Willkommen zu Deutschland

Hey family!

I arrived safe and sound yesterday in Deutschland :)

The plane ride was LOOONG, but good. I sat with Sister Sykes and Elder Rasband for the most part and we just chatted it up. I got their entire life stories and slept a total of 1.5 hours! Wahoo!

On the plane from Amsterdam to Berlin I sat next to a sweet lady from Tanzania and her one year old daughter. Oh my word she was the cutest thing I have ever seen. They slept the whole time so I talked with this man from Toronto for 2 hours. 

He was a professor and had the deepest mind I have ever probed. Okay that sounds weird.

But Im serious. 
We were talking about Germany and how excited I was to be there and he was telling me all the places I should go. Most of which I can't remember. And then we talked about religion.

Obviously.

I am a missionary.

It was interesting to talk with him, because as he was telling me what he believed, I realized that almost everything he was saying fit in to the gospel! He talked about how everything is connected to God in some way. Like how all the animals have consciousnesses, and how he believes in parallel universes. Then he said, "I believe that we go to a parallel universe when we die."

BINGO!

So I talked to him about the Plan of Salvation a little bit and how we believe in "life after death" where we are resurrected with perfect and immortal bodies. 

Cool, right?

And then I gave him a mormon.org card.

Feeling all pumped up, we met our president at the airport (pictures on germanyberlinmission2012-15.blogspot.com) and rode back to the mission office where we were to have a new missionary conference and receive our companions.

And I got the best ones ;)

Haha. Sister Tidwell is from St. George and has been out for 13 months. Sister Avanesjan is from Frankfurt and is waiting on her visa so she can attend the MTC and go to Mesa, Arizona! 
So yes, I am in a drit. 

And we are serving in DRESDEN!!

Okay, so if there was any place in Germany I wanted to serve, it is Dresden. I may only be here for 4 weeks, but naja. It's good.

We haven't done any lessons today, but tonight we are going to a less active family for FHE and that will be great. 

I don't know how to teach yet, so this will be interesting. But good. 

I am excited :)

Anyway, when we got to the Bahnhof to catch our train to Dresden, we found out that it was closed. 

Someone had jumped in front of the train. We don't know if someone was just down there and wouldn't come up, or they actually went through with it, but none of the trains were running and about 20 firemen ran past us up the stairs. Apparantly this isn't unusual. The people around were more upset that they were going to miss their train..

Willkommen zu Deutschland.

We wondered what would have happened if we had been there earlier and talked to whoever it was that decided their life wasn't worth it anymore. 

This work is so important. I don't know how to speak German, especially when I listen to natives, I realize how much there is to learn, BUT, I'm here for a reason. People need to know the restored gospel. They need to know that they are loved.

We finally caught a full train south, and I was out. So I remember very little of the train ride. Jetlag...

Anyway, the food is wonderful, I had a ton of joghurt this morning (that's German for yogurt. It's pronounced the same) and am looking forward to exploring later!

Next week, I'm sure I will have more meat to my email. Tomorrow, the real work starts. ;)

And I am going to learn German fluently if it kills me.

Liebe alles!

Sister Babbitt