Week 17

Skyping!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! It's so weird because there is all this build up and then it's just gone. Just like that! Wow! It was so great to be able to skype my family! I skyped before Sister Kearl and I wasn't too emotional until Sister Kearl was saying goodbye to her mom......oh boy many tears. We just cried walking to the bus and then we got home and we were fine haha!

Skyping my Family! Yay!

Like I predicted, I ate so much food this week. Oh meine gute! It was horrendous! We had a total of 5 eating appts in 3 days. And of course at every appt they feed you like you' haven't had a meal in months. We were at our appt thursday afternoon and Sister Kearl and I almost puked. they fed us like 5 courses! one of which was like meat jello......um.....and the man just took a bottle of vinegar and started pouring it all over my plate. I usually try to be polite and eat everything people feed us but I couldn't do this one........

Us and Sister Boning :) She is hilarious!

At Sister Boning's for 24th!
Elder Weidmann is special.....Christmas party at Sister Raphael's!

We spent the afternoon of the 24th with Sister Boning. She is the member who fed me cow tongue my first Sunday here. We ate goose and duck.......and it was just kind of a stressful afternoon. She has a pretty small appt and she invited all the missionaries over and then some so we could barely fit. Then that evening we were at the Wojcichowski family. It was really nice! We sang some songs together and read a christmas story and then ate dinner. They are so friendly!

The Wojciechowski family had us over for Heilige Abend!

Christmas morning!!! Matching PJs!

On the 25th Sister Kearl and woke up and opened our presents!
We totally wore our matching pjs that night. So precious....
Then we made nutella and crepes for breakfast (of course).
Later that day we went over to Birgit's house. She is a member and she invited us and the zone leaders over for lunch.

At Birgit's Christmas day :)

The 26th is pretty much another Christmas in Germany. We spent the afternoon at the Pelcs. They are polish and the husband is a butcher so we just ate a lot of......meat. I love Sister Pelcs! She is so sweet to us and she always gives Sister Kearl and I presents. That evening Sister Raphael had all the missionaries and some ward members over for a party. There was soooooo much food! Sister Kearl and I could barely walk home.

With the Pelcs on the 26th!

Overall it was a really good Christmas! The members really show their love by inviting us into their homes for their precious holiday time!

Elder Hallman gave me pens for Christmas because I always lose my pens
and then I ask for his pens and then I lose his pens .....my bad

Elder Weidmann gave me nutella fro Christmas.....very wise gift!

In other news.....Sister Kearl and I are in a trio for a week! yay!! It brings me back to my MTC days haha! She is from another city in Germany and she is on a mini mission for a week. She is actually from Sister Kearl's first area, Darmstadt. Her name is Sister Happel and she is such a good missionary! She is so good at just randomly talking to people. We gave out 11 BoM in just two days. That's kind of crazy!
Sister Kearl and I are learning a lot from her.

Our new companion for the week! Sister Happel!
She makes us food.....at least we'll eat more than crepes this week!

We had a pretty cool experience together. This last friday we were waiting for our apt to show up and since he was running a little late we decied to do some doors. Since everyone lives in appts here we just would ring the outside klingle and then wait for someone to ring us in and then we would work our way through the apt building. We rang this one bell and this African man told us to come in. He had us sit down with his whole family and they brought us drinks. We told him we had a message! We started talking about Jesus Christ and he pretty much agreed with everything we said. He had some questions about the godhead that we were able to clear up and he was so grateful we could answer his questions. We gave him a BoM and then said we would come back Sunday.

So we came back sunday and after we just sat down the door bell rang. In walks another African family. It turns out that this was his pastor. We were a little nervous to stay because we didn't want it to turn into a bible bashing party so we told him that we were going to leave and maybe come back another time. But then he said that we wanted us to share a message before we left. So we taught the resotration. Everyone there was pretty receptive about. There was a really good spirit there. It was just a room full of like 10 Africans and then the three of us sitting on a couch answering all thir questions. It was really cool! We are meeting with them again tonight so we'll see how that goes! Sometimes you just end up in the craziest situations as a missionary.

Just a random pic....The Pelcs showed me these eggs their chickens laid.
Pretty cool.......

Anyways.....I hope you are all spending the last few moments of 2013 wisely! I can't believe it's 2014 already. It's weird to think where I thought I would be in 2014.....graduated from college perhaps.....never thought I would be serving a mission in Germany. But here I am! I can't believe that the entire year of 2014 will be dedicated to my mission! Here's to 2014! Here's to making new goals! Here's to being a better person!

"My name's Kaylie, and I'm a Mormon."

I love you all! Thanks for the prayers and love and support! You know you can always just shoot me an email at kaylie.madsen@myldsmail.net and that would be totally fine! haha! 

Love you!

-Sister Madsen