31 We Hope They Call Us on a Mission

Cornelia (Coni) Ortlieb is the daughter of Erich and Marianne Ortlieb (see chapters 19 and 20). She is an accomplished violinist and, had political circumstances permitted, would have studied music. Before her mission to South Carolina, she was working in a hospital. (For more of Elke Schulze’s story, see chapter 29.)

Cornelia Ortlieb and Elke Schulze were among the first group of sister missionaries to be called from the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). While a missionary in Dresden, Sister Davis had offered an English class once a week in the Dresden chapel. One Tuesday during class in the fall of 1989, before there was any thought that sister missionaries would ever be allowed to leave East Germany, Sister Davis gave an examination to her English class. She announced that she would give a special prize to the top two students. Before taking the test, the class asked what the prize would be. Sister Davis jokingly said, “A trip to the United States.” The class laughed. Cornelia Ortlieb and Elke Schulze were the two highest and won the prize. In November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and the border to the West was opened. In the spring of 1990, Cornelia Ortlieb was called to serve in the South Carolina Columbia mission; Elke Schulze was called to serve in the California San Bernardino mission. This interview was made shortly before they left for the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah—their prize for being the top students.

Cornelia: I am twenty-two years old, and I was born in Dresden.

N. Davis: What had you heard about missionary work when you were a child?

Cornelia: Missionary work for me was something that was sort of unreachable. I mean, we had no missionaries here, and it was more like a fairy tale when we had a lesson about some missionary. For me personally, it was simply something I thought about, but somehow I never believed it would be possible.

Elke: I am twenty-eight years old and was born in Bischofswerda. I have heard about missionary work from my childhood because my father had been on a mission and had always told me about it with great love. He had also told me how my grandparents had supported him with money and in other ways so he could make the best of his missionary time. He talked about the members in the cities where he had served with such love. Then I spent a lot of time at the grave of the first missionary in Dresden, Brother Ott. There was always a feeling of respect and love for missionaries there. But the idea that I would ever have the opportunity to serve seemed pretty unlikely.

Preparing for a mission. Norma Davis is teaching English to Cornelia (Coni) Ortlieb and Elke Shulze in the spring of 1990, Dresden. Courtesy Norma and Garold Davis.

Cornelia: In school I talked a lot about the Church, and a few of my friends came with me to activities at the church. I was often approached by friends to tell them about the Church, and I often had to stick up for the things I believed in because, until recently, things were a little more difficult here than they are now. In those days, if you were religious in this country some people would look at you as if you were weird. But that was something of a challenge, and if you met the challenge, especially in your school class, then everyone knew who you were and it was ok.

Elke: We were taught at home to be honest and open everywhere about our membership in the Church. Even as a small child, I let people know at school. Whenever there was any kind of a school program on a Thursday evening (the day we held Primary), we didn’t go but went to the churchhouse. On Sundays when there was some kind of school activity, we went to church. So I learned to talk about it everywhere, openly and honestly, and to stick to it. It was not hard.

N. Davis: What were your feelings when the missionaries first entered the country?

Cornelia: It was such a surprise, at least for me. We had heard that missionaries were coming, even to our ward, but we didn’t know when they would arrive. There happened to be a wedding celebration on this particular day, and we saw two nicely dressed young men in the meeting. I thought, “Aha! That must be the missionaries.” A lot of things have changed in our ward since they arrived, or so it seems to me. I feel an entirely new spirit here. I am more directly involved in missionary work. The missionaries approach you and ask you to invite your friends, to have the courage to bring them to church, and to introduce them to the missionaries. Since they arrived, things have changed drastically for me in relation to missionary work.

Elke: Yes! It has brought us so much real joy. I have also been much more active in missionary work than I was before. The missionaries give you the task of looking for investigators, of engaging them in more serious conversations, of inviting colleagues from work, and of spending your time with the missionaries helping in discussions with investigators.

Cornelia: So often you really feel the Spirit. I can remember when the first missionaries were here, and I could participate in the lessons. That was somehow like attending a wonderful conference. There was always such a spirit present. Even when the missionaries were in our home, our entire family felt it—not that there was ever a bad spirit at home—but somehow we were strengthened again, and we went about things in a different way. We prayed together for someone we wanted to bring into contact with the missionaries, or we fasted together. Somehow, those are experiences that we owe principally to the missionaries.

Elke: It was also the joy one felt when one was together with them and with the other people. I really experienced this joy for the first time when we had the open house in Dresden. Before that I was always afraid to do missionary work in public. But I felt so happy working at the open house. One truly has an unusual feeling of joy in this work.

N. Davis: What were your thoughts when the first missionaries went out from this country?

Cornelia: Well, my brother was among them, so it was felt somehow much more intensely at our house. I have to admit that I cried because no women were allowed to go. I thought to myself, “Oh, I am almost twenty-two. If much time goes by before they let women go, I will be too old, and I will never be able to go on a mission.” I was very sad at the time. But I was of course very, very happy for the missionaries.

My brother has changed a great deal because of this mission. Even before, when he learned that he would go on a mission, there was something special about him. It is a great blessing that missionaries are now permitted to go out and that we can have missionaries here. It is like the dawning of a new day for us here in the German Democratic Republic.

And there are so many new members in the branch. It’s a completely new time from what it was before. Back then we were one big family, and everyone knew one another. Now it is very different. At first I just had to get used to the new atmosphere in the branch, get used to the fact that there were so many new people there, and that there was somewhat more of a disturbance than in the past because of all the coming and going. But in spite of all that, it is a beautiful time. Now, in any case, I feel much more at ease. During the transition, the members would think, “Oh, no one pays any attention to me anymore; all the attention is centered on the new members.” But now we feel more at ease, at least I do.

Elke: At the time when the young missionaries went out, you could check off one promise after another that was being fulfilled according to the blessing of President Monson. And you can see it unfolding further. It is amazing. Our family has prayed repeatedly for the protection and security of the missionaries because it is all so new for them, the things they will learn and the things they will have to learn to cope with. They simply need additional strength because everything is so different.

N. Davis: What kind of church activities do you like best? What was it like before? What did you like to do in the Primary or in the Young Women? What are your pleasant memories?

Elke: My most pleasant memories actually have to do with the weekly activities [gemeinsamen Themenzeiten]. All of us got together to put something on, a drama or a fairy tale, just for our own pleasure, or something at Christmas for the children, when we were in the Young Women. Somehow we learned things together as a group, how to make others happy. Like when we went as a group to the retirement homes to visit the older sisters who were there, to sing something for them or read to them or bring them presents. When we did something for others.

Cornelia: Oh, I remember how I loved being with the other children at Primary. That was something special for me because I am actually a person who can get very homesick. When I went on an excursion with my schoolclass, I was homesick after the first day. But when I went on excursions with the Church—that is with the young people or with the children when I was little—I could have stayed away for months. It didn’t bother me at all because everything we did drew us together.

I gained so much strength from the youth conferences that for the next two months I thought of nothing but improving myself. I wanted to become better, and I went at my work with a renewed strength. The youth conferences always had that effect on me, that somehow I approached everything with firm resolutions.

The activities where we did things for other people have left beautiful memories, especially at Christmas. It has become a tradition with us that we in the Young Women visit the older members from the branch or that we go to the rest homes and sing or put on a little program. That always gave me the most inner joy.

Elke: I would like to add that it was a beautiful thing when the seminary program was introduced. It didn’t affect me directly, but I was there at the time. A bishop from Frankfurt was responsible for getting it started. He directed the seminary at that time, and three years later, he started the institute program for us older members. Now I have finished six years of institute. That was a time for us young people to have a goal of organized study during the week and not just on Sunday. That really helped us.

N. Davis: Do you remember any particular teachers? Or what particular problems did you have as members of the Church?

Elke: There were problems. Especially when it came time to choose a career. My brother wanted to be a teacher, but he was turned down because of his religious beliefs, and a few years ago, I wanted to study medical pedagogy, and I was talked out of it because of my religious beliefs. I was told that I would run into trouble with the Marxist-Leninist philosophy. So I forgot that and applied for something else and was accepted and am still there.

I have a friend who had to work for four or five years as a nurse at a station in the hospital. He wanted to become a doctor, but his application was rejected because he had spent only one and a half years in the army. He was supposed to have stayed three years. He didn’t want to stay in that long. It was too hard. So then they made him wait a long time, but he was patient and applied again and again until they finally let him in. That’s the way it was in many situations. They tried to put barriers in your way.

Now it seems so normal that we can order the Stern [Church magazine in German] and that we can have other Church books. It wasn’t always that way. We had the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and maybe, if Grandma could get a permit to travel, she could smuggle in a Church book or a copy of the Stern. All of the lesson manuals were smuggled in secretly and then typed off on typewriters by the members so that we could have any kind of teaching material. Things were not so normal as they are now.

Cornelia: A girlfriend of mine always typed an article off for me so that I could have at least something from the Stern. We were not supposed to take the Stern to church to read something from it. That was not allowed.

Elke: It was not allowed because the Stern was forbidden. We were not supposed to have it. That was a very unpleasant affair. And if someone had a teaching manual, we were not allowed to bring it to church either because it had been smuggled in. We could have gotten the Church into difficulties because we were being dishonest by bringing these things in.

But you asked about our teachers and pleasant memories. We were taught with so much love in the Church. I once had two teachers in Sunday School, Sister Ziegler and Sister Schlüter, who took us on an excursion just to reward us for a successful year. They taught us with so much patience and skill.

I had my grandmother for my teacher for a short while. I will never forget that. She had received a gift, a book that had a lot of information about Salt Lake City and about the Salt Lake temple. It had a picture of the baptismal font with the twelve oxen. I could never forget this picture and the way the baptismal font represented the twelve tribes. And when I then later stood in front of a similar baptismal font in the temple in Friedrichsdorf, I was reminded of all these times and the things I had been taught. Those are pleasant memories.

N. Davis: Why do you want to go on a mission now?

Elke: As I mentioned before, I have had this joy in missionary work only since 1988 [at the open house of the Dresden chapel] when I found the courage and strength to stand in front of people and talk about the gospel. I was so happy during the week. I would go to work, and after work I would come to the chapel and work until very late in the evening. I was never physically tired. I was simply filled with joy. Now I want to share this with others because there are so many people who are seeking for this joy and it is such a wonderful work.

Cornelia: With me it is simply that by doing missionary work I will have an opportunity to thank my Father in Heaven. In principle I want to thank him for what he has always done for me by dedicating one and a half years of my life to intensive work for him and for other people. I was not always the best girl. I mean, I have not always done everything just right, and somehow I feel that I want to do something on my own in order to make up for my weaknesses or just show my Father in Heaven that I truly love him and that I really want to participate in his plan.

I want to help more people find the truth so that they can have the true joy that I have discovered and know that there is nothing better. I mean, one can try a different path or try to deviate somehow just a little from the path, but there is no happiness in that. You remember that you were once much happier and that you just have to come back because you don’t feel right about yourself. Because I have experienced this myself, I really want to give what I have learned to others so that they can know why they are here. They can truly be happy and feel the love that their Father in Heaven has for them.

Elke: I think we have received so much here on the earth, whether it is joy or not, all the things we have, and for me this is just a little way of saying thank you, by doing this for my Father in Heaven.

Cornelia: It may be that I will never again have the opportunity of doing something with such intensity. I mean, later maybe we will have a family, and then we will have other duties. Now is my chance. I am so happy that it has come to me now and not much later. I mean, I would have been so mad. Of course, even then I would have said, “Sure, OK, that’s the way it is,” but I am so thankful that it is possible for me to fill this mission now.

N. Davis: Do you think that you will have some personal gain from this mission?

Cornelia: I think that a mission is probably the greatest personal blessing for every missionary that he or she can receive in this life. It is really a school; on a mission you learn everything you need for your future life so that you can then stay on the right path and have sufficient strength to continue on this path and above all, you can have a relationship with God that is much closer and more intimate than before. I mean, now one really struggles, in one’s personal prayers, for example, to feel that Father in Heaven hears you or that you really know with all your heart that the gospel is true. But I believe that you can feel the Spirit more intensely on a mission and that you can really get closer to your Father in Heaven. We know our Father in Heaven is always close to us, but we are often a little ways away from him. And I believe that through the work on a mission that if you are really serious and give your all that you will be blessed and you will really be able to feel his presence everyday.

Elke: I also think that you will surely have the strength then order your life according to the commandments of God. You will learn somehow to pay closer attention to the inner voice, I think. Personally, I surely hope to learn during this time something that I have not learned up to now: to become independent, to take care of my own money, to be respectful of others, to fit in with others. I believe we will experience some growth since, from the time we were born, we have always had to live and think inside little guarded borders.

At the Freiberg Germany Temple prior to leaving for the Missionary Training Center. Left to right: Elke Schulze, Norma Davis, Cornelia Ortlieb. Freiberg, 1990. Courtesy Norma and Garold Davis.