March 13, 2015
Today’s
March 13, 2015. It’s been quite a while since my last post. First of all, yes,
I’m still meeting the Sisters. Sister Anna (Anna and Elsa…see what I did there?
:D) is the new Sister Belle and she’s incredibly sweet. Don’t get me wrong! I
really miss Sister Belle. I still pray for her every night but that won’t bring
her back...
Yes, you
read right. I pray every night. That’s something I never thought I would do…
like ever! But nevertheless I do it now. And I pray for a lot of people and a
lot of things and the weirdest thing is that these prayers really seem to help.
Back to
Sister Anna… like I said. She’s so sweet! She’s the incarnation of sweet! I
know her for how long? Not even two months I think, but still, she’s already so
important to me. She’s great. Seriously an awesome human being!!
And then
there is Sister Elsa… Sister Elsa is incredible. She just needs to look at you
with her big, blue eyes and every trace of doubt is gone. How does she do it? I
have no idea, it’s insane, but she succeeds in taking away my doubts again and
again.
Sister Elsa
and Sister Anna are a dream team. They are perfect in what they are doing.
(That’s why I choose to name them Anna and Elsa b/c let's be honest, everyone loves them, especially
together as a sisterly team). These missionaries mean so much to me. I really
love them. My problem is just that maybe they
are a little too perfect; a little too important to me. I’m like 100% sure,
if it wasn’t for them – if exactly these two people wouldn’t exist – I would
already have broken off contact weeks ago, like I had planned.
However,
they do exist. And I’m so incredibly thankful that I had the great pleasure to
meet them. Also, I’m quite certain that it’s not a coincidence that - of all
people - I met these two girls. Okay, so I didn’t write anything in quite a
while… there’s a lot to catch up on.
In my last
post I wrote about goodbyes and husbands. So firstly, I talked with the Sisters about the
husband-thing and they assured me that it was a
misunderstanding. Husband and wife are absolutely equal. I trust them… I hope
they didn’t lie.
About the
goodbyes… well, I think differently about it now. After all those weeks with
the Sisters, I’m sure - or at least I hope - that our goodbyes won’t be
forever. Yes, as long as they are on their mission somewhere in Germany and
don’t have access to social media or anything, we can’t have contact. I won’t
see them, I won’t hear anything from them; they will be gone … as if it had
just been a dream I suddenly had to wake up from.
Oh yes,
that’s going to be hard. Like I told you, I’m not a person for goodbyes. If I
could make a wish right here and right now, it would be that both of them could
stay forever. But I know that this is an incredibly selfish wish. They’re
probably looking forward to seeing other German cities. In addition, there are
so many more people out there who deserve to meet these two Sisters – world’s
best missionaries! They are fantastic and they can achieve so much. And also, I’m
pretty sure that they can’t wait for the day when they will finally be home
again, united with their families and friends.
Of course,
they never complained or mentioned anything about feeling homesick… but these
Mormons are quite the family people. I’m sure they miss their families madly. I
will be so happy for them when they finally get back home! They deserve to be
happy. They really do. And I know that they can’t be happy in Arendelle, which is
so far away from their families.
Anyway, in
such an era of globalization it shouldn’t be a problem to stay in touch, not
even if there’s a distance of more than thousands of miles between us. If they
don’t just pretend to be nice and stuff (which is my mother’s theory) we will
stay in touch.
Good, so
what happened since my last post? Hm, very much. Incredibly much! Like I said,
I met the Sisters a few more times. I didn’t really have a choice because my
stupid heart always told me to meet them. It just feels so right to talk to
them, you know?
They taught
me a lot about the gospel, we discussed, I doubted, they tried to convince me,
they succeeded, I doubted even more… A lot of times I had the desire to just give
up and go back to ‘normal’. Praying daily, reading in the Book of Mormon daily…
oh dang it! Who am I trying to fool? For quite a while I didn’t do that!
I had exam
period. It was a shock! You already know that I miss school like crazy and I
don’t really like University, and those exams were just horrible! It’s my
first semester in University so I had no idea what they would be like. I
thought graduating High School was difficult but compared to University-finals high
school was nothing! I had all my finals within 2 weeks and for each one I had to learn more than for all of my (High) school
leaving exams together! No kidding!
You can
probably imagine that I was pretty busy and religion was the least thing I
cared about. I was convinced that the only thing that could help me through
finals was studying, studying, studying. (Ever noticed that there is the word
‘dying’ inside of ‘studying’? ;D). No God, no prayer, no book would help me
(except for my textbooks of course). So during exam period I didn’t go to
church, I didn’t read the Book of Mormon, I didn’t pray… I went back to
‘normal’.
But after
my finals were over, after my head was no longer filled with irrelevant year
dates and all kinds of Middle High German grammatical phenomena etc. I noticed
that something was missing.
In
addition, I always had the weird feeling of being watched. I was all innocently
drinking my black tea with milk in the morning and bam! – I felt guilty. I went to bed without praying – I felt guilty.
On Sundays I didn’t dare to walk my dogs in a Park near to the church because I
was scared to meet a Mormon and that I would have to explain myself.
The funny
thing is that one Sunday after I didn't go
to church I dared to go to the Park with my grandma and we really met Mormons. Two Elders. It was bad! I think I never had
such a guilty conscience before in my whole life. My first instinct was to
change directions but the dogs wanted to go the other way. I was hoping that
they wouldn’t recognize us and told my grandma that she should just pass by
inconspicuously. I turned around to see what my dog was doing and when I turned
back to my grandma she was directly walking towards the Elders and started to
talk to them.
I was dying
a thousand deaths and the Elders didn’t even do anything bad. They were just
smiling (what a surprise) and asking how we were doing. All good. But my stupid
bad conscious didn’t want to go away.
So what did
I do? I started to pray again at night before going to bed. What happened? I
could fall asleep more quickly and more easily, and without feeling guilty. I
was feeling more at ease and … calmer? I don’t know how to describe it, but the
difference was clearly recognizable.
I started
to meet the Sisters again and more regularly. I was honest with them, though,
and told them that I didn’t know if and what I believed. I told them that I
wanted to believe in something, but not just in anything but rather in the right
and true thing!
My grandma
had to join me for a few meetings. She knows a lot about the Bible so I wanted
to have her with me to feel ‘safer’. The Sisters could have told me anything
and stupid-me would have believed it… my grandma made me feel more comfortable.
To my
surprise, most of the time my grandma was pretty enthused by everything the
Sisters said. After our meetings we would keep talking about it. Yeah, we also
made fun of many things but then I had such a bad feeling again and I seriously
felt watched! I know, it sounds paranoid. Maybe I have already gone mad… well,
not maybe. I’m entirely bonkers. But all the best people are, right? ;)
However,
one day my grandma asked me to meet the Mad Hatter again. She said she had met
the Sisters a few times, so it was my turn now to return the favor and meet the
Mad Hatter again. I decided that it would do no harm to see him again. After
all, I was looking for the right religion and I needed to give him another
chance.
The Mad
Hatter was pleased to see me. My grandma had told him about my meetings with
the Mormons and he was convinced that he could talk me out of it. He tried to
convince me that Mormonism was pure moronism. (Why the heck do these words
sound so similar!? :O). The thing is just that the more he talked, the more I
felt convinced of the contrary. What he said didn’t make me doubt the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more,
but rather less.
He did his
best to find bible verses that proofed how wrong the Latter-day Saints were. He
had no chance though…with his Bible verses he only proofed to me that everything
the Sisters said was indeed true…at least according to the Bible. Still, a
large part of my consciousness told me that the church wasn’t true and that I
only liked it because I liked the Sisters so much. At least that’s what my
mother told me all the time.
After the
Mad Hatter was done trying to convince me of the ‘falsity’ of the Mormon
Church, he briefly explained what he believed in. It was logical. It totally
made sense to me! And he could proof everything with the Bible.
And then
there still were Jehovah’s Witnesses. I know so much about that religious
community because of my family, and even though I absolutely don’t like them I
had to admit that their theories made sense to me too!
The more I
learned about religion, the less I believed. It was just too much; too many
theories, too many logical possibilities. Oh yes, and let’s not forget the
theory of evolution! I believed in it for years!
I really felt
awful. It would have been so nice to believe that life has a meaning; that
we’re all here for a reason… That there is a God in heaven who has a plan for
us, that life isn’t over after death, that we can be together with the people
and animals (!) we love f o r e v e r. It was too confusing though. It seemed
impossible to find out the truth.
I went back
to ‘normal’ once again. I stopped believing in God completely. There was no
praying, no reading the scriptures, … I even texted the Sisters and told them
that I didn’t want to meet them again. Of course I didn’t put it that way… I
tried to put it politely. It wasn’t the Sisters’ fault that I couldn’t believe!
Oh man, how bad I felt!
Minutes
later I got a phone call. Can you guess who it was? Exactly, the Sisters. I had
already perfected my don’t-pick-up-the-phone-skills so I ignored the call. What
could they possibly say? I was confused, didn’t know what to believe, my
parents were more than happy to hear that I “broke up” with the Sisters. I
thought that I was doing the right thing…my heart was bleeding though.
Sister Elsa
and Anna aren’t stupid. And they don’t give up. Sister Elsa left a message on
my mailbox. Ok, what was I supposed to do now? What should I do? I should just
delete the message and try to forget everything. What did I want to do? I
wanted to listen to the message. Just listen, I wouldn’t automatically have to
call them back or something.
I decided
to listen to it… and it was a mistake. At that moment I had lost. It was the
sweetest message ever! I couldn’t
just ignore it! That would have been cruel. I couldn’t really deal with my
emotions at that moment so I went to my mother and let her listen to the
message too. She said that it was just bootlicking and lies. The Sisters knew
how to ‘catch’ people. They were trained and knew what to say to people in
certain situations. It was painful to hear it…but somewhere inside of me I knew
that my mother was probably right. I was sure that they were sort of
‘trained’ and I knew that they liked to exaggerate a little. But, excuse me, I’m only
human! If someone’s super nice and stuff, no matter if it’s real or fake, then
I will be super nice too! At least until I know for sure that it’s only faked.
I texted
them and we met on the same day. My mother was a little shocked about it but I
just couldn’t resist… I wanted to meet Sister Elsa and Sister Anna so bad! I
wanted to talk about everything…and maybe end things in a more decent way than
sending a text. They understood me, as always. I told them that I didn’t know what
to believe. I made it clear that I didn’t want to be baptized in the near
future. They promised me that I would find out the truth if I prayed and read
the scriptures, just like Joseph Smith did.
I’m a good
girl so that’s what I did. I didn’t find out anything though. I didn’t feel
anything while praying. What I couldn’t deny, though, is that I was feeling way
better after I met them. I wore a smile the rest of the day without even
noticing it. And something else I can’t explain is that I left the room that
day … after we had agreed on a new date of baptism. April 18… I mean, hello? I
went in there to talk to them because I wanted to end things, but no, I leave
with a date of baptism in mind. How’s that even possible? These Sisters are
incredible.
I don’t
know if it was the next meeting but one day we watched a little movie about
Joseph Smith. It showed how he got his answer and restored the gospel. The
movie was well made and incredibly sweet. After we watched it the Sisters
wanted to know how I felt about it. I turned into stone; I said I didn’t feel
anything in particular. You could clearly see the disappointment in their
faces. I mentally slapped myself. Why couldn’t I just be honest? The truth was
that the movie really touched me. I’m sure it’s blasphemous to say but I could
identify with Joseph Smith a little bit. At least I know how he must have felt
back then when he was 14 years old and wanted to know which religion was the
right one.
But then came Sunday… one of the worst days of my life!
