The Background

So I find myself sitting in my room in Tuebingen on the Saturday before I leave Germany this time around, listening to Third Eye Blind's song The Background. It's pretty amazing how this band really has been "there" for me for the last 10 years or so... through middle school, through high school, through college... I always turn back to their first album when I'm reflecting, or feeling deeply or just need to tune out for a little while. Yeah, back to the basics in certain ways.

(That being said, I also just discovered their new-ish songs Red Star and Why Can't You Be from 2008 check it out on their website, it's pretty amazing)
http://www.3eb.com/discography

It's kind of insane how much has happened since my last post, which is probably why I haven't written. I think I always have a harder time writing when big things are going on because I don't know what/how much to write about what is going on. I'm not necessarily the type of person who like to broadcast their life to the world, despite what having kept a blog for over 4.5 years may seem to say about me. Or maybe I have just changed over the last couple years so that now I really am more cautious about what I say. Either way, I am at the point today where I feel that I have a clear enough vision of the future that I can write about what has been going on over the last couple months. For one thing, I am in Tuebingen and no longer in Vienna. It was an amazing program and I had a blast doing it, but by the end I was ready to move on. It's been tough to know that in a certain way I am just filling time until I am technically graduated (at least academically speaking) so it's hard for me to always be excited to sit in class for a couple hours when really, in the end, I am essentially already done. However, I cannot say that I haven't/am not still learning a ton. I have. I am. I am just not always as patient or as motivated in my school work as I should be. On a good note though, grades are in and I should be graduated! Even though I walked in April, I am only now to the point where it feels final... which is just about the best feeling ever. I definitely had gotten to the point where it felt like I would never finish and now, look where I am! Done!!! Until I start my master's program in 2 years, that is.

Really though, this stuff is secondary to the real reason I haven't written since June. The real reason is that I started dating my friend Lloyd that I mentioned in my last post. Yeah, my first real boyfriend after I had already received my mission call. Very smart, I know. But I know that we both believe it was worth it, even if circumstances weren't exactly ideal, all considered. Just a little background, Lloyd is English and a convert to the church, and served his mission in Holland, and none of these things define him as a person. He lived in Vienna from 2005 - 2008 and then moved back to England for a year before deciding to move back to Vienna because he likes it there better. He knew Sarah and Chelsea when there were on their study abroad back in Fall 2005, the one I didn't get accepted to. Insane, huh? (Turns out he also went to a wedding reception in my ward building in Maryland in 2003, when I was going to that ward... what are the odds?) Anyway, he came back to Vienna and we met and clicked as friends and then somehow, about 2.5 weeks later started dating, I would say accidentally. Neither one of us was looking for anything at the time, we just really enjoyed spending time together. And so we did, despite the fact that I had school and trips and he was gone for work a lot of the time. But thanks to modern technology we overcame the distance barriers and got super close even over such a short amount of time. However, the fact that I had my mission call was always there. So, despite what both of us may have wished for at times, in the end we both realized that it's right for me to go on my mission. He came to visit me here in Tuebingen and we had fun, swimming in the Neckar, visiting my friends near Ulm, and having this time to spend with each other, but at the end of the day we realized that our friendship is the most important aspect of our relationship right now, considering the answer I've gotten, and that's how we've left things. As friends. He's back in Vienna and it may sound unbelievable or amazing but our friendship is stronger than ever. I am so impressed with the care and support he's shown throughout everything and I am extremely grateful for it. Our relationship has taught me and is still teaching me so many things, one of which is developing that true, Christ-like love for other people and following the promptings of the Spirit. Were we both perfect? No. But we didn't give up when we struggled and I am happy to say that we are both stronger for it.




I know I am supposed to be going on a mission. I look forward to continuing to prepare myself to go to the temple next week, and to serve the Lord and the people of the Berlin mission. I just pray that I will have the faith to do everything I need to do. My testimony of the strength that daily scripture study brings has grown so much this summer. Also, I know that we are the literal children of a Heavenly Father who loves us. He wants us to experience the full joy and love that the Gospel has to offer. It is called the Plan of Happiness for a reason and we cannot blame anyone but ourselves for our unhappiness if we are not following the commandments. There is so much power in the knowledge that we have, we just cannot give up. We need to learn how to use that power and fully accept the gift of the Atonement. None of us are perfect but He can make us perfect, if we submit fully to His will. I have such a strong testimony of the truth of this Gospel, the truth of the Book of Mormon and the fact that Christ lives. I am thankful for repentance and the fact that despite the mistakes I frequently make, I will be forgiven of them if I humble myself and forsake my sins. I am thankful for the support of my family and friends and hope that you will all look for opportunities to speak up about the Gospel no matter where you are. I have definitely become less shy about sharing what I believe this summer, and it is much easier than you may think... just see for yourselves.

I enter the MTC on Saturday, Sept. 5 and hope to see some of you before I go in, though I will only really have a day or so in Provo beforehand and I know that most people will be busy with other things. But, if any of you feel like writing at some point over the next 18 months, here are my addresses:

(MTC - I don't know how long I will be here for yet, but I'm guessing about 2.5-3 weeks due to my previous language experience)

Sister Lillian Geurts
Germany Berlin Mission
Provo Missionary Training Center
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604

(Berlin Mission Office)

Sister Lillian Geurts
Germany Berlin Mission
Zerbster Strasse 42
12209 Berlin Germany

Also, if you just want to see how I'm doing and don't necessarily have time to write, I am going to ask my little sister to keep my blog updated with my weekly e-mails home. So yeah, if you check back every now and again you should be able to see what's been going on over in the Berlin Mission. Love you guys! Thanks for all the love and support you've given me over the past couple years. You are the best :)

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...

So even though I probably won't make it to Salzburg this time around, I've been feeling like I live in a movie lately. I mean, seriously, how can you live in Vienna and not feel that way? This is the most amazing city. A week and a half ago we went to a monastery at Melk... we had already paid for it through program fees, so we opted to do Budapest another weekend... and then took a bike tour through vineyards and along the Donau. It was pouring rain and freezing cold, but our little group (me, Jeff, Tasha and Emily) completed the whole 36km despite cases of near-hypothermia, haha. People's lips were blue and there was some uncontrollable shivering all around. As a matter of fact, only 10 of the original 18 or 20 made it all the way. Then last week we saw some pretty awesome buildings like the Rathaus and Parliament and hung out in Schoenbrunn. After our group meeting on Thursday a few of us got dolled up and went there for a little photo shoot. Though it is definitely not what I would have chosen to do on my own, we ended up having a good time and the pictures turned out pretty awesome. Not gonna lie. I even went so far as to upload a couple of them, which is saying something. If you want to see any other recent pictures, of which there are a ton, check out my facebook profile. Seriously, there are some pretty sweet ones. Like the one where I'm blowing out Martin Luther's burning Bible that I posted at the top of this. Yeah, the Catholics definitely believed he was being thrust down to hell, along with his translation. Interesting stuff, yeah? Talk about charity. No wonder so many people here are disillusioned with church.

We have found out favorite little pizza place around here, which is pretty awesome. It is called Pizzeria Mafiosi and the pizza/pasta is delicious and cheap. For example, an entire spinach pizza (of which I can usually only eat about half) is only 3,60 Euro. An entire plate of gnocchi with spinach and a cream sauce is the same (do you think I like spinach? I miss eating veggies all the time). And it's good food! I love it. We ate that during the Schoenbrunn concert and even enjoyed the music at the end, though we couldn't hear it too well. They played Night on Bald Mountain, which made me super happy and reminded me of how bad that piece scared me on Fantasia, as well as some other pieces with fireworks during the finale. It was way fun and very free, which made it even better. That, and the fact that the weather stayed nice for us despite the threatening rainclouds.

Friday I couldn't go anywhere until Tasha brought me back my monthly pass from Jeff. He had accidentally walked off with it the night before after hanging onto it for me while we picked up the pizzas. Really, I should have gotten it earlier but I forgot. Then in the afternoon Margaret and I went on splits with the sister missionaries, which was fantastic! I cannot tell you how amazing it was to feel the Spirit so strongly and see how the Lord is able to work through His missionaries, even if we're just regular people. He opens doors for them that would otherwise be sealed tight, let me tell you. It is a little scary and definitely hard work, but I can already tell it is going to be worth it. It's just hard sometimes to keep up that level of enthusiasm all the time, when there are other things distracting me here. I'm working on it though. And I am trying to prepare myself, though I could always do better. Friday night we had dinner with our host mom, Frau Alfons, who is totally awesome. She made us palatschinken and told us funny stories about her horses and dog. I love it. She is almost 71 and still incredibly active and lively and I find it so impressive. Did I mention that she used to be a ballerina and travelled the world? Yeah, way rad. After that we went to a missionary farewell party in our ward and then went to Lange Nacht der Kirchen with some friends. It turned out to be pretty cool, even if we did get there a little late. Then most people went home and four of us (me, Tash, Lloyd and Charles) stayed out and went dancing. It was fun but I don't anticipate having such a long night again, I was totally drained the next day.

Saturday afternoon we had standing room tickets in the Musikverein, which is ranked as one of the top 3 concert halls in the world, or something like that. It was AMAZING. Standing room definitely isn't my favorite, but listening to the Viennese Philarmonic Orchestra live in such a setting was absolutely priceless. They played Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik as well as a French romantic piece with some Spanish influence, an American piece, and Mendelssohn. The conductor was absolutely fantastic, conducting and playing the piano at the same time. Sometimes he'd conduct with both arms, sometimes with one while playing with one hand, sometimes he'd play with two hands... awe-inspiring, let me tell you. Afterward we ate at the Italian place and then went over to Charles and Phil's house where we tried to watch Barfuss. Sadly the streaming didn't work, but we had a good time anyway. It's such a quirky film. Anyway, we got home late again and then I went with Tasha to church because my friend Jonathan Hiemer (from Germany) was visiting his girlfriend there and I thought it would be cool to see him. Then I went home and fell asleep for a couple hours. Sooooo nice. I was really dragging by that point and could tell I was feeling pretty grumpy. I also talked to my parents in the evening, which was very good. I miss my family a lot, despite all the fun things we've been doing here. It's not possible to everything all the time, I guess.

This coming week we are heading on a temple trip to Frankfurt, which should be pretty awesome. We are going with the JAEs and I am looking forward to going back there. I have so many good memories of there from 2 years ago. We leave Wednesday night and get back Saturday night, so it's a pretty good chunk, even if about 24 hrs of it will be spent on a bus. I don't mind though because the temple is always worth visiting. Well, catch you all on the flip side. I need to be at least a little productive today.

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String

Vienna, which is not in Germany, but could be Berlin

I have now officially lived in Vienna for a week and six days! Exciting stuff, huh? Seriously though, this is one of the THE MOST amazing cities in the ENTIRE world. Whoa, that's a lot of caps, huh? But it is sooooo true! It is a metropolis, to the fullest extent of the word. I really cannot do justice in describing it, but let me just say, it's fabulous. The population is so incredibly ethnically diverse, it's wonderful. Like one of the JAEs (young single adults) said last night, "There is no real Austrian"... Austria is just one huge melting pot. We were mistaken when we said that America is that way, because compared to Vienna, we are really just a lot of white bread with the occasional chocolate or caramel chip. Which is tasty too, but not as varied. Yeah, so that about sums up my experience so far. And the fact that my favorite activity so far has been trekking around the city in the hot summer sun, or sitting for hours in a church or outside a building and sketching for a couple hours. I have really been liking some of my stuff so far and hopefully it will just get better.

Like when we go to Budapest this weekend. That's right, you heard me, Hungary. How did I ever deserve to get so lucky? Actually, be so blessed is probably a better word.

Over the weekend we were in Graz with the JAEs at a Tagung. That's basically like a mini youth conference but for young adults and they have them all the time throughout Europe. I love it. There's usually a dance, where people actually know how to dance, like really dance... cha-cha, disco fox, swing (boogie as they call it here), etc. It's great fun, especially since I learned the basics when living in Germay so I can hold my own. And this time our theme for Saturday was sports, so we spent all day playing tons of sports in the baking hot sun and getting totally tired and sore. That is my idea of wonderful, let me tell you. The one disappointing thing is that my enthusiasm for ultimate didn't catch on except in them wanting to toss it around. We never got a game started despite my pleading. Oh well, I hope it will be better on my mission.

Speaking of which, I got my mission call Friday!!! It was the most unique experience to have my parents opening it over the phone while I was surrounding by a bunch of German speakers, and get called to the BERLIN, GERMANY mission! Hoorah! I love my life. Totally the best place I could possibly called. I'm sure wherever it would have been, I would have been this excited, but seriously. I already know the language fluently, that's a really cool area of Germany, I've never lived in east Germany before but it's really close to where I was visiting my friends before Vienna (in fact, Rostock is one of the cities I visited and is in my mission), and my dad served in Berlin (west) for 6 months, and my great-grandpa served in the same mission, and ever since I was a little kid, I always thought I would serve a mission in Germany. Funny, huh? Coincidence? Has my irrational love for all things German (and Austrian and Swiss) led me to be called there or do I have an irrational love for all things German because I was meant to be called there? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Either way, I am super happy. I report Sept. 2nd, which is 3 days after I put my availability and 3 days after I was supposed to fly back to the US. Yeah, that is not going to work. So instead of going to Tuebingen I'm in the process of trying to drop out without owing DAAD, my scholarship people, anything. Hopefully it will all go smoothly. I'll still get the credit I need to graduate because my professor is being amazing and is working with me, and I will have a few weeks to be with my fam in Maryland before coming out to Utah for a week or so. I think it'll be important to have that time to prepare... especially to go to the temple. I don't want the day I take my endowments out to be rushed, I want it to be special. Anyway, that is where I'm at in my life right now. If you want to see any pictures of Vienna so far, feel free to check out my Facebook profile, I'm too lazy to put them on here and most of the pictures have been taken by other people, so I don't even have them. And don't worry, there is an abundance.

Enjoying the weather in Waren

Schwerin

Warnemünde with Sabine

Überhaupt

That is a great word, and I am having a great time! There's been plenty of sight-seeing, relaxing, enjoying good food (and chocolate) and my very most favorite thing ever... vanilla soft-serve Danish ice cream with licorice sprinkles. Makes me curl up my toes with pleasure just thinking about it. Going to Warnemünde to get it yesterday will have to last me for another two years, I guess. Wolfgang and Sabine have been great. They really do spoil me. And after a brief little break-down on Sunday my culture shock has really been fine. Telephones are great things, especially when they connect one to one's family. So I turned my mission papers in two weeks ago today, and the stake president turned them in two weeks ago tomorrow. Make sense? Well, the moral of that story is that I'm dying to get my call! The funny thing is, even if it comes on Thursday this week like it normally would, my family can't open it! That's like the only time I will be completely unavailable to talk on the telephone. For one thing I will be taking a very long train to Vienna, for another thing I won't have a cell phone yet, something that I will eventually get. Uh oh! But really, I'm guessing it will come next week anyway. My brother's, on the other hand, will probably arrive tomorrow I'm guessing. He is in Salt Lake, right up the street from the church office building, so I can't imagine the mail would take much more than a day. In fact, maybe he should just call them and go pick his call up in person... haha. If anyone feels like making a guess where I'm going state-side or foreign, they are welcome to. I didn't do the whole facebook group thing because I felt a little exposed somehow, but I have been taking guesses privately otherwise. And really, if you read my blog you deserve special treatment anyway :) haha.

Well, when I have my pictures all uploaded I'm sure I will post them eventually. Until then, hope you are all having wonderful summers! I know I am...

Warten, und noch mehr warten

So I'm sitting in Vienna, bored out of my mind. Almost long lay-overs are the crappiest, especially if you don't really know the city, because you can't go out and do anything but you're totally uncomfortable and bored while waiting for you flight. Luckily this time around I wound up with free internet. Unbelievable! So I'm blogging at 2:54am Utah time, 4:54am Maryland time and 10:54am Germany/Austria time. I don't even really know which schedule I'm on right now, though I'm assuming I'd adjusted to the east coast already. Believe it or not, I don't ever have problems with jet lag flying east, just flying back west. Then I wake up in the mornings and can't sleep past a certain time, which totally sucks. Anyway, good thing I'm flying east this time around, right? And I should be so tired by the time that I get to my friends' house that I should be ready to go to bed early anyway. This won't be the longest time traveling I've ever done, not even close, but it is still a bit of a pain because there's a train involved before I get to my destination. I'm used to flying in and getting picked up, not having to make my way to the Hauptbahnhof and then finding my way to another city to get picked up. Good thing I know this language, right?

So there are these four guys on my flight to Berlin that are from somewhere I really can't figure out. They're funny and nice though, especially this one... who's also the best-looking. Warms the heart after such a miserable flight on which I did not sleep much at all. Haha. Right now I think I'm getting a little delirious, just looking for reasons to be happy and keep my mind off the fact that I'm about to live in another country (countries) for close to four months. Sometimes distraction is my very best means of coping with stress... in fact, I'd say it's almost always my coping mechanism. Funny, huh?

And can I just say, I hate American security checks. Sure they're supposed to keep us safe and all, but I just about had a fit this time around. Normally I get through just fine, but this time I decided to bring a couple (3) soy yogurts with me. My mom and I made a special trip to the store on our way to take me to the airport just for them, in fact. Then, when I was going through security they looked through my bag and made me take them out. I couldn't believe it. Sealed yogurt, for goodness sake! Don't they understand that I can't always eat the food that's served because it's got dairy! So dumb. I mean really. And since when does yogurt count as a liquid, anyway? It's not totally solid, sure, but it's not like it's water. At least the guard gave me the option of eating them before I came in, so I got escorted back out the doors, and as I had an hour and a half before my flight left, I was able to eat some of the yogurt, though not all three. More like one whole and a half of each of the others. Totally retarded. Whatever. I'm over it. But I've learned my lesson, that's for darn sure. The next weapon of mass destruction I'll be watching out for is the yogurt bomb. Fit to kill.

Graduation

I took my last final at BYU yesterday. Wow it feels good to be done... Granted, I will be taking classes in Austria and Germany this summer, but for some reason I just don't think it will be the same :P And I'm walking. Can you believe it? I can't. The decision to graduate in August and walk in April came mid semester my senior year. I'm guessing that's not too typical, most people have it all planned out, right? Haha. This weekend/week has been insane. I haven't been so sleep-deprived all semester. Oh well, it all paid off in the end. My art teacher told me I should apply to the art program. Too bad it's already too late for that. Doesn't mean it didn't feel good to hear that, though. Religion did not go nearly as well as I thought, but then the test was absolutely ridiculous. I totally studied my butt off for it too. Oh well, it's over! German and Scandinavian Cinema went really well, of course. Granted, I have yet to see how I did on my paper, but I don't anticipate I will have any problems. I would hope that three semesters straight of writing papers for this teacher will have taught me enough that I could do as well on this one as I've done in the past. My French grade was decided half a semester ago, so I guess I'll just have to deal with it. Too bad it's a whole 4 credits. Blech. My only other class was the 1 credit hour prep class for study abroad. Tasha left yesterday, but I will be seeing her in about three weeks in Vienna. The rest of my roommates will be here for the summer, so I will be able to hang out with them until I leave on April 30. Man, time is absolutely flying. Oh yeah, and I'm thinking about doing a triathlon on Saturday. It's only a sprint distance, but I just hate the whole registration fee thing. We shall see what ends up happening with that. Well, it's been a great semester!

P.S. I hate it when you hang out with someone (a good friend) you've cuddled with before and then you don't really cuddle. Sometimes I just want to cuddle, okay? Is that such a bad thing? Frustration.

P.P.S. I am so looking forward to seeing all my friends in Germany this summer! YAYAYAYAY!