Ahoy!

It snowed here on Saturday and was 3 degrees on Friday. I just want the sun to shine and the wind to stop. One day. There is a German phrase that goes,''April, tut was es will'', which means April just does what it wants. The members were explaining to us that the weather in April is always crazy but in May it will/should be warm :)


  I kinda missed the normal Easter Sunday here but because we weren't able to watch the last session of General Conference, they show it the week after so that's what we did yesterday. They give us the sacrament and then we watch conference. I think that's the way we should do it at home too :)


   The Easter package hasn't arrived yet but because of the holiday everything was shut on Friday and Monday so it's all a bit behind. I will let you know when I get the package and thanks for sending one!! :) 


 I found a lot of the conference talks spoke about families. It made me realize just how hard Satan is working to rip apart the family and to lead the world in sin. It also made me wonder what is going on in the outside world right now to trigger all those topics. It is so weird to not know the news that is going on and all sorts of things. It's very disconnecting. I guess that's the point, duh. The inspiration I received was mostly how I need to raise my children, what kind of mother I want to be, and what investigator needs to hear what talk. I really enjoyed Donald L. Hallstroms talk. He talked about how you can be active in the gospel and in the church. That there is a difference. I feel like I see that a lot. It just clicked in my mind and I enjoyed his call to be converted to the gospel. Elder Christoffersons was very interesting I thought. I like that he said the prophet is only prophet when he is acting as prophet. It just shows that the Lord can help you magnify your calling when you feel in adequate. I really enjoyed Elder Eyrings about blessings from adversity. We definitely all need to be looking at our life experiences as blessings instead of trials.And last I really enjoyed Elder Perrys talk. His was in the last session and so we watched it in German. It's hard to listen to conference when it is dubbed because you can still hear the English but also the German talking over it. I have to work really hard to focus on the German, my mind naturally wants to go to English but then you can't hear all of the talk. Anyways, I saw that the Lord really helped me to prepare to hear his talk because on Saturday we just taught a lesson using Mosiah 24 and I had just read bits of Mosiah 20. If I hadn't done those things I would not have gotten the same message. It was just a neat blessing to recognize and I was very grateful that the Lord prepared me. 


  Well news from me this week, I killed a bird driving on the autobahn to Braunschweig. It just ran into the front of the car as I was driving and there was a small thud and then when we got out there were some feathers attached to the front. I felt really bad :( I couldn't do anything though. I got my visa two weeks ago and so this past week I got to Anmeld, register, in Halberstadt. Now I'm official :) We met up with Herr XXXX this week and watched three different conference talks with him since he wasn't able to make it to conference last week. The last talk we watched was President Monson. Herr XXXX said about President Monson, ''Er muss ein Prophet sein!'' (he must be a prophet!) How cool is that!!! It was so amazing to feel the spirit in the room and to hear his testimony of President Monson, and that was the first time he ever got to see him live or hear him speak. It was really amazing. 


   Bruder Lau told me this past week that there is a concentration camp that is located maybe 10 minutes outside of Halberstadt. Its called Langenstein. I believe, if I read his book correctly, 10,000 Halberstadters were held in that camp and a lot went to Auschwitz too. Yesterday was the anniversary of Halberstadt being bombed and 82% of it being destroyed. Sister Openshaw and I found the remnants of a Hugonot church this past week. It was ruined during the bombing but they keep the one remaining wall standing. 


  Teaching Frau XXXX this week was amazing. She gets so into the story of the Book of Mormon and gets so angry with Laman and Lemuel. Whenever they do something bad she curses and goes, 'Nein, nein, nein!'' If only everyone could recognize the blessings of keep the commandments like she does. She is a wonderful example to me. 


   I found out Saturday night that a man I taught in Celle died. That was really sad news to receive and I've been thinking about him lots. At least we were able to start him on the path of understanding the gospel. 

-Ariel Nell

How they sell corn here

The Hugonot church

Me in front of the Wernigerode Rathaus