That is my favorite activity!

I've taken a leaf out of my cousin Sam's book and from now on will attempt to have email subjects that are never explained in the body of the message.

This week many things happened. I will only tell you about 2 because I gots things to do.

ONE: Sister Lehman and I passed by this cemetery on the way to see if someone was home and we were like what the heck, let's go in. Because German cemeteries are the best! And we found this hole in the hedge and it made us feel like Alice in Wonderland, which was excellent. And then we walked in stinging nettle, which at this point could do nothing to hurt our moods. (insert photos here)

TWO: On Saturday, BVB played FC München in the Champion League final at Wembley Stadium! Aannnnd BVB lost. Ah well. They played really well anyway. But on Saturday, I was not in Dortmund, I was in Münster. Which is apparently a very beautiful, magical place. But I didn't get to see it because the sister I was on a split with, Sis. Leonardson, got sick. Was I bummed out? Of course not! I'm sure you all know that my favorite thing ever is to be stuck inside all day basically by myself. No sarcasm. Especially because, due to a series of unfortunate events, the Münster sisters only had moved into their apartment a few days before. The man who put together the furniture put the stuff in ALL the wrong rooms. So while Sis. Leo slept like a stinkin' rock all day, I dragged all the furniture out from around her and swapped the study and bedroom rooms. Then I went back through and rearranged everything in the whole house and cleaned. I was in heaven. Don't laugh.
Sis. Leo woke up around 5pm and shuffled into the kitchen, and the first thing she said was "How are there desks in my bedroom?"

Maybe I should take this opportunity to say that I DID in fact ask for permission first, so she wasn't totally shocked. She was just shocked she slept through the whole thing.

FINALLY: Mom keeps asking me all these questions about my ward and apartment and stuff, but I never remember to answer them. SO. Everyone has one week to email me at lauren.teusch@myldsmail.net and ask me questions about stuff and then next week I'll answer questions. It'll be more officialish that way. Kaythanksbye!

100% Claudy Apple Juice

This week I looked down to make sure I had remembered to move my name tag to my shirt from my coat, and it hit me that even though sometimes I think it would be nice to have a break or go home for a while or something, if President Monson called me up and told me that the Lord had excepted my efforts and I could go home, I still wouldn't want to. And that was a big deal for me.

Missionaries always talk about how tired they are. And we say we're tired because we don't sleep much or because we walk a lot or because we talk to a lot of people, but I think I'm tired because never before in my life have I felt driven like I do. The truth is, if I wanted to sleep more or walk less or talk less, I could. No one is making me do the things I do. But ever since I was set apart to preach the gospel, I have felt this urgent purpose propelling me forward. I can't sleep more than I should. I can't walk less than I should. Because I want to be doing the things I feel driven to do, to fulfill my purpose.
I'm tired because the parts of me that fight against that purpose, that passion, can't keep up because they don't want to. But this life is our chance to cast off the impurities and become precious, just like metal is purified by fire.

Yesterday all 8 of the Dortmund missionaries got the chance to go to the temple with the ward. It was a wonderful experience to be there with so many people that I love in a huge group. I may have done a poor job of hiding how hungry I was though, because Br. Oelkrug told me I could bless the food so I'd be right up front and could eat first. Some things never change.

We got home from the temple pretty late in the afternoon, then taught a lesson, so when we got home I was ready to go straight to bed. But then a sister in the ward called and told us her 9 year old daughter had decided to be baptized and asked us to teach her the lessons. All of them! In 2 weeks! So that kind of threw going to bed early out the window. It's totally fine though because I am so excited! I've been wanting to teach this girl for a while to help her decide if she wanted to get baptized or not. I can't wait to talk to her about it on Thursday.

Sorry, I forgot to explain that a golden is what we call green missionaries, or new missionaries. We call them golden because they come in full of fire and faith and haven't been affected by rumors or reputations of what missionary work is or which areas are bad. It's a great, positive name and I love it.

This week, we played soccer for 2 hours and I was mostly goalie and I was boss at it. Don't scoff. I'm serious. But then my hands hurt really really bad for like 4 days.

I love you bye!!!

I drove a car!

After years of waiting, I have finally driven a car in Germany.
It was somewhat terrifying.

 

In other news, I have a golden now! Her name is Sister Lehman and she's from Idaho. Interestingly, her boyfriend McKay Archibald served in my hometown. How do you like them apples.
I look crazed in this picture. We'll just call it exhaustion and move on.

As amazing as Sis. Lehman is, training is hard! It turns out Sister Haas spent all this time planning things and calling people and recalling people and calling people again while I was, I don't know when! Brushing my teeth? But now I get to do all of that. I don't know if you know this but I really hate talking on the phone. A lot.
I've also had a cold for like a week. My head feels fuzzy (name that movie). And I haven't decided if I should tell my mission president's wife because if I do, she'll make me stay home all day and sleep. On the one hand, that sounds amazing. On the other, we have too much stuff to do to waste time sleeping!



Elder Guymon and I were equally perplexed by the car in the Church parking lot with a window-pope in it.



We got doored by the Jehovah's Witnesses. We didn't let them in. (Is he writing our address down?)



Have you ever seen a more Germanesque vista?

Mom sent me a lot of wisdom about being a mother in preparation for mother's day, and hopefully you won't be surprised to find out that a lot of it applies to me and what I'm doing. I don't even mean with my golden: I just mean in missionary work.

There are some lines attributed to Victor Hugo which read:
“She broke the bread into two fragments and gave them to her children, who ate with eagerness. ‘She hath kept none for herself,’ grumbled the sergeant.
“‘Because she is not hungry,’ said a soldier.
“‘No,’ said the sergeant, ‘because she is a mother.’”
...
One young mother wrote to me recently ... one thing, she said, keeps her going: “Through the thick and the thin of this, and through the occasional tears of it all, I know deep down inside I am doing God’s work. I know that in my motherhood I am in an eternal partnership with Him. I am deeply moved that God finds His ultimate purpose and meaning in being a parent, even if some of His children make Him weep.
“It is this realization,” she says, “that I try to recall on those inevitably difficult days when all of this can be a bit overwhelming."
-- Elder Holland

Eve was given the identity of “the mother of all living”—years, decades, perhaps centuries before she ever bore a child. It would appear that her motherhood preceded her maternity, just as surely as the perfection of the Garden preceded the struggles of mortality. I believe "mother" is one of those very carefully chosen words, one of those rich words—with meaning after meaning after meaning. ... Some women give birth and raise children but never “mother” them. Others, whom I love with all my heart, “mother” all their lives but have never given birth.
-- Sister Holland


What a power couple. I love these quotes because I'm not a mother, but I am a woman, and I sure do a lot of mothering every day. I spend all day doing what I can to assist in God's work--the immortality and eternal life of man. Every person I see on the streets of Dortmund is a child of God, and my job is to guide them, lovingly, back to Christ. I don't give my bread to anyone but I give them my time, keeping only enough for myself to live on, because I feel how much God loves them.
Every woman is born with the power of mothering--it is our gift, our right, and our responsibility, just as the men have the right and responsibility to exercise the priesthood. Regardless of a woman's maternity, as daughters of God (and daughters of Eve), we are also the mothers of all living. How powerful is that!

So on Mother's Day, thank God for the women who have blessed your life. And then thank the women.