Sometimes I am walking down the street and then I remember, 'Oh yeah.... I'm in GERMANY' haha. Life is great.

Monday we went to the Doko Zentrum. It's a museum about the War, and Hitler, and such.. The design looked a lot like the Holocaust musuem in D.C. except that it is locacted right were stuff was going down! Lesson Learned: Accept people for who they are. We are all different, that's what makes the world such an interesting place!

Tuesday we were able to teach Ozal. He is awesome! He is from Istanbul. He speaks Turkish, Greek, and (not very much) English. Unfortunately, I don't speak Turkish or Greek.... you could see how this might be a problem. But no fear Google Translate came to our rescue! That website is legit :) I could just type everything in and press a button and a lovely robot lady would say it aloud in Greek! It turned out to be an amazing lesson! Lesson Learned: Technology rocks. When used correctly, it can be used for so much good!

Wednesday I went to Coburg on a split with Sister Goodrich. Man that place is gorgeous. We had the opportunity to talk to some students at the Technical school. This made me realize that this is the first fall since 2000 that I haven't started school! Lesson Learned: I am able to sleep on an Bahn, Bus, or Train! A very useful skill haha.

Thursday I had my first Coburger (I'll send a pic) Lesson Learned: Coburgers are delicious.

Friday we were on the go all day long! And everyone wanted to feed us. We had breakfast with one lady we are teaching then at our next appointment we were surprised with fries and chicken wings! Yummm :) And then we had a super fun party with the young women in our ward. Let's just say there was Veggimite involved..... (The pictures really say it all) Lesson Learned: Veggimite is not a plesant smell... and the smell increased when you wash it off...

Saturday we surprised a member for her 60th birthday! She is just the sweetest lady and I'll never forget the smile on her face when the Lindgrens, Elder Ward, Elder Allen, Sister Madsen, and I walked in with flowers singing happy birthday! Lesson Learned: It's the little things in life that mean the most.

I love y'all! Remember, it all boils down to love. Love for our neighbor, love for our family, love for ourselves, love for our Father in Heaven.

I wish you all a Joy filled week!

Sister Wahlquist

Another solid week here in Germany!

I've decided that pictures really just explain everything best. So if y'all have any questions send 'em my way I'm more than happy to answer them, but otherwise here is my week in pictures:)

Much Love!

Sister Wahlquist

We started off the week with a big ol' Dirndl/Lederhosen party at the church as a send off for all of the missionaries that were leaving the zone. I think only pictures can explain this marvelous sight, so I'll send a few :)

For the most part this week was pretty normal, except for Friday. Friday the ENTIRE mission got to head up to Frankfurt for a mission conference with Elder M. Russell Ballard (of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles)!!!!!! It was a once in a mission experience to get together with all 252 missionaries (plus the senior missionary couples). It was so wonderful to get to see and talk to Sister Heywood and Sister Williams and other friends from the MTC.

Some of the things I learned from this meeting:

When Elder Ballard was younger he used to drive Elder LeGrand Richards (former Apostle) around. He said that no matter what Elder Richards was ALWAYS happy and positive. So one day Elder Ballard asked Elder Richards how he was able to stay so happy. This was Elder Richards' response, "I never worry, I let the Lord worry. I just do the best that I can." I love that! It reminds me of the old saying, "God, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference" All we can give is our very best, and have faith that it will be enough.

Another great piece of council Elder Ballard gave was right as we get up to say "It's gonna be a great day!" When we are looking for the good things we will find them. When we are looking for the negative things we will find them. I don't know about y'all, but I am sure gonna focus on finding the good :)

All in all life is great :) I love those moments where I realize how much past experiences have perfectly prepared me for things I run into now. How cool is it that no matter what situation we are in there is always something to learn and grow from. Everyday we have the opportunity to be better!

I am so thankful for all of your love and support! I love hearing about all of your different experiences, be it on missions, in school, or where ever life is taking you! I wish you the best of luck as you pursue your dreams. Remember to make the choice to be happy! :)

Love,

Sister Wahlquist

Not a whole lot to report from this week. For the most part we just met with members and less actives and heard their stories and got to know them. One of my favorite parts of being a missionary is all of the amazing people I get to meet, the stories they tell, and they lessons I learn from them.

Fun times of the week-

Last Monday was a blast, we went to Volksfest! American equivalent would be a state fair. So of course we ate all the yummy fair foods, corn on a stick, chocolate covered bananas, and kettle corn. Oh, and lots of bumper cars!

Transfer calls! That is when the whole mission gets on a conference call and we find out what city we will be serving in for the next 6 weeks and who we will be serving with. Because this is obviously a party worthy occasion we had a crepe party. Sister Madsen and I made 5 batches of crepes! No big changes for us though, our district stayed exactly the same.

We also celebrated Sister Madsen's one year mark!

"A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." We will never get anywhere if we don't take that first step.

I love y'all and wish you the best in this coming week, go out there and bring your dreams to life!

Love,

Sister Wahlquist

This week we had a couple of great get your hands dirty service opportunities, my FAVORITE!

We got to go to the Tafel again (It's like a food bank) and we divided out about 40 kg of potato salad. But the winning service adventure of the week was cleaning out a members attic. Because we were not expecting to do it, we showed up in our skirts, so that is what we cleaned in. I'll send some pictures, because words just really can't describe it. But you know it's gonna be fun when they give you a dust mask before you walk into the room. My best description would be it was like sweeping up sand off the beach.... But two hours and 7 trash bags later it looked pretty nice if I do say so myself.

As for the food.... I'm gonna need to start running a few marathons otherwise by the end of my mission someone is gonna just have to roll me home! After our attic cleaning adventure we got yummy banana shakes and lots of yummy German food. Then a few days later the wonderful De Falco family invited us over. Brother De Falco is from Italy so they treated us to TONS of DELICIOUS spaghetti. And yesterday Sister Nosova (from Turkminestan/the Ukraine) treated us to some wonderful homemade Russian food! The members here in the Nürnberg ward are awesome! I just love getting to know them and hear all of their stories.

This week we had zone training (where all of the missionaries in our chunk of the mission get together and talk about the work and learn from each other.)

Probably one of my favorites things was this- Don't just be a goal setter, be a goal finisher!

Often we focus so much on setting goals and we do great for a little bit but then give up/forget. It is important that we set goals that we are passionate about and then don't give up when the going gets tough but see them through to the end!

One big focus of zone training was really coming together and working as a team, and what does every team need? A name, a motto, and a uniform! I am proud to say that I am a member of the Nürnberg Nephites,

our motto:
"Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church." (Alma 43:45)

And we all have matching headbands now (I'll send a pic of that too!)

Miracle of the week: It has rained all day everyday this week, except for Saturday. Saturday we were outside in Bayreuth all day for a street display and it was gorgeous, warm, and sunny!

I hope all is well with y'all wherever you may be :) Remember to take a little time to take a second, take a deep breath, and smile! Life is good!

Love,

Sister Wahlquist