Dear family and friends,
what a blessig that we are children of a heavenly father!
I am just so greatful for each one of you and that I have the opportunity to have such incedible children of God in my life.
This week was good as always but it also had it’s ups and downs.
I had my very first Zone meeting and it was good,wealso had a special training meeting with our mission president in Morristown with all the new missinaries (it’s 25 of us!). It kind of made me trunky because verybody was talking about home and their family and friends and all the things that they disliked about being on a mission. I love my mission but hearing all of that stuff made me a little sad i guess. I think someone also played a prank on me but I am not too sure yet but if it was a prank… than that’s a terrible prank!! I am not sure I am still confused about it. But it’s okay i already planned a prank back 😉
This week I struggeled focusing on the work. Part of it was because of the special training meeting. I just need to get over myself and forget the past and the future and just focus on the work. So I hope that I can work on that this week because this here isn’t about me, it’s about Lord and his children! But we were still able to teach 29 lessons, receive 10 referrals, find 4 new investigators whoop whoop!
I also went to Carlos Bakery in hoboken and apparently it’s super famous and it has it’s own Tv series on TLC. It also snowed here this week but it already melted!! Honestly, the weather here is so bipolar, I never know how to dress myself.
Did I ever tell you about the New Jersey- attitude? So driving here is awful as i have previously mentioned. People here double park and block the street,. they also hock for every little thing, especially when the light turns green and you haven’t immediatley moved your car. They are so impatient it drives me nuts, good that i am not teh driver here haha. But I have the phone and some days i feel like working in a call center no kidding!
I got two letters last week thank you so much! I feel loved 🙂 But here’s a hint, send letters to my apartment address, if you don;t I will get it a month later.
Everybody here seems to think that I am 12 or 14! I know I am short and all that but do I really look that i young? I guess it’s a good thing right?
I MAET A GERMAN but she wasn’t interested 😦
Okay here is one short crqzy story for you (I have a ton!):
We went to contact a referral that we received from an investigator. We got 2 new investigators through that referral which is great but it was a crazy lesson. We went in to see Michelle and she called her friend Sandy to come aswell. When we came in her son was ling on teh couch and just staring at us. I asked him like 10 questions and he
didn’t even answer one he just kept starring at me for 10 minutes (creeper!). He later stood up and disspeared into a different room so we started the lesson which we planned on talking about the holy Gohst. But sandy started to talk abaout baptism and she wanted her daughter which is 16 to be bapticed but she still was debating in which church she wanted to do that. So I simply asked her would you like our church to baptice your daughter (of course tyhe daughter needs to decide that for her own) but started talking about the restoration and lots of iother things. Then when Michelles son came back he started asking random (buried word) questions so we needed to somehow go back into the lesson. The lesson was all over the place and then when we came to the end Sandy started crying and Sister Torgerson and i were shocked and didn;’t know what to do. It was crazy! The spirit definitely wasn’t present at the lesson at all and she was crying and Michelles son was starring at us and michelle was just sitting there and talked about her trials. Anyways we managed to get out and when we came back into the car we were shocked because we spend 2 hours in there!!! I still can’t believe that!
This is really funny:
Everyday we park we park our car inside our apartment complex. This complex has a gate and I am tghe one that always opens and lock the gate. I acidnetly left the keys in the car and we locked the gate and then when we came home we realized that our keys were missing (we could’t get in) so My companion started to get mad and freak out. So we tried knocking at our neighbours door but no answer… We just stood there infront of the gate and we had no idea how to get in. Well… I just told my companion to climb over the gate and she kinda looked at me as i would be crazy. Guess who ended up climbing the gate? I climed the gate and got the keys out of the car and we got in. YAY! I am so proud of myslef because i managed to do all of that in a dress! 😀
For some reason everyone said the F word last week it was pretty diturbing! Even a car drove by and his music said it 5 times or so in just 10 seconds! Speaking of music…. I love p-days because when we go to the stores i can listen to normal music not just the mormon tabernacle choir! 😀
I always want to write much more that I can but here is one last thing… (it’s one of the miracles of this week):
This sunday I forgot to put on my name tag so we had tp walk back and get it and as we were on our way back to church I told myself that I wanted to invite someone to come to church. I asked my companion if she’d ever done that and she said she never had any success so she stopped (wrong attitude but anyways). I wanted to show that we could make it happen so I watched out on our way back to church who heavenly father would send us. A few peopel were passing by but for soem reason I didn;t feel I should ask them (at leas I said hi thoguh). But as we were almost at the door we passed by a young man but then I turned around and said hey do you want to go to a church today? And he asked me if we were the Jehova Whitnesses (everybody asks us that!!!) and I explained him about our church and he was a little hesitent but then he said ” yeah I’ll come where is it?” So we walked him into the church and it was kind of funny because he was wearing pijama pants from family guy (which is a really dump tv show). I wanted to give him a church tour but my companion kinda spacd put or something (I mean hello…. why isn;t her alarm bell not goign off??? sometimes i feel that I have to motivate my companion). we found out that he just came out of prisomn recently and that he now wants to have a fresh start and all that. Anyways he stayed for whole of sacrament meeting. Too bad he was only visiting but the seed is now planted!
Anyways, time to go.
I love you all so much and I want you to know that you are in my prayers and that I love getting e-mails from you.
Love always
Sister Larissa Kranewitter
ps: sorry no pictures today (i forgot my camera cord)
Hello everyone,
how is the mission? Very good, I have not a lot of time to write everyone back sorry but I will in letters (if I ever find time). But thank you for the emails I read them all and I am super happy to hear about all the mission calls and engagements (you better send me an invite!).
I am on a quick hurry because I want to havbe a lontger pday today because we were working so hard last week that I need a little breal. We taught 31 lessons, found 6 new investigators through referrals and a few street contacts, 5 baptismal dates and, we got 12 new referrals aswell. We never have time to eat at home unless it’s at a memebers house or we buy something on the street.
Like I said there are really cool miracles everyday and I want to share two of those:
Miracle #1: We got a media referral and we visited her. A women opened the door and came out and we said we were missionaried form the chruch and she was like. Uh not interested, leave my doorstep and make sure you close the gate. We thought someone plaied a joke on us. As we were leaving another women came running out and we were like oh no crazy lady, but she scemed stop stop wait. so we turned around and went back and then we found out that she was tye one that was ourt media referral so we made an appointment, gave her a BOM and invited her to church. Next thing was when she called us in the morning as we were studiyng our sciptures and told us that she wanted tp quit smoking and we were like yeah we can help! She also told us that she was at the hospital so we went and visited her and we are now teaching her regularly and she is getting baptices on March 31! YAY
Miracle #2: An appointment fell through so we were street contacting and I felt I had to talk to this person as we were walkign by but I didn;t know what I should say…. But I went and followed my impression and I went back and i just dais “Don’t you know that God loves you so much and whatever you’re going through you are not alone” and apparently my words were magic because we are now meeting with him aswell and it is going really well. 🙂 I am so happy and so excited for all of my investigators!
I love being a missionary and to work hard. Life is great!
My advice: Pray, read your scriptures, have good friends, and eat good food ( and dance!)
Love always (too busy to miss you)
Sister K/Kranewitter
Ps:
It’s not that hard KranEVitter right? Why do people not get it? Oh well … 😀
Hi Papa & Mama,
alles klar?
Is everything okay? I am worried because I haven’t heared from you in 3 weeks. How’s Essen, is it rainy? PLEASE let me know if you’re still alive because I am kind of worried. (Bitte, bitte, bitte antwortet!!!)
The week has been really good, I am just tired all the time but I think that’s pretty normal for missionaries.
I am working really hard but I can do so much more. We taught 23 lessons this week so we almost hit our goal of 25, but we definitely taught more than 20 so YAY. Our district leader (he’s the person that is in charge of a group of missionaries) called us the other day and said that we were working harder than anyone else in the district. We have already 22 lessons set for this week! I am happy but I hope we can teach more and YAY for hard work!
i think I mentioned this before but I se miracles everyday on my mission. There are three investigators that have a baptism date or almost a baptism date. Kacey still has to pick a date but he will, he is so great and I am so excited for him and I can’t wait for him to be so happy and to feel fullfilment in his life. And he always comes to church 🙂
Angie Baker is married to a less active member form Egypt, and they have a 8 month old boy. She’s 23 and her husband is like 50 something but they do really love each other! It’s was a little bit weird for me at first haha… Anyways she has her date set for April and she finally came to church! She almost cried and I thought this is either good or bad, but she just felt the spirit so that’s fantastic!
Joshua is great too! I love that kid! He almost gave me a hug yesterday in church that was a little awkward but he doesn’t know that Sisters can’t hug him. He’s 13 and he remembers me so much of myself when I was investigating the church. His mom is less active and has depression and yesterday after church she came to me and told me that she had a anxiety attack so we said a prayer together so now I am trying to get the Elders to give her a blessing. But that she told me that shows me that she trusts us. Anyways, Joshua will be bapticed on the 24th of march and we all are really excited for him but he needs to get his dad’s permission first!
There are so many more miracles thaty happen everyday that I cannot tell them all but the ward is truly amazing and really tries to help the missionaries. I hope that as I continue to get to know the members that they can trust me and give us referrals. \
We also met 2 men on the street which we both will start teaching soon! They are so amazing!
And now the funny stories of the week:
FS #1 We went to 4 dinner appointments and guess what we had? Spagetthi and lasagne!! 4 times in a row!!!!!!
FS #2 We were street contacting and started talking to this (crazy) man (I forgot his name) and he said he didn;t believe in the bibile but then said he was a prophet and knew what was goign to happen in the future. Then he told me that I was cute for 5 times and that he liked me and tried hitting on me. He was a crazy man!
FS #3 I called lot’s of formers (investigators that were taught in the past) and left also lot’s of messages. There is this one man that’s called Vimal who called me back this morning and said he wanted to be bapticed and I was like oh, that is great, bit haven you been coming to church and he sais yes but apparently he goes to a different church that is not lds. So he’s kind of crazy too but we have an appointment this week and I’ll tell you how it went.
Random fact: Swedish fish are made in New Jersey and Alex Boye is married to one my Mission Presidents daughter.
I hoffe alles ist gut und bitte schreibt mir ne email!
Love always,
Sister Kranewitter