I was BLOWN AWAY by his testimony (June 24)

Hallo!

Like always, I can't believe it is already Pday, the end of Pday in fact. These weeks are going way to fast. When dad told me I've been on my mission for 3 months, I freaked out a little ;) I think I might just stay out here for a while until I FEEL like it has been 18 months. Sadly, that was not the change... haha. Speaking of which, you both asked many questions regarding the broadcast. Well I just found out 20 min ago. As the broadcast was in the middle of the night, and we had an appointment this morning, I was just able to log on to LDS.org and read the summary. It was not really a surprise though, Sister Garrett and I thought of many more unrealistic things, but we knew that would be it all along. The branch pres. has said that we will watch it this Sunday. Hopefully I will get as much out of it as you guys did, since it will be auf Deutsch.

We got an email saying "In Bezug auf die „ Hastening the Work of Salvation“ Übertragung, Präsident Miles möchte es so, dass wir es mit der Gemeinde anschauen.  Besprechen Sie das mit dem Bischof. Wir haben viele neue und tolle Möglichkeiten, um Missionsarbeit zu tun aber bitte verwenden Sie diese Werkzeuge nicht, bis wir mehr darüber herausfinden (z. B. Facebook). Wir werden Ihnen alle Bescheid geben, wenn wir mehr davon wissen."

(In relation to the “Hastening the Work of Salvation“  Transmission, President Miles says that we look at it with the community, and discuss this with the bishop. We have many new and fun ways to do missionary work but please do not use these tools until we find out more about it (eg Facebook). We will give you all know when we know more about it)

And that is all I know. I'm betting it will take a while to get here, but since Sister Miles is Elder Nelson's daughter.... haha jk. I have no idea, honestly, I don't understand how we will have time for it. I know it is inspired and will definitely help. Dad, you talked about using the ward house more... Well I don't know what was said but we are actually planning a tour for people to look at the house in 2 weeks. Our English class starts on the 3rd (we're planning a 4^th of July party for our fist day, our GML is going ALL OUT, cracks me up). So, we actually use the ward house a lot and have access to the computers here.

As for music guidelines, our mission just says follow the white handbook (uplifting). A lot of people listen to a lot of different things. Personally, I would like to stick to LDS artists, Enya however, I would make an exception for ;) However, we don't have a music player in this apartment. Sister Garrett and I are dying. The new apartment is awesome. We often eat dinner on our deck. And it's just wonderful in general (except all the stairs, I have a hate/love relationship with them). The work is going great with the Elders, I'm still getting used to it though, it's weird we have seen them a couple times. Plus one is a German master, so the ward flocks to him, haha. I think it's great though, it will give us opportunities to teach in the church if it's raining. The clean up is still going, but people have kind of died out in helping, as the water is no longer the problem.

So I know I always talk about the weather, and that is dumb, but that is how this week started. I have never felt so hot in my life... big change from swimming. The buses are disgusting. On Monday, the bus was JAM packed, and the guy next to me had his armpit in my face. Ugh. I am positive the ice cream store owners are living pretty high right now. And everyone was wearing swimsuits. I have never felt so much humidity. It was seriously gross.... plus I ran out of American deodorant.....haha. And now, it's raining. This place is less predictable than Utah.

Monday, I tried on my first pair of lederhosen (see below). PS, this is what I must buy while I am in Europe. so so cool.

We got to teach a less active that we have been trying to teach, he just moved to Passau, so it will be a lot easier! I was BLOWN AWAY by his testimony. Since we have never met with him, we decided to review the restoration and talk about scripture study. When we asked what he remembered from when the missionaries taught him, he recalled the littlest details, so that plan went down the drain. He also studies the scriptures like no bodies business. And THEN someone started talking to us, and he just went into missionary mood. Inviting him to meet with us, or him and read the Book of Mormon. Seriously, the coolest guy ever.

Wednesday, we finally got to teach at the high school! It was so fun! We answered their questions and it was really fun. And extremely interesting that all of them were baptized and none go to church and some admitted to not believing in God. They were all really respectful even when asking about chastity and the word of wisdom. I really had a nice time.

On Thursday, we went to Deggendorf to serve (that is a city in our area that got hit by the floods the worst I believe). It was really fun and we met a wonderful girl on the train from München who wants to start going to the Young Single Adult activities! She came along and helped us and a few other missionaries. Along the lines of service, we did another project in Passau. We were scraping ruined paint. So everyone talks about muscle memory, but you don't really understand it until you are falling asleep on the bus, and all of a sudden you start scrapping paint off the air... haha.

So yes, we are still doing service, but not near as much.

About our Untersucher with a tauftermin (main investigator). He is doing great! One of our lessons this week was the Ten Commandments and it was so fun! He is willing to stop using the Lords name in vain and follow all of them. He said, "Once someone learns one of God's commandments, he is held accountable to follow them." Well law of Chastity is up this week :) He seriously brings me so much joy. Every time we end an appointment I am smiling ear to ear! He really sees the gospel playing a role in his life. And it's AWESOME.

Sunday was of course amazing! We had the less active that I mentioned earlier, our untersucher, and a potential come to church!!! It was a full house! Specially now with 4 missionaries. As the less active and untersucher speak English, we held a class. We watched the Joseph Smith movie, and talked about prayer. It was great. The spirit was so so strong! Afterword’s, we went by on a former investigator, who was not there. But, the Lord had to get us over there somehow. We were dooring their neighbors, and a lady answered the door and invited us in for tea/koffee time. Okay, it was so sweet!! We drank applesaft on their porch, overlooking ALL OF PASSAU. Talked about everything (Passau, the differences from America & Germany, them living in Alabama, them visiting TEMPLE SQUARE, the flood, the restoration, the plan of salvation) Yeah, EVERYTHING. It was seriously so cool. I know they have potential, they are amazing people! I can't wait to go by again!

This morning, we went to go teach someone from Taiwan (I have no idea how to spell that). We had a member who speaks Chinese with us. It was a really interesting appointment. Although, we didn't say that much. It was really cool. I don't know how we are going to teach them, but it was a cool experience. They are just looking for a religion, and wanted to "test out the Mormons." Little did they know, they don't need to look any further. Their kids were the cutest! I really wish I could have gotten a picture. They were SO CUTE.

Anyways, that is the highlights of my week. I'm loving this work, God's work.

On a spiritual note, I love reading past conferences. I do this during meal times, and it's so cool. It's cool to see things like small temples being announced and know how much they changed everything. It is also interesting seeing the same warnings. These prophets are called of God. They are inspired men, that I know sincerely seek to know what we need to hear. I would encourage you to spend time reading old talks. I really enjoy them!

Have a great week!

Love you lots!

Sister Regnier

lederhosen

I love God's work (June 17)

I cannot believe it is already P-day. I seriously have no idea where this week went. It has been a nice transition week of pure service to incorperating in some missionary lessons.

I don't know if I sent the picture of the Zarda family last week (cool pants guy). But they were really cool (super funny), and we are going to visit them later this week.

So Last Tuesday, we were able to go to Zone Training, but we were able to hear from Elder Nelson before hand! It was great to hear people from the 70s with international accents.We then had a question and answer time with Elder Nelson. It was really cool. I sure hope his body guard is not LDS, can you believe how many conversions we could get if the body guards of these inspired men just sat and listened to them all day! What a cool job, travel cool places, look tough, listen to revelation all day. Anyways, I actually really enjoyed the training more than normal. The "Training Sister Leaders" (I hope they come up with a better name Sunday haha) taught the topic of Charity. We all know that is the Pure Love of Christ and how important that quality is. Yet, they presented it in such away, that it really touched me and motivated me to focus on that important quality. It's been quite wonderful. I always think of the quote I wrote in my scriptures, Moroni 7, years back: charity isn't something you do, its something you become. Anyways, I am just saying, Heavenly Father sure answers prayers a lot quicker, when you are willing to do something about it. Well, that has been my experience this week.  I sure hope to really grow in charity on my mission because this is something everyone seriously needs to work on.

Because the water level is back to normal and everyone worked their butts off 2 weeks ago, Passau is doing great. There are so many parties celebrating the hard work. Which is great, except the ones that our neighbors have... doesn't everyone know it is time to go to bed at 10:30? haha. We are getting back to traditional missionary work. Our tauftermin untersucher is doing good. We had a wonderful lesson with him this week. The Word of Wisdom. Seriously, this guys willingness blows me away. Before we could even say what it is, he opened the pamphlet and said, "I can do this, except, what is wrong with tea?" Of course, Germany is HUGE on tea. So after he actually let us explain what it is and what he had committed to, we talked more in detail over tea. We explained about schwartz tea, and how I drink peppermint tea pretty much every day. We then took a field trip, fun right? We went to the store, and tried to find the tea he drinks to see if it's okay. Unfortunately, it wasn't there. So we showed him how to look at a box with all this German gibber and find if it's okay. It was quite fun, he was LOVING it. Turns out his tea is okay by the way. I don't think he will have any problems.

Miracle of the week, I had my first joint teaching appointment! It was awesome to have a member there! We taught our two most interesting people of course. One, loves the NT and he really needs a lot of proof, so it's been really hard for him. But after we practically quoted the district "you are holding in your hands, the evidence of what we say is true... and you haven't read it" (District is the funniest thing, I totally have missionary humor...) He finally said, okay I will read some of the BOM. So we picked out some good ones and he said he would read them by our next meeting. He is Russian Orthodox, so he says it's against the rules to pray with other churches, so since this was the first appointment where it wasn't weird to kneel, Sister G, the member, and I kneeled, while he watched us say a prayer. Kind of awkward, but I know he will get there. At least when he accepts the Gospel, we wont have to worry about him keeping to the commandments. Interesting thing about him, in our first meeting with him he opened to Matt 16:18 when we talked about the apostasy. We have studied and told him EVERYTHING. We have had many ideas from our district leaders, Jesus the Christ, the scriptures, and other missionary resources. We even quoted Elder Nelson and showed him every reference to the Great Apostasy in the bible. But his argument is why would God's church fail, as mentioned in that scripture. It's pretty difficult when he doesn't like to internalize what we are saying. But I know he will be baptized because he keeps asking for appointments, and he continually gives examples of how he does things (searching things out before accepting things). It is all good! The member who assisted in the discussion was a little flustered as well,  all she said at the end was that he is clever.  Hopefully we didn't scare her off. We also taught the guy we met on the train a month back that said we could meet in a month. It went great. I have high hopes for him as well, but he wants to really space out our meetings, and obviously that wont do..

On Saturday, our stake organized a Helping Hands event! It was really cool. I got to rip out a movie theater floor. Yeah, they questioned giving me the..., whatever tool that was. But it was awesome and a LOT of work. I may be just a little sore.

We got Elders in Passau this week. Honestly, it's weird. I am used to being able to teach who I want when I want and go where ever we go. Now we have to do a lot of coordinating with them. But it will be awesome to get twice the amount of missionary work done. It's just too bad they don't live outside of the city so we can teach people farther out in our area. One has been on his mission a year, and studied German before. He is a pro, needless to say, the ward loves him. The other is a golden.

So Yesterday was great. We went out dooring, I feel like I haven't done that in forever! We met SO MANY COOL PEOPLE. This, is how the Lord blessed us from all the service we did, I am sure. We met this one guy, who at first wasn't really interested, but he asked a lot of questions, was very patient with our German, and ended up taking a book. He said it may be awhile till he can read some because his daughter is really really sick but we can come back in... well we decided a month. ;) I am really excited because I can tell he needs the Gospel more than ever, and he was really appreciated the concept of two witnesses of Christ. We also got a guy that asked us to come back. One that had received a BOM when he was in SLC. He said that he was too old to change his ways(everyone here says that, he is probably 55) but he is going to look for his Book Of Mormon and read some because he felt good feelings..... oh boy. We will definitely come back to visit him. And the funniest of all, a younger woman opened the door. We talked. She took a Book Of Mormon, and as we were setting up an appointment, her dad comes down, obviously was listening the whole time, "The catholic church already makes us happy, thank you" shuts the door. bahaha. So funny. We have NO idea how old she was.

Anyway, Sunday brought me a lot of joy, not because it was sweaty hot and half of the people were swimming or barbecuing, but because we found some people that have been prepared to listen to us! Hooray for Israel.

I love God's work.

So I have been thinking about faith a lot, obviously with that one guy we teach. It is SO important. Check out Enos. Faith and references to prayer are all over the place. They go hand in hand. And God blesses us because of our faith. So man must have it! Haha, that sounds totally German.

So pray to have faith, and have faith to pray.

It's big in the grand scheme of things ;)

Have fun in Utah! Tell the family I love them!

Tschüß

Sister Regnier

Cool Pants Guy

Mormon Helping Hands

Shirts that Sister Garrett's Aunt sent

I love being a missionary way too much (June 10)

Well, what a week. We served a LOT! The flood was tragic and has disrupted the lives of many, but at the same time, we have also seen so many come to the aid of others. Truly impressive! If you think about it, not many missionaries get to see a community come together like this and have this kind of experience. From this perspective, it has been a way cool week! We weren’t able to teach much, but we served in other ways.

So last Monday was straight up hectic. After emails, we had to move. This consisted of throwing EVERYTHING into suitcases and in the pouring raining trekking it across town. 4 times..... It took all Pday. We didn't even get any Missionary work in... sad. But in the new apartment we had electricity! Plus it is SUPER SUPER nice. Probably the best missionary apartment out of every mission in the world. I will have to show a video. So we didn´t have water for a day. It was quite an adventure. Luckily we have the best branch pres. & wife and they brought us a ton of water that we could boil and drink or use for such purposes such as washing inch thick mud out of our hair ;) it was quite an interesting, wet, dirty experience. But what hasn't been this week? We were not the typical skirt-wearing, rainbowlike-smelling missionaries. We have been told to boil the water (for the next 3 weeks) from our tap for food and drink but I have actually been able to shower everyday.

Our district meeting was canceled this week, so we took the opportunity to find some kellers (cellars) and scoop out water and mud! We have helped many people, but surprisingly, the first 2 days were actually hard to help people. Weird right? We would walk around and just ask and 9/10 times the people would say no. So it was A LOT OF WALKING. And, no buses were running. Let me tell you, the cheapest rain boots we could find, were NOT nice to our feet. I have never been so tired those 2 nights, I slept like a baby. We even decided to make dinner in our rollychairs (we have wood floors and brand new desk chairs! What else is expected??)

Okay, so Wednesday afternoon, we found out about this "service center." It is so cool! You go and they have assignments for you. So no wasting time looking! It was so awesome and they provided tools. I have never seen such a well-ran program. Everyone was just working together, and it really was just such a happy thing. People that couldn't manually work made food for everyone! It was such a team effort. People going around handing out food and everyone just working together and doing whatever they could. (Plus I got to try some German snacks I probably would have never got the opportunity to, cool ja? My favorite ended up being called an "americaner," haha who would have guessed) So needless to say, we have basically used the center ever since, except unplanned service opportunities. We even saw the Sagmeisters there. We did a project with them cleaning out a keller, but I am actually pretty sure it was a night club. How many missionaries can say they have worked at a nightclub and a bar while on their mission.... hahaha.

I will talk about some of my favorites this week. So we had a finding day in Passau this week, but we turned it to a service day. So the elders in our district came and we did some work. As we were walking to an assignment, we came across an old man pushing a wheelbarrow from his keller. We asked him if he would like some help and he said yes.  I am SO glad we were able to help them. They are two elderly people with a keller FULL of tools (the reason why there are tools in my pictures), in high, unsafe places. The Elders were even having a hard time with some stuff. What took us 2 hours, would have taken them weeks. I have never been so grateful to help. They were so, so cute. They spoke in thick Bayerisch ( I REALLY want to learn bayerisch, but I figure I should learn German first :) ) We even got a picture with them. We are planning to print it out and give it to them next week. They were just ADORABLE.

Another cool opportunity was working side by side with the German Army (they were EVERYWHERE). This was also an unplanned service. It was really fun and we got REALLY dirty. Sister G has a picture of us after that, Ill have to get it from her. It was the biggest assembly line I have ever seen. Passing buckets of mud back and forth. It was REALLY fun. We also saw one of our Investigators there-So that was cool.

My 3rd favorite was this morning. There is this hotel on the Donau that looks really cool. This week when we saw it, 2 floors were underwater. I thought it would be an awesome place to help. Today we got to! ( the water level is CRAZY low today, almost back to normal!) We worked there with people that worked at the hotel, mainly a girl from Brazil (San Paulo), a lady from Spain, and a lady from Hungary. I've decided people NOT from Germany speak better German, because I can understand them better ;) We got to talk a lot and really get the place cleaned up. It was a really cool hotel. Kind of like a high quality hostel, and you know I have always wanted to stay in one of those! haha. I think the girl from Brazil may be interested in hearing about the gospel. We are going back Thursday to help some more.

Sunday, our stake had a "special stake conference" where Elder Nelson, his wife, President Miles, his wife, the Swiss temple president, and the stake president spoke. It was awesome! Elder Nelson really focused on children and what to teach your children. He had all the primary kids stand on their chairs and sing I am a child of God. SO cute. I miss my primary class! I really enjoyed everything he focused on. But the crazy thing is this. He said missionary work is going to change how it is done. The announcement will be made on June 23. Holy Cow. I am so nervous, excited, everything! I AM DYING TO KNOW. My companion and I have pretty much guessed everything it could be, now we just wait. AH! It is KILLING me. I hope we get to watch the broadcast. Of course, the Nelson's talks were auf English. However, he closed with his testimony, auf flawless Deutsch... it was so awesome. Apostles and Prophets are seriously the coolest.

Funny story, on the way to our 6 o’clock train Sunday morning, we figured out we forgot our nametags.... (they were caked with dirt waiting in the bathroom to be cleaned off....) It felt SO WEIRD. I can’t even imagine what it will feel like when I am no longer a missionary. I felt different. We called the München sisters, who let us borrow theirs for the meeting, but the train ride was just weird. I love being a missionary way too much :)

Our untersucher mit ein Taufttermine (investigator planning to be baptized) is doing GREAT! We hadn't met with him at all for 2 weeks ago and he hasn’t been to church in 2 weeks. I did wonder if he was OK, however, we finally met with him. He is so excited about the Gospel and his baptism! I am so excited for him I have never met someone so new to the Book of Mormon and who just absorbs it like he does. He loves it, we barely get any lessons in because he just wants to read it with us and get our interpretations. It is so fun. We had 2 lessons with him this week (hence the 2 sonstige haha). During the first one we had quite a weird experience. A guy came up to us and asked what we were reading. We told him, then he asked if we were God. After saying no, he went on to tell us he was God. He was obviously not all there mentally, but it was definitely a Spirit killer. Teaching outside in public is difficult, but at least this week, it was sunny!!

Also, we stopped by on Maria (the lady who was so excited we were giving her the Book Of Mormon for free and asked us to stop by the next week). It was interesting because her son answered the door. He said that she is too old and that she doesn't need it. He shut the door but we heard her arguing that she wants to listen to us. After the flood issues calm down, there will be opportunities to see her. Patience. I think we will teach her! I am so excited for that! I am also excited to that we will now get Elders in Passau! It will be nice because we can use them to be able to teach inside if we have a single male investigator! I am also excited for Tuesday, Elder Nelson is specifically talking to the missionaries!

Anyway, I just have really been impressed by how all of Passau and neighboring cities have come together to help complete strangers. It has been an awesome experience. It has also been cool talking to people who wouldn’t show much interest in us when we wore our missionary clothes. We actually had a lady pass us on the street and exclaim, HEY YOU ARE AMERICAN. We stopped and talked and she said, " It's nice to see you get out of your suits and ties and get dirty at a time like this." I think it really opened a lot of people’s eyes to what we are about. toll.

Well that is enough rambling for now.

Bis spatter (until later)

Sister Regnier

Serving others with the Sagmeister Family

Matchy boots!

Passau declared a state of emergency -Pray for my sweetie and her city! (June 3)

 PASSAU, Germany — Swollen rivers gushed into the old section of Passau in southeast Germany on Monday, as water rose in the city to levels not seen in more than five centuries.

The city was one of the worst hit by flooding that has spread across a large area of central Europe following heavy rainfall in recent days. At least eight people were reported to have died and nine were missing due to floods in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

An aerial view of the flooding in Passau, Germany, photographed Monday June 3, 2013. Heavy rainfalls cause flooding along rivers and lakes in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

People stand in the flooded centre of Passau, southern Germany, Monday, June 3, 2013. Raging waters from three rivers have flooded large parts of the southeast German city following days of heavy rainfall in central Europe. A spokesman for the cityís crisis center said Monday that the situation was ìextremely dramaticî and waters are expected to rise further by midday to their level highest in 70 years 

Much of the city was inaccessible on foot and the electricity supply was shut down as a precaution, he said. Rescuers were using boats to evacuate residents from flooded parts of the city. Authorities in the afternoon evacuated a prison that was in danger of being flooded, moving 60 inmates to two other nearby facilities on higher ground.

But with water from the Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers relentlessly pouring into the city, water was advancing into previously dry streets — in one case going from dry to ankle-deep within half an hour. Markers set in 1954, when the city suffered its worst flooding in living memory, have disappeared beneath the rising water.

Onlookers watch the rising river Danube in the historic city center on June 3, 2013 in Passau, Germany. Heavy rains are pounding southern and eastern Germany, causing wide-spread flooding and ruining crops. At least two people are missing and feared dead in what is evolving into the most serious flood levels since the so-called 100-year flood of 2002. Portions of Austria and the Czech Republic are also inundated

The German news agency dpa said the water levels were the highest recorded since 1501 in Passau, a city that dates from before Roman times.

The German army said it has sent 1,760 soldiers to help local authorities and volunteers reinforce flood defences, particularly in the south and east of the country.