Ukraine Sausage

The world is full of many different people. We have people of all heights, weights, colors, races, etc. Germany is home to many different people who have migrated from other countries and who come with different traditions, backgrounds, and ideas. As missionaries we came into contact with a ton of these individuals. We had an entire bookcase that contained copies of the Book of Mormon in over 50 different languages.

Once particular women was from Ukraine. If you ever served in Freiburg you know exactly who I’m talking about. This women who will remain unnamed was absolutely crazy. I don’t mean to be rude, however you will understand as you read on. In the end I think we stopped visiting her but would drop off a pass-along card and a little note letting her know she was loved, any time we were in the area.

The very first time we met her. Elder Ault had informed us that we needed to visit this sister. He knew exactly what we were heading into however he made it sound like this golden investigator. We arrived and knocked prepared for a warm welcome. Instead we got a little old women who would barley open the door enough to see who we were. Once we informed her we were the missionaries she quickly pulled us in and shut the door. It was like a scene out of the Hansel and Gretel book where the children are taken in and then eaten.  It was a bit terrifying. She brought us in and told us that her she hated her neighbors and they had all killed their husbands and were witches. Oh…………

We listened to her story and she insisted on feeding us. We had cold potatoes and some chicken. This is how it was most times we would visit. She would always feed us and then we would share a lesson and leave. After a few times of doing this Sister Christopher and I decided either we had to drop her (stop teaching her because it was more a social call then actual teaching) or we needed to start the lessons from the beginning and really focus on teaching her. We never made it past Families and God being our Heavenly Father. (first part of the first lesson) She understood she just wasn’t willing to listen. It was really sad.

However I have one particular story I would like to share pertaining to her. Not one of my more shining moments on my mission but really funny and probably the second most embarrassing moment on my mission. There were times when we would be there and she would feed us some questionable food. We always prayed hard and ate the least we could. On this particular day she was being very pushing and was not satisfied with our small potions. So basically we were offending her for not eating so out came more food.

We were given the most horrible thing we’d ever eaten and looking back on it she may have been trying to poison us. She gave us old potato, onion salad awful and raw sausages. We tried to eat it but there was no way it was going down. The thought was to quickly while her back was turned to dump the food in our bags, however they were across the room and we had no way of getting to them. So we ate. We ate and ate until we couldn’t any more. I had taken the sausage while my companion tried the salad.

Finally there was no other option so while my companion asked for more water I picked that sausage up and dropped it down the front of my shirt.

We had a beautiful lesson about Peter on the Water and we left. As we came out of the gated area we were met by a member who stopped us and we had a lengthy chat. Where then we had to run to catch our leaving bus in order to get to our next appointment. All the while this sausage is still there and it stunk so bad. That bus ride was the longest ever. In the end everything turned out fine I finally dumped the sausage before our appointment and our investigator wasn’t offended because she believed we ate everything off our plates, which made her really happy. Oh the joys of being a missionary.

   

mit freundlichen Grüßen

Jenessa Jensen