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