Freiburg, Germany. It is an absolutely beautiful city. It has a rail system that can take you almost anywhere as well as a fantastic bus system. It’s very green and there are lots of parks for walking in. Outside of our first apartment in Freiburg we had these giant chestnut trees that during the winter would drop these prickly balls at you if you weren’t paying attention. There are fantastic buildings with detailed architectural designs. I probably can never really paint the picture of how beautiful it is – so you will just have to go and visit it yourself.
The day we arrived in Freiburg was a random German holiday. This would not be an issue other than the fact that Sister Christopher and I were moving into a deserted apartment with no food or supplies. Thankfully the Elders in the area had some stale cereal and crackers they were willing to part with on our behalf. As we wouldn’t be doing any shopping that day we go right to work. Dropping our suitcases off and grabbing a stack of pass-along cards we started walking.
One of the Elders had been in the area the transfer before and was going to show us around the area. He had also set up an appointment for us all to meet with one of the member families. Sister Christopher told me that as we walked places we should always be contacting people. So as we started walking I starting stopping everyone we passed. I had learned in Zurich that I could stop them but that I couldn’t continue the conversation because I didn’t understand them. Being the great trainer she was, Sister Christopher said that was fine as she would help me with the rest. We stopped everyone, and I mean everyone. By the time we arrive at the elders place our stack of pass-along cards was half gone and we had at least two potential investigators.
The Elders walked us all over the place. We were shown the church building, the grocery store, many of the members homes, as well as some less actives. The entire time Sister Christopher and I were stopping people and talking to them. I would stop them and ask my question, it went something like this – “we are talking about prayer, what experiences have you had with prayer.” Remember my German was nonexistent so the fact that I knew that much was pretty good. Sister Christopher would then take over and teach about prayer and ask them if they would like to learn more. Lots of people said no but they would take a pass-along card anyways.
The Elders had heard that we were the ‘Dream Team’ (word travels fast in the mission) but little did they know what that meant. To us it meant that no matter what time or where we were, we would be doing the work of the Lord. By the end of the day I was so warn out. One of the elders snapped a photo of me on our way home that night. He later gifted it to me saying that it showed my improvement. It’s a very sad looking picture. We returned to the apartment that night dead tired. We planned the next day, unpacked our sheets, said prayers, and went to bed. I remember laying in bed and just being so excited to finally be on my mission and in Germany of all places. I slept sound and hard that night completely unprepared for the next 10 months but extremely excited.
mit freundlichen Grüßen
Jenessa Jensen
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