Dear Family,
I sat down at the computer last night to write this letter but couldn’t get my mind to work well enough to think of what to write. Wednesday was Zone Conference and those days just wear us clear out. We leave here at 7:30 AM and get back home between 6:30 and 7 PM. I don’t know how just sitting for that long can make you so tired, but it does. It was out last zone conference. The missionaries who have just arrived and those who will be going home in the next five weeks are asked to speak briefly. That was an emotional time. I had no idea it would be so hard thinking about leaving. We love our association with the other missionaries and with President and Sister Rakow and will miss these conferences. They are always well planned and full of good information that gives us all a spiritual boost. The theme for this conference was how the Book of Mormon is a second witness for Christ. President Rakow gave a wonderful talk at the close of the conference having us read several scriptures that emphasized the theme. He has such a command of the scriptures and a wonderful way of saying things that make them very much alive and a part of our lives. We will always be grateful for the privilege of having him for our mission president. He was a bishop at a very young age, has been a stake president and an area seventy and is a successful business man on top of all that. He will finish his time as mission president the end of June and he and Sister Rakow already have their plane tickets for their first Munich Germany/Austria mission reunion in October. We are looking forward to that. Some of the couples we have known will be home by then and it will be good to see the young elders and sisters we have worked with. We’ve met so many wonderful people---- members, non-member, inactive members and missionaries. How grateful we are for our association with them.
Sunday and Monday were awesome days. Sunday we had four less-active members we have worked with to church. The Elders had a new investigator there too. Then Monday evening, the elders had another investigator to Family Home Evening. I think we get as excited about the people the Elders work with as we do about the ones we work with. They are all children of our Heavenly Father and it’s a wonderful experience seeing what the gospel does for them. The young woman who came to FHE is from China------that big city that starts with a B that I don’t know how to spell. She is finishing her research and getting ready to write her paper for her degree in International Business (I think). Anyway, she is really a sharp young woman. She speaks very good English and German besides her native language. She had her Chinese Book of Mormon with her. It was fascinating to look at all those words that didn’t contain the usual alphabet letters that we are used to seeing. Our lesson ended up being a missionary lesson instead of a conference talk but that was good. She explained some of their religious traditions. Reincarnation is very much a part of their culture. It is so strange to hear people talk about being some kind of animal before they were born and then their spirit going back into that animal when they die. Where do people come up with such ideas? It’s “Tradition”. But she admitted that she likes the idea of being a spirit child of our Heavenly Father before we were born and wants to talk about that some more. She had never heard the song, “I Am a Child of God”. We sang it for our closing song and she was really touched by the words. After stuffing ourselves on zucchini brownies, we played a few rounds of Scum. She had never played it but ended up winning two of the three games. She lives fairly close to us so we gave her a ride home and she said she would see us in church on Sunday. If she is really converted to the gospel, she would be a great help to the missionaries. She has a dynamic personality.
When we received the news about President Hinckley, I was shocked for awhile and then had such a peaceful feeling knowing that he was with his sweet wife again. I guess we, like most people, thought he would be around forever. What a blessing that he was able to work right up to the very end. He would have been so miserable if he couldn’t work! And what a wonderful reunion with his wife, parents and many close associates. His mother died when he was very young. What a privilege for him to be with her again too. It reminded me so much of the day Grandpa Risenmay (my father) passed away. As you all know, he had been married before he married Grandma Risenmay. His wife died during childbirth. They had also lost four babies in infancy to what could have been prevented in this day and age. He and your Grandma Risenmay also lost a baby. I remember so well the morning he passed away. He had had a massive stroke and never regained consciousness and was in the hospital which at that time was right next to the temple. After he passed away, Grandma and I were walking over to her house. Neither one of us has hardly said a word. Our hearts were full. Then Grandma said, “Can you just imagine the wonderful reunion that is going on in heaven right now.” There was not a trace of feeling sorry for herself because Grandpa had died, but a genuine happiness for him to be with his first wife and those children they had lost. Grandpa’s father had died when he was young and he had missed him so much all his life. That too would be part of that wonderful reunion. How thankful we should all be for this knowledge and the peace it can bring to our lives knowing that we can be together again.
Our good friends, Elder and Sister Meng, who are from Rigby and have been in our district since they got here in July, have been transferred. They got transferred clear out of our mission!! They will be in Frankfurt and will be in charge of the finances for the CES program in the Central Europe area. They have been in training all this week. They called last night and are feeling quite overwhelmed with their new assignment but are excited at the same time. They will be traveling to a lot of countries. Besides taking care of all the finances, they have been trained to know how an Outreach Center is supposed to be set up and function and will be helping to do that. They both love to travel. Elder Meng was so hoping he could spend some time in Stuttgart while he was here and was really disappointed when Stuttgart was taken out of our mission and put in the Swiss mission. He spent most of his time on his first mission in that area. Now he will be able to spend time in Stuttgart------and Poland, and Romania, and Austria and lots of other places. I have to admit that I envy them a little bit. They are serving a 23 month mission and still have nearly 18 months left so they have many wonderful experiences ahead of them. We will miss them. They leave Monday morning and by that afternoon a new couple from Orem will be there to take their place. Last week we got a new Elder here in Wurzburg and he found out at Zone Conference that this couple that is coming is from his home ward in Orem. Small world, isn’t it?
We found out that the couple that will replace us is from Casell, Germany which is about a three hour drive from here. They will arrive in Wurzburg on the 29th. They will stay in a hotel until we leave the morning of the 5th of March then will move into this apartment. We are to show them around and have them meet the people we are working with and where the church is and where the grocery stores are, etc. etc. etc. It will be good to have some native Germans here as by the end of June, there will be no more Americans in this ward. Our bishop right now is from Casell. We don’t know the couples name but wouldn’t that be great if Bishop Seeger knew them? They will be such a help to this ward. There is one thing that is consistent and that is change, especially when you are a missionary.
We were happy to hear from our Relief Society President that she and Bishop Seeger’s wife had a nice visit with Petra. They called and asked if they could come by and she gave them permission to------a first since September. She just doesn’t feel like she can afford to pay tithing and feels embarrassed to have Dad and I see her because she doesn’t feel like she is doing what she promised us she would do so that’s why she asked us to not come any more and why she quit coming to church. She told these sisters that she really misses going to church and misses the people there. They encouraged her to come anyway and it sounds like she may do that----after we leave. They asked her if they could come again and she told them she would be looking forward to their visit. Monday will be one year since she was baptized. We’re going to take her some flowers as a remembrance of that special day. If she won’t invite us in, we’ll leave them at the door. I hope she will come around again. She is such an awesome person.
We will be watching President Hinckley’s funeral at the church Saturday evening at 7 o’clock. We could watch it on the internet but it’s so nice to watch it on a big screen. We’re picking up Brother and Sister Meyer. Brother Meyer hurt his arm and can’t drive for awhile so we’ll take them with us. What a privilege it has been to have President Hinckley lead the church for all these years. Isn’t it amazing to read about things that have happened under his leadership? What a wonderful man.
It’s fun thinking that 5 weeks from today we’ll be waking up in Utah. Wow!! I don’t know where January went! Time is flying and we have a lot of people we still want to see. We also have lots of sorting out and discarding so we can get everything in our suitcases. We’ll be sending some things home by mail so when the boxes come, just put them in our room downstairs. We keep hearing about the wild weather you’re still having in Idaho and Utah. This will be a winter you won’t soon forget. I hope there’s lots of water in all that snow. We pray every day for your safety with all the snow. Know that we pray for all of you every day and we love you very much.
Much love,
Mom
