Hello! It's Me Again

Hi everyone! 

Well, I don't have too much to say today because I just skyped with my family yesterday, but this week was great! 

You know that scene in The Grinch where all the Who's feed him their Christmas foods they made, and at first it's delicious, but by the end he is SO FULL but they just keep feeding him more and more? Well, that's what I have felt like all week. Like that feeling you have right after Thanksgiving dinner where you need to just roll onto the floor and nap for 12 hours. It's awful, but the members here are so good to us. 

Besides gaining about 10 pounds this week, we had a few other successes! We found 3 people who said we could teach them more about the gospel! So exciting. We also had a pretty good Zone Training on Tuesday, and an awesome District Christmas breakfast on Saturday!

Now that Christmas is over, it's time to start thinking about the New Year! I can't believe that this WHOLE YEAR I have been a missionary! What a great year it's been! I've been in 3 different countries, had 8 different companions, and served in 4 different areas. I've had some of the hardest trials of my life, but I've also seen the biggest miracles of my life! I've gotten up at 6:30 every single morning for a whole year (that is quite an accomplishment) and there also hasn't been a day where I haven't been wearing my little black name tag over my heart. My German has gotten a little better, my friendship circle has grown a little wider, my heart has been meat hammered and tenderized a lot, and the Savior and I have become much closer. My "black year" has actually been the brightest and best year of my life, and I am so so grateful for it. But, it's not over yet! So let's make the most of the last week of 2016!!

Alles gute zum Neuen Jahr!

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell

Weihnachtszeit

Hello again! 

Less than a week till Christmas, so crazy! This was a super great week for us. We are staying busy, happy, and feeling fairly successful as we both try to get to know the people here better. Something I've been thinking about lately is just how we can make Christmas more meaningful. In Relief Society yesterday, we talked about the story of Christ's birth, and how he is the perfect example for us to follow. I had an interesting thought as I was thinking about how there was no room for Jesus in any of the inns on the night of His birth. Christmas is the time to celebrate our Savior, but it is also the time when people are the most stressed. We asked members at church how they were doing yesterday, and if they were excited for Christmas, and most of the answers we got were: "I'm so tired, I can't wait for it to be over," or "I have parties to plan for, food to make, guests coming over, presents to wrap, a house to decorate, I can't even think straight!" While we offered our help to anyone who wanted it, I thought it was so sad that Christmas is the most hectic time of the year. How ironic it is that this is the time when we should be letting Christ into our lives more, but our "inns" are so full of candy and toys and decorations, that we have no room for Him.

So, how can we make Christmas a little more "Christmassy"?

Gute Frage. (Good question.) As a missionary that's not really a problem. Although missionary work is very stressful, and there is even more to do during this time of the year, EVERY day for me is CHRISTmas!  I am preaching of Him and rejoicing in Him and learning about Him every single day! And it can be that way for you too! So for all you normal people, try to set aside some time this week to turn off the Mariah Carrey, put down the frosting bags, stop shopping for presents, and really think about what this is all about. Why are we giving presents to people? Why are we singing Christmas carols? What is all of this FOR and what does it MEAN? Do things because it's what Christ would do. Celebrate with all of these fun traditions because you are REJOICING in the greatest gift the world has ever received. Our Redeemer and Healer and Savior, Jesus Christ! Make a snowman (unless you live in Alabama), eat some cookies, and let Christ take this Christmas stress away. That's what He's there for, to lighten our loads and burdens. He would probably love to do that for you ESPECIALLY during the season celebrating His birth; I know that He has done it for me!

I love you all, and wish you a FROHE WEIHNACHTEN! :)

(Still hasn't snowed in Solothurn yet)

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell

Christmas Bells are Ringing

I LOVE music.  I love singing.  I love playing the piano and guitar.  I love listening to music, and I love directing music.  It's one of the things that makes me the happiest!  The best way for me to feel unified with my companion is when we sing together.  The most meaningful Sundays at church for me have always included singing my favorite hymns.  The quickest way for me to cast away fear, or discouragement, or to motivate myself is through music!  My favorite way to bring the Spirit into a lesson is to sing a song.

A couple of years ago, a returned missionary in my ward in Texas gave his homecoming talk and spoke about how he had found out the way that the Spirit speaks to him.  He LOVES food, and he realized that when the Spirit was confirming the truth of something to him, he felt like he had just eaten a warm, yummy apple pie.  When he was being prompted to leave a dangerous situation, or that something was wrong, it felt like he had just eaten something rotten or really sour.  The Spirit spoke to him through his stomach and tastebuds!  I have always remembered that, and since then I've been searching to hopefully find the specific way that the Spirit speaks to me. 

I think i've finally found out how the Spirit speaks to me.

First of al, the Spirit does not only speak in one specific was to a specific person.  Just like us - we talk to people on the phone, sometimes face to face, we send a text, or sometimes we know exactly what someone is trying to say without them even having to say it - the Spirit has many forms of communication.  For example: the best way to communicate with my grandma is definitely NOT through text messaging.  Calling is much more effective.  But, if I really need to, I can reach her through a text.  The Spirit knows that the best way to communicate with me is not through giving me visions and dreams, but sometimes if He really needs to, He can reach me that way. For me, the most effective way that the Spirit speaks to me is through the thing that I love the mostL MUSIC!  When I hear things that I know to be true, or someone bears a powerful testimony, the phrase, "music to my ears" is the best description of how I feel.

For the last couple of weeks I have been struggling spiritually.  I felt like my soul was just in pain.  I was questioning why I was even on a mission, questioning my testimony, not wanting to do all these things I've been doing my whole life anymore, just wanting to throw in the towel and not have to go to church, not have to be a missionary, and not have to deal with my problems.  This week I was really searching for some kind of relief.  I was still praying.  I was still reading my scriptures every day.  I have been exactly obedient, but I felt like I was just going through the motions.  The Spirit told me a lot of things this week, and at first I didn't want to listen.  But then we had Christmas Conference in Zurich, and between listening to President and Sister Kohler speak to us, and hearing all the dying missionaries' testimonies, my heart was softened and I started listening.  I found this quote in my personal study this week by Neal A Maxwell:

"Discipleship is to be lived in crescendo."

For some reason that totally clicked in my head and I finally got it!  I don't need a break.  i don't need to continue having pity parties for myself.  I need to step it up and keep working harder and harder, and growing stronger and stronger spiritually for the rest of my life!  A mission is not an uphill climb at the beginning and then simply sustaining a really long and boring note.  It's starting small and then as your strength and capacity grows, getting louder and louder, and making it more powerful and interesting!  And it's not over after the mission.  Your LIFE is to be lived in crescendo!  

We saw tons of miracles this week after I decided to rededicate myself to this work and this gospel.  I know that Heavenly Father blesses us beyond our imagination when we give Him just a TINY bit.  So just think how much He would bless us if we gave Him our ALL!  That's easier said than done, but it has become my quest again...to give Him my everything.  Because He has given me everything.  

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell

SaveSave

Joy

The last few months have been hard for Savannah.  Her emails don't really reflect the emotional struggles she's having or the conitunous challenge it is to serve a full time mission for more than a year.  I wrote this to her this week after a long month of battling my own frustrating weaknesses had left me feeling pretty ineffective and useless in Alabama, too.  I'm including the email here because sometimes on the sunny days I forget that life is hard; and on the hard days, I forget that the sun always comes out again.  

Hi Mouse!

Daddy listened to this conference talk on Sunday morning.  

Joy and Spiritual Survival - By President Russell M. Nelson

Joy and Spiritual Survival - By President Russell M. Nelson Joy and Spiritual Survival - By President Russell M. Nelson

He said it was because he was trying to delay having to get out of his warm bed on a cold Fast Sunday morning, and he also said he just randomly chose it...but I sort of think he picked it because he was trying to figure out how to help me feel more JOY in this place and in my life.  I'm sending it to you hoping it will help you find more JOY in yours, too.

I have never seen Daddy have more responsibilities or more required of him in church and at work, but somehow he also has more patience and more compassion than I've ever seen him have.  He goes with the mishs into the dirtiest, smoke-filled, humblest homes filled with people who only have excuses about why they can't come to church.  He listens to my complaining and crying about how this is all too hard for me and I can't do it.  He has a bazillion people at work who need him for one thing or another.  And somehow, he is infinitely patient, positive, and compassionate with all of us.  

And I think he is truly and genuinely filled with joy most of the time.  He loves this place.  He loves the service opportunities we are all having here.  And he loves this house and his little lake.  He's been trying to talk me into making this the location for Cousins Camp instead of retiring in Utah...and seriously, it's impossible not to agree with him most of the time because he just loves this place so dang much!

Megan is the same way.  She goes on all those visits with Daddy and the sister mishs, and she comes back in love with every single, smoke covered, cat infested one of those people.  Members or not.  Goofy or not.  Uneducated, toothless, 600 lbs, grumpy, whatever...she comes home and somehow reports only on the potential she saw and the love she felt while on the Lord's errand.    

They are both infinitely frustrating when I mostly just want to complain about people's laziness and weaknesses and lame excuses.  

I have been lamenting my lot in life pretty regularly, every time I can get one of them to sit down and listen to it, and it's always the same.  I feel uninspired, overworked, overwhelmed, and I can't seem to find ways to feel the Spirit as often as I think I should.  So then I get frustrated and I want to just quit everything, hide all my talents, and hole up in this house forever.

But Megan said something interesting the other day when I was complaining to her.  She said, "Well, sometimes I feel like there's so much work to do here, but then I think that's probably what we're here for.  There's a lot of work to do, so we might as well pitch in and get it done!  And besides, what would I be doing anyway, if I wasn't spending 4 hours after church on a Sunday visiting less active members with Daddy?  I would just be sitting at home watching TV or thinking about myself.  So this is better, isn't it?"

ugh...I can't seem to get to that place where Daddy and Megan are.  I LOVE people at church. When I go on Sundays, I always see and hear what I think HF must see and hear in them.  I love that they made the effort to come, even though it's a huge sacrifice for some of them.  I love that the strong members have multiple callings and so much to do, and yet still drive out of their way to pick up the people who might not have a way to get to church otherwise.  I love that all these converts have such a blazing testimony of this church even though it's not flashy and we don't have a rock band.  And I want to KNOW them and LISTEN to them and SERVE them.  

And then on Monday, I look at my calendar and I see all the obligations and responsibilities I have combined with the service I just volunteered for at church the previous day, and I think, "What the heck?!  I'm never going to survive this week."  And then I toss my faith out the window, I forget that my strength doesn't come from me, and I try to plow through the list, disgruntled and tired, only to find that by Wednesday, I can't do one more thing and I'm barely hanging onto my sanity by a thread...much less any JOY I might have felt on Sunday.  So then, I spend Thursday hiding out in my room all day watching continuous episodes of Dateline and not answering the phone. That's been the  cycle since I got this YW calling, I think.  

This weekend, I was crying to Daddy about all that I had to do and all the people who should be carrying more of this load, and all the people who were still asking me to DO MORE STUFF!  And I was crying about all the time and effort I put into things only to have it be a huge flop (like singing that song for that man's funeral last week) or unnoticed (like VTing all these women who wont even answer the door) or unappreciated (like YWIE.)  And he asked me why that made me so sad and frustrated?  And I said, "Because I'm doing all this stuff and it makes not one bit of difference!  It's all just a giant waste of my time!"  

And just today it finally occurred to me...I think in my whole life, I've only ever done things for two reasons: 

1) to gain something personally (like popularity or social media acclaim or to be noticed and fussed over...or the less selfish, but still personally motivated ones like wanting to feel the Spirit or be inspired or to get answers to prayers or to increase my testimony or stretch myself out of my comfort zone)  Some of those are less self centered than others, but all of them are with my own increase as the focus.  

OR

2) to make other people happy.  A lot of times, I do things just to make someone else happy.  I don't even care if they acknowledge it or if they even knew it was me, I just want to do it because I love Daddy or Stephanie King or you or the other kids, or whoever happened to fly in the crosshairs of my spirit-filled love arrows at church on Sunday.  And that's an unselfish and righteous motivation, I think.  There's nothing wrong with doing good things solely for someone else's happiness or comfort.  

But what I don't think I ever do is FOCUS entirely on the Savior as my motivation.  

I think that is the difference in the JOY Daddy and Megan feel in this place, and the lack of JOY I feel.  I go see Ida on Wednesdays because I know she will be sad if we don't come.  I go out with the missionaries because I know they need people to drive them so they can save miles.  I feed all these people Daddy invites to our house because I know he wants them to feel comfortable and included...and sometimes I want them to feel that way, too.  I go to the temple on Wednesdays to refill MY spiritual bucket.  I walk in the mornings and read Conference talks and read my scriptures because I know I NEED that to get through a day.  I pray because I want to tell HF stuff, because I need help with things, and because I NEED Him.  

But how much more JOY would I get out of all those good things if I did them because I love the Savior, because that's what He would do and because I want to be like Him?  

I think that's what Elder Nelson's talk is trying to say...  

"...the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives."

"Joy is powerful, and focusing on joy brings God’s power into our lives."

This "mission field" experience is totally different for me and HARDER than anything else that's ever been required of me in the church...so far.  

I know that your mission experience is harder than anything you've ever done in the church or in your life.  I don't doubt that our physical or emotional weaknesses may be part of the reason that some of the things we're doing is harder than it might be for the average bear.  And I also don't doubt that maybe the situation + the physical exhaustion + the constant pace of missionary life = some kind of depression or imbalance for you.  But I don't think it's a permanent condition that you will have to fix when you get home or deal with for the rest of your life.  I honestly think this is just the next hurdle HF is asking you to get over.  It's a really good attempt by a really smart and sneaky opposition to get you to think there is something wrong with you that will prevent you from doing this work now, and other, more important work in the future.  You can do this!  And I can do this!  HF is right there waiting for us to ask Him to help us carry these heavy loads.  He is probably not going to make the days all sunny and the companions all delightful and the efforts all successful, but what He can do is help you to find JOY in the middle of the rainy, crying, frustrating days and fill your life with purpose and peace.  Joy doesn't always = happiness and pleasure.  JOY = gratitude for the opportunities (all of them,) peace of conscience, and fulfillment that you know you've done what you can...and that it was enough.  

That man who died last week probably didn't even care that I practiced all morning long on that song, or that I drove a million miles that day.  He probably wasn't even at his own funeral bc he's already off doing important things in the spirit world.  The Bishop didn't even know about it bc he was out of town.  And the people who were there have probably blocked out the musical number entirely bc it was weak and uninteresting at best.  BUT...I know Heavenly Father was happier that I said yes than He would have been if I had purposely ignored the call or not shown up to sing.  Doing that hard thing certainly didn't bring me confidence or popularity, but five days later, after I've stopped crying and complaining about it, I can see that it made HF happy and I can number myself among the people who are His helpers.  And that's a JOYful feeling.  

Sorry about the super long email that probably is filled with stuff you already know.  But I just want you to know that you are not the only missionary who has ever felt depression and discouragement.  And you are not now, nor will you be at other times in your life, the only person who has ever felt sad even though everything they have should be making them happy. There is nothing wrong with you.  You don't need medication or a release from your calling or a break. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.  And the challenges you are struggling with today will help you or someone else somewhere down the road.  Put your blinders back on, pray your guts out, and then go out and do the work that will make HF happy.  Be one of His helpers.  He already loves you and everything you're doing and He needs you to keep doing it.  

And also I love you, too!

Love, Mommy

Der Welt ein Licht

Hallo from Switzerland again. Still can't believe I'm here, living right next to THE ALPS!  It's so beautiful here. 

Well, this past week was a pretty crazy one!  We got Sister Jones all ready and shipped off to Stuttgart, and then I picked up my new companion, Sister Multamäki. She's been on her mission about 6 months and she already spoke German before she came here, so it's gonna be a good transfer!  I know I say this a lot, but this week we were REALLY running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Just basically sprinting from one appointment to another, and trying not to get lost because I've only been in this area tor 3 weeks. Since we're both super new, we have been trying to get to know the members, and call less actives, and figure out our way around this area...haha. It's gonna be an adventure! 

Some highlights from this week:

Karyna isn't able to get baptized this coming Saturday because the church won't be available, and she said she doesn't feel quite ready yet so we are pushing it back a week. But we met with her a couple times during the week, and went to a volleyball game with her and her kids! We made her some soup for lunch one day, and we thought we would just put it in a big plastic bowl and cover it with tinfoil and carry it over. Well the bowl was a super awkward size, and water mixed with vegetables is actually super heavy when you have a 25 minute walk, and tinfoil definitely does not make big, awkward bowls spill-proof. So 40 minutes later we arrived at Karyna's to bear our gift of a mildly-cold bowl of soup that used to be about 1/4 more full, some really tired arms and a couple of scarves that now permanently smell like chicken bouillon. But the smile on her face made it worth it.  :)

We also found a new investigator!  We met with a lady in our Ward who suggested one of her friends to us!  We decided that the three of us would go over together and give him a Book of Mormon and invite him to church. Well we went over and ended up having like a two hour appointment with him! He is from Africa and only speaks French, so we did a lot of translating through Emi, but he was so touched by the Christmas video and the words we shared about the Book of Mormon. We gave him his own copy in French and he said, "I know with all my heart that the words you are telling me are true and that they are the words of God." Well, if that doesn't make your heart burst with joy, I don't know what does!!  He made us some yummy African food, and then I played the piano while we sang some Christmas songs!  It was so great, and we have another appointment with him this week!

On Sunday we went to an older couple's house after church for lunch, and before we left I asked if they knew anyone nearby, so we could stop by and say hi for them! They told us the name of an Italian family across the street, and gave us a giant gingerbread house to give them as a gift. We went right over, and it worked!  The family was so surprised and so happy, and they invited us in right then for "a coffee? Or Snaps? Or an Espresso? How about Tea?"  We told them that actually we had just barely eaten a lot of food, so water would be just great! Then they showed us all the family picture albums they owned, and we shared the Christmas video with them. We are planning to go back soon and give them an Italian Book of Mormon. They were so nice! And that is the first time I've been invited into someone's house when dooring!  Members: give gingerbread houses to the missionaries. It works!

Well, that's all I have for today, getting back into writing detailed emails takes forever.  But I just wanted to quickly share a story from my personal studies this week. So in our apartment, our desks for studying are pushed together and facing each other in our living room. One day my companion was eating breakfast during personal study and it was bothering me SO MUCH. I couldn't focus, and then I was just getting annoyed, and it sounded more and more like an animal the longer I sat there waiting for her to be done chewing. So I decided to stop reading in the Book of Mormon, and maybe try reading in the New Testament to see if I could concentrate better there. We have been reading the New Testament as a mission the past couple months, and I flipped open to where I had left off, Romans 14. Literally the 3rd verse I read said, "Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him." OKAY HEAVENLY FATHER I GET IT. SORRY. Gotta appreciate those little slaps in the face from Him sometimes. So then I forgot about the chewing and continued learning from the word of God.

I hope you all have a great week! Bis nächste Woche.

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell

Lighting the World

I love this initiative from mormon.org SO much!  The missionaries secretly knew about it in advance and we have some connections with them so I knew it was coming.  I printed out that calendar up there for my family and for the YW, and heavily promoted it everywhere the opportunity presented itself.  I couldn't even wait for December 1st to get here so I could start serving and LIGHTING the world!  

Day 1 came and I spent the day anxiously looking for ways I could serve and waiting for inspiration to come, but nothing did.  I didn't carry anything heavy or open any doors for any old people.  I didn't let anyone sneak in front of me in line at the grocery store.  I didn't write any letters or send any uplifting texts.  I just ran errands and had a plain, old Thursday.  :(

So at the end of #LIGHTtheWORLD Day 1, I had done nothing LIGHT-worthy enough to post anywhere or to tell my kids about and I hadn't even quietly brought any additional LIGHT to any small part of the world. 

I knew there would be a potential opportunity to do something good on Day 2, but I was dreading it.  Someone had asked me to sing How Great Thou Art for a funeral...by myself! with less than 24 hours notice!  (I tried so hard to say no, but something about a stronger will on the other end of the phone makes me cave every single time.)  Unfortunately, the song was less than stellar, and I left there thinking, "Oh, forget it!  I'm never answering another unidentifiable phone number.  I'm burying my talents from now on so I never have to sing again.  And I'm officially giving up on #lightingtheworld."  For heavens sake, I couldn't even LIGHT a dang funeral, how in the heck was I supposed to LIGHT the whole world?  (Sometimes when I get frustrated and discouraged, I have been known to do that thing where babies and bathwater all go flying out the window together.  It was like a mass purge here on Friday night!) 

It's been a few days, and I've calmed down about my disastrous musical number.  But I've also realized that this particular initiative to #LIGHTtheWORLD may not have been designed specifically to motivate me.  

I kind of already like to LIGHT stuff.  I try to make an effort every day to post something uplifting or inspiring somewhere on social media.  Almost every day I try to act on the random generous thoughts and impressions that come into my head so that someone else might feel happier.  I've been living this initiative for years.  It just hasn't had this particular hashtag attached to it, and it didn't come with a list of suggested ways to LIGHT things.  I just want to leave sunny footprints behind wherever I go.  

I love this initiative and I love what people are doing with it.  I love that my IG and FB are filled with daily scriptures and posts of the various ways people are finding to serve one another.  I would way rather see those posts than all the political rants or Elf on a Shelf escapades.  

But I am personally opting myself out of the daily suggestions on that calendar up there.  I'm better at spontaneous service and LIGHT, I think, than trying to figure out how to help someone see on Day 3 and feeding the hungry on Day 7.  

I love LIGHT.  I love service.  And I love the Savior.  Everyday.  Not just for these 25 days prior to the celebration of His birth.  So, all of you who are inspired by this, please keep LIGHTING things.  It makes my heart spill over with gratitude that people have the ability to be so kind and filled with the Spirit in such a unified way.  It is absolutely inspiring!  But the calendar is too much pressure for me.  If all of you keep covering December in LIGHT and LOVE, I will try to pick up the slack on the random days in January or August when the hashtags have all been forgotten.  

Suisse

Hallo liebe Familie und Freunde :) 

This week has been pretty crazy! Tuesday we had Zone Training in the beautiful city of Bern, and that was fun to be there! We are definitely getting prepared to work super hard during this Christmas season, and we put it to the test on Wednesday. We had a couple of great appointments, and then we hit the streets to go finding. We have been so busy since I've been in Switzerland that I haven't even really gotten to see much of the actual city of Solothurn, but holy cow! let me tell ya it's adorable!! So quaint and all Christmas-y and the people in Switzerland are just so nice! I've made so many new random friends on the streets just by saying hello. We end up talking for a long time, and I definitely feel like we are scattering our little seeds everywhere we go. 

Friday was a pretty crazy day. At 8:30am we got a phone call from President Kohler saying that Sister Jones is getting emergency transferred because of visa problems. So she's leaving on Wednesday, which was a huge shocker and doesn't give us a lot of time to finish stuff up here. We have only been together for 3 weeks! I've only been in Switzerland for 3 weeks! So it's gonna be a little crazy trying to take over this area, but my new companion is from Finland, so that's exciting! The rest of the day was crazy busy with appointments and lessons and meeting up with some potential investigators, and just running around like busy missionaries do.

Saturday we had Thanksgiving dinner with an American family! Best. Appointment. Ever.  It was the Elders' first Thanksgiving dinner (because one is from England and the other is from Denmark) and it was just super fun for all of us!  It made me less sad that I wasn't home with my family for Thanksgiving :)  

We have also been having some super awesome lessons with our  golden, perfect, amazing, investigator who has a baptismal date for Dec 10th.  So please keep her in your prayers!  We taught her the law of chastity and it was great, and then we went to a Christmas Bazar thing with her at her children's school.  

On Sunday we went to a member's house after church and it was so awesome.  We had some deep conversations about conversion to the gospel and how it really is just so personal for each one of us!  The members here in Solothurn are super awesome. It's such a great Ward!

Well, sorry I have no interesting or funny stories lately.  But just remember to keep Jesus Christ in your hearts and thoughts this Christmas season. And don't forget to go watch the Christmas #lighttheworld video on Mormon.org and share it with your friends! 

Love y'all. 

Sister Thunell

Schweiz

Hi I'm alive! 

Man, have these last few weeks been some crazy roller coasters. But all of that is finally over, and we are back to preaching the gospel like a couple of maniacs!  There is WAY too much to say, but leaving Augsburg was actually harder than I thought it would be!  Saying goodbye to Maili and Izu was the hardest, but before I left Izu did a prayer circle with us and said the most wonderful prayer ever for me :) He's so great. I haven't heard for sure, but he was planning on receiving the Aaronic priesthood yesterday at church, so I hope that all went well! :) 

I also got to hug and say goodbye to every single one of Maili's cats...she made me, hahah! and that was awesome. 

SWITZERLAND IS SO DIFFERENT. This is like a completely different mission, guys. They speak Swiss German here and it just sounds like German with an Italian accent, mixed with a few gobbling turkeys. I literally can't understand one word of it. As soon as I thought my German was good, I get put into a whole new country and a whole new language!  The currency is different here, they use Franken instead of Euro, and the people are WAY nicer. It's actually kinda freaking me out that every time we stop someone on the street to talk to them, they actually smile and listen😳 Solothurn is probably the greatest ward at missionary work that I've ever been in.  Best Ward Mission Leader, and best member missionaries!  There are definitely people here that are so ready for the gospel, and people in the Ward that are so ready to receive them with open arms!

Cool things we have done in the last week and a half: we went to Basel and then crossed the border to Germany to go grocery shopping because Switzerland is ridiculously expensive.  We went to the TEMPLE!!...first time in over a year!  It was the most wonderful and spiritual experience ever, and I got to listen to the session in German which was better than English honestly. 

We accidentally broke a Swiss law and I almost got a GIANT ticket! 

We had a baptism for a little girl that we had to speed through all the lessons with because she's 9 (so technically an investigator) and her mom just forgot to have her get baptized when she was 8.  But she was SO CUTE and so happy at her baptism :)  

We had a ton of lessons with our other investigator, who is getting baptized in a little less than a month.  She is so cool, and so prepared!  We had interviews and training from President Kohler, and those are always great.  Stake Conference with the whole Bern Stake, so many meetings I can't even remember, and lots of appointments with members! It's been so crazy busy, which is such a blessing, and I think I'm beginning to get used to things here. Today for pday we are going to the Matterhorn (the mountain not the roller coaster) so be prepared for some awesome pictures next week!

I also just want you all to know that the power of prayer is real.  And also that more people are praying for you than you realize!  I know with all my heart and soul that Heavenly Father really does hear and answer our prayers and pleadings to Him.  If you are struggling, if you are lonely, if you are sad, or even if you are grateful, happy, and everything is going great, GET ON YOUR KNEES AND PRAY.  Our Heavenly Father loves us more than we can imagine, and I am barely coming to a tiny understanding of what that really means for me.

Pray as if everything depends on the Lord, and then WORK as if everything depends on you. That's been my motto for the past week :) 

love you all!

Sister Thunell