Peace I Leave With You

October 09, 2023

Hallo, entschuldigung! Habt ihr einen Moment um meinen Email zu lesen?

Alexandra has 5 guinea pigs and 2 dogs!

Buenos días! I hope everyone's week has been delightful! This is your reminder to write me an email sometime this week - I LOVE reading your emails :)

A lot is happening over here in good ole Dresden! However, it's impossible for me to write about everything … so here is a small taste of my life as a missionary!

My First Solo German Conversation

So, Sister Olsen (my trainer) encouraged me to talk with someone on the bus by myself. So I did. I went up to this young adult girl, and well, here's how the (translated) conversation went.

Me: what brings you joy?

Her: alcohol

Me: ah, cool, cool! *explain being a missionary*

Me: so, do you believe in a God?

Her: I am a Satanist.

Me: oh, cool! Yeah! So we have church every Sunday, do you have any interest?

Her: no

Not too bad for my first solo-German-street-contacting. Yeah.

Zone Conference

ZONE KONFERENZ IS THE BEST! It's a meeting with all the missionaries in the Dresden/Leipzig zone, and we all met in Leipzig. SO, I got to have a little day trip on Saturday! It's a two hour train ride through the countryside, and it was a nice break to just sit and chat on the way over.

What I learned at ZOKO: our mission leaders, the Menzels, are fantastic. We are implementing a change in the mission this transfer that I'm really excited for. We want to center our day on PEOPLE, not activities! So instead of walking up and down a street, sitting at the church and doing language study, etc, we will plan to VISIT as many friends as we can, and do all the other things on the way this is a cool skill to learn, as it gets easier and easier to text people instead of be with them in person.

Role Play: at zone Conference, a few missionaries will get up in front of the whole group and practice a conversation. As a group, we analyze what went well and what could improve. It's actually super helpful!

Sister Olsen. I love her.

Leaders: "do we have anyone that wants to come up and do a role play?"

Sister Olsen: *whispers* "do you want to?"

Me: "no, but I will"

Sister Olsen: "we can!"

I neglected to mention that everything is in German, all the time. Our mission leaders are from Germany. Even with other American missionaries, we speak as much German to each other as we can. So I got up there, tried my best to be (1) a good missionary (2) speak good German, and it was fine!!! I learned a lot about how I can improve!

Curry

Germans really like curry, for whatever reason. No complaints here. I love curry. There's a dish called currywurst, which as you can imagine, is curry… with a bratwurst… anyhow. Needless to say, I think I won the lottery when it comes to the mission with the best food

People

Mustafa and Familie: Sister Olsen and I, in our efforts to visit people in person more, decided to visit this family we had met. They come from Syria and speak Arabic, and they have four young kids. They were so loving and welcoming! They showed us videos of buildings on fire from their war-torn home, and it hurt my heart. We talked together (via Google Translate) about how God loves us. It was a special experience.

Edwin + sons: we met this family coming home from Mustafa's! They come from Venezuela, so dear Sister Olsen beckoned me over to talk with them. Long story short- they have a complicated situation with cancer, immigration, etc. We got to invite them to church and our German class! There are a LOT of people in our ward that speak Spanish, and I know they will be welcomed in with open arms

Luis and Yovanni: also from Venezuela. We invited them to be baptized, and they are so eager to learn more about how to follow Jesus Christ! I am always a little nervous when we meet with our Spanish-speaking friends, because I have the unique situation of knowing the language while my trainer sits and listens. Haha!

Sächsiche Schweiz

Just got back from a really cool hike to a really cool old stone bridge in the mountains. It was raining and there were clouds everywhere. I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings!

Reminder

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

God loves YOU. Jesus stands with YOU. It will all be okay.

Con amor,

Sister Hunsaker