Random pics that were sent me...

Taylor Hall Babes that came to support Adrienne at her farewell.
L-R: Aubrey Penrod, Alyssia Goss (aka the roommate), and Emi Tateoka

Taylor Hall Babes being goofy!

LAX  - farewells are so rough.  Happy, excited - trying to hide the tears.

Missionary Training Center drop off.  Bye Bro! I'll miss you.

Chance meeting at the MTC with cousins Brian and Julie Patterson.
They are on their way to preside over the Long Beach, CA Mission.

Another chance meeting with a cousin.  Bumped into Karen Toone at the Provo temple.
Karen just returned from serving in Mexico City West.

Um, we got evacuated probably for the day (there's a bat) so I'm not entirely sure how accurate that will be depending on if we can go to the temple or not.

Hey guys! This week the weather has been insane! It was so hot on Monday and Tuesday and then sometime mid Wednesday it started pouring! We've been having a lot of lightning and thunder, but then by the next morning it's hot and sunny again. Crazy! We've been dressing for all weather lately and we have to have an umbrella with us at all times.

Our fun investigator -- Christina!

We did a lot of service this week. Mainly helping people move in/out. We helped put on a yard sale and we did some yard work. This week we had made a goal to really follow the Spirit especially when we were street contacting and we had a cool experience! When we walk home from Stadtmitte it only take about 20 minutes, but we like to take the long way and talk to as many people as we can because there's a little bit of a nightlife in Kaiserslautern. So we were walking down one of the main streets talking to people and we come across a women and she said (in English) "WOW! Sister missionaries!" and so we started talking to her and we found out that she's a member of the church and she'd been inactive for about 4 years. She said she is German, but she'd been living in Nevada until recently and she's been wanting to meet with
the missionaries again! She didn't think there would be any in Kaiserslautern (little does she know there are 8!) so she was super excited to make an appointment for Monday!

I'm already starting to have favorites here in K-town. My favorite street is Bänjourstrasse (it's so pretty and we have a ton of potentials there). My favorite Dorf (a tiny town) is Frankenstein. My favorite ice cream place is La Luna. My favorite ice cream flavors are Dark Chocolate und Haselnuss.  My favorite Lied (song/hymn) is pg 8 in the Gesangbuch "Ein Engel aus der Höhe" (shout out to Sister Robison my MTC teacher). Kaiserslautern is slowly starting to feel more and more like home now.

We found Frankenstein's castle while "dooring" in Frankenstein!

Sisters Williams (L) and Perkins (R) celebrate 6 months
on their missions.  They're sad the time is flying by so fast.

Here is my current favorite scripture: 2 Nephi 32:3

"Engel reden durch die Macht des Heiligen Geistes; darum reden sie die Worte von Christus. Darum habe ich zu euch gesagt: Weidet euch an den Worten von Christus; denn siehe, die Worte von Christus werden euch alles sagen, was ihr tun sollt."

"Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do."

Bis später!
Sister Luymes

Funky Mail Box! Oops, someone's opening the door behind me!

View of Kaiserslautern from a train.

Things that come in a tube -- Werstershire sauce.  What????

So much happened this week so I'll try my best to write most of it.

On Samstag (Saturday) we were super frustrated when all of our plans had fallen through and the whole evening felt super wasteful. So we made a goal to be more obedient and plan better AND backup plan better. So Dienstag (Tuesday) we had planned everything and all of our plans fell through so we were on our back up plans for most of the day. And because we actually took our time to backup plan we were in the right place at the right time to get 6 potentials! (Potentials = people who give us their number/ address and say that they're interested)

Dienstag Abend (Tuesday evening) was super interesting because I had my first lesson with my first  "Frederic" (the name of my cat-loving slightly crazy MTC Untersucher [examiner])! Christina was a referral from one of our other investigators and we had talked to her on the phone before. So we show up and she introduces herself as Tess. We were so confused because we thought her name was Christina, but she told us she likes to change her name a lot. She offered us water and Eis (ice cream). She comes out with water and 2 containers of Otter Pops! She wanted our water to be cold so she started to put the whole stick in our water to stir around. Sister Williams and I had to try hard not to laugh, but we almost lost it while DURING the Restoration video she got up to get something to open the Otter pops. She came back with a potato peeler! She found scissors eventually and we were finally able to get the
lesson back on track...as much as we could at least. There was more, but I'll save it for ein andere Tag (a different day).

Mittwoch (Wednesday) we had lessons with Toni and Courtney. Toni has been working with the missionaries for awhile. He's a retired Italian man who grew up in America. This week he had been trying really hard to make a habit or reading from the Book of Mormon daily. During our lesson he was making so many connections between the Book of Mormon and his life and he even told us that he knew it was true! Usually he learns slow and steady, but this week he had learned so much more and he understood it all! We've only had a couple lessons with Courtney and she's finally feeling like she's getting answers to questions she's been asking for a long time.

On Donnerstag (Thursday) we stopped by an old investigator’s home and he wasn't home. We decided to tract the rest of the street. With the 5 doors we klingled (rang) we taught 3 lessons; one to a whole family, another to a mom and her son, and another to a guy from Portugal. The last lesson was with Nuno. When we got to his door I introduced us auf Deutsch (in German) and he said he spoke English better. So I asked him if he was interested in learning about what we believed and he said a VERY excited yes! He had so many questions about the purpose of life and who was God so we had an amazing lesson for a whole hour! The Spirit was so strong and he kept saying that everything we taught made so much sense. We get to meet with him again this week!

As for the ferrets there's a guy we often see while walking home who has three ferrets on leashes. I'll get a picture soon.

Spiritual thought: Most of my investigators have a hard time understanding and accepting Prophets. Prophets are another way that God shows his love for us. He doesn't want us to be lost so he gives us Prophets to help give guidance. I know that Joseph Smith was called
by God to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, even if we aren't sure if what the prophet says is from God we can ALWAYS ask God to know for ourselves.

Tschüss (Bye)!

Sister Luymes

​

Below are Mom's questions in black and Adrienne's answers in blue: 

Many have been asking after you recently to learn how you are doing since they know you are finally in Germany. You are fondly remembered and missed. I do have these questions:

1) Where do you go to do email? Library, church house, ipad/internet cafe, other?

 I email at the church. HOWEVER, I have an iPad so if we're somewhere with wifi it's free game.

2) How long are you allowed to spend doing weekly email? Andrew usually got around 90 minutes.

          I can type out emails earlier in the week and usually we split our time up in the                       morning and again around 5 pm (since people aren't awake until then). I get 2 
          hours but again it's probably never really going to be the same time except for the                 5pm part.  

3) Tell us more about Sister Williams; all we know is that shes been on her mission for 5 months and has pretty decent language.  

​

She's from a tiny town in Texas. She went to University of Texas for a year and a half before her mission. She has 3 sisters she's #2. She loves playing soccer and being active. She's on the quieter side but she said she thinks it's just because she adapts to people and her last comp was SUPER quiet. Good thing she's already started to adapt to me and she's a lot louder and more open than the first week (hallelujah).  I wouldn't say we hit it off immediately  like me and Sister Catherall but we get a long really well and we're having a lot of fun together. 

4) How is the food? where and what do you eat?​

The food is great! We eat sandwiches, spaghetti, Schnitzel, veggies, we get fresh bread (SO GOOD!), we get Döner at the mall next to the church too. 

5) Do you really have to let your clothes drip dry cause you don't have any access to a dryer?

​

We are #blessed to have a dryer.

5) What is the ward/branch like that you are attending?

Our branch (congregation) is small; especially since it's summer. People are nice and generally close. My ward mission leader is AWESOME he's so funny and always ask if we have a wunsch (a desire) and he'll get anything we need (food, milk, laundry detergent, ice cream). He's so awesome.

          Send Dixie Pictures!     

(A letter to the family I’m sharing)

Hello my main peeps! 

I've figured out the whole emailing thing. Some items of business: YOU guys and Dixie can send letters (not packages) to my real address at:

Sister Adrienne Luymes
Friedensstrasse 55a
67659 Kaiserslautern
Germany

I will for sure be here for the next 2 transfers, but be aware when transfers are happening so I get everything. However, if you send packages/ for everyone else  just send it to the address below. DO NOT SEND PERISHABLES or medication or anything that sounds like medication when it shakes. I get mail and packages from the mission home once or twice a month for zone things. I don't want to risk me getting transferred and the other missionaries trying to figure out how to get my mail to me.

Sister Adrienne Luymes
Germany Frankfurt Mission
Kirche Jesu Christi
Corneliustrasse 18
60325 Frankfurt
Germany

Anyway! Life is great we are super duper busy especially this up coming week so that'll be fun. So something that I've noticed: there are TONS of refugees here in Kaiserslautern. Almost all are Muslim maybe some are Muslim- Christian. They are the sweetest people on the planet. However, you can tell that they don't really feel accepted with the Germans and they know they get a bad rep because of ISIS and all of the political corruption in the Middle East. So when we knock on their door asking them if they'd be willing to hear about what we believe and in return we'll listen to what they believe they get so excited! They invite us in and have the whole family and all of their friends come and listen.  Some of them don't even understand anything we say after the door because they speak Arabic and a tiny bit of English or German. Google translate lessons are a thing sometimes, but we try hard to keep everything very simple. They are just so excited that someone is willing to talk to them and listen. Of course there are rules on teaching refugees and it makes me so sad when we have to stop teaching them.

Alles gut! Unser Ziel dieser Woche ist zu sprechen mit jedem auf deutsch. Lernen deutsch ist sehr schwer ohne schwer Arbeit. Meine Lieblinge Wort auf deutsch ist ,,doch" weil es kann nicht zu Englisch übersetzt.

That is to say….All good! Our goal this week is to talk to everyone in German. Learning German is very difficult and hard work.  My favorite word in German is “doch” because it cannot be translated into English.

Liebe!
Sister Luymes

Hey so since I have an iPad I'm allowed to read emails and type up responses in advance and send them, but I didn't get my iPad set up in time to actually do that. 

During our street display there was a black guy that came around 4 or 5 times that kept yelling at us saying we were spreading hate. He then proceeded to yell at everyone who made eye contact with him saying "I'M A SOUTHERN BAPTIST AND I JUST WANT ERE'BODY TO KNOW I'M A BROTHA'!" I had to keep myself from laughing. He was obviously very drunk and had no shoes on and was wearing his shirt like a backpack. 

I've decided that I like the humidity. It rained for the first time since me being here today while we were hiking up to the castle and it felt so good. My district is hilarious. Out of the 8 of us only 2 have been in K-Town for more than a transfer and for 3 of us it's our first transfer here. It's an interesting dynamic with having to trade people off depending on if their associated with military or not and if they speak English or not. 

I've had the ice cream and chocolate and I've gained of testimony of it. The dönners are good and the bread we get from the bakery is super good too. So far so good!

Everyone calls Kaiserslautern the Promised Land so I'm excited to dig in!

Liebe,

Sister Luymes

My first area is Kaiserslautern a.k.a K-Town and my trainer is Sister Williams! Kaiserslautern is right next to a military base so there are 3 American wards and a German Branch. We are assigned to the German Branch. There are about 60 members and about 40 of them are active.
For such a small area there are a lot of missionaries, a set of sisters and elders for the Germans and the Americans. So there are 8 of us in total. We see each other A LOT since we live so close to each other. We also get a lot of people that say that they've already seen a different set of missionaries that day. I've already seen people multiple times randomly on the street when we're contacting between appointments and it's only been 6 days! Imagine at least 12 weeks!

Sister Williams is awesome! She did a good job making sure we got to Kaiserslautern from Frankfurt. However, the rest of my first day didn't go as smoothly. We missed a couple of buses and trains on our way to an appointment. We've been so busy that I didn't really have time to unpack for the first 3 days. But everything is great! Sister Williams has been out for 5 months and took 4 years of German so it's much better than some people who've been out much longer. She's been great at pushing me out of my comfort zone and (attempting) to talk to
people in German.  Although it doesn't help that people keep replying back in English. Speaking of other languages!! On Thursday we had a street display in Stadtmidta (the shopping area in the middle of town) and we gave out a Book of Mormon in English, German, Russian, Arabic,
Serbian, Albanian, French, Bulgarian, and Spanish. There are so many people from all over the place that hardly any of my lessons are actually speaking German to each other. They're either all English (as the Untersucher's second language) or with a translator.

The first couple days have been hard, but I love it so much!

Today we went to Landstuhl to go see a castle and play ultimate Frisbee!

Liebe,
Sister Luymes

View from our apartment at sunset.

Landstuhl Castle.

The view of Kaiserslautern from Lanstuhl Castle.

Lunch!!! A sandwich our Ward Mission Leader brought us. YUM!

Me and my new Homie - Sister Williams from TX.