Switzerland Zurich/Germany Frankfurt Mission Merged

Sister Nesmith who was called to the Switzerland Geneva Mission revealed on her blog that she was informed this week that her mission was merged with the Germany Frankfurt and Austria Missions:

You probably haven't heard, and I actually just found out Tuesday evening after devotional with Elder Hinckley (he looks/sounds so much like President Hinckley!) that, come this Summer, I will no longer be serving in the Switzerland Zurich mission--we will now be serving in the Muenchen (Munich)/Oesterreich mission. Switzerland has been having too many issues with visas and the Church has decided to just merge the Zurich and Munich missions. It's bittersweet. Our mission now covers the southern half of Germany, the majority of Switzerland, and all of Austria. I fear that the work in Switzerland will slow down because we won't be there long enough to really connect with investigators. However, the Lord knows all and things will work out. 

The 13 February 2010 Church News reported:

Combine the Switzerland Zurich Mission with the Germany Munich/Austria Mission, and portions of the Germany Frankfurt Mission. The resulting mission will be named the Alpine German-Speaking Mission, with headquarters in Munich.

5 Generations of LDS Missionaries: An Illustration for Non-Missionaries

Missionaries have their own peculiar way of expressing family relationships on missions.  W. Adam Wright on Mission Site.Net gives a good visual example of missionary culture that helps non-missionary parents and others understand their lingo.  Missionaries love to discuss their family which involves who trained who on a mission.

My mission grandfather, father, son, and grandson from right to left - 5 generations!

My mission "dad" and "grandpa"

My mission "son" and "dad" I love these guys!
 

I enjoyed this series of pictures.  It helped me understand their lingo better.

Having Fun Doing Missionary Work in Taoyuan City, Taiwan

Okay. Welcome to the writings of my week two in Taoyuan City. Still getting used to the area and I still am not super familiar with where we are going or the investigators yet, except 2 who we have just chanced to see a lot lately...but it's been pretty fun. Still getting back into the whole bicycling thing. I forgot how much I hated hills. Haha. Luckily the hills here are not like Jilong, and I think in another week or two after getting back into shape, they will be no problem.

Transfer 9 Week 1: Sister Bruno in Taoyuan City with Under Four Months to Go

This week we did Temple Tours again.  We had a really touching experience with 3 members.  2 mothers, and one of their husbands.  They were from Taizhong and came up to Taipei for a tour.  Well, we went up to show them the temple book we have, which maybe one day I'll take pictures of it.  What it is, is pictures that kind of run through a plan of salvation in some ways, so we review plan of salvation with the temple for our members.  Well, we did this for this lady, and when we get to the place with a memorial and a lady laying flowers I usually just explain we will all die one day, then we move on to talk about resurrection and returning to God...the more important parts, but in this tour I felt prompted to mention sometimes people around us die also, then my companion testified about the comfort of knowing we'd be resurrected and return to God, and the lady, since I had talked about death had been sobbing, her husband was patting her...then I testified also about God comforting us and welcoming us home.  I was a little worried, but we just continued on, to show them a movie put out by our Mission called Believe, which talks about how we need to believe in the growth of Taiwan, and the gospel, etc.  It's good and has pictures and music.  At the end, the lady shares with us, that her oldest son recently passed away after suffering for 2 years, and that she felt some comfort in doing this tour, even though sometimes she didn't know what her son was doing.  By the end, there wasn't a dry eye in the room, and Sister Collyer shared her testimony on eternal families.  It was really a faith building tour.  I was glad to be a part of it.  That woman had some strong faith.  She's been through some hard trials. I was glad to see she had such a loving and supportive husband, who could go to the temple with her, and stay by her side in her trials. So yeah.  They were really wonderful and even gave us these onion cakes that were absolutely delicious after the tour.  It was a special experience.

Transfer 8 Week 6: Translating Materials for Lady Met on the Bus

Monday, March 8, 2010 12:07 AM

First off, question, around Christmas time I sent a big envelope to the bishop, and wrote letters back to everyone in our ward who wrote me during Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas time, like to every priest and young woman who wrote, and to a cute little Griffin family, to the ward, and the bishop, etc...but I wasn't so positive I could read his handwriting on the address...but it never came back to me, did the ward get my letters? Nobody ever told me.

Transfer 8 Week 5

Tuesday,  March 2, 2010 9:24 PM

Hello. Again I'm sorry, but this might be kind of a fast and not too  interesting of an email. This week has been a little slow, and a lot of  it was dealing with a couple medical problems, so I don't know how much  I can come up with to write about, but I'll try my best.