"Did I hear someone ask for a MIRACLE?!"

For those who are wondering why that subject heading sounds so familiar, if I remember right it is a direct quote from one of my personal favorite charcters, Muschu on Mulan :)

Okay moving on... wow this week has been crazy! In a good way. It all started when we went to Vienna to go on exchanges with Sister Nelson and Sister Weed. (I went with Sister Nelson.) When we got there, we went to the Hirschmans for lunch and at first, it looked kind of "iffy" (if you know what I mean...) but it tasted rather amazing! There was also an investigator there named Queen who has such an incredible history! She is from Africa and super sweet. I will show a picture of her later. It was fun getting to know her and my spirits were instantly lifted! She got baptized on Saturday! It was awesome.

So then after lunch, we had an appointment with one of Queen's friends, her name is Dany. She speaks french originally but also speaks really good German. We started the lesson and just started to get to know her a little bit and she asked us if we had the book. We told her of course! We handed it to her and she asked if she had another one? We were a little puzzled at first but she said she wanted to give one to her mom too! She's not even a member and she is already handing out Books of Mormon! We were thrilled! We didn't have another one in French with us, but we got her mothers name and phone number and the Elders in Graz are going to give her one and tell her what it is all about!

Then, after that, we were talking to people that had come to the young adult center, where we were, who had just came out of English class. We talked to a few people for a few minutes and one of the ladies said she wanted to ask us some more questions. So we sat down with her, Lilly, and just talked about who we are, what we believe, and how if we can meet with her 3 times a week for 4 weeks, and keeps her commitments to read the Book of Mormon, Come to Church, and pray to know the truth, she will come to know for herself if it is true. She committed to doing so and we were thrilled!

The next day we had a special training because we are starting the new "12 Week Training Program" which is amazing! Each companionship got a portable DVD player to watch examples of how to present specific materials and how to be better teachers. For those who don't know, there are 8 fundamentals that we are to focus on to help us become better teachers. They are truly inspired! I have such a testimony of this training program already! The only down side of that is that I have to start my training over again. So I will be a "golden" for another 12 weeks. All is well, I am just happy to finally be a part of the new program!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to give my first talk in sacrament meeting. That alone was a miracle in itself! Sister Downs really helped me get my grammer together but I got a lot of compliments on it so I think I did well! The topic was the affects of using the priesthood righteously. It was a little rough to get started but thankfully I have been blessed with many worthy priesthood holders in my life in which I truly feel extremely blessed by their priesthood calling.

Okay so here is the best story of the week!! Yesterday, we had made an appointment with a woman named Eva, she is so wonderful! But when we got there, she was getting ready to go to the hospital where her grandson we being rushed to because he had hit his face on something and had to go to the emergency room. So we left her a card with our number and we will hopefully get a lesson in with her this week! She really wants to! So that was pretty funny... as we were walking back to our car, a woman called out to us and told us she had a question for us. We walked over to where she and three other women were sitting, two of them stood up and came and asked us who we were and what we were doing? Sister Downs and I were delighted to explain our purpose to them and they agreed to an appointment for this coming week. We took their information and gave them ours and went along to klingle another potential investigator. The potential wasn't there and Sister Downs said we needed to give those other two ladies a card as well. So we made our way back to the bench. One woman said that if the other women liked what they heard in their appointment then she would set an appointment with us later. The other woman really just sat their and didn't know what to think. We wished them a good evening and headed to the car. We were about half way there when we hear someone say, "Excuse me!" We again made our way back to the bench and the quiet woman wished to make an appointment with us. We were happy to ablige and walked away in shock as to what just happened. We had 3 women come to us... All eager to hear the "Good News" or what we like to call, "The Gospel".

I know the Lord blesses His missionaries around the world! He is very aware of all that we do. Thank you for all your prayers! Keep them coming! They are working! I hope you have a wonderful week!

Liebe,
Sister Fokken

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Little Miracle

Sorry I dont have much time this week but I just wanted to share a quick story about a tender experience we had this week.

Saturday the weather had a mind of it's own. It was cold in the early morning, hot by noon and then started raining around 3 and got pretty chilly... We had a lot of things planned for the day: service for a few hours, an appointment with a less active, another appointment with an investigator, and one more less active later that night. Well, when we went to go do the service, the family wasn't there and didn't answer the phone so we started hunting down some less actives. We found one who hasn't been to church in 6 years or so and said that the Elders used to come by all the time! His face fell sad when we told him we couldn't come in... We were heart broken but because we have a testimony of obedience, we just prayed for him because that was all we really could do... Then we headed to the other less active appointment. Boy that is always an adventure... but we had Sister Bernier there who is the Relief Society president to help us out and share her testimony which was great! On our way to the other investigator, his name is Herr Wolfberger (he has come a long ways! He has quit smoking but can't get baptized until he comes to church which is the only thing we really are struggling with him) it started pouring down rain. Since Herr Wolfsberger is a single man, we would either need another female over 18 or to go outside. Neither option was looking to good. Then a miracle happened.

As we pulled up to Herr Wolfsberger's apartment, we called the member that lived across the street to see if she would come but she didn't answer her phone. It was my turn to pray for the appointment and so thus I began. I prayed for either the member to call us or that the rain would stop. As we got out the car, the sun escaped from behind the clouds and the rain ceased entirely. I know for a fact that the Lord answers prayers of the faithful. I know that we were meant to have that appointment with Herr Wolfsberger. I testify that the Lord lives and loves each of His children. He knows YOU individually just as well as he knows me! If we turn to him with full purpose of heart, he will great us the desires of His heart. For our desires will be His desires.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Until next time.
Sister Fokken

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New Investigators!!!

Wow this week has been so great I can't even begin to explain! But I must say this has also been one of the most trying weeks thus far. How is that possible one might ask? Well for anyone who has served a mission you know exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone else, here is a classic missionary story...

So it was Saturday night around 20:00 (8pm) and everyone who has served in a german area knows that people go to bed EARLY here so to have nothing to do but tracting at 8pm is rather difficult at times. Everything Friday and Saturday had fallen out...So, we had just completed our backup plan for our backup plan and were quickley running out of ideas. We got in the car and prayed more earnestly than ever and decided to go by on a few people that we try everytime we are in that area. Of course, these two investigators weren't home but then I had the feeling to head over to the Hauptplatz (Main Square) and see what we could find. Sister Downs and I saw a couple people walking our way and she turns to me and says, "It's your turn. These people are gonna get baptized." I chuckled and said, " Heck yes they are!" So I approached them and used me best german I could muster... the woman, responded, "Could you do that in English?" It was music to my ears! We were able to explain to them about a book, called The Book of Mormon, and asked if we could come give it to them as a gift. One of them spoke French and the other reads in Arabic and they were amazed when we told them it would be no problem to get it in those languages. We set an appointment for a few days later and celebrated by getting ice cream. It was a beautiful night. We knew then without a doubt the Lord had heard our prayers and was very aware of our efforts. We went back at the appointed time and no one was home... Emilie, the woman, had given us her number so we called and she said she was at work and lost track of time but she would be right down. We didn't have time to really talk about the book but she took it and commited to read the Intro. We came back and taught them yesterday for about 20 min, because they had yet another meeting to go to. The lesson went rather well and we set another appointment for next Sunday! Younes, the man, unfortunately is leaving Leoben in two weeks but FORTUNATELY we have missionaries around the world who would LOVE to continue teaching him.

This gospel is true! And Iove it.

As for my crazy/funny story of the week I have been collecting a few and waiting for a day when I had enough time to share them :)

1) I love that wearing Leaderhosen is perfectly acceptable to wear to church! LOVE THEM!!!
2) Did you know it is illegal to kill bees in Germany right now? Something about them going extinct; I guess someone forgot to tell them that all the bees are just on vacation in Austria...
3) I have seen, more than once, train cars moving steadily down the tracks with NO engine... I am still trying to figure that one out...

That's all for now, I really need to get back to work! I hope you always remember how much the Lord loves each and everyone of His children and may we do our best to treat each other as such! May the Lord bless you this week as you seek to do good in everything you do!

Tschüss bis nächste woche!
Sister Fokken

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What a Week!

Hello everyone! Well I don't have much time, as usual, to tell you everything about my week but we'll see how much I can cram in here!

This last week was crazy! I experienced my first companionship exchange! We took a train (as we usually do) to Wien aka Vienna! I was so intimidated when I got off the train though... In Bruck an der Mur, we have the population density similar to that of LaVista/Papillion area... Wien, it is like Las Vegas!! There are 2 million people in Vienna alone. And it's huge! The map for Vienna is an entire book! But I got to learn how to use it! We got to Vienna on Thursday morning and we exchanged and so my new companion was Sister Lind! She is awesome! Totally reminds me of Shantelle in so many ways. It was great! We even got to teach a lesson in English! I was super excited! We went to a family who is active but is considered less active because they don't stay for all three meetings because the wife doesn't understand English OR German... Anyways, their son, Ali (25 or so) had his girlfriend over and she was from Romania! We had four languages in that room alone... German, Persian, English and Romanian. The girl friend though isn't a member and she is totally ready for the gospel and was excited to pray about the Book of Mormon and to come to church! She gave us her address and phone number and it was just so great! Ahh, Love IT!! Also I ate a peach at that appointment... I can't remember the last time I had peaches??? Mom, can you? Once again, the Lord blessed my tastebuds ;)

Then Zone Conference was the next day and it was awesome! Just so motivational and helps to build up ones confidence to spread the word once again! Our mission is known as the "sleeping giant" in that there are so many people that are being prepared right now, they will soon all be ready to accept the gospel and missionary work in Europe will explode! I hope to be part of that bringing about thousands!

Then we came home and life just keeps getting better. Yesterday after church we went to go visit a girl named Aline who speaks english and Romanian and was here for the summer helping her cousin as a nanny basically. Well this cousin is actually a less-active man that we go visit every once in a while. When the sisters found her, they knew that is why they needed to visit the Costans. So yesterday we talked about Christ's earthly ministry and she was astounded that he suffered so much for us. And the best part was at the end she prayed from her heart instead of from her usual 'recited' prayer! It was so great!

Then we walked down the street to follow up on a man we met in the parking lot a few weeks ago and he and two of his other friends committed to an appointment for this week. The blessings kept flowing as we attempted to contact another less active family and they weren't home so we went door to door and found another less active that we have been looking for, another man who has a Book of Mormon but doesn't understand it, and another woman to wants to know more about the gospel! Blessings all around!

I know the Lord answers prayers and this IS His work. May the Lord bless you and may you SEE those blessings in your daily lives. I promise you they are there and if you will CHOOSE to see them and express gratitude FOR them, you will be so much happier.

Until next time,
Sister Fokken

Pictures:

This first one is me and Aline (Uh-leen-uh) and she is Romanian but was visiting her cousin who is less active and we found her when we went to go visit this less active family.

The second one is me over looking Bruck an der Mur, the sweetest little town ever! We hiked up to an old Fort on the top of the hill and can see the whole town from there!

The last one is actually in Vienna with the other sisters there. We had Zone Conference this last Friday and went on an "Austausch" (ow-s-t-ow-sh) or what is known as "exchanges" while we were there! I went with Sister Lind and she is amazing! Reminds me a lot of Shantelle actually! From left to right those sisters are: Sister Chappel, Sister Lind, Sister Nelson, Sister Weed and then Sister Fokken :)

Pictures

Wunderbar!

Wow this week has been sufficiently crazy! I experienced my first eating appointment this week... Meine Gute... That was a lot of food. Unfortunatly, food is a HUGE part of Austria culture, and their feelings are hurt when you 1) don't eat every thing they give you 2) don't say yes to second helpings or 3) don't accept random food they feel obligated to give you when you come to their home! I am thoroughly convinced that the Lord blesses missionaries stomaches and tastebuds to be able to take on the amount and variety of food they have to consume. I thought the MTC was rough... stuffing my face here has become quite the obstacle. I am grateful, however, that I have found a new 'like' for certain foods that I never liked before. Exibit A: Ice cream with fruit. IT'S AMAZING!!! Where has it been my whole life and why was I so opposed to it before? Exibit B: Granola cereal with cornflakes. Best invention in the world if I do say so myself! Exibit C: Salmon. Had that for the first time ever! I think my like for fish was tainted ever since my fishing trip with Dad when I was 8 yrs old... something about having fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week straight makes me not crave fish that much. I thought all fish had bones in it and tasted basically the same. Boy was I wrong.

The scenery here is amazing! We went to visit family Kaiser. They are so sweet! They live on a farm ON the Alps and the view from their home is breathtaking. Their children are adorable. There is Sandra (12; almost the exact same age as Rachelle actually! Her birthday is at the end of March) Then there is Peter (11) and Paul (10) Marlene (6ish) and then Mattius (3) I was swept off my feet by little Mattius! He had just returned from an exciting ride in the front loader of the tractor driven by Paul. Mattius got on his little "FisherPrice" version of his front loader tractor and went to the end of the drive-way. I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing because I was trying to keep up with a conversation with Sandra. Much to my surprise, Mattius pulls up right next to me and opens the basket of the front loader and gives me probably the sweetest little flower in the world! (Okay so it was a week with little blossoms) But it was soooo cute!!! I love flowers and from this little prince charming, they were priceless ;)

Another cool experienced that happened later that day was when we were out finding people after an appointment fell through. It was getting pretty cold and it started to rain. We had umbrellas luckily though. We went to a potetial investigator's apartment and they weren't there (shocker I know) so we rain through the rain back to our warm car. Well, as I was sitting there, a lady was just sitting at her window watching us and the rain, probably thinking that we were crazy or something. I knew we needed to go talk to her so I looked at Sister Downs and said, "Let's go talk to her real quick" so we left our warm car and talked to her by her window in the rain for maybe a minute or so but she told us we could come back! We set an appointment with her to see her tomorrow. Schau ma mal (We shall see).

Probably one of the crazy funny things I saw this week is an old grandpa just walking down the streeet in a speedo. Classic European look ;)

I wish you all the best week of your lives! "The happy life isn't found, it's made" - Camille Eyring Kimball. So destiny is yours! Use it wisely!

Love always,
Sister Fokken

PS My new address is:

Salzlände 15/21
8700 Leoben
Austria

Hope to hear from you soon!!! :)

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PICTURES!!!! And recent happenings!

Hello out there! I am so glad to be able to finally send you some pictures! I am currently living in Leoben, Austria! Basically I live in a valley in the Alps... no big deal... I promise to have more pictures sometime soon. Please enjoy these ones for now that give a slight glimpse of my mission thus far.

SANY1389: This is me and my first Mitterbeiterinen! aka companions. Sister Phillips is on the left and Sister Taysom is in the middle. I love these two so much!!!
SANY1401: Sister Phillips LOVES icecream! More than anyone I've ever met!
SANY1402: Sister Baxter (left) and Sister Hunt (right) these are the other two sisters that were in our room who also went to Alpine! They are awesome!!!
SANY1403: This was us staying up late on 4th of July to watch the fireworks from Stadium of Fire! It was a ton of fun and we got awesome icecream but the next day was Sunday and it was fast Sunday so needless to say, it was a little rough trying to stay awake...
P1010451: This is a view of the Alps from our balchony on the 5th floor! So glad there is an elevator :)
P1010453: This is my new companion, Sister Downs! She is great! We have already had very tender moments with one another as I am experiencing a whole new mission world!!!

Wow it is so nice to not have to rush through e-mails here. I can actually share some really neat stories I have been experiencing! Woohoo!!

So, we left the MTC at 5am on Monday, Aug 16th and arrived in München, Germany at 7:50am on Tuesday. So that means we were going to have to go all day long before we could sleep! When we got here, we were greeted by President and Sister Miles and their daughter, Rachel who will be leaving for her mission to Rome, Italy next week! Woot! :) The Assisstances to the President were also there. We loaded our stuff in the van and we were given a copy of Das Buch Mormon, several passalong cards in German and were told that we were going to board the train and be missionaries! Ha, well Sister Baxter and I had been talking to a woman on the plane (mostly Sister Baxter) about the church and we decided that we wanted to go and give her a Buch Mormon. So we did! She said she would read it :) Then we got on the train for the first time... talk about being scared out of one's mind! Elder Baird took the lead and showed us what to do and spoke to one woman and she actually committed to reading das Buch Mormon! Then he turned around and said to stay on that side of the train and to get off when we were supposed to. So we (S. Phillps, S. Taysom, and ich) started to scatter ever so slowly. Sister Taysom got shut down and I knew I was up. I had seen a fellow who was sort of eavesdropping and he seemed very curious so I chose to speak to him. I told him that I had been in Germany for about 45 min and began teaching! It was awesome! I was inspired to ask the right questions to get him thinking and make him even more curious about the church. I bore testimony that all the answers to those questions were in the Book of Mormon and committed him to reading it. Then he even let me get his address so that missionaries could come clarify what he reads and help him answer his questions. What a rush?!?!  It was awesome! The Lord knew I needed that. I had been praying for missionary opportunities on my journey to the mission and here it was. I know for a FACT that the Lord places His servants in the path of those who are prepared and it is up to us to find out who they are!

Moving on, my companion is great! Her name is Sister Downs, she is from Georgia! She goes home in November but is trying really hard NOT to get truncky and keep working hard. I hear it is really hard to stay focused the last few months. I'll worry about that when I get there ;) We almost missed our train the first day we met! Ha, President Miles had to drive us as fast as he could to the train station and we made our train but barely! I've never had to run so much to catch a mode of transportation as I have in the first week of my mission! We were always running it seems! But the area that I am serving in is called Bruck an der Mur (said like Book on der More) It is so cute! I live in a town called Leoben. Sister Downs says it is really small comparitively. The buildings here are like that of Louisiana in that they are so colorful! I'll try to capture more of that in pictures but my camera is currently broken so I'll use Sister Downs! :) The creeks here are crystal clear! I have never seen anything like it before! On Saturday we went to do service for Bruder Kubik. He is awesome! He sings Home on the Range in ENGLISH! It is so cute! He is an elderly man like most of the people in our ward. Our service for him was to pull weeds, aka Stinging Needle from his bushes that line the yard. Meine Gute... I had so many bumps on my arms that day and they still itch a little... but all is well! Oh yeah and afterwards, he gave us some juice. What kind one might ask? Well none other that UNsweetened Grapefruit juice... if you haven't had it, I would recommend using it as a prank because it tastes that nasty! I just drank it fast and tried NOT to think to much! After that he gave us chocolate which I was extremely grateful for. Chocolate here is amazing! (as most of you already know...) so that made it totally worth it!

Our area is huge! It takes about 2 hours to get across the whole span of it. Our ward has 30 active members. There are 2 primary children,1 young woman and 1 young man... All the rest are either elderly or don't have children. It's crazy how much missionary work they do though! They are golden! Sister Cseh is one of the most amazing of them all! She is 81 and LOVES to go on team ups! She is a powerhouse! Yesterday I had the priviledge of listening to 5 hours of straight German. I think I understood MAYBE 10%. It is a lot different here. They speak a dialect known as Steirisch (sty-rish). It can be compared to a southern drawl. So basically I feel like I'm back in my first week of chemistry class my first week of school in Louisiana, but they aren't speaking in english... I did have the priviledge to say a few prayers in the meetings and I spoke/introduced myself in sacrament. I got a lot of compliments on my German so it must not be too bad? :)

After church, we had the opportunity to go and teach a girl named Aline. She is from Romania, living with her cousin and his family, the Costans. Brother Costan is currently attending another church so they found Aline while contacting Brother Costan as a less active member. (Hopefully that makes sense) Aline does not speak German, and she speaks a little bit of English. Brother Costan speaks German and Romanian. It is very interesting to say the least. So anyways, we knocked on the door and Aline answered and seemed very pleased to see us! Brother Costan was sitting there and the fun began. We opened with prayer and attempted to answer his questions. He tends to not like you speaking for more than 5 seconds so he will cut you off and ask another question. It was rough at first and I didn't fully understand what was going on, but he suddenly turned to me and asked me what I thought. I paused and through the spirit bore strong testimony of agency and the will of man verses the will of God. That the only person that can tell us what to do is God and even then it is still our choice to obey. I testified that when we do, we can feel peace in our hearts depite the actions of others and the restlessness of the world around us. I translated what I said to Aline and she agreed. As Sister Downs bore testimony, the Spirit was so strong and you could sense the discomfort Brother Costan felt. The spirit is real. The gift of tongues is real. I know it!

Well I have to get going... until next week!

One more random thing before I go... people walk their cats here! They have a leash and actually walk their cats...crazy...

Schönen Woche!
Sister Fokken

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