Cremebad

Hallo Leute!
I was all over the place this week! I went to Euskirchen (2 hours in a train) and was on a split with Sister Estes who is from my MTC group! We had a lot of fun and may have gotten lost in a forest...but we made it out alive! We also helped out a member with cutting hedges and I ended up with tons of grasshoppers in my hair hahahah as an award for helping him, Bruder Titz gave us a loaf of freshly baked bread(Such a German thing to do). It's really cool to see how sisters progress during our splits together and how we both see the changes we need to make in order to become better missionaries.

I also got to go to Düsseldorf too and it downpoured the whole day! People must of thought we were crazy skipping along and being happy as we are becoming drenched with rain. My shoes ended up bleeding into my feet so now I have blue feet! Hahaha it will come off eventually.

Sister Catherall may have caught me a few times talking in my sleep. Last night I was apparently teaching someone how the Bible and the Book of Mormon are similar and last week I was setting up an appointment with someone on the street and saying it all in German. Guess I just don't stop being a missionary when I'm sleeping...I did yell another night "it's huge!!!" And Sis Catherall woke up and asked me what was and I told her there was a huge spider on the ceiling....and then I woke up and told her I was dreaming about it. Ahaha good times..Sister Catherall is a trooper for all the time she wakes up to me talking...

We had yet again another great lesson with Isaac! He's reading the Book of Mormon more and more and he shared 2 Nephi 33:10 "And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good" and he said that he felt in his heart that it was true, the words he were reading were from a prophet and they gave him so much strength! Just a great guy really diligently searching for the truth.

We've had some crazy cool finding stories as we have opened our mouth and trusted that God would fill it and sometimes we don't need to say anything, people just come up to us! I sat in a Bahn(train) and a guy came and sat next to me and asked how I was and what I do and said he'd be interested in learning and he gave me his number and told me I should call him, that happened two other times this last week! It helps that we carry Books of Mormon around with us everywhere and are wearing dresses. Makes us stick out hahah 

Our Distrikt leader shared this scripture with us in Moses 6:31 which says "And when Enoch had heard these words, he bowed himself to the earth, before the Lord, and spake before the Lord, saying: Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?"

Which is often a question I ask because I am not so eloquent with my words and I'm also not perfect with German. But the Lords response is great!

32 And the Lord said unto Enoch: Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance, for all flesh is in my hands, and I will do as seemeth me good"

God promises him that he will have what he needs to fulfill God's will. I guess I forget a lot of the times that it's really nothing I do that's makes the difference besides acting. Opening my mouth, speaking to every person that I possibly can and then God gives me what the people need to hear as I need to His Spirit. We do all we can in life and God makes up the rest. But we need to ACT. We can't just wait around until God does stuff for us. He works with us according to our desire and our effort.

I hope you all choose to ACT this week and make the best out of your situations and that you see how God helps you through the hardtimes as you work with Him to do so.

Liebe Grüße, 

Sister Farner

PS we bought Cremebad thinking it was soap ...turns out it was bubble bath so we had been using bubble bath for soap for a solid week and had no clue..

The art of Duisburg

Trockenrippen

Hallo Leute,

Shoutout to my mom for the birthday package:) it came!

We did a lot of finding this week and had a ton of hilarious and also really cool contacting situations for example:

- one man contacted us and started talking about how he leads people through haunted houses and then he said bye and walked away..

- another man asked if we were JWs and we said no and he then asked of if Adam's rib was dry when God took it to make Eve..trockenrippen(dried ribs)

- one man that I asked what made him happy said that we did because he saw us early talking to people with enthusiasm and said he'd gladly visit our church:)

- Sis Catherall and I sat across the aisle from each other and both talked to two guys and both of these men could on the speak English and we both got both of their numbers and hopped out of the train and ran across the platform to the train going in the other direction because we had missed our stop ha comp unity! There were a lot of other cool contacts but I don't have the time to share:)

Sister Perkins and her parents were traveling around her mission and we got to eat with her and our investigators, Scurender and Isaac, and Pouyan! Was really fun and really weird because of the mix of cultures. Ghana, America, Iran and India all together...hahaha so fun! Pouyan bore testimony to Isaac about the Book of Mormon and it was super cool! Also Isaac doesn't speak a lot of German and a guy in the train asked him if he was also Mormon and he said yes! Haha super funny!

We had MLC for the first time with President Boyer and it was sooo awesome! The mission is continuing on getting better and making goals in working better with members to help people to come to Christ. Members are so important!

Sister Yeck! My Mtc comp that I haven't seen since the very start of

my mission!!

Us being us

A lot happened this week that was also good but ich habe keinen Lust mehr zu schreiben...

There's a scripture that Sister Catherall wrote on our window and it's from Alma 26:34-35 and it says:

"Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name. 36 Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land"

Ah this scripture is just exactly how we are feeling here! The Gospel is a gospel of joy and God has given us so many reason to rejoice! Yes we have hard times and things don't go as planned but when we remember all the things He has done for us and will do for us when we follow Him it's all worth it!

Have a great week!

Liebe Grüße

Sister Farner

THE STAIRS!!

Meine neue Mitarbeiterin....:)

Hallo Leute,

Sister Perkins

This week was even better than ever! We saw so many miracles and ja I just love the people we have the privilege of working with!! We met with Isaac and he asked us to convince him why the Book of

Mormon is worth reading because he didn't want to waste his time. We tried to show him a few good verses and bore our testimonies and he told us we hadn't convinced him and I was feeling a little hopeless and then I realized, wait, the Holy Ghost can only convince him of the truth we can't say anything to convince him. So we told him that he should give it a read and pray about it and that the Holy Ghost would testify to him of the truth. We saw him a few days later running to the Bahn and he yells " I STARTED READING" as he ran by:) so cool!!

Alaeden, Sister Perkins

We met with some other solid people that are just amazing but I'm running out of time. There was Alaeden(Aladdin but in Arabic) and he explained the Book of Mormon back to us to make sure he understood it, there was Saeed who told us that Joseph Smiths first vision was beautiful and then we met with Esther and she's making so much progress and loved hearing about the plan of Salvation.

Sis Catherall, Sis Perkins

Sis Catherall

Oh also transfers happened and Sister Perkins went home:( but Sister Catherall is my new companion! She's from Herriman Utah and is one transfer ahead of me and we are already best friends and are getting work done!!! So pumped for this transfer! We are Sister Training leaders over 9 companionships and 7 of those are training! So many new sisters! I'm the old one now... We've already lost each other once and finish each other's sentences..haha this will be fun!

Have a great week!

Sister Farner

Ein Jahr später

Hallo Leute,

What an awesome week! So many awesome things happened:) I was on a split with Sister Fried  and one of our appointments got cancelled all of a sudden and we had an hour and a half to do

something. I took out my map on my iPad and split up our area in 6 quadrants and then she rolled a dice to see where we would go. The quadrant we picked already had a saved location and I had no idea how it got saved but we decided to visit the apartment. We got there and I looked at the klingels and the name of a family in our ward was on it.  I then realized that we had gone to the new apartment of this family and I was a little embarrassed haha. But we decided to ring the other names there...with not much success. As we were leaving a car with a trailer came up and three members hopped out and were surprised to see us...so I said "wir sind hier ihnen zu helfen!" (We are here to

help you) and they were like okay! We were able to help carry the furniture and boxes up to the new apartment and it was great to help them out.  I explained to them later how we had no idea that they'd be there or that they would need our help. I was reading earlier that day about service projects and how we should be doing one once a week and was like I look for opportunities to serve but they are never there. And then we happened upon this service opportunity! It was a real testimony builder on following the Spirit! We could of easily just contacted people in our area but we followed the Spirit and found the people that needed our help:)

Gabriel and us

Another cool thing...GABRIEL CAME TO CHURCH. For those of you who have forgotten who he is, he's from Brazil and is so awesome! We were really sad his week because we went by his house(he has no phone) and he wasn't there and we were really confused and sad because we have had a

few lessons get cancelled because he's not there. But then he came to church and explained how he was at his neighbors when we rung! He stayed all three hours and in the investigator class we read Moroni 10:3-5 and he told us that as he read it he felt privileged to be allowed by God to be in the church and to read the Book of Mormon and how grateful he is that God allows him to have the opportunity to learn about the church. ah! So cool! He loves the Book of Mormon and is almost done with Alma!(200+ pages) He's making so much progress!

Sis Williams and I with Celine and Lisa

Sussan!!

I got to go on a split in Dortmund with Sister Williams(my last area and last companion) let's just say it was pretty weird but awesome too! I got to see Sussan and Celine and Lisa and Birgit!! Sussan

almost knocked me over when she saw me and I don't think I've ever seen someone so happy to see me in my life! I can believe she has been baptized for 3 months! Lisa is staying next year in Utah for a year! So excited. It was really great to go there and see how everyone's doing. Sister Williams and Sister Poulsen are taking good care of the people:) Sister Williams is going home with Sister Perkins in less than a week which makes me sad. She's an amazing missionary and has been such a great example. She loves the people and the Lord and that has made all the difference!

Which comes to Sister Perkins, who is leaving me soon! Little upset with her about that but that's life. She's been a great companion and very patient with my weird ideas and odd bursts of enthusiasm. Going to miss her a lot and am thankful that we had this time to work and serve the Lord together.

New mission President:) President and Sister Boyer

I love my mission and today is pretty crazy because a year has gone by! What??? I've learned so much here and I love how the Gospel is something we can always apply to make us become better. We can always improve, you don't need to be on a mission to do so, you're not done improving at age 80. You can always become more obedient, more happy, more kind, more spiritual,etc. I think on the hymn "More Holiness Give Me":

More holiness give me,

More strivings within,

More patience in suff’ring,

More sorrow for sin,

More faith in my Savior,

More sense of his care,

More joy in his service,

More purpose in prayer

and that is sometimes a little overwhelming hahah but when we take the time to work on one thing at a time we become who God wants us to become, more like our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Have a great week:)

Liebe Grüße

Sister Farner

Sis Fried and I by the sand volleyball tournament in the middle of the city