Week #38 Hamburg

Hallo meine Liebschens!!!

I love you all so dearly and think of and pray for you always!!

This week has been one long, extended miracle.  I have been loaded up on pain meds and out on the streets, and the Lord has been so fully blessing me.  I know and I feel it.  I dont know how I made it through the week, but I know that it was not me.  It was all my Father.  It is a miracle.  I have gotten better and felt a little stronger every single day.  I am healing through the Priesthood power of God, and I am so grateful that I have been given so much and that I have the opportunity to keep serving my God.

Time is short this week, but know that I am out on the streets, loving being a missionary, and that I am working through the pain and relying on the Lord.  I am so grateful and I feel the Lord's hand every single day!!

Oh and!!  News!!!  So!!  We got transfer calls this week!  And! We are staying in Lüneburg!

.......until......they find us an apartment in Hamburg. Then the Lauenburg and Lüneburg areas will be combined, and we will be opening up a new sisters program in Hamburg!!!!

We are so excited!  And sad!  Sad because this is the most wonderful loving ward familie I have ever met and I will be SO sad to leave the members here in Lauenburg. But!  So happy for a new adventure and to be able to open an area and to keep serving the Lord with all my heart and soul!  

So yeah!  We have no idea when that will happen, whether this transfer or in three, but that it is underway and to be ready to go in a day's notice.  So we are excited and working on making Lüneburg ready for the Elders when we leave.  And we are working on serving and loving the wonderful members here as much as we can before we go!

So exciting and happy things are happening, and I am very happy!  Still a little sick, but happy!  And getting better and stronger and happier!  I love my mission and I love my Father in Heaven!  I testify with all my heart that He is thre.  That He knows us and loves us and is mindful of us and watches over and cares for us.  I know that He has a plan for each and every one of us.  I know that He is with us always.  He is with me now, and I feel it so strongly.  I am love my God and am so grateful for He and His son.  And I am grateful for all of you!  Keep being great!!!

Love, Sister Stringham

Oh and we went to Hamburg for pday and....WE RODE A BOAT!!!!  It was the best.  I love and miss the water.  They have ferries there just like buses or trains, so we rode one.  Also, we ate a REAL hamburger.  Best.  So happy, and can't wait to serve the Lord in this city too!!!

Week #37 Back to the Streets!

Hallo, so after a trip to the hospital, a week in bed, and a call from the mission medical advisor in Frankfurt, I am back of the streets of Lüneburg preachin' and teachin' and savin' the souls of men!

I spent a couple days in bed, got worse and went to the hospital.  It was not a fun experience and the Germans doctors were very grumpy, BUT!  I learned some new German terms and that was stellar!  And we found no pneumonia which is also stellar! 

I spent the rest of the week in bed, still was not any better, and so I was called by the missionary doctor.  He asked lots of good questions, gave me some good suggestions, told me to load up on the pain meds and hit the streets this week and see how it goes!  We want to get me functioning again as soon as possible so that I can stay out here serving the Lord.  I am super optimistic about the this week, and although it scares me to be out working, I know that I am not alone because THE LORD IS WITH ME.  I know it.

So, pray for me as I am out this week!  I did it yesterday and felt so fully and so truly the hands of the Lord, strengthening me and helping me to do everything I need to.  I am sick and tired, but I am SO HAPPY and I have faith in my Father and that He is taking care of me and that He will give me the strength I need. 

I got a beautiful Priesthood blessing this week from my district leader and I testify, with all my heart and as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the Priesthood is a real power.  It is the power of God and it can and bless and heal here on earth.  I have no fear for the future because I know that God is with me and that He is strengthening me. 

I love my God!!  And I love my mission!!!

I love my mission!!!!  I am so grateful for it!!  This week we had interviews with President, who is probably my favorite person on the planet.  Favorite line from this past interview:

"Sister Stringham, you are my strong little sister.  You are just good, like a cat by a warm fireplace.  We will get you healthy again."

#germancompliments

I love my mission and my mission president!!  And I love my leaders!!  This week we also went on tausch and so I got to spend a day with Sister Jardine.  It was such a tender mercy and exactly what I needed.  The Lord knows me so well and has sent angels to me out here in the field to help me and build my faith.  And that is what SIster Jardine is, an angel sent to help me.  I am so grateful for Sister Jardine and all that she does for me, and for my companion Sister Knecht!

I am so grateful to be a missionary.  I love my mission with all my heart, and I love being a missionary.  I know that this work is true, and that it is truly the work of God.  I know that God knows each one of us and loves us so dearly.  I know that He is with me.  I love Him so dearly and I love this work.  I love my mission.  And I love all of you!  I am thinking of you and praying for you!!  Keep smiling and staying faithful, even in tough times because that is what life is all about, and it is our faith that makes us whole and happy!  I am so happy!  

Love you all!!

Love, Sister Stringham

Week # 36 Miracles and Bedrest

Hallo Lovelies!!

So, this week was wonderful!  And lots of things happend!

First of all, we had great success at our district finding activity.  THANK YOU FOR ALL THE PRAYERS!!  We felt them for sure, and we found people to teach and we are so grateful!  I love this work and I love the missionaries I serve with.  They are such powerful examples and I always learn so much!  I GOT TO SPEND THE DAY WITH MY DARLING SISTER JARDINE, just like old times.  It was lovely, and we were frueing ourselves the whole day :)  She is SUCH a rockstar missionary and I am the luckiest girl in all the land to be trained by her, and then to again be in her district here in Hamburg.  I learn so much from her and am always just so inspired and uplifted!  Heavenly Father knows each of us so well, and He puts us with people, not in places.  We are so grateful to be here together.  I was actually really sick the day of district finding, so after teaching the thema in district meeting and learning SO much from out district and zone leaders, and having lunch with the district, Sister Jardine and I went back to the apartment and I spent the rest of the day in bed.  We talked and prayed and it was perfect.  She taught me so much, as per usual, and it was just what I needed.  So grateful to have her here.

Which leads me to the next news:  I am sick.

Sicky sick sick.

But!  Alles wird gut!!

So this week I got the stomach flu which lasted for a few days, but brought back all of the pnuemonia symptoms.  It was a little frustrating at first because I saw SO many miracles with my health before my mission.  It was only the direct intervention of God which got me out here, and it was frustrating to be sick halfway through. And it scared me!  The idea of having to go home and leave this place and the people I love.  Having to leave the vineyard!  I was scared and angry and then!  I realized!  That is a lack of faith.  In the scriptures it teaches us that fear is the opposite of faith and something that the perfect love of Christ casteth out.  It says that fear is spoken of as something unworthy of a child of God.  Fear is unworthy of us.  We have a Father who loves and cares for us, and if we will but trust and follow Him, we will inherit ALL that He has.  Once I remembered that and who I really was, the fear was gone.  Heavenly Father has a plan for me and will take care of me and will help me to do all that I need to do.  I am so grateful for the time that I have already had here, and I am working hard on getting healthy so that I will have nine more months! I am so grateful for Sister Knecht who has taken SUCH good care of me here!!  I am so grateful for all that I have already learned and all that I have become.  I know that this time and sacrifice has been worth it just for that.  I am so grateful for all of the support and prayers in my behalf.  

ELISHA IS BAPTIZED!!!!!!

So I wasnt there, but I am so very very happy and proud of this little boy.  He is one of the wisest I have ever taught, and he is 9!  His family is amazing and I am so happy and grateful that he has come into the fold of God and has received the Holy Ghost.  He will be a strength and a beacon to his family now and in generations to come.  SO HAPPY!!!

Elisha's Baptism - Bruder Marzahn, Elisha,my companion, Sister Chevalier, and Gladys (Elisha's mommy)

Birgül's Birthday - Two of Bigül's husband's friends (Josef and something else???), Birgül (with her little girl Marya on her lap), me, Sister Chevalier, and Sara (Josef's wife) It's super funny that just during the picture they make straight faces because the rest of the time they were beaming from ear to ear...

Last week Monday we went to Oranienburg in the northern tip of Berlin and went to a Concentration Camp Memorial (Sachsenhäuser Gendenkstätte) there. I am a sensitive soul and it was rough. It was so sad! So many people were killed for no reason. It made me think a lot too, about how blessed I am and how my knowledge of the Savior really makes a difference. My favorite line from Preach My Gospel is 'Everything that is unfair about life will be made right through the atonement of Jesus Christ.' I know with my whole heart that is true! All of our losses will be made up. Christ came to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and to set at liberty them that are bruised (see Luke 4:18). If that happens in this life or the next - it will happen! 

Sachsenhäuser Gendenkstätte

I love and miss and pray for you all every day.  I love this work and I love my mission.  I love my God and my Savior.  I know that this is their work, and I am so grateful and humbled to be a part of it.  I am so grateful to be here!  I love my mission!!  And I will keep loving it and smiling in rain or shine or bedrest!

Love, Sister Stringham

I think this is my favorite sermon from the Savior. I love my Savior and I know Him and am so grateful for that:

https://www.lds.org/bible-videos/videos/the-good-shepherd-and-other-sheep-i-have?lang=eng

Week #35 Sunshine!!

I love Lüneburg and I LOVE Lauenburg.

So I am in the country.  In the German Countryside.

I love it.  It is so beautiful.  There are sheep and big houses and grumpy old Germans and thatched roofs and rolling hills and green everywhere.

  AND!  The sun came out this week!  IT IS SUNNY AND BEAUTIFUL!!!!  It felt like spring in America and left me missing watermelon and country music.  But!  It is INDESCRIBABLY beautiful here in northern Germany and I know that I will miss this place forever and ever when I go back home.

It was such a blessing to see the sun this week.  And to feel warm.  This Arizona girl was quite happy.  And another miracle!!!!

WE TAUGHT A REAL LIVE LESSON THIS WEEK!!!  AHHH it was the most wonderful thing on the planet.  We finally taught a real lesson in a real house to a real investigator with real interest.  First time that has happened in this area in months, and it was a REAL miracle.  I am so grateful and humbled to be a part of this work.  I am so grateful for this gospel and I am so grateful to be a missionary!  We taught a woman named Monika.  She is a mommy of 4 kids, 2 of which are handicapped.  She has a strong spirit and really has a gift of recognizing spiritual things.  Years ago she had a dark feeling come into her heart as she visited a church, and she swore that she would never go to church again.  But we met with her and talked to her and she said she just felt good the whole time we were talking and especially as we prayed together, and she said she would come to church with us on Sunday.  It is a MIRACLE.  Our God always has been and always will be a God of miracles.  I know it and I am so grateful for it!

And speaking of miracles, this Wednesday we will have all 8 missionaries in our district and our 2 zone leaders from Hamburg here in Lüneburg for a couple hours to work with us and find people to teach and to see miracles.  Our ward here will be praying for us and we will be praying and any other prayers in our behalf on that day would be much appreciated :)

I love my ward in Lauenburg.  They are so wonderful and loving and everytime I see them I am just filled with JOY!  Yesterday, we went out to Familie Glück's farm for dinner.  We saw all their sheep and chickens and bunnies and cats and dogs, and there were animals and rolling hills and Germans and the sun was shining and I was just so happy.  I love it here, even when the work is hard, I KNOW I am where I am supposed to be and I KNOW that I am loved by my father and I KNOW that I am doing the work of the Lord with the Lord.  I am so grateful to be here.  I love you all and am ALWAYS praying for you!  Keep smiling and living the gospel.  I am so proud of you all! 

Love, Sister Stringham

SO PROUD OF YOU ALL AND CANNOT WAIT TO SEE THE TEMPLE AGAIN SOMEDAY!!!

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-dedicates-142nd-temple?cid=HPTU030414536&im=true

Week #34 - HALFWAY HOME

I am halfway through my mission. 

I.am.halfway.through.my.mission.

In 9 months from TODAY, I get on a plane and head back to America, to see all of your shining smiling faces, and leave all the people I love here behind.

So bittersweet.  And I am freaking out.  HALFWAY HOME!!

Its great though!  I love my mission and I love this work, and I know that it is preparing me for the rest of my life.  I have changed so much, and I am so much better than I was before, and so much closer to my Father in Heaven and my Savior Jesus Christ.  I am so grateful for every single day that I have here.  I am so grateful for all that I am learning and all that I am feeling and all that I am becoming. 

And I am so grateful for everyone I am meeting here!!  I love Germans and the people I work with here.  I LOVE THE WARD IN LAUENBURG!

Golly, I love this ward!!  They are so full of love and happiness!  They are so wonderful and I am so grateful to be here and so grateful that I am working to bring more people into their family!  Yesterday, at church, it was just so happy and the love of Christ was truly there and the Spirit was so strong and I just know with all my heart that this church is the true church of Jesus Christ.  I know that this is where our Father in Heaven wants all of His children.  I know this is where true and lasting joy comes.  I love this gospel and I love the Church of Jesus Christ!

After church, Sister Knecht and I, Familie Arndt, and Famile Warnke all went over to Familie Bonecelli's house for dinner.  Schwester Bonecelli is SO COOL.  I cant even describe.   She is not a member of the church (she is working on a smoking addiction before her baptism), but she comes every Sunday and teaches a dancing class and an Italian class and just LOVES the missionaries and the ward and the gospel.  She is SO cool!!  I love her so much!  We went over to her house for dinner where she prepared a HUGE, 5 course, Italian meal for all of us.  It was so "lecker" (delicious), and I just cant describe in words the joy that I felt.  It wasnt even anything in particular, but I was just bursting with joy.

This is why I love my mission.  This is why I love this work.  God lets us feel just the tiniest bit of His love for His children; see just the tiniest bit of their potential; feel just the tiniest bit of His joy.  I love this gospel and I love my God and I love my mission!  I am so happy and so grateful!

I love you all so much, and miss you, and pray for you, and cant wait to see you in LESS THAN 9 MONTHS!  Stay faithful and smiling!  And pray for us here in Lüneburg!!

Love, Sister Stringham