I, Sister Regnier, am saying that my favorite meal last week was weisswürst and mustard (May 27)

Guten Tag!

So, the last couple days, I have been walking around in the constant pouring rain. No, you do not understand the words constant pouring rain. During all of this, I could just picture everyone wakeboarding, skiing, and tubing.... in the heat. I thought I wouldn't have to break out my winter stuff yet. Let me explain what exactly this Sister Missionary wears in the freezing cold: My thermals (both kinds), a sweater, my huge jacket, a scarf, gloves, wool socks, a hat, and the winter boots I thought I wouldn't use till next year. I am quite surprised it wasn't snowing! But the wind probably made most of the cold.

Anyways, enough of the weather, that sounds like small talk.

Funny story. So in Germany to start a conversation you DO NOT ask how they are. But sometimes, I do. (Sometimes I don't really remember, sometimes I don't know how else to start talking to people) Most of the time it goes fine. People just know I am American, or super friendly, but then there are other people. Picture me, all bundled up sitting on a bus. Someone comes, smiles, and sits down next to me. So after building up a bit of courage (my companion is too far away if I need help, and THAT IS TERRIFYING). I say "Wie geht es ihnen heute?" She looks at me (mind you, she looks like a nice lady) and say's "Warum" (why). Oh meine Gute. So awkward, so I just say something like well to start conversation.... haha. 

Well, I am one of those awkward missionaries.  

Anyways. I totally forgot to tell you something last week! I don't know how, I was pretty excited to say: I, Sister Regnier, am saying that my favorite meal last week was weisswürst and mustard. I know, I bet you read that a couple times. Craziness. In my defense, most mustard tastes good here. NOT ALL, but most.

So that guy of interest. Yeah, he is doing good! Our next lesson we asked him if he would prepare to be baptized on July 6. He said yes!!!! So now, in planning when it says prepare for your investigators with a baptism date, we can do something!! Wahoo! It’s so great. He wanted a CTR ring, we gave him one, I am quite curious to see if he wears it.

Another untersucher, IDK if you would call him that, I think he is more just interested in the Mormon beliefs. He is pretty cool. He loves the New Testament. But he has no faith. We have now met with him twice (we had another apt today, but this weather makes teaching outside a no). He wants everything we say backed up with New Testament evidence. He has a really hard time because we no longer have the plates. This morning we were studying for God having a body, before, he was wanting us to back up the restoration with a scripture based off of the vs in Matthew where it says something like chains of hell won’t be able to take the church. He keeps trying to convince us it "failed" because it left the earth for a while. It's really fun to teach him. He is Korihor. But, he doesn't bash, he is just trying to figure it out. We are working with him to figure it out the right way... but some people don't listen.

You ask about Pdays. We really don't have much time. We do our typical studying intermixed with laundry, grocery shopping, emails, cleaning our apartment, and lunch. That takes all the time. On those 2 Pdays we skipped dinner, and booked it for the hiking place because Pday ends at 6. Today we might just hang out. Hopefully go to a bookstore of some kind because I want to get a better English-Deutsch dictionary. haha.

Well this week.

(just so you know, I have to look at my journal because everything mushes together, I have NO sense of time..)

So we had our district meeting on Tuesday, I had to bring a few extra things because right after I had my first Austausch,.... I am not sure how to spell that auf Deutsch, but I don't know what it is called in English.. Anyways we met the Neomarkt sisters at the train station. It wasn't long before I was told plans were changed and the Golden (greenie) was going back to Austria with me. In my head I was freaking out. (How are we going to talk to people, etc.). She has been here a transfer longer than me. Turns out she speaks excellent German and we were totally fine. But I was freaking out for most of the train ride, until we finally talked to someone. Their mission is the only Sister car mission in my mission. They did things quite different. It was weird, but I learned a lot. And Sister Smith was awesome! We had a great time! We got to teach the whole time I was there! And every house we taught gave us tea, I could get used to that! haha. :)

I really enjoyed Austria. I felt like most of my time was in the car because the cities were so far apart! But it was cool to teach so many lessons and meet so many people! Here's something really funny that happened. But, it might be a you had to be there kinda thing. So for lunch, Sister Smith made this German food. Turns out it expands in your stomach, I have NEVER been so full in my life. We were both, so, so full. Then we went to go help someone with their German for our service hours (yeah, me teaching German... haha) . She was like oh I have a new recipe you have to try. We nervously said a very, very small amount please. She brought out huge, huge bowls of rice milk. I probably looked like I saw a ghost. ...So we start to eat. I was having the hardest time. I couldn't even manage to drink the water she gave us. Somehow, Sister Smith finished. The lady offered to take her plate somewhere in German/Romanian translation it got confused that she wanted more. She brought out an identically huge bowl. Literally, I could not keep the laughter inside. I pretended I was laughing with the baby playing on the floor. Seriously. I thought I would never eat again. Sister Smith looked so sick, and the lady just thought she was so nice. haha, that does happen in real life. I thought it was a funny story my MTC teachers just told us... haha. Sister Smith and I taught a ton of lessons, it was really fun. We would be a great team.

When I got home, we did a lot of finding. On Saturday night, we went over to a members to have her help us with our talks. She was convinced we both didn't need to give one. So I just ended up giving the opening prayer, and a testimony on Sister Garrett’s topic, which in my opinion is scarier because at least Sister Garrett had hers written down! But I felt more like me that way anyway. So I have a kick butt talk for next week :) Church was good, although the woman I have a hard time understanding gave the lesson during Relief Society (which is more like a discussion lead by one person, kind of, but it is different), so all I know is it was about the temples. The rest of the time I just listened to how they pronounced letters in words I could not understand. haha.

Miracle for the week. I don't know if you remember, but my first Pday here we met a less active on the bus, Sis Garrett said it was different how she was acting towards us. Later, she ran up the hill from us. Big change. She usually ignores our calls. But she let us in this week! It was awesome. We got to talk to her for awhile and I got some great ideas how to serve her. I am REALLY excited. Hopefully more on that next week.

So it seems this week I have been getting a lot of exercise. Yeah frühsport is great. But we have been running a lot lately, in skirts. haha. We have had to SPRINT yeah, sprint to the bus multiple times. It doesn't look very good in my opinion. But it's never been our fault, and it's either sprint or miss our curfew or have to wait an hour for the next one. However, it's hilarious. I would laugh at us, I DO laugh at us.

I don't really have anything else to report on.

It looks like Elders might be joining us in Passau next Transfer.

There was a rock disguised as a raison in my oatmeal yesterday. I feel like they should give me a free bag of raisons, too bad I don't know how to complain auf Deutsch... haha!

The sky the other night was the prettiest thing I have ever seen. I took a picture (the only picture I took this week, sorry) but no justice. It was bright red. It was so sweet. I seriously live in such a pretty place. I would be fine with never leaving Bayern.

Jdubs are very common. Alexander was right. EVERYONE and their mom (A lot of people here live in the same apartment complex as their parents) thinks that's what we are. And it would be weird to have the first thing that comes out our mouth be " Hello, we are not Jehovahs Witness´" But that might be more effective haha.

Oh, I do have another thing. I wanted to tell you. So if you are not giving the missionaries referrals, which you should be! Let the missionaries know when you are open for a joint teach (esp. Sisters), offer our house as a place they can teach, and when you have the missionaries over for dinner, send them home with the leftovers.

Which brings me to another point. I need some recipes, desperately. We barely have time to eat. The grocery store has EXTREMELY little selection (even smaller of what we can afford haha). I need some super simple, little ingredient recipes. Please. For example. HootandNanniePancakes. I am sure you can think of some. Healthier the better, of course, but we have few veggies at the store, So using veggies from a can recipes would be awesome. Oh but I do want a good cookies recipe too! German's don’t do cookies much but we need stuff to bring around. We also don't have Cornbread, Peanut butter, brown sugar, or choc chips (but i figure we can chop up chocolate bars) here. Pretty Please :)  Danke!

Elder Nelson is coming to speak to Germany soon! I think one of our investigators is pretty interested. That should be great.

Well that is all for this week. Love you!

Sister Regnier- I am finally getting good at remembering this is my name!