Sister Franz takes over

Zane wasn't able to email this week, so he asked Sister Franz (one of the couple missionaries) to send me these instead. Her and her husband are in a few of the photos.  They've been such a blessing. She sends me photos and gives me updates often.  I love it all!  Enjoy!

-Aunt Jen

The elders got stuck with a day Long trip with the Göbels on Monday so no email

I’ll send you some pix at his request

 He felt very sad about not writing. Last night we went to Tobias for supper we had grilled on our 1.99 grill 🙄
and watched Coco which they have been given permission to watch because of its family history ties

At the baby shower I threw. The elders always liven up a party

 Coco party Friday night with Nowsheen and two Turks

 Enjoying time on our balcony Sunday night

 Church Sunday

 On our street Sunday morning

 Giving a spiritual thought to Bodo who is in a stroke rehab clinic. Your boy is always soooo great at that and we are amazed at the words of wisdom that come out of his mouth

 At the baby party

 Baby shower prep!

 Getting right to work after zoco in Hamburg last Tuesday

 Heading for Hamburg zoco last week. Elder O drives to give my husband a break

Spieleabend! Even though I was the 8th grade champ I can’t beat them

-Sister Franz

Short Stories

Wow, this week flew by! It was a week full of random little moments
that I consider worth writing about, so here goes it. (The paragraphs
are only loosely connected, so just read what sounds interesting)


The mysterious fire:
On Thursday night we were overnighting in Greifswald with some other
Elders. At around 2am another Elder and I awoke in fright to a super
strong smell of smoke. He ran in the kitchen to check if it was coming
from there while I looked around the room we were in. He came back and
we realized that it was coming from outside. A bit unsettled, we went
back to bed.
The next morning we woke up early to go and play basketball at a court
in the neighborhood. At the basketball court we noticed the remains of
a car in the parking lot that had been completely burned! The fire was
so hot that it had melted the parking lot and burned a lot of leaves
on a tree standing about 30 feet away from the car. We were happy to
have found the source of the mysterious fire and we hope that the poor
Swiss family can figure out a way to enjoy their vacation without the
trusty family car.


The mysterious bleeding hand (1/2):
Shortly after discovering the car, we were into an intense game of 2
on 2. I was defending elder Griffin and had a hand on his back after
he received a pass. I took my hand away as he received the pass and
was surprised the see a bloody handprint on the back of his white
shirt.
I was even more surprised to look down and see that my hand was
covered in blood... my blood!
Although the court looked like a murder scene, I had only a tiny cut
on my palm. Imagine the scene... burnt out car in the parking lot,
blood all over an outdoor basketball court, and four Mormon
missionaries. We departed speedily.


Train etiquette:
After Greifswald, we headed to Freiberg to meet some members of the
branch at the temple. On our way down to Freiberg, we had a ticket for
only slow-speed regional trains, which meant that our journey would
take 6 hours and we would be accompanied by many other cheap
travelers. We experienced quite a few great moments in our 12 hours of
train travel this weekend.
Train etiquette is something that I'm still getting used to. It's a
complicated thing, riding with 200 other people (German or otherwise)
in a moving metal tube. Sometimes you can ride your whole journey in
peace and without incident. But more often than not, you will say or
do something that will cause the entire train to turn around and stare
at you. At that point, you have no other choice but to lean back and
fake sleep in order to avoid being disintegrated in embarrassment.


The smelly couple and other fellow travelers:
Although most Germans seem aware of their own "Train etiquette," there
is a portion of the population that (intentionally or not) is
completely ignorant of it. We witnessed many such a person on our long
journey this week. The most impressively ignorant was "the smelly
couple." Now before you react poorly, let me inform you that they gave
this nickname to themselves long before I had the opportunity to smell
them.
(Random tangent: we count things 'per head,' Germans count things 'per nose')
This was a nice granola couple with impressive dreadlocks and shaggy
organic clothes. They entered our crowded train and quickly realized
that they wouldn't be able to sit together. They found two seats that
were across the aisle from each other and claimed them, the young man
sitting directly behind me. The young man sat down next to a
clean-cut, middle-aged German business man. Separated from his young
love, he panicked. He sat down sideways on his seat, sandaled feet
hanging out in the aisle (train etiquette violation #1). Because of
his sideways position, his dreadlocked hair found its way onto the lap
of the orderly german business man next to him.
The rest of the train was already staring at this point, trying their
best to disintegrate the young couple. But the travesty of train
etiquette continued. The staring crowd watched the unease of the clean
cut business man grow by the minute. He started to realize that he was
in for the long haul, caught in his window-seat dreadlock prison.
Accepting his fate, he closed his eyes to try to sleep. A german
business man will not be so easily driven from his coveted window
seat. A short time later he awoke suddenly as his dreadlocked seat
partner had fallen into his lap due to the twisty track. The business
man quickly stood and retreated to the bathroom. In his absence, the
young woman started giving the young man a foot rub across the aisle.
Enjoying his foot rub, the young man lay himself down on he seat of
the absent business man, right on top of the business man's coat.
This was the final straw, the business man came back, grabbed his coat
and literally sprinted away to find a new seat haha.
The young woman moved over to that seat and they celebrated their
victory by making out for the rest of their ride. My companion and I
were only slightly jealous and uncomfortable.



My names:
I always wondered how Germans would pronounce my name and this week I
enjoyed several different variations. My personal favorite was as I
was doing confirmations in the temple with a member of the branch. He
wasn't wearing his glasses and could hardly read anything but he would
proclaim so confidently "Bruder Opendorf!" We were all trying so hard
not to laugh but then his wife started laughing and we just couldn't
hold back. The temple recorder was appalled but we just couldn't help
it 😂
So in case you're wondering what Openshaw sounds like in german, take
your pick from this nice list from the week: Obenschaw, Opendorf,
Offenheimer, Opershow, Openshow, Obenshow, etc., etc.


Tobacco at church:
At stake conference this Sunday we got to hear a talk from Elder
Sabin, one of my favorite speakers ever. His talk was being live
translated into German and sadly some of his best points didn't come
across right through the translation.
One of my favorite parts of his talk was when he asked us, "what would
it be like if all of your sins had a smell?" He asked if we would
still come to church, if we would try our best to wash away the smell.
He then said, "I like to smell the a subtle smell of tobacco at church
because it means someone is trying. They shouldn't be ashamed to come
to church and be healed through the sacrament."
The translator translated that part of the talk to say, "we should
shame when they come to church..." 😂 luckily they corrected it on the
spot, but sometimes I wonder if that is the attitude we may have at
church.
Do we feel ashamed of ourselves or shamed by others to come to church
without being perfect? Do we judge what others are wearing or what
sins they smell like? I hope that we can follow the teaching of Jesus
and find the beams in our own eyes and not worry about motes in the
eyes of others. If sins had a smell, we would all smell bad. I'm just
grateful to know that it doesn't have to stay that way forever.


Well, that turned into quite the long email. Hopefully it's good
enough for the loyal fans, don't be afraid to write back 😂

Love you!

Elder Opendorf

Highs and lows

This week was strange.

Yesterday after church elder Nielson and I got an urgent call to come
to a member's house and give a blessing. It is this old couple that
aren't too healthy but they had both been at church that day. We
walked in and they presented us the subject of our blessing, old
Arthur, their 17 year old dog. We weren't sure of what to do, but
remembering the story of Sister Smith blessing her oxen we decided to
proceed. It was actually really touching to see how much this old lady
cares for her dog (even though she swears like a sailor at it, and
everything/everyone else).

Elder Rasband came and visited our mission which was really cool. He
talked about how much he wanted to be called to Germany as a young
missionary, I don't blame him. He also talked about how we should
never give up, praying for blessings that we want to happen. The
meeting was great, I was happy to be able to hear from him. It's
funny, the difference between hearing from and apostle in the MTC and
in the mission field. Everything just seems a lot more real here haha.

Right after that meeting we had to catch a bus to the train station,
we only had a couple minutes to make the connection. I think God must
really love me this week because we had the craziest luck and we're
able to catch our train. A bus came early, ran two red lights and was
driving like a mad man and then pulled up to the train station right
as our train did 😂 I think we were the only missionaries that made it
out of Berlin on time.

I realized how much Germany has changed me when one of our friends,
Nowsheen told me that she would skip school on Friday to meet with us.
I was shocked! Hahaha for some reason skipping school seems like such
a huge deal to me now... not that it didn't before (cough cough). But
really, Germans do their school system right.

In America, patience is a virtue. In Germany, punctuality is a virtue.

By the way, I've loved reading through the conference talks again over
the past couple weeks. You guys should do the same! You don't have to
settle with assuming that the church is true, you can know!

Love you,
Elder Openshaw



AHHHH I almost forgot! I ate some incredible borscht this week!! I'll
send a picture!

Smooth sailing ⛵️

I love Rostock!! This whole week was an adventure, here are some
featured moments!

All of the stores were closed and most everything was shut down due to
the amount of snow we got the day before. The weather has definitely
played a huge factor in the way things went this week, probably the
craziest weather changes in my life haha. Sunday and Monday were cold
as could be with tons of snow and a week later we have been enjoying
weather in the 70's.

I'm just going to tell you guys about Nowsheen, because we spent a lot
of time hanging out with her this week. Nowsheen is this awesome girl
from Pakistan that came here about a year ago. She met elder and
sister Franz on the street because they were speaking English and she
got really excited about it. She calls Elder and Sister Franz "mom and
dad" and we all have an awesome, hilarious relationship with her. The
funniest thing is that she is Muslim and a very strong believer in
Islam. (Although she constantly jokes about baptizing herself). She
calls us her little brothers and she is honestly like an older sister
to us, she always wants to go shopping with us haha.

Our relationship with Nowsheen is how the world ought to work. We
don't judge each other based off the precepts of what we hear on the
news. And regardless of her (or our) faith, we treat each other with
respect and love. I'm so happy that I've had the chance to meet so
many people from the Middle East here on my mission. They have really
broadened my perspective and changed my view of the world.

God is great, and he loves us.

Elder Openshaw


(Here are some pictures with Nowsheen and at the castle in Schwerin)

Baltic Sea boys 🌊

If you haven't been on a mission yet, go! There's really nothing
better that you can experience in your whole life. This week was
packed with powerful moments, tender mercies, disappointment, and new
friendships.

New friendship: Katharina lives across the street from the senior
missionary couple, the Franzes, here in Rostock. Because most everyone
in Germany lives in block apartments, one of the common hobbies is
watching neighbors out of your windows, they call it "east german
television."  Sister Franz is quite skilled with this hobby haha.
Somehow, she was able to develop an awesome relationship with
Katharina, the 20 year old medical student across the street.
Katharina is very german so we have been helping (the very American)
Sister Franz to use some german friendship strategies. The latest move
was to invite Katharina over for "Abendbrot (light supper)." It worked
wonders and we have had some awesome lessons with Katharina this week.

Tender mercy: We went to a meeting for a volunteer group who are
looking to help refugees integrate into the German community. They
talked about a lot of protests and other movements that they were
planning on doing. I started to get nervous that they wouldn't be
happy with our suggestions and activities that we have been planning.
But as they talked about Easter we had the perfect opportunity to
introduce the Easter concert that we've planned. Goodness always
dominates fear, I'm so grateful that that is continually proved to me
on my mission.

Disappointment: Shayan, one of the coolest people I've ever taught on
my mission, texted us that she doesn't want to have anything to do
with Mormonism this week. She told us that she wants to be Christian,
not Mormon. It honestly stung to get a text like that. I'm grateful,
however, to know personally that my church is not a church of
Mormonism. My church is a church of Christianity. I am a member of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints because it is the church
that has the restored priesthood. It is the church that can prepare
someone to truly and humbly follow Christ. Our leaders are great
examples of disciples of Christ, they are truly inspired. I am
grateful to be a part of a church that is willing to ditch tradition
and culture in order to more effectively follow Christ.