the trc and he said if it were him he would teach her the Plan of Salvation. So we decided to teach the Plan of Salvation. We taught the lesson and we felt like it went well! It was hard because she spoke way fast German, but we had another teacher (Brother Luna) in there with us to help us when we didn't understand. After the lesson we gave Annika hugs and exchanged email addresses. I felt so much love for her!!! We then talked with Brother Luna after the lesson and asked him what he thought. he began to go over our lesson with us and told us some of the things Annika said that we didn't understand. Sister Bauer and I both realized that the Plan of Salvation lesson was not what she needed. Brother Luna asked us what we think would've been a better lesson to teach her. Sister Bauer and I at that moment both knew we should've taught her about prayer and how to pray, and Brother Luna agreed. I was devasted!!!! OO it was so hard. I couldn't believe that I didn't follow the spirit and teach what I thought at the beginning. I didn't even realize it was the spirit, but now looking back I knew it was. It has been so hard on me. I just hope and pray that because I didn't follow the Spirit, that I didn't ruin chances for Annika to want to learn more. I learned one of the greatest blessings on Friday, and that is to ALWAYS LISTEN TO THE SPIRIT. ALWAYS. HE KNOWS WHAT IS BEST. Gosh, it still kills me to think about it, but I am grateful I was able to learn this lesson now rather than later. Now I will NEVER not follow a prompting from the spirit again.

So the other day I ran into my friend Ryan that works here. He came to lunch with my district and I and we got on the topic of trials. He said something really cool that I'd like to share. He said, we may have no idea why God gives us trials, or what we have to learn from them, but maybe we are given the trials just so we can grow closer to Him and learn more about Him. I never thought about it that way. We should be so grateful for trials because it gives us an even greater opportunity to rely on our Savior and get to know him more.

Funny Story: There is this Elder in my district whose cheeks always get so red!! For the longest time I have been teasings him saying, "Du hast rotes Backen!!!" (You have red cheeks!) and when I say that he always giggles. Well the other day when our teacher was in class with us, I said it to him again. My teacher started busting out laughing!! This whole time I had been telling the elder that he had red butt cheeks, not face cheeks... hahahaha Whoops!! O the joys of learning a language!!! Also, one time when I was teaching the same teacher, he asked me what my purpose in life was. I told him "to wash and learn!" hahahah o dear.

I still cannot believe this is my last official P-day in the MTC. It all kind of feels like a dream. Mom, Dad, if you write me a dear elder the last night you can do that is Sunday night, or otherwise I won't get them. Also, I should be able to get on an email yall on Monday as well before I leave.

Mckay!! Your letter made me cry!! Thank you sooo much for it. I am so proud of you. I cannot wait to hear when your papers are finished and where you will go!! Also, give Jared a hug for me and tell him Congrats!! That is so exciting about Guatemala!!!

Dad!! Your talk sounded like it was amazing. The letter made me cry that was about it. I bet everyone loved it. We seriously have the best family ever!!!!!!!

Well time is short!!! I love yall so much and I can't wait to talk to yall on Tuesday!!

Tschuss!!!!!!

Ich liebe Sie!!!!!

Sister Allman