Baptisms!

This week was pretty good! Sister Nieman and I did a lot of planning and deciding what to do with our investigators and Sister Nieman found out real quick that Sister Tuschling does not function very well when she is cooped up in a room for more than 4 hours at a time. She quickly learned that so now we have an aerobics ball that I sit on and a soccer ball to fiddle with haha. We have around 4 baptisms this month if all goes well!! This weekend we have 2. One of them her name is Megan and she is 9 years old and is from the American Military Ward and is a little cutie :) The other is Alicia. She just turned 16 and she has grown up in the church but her dad never allowed her to be baptized until she turned 16 so now is her chance to enter into one of the most beautiful blessings on earth; a covenant with Heavenly Father and received membership of this beautiful church! I am so happy for her! And we will be meeting with her twice this week to go over some of the baptism details and just a refresher of everything! Our main focus is on our dear sweet Louisa. She is 17 and has been looking into the church for about over a year :) My kinda girl!! Ever since last Sunday she can't stop thinking about her baptism and we will be preparing for hers very soon!! She is so rock solid that we took her with us to teach Schwester Meineke. She did awesome at making conversation and bore testimony. Oh how wonderful the gospel is :) This week we also had Zone Conference (in the gorgeous town of Heidelberg)!! It was good to see some of the missionaries again! Elder Jardine seems like he is doing really well along with Elder Sleeman. It was really uplifting and exciting because I felt like I could baptize anybody right then!! We learned a lot about ways to find and what we need to do better. Präsident Schwarz is amazing :) Every time he sees you, you instantly feel his love. Mission Präsidents are the best! He said, "The Spirit will never prompt us to do something that we cannot do." This is so true! If the Spirit is telling you to do something, you better do it because that is Heavenly Father specifically telling you to do something. When he wants something done, he ALWAYS provides a way.
~Sister Tuschling

Hallloo!!!

This week has been so crazy!! For the past 4 days the town of Mainz and most of Germany I think are celebrating Karnival. Basically what I have come to conclude is that it is Halloween and Mardi Gras mixed together, without the knocking from door to door for candy. Instead, everyone dresses up in costumes and drink alcohol for like a week. Today was the day for the Parade and it was on the street where our apartment is! It lasted for literally for 4 hours. It consisted or marching bands, floats, and people saying and screaming "Hallloo!!!" every 5 minutes. It was quite distracting during our study time :) My theory is that Germans do not say hello to you on the street or on the bus or in stores or anywhere because they have been saving them for today during the parade! They are quite elaborate with their costumes as well. I have seen Avatars, monkeys, giraffes, tigers, doctors, giant lizards, cock roaches, bumble bees and so many others!
On Sunday a 8 year old boy (Oscar) from our American Ward had his baptism :) Bishop Meyers asked me to speak about the Restoration because we usually have visitors come and watch so I did. Thankfully it was the American Ward :) The German ward is so sweet. They know that my German is taking its time to incorporate itself into my brain and so they try and speak slowly to me and when they know I don't understand they look to my companion to translate and of course she does :) I am grateful for her and her patience with me and my German. I love doing the Lord's work and love seeing the miracles that happen because of it!!~Sister Tuschling

Deutschland!

The plane landed and it already felt like we were in another world. The airport had German everywhere and the people never look at you in the eye and do not say hi. And they do not open doors or hold doors for you haha. I love them already. When walking down the street you honestly can say hello to everybody you pass and everytime it is the same reaction.... A weird look of "Why are you talking to me?" Haha love it! We freshened up a little and went to meet Präsident Scwartz and he is such a love bug. He looks right into your eye and you instantly feel his love for you. And by that time I really needed it because I never felt so far from home. Hmm go figure! Because I haven't! And his wife is amazing and also an amazing cook! We got our bags and headed to their place where we met all the other missionaries that were going to be our trainers for the next 6-12 weeks. No one knew who would be with who until the next day. We ate dinner and then he ordered us to go the the hötel and sleep. All of us were knocked out before we even got to the hötel haha. We got our rooms. The next morning we found out about our new companions!
Companion!
My new companion is Sister Nieman and she is awesome!! She is also a convert :) She was baptized when she was 19 and is now 23 too with about 3 transfers left of her mission. She'll be going home right when I will in a year. She is from California San Francisco area and is a sweetheart. She is an amazing cook and loves fresh veggies, fruits, natural things for the body. Oh Heavenly Father knows what I need and I love Him so much for answering my prayers. She knows her way around extremely well and I also am grateful for that because without any mountains it is so hard to me to figure out where I am going! She is also a very fast walker :) We get along great and I can't wait to learn more from her.
Mission Field!
We are serving in a city near Frankfurt called Mainz. It is a really old city. Today (Montag or Monday) we went to the park near our apartment and we found a really old fort. In Wyoming it would be like Fort Casper or Laramie, however here it is called something I cannot pronounce haha. And it was first built in the Roman Times. Even before Christ came! Oh my goodness I was in awe! I am still in heaven :) Mainz is full of people! People walking, driving, riding buses, riding trains, etc. There are so many people here haha. We do not have a car or bike so we walk everywhere. We have the train, bus, and our legs to get to where we need to go :) Just the way I like it! It is pretty darn cold here! I will be investing in wool socks very soon :) The wind blows here kinda like home too, its a tender mercy :) Mom the smell of Germany is so different. It just smells different here, not a bad smell but it isn't particularly delicious smell either, but it definitely is not America haha. And I feel like I haven't learned any German at all!! Everyone speaks so fast I can't even pick out a word I know!! Sister Nieman tells me it will come in time and I believe her :) Good thing she is fluent ya? People says it takes at least 2 weeks to get used to how fast they talk and I already feel like I can understand some but I DEFINITELY need more help :) I had my first German food today from a restaurant and my mouth is alreadz watering thinking about it haha. It is called a Döner. Its nothing too special but it is contains meat, bread, lettuce, cabbage (I know I know it is sooo good here though!), tomatoes, some sauce stuff, and spice stuff. Soo good!
~Sister Tuschling

Two Days!!

Hi all! This week has been so amazing! I couldn't have asked for a better last week here at the MTC. I've said goodbye to some of my teachers and they are just wonderful. They have so much patience and always has the best of attitudes towards us and the gospel. They have so much confidence in us. One of my teachers Brother Luna said that he couldn't even say one complete sentence in German when he left the MTC and now he's a teacher!! There is hope!!! I know I will get the language eventually :) Just gotta have faith!! On Tuesday, January 31st we had our weekly Devotional and there had been rumors of who was going to speak. Since I've been here the rumors were that the first presidency were coming because that day just so happened to land on the MTC's 50th year Anniversary! So needless to say that the MTC was a madhouse :) And the rumors were semi true!! Elder Holland and Elder Nelson came and spoke to us. They are such amazing men and they know what they are talking about. They talked about how much missionary work has changed but the main purpose has not over all these years. I love the work :) Last night (Friday) my roommates and I wanted to go out with a bang and do something crazy. Well how crazy can you get at the MTC?? Well we had a slumber party in our room with two mattresses and 4 people sleeping on them :) And to point out we thought it was a good idea to leave the window open. One, 4 sisters on two twin sized mattresses not such a good idea. Two, its winter outside!! Three, needlesstosay we didn't get much rest haha. But it was sooooo worth it!! I can't believe I'm going to be in Germany in less than 24 hours!! I am so grateful and honored to be called his servant. I am blessed to be called to Germany because I know there are people there waiting for me :) This is it!! I can't drive home now!! haha ~Sister Tuschling