City of Bayreuth -- home of the opera house and festival

I had my leavers interview and he did not talk about marriage at all. We talked mostly about how I felt about my mission and what my plans were for school and stuff. He’s not your classic mission president who only wants people to get married ASAP. He said our last day when all the leavers are in Frankfurt we will talk about it but it will be more of a group discussion where we can ask questions and have a good time. He doesn’t want people to get unfocused their last transfer because it helps no one and makes the time go by slow. I completely agree. 

I got a ton of emails to about what I have to leave. It was really funny because President felt bad about transferring me for my last transfer so he talked to me about it and said he had a super strong feeling and we were the most last minute decision. On my side of thing is I’ve noticed A LOT of things that sister Swain didn't get trained on; the ward missionary work needs a ton of improvement. Even President admitted that it was a mess. I told him I have a list of things I need to fix before I leave and he said that I‘m basically re training sister Swain and he wants me to do everything in my power to fix what I can. He told me he was really grateful that I was someone who can recognize a problem, point it out, and fix it. I‘ve been busy. 

My mattress is broken so I ordered a new one, maybe I‘ll get to actually sleep on it for once. We‘re trying to get bikes. Our shower is supposed to be redone soonish. The maps.me is a catastrophe! So i‘m completely re doing it. I told our ward mission leader that we will be going to ward council because the missionaries don’t know who the leaders are. Also I asked him if he could call some new ward missionaries, because we don’t have any and we have a need. I promise I‘m being nice about it all, but it’s pretty German to just be blunt and upfront about it. It’s fun and the members really like me because of it. On top of that we have a baptism coming up, our normal missionary work, and sister swain‘s „re-training“. I am not bored this transfer that’s for sure. I hope I have enough time for it all actually. It‘s awesome to feel needed. 

What kind of things do you want to do in my home land? Also mom keep posting the blog like normal on my FB. Just don’t do anything more because I can do the rest now. Weird right? They’re breaking me in right before I go home. It’s so not real to me. I can say out loud „I‘m going home.“ but in my brain I still think I have another couple transfers. Also I got a Grindel today and it was 50% off! Such a steal! I‘ll probably show you at home. Also the lady gave me some free accessories to go with it. Grindel‘s are usually around 300- 400 € but I got mine for 130€! Most missionaries pay big bucks. I got lucky!!! It’s really beautiful too blue and shimmery pink. 

Anyway, I hope you have a better week than last week. The museum looked really funky and fun. I‘m excited to see you guys soon! Also when will I get to see Andrew? Will he come for thanksgiving or something? I realize it a little awkward with his school schedule. 

Love you soooooo much! I’m so happy to be a missionary in Germany! 

Sister Luymes 

Disclaimer: I know mom has probably noticed my clothes. They’re not mine. Sister Swain and I have had some excellent sharing. It means I didn’t have to unpack everything. 

Richard Wagner Theater

Richard Wagner Opera House

Beautiful Deutschland! (mustard field)

There were a lot of random things that happened that made it a good week. 

Yesterday we had zone Conference in Nürnberg and we started using FACEBOOK. You may have noticed that I have changed my profile picture and have accepted some new friends. The best way to contact me is still through this email. Ya‘ll can wait for another 3 weeks. Until then I‘m really excited to use Facebook as a proselyting tool and I think it will help me know how to use social media with more of a purpose. 

On Tuesday we had a rough day. Due to a mix up in interview times, our day got completely switched around. We went finding all day long but we couldn’t find anyone who was interested enough to meet with us. The whole time I felt super weird, as if something was missing. Then the next day we got Facebook and it all clicked! Any feelings of apprehension or just feeling like it was not worth it went away. That evening I also had my leavers interview. It was really chill and we mostly just talked my mission and the things I have learned and experienced. Präsident Boyer is AWESOME!

We had a cool miracle. Since I‘ll be in Erlangen for only 6 weeks I‘ve adopted the mind set of „what are they going to do? Send my home?“ It‘s been super helpful and I‘ve been able to be even more bold then ever before on my mission. On Monday we got on a bus and the bus driver started asking us questions about where we were from. Natürlich he asked us why we were in Erlangen so we got to talk about the church and what we do as missionaries. He was decently interested so I asked him if he wanted to meet sometime. He works a lot so he said he didn’t know when we would be able to. We got off the bus and I gave him our card with our number on it and that was it. Then last night we got a on a bus and he was driving again! It was so cool! He had so many questions and had some questions about whether we had a health law or something. We got to full out teach him while he was driving! And we gave him a commitment to drink ginger tea instead of coffee in the morning. What was hilarious was when we got off the bus he was the same driver going back home. When we got up to get off by our house he tried to set up another „appointment“ (basically us sitting in his bus again and teaching him). He said he was going to text us his work schedule for next week. 

Anyway we’re heading to Bayreuth right now and I get really distracted when I‘m typing on trains. Hope you have a great week!

Sister Luymes 

Frankfurt Germany Mission. Pres & Sis Boyer are front row, right of center.
Adrienne is that glow of white light smack in the middle.

My companions that are still serving!
L-R: Sis Catherall, Sis Swain, Sis Weiler, me, Sis Peck, Sis Lopez, Sis Tait

My MTC Group! All these sisters go home this month.

Durst Loscher - a really big juice box.
Found a Book of Mormon in this book shop.

I spent a total of 10 hours on a train this weekend. We spent 4 hours going from Erlangen to Heidelberg. One of our umsteigs (when you transfer to another train) was actually outside of the mission. We were almost in Stuttgart! We spent the evening in the Heidelberg sister‘s apartment and the next morning we got up early to catch a bus at 6:20 in the morning. We got on an ICE and went to Frankfurt. The whole mission had a conference to hear Elder Ballard speak. It awesome! There were so many people that I hadn’t seen since I got transferred/ the MTC. 

Elder Ballard did a broadcast Sunday evening and we were lucky enough to arrive in the Heidelberg chapel just in time to hear him. He talked a lot about miracles and missionary work. He said „the missionaries can’t bring miracles alone anymore, we need the members to help!“ After the conference so many members came up to the missionaries and said that they had people for us. It was awesome! There were a lot of members from Mannheim so it was good to see them. 

On Monday morning the whole Frankfurt Germany mission were sitting in their seats at 9:30 AM (a miracle if you ask me). Elder Ballard came in and said that he wanted to shake everyone’s hand. Afterwards there were a couple speakers and then he spoke to us. He gave us so much good advice for being better finders, teachers, and people. He described an example of missionaries who served in England who just felt like they weren’t having as much success as they felt like they could. So instead of just dooring a building, they printed out flyers and posted them on the building telling the tenants when they would be coming and what they would be doing. He said that they were able to find so many more people because those who were interested would know when to be home. In the meeting I felt like he had just described Erlangen to a T. Tons of great people, but they’re just not home or they’re hard to find. So we made our own version of a flyer and have been praying about some buildings that we would will post them in. I hope it works!

Afterwards we all ate pizza in a park and took a lot of pictures. After another long journey we were finally home. 

We taught our favorite Familie Vu the plan of Salvation and it was so great! The son is the best teacher and can explain things in Vietnamese too. It was hilarious because he had to Deutschnamese since he didn’t know the gospel words so it was like „Cha thiên thượng EVANGELIUM của chúng ta KÖRPER“ We had a great time together and they fed us homemade Frühlings Rolle (spring roll) and pho. 

This week I was studying about hope, specifically what it is and how we have it. In the chapter about Christlike Attributes in PMG it describes hope, the first 2 lines say „Hope is an abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises to you. It is manifest in confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance.“ I have seen on my mission and before, that the Lord will always keep his promises when we do our side. I have been blessed to have promises that were  made to me be fulfilled in so many beautiful ways. When we have hope we are able to repent and feel our shame and guilt be lifted. When we have hope we are able to confidently do that which the Lord has asked us to including trials. 

BIS BALD!

- Sister Luymes 

Selfie with the Am Europakanal in the back

Cool things that happened this week:

- we set 2 baptismal dates!

- next week our entire mission is headed to Frankfurt (we will leave Sunday evening) to hear from Elder Ballard

- we will be using Facebook soon! 

So our baptismal dates are with Walter and Linh! Walter is a miracle because he’s been reading in the Book of Mormon everyday BEFORE he met the missionaries. Linh belongs to a part member family and is sooooo sweet. We’ve become homies with her 13 year old brother Ton. He’s been teaching us some Fränkisch slang. 

This week we’ve had quite a bit of fallen out appointments. At district meeting we talked about being more prayerful during our finding. On Tuesday after our 2nd appointment fell out we decided to say a prayer together and individually. We both felt that we should go by on this one woman who had met the missionaries last year. So we walked over and klingled her and she was home! She’s half german and has 5 kids. We didn’t really know what to say except hey are you still interested? She was so excited that we came and said that we could come back tomorrow. Yay! 

Another cool moment happened yesterday, we talked to a rough looking guy on the street. He said he was atheist and didn’t like the idea that there’s a heaven and hell. He said that if he were to believe in God that he thinks God shouldn’t be so black and white. We got to testify about the plan of Salvation and how God is no respecter of persons. I even got to explain about the 3 kingdoms and how God gives us agency so we can learn to make our own decisions. God is not black and white, he wants us to be happy and to be with Him again. But He wants us to choose to be happy and choose to live with Him. We were on the busiest street in Erlangen, but the Spirit was so strong. He wasn’t interested in meeting with us in person, but he said he wanted to learn more so we hooked him up with mormon.org!

Romans 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

We are children of God it’s so cool you guys!

Liebe Grüße 

Sister Luymes

Fall is here, cool weather returns
and so do my coat and leggings.

Cool ancient clock tower.

36 sec0nds of goofiness

Well this week seemed to be a series of awkward moments for both Sister Swain and I. It kept things interesting for sure. 

On Friday we had 3 appointment, 2 fell out and one got moved to Saturday. What was sad was we asked Sister Jackson to come teach with us. Then on Saturday we had 4 appointments and the ones we asked Sister Jackson to come to fell out and the one that she couldn’t come to actually happened. We just felt really bad because she wanted to help so bad, but people just wouldn’t show up and stopped answering their phones. 

We also got uninvited to a service project on Saturday because „the missionaries have already helped her.“ Yeah no one really explained why we were invited and then uninvited, but ok. 

Sunday was funny. We had 4 people say they would come to church and then only one came. We had told a bunch of members to sit by them and talk to them so then everyone swarmed the one person.  I also got to introduce myself and then afterwards everyone had many different versions of Luymes. People think I’m French here and call me sister lumé. 

Sister Swain has a talent for not remembering names/ getting them confused. She called our potential David Daniel 2x on the phone even when I mouthed David to her. She also left a couple voicemails saying the completely wrong name. We‘ll be working on that this week. 

Last night we had dinner with our part member family and Sister Swain basically choked on the honeydew and squirted juice all over. She also cries when she laughs really hard so she was crying when it happened. I‘ll let your imagination picture that. Also when we were leaving I hugged the mom, fist bumped the 13 year old boy, and then I bear hugged the dad! It wasn’t until I stopped hugging the tiny Vietnamese man that I realized what I had done. What made it worse I look over at sister Swain and she went to low-5 the daughter and the daughter awkwardly shook sister Swain‘s Hand which was still in low 5 position. 

Who ever said missionaries are awkward they’re right. Oh well one of the Elders in my district is notorious for praying during member appointments „bitte segne dieses essen damit wir von es nicht sterben“ (please bless the food so that we don’t die from it). I haven’t stooped that low yet. 

I hope your week was a lot less awkward than mine. We had good parts I promise too haha! Sister Swain and I get along really well so that makes life good. 

This transfer is about to get really crazy though! I‘ll let you know in my weekly. 

Also my date for registering for classes is okt 30th. I’ve been looking and going through slowly but surely. So far I’ve decided on Chem 105, Geomatics (its for my major), probably linear algebra, I need to email a couple more people to see what kind of writing classes and German classes I should sign up for. Also Reagan Risk (college friend who served in Albania lives in Palm Springs) is at Home now! Crazy! I welcome advice for classes/ getting back into the swing of things. It doesn’t seem real that I only have a month and a couple days left. At all our member appointments they ask me about after mission life. You know it’s bad when members start realizing how little time you have left....

Ich habe euch lieb!

Sister Luymes 

Well I‘ve arrived in my last area with only 6 weeks to go... let’s do this! 

It was a hard couple days saying goodbye to some amazing people in Wiesbaden. Having General Conference was a huge help. It was the best one of my mission mainly because we had so many investigators and potentials come. What was even cooler was they would come for a session, then they loved it sooo much that they would stay the 2 hours between sessions and watch another one! We still have one more session to watch, but I‘ve loved every bit of it so far. You should go watch some! LDS.org 

Well after 3 hours by myself on a train I arrived in Erlangen.  My new companion is Sister Swain from San Diego! What’s funny is in mission slang I‘m her ‚grandma‘ (I trained Sister López who trained Sister Swain). It’s been so much fun being with her so far. This will be a work hard play hard transfer which are the best. 

Meet Sister Swain from Oceanside, CA

Erlangen is beautiful! This southern dialect is HILARIOUS and yes I can understand it (hallelujah!) There are 3 University campuses here so we‘ve already found some awesome people. We taught a part member family from Vietnam and they’re my favorite! We had such a bomb lesson, the Spirit was strong, the son who’s like 13 knew so much and was able to explain a lot to his younger sister. The parents were bearing their testimonies and really opened up about some hard things they’ve had to overcome and how God and their faith helped them. Afterwards Sister Swain was so excited and kept hugging me because she was sooooo happy. 

Panoramic view of Erlangen

We‘ve already had some funny moments together as well. We sat on a train next to 2 Syrian men and started talking to them. We were talking about how hard German was and one of them asks Sister Swain if she had a boyfriend (Hast du einen Freund hier?) She misunderstood and points to me and said „Ja sie ist meinen Freund“ (yeah she is my boyfriend) and I looked at her and said „Sister Swain he just asked you if you had a boyfriend, and then you said I was your boyfriend. We should probably talk about this before we become official.“ The guy understood English so we all laughed pretty hard. 

Another cool moment was we were talking to people on our way to an appointment and we saw these two men. One was Christian and the other was Muslim. Sister Swain talked to the Christian guy and I talked to the Muslim guy. Usually Muslims won’t really listen to what we say and it gets pretty frustrating. This guy did exactly that. But then when I was able to actually say something I asked him about prayer. If he believes that God hears and answers our prayers. He said yes, but then expressed some concern that he felt like he recently hadn’t received answers. I taught him how we need to be sincere when we pray. We also need to be willing to do what God needs us or wants us to do. If we ask God for a car he doesn’t just give us a car right in front of us! He guides us to the work opportunities or the people we need to talk to in order to work to get a car. I asked him if he had asked God specifically about his problem, about who and when and where he should go to receive the help he needs. It was cool to see him go from very prideful and not willing to listen to being humble and teachable. This is the difference humility and the Spirit makes. He told me that he wasn’t interested in religion (not even Islam?), but what I had said touched him and that he would try to be more specific and sincere in his prayers. What made it even better was that Sister Swain totally got the info from the other guy. 

The Spirit is strong here in Erlangen. I‘m so grateful for the opportunity I have to be here, even if it’s so short. God hears and answers prayers guys. It’s so cool.

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Luymes 

St. Lorenz Church in Nuremberg

Kaiserburg Castle Garden, Nuremberg

Der Blaue Reiter - Bayern, Nuremberg

Well here am I in Erlangen. It’s a pretty big difference from what I had. The apartment is miniature. Seriously our microwave is in our bedroom because our kitchen is a hallway and doesn’t have enough room. At least we’re only on the 2nd floor. 

All the other missionaries in Erlangen got trained here (and the elders are in training now) so there’s a ton of new missionaries vibes going on (both good and bad). They‘re maps.me is a catastrophe so I’ve made it a goal to fix it. Our shower‘s water pressure is so hard that it hurt! Our stove is really ancient and takes about 10 min to warm up. My bed and bedding is also ancient and is quite gross. I‘ll be ordering some new stuff from the Ehepaar or the tech Elders. I‘m convinced that this area has been a be-trained-and-then-train area for so long that no one actually realizes that they shouldn’t have to live with some of these things. I said that to Sister Swain and she was like „oh my gosh I‘m so grateful you are here! There is hope now“ 

On the bright side this southern dialect is hilarious! I can understand it so that was a relief! They roll their R‘s and they use different phrases like „ganz eilig“. We were in Nürnberg for district meeting and we were on the elevator in the Hauptbahnhof and this guy started talking to me about how in Bayern you don’t have to stay on the right side of the elevator in case someone needs to walk fast on the left. He said they just needed to use their words and then you should move. He had this awesome accent and how he said Nürnberg it was more like nürn-bursch. I love it. 

We have some awesome people that we’ve found and some cool appointments coming up. Last night we taught this part member Vietnamese family and they’re adorable! The ward seems cool so far and laugh when I tell them how much time I’ve got left. They‘re all good eggs. I‘m missing Br. Tiebing hard Core. Our ward mission leader is your typical Deutscher GML and on the older side. Lots of good intentions, but slow on the following through. Naja it will be a Great 6 weeks. Sister swain is awesome and I i‘ve found my excitement for being here. The Lord has a lot for me to do still.

 Sister Swain reminds me a lot about myself during my third transfer (she’s in her 3rd) when the training wheels came off. She keeps saying how grateful she is for having me here. After our lesson last night she seriously cried out of joy and yelled I DIDN‘T KNOW MISSIONARY WORK COULD BE THIS FUN!!! She’s way dedicated and motivated and has a work hard play hard attitude that I have. I‘m really grateful to have her as my last companion. Being in a dritt was fun, but training in a dritt with so many personalities was sucking a lot of energy out of me. With this companionship I feel like I can finish as strong as I had imagined myself finishing at the beginning of my mission. She’s from Oceanside, CA so we’re 2 peas in a pod. 

I‘ll be completely honest saying goodbye to Wiesbaden has been one of the hardest things. It felt like home, the ward felt like family, the people were familiar even if I didn’t know them. I felt like I could keep going for 6 more weeks. Even in the dritt. When the members found out they all kept saying „ohhhhhhhhhhh wie schade!“ (oh what a shame). Yeah it sucked, but you know what I‘m here now and I‘m ok with that. I‘ve prayed a lot about it and at first I was pretty depressed, but now that I‘m here and I‘ve met some people I‘ve realized that I still have a lot of room in my heart to love a lot more people. I feel needed here and I feel loved. I‘ve had so many members offer their house to us when we come visit in December. The problem is I have to remember their names haha. 

How was your week? I love you guys so much and I appreciate your love SO MUCH. 

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Luymes