Week Twenty-three

Hey hey hey.

Right meow, I am sitting in my favorite Turkish internet cafe, wearing sport clothes (we're going to go play some shport danach) while it is raining SO hard, but still around 25 grad celcius. This is Deutschland. Muggy and hot and humid, and loved by Elder Pollard. I'd just like to say really quickly how appreciative I am of being able to Email on Mondays. I LOVE reading emails from family and friends back home. It makes me so happy and I just love contact from back home. So upward and onward my pen pals! Keep it coming.

My last week was a roller coaster. Just wait. You are about to read this. You'll laugh, you'll cry, but a good time will be had by all who partake of the weekly email.

Montag: Last Monday was P-Day, as usual. Nothing super special in the morning. Got up, prayed, maybe fell asleep during my prayer, morgen sport, breakfast, got ready, studied, cleaned a little, then came to do emails. I love morgen sport. I didn't realize how out of shape/fat I was in January when I came to the MTC. Since then, I've lost 25 pounds. I weigh around 205. Still a little chubs though. It's been kind of a mini goal of mine to do really good with morgen sport, just to stay in shape. It also makes walking around and standing all day easier. I'm just preparing myself for when I'm in a bike city haha. Anyways, the weight is dropping. After all that we went to the church building and played sport. Wiffle ball, basketball (with a soccer ball, no basketball) and soccer. Sport is so fun. We get like so little time to actually play it so whenever we do, we go hard in the paint. It's fun. After sport, we went shopping for groceries, came home, got ready, and were ready to tackle the week. We only had one appointment on Monday night planned. We went to meet our newest investigator, H (you're about to hear a lot about this guy). We had an OK lesson with him. Tried to explain about the 1st lesson form PMG (Preach My Gospel), and ask some good questions to figure out what he believes on and stuff like that. We learned there (at least he said) that he's on epilepsy (did I spell that right) medication and that Jesus doesn't like him or something. It was an OK lesson. Good thing was, is that we made a baptismal date with him! We asked, 'you know, if you get an answer that the Book of Mormon is true, will you be baptized?' and he said yes. So that was exciting. After that, we meet this super cool Turkish kid, who said he and his friends were interested in learning more about the church. that was cool. We gave him a Book of Mormon and went home.

Tuesday morning, we had to anmeld. That was annoying. Basically, because we're here on a temporary visa or something, we need to register in every city we serve in. So we went to the außlander büro (like foreigner office) and registered ourselves. Das hat nur eine ewigkeit gedauert! It seriously took forever. Oh well, we got home kinda later than expected. On Tuesday, we ate bratwursts. Mmmmmm. Brats from the store are super cheap. And bread is, too, so brats are perfect for missionaries. After that, we meet a new investigator named A. He's from Baghdad, but he had some interest in hearing about a book that was written by prophets. That's how you have to get Muslims interested haha, as bad as it sounds. He was pretty cool though. His German was a little hard to understand, but we get that all the time haha. Germany is so diverse, there are so many people here that are political refugees or something. I meet a lot of interesting people. After our meeting with A, we went to visit N. Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding with him. We wanted to meet at his house to watch the restoration DVD, but he thought that we were meeting at his garden. Oh well. He wasn't there, but we did some finding in the area. After that we went to the D's! They're so cool. They made us meatballs, waffles, and muffins. The combination might sound weird, but it was delicious. We ate, had a spiritual thought, and played Yahtzee. Nuf said.

Wednesday was Zone Konferenz. I loved it. It was a little sad to say bye to President and Sister Pimental, but I'm super excited for President Kosack. SO STOKED TO MEET THIS GUY. Really. We ate Chinese noodles and rice. It was pretty good. It was like Germans attempt Chinese food. I loved it.

Elder Pollard with President and Sister Pimentel

After Zone Konferenz, we went back to this student wohneim (basically dorms) that we had doored earlier. We meet with a kid named J who is super cool and open to learning about the gospel. He was a Miami Heats fan though...not cool. He was way cool though and I'm excited to meet with him again.

Donnerstag: We went by a bunch of people on Thursday. We were way busy and 'unterwegs' (under way?) but that makes it better. We visited R and gave her a BOM, meet this guy from Bangladesh and gave him a BOM, meet N at the church and watched the restoration, and did a bunch of finding that night. We meet a lot of cool people through doing doors. That was way cool. We even got a walk in with this guy who is from some middle eastern country, but was born in Germany. We talked about the BOM and religion for a while.

Fritag: Friday we did our morning routine, and then went by on a less active, who wasn't there. After that we had lunch with the S's. SOOOOO DELICIOUS. Es hat mir so so so gut geschmeckt. Ah ich freue mich immer darauf wann wir bei der Familie Stefen essen durfen. They made us boiled potatoes (the usual), green beans, schnitzel, and a pfeffer souse. (pepper sauce) is was delicious. After that, we meet a guy named A who could only meet for a short time, but we gave him a BOM and got his number. We'll contact him latter this week. We then went to Burgdorf to meet with the P family. They're so cool. Their little 3 year old kid was waiting at the train station for us (with everyone else too, not alone obviously) and when we got off the train he came and gave me a hug haha. I felt loved. That went well. Friday night was the hard part. We meet with JWs. Jehovah Witnesses. It is so pointless and hard to meet with these people. Obviously I want to meet with them and be able to talk with them and share our message. But all they do it attack and annoy. It's pointless. I was so upset and heated when I left that appointment. I couldn't control myself, and I hated it.

Samstag: Saturday was a special day, because we had planned and BBQing and doing service in N's garden. It was so fun. We made American Hamburgers and painted his little garden cottage thing. I love that guy. He's so cool. But he needs to make some steps of faith. All in all, it was fun. All four of us went (the ZLs came with us) and it was just a good time. After that, we took Elder Wilhelm (the ehepaar) on a joint teach to H....That was interesting. He had basically forgotten everything that we taught him from Monday. That was upsetting. Elder Wilhelm said that he thought H wasn't understanding anything either. It was just sad. After that though, we meet with a new investigator named S. He's form Iran, he's Muslim, and he's super cool. He gave us banana/cherry juice (the most delicious thing on earth) and we talked for a while.

Sonntag: Yesterday was a little stressful. we got to church, and H was there. Which was weird because we weren't really expecting him to come. But nonetheless, he was there, which was good. The only problem was that we was going around to every member saing 'Ich bin ein Prophet geworden. Ich möchte euch bitten an Jesus Christus zu glaube' which means, I became a prophet, and I'd ask you all to believe on Jesus. We was kind of making a scene. We had to excuse him. It was sad to see our baptismal date going a little crazy. Oh well, he's a son of God. Our Heavenly Father loves us all equally. Something I thought of was, when you have bad feelings towards someone, or think you're better than him, just think, 'what is Heavenly Father doing to bless this person? He's not giving me more blessing than this person, just because I'm a missionary. He loves us all equally. He wants this person to come back to the straight and narrow so bad.' That's my spiritual thought of the week.

SOOOO Last week was a little crazy, but it was good.

Parents. Like I said above, I've lost a ton of weight. The two suits from home look silly on me, like really. I feel really bad, but at the same time, I'm losing weight, which is good. But the thing is, I have no pants that fit me anymore!

Other than that, everything is going good. I'm excited for this package you guys have for me! Also, Rachel sent me a package!!! It was very nice of her.

What else?! I love you guys so much. I miss you all. Just tell everyone to write me! I'd love to hear from EVERYONE. Thanks for the support Mom and Dad. I love you!

Elder Pollard

Week Twenty-two

Hello Outside World.

This last week was amazing. We saw 10x more success than we earned haha. Not saying that we don't work, because I make sure that we do. Waking up at 6:30 every morning isn't the easiest thing in the world. In fact, it keeps getting harder. I need to think of a better way to get myself awake in the morning. Any ideas? I'd love to hear them. Well despite working our butts off and seeing a lot of miracles last week, both my companion and I were sick. I've actually been sick for about 2 weeks now. I lost my voice completely last week, which kind of sucks when you're trying to talk to people. But it was only gone for about a day. Since then, I've sounded like a 90 year old chain smoker. Which helps out with my terrible German accent. Germany is an amazing place with amazing people. It's so multicultural. Like right at this moment, I'm an American, in an internet cafe owned by Turkish people, there's a guy sitting next to me from the Ivory Coast (funny story) and someone is speaking Russian on the phone outside. Weird? Nope, just Deutschland.

Let me tell you about my week.

Montag: Last Monday we got ready, did emails, ate Subway, normal start to a p-day. After that I used the last of my personal money to buy some sexy pants. Yep I said it, sexy pants. Straight up Euro-trash slim cut sexy slacks. And they look dang good on me. Too bad I'm out of money, because they come with a way cool suit jacket, but it's 35€. Ein bischen zu teuer. Oh well. the pants were only 17€. Bonus. After that, we went grocery shopping, and headed home. We had a lot of time to kill, so we decided to go to the top of the Hannover Rathaus tower. It was way cool. I had already been up there once, but it's still cool to see the city of Hannover from above. This city rocks. It's so cool and well laid out. Perfect for doing missionary stuff. We ended up throwing pass along cards off the top of the tower, because the wind carried them all the way to Innenstadt. 'Fishing with nets'. After P-Day was over, we went and had an appointment with our new investigator. He's a cool guy, but with a sad story. he's on epilepsy meds, and he's pretty alone. The gospel and Book of Mormon can help him so much! we want to get him to church so he could meet a bunch of friends. The one problem is that he uses crazy high German. Big words haha and it's hard to understand him all the time. We'll be going back by him tonight, so we'll see how that all goes. One of the reasons last week was so good was because we got so much finding time in. We made out like 15 appointments last week, which is crazy good. So after that we did some doors and meet some new people.

Dienstag: Tuesday morning was normal. After study time, we went by on a less active member. We had a good lesson about patriarchal blessings, and she said she would want to come back to church to be able to meet with the bishop. It looked really promising, because she hasn't been to church in like 5 months. Anyways, that was good and after that we went home to eat. I totally forgot what we ate. It must not had been that special. After lunch, Elder Wightman wanted to look at our huge ward list and try to figure out some less actives so we could go by on them and see if they needed help. That took a way long time. Our ward list is HUGE and I'd say at least half of it is less actives/people who don't live here anymore. We've got to figure that thing out. So after that huge ordeal, we went by on this Russian guy that we've had problems trying to contact. We had a pretty fest appointment with him, but he still wasn't there again. Oh well, what else could we do. So after that we went to the church to meet a guy that we had an appointment with. He didn't show up either, but it was OK. We hung out with the JTE's (young single adults) for a while. Meanwhile, the ZLs are casting a demon out of a woman in the other room. That's a different story. After our time at the church we walked around a little and made out some more appointments.

Mittwoch: Wednesday was good. We studied a lot in the morning. We were supposed to have a joint teach with Elder and Sister Wilhelm (the senior companion), but that fell out. So we just went to an investigator appointment by ourselves. We had a good appointment. We talked about how we have the BOM. And because we have it, it has to be 100% true, or 100% false. So we talked about how we can literally ask God if it's true or false, and how he can give us answers. He thought the lesson was cool, and agreed with everything. so that was good. After that, we went by on our old baptismal date, who wasn't there. Apparently, he's been in Hamburg or Spain or Africa or somewhere for the past like 3 weeks. It's disappointing, but nah gut, was kann Mann tut. We then headed to the church to meet an African guy from the Congo.....he didn't show up. Whenever we make appointments and they say 'I'll just meet you at your church', they never do. After that we did A LOT of doors in this neighborhood called Laatzen. we found some success there, Including meeting this 18 year old kid from Ghana, which was cool. After that we went by on this less active member. She's from Ghana too, but the only reason she's less active is because she's pregnant and on bed rest. So we just went to see if she needed any help and shared a small spiritual thought. That was Wednesday.

Donnerstag: I fasted Thursday, which I really enjoyed. Fasting works by the way. We had Distrik Versammlung (Distrcit Meeting) in the morning, which was really cool. After that, we went by on an investigator from Ghana. She's cool. It was the first lesson we've had with her in awhile, so we kind of just came back to square one and talked about the Book of Mormon. After her, we had a first lesson with this really old and nice lady. She was cool, but she likes to quatch (like babble) Oh well, she's sweet. After that, Elder Wightman had lunch. I watched. We then met with an investigator in his garden. He is my new best friend. He's just like the most straight up, kindest, real person I've met in Germany. And he's from Iran. Sweet. We talked about the three ways of finding faith: Praying, Reading the Scriptures, and going to church. He agreed with it all. I think I explained his problem last week or the week before, about how he has to go to this non-denominational Christian meeting every Sunday or the German government will send him back to Iran. Oh well the Lord does not give us commandments, like going to church, without first giving us a way that we can do them. So if he really wants to come to church on Sunday, he'll find a way. After that, we did doors in a new favorite place we found. We've had a lot of success there. we met this 1 year old Turkish kid, and he was a walk in appointment with him. Way Cool! Thursday was good.

Fritag: We studied in the morning, and then tried to anmeld after that. Missionaries have to anmeld (register) in ever city the serve in, or they can get in trouble with the government. Too bad the place was closed just as we got there. We'll have to go again sometime next week. For lunch, I experimented. Our Iranian investigator had given us these weird potato ball things, so I tried to make those with spaghetti meat sauce. I thought they were horrible and inedible. Elder Wightman disagreed and snarffed them down. I was so sick feeling haha. After that, we went by on this African lady.Unfortunately she wasn't there. Appointments fall out, it's inevitable. After that we went by on our old baptismal date again...nothing. So we went to the church and made some calls to make out appointments. It was a good use of time. We then met our Iranian friend at the church and gave him a tour with the Wilhelms there. He loved it so much. We really wants to come to church. Hopefully he does this week! Das wäre sehr klasse. After the church tour, we went and taught one of the ward sisters. That was fun too.

Samstag: Saturday morning, we went to Nienburg to help with eine Straße Ausstellung (street display) Apart form having to ride on a train without a ticket (sketch) and the fact that it was pouring rain, it was really cool. We got to help them set it up and talk with some people. We couldn't stay too long because we had an appointment with one of the ward brothers. He's a champ. He buys the missionaries Döners every time a new one comes in. He's an angel. He devotes with whole life (at 85 years old) going by less active and struggling members, making sure he's doing everything he can to help everybody. He's sweet. After that, we went by on one of our African investigators again to help fix her curtains. Unfortunately, we couldn't help too much, but we still had a little lesson about why church is important. That went kind of well. And we left feeling really good and thinking she was definitely going to come to church! After that, We were going to meet a guy at the church, but he didn't show up. Instead, our Iranian friend was there with his family this time. The Wilhelms had invited his family to this youth music konzert. I think they liked it. After that, we went by on a Ghanian investigator again, and luckily, she was home. Too bad it kind of turned into an African screaming argument talking about how the BOM can't be true and she only needs the bible. We told her to pray about it. Some people reject the BOM before even trying to read it. It's like saying you don't like the taste of salt, but never having tried it. YOU NEED TO READ THE BOOK BEFORE YOU CAN SAY IT'S TRUE OR NOT TRUE. Simple. Mühelos. Oh well. After her we had this way cool lesson with this guy from India. He was cool and it was a good lesson. We didn't have a BOM in Hindi though, so we're going to give him one this week.

Sonntag: Sunday was good, bad, and ugly. I love going to church haha but I was sooo tired. I fell asleep so much in church. Not cool. And on top of that, NOBODY came to church! None of our investigators. That was what was so disappointing. Oh well after church we ate with a member family. They're like the coolest people on Earth. The brother speaks 5 languages - English, Deutsch, Finnish, Greek, and French and he's like fluent in all. they're just the coolest. They made us tacos haha. After that we doored a studentenwohnheim (dorms) and met some cool students. After all that we had weekly planning.

This morning: we got ready, came to this internet cafe, and this African guy sat next to me haha. We had met him around before, and he's way cool. Not ready to meet with us yet, but we see him all the time.

That was my week! I hope it entertained you all that read it. I know I had fun living it.

Sooo family. I love emailing you. But sometimes I don't know what to say! I'm having a lot of fun in Germany. I love learning the language, and I get kind of a lot of compliments on it. I know the grammar pretty well, I just need to power boost my vocab. The words I committed to learn today are : gesamt - whole, anerkennen - to acknowldege, ermessen - to judge, to tell, unvermeidlich - inevitable, verlangen - to ask for, demand, and fortsetzen - to continue. In case you wanted to know haha. German is not easy. There are like 5 different words for every one English word. And you have to know which one to use in which situation. And my accent is not the best haha. But the language is coming a long. Elder Staheli, on of the Zone Leaders that we room with, has ridiculously good German. One of the best in the mission, from an American. So I'm learning a lot from him. Und ich bin ganz dankbar dafür.

Thanks for sending me the taco recipe! I was actually going to ask like if you could send me recipes more often. Just stuff that would be delicious, easy, and cheap. And doable with the very limited kitchen and supplies we have. And fast to make. I'd love to get more recipes.

Last night I went on a cleaning spree. I keep reading in the New Testament that scriptures about the greatest leader being the greatest servant, and when Jesus washed the apostles feet. I'm trying to apply that to my life right now. I just want to be more humble and charitable. It's a work in progress, so pray for me! haha. I need the help.

The pictures from the fair are cool! I'm so bummed I have to miss that...especially because I had to much fun last year! Being pushed around the in the wheelchair was just a blast. But I really really miss San Diego. I never realized how lucky I was to grow up there until I got here haha. The summer here hasn't really came yet. it's usually cloudy. It gets warm though. I think on Tuesday it's supposed to be 27 degrees Celsius, which is hot haha. But it's still supposed to pour rain. That should be fun. Germans love vacation. The don't really need an excuse to just get up and leave. It's kind of weird.

It's cool that Robbie and Matty come home so soon. And that Kenny is going to Idaho.  But that's super exciting. And now Sister Nelson will have 3 returned missionaries. I'm sure she's happy about that.

Well I hope I answered all your questions and entertained you sufficiently for the week. I love reading your emails! Let me know just what's going on with stuff. Tell everybody that I love them.

Love, Elder Pollard

Week Twenty-one

Meine liebe, ausgezeichnite familie,

Hey hey hey it's a party in the D.D.R. over here in Deutschland!

So the last week had some ups and downs, but it was really great for the work. As you all know, Elder Thorley just left, and I received a new companion on Tuesday. My new companion is Elder Wightman. He's from Colorado, and he's in his 10th transfer (I think), which means he's been out about 13 months. Everything is going good in the Hannover Elders 2 area. We are staying diligent, working our butts off, and finding some cool people here in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony).

My week:

Last Monday was P-Day Omega for Elder Carlson and Elder Thorley. We celebrated by going shopping a lot, eating FAT döners (like 2 kg) and playing basketball and fußball with some people from around the zone. It was cool to see everyone, and fun to get some exercise. After P-Day was over, and while we were locking up the church, a strange looking man just like walked in haha. We had met him earlier on the Bahns and talked with him about Mitt Romney (Germans love talking about Brother Romney) and gave him a card. So he found the church, and we talked with him a little about our beliefs. Unfortunately, it turns out he was only really looking for money or food, but it's OK. We still taught a lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon. Planting seeds and stuff. After that, we went and visited our favorite Iranian pigeon breeding investigator. He is such a cool guy and he really has a tough situation. So he's a political refugee from Iran. He came here to Germany and immediately decided to join some christian denomination church, so they can't send him back to Iran. Because if they did, he could die for joining a church. It's a tricky way a lot of Middle Easterners stay in Germany. So he like has already received such a strong spiritual confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true. He's super cool, keeps his commitments, super friendly, and I just love the guy. Unfortunately, he can't come to church. He needs to go to this Non-Dom church every Sunday, or they'll send him back to Iran. Hopefully we can work something out and get him to church. He needs it! So we just met with him and had a good lesson.

Tuesday morning I dropped Elder Thorley (my 'dad') off at Hauptbahnhof (Big, central train station) and picked up Elder Henderson, and Elder Wightman. Two cool guy. After that, we went shopping for weekly groceries, and made lunch. I made Lauk-Käse-Suppe again (missionary favorite). So we had two lessons planned out for that day, but unfortunately they both fell out. Oh well it was a good opportunity to get some really solid finding in. So we did doors in a poorer, more auslander neighborhood. We made out two appointments. One, with an African lady from Ghana, and another with a German Family. After finding, we had Gemiko with our GML (ward mission leader). It was a solid day.

Wednesday morning was district meeting. After last transfer, the only changes in the district were that Elder Carlson and Thorley left, and Elder Henderson and Wightman came. So our district is Hannover Zone Leaders: Elders Staheli and Henderson, Hannover Elders 2: Elders Wightman and Pollard, Nienburg Elders: Elders Welker and Cloward, Hildesheim Elders: Elders Spendlove (District leader) and Marshal, and the EhePaar: Elder and Sister WIlhelm. We have a really cool, really big district. After that, we went home and ate brats. We meet with an investigator after that, which didn't go too well because our 'restoration' DVD was broken. So we kinda just got a little in about the restoration of the church. After that, we went back and had a mini weekly planning. After that, we walked straight to Innenstadt and just talked with everyone we saw. My German was on FIRE! I was feeling it and just talking with everybody I saw and I taught a lesson about the Book of Mormon alone on the street. My German was primo and I was just so happy haha. We then rode the Zug (train) to Burgdorf where we visited a member for the last time. I enjoyed the Abendbort again. Bread, Meat, and Cheese, classic. We had a good lesson with her, and then went home.

Thursday Morning went well. I woke up, did Morgen Sport (75 pushups and sit ups each day baby) (I need to get better haha), got ready, and studied a bunch. After that we went by on the older Polish lady in the nursing home. It was her birthday! haha surprise to us. I shard a spiritual thought that I had just barely thought up, and everything went well. After that we went home and I made Spaghetti Carbonara again. mmmmm. We went to Innenstadt to find again, where I met a guy from the Congo. He's supposed to meet us at the church this week. Hopefully he does! We went by on the Iranian pigeon breeder again after finding. Just to see how we was doing, and to try to get him to understand that you need to read the Book of Mormon, to know if it's true or not haha. Some people don't understand that. Oh well, it went well. His pigeons are doing good. We went to a member family's home after that, where they made us Pfannkuchen (thin pancakes) and Eis (ice cream) It was soooooo good. I shared the same spiritual thought that I had earlier, and we played Yahtzee.

Friday morning was hectic. Due to poor planning, we had to go by on a family we found earlier in the week (weren't there) had to ride a bahn almost an hour north after that to a member family's home, and ride the Bahn all the way back to the first neighborhood that we had been in. It took almost 2 hours of pure bahn travel time. Not cool. Oh well, the member family made us delicious food. Potatoes, some white/clear veggie that reminded me of cauliflower, and goulash. Goulash is basically any leftover meat stew. It was so good. We ate Eis and strawberries for desert. After that, we went by on the African lady we met earlier in the week. We had an awesome first lesson with her.  She gladly accepted everything he had to tell her, took the Book of Mormon (in Twi) and made out another visit, and gave us her number. Super cool, I hope we can meet with her a lot. After this, we went and visited with a couple of sisters.

Saturday morning was normal.We decided to visit one of our African investigators, even though we didn't have an appointment with her. She hadn't called us or anything so we just went by. We couldn't meet with her that day, but we made out an appointment with her later in the week. So success. On the way back to the bahn, Elder Wightman had a spiritual prompting/need for soda so we went by on the little grocery store. On the way, we made out 2 new appointments! so that was awesome. We went home and Elder Wightman made lasagna, which was pretty good. After lunch, we went by once again on our Iranian investigator, this time for some service. He has this big garden, but doesn't really take too much care of it. So he did a couple hours of service, which felt awesome. He just removed some weeds. Gardening is fun. I like it. So Saturday was the EM game of Deutschland v. Portugal. The whole city was going crazy and watching the game in bars and restaurants, and there was even a public viewing thing that I think 60,000 people attended. It was crazy and nobody was on the streets haha. We ended our day by walking around Innenstadt and watching the insanity.

Sunday was church, which went great. We only had one investigator there, but it was still awesome. My Deutsch was firing, I was happy, talking to everybody. It was awesome. My companion got to meet the ward, and he likes it which is cool. I was told that I look 'like the American actor Ryan Reynolds' which is cool... After church we ate at the second councilor's home...he's super young, speaks awesome English. They made us burritos haha. Not the same as in SD though. Still delicious. After that, We did some doors and got a 'walk in', where someone lets you in just from doing doors and you have a lesson. Weird guy. He let us in right away, but he was kind of creepy. He almost kicked me out for saying 'entshuldigung' which means excuse me because I coughed a couple of time. Like legitimately almost kicked us out haha. Oh well he's a new investigator now. We also made out an appointment with his neighbor, which was coolio. We ended the day with weekly planning.

So it was a pretty awesome week. We got good numbers, did a lot of work, and it was a good start to a transfer. I only wish that we can continue to better our efforts and just work harder and see the results from that.

So. My new companion. He's an awesome guy who really has a good heart. I can tell and know he finds joy in success and likes being a missionary. There was a rough transition, just because he's senior comp, but I know the area and the ward better, so there was just an awkward transition. It'll be hard, but we can do it.

So that was basically my week! As I look back on it, I really enjoyed it. Parents, my German is awesome. I get super prideful just because everyone tells me, but I know I'm being blessed for being diligent and just trying my hardest. I just want to make you all proud!

Ich bin einfach so dankbar, das ich ein Missionar sein darf. Ich finde es so toll, das ich einfach Leute ansprechen kann, und über Gott, order Religion, oder Schriften reden kann. Deutschland ist nicht unbedingt die beste Platz, aber ich habe die Deutsch Menschen sehr viel Lieb. (Und auch die Afrikanische Menschen). Ich lerne so viel, und ich wachse auch so viel. Diese Arbeit ist die Arbeit Gottes. Ich weiß dass mit meinem ganzem Herzen. Ich weiß dass es ein Gott gibt. Und das er uns liebt. Er will uns glücklich sein. Deswegen, hat er deinen ersten Sohn zur Erde geschickt. Jesus Christus ist unser Erlöser und Erretter. Er ist am Kreuz für uns gestorben. Ich weiß auch das diese Kirche, die wiederhergestellte Kirche Jesu Christi ist. Es ist einfach. Mann kann das wissen, wenn mann möchtet.

I love you all. I pray for you every night.

Elder Pollard

Week Twenty

MEINE FAMILIE!

Hallo, Guten Tag, Moin,

How's it hanging in SD!? (Have I ever mentioned that I miss home...?) It's OK, because I'm having way too much fun here!

Let me tell you about my week! It was Elder Thorley's least week in Germany, so we said goodbye to a lot of members, and had A LOT of eating appointments.

Monday, Last P-Day was a holiday here in Deutschland, so the Turkish internet laden that we email in was the only store open. It was Pfingstag (the day when Jesus gave the apostles the priesthood) and apparently the Germans are big fans. So we emailed like usual. I lied there was one more store open: Schweinske. It's a way good restaurant right on the corner by our Wohnung, that specializes in Schnitzel! (Schweinske...pig...schnitzel...get it?) It was really good! Delicious pan fried pig meat. So after that I went home and took a nap...which never helps on a mission! You'd think that naps would be nice, but the just put you further behind and make you sleepy. Well after P-Day was over, we went by on a recent convert from Ghana. She's super cool and she has two adorable children, but she has a hard time coming to church. She was baptized I think a year ago, but unfortunately has become less active. We try to go by on her a lot, because if she became active again, she would be perfect to take on joint teaches to all the African investigators we teach, because she speaks Twi. Ahoontisae. well that was Monday haha. Kinda slow.

Tuesdays are notoriously bad in the mission. For some reason everything goes wrong on Tuesdays. We don't really know why yet, but when we figure out, we'll let you know. We had to go grocery shopping in the morning because the grocery store wasn't open on P-Day (Pfingstag). That took until about noon. I made the Spaghetti Carbonara recipe! Everyone loved it, but my ratio of pasta to meat was way off. I cooked way too much pasta. Oh well, I plan on perfecting it. After lunch we went by on an investigator from Ghana. He is so frustrating because he's never home! He knows the Book of Mormon is true and wants to be baptized. He just needs to put forth more effort. This week we will be meeting with him and having a kind of "come back to Earth" lesson and see what his priorities are. So we couldn't meet with him so we went by on a member that is from Ghana, but has lived in Germany for a long time. She just moved to Hannover from Neubrandenburg. She's way cool and super strong in the gospel, but she's on bed-rest right now because she's pregnant. So technically she's less active, so that's why we visit her. While we were there, her 'man' (husband?) was there too. He's not a member, and didn't really seem interested, but hopefully we could start meeting with him too. That's be awesome. After that we went to visit a sister that is technically less active, too, because she lives in an assisted living home and has a hard time coming to church. She's so sweet and nice though. She came from Poland, so she doesn't have the best German, but she's just an angel. We had a short lesson with her and played 'Sorry' the board game. I lost. We then started trying to make out a couple new apps. We had a lesson on the street with an Indian guy. He was pretty cool, but not super interested. And as we were walking away, a true miracle happened. We walked by this car that a bunch of African guys were standing around. One of them said 'Hey remember me?' Apparently we had talked to this guy earlier and gave him a card, but this time he made out an appointment with us! So cool.

Wednesday morning was district meeting, which went well. After that, we went by on the investigator from Ghana again, but he still wasn't there. So went went home and ate left over Spargel Suppe. mmmmmm. After lunch, we started some crazy finding.We went to this huge Wohnheim (apartment complex) and spent around 3 hours doing doors. Believe it or not, we got nothing. It's hard times like that when you start to think how dumb it is and everything, but this is really the Lord's work and you can't have any doubts about what you're doing. So I think I learned something cool that day. After finding, we ate with an older Phillipino sister who lives here. She speaks English and lives alone, and she's awesome. She made us Lumpia, some Pork and mushroom dish, noddles, and rice, and Eis. It was delicious and we got to take home a lot of left overs. After that we played Volleyball with the JAEs.

Thursday morning we took a huge 4 hour study block. It was cool. I'm currently reading in Luke. (Just thought I'd let you know). After that, we tried going by on another investigator from Ghana. We need to have one of these 'come back to Earth' lessons with her, too. We just need to know how much of a desire she has. She wasn't there. Oh by the was, it rained cats and dogs on Thursday. We did a lot of finding. I talked to one man for a long time, but we couldn't get an appointment out. He was cool...until he offered me his 'E-cigarette' and almost shoved it in my mouth haha. We made out an appointment nonetheless with someone else. After that we went to Burgdorf, and visited a member family, where we grilled. Bruder Paschen works at a Fleischerei (butchershop) so we got some primo meat. Elder Thorley and I ate 50 cm Wursts (big sausages) they were delicious. We did the classic seminary doughnut lesson with them. I had to do the pushups...After that, we went to a member family to teach. We had some classic German Abendbrot with them, which included met (raw meat) and stinging nettle cheese....I tried it haha it just tasted like cheese. We're preparing a young woman that is staying with them to serve a mini mission. We talked about active listening. It went well.

Friday morning, Elder Staheli had to Anmeld, and Elder Thorley and Carlson had to Abmeld. It's basically declaring that you're living in or moving away from a city. Weird socialist stuff. That took a while. After that we went by on an investigator, who made us tea and delicious German bakery stuff. We always have tea parties with her. It's classy. She said she'd be baptized, so hopefully next week we can make out a date that she can work toward. She's super nice and funny (a little wacko) but she's just sweet. I really like her. After that, we went to a member family's where we ate Indian food! The made us lunch. It was way good. After we ate, the other Elders stopped by and we all ate Eis. It was so good and I ate so much. After that, we made out an appointment with this Polish guy. Hopefully he'll be home when we go by. We then visited with a sister (from Spain) and another sister. It was all good.

Saturday I was on tausch (exchanges) with elder Staheli. We started off the morning with Transfer calls! Which is always exciting. My new companion is Elder Whiteman. He's from Colorado. I've only talked to him on the phone a couple of times. He'll be here in Hannover on Tuesday. The other two had to go to Magdeburg to have finishing interviews with President. We started off our day bright and early with some greasy Turkish food. You guessed it! DÖNERS! Haha my favorite. We met with a younger neubekehrt (recent convert) and talked about him receiving the priesthood. Hopefully he will in the next couple of weeks. The rest of the day was just fallen-out appointments and tears. We had one first lesson with a potential investigator from the other two which went pretty well. Saturday night we went to a member family's home. I ate a half of a cheese cake. Not by choice. It was still delicious though. They always make us delicious food, I love it. We played Kniffel. I won. DER KNIFFEL MEISTER!

Yesterday was way way cool!!!! I talked to a lot of members and my Deutsch was on FIRE! I just felt good about it. I got to talk to one of our long-time investigators there, too. He's awesome. He needs to be baptized though! After Church, we ate at the ward break the fast. It was just delicious. We spent the rest of Sunday planning, fixing up the area book, and finding. We made out two appointments, which was good.

SOOOOOO that was my week!

So unfortunately, Elder Thorley is leaving tomorrow. But Elder Whiteman sounds like a really cool guy. I have a lot of big plans from the Hannover 2 area, even though I'll still be the junior companion. It'll be sick and we will tear it up here!

I'm sorry, but I don't know the name of that meat enchilada type dish. You should look up Rouladen and RotKohl though! I don't think I need any more recipes right now, I made the Spaghetti Carbonara and it was a hit. I'm glad everything's so busy! Busy is good. Just keep smiling and remember me! haha

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Elder Pollard

Week Nineteen

Greetings! (Sean Connery voice)

I'm so grateful that today is P-Day. I'm not going to lie. This week was straight up busy, hard, and really disappointing. Last week Elder Thorley and I had made a huge goal: to teach 20 lessons in one week. It doesn't sound that hard haha, but it's really an accomplishment in the Germany Berlin mission right now to teach 20 lessons in a week. Three a day really doesn't sound like a whole lot, but it's not the easiest thing to do. Let me tell you about my week, and I'll keep a lessons tally. Here we go.

Last Monday was way cool! For P-Day, the zone leaders here in Hannover, the Elders in Nienburg, the Elders in Hildesheim, and us (basically our district) took a little trip to Marineberg Schloss...which is a castle. No big, just the residence of the late king of Hannover. It was super, super cool and we took a couple of tours through it and it was just really interesting to hear about how, why and for what reason this castle was built. It was especially cool to hear about how the castle functioned during WWII. It was super hot that day though, and incredibly humid. Hannover is just a humid place. It's really uncomfortable a lot of the time haha. Oh well. Our P-Day was really cool. After P-Day was over, we tried to go by on a couple of contacts to get some lessons in. Nothing. We resorted to visiting a Polish lady who lives in an old folks home. She's super nice and loves us and we always play Parcheesi after our lessons. I won this time. (One point for America). On our way home, we had a really intense conversation with this African guy who was kind of trying to prove something about how he knows the Bible and Jesus better. We just let him talk and bore testimony haha. It turned into a lesson though.

Lesson count: 2

Tuesday was alright...but it could have been better. We started off by helping a family set up some IKEA furniture. That was annoying haha. It took way too long and the stupid IKEA picture instructions were frustrating, but service really is the best part of being a missionary. It was annoying while we were doing it, but it felt way good after. Sorry I'm complaining too much haha. Three of our most solid appointments fell out Tuesday though. That's why it was hard. For lunch, Elder Thorley made paprika schnitzel which is just pork cuts with red peppers and a cream sauce. Way good. And filling. After lunch we met with a German lady who believes that God is nature and his energy and all this weird voodoo hippie stuff. But she's making progress. After her, we must have had a lesson on the street somewhere, because that's what our planners say haha. I don't remember it though. After all this, we had a first appointment with an Indian guy. He was a little defensive at first, but it ended up being a really good discussion. Unfortunately we got the classic line "I'll call you if I have questions or I want to meet". Oh well, we'll see.

Lesson count: 6

Wednesday was Zone conference! 50 missionaries sitting in one room, all wearing suit jackets, it's 95 outside and crazy humidity......I loved it haha. Everyone was so hot and tired but there were a lot of really great Themas (lessons/workshops) given. And lunch was incredible. It was catered by some members. It was like a sausages wrapped in ham with cheese sauce over it. All cooked in a big pan like enchiladas. Oh man. Also we had Kartoffeln Puree (mashed potatoes) and veggies. It was so good, but I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. Anyways, Zone Conference was sick. After that, we tried really hard to go by on some contacts and get some lessons, but nothing. We then met a sister about her getting a patriarchal blessing. After her, we had to go to volleyball with the JTA's (young single adults) That was fun.

Hannover Zone Missionaries

Lesson Count: 7

We started off Thursday with study, like usual. I'm currently reading in the New Testament. I like it a lot. It's really fast pace and just like every verse is a scripture mastery. It's nice. One of the ward members then took us out to lunch. He's way cool, and the guy's a saint. He spends literally all day just going by on less actives and other members and making sure they're doing good. That's literally what he does all day. He took us to get Döners. So good. After that, we went by on an African lady who's been kinda off and on investigating for a while. We teach a lot of Africans. It went well. We spent the rest of the day Dorf-hopping (traveling by train between different small dorfs or villages) We went by on an investigator family, where we talked about the importance of reading the Scriptures and becoming 'bekannt' with them. After them we went by on a sister who is preparing for a mini mission. We just talked with her about missionary stuff and taught her how to ask good questions. The family she's living with made us Abendsbrot! So basically, in America you eat a small lunch and a big dinner, but in Germany, you eat a giant lunch and just like sandwiches for dinner. I got to eat raw meat spread....which was cool.

Lesson count: 10

We ate so much on Friday. The member family we were visiting made us delicious Rouladen, which is cow meat with a pickle and onion wrapped inside and cooked. Kind of like pot roast. It was delicious. We ate it with potatoes and Rotkhol (red cabbage), my favorite. For desert we ate this flan thing and Eis (ice cream). So now it's around 1 in the afternoon and we have until 7 so get some lessons in. We spent the whole 6 hours walking around, going by on contacts, trying to door, trying to get anything. But nothing. It was really hard. We wasted 6 hours and nobody could or would meet with us. Luckily, on the way to our next member appointment, we talked with the old Russian lady. and for some bizarre and odd reason, I had a Russian Book of Mormon in my backpack. God really does work in strange ways. She was so happy to meet us and so outgoing and thought we were awesome. We taught her a lesson right on the street. It was a miracle, because we had this goal and really wanted to reach it. So after that we went by on a member family. They made us Pfankuchen which is like thin pancakes. We ate them with Nussli (Nuttella), applesauce, and jam. It was really good. We also ate them with cheese. for desert, more Eis. Fun was had by all. We played Kniffle after as usual.

Lesson Count : 13

Saturday was cool. For lunch, an investigator (from Spain) made us food because Elder Thorley and Elder Carlson are leaving. She made beans, Turkey, wurstchen (sausage) and kebab. Kind of a weird combinations, but it was good. She's so sweet and nice haha. We read from the Book of Mormon with her after. Saturday, unfortunately, was kind of another wasted day. Just everything falls out when you think it'll go well. It's really hard. So that night we ate at an investigator's house. He is awesome and his wife cooks really well, but he needs to get baptized! He already knows everything is true, he's just waiting on his wife to start believing with him. It's sad because he's such a cool guy. They made us Spargel again (big white asparagus). They made Spargel Suppe, Spargel with really good smoked ham and a cheese sauce, potatoes and schnitzel. Wow it was so good but it was so much food. For desert we had vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry pudding. We shared with him the road to Damascus talk from President Uchtdorf. It went well.

Lesson count: 15

So it's Sunday and it's looking like we're not going to reach our goal, unless we can get 5 lessons on Sunday haha. We had a lesson with one brother in church because he came. Church went well. Elder Carlson gave with last testimony in to the ward. After church we went to a member's home to eat. They grilled for us. Wursts and other assorted meat. It was way good. We had a good spiritual thought. After them, we went home teaching with a younger guy in the ward. We went by on two families and had good discussions. That day was hard though.

Lesson count: 18

So we almost reached our goal. In the end though, a goal like that is just numbers. We're not supposed to focus on the numbers, but rather on the people behind the numbers. We could get 20 lessons in a week, but not make any progress with investigators or help to build the ward and it'd be a failure of a week. I learned a lot this week. It was so hot and humid and I just sweat 24/7. It's not cool. But it went by fast because we were busy and diligent.

That's really interesting that you talked about Uchtdorf's talk in High Priest group, because we used the talk a lot this week haha. In German, it's called 'Du bist dem Hernn Wichtig' which means you are important to the Lord. It is such a good talk, and it's really good to share with less active members. I like bringing up Moses 1:39 along with it. It's like, our Heavenly Father is so powerful and so great, but he puts all his effort into us. He has so much un-comprehensible love for us, and every waking moment He spends is for our eternal salvation. I think that's so cool.

So the week was hard and hot, but I'm still doing good. I wanted to maybe buy slacks today because all my pants are too big for me, but it's Pfingstag today, which means all the stores are closed because it's a holiday. So I don't know what we're going to do haha. Oh well, we''ll figure something out.

Don't worry about sending a package off too fast, it can really wait. But I'd love it if you could send me more family pictures! Thanks for the recipes mom! I haven't made mac n cheese yet, but I probably will soon. 

There's not much more to say! I love and miss you all more than you know. Do good, and be happy.

Love, Elder Pollard

Week Eighteen

HI PARENTS

So I have to start off by saying that this week went REALLY well (from a missionary viewpoint). It was really hard though. We worked our butts off, walked countless miles, and got a lot of lessons in. I just want to say how amazing it is to be a missionary. I've really gained a knowledge that this IS the Lords work. We see his hand in what we do and the heavenly affect in our day to day work. It's so amazing and really humbling.

This was my super cool week:

Monday: Last P-Day we did everything as usual. But for most of the day, we took the Zug (Train) to a city called Wolfsburg. Wolfsburg is the Home of VW's Autostadt (Car-city). It's like Volkswagen's take on Disneyland and its really cool. We got to see crazy cars! Like this 1.6 million dollar Bugatti with mirror paint job. That was pretty intense. The rest was just like super old cool cars and VWs.  Apparently VW owns like Lambo and Porsche and all these other cool name brands that I wasn't aware of. It was super cool! After P-Day was over, we met with the guy from Ghana who wants to get baptized. We learned that he was voted one of the top 10 soccer players out of Ghana, which is really amazing, but he didn't sign with any pro teams.

 Greetings from the Audi Pavilion

Tuesday was hard. We had 6 appointments fall out during the day. So we spent the whole day walking around, doing doors, talking to people, etc. We met a couple cool people and made out some appointments, but it was hard. We walked SO much. I can't remember what we ate that day, so it couldn't have been that good haha. Tuesday was rough.

Wednesday morning we helped this family finish their move from Nienburg to Hannover. We got there and we moved 4 dressers and a washing machine up like 5 flights of stairs. It was really hard. We were rewarded with 'Kapri-Sonne' (Capri Sun) and Brötchen. Worth it. After that, we ran home, got changed and showered in 30 seconds, and went by on the younger African guy who knows the Bible really well and claims to be on a mission from God which entails him not joining 'any worldly church' or something. He's hard to teach, but he's pretty reliable so we're just working with him. We went by on him him because we were in the neighborhood (all the Africans live in one neighborhood) and we had a good lesson with him and his family. After that, we sprinted home, and made lunch in 10 minutes flat, so we could catch our Zug to Burgdorf. I was in charge of lunch, so we ate sandwiches. Turkish pita bread, chicken lunch meat, avocado, mayo, lettuce, tomato and bacon sandwiches. It was way good and we barely caught our Zug and ate them on our way. The sad part is that as soon as we got to this little Dorf, the appointment we hard there fell out. She called us the second we got there haha. So we really didn't need to rush and stress. So we were stuck in this little dorf with nothing to do so we did finding. That night we went by on an investigator family and taught them and it went well.

Thursday was interesting. In the morning, we did morning sport, study, and got ready. After that we went by on two African contacts, but they were not home. We went home and I made fried rice like Christian and I used to make in Idaho. It was alright haha. Our appointment after lunch was insane. We met this Iranian guy at his garden (Germans don't have front or back yards so they have little plots of land that is their 'garden' that they take care of) and he is super cool. He's lived in like 6 different countries and speaks German, English, Japanese, Spanish, and Persian. He's been in jail for trying to leave Iran with a fake passport, and he loves pigeons. He breeds and keeps Iranian pigeons in his garden. They're actually really cool looking birds and they're taken care of-not like street pigeons. They all like follow his orders too it's weird. He explained to us how raising pigeons in Germany is hard, because the hawks here like to eat his birds. He's just a cool guy, and good new investigator, and he already had a somewhat spiritual confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true. Pretty cool. We've only met with him once so you'll probably hear a lot more about him!

Friday was awesome. We did our normal routine in the morning. We took some time before lunch to talk to some people, and we made out 2 cool new appointments and taught a lesson on the street. It was coool. After that, we went to a member's home, and she just moved to Hannover from Neubrandenburg. She's from Ghana and she has the coolest little kids. She made us FUFU! haha Fufu is a very popular African dish. It consists of one giant ball of dough (made from crushed, dried, plantain powder or something) in the middle of this fish/misc meat/spicy/tomato stew. You have to eat the dough ball by using your hands to tear a chunk off, dipping it in the stew, and swallowing it whole. No chewing. Probably the weirdest thing I've ever eaten in my life. I'd love to come home and make it for you guys haha. That was super cool. After that, we went by on an investigator who we haven't had contact with for a while, and she was there! It was exciting, because we thought she had stopped wanting to meet with us. But it went well. After that we met with the older lady from Spain. She's sweet and we had a good lesson. Then we went by on a member family. We ate pizza, gave a spiritual thought, and played Kniffel (Yahtzee).

Saturday morning we played soccer with some members. I'm bad at soccer. It was really fun. We ran home, ate beef stroganoff, and got ready. We took an investigator and his family on a tour of the church building and it went REALLY well. He liked it a lot, we got to know the family really well, and everyone was happy. He said he'd for sure go to church, too. After that, we spent like 3 hours traveling to/trying to find this referral that we got, but we just couldn't find it. After that, we gave a neubekehrt (recent convert) a krankensegen (blessing for the sick) and that was cool.

Yesterday church went really well. There were so many people there because there was this 18 - 45 year old single get together over the weekend. It sounded like fun. Anyway there were like 200 people there.  After church, we had a baptism! The zone leaders baptized a guy from Turkey who's just so shiny and golden. The guy loves the church and he loves the Book of Mormon. He's be a great addition to the ward and he's just awesome. He had been investigating for about 5 months and he finally got baptized and he was so happy. After that we went to a member's home to eat. They made us some meat (I think beef) with boiled potatoes, rice, and veggies. It was pretty dang good. After that we went by a less active who wasn't there, so we decided to do some doors by her house. We found this Wohnheim that looked perfect. The second name we rang let us in, but the guy was super angry and told us to leave and yelled at us in German. The guy was just grumpy. We went back outside and continued to ring. He came out and got in our faces and told us that we had to leave (which is wrong because we permits to do that kind of stuff) anyway, I got super upset and was thinking about being hostile back towards him, but we just left and I just let it boil in my head all yesterday. I was mad that this guy was just being so annoying and rude for no reason, and we hadn't done anything to him. I just read the sermon on the mount in my study though so I kind of need to forgive him and try to be more Christ like. I'm working on it.

That was our week!

It sounds like you all had a good week. Between Andy's wedding, Fathers and Sons, and going to the Temple it sounded way cool.

So I wanted to answer some of the questions you guys had sent me.

Elder Thorley leaves next transfer (so like 2 weeks I think) He's a really good guy and he's taught me a lot. I will like 95% sure stay in Hannover another transfer, just because he's leaving. I'm looking forward to a new companion and kind of a fresh start. My German is coming along. It's a hard language but I'm trying really hard to learn it as fast as  I can.

Love,

Elder Pollard

the Audi Pavilion!

Week Seventeen

HI!

I'm so happy that we got to Skype! I'm so blessed with an awesome family. Mom, I hope you had a good Mothers Day! It sure did sound like you did. It's hard to read about steak and mushrooms because I never will get anything like that haha. I sure do miss the food from home. Thanks for sending the Mac 'n' Cheese recipes, too.

SOOOO...here's my week.

Monday: Last P-Day, I did emails at this little Turkish internet laden, and then I got lunch at Pizza Hut. I don't know why, but gross, greasy pizza sounded way good, so I split a pizza with Elder Carlson. While we were eating, we were attacked by gypsies trying to beg money from us, which was interesting. They're like children. They put on a sad face and try to beg for money, but all the elders say that it's a corrupt institution with a head Gypsy who gets all the money. Plus the money we have belongs to the church so we can't give it to them. Oh well. For P-Day, Elder Thorley and I walked all around Innenstadt looking for a Euro suit for him. I didn't mind it though, because shopping here is cool--- everything is so foreign and strange haha. I ended up spending some money last Monday. I bought a big pack of socks from H&M because it was cheap, and I bought a kind of jacket at C&A. It cost 30 Euro. It's like a light rain jacket, which is something I needed because it rains a lot here. But it's like spring now so when it rains it's usually on the warmer side. After shopping and getting groceries, we headed back to the apartment and started on some spring cleaning. I cleaned the study/main room and vacuumed everything. I then had to clean our balcony, including the old pair of clearly women's garments that someone had tried to burn probably 4 or 5 years ago, but nobody cleaned up...I'm glad that it's all over with. After P-Day, we went by on an appointment with an older Russian man. Sadly, he didn't really want to meet so we simply gave him a Book of Mormon and our number and explained kind of everything in about 2 minutes. Hopefully he's reading! After that, we did some finding and made out 2 cool young appointments. It was a good P-Day

Tuesday started off normal. Personal Study, Companionship Study, and Golden Study. After all that we went by on an investigator, who we haven't been able to get a hold of for a while. And she wasn't there again, which is troubling. We kind of know that she's home, she just doesn't want to answer the door. Oh well. After that, we had to take the Bahn way up North to an appointment, but it was like a wrong address or something because we couldn't find the name on any of the Klingels. A lot when people give you wrong addresses and phone numbers. But it's a part of missionary work so oh well. We then called ahead for our next appointment to see if he wanted to meet, but we ended up rescheduling it. For lunch on Tuesday, Elder Thorley made this way good man-salad. It was more topping than salad actually haha. I think it had salad, chicken, croutons, peppers, cucumbers, cheese, and a joghurt dressing. Joghurt is like the closest thing they have to ranch here. It was delicious. After that, we had another hour of study for language study. After study we tried to meet with this African family that was way cool, but we've lost contact with them. They're never home when we go by, and they weren't there this time either. Sooo after that, we walked to our next appointment (because we had to much time) and tried to do some finding. We made out an appointment with a Polish lady. that was sweet. So we got to our next appointment(s) which were all at this Auslander Wohnheim. We had 3 possibilities. And all 3 fell out. It was a hard day because we had 7 of 7 appointments fall out, and we only made out 1 new appointment. But that didn't stop us from having a good week!

We started off Wednesday pretty normally, too. We meet with the 27 year old guy from Ghana. He's kind of weird and crazy but he sure does know his Bible. He had really strange interpretations for everything though. He told us in our lesson that he is like a prophet from God and his mission on this earth is to warn people of Christ's second coming, and that there's only one true church. And Elder Thorley and I kinda thought...hey that's what we do, too haha. He is slowly progressing. He's very stubborn and like what he believes on and is very proud and accomplished that with faith has grown this much. He's a good guy though. After that we went home and ate Lauk-Käse Suppe. That stuff is ridiculously good. All you do is cook a bunch of hackfleisch (ground beef), saute a bunch of chopped up leek, put it in boiling water with the seasoning pack, and then while it's all boiling, drop slices or schmelzkäse in it haha. schmelzkäse is like Kraft singles but it's way good. And we eat this a lot. After all this we met with Kali at the church. Kali is the American girl that's here and we are helping her prepare for a 'mini mission' by teacher her the lessons and teaching her how to communicate in a way that's not awkward. And after that, one of our investigators came and we played volleyball with him and the ward. It was way fun.

Thursday was President interviews! It was sooo cool to talk to President Pimentel. He's such a cool guy. It was super uplifting and motivating. And we got to hear a lot of Themas (workshops) from the President and the zone leaders and others. The focus seemed to be on service and sanctifying yourself. I feel like I got a lot out of it. We ate pizza for lunch. After interviews, I went on tausch (exchanges) to Hildesheim. That's where I rode the bike for like 2 hours and it was hard haha. We met with this guy named Jurgend. I think I've already told you about him. He's like this older intense Harley Davidson biker but he lives alone with his cats and he's investigating the church haha. He's cool. After that, we rode the bikes to the church house and had Gemeinderat (ward council) that was cool too. When we went home, Elder Spendlove (the Elder I was on exchanges with) made us milkshakes! Haha vanilla ice cream, peanut butter Oreo milkshakes. I think I had a heart attack but it was so good.

Hannover District

Elders Cloward, C. Marshall, Spendlove, Staheli, Pollard

Elders Carlson, Welker, Thorley

Sister & Elder Wilhelm

Friday: We tausched back in the morning. Random thought: this Turkish internet laden smells a lot like an indian casino. So we hurried to get to our eating appointment with a member family that feeds us almost every week. They're the older couple with the crazy garden in their back yard. They made us oven baked chicken and french fries. And it was the first time I ate french fries with mayo haha. The Europeans love it with mayo apparently. It was way good and we had mousse after for desert. After that we did finding for a while, with no luck. We taught a couple of sisters-one from Spain and a neubekehrt that night too, and made out 2 cool appointments. One of them was this older lady. We approached her and talked to her for a little, found out she's from Poland (which is awesome, because there's a young single adult in the ward who served in Poland and she loves going on joint teaching appointments). As we were talking to her though, these 3 punks came up and started screaming 'Zeugen Jehova!' which means Jehovas witness. Germans don't like them haha. We tried to explain that we weren't JWs but it was too late before one of them started farting on the poor polish lady. It was tragic and I felt bad. And after that, some random guy walked by and said 'Hi Elders' and we had no idea who it was. Just some guy and we've never seen him at church and he didn't stop so we couldn't talk to him haha. Definitely one of the weirdest appointments we've made out.

Saturday morning we went by on a less active from Ghana. She's nice and her son is a riot and I really enjoy teaching them. But man, she is just busy with two small kids and no man and like she really needs to get to church and we want to help her so bad, but we feel like her desire is just slipping away. We really need to figure out how we can help her. After that, I made Kartoffeln Suppe (potato soup) form a maggie pack, and we ate that with bäckerie bread. We did some weekly planning after that. We then hopped on the zug (train) to Burgdorf, where an investigator family lives. They're cool too and I enjoy teaching them. We taught them about the commandments and prophets. They're a part member family. The parents are members and had recently come back to the church and they have a 14 year old daughter who is also baptized. We just like to catch up and teach them and make sure we're helping them out. After that, we had the coolest meeting. We took one of our progressing investigators and brought her to a joint teach with an investigator family. It was a hit and I feel like everyone really enjoyed themselves.

Sunday was awesome! I got to go to church, we ate at a member's house, and I got to talk with my family! It was so nice and I loved it. It made me so happy and motivated me just to work harder for them. After all that, we went out to some sweet appointments. One with a guy from the Ivory Coast, and the other with a guy from Spain (Pau Gasol look-a-like)

It was a good week and our numbers improved and Elder Thorley and I are happy with how it went. This next week we're trying to improve even more!

Today we're planning on going to Wolfsburg, which is where the VolksWagen factory/headquarters/museum is. It should be way cool! I'll take a lot of pictures and tell you how it was next week!

I'm so happy I got to talk with you guys yesterday! Just a reminder to everyone who reads these emails...my email address is timothy.pollard@myldsmail.net.

I love and miss you all!

Elder Pollard

Week Sixteen

Hey Guys!

Ah P-Day. Or Vorbereitungs Tag as we say here in Germany. It's a blessing, but it's also a curse at the same time. I LOVE emailing home and being able to hear about how everyone back in California is doing. It's my absolute favorite time and part of P-Day. But the rest of the day is so stressful! People wanting to shop, see things, and there's always grocery shopping at the end of the day. We don't have a car, so we have to carry all of our groceries back home through the Bahns and what not. I'm not going to complain though, because murmuring gets you nowhere.

I had a pretty good week! It was an improvement from last week, and I feel like this week I REALLY got a lot out of my study. I'll explain later, but now it's time for the weekly update from Hannover.

Like I said earlier, last Monday was HECTIC! I love emailing, but after lunch it's time to go shopping, which is just the most tiring thing on earth. After running around Innenstadt for Euro clothes, we went grocery shopping.MOM and DAD-If you could send me the recipe for mac n cheese, I would be eternally in debt to you. That's what I'm craving right now. Maggie Packs get old haha. So after P-Day, we went by on our Russian couple investigators. They're so sweet and nice, but we're concerned about their level of desire to meet with us. We're thinking that they just let us in because they're nice and old. We tried to show them The Restoration DVD (which is crazy powerful and spiritual), but it wouldn't work! So sad, anyways we just had to explain the restoration to this family by ourselves. It went pretty well and they said they'd read and pray so that's cool. That's all that happened on P-Day.

Tuesday we woke up and studied like usual. After that, the District Leaders in our Zone had a meeting, so Elder Thorley had to go to that. While he was at that, I tausched (combined) with a Golden! A missionary that is even younger than me. It's weird to think that my group of goldens isn't the youngest any more haha. It went well. Elder Adams was his name. Kinda awkward but he's a good guy. We walked like 5 miles just doing finding haha. After that, we went by on a contact who wasn't there, so we decided to go visit this super cool sister. She's an older Polish lady and she's really nice. And after our visits we always play Mensch Ärge Dich Nicht. It's Germany's version of Trouble. After he, we headed home for lunch. Elder Thorley made Beef Stroganov. It was way good. Elder Thorley is a chef. We always eat well haha. After lunch, we decided to do some hard core finding. We've been in this drought of investigators, so we've been doing intense finding. talking with people unterwegs, and klingeling. Doors in Deutschland isn't like doors in America. There's not really houses here, just apartment complexes, so we go around to each buzz box and talk to people through that. Anyways, we checked out this ausslander wohnheim (foreigner housing) and talked to a bunch of people there. We ending up meeting this really cool young couple from Russia and made out an appointment! After a LONG time of finding haha, it really was an answer to our prayers. That night we came back earlier to get some good language and gospel study in.

Wednesday, we did a lot of study in the morning. At noon, we had an appointment with a younger guy, probably like 25, from Ghana. He's super smart and knows the Bible really well. He likes to talk A LOT, too, but we always have good lessons with him and he's going to read the Book of Mormon and see how he feels about it. After Joseph we went by on 3 contacts who all were not there. For lunch, we went back to the Wohnung and I made mac n cheese. This was the worst mistake I've made on my mission so far. It was so gross and not all the way cooked and the cheese was nasty and we felt sick. That's why I want the recipe! Oh well. After lunch we visited with an older man from Sri Lanka. He speaks Tamil. That language is from outer space. You need to look it up on Google right now. We had a really short lesson with him, but it was good. So we were doing doors over by the last appointment and the Eheparr called and said we needed to go with them to give a man a blessing. We said we'd go, but we only had like 10 minutes to find a new investigator for that day, so we really needed a miracle. And sure enough, in 10 minutes we found a really cool, young Russian girl who agreed to meet with us! Missionaries are blessed haha. The Eheparr showed up right as we came outside and we drove up North to give this man a blessing. He had an operation on his one kidney that he has. It had cancer, so I hope he's doing well because Elder Thorley gave him an awesome blessing. After that, we had GEMIKO (ward mission leader-missionary council) which went well and that was mittwoch!

Thursday, we had district meeting early in the morning. After that, we went up North to visit one of our investigators from Ghana. Unfortunately she wasn't there (again). But we were sent to go visit her for a specific reason, because while we were up there, we saw another member who we've been trying to get in contact with forever. And I saw her walking while we were riding the Bahn so we jumped out and ran to catch her and talked with her. It was cool. We went home after that for lunch and Elder Thorley made Spargel Suppe, which was way good. Spargel is asparagus if you remember from the last email. It was delicious. After that, we had to take a Zug (train) to Burgdorf to visit an investigator family. Turns out that two of their sons are over 8 years old, and we've been coming and teaching the family for a while, so that's two new investigators that we've been teaching and didn't even know it! Cool huh. We came home from Burgdorf around 6 and did some finding.

Friday was Pope day! hah That means that the junior companion is the pope (all the power, but no authority) so I got to plan out Friday and decide what we should do. We started with a lot of study. At around 11 we left the Wohnung to stop by an investigator. Unfortunately, she wasn't there, so we ended up doing some finding over by her house. For lunch, I made Tortellini with Cheese sauce and we got Brötchen from this Bäckerie by our house. Meal of the week-it was awesome. After that, we had language study. I love learning German. It's such a fun language! After unsere mittags Pause, we did more finding. We meet this Russian guy and we're going to meet with him later tonight! (Monday) After that, we meet with our less active from Spain. She's so sweet. We talked about the Word of Wisdom with her, because she has a problem with coffee. She said she was going to stop! Elder Tholey and I have really been trying hard to help her. She's come a long way since we've started to meet with her! After that, we went by on an appointment, he wasn't there. So sad. The cool part about Friday was that I bought an electric razor! It's my new toy and it's way cool. We did weekly planing for the rest of the night.

Saturday was way fun, but also super tiring. We started off as usual, but at 10, we got to go play soccer with some members and their friends! Big news! I stink at soccer. I just wasn't made to play that sport haha. But it was super fun and good exercise. So after soccer we literally sprinted home, showered (it has been raining a lot lately, so we were super muddy) for like 30 seconds, sprinted out and got on the Bahn. We were heading to the appointment with the younger lady that we meet earlier in the week. She wasn't there though. That's the hardest part about being a missionary is all the let downs with appointments that fall through. Oh well. After that, we got Subway because we didn't have anymore food at home. Subway in Germany is not as good as in America just saying. After lunch we did finding kind of by our Wohnung. We doored for around 2 hours and got nothing, but it's OK. After that we met with an investigator. We have tea parties with her when we meet with her haha. We watched 'finding faith in Christ' with her, which is a super cool film and it's super powerful. It went well. After her we met with a neubekhert (recent convert) we shared finding faith in Christ with her too. It was a good day. Hannover 96 (the local soccer team) was playing that day, so there were drunk people all over the place yelling and screaming.

Yesterday was cool. Church went well. We had this guy from some religious magazine interview all of us because he's writing an article about our church in Germany. That was cool. Then we had 5 investigators come to church! That was way cool. We ate lunch with with a member family. They made us Schnitzel with a Paprika sauce that we ate over Spetzel (homemade noodles) So good. For desert we had Quark! Quark is good it's like the step that milk goes through in between yogurt and cheese. But it's delicious.We went by on a less active from Ghana. She needs to start going to church again. We meet with her a lot but she doesn't really make progress. After that, we did finding again at this auslander wohnheim. We made out 3 appointments! Good day.

So that was my week! I hope you enjoyed reading it, because I enjoyed living it.

I did A LOT of good studying this week. I think a lot of people underestimate 1 Nephi haha. Because it's more of a story and it goes by really fast, but when you stop and actually study, and try to learn from what Nephi went through, it's like overflowing with great stuff. I'm doing my study with a student manual for Book of Mormon study, so I learn a lot of really cool and interesting stuff. Like how there is archeological proof of Nahor, the place that Ismael was buried! That was cool to learn. One of the best gospel principles that I learned this week (which helped a lot considering how hard it's been lately) comes from 1 Nephi. After reading about all the hardships that Nephi and his Family go through, I read a quote from Elder Maxwell. He said something along the lines of "When we experience hardship after hardship, and it's not result of our disobedience, it is the Lord telling you that he thinks you're ready to grow." I butchered it, but it was something like that and I've been thinking a lot about that lately. I've learned a lot from being in Germany, and unfortunately, a lot of what I've learned has come through so-called hardships. This mission isn't easy haha. It's mentally and physically wearing. But I love it and I'm learning so much, and I feel like I'm helping so many people. It's way cool.

MOTHERS DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You get to meet Elder Thorley and the Eheparr by Skype! That will be super cool!

Ok so I love you all and miss you a lot! Talk to you on Sunday!

Elder Pollard

Week Fifteen

Dear Family,

I love reading the emails that I get every Monday. I'm just so busy all week and expected to immerse myself in the missionary work, so I sometimes forget about being able to email home on Monday! But I love hearing about how everybody is doing (even if it involves Thomas' girlfriend breaking up with him), and I love telling you how I'm doing. I'm having such a good time here in Germany. I'm learning just SO much! I get bad headaches, but I think it's just because I'm learning so much everyday! I'm learning all about the scriptures in detail, learning German, learning interesting things about myself and my limits, learning the ward, learning the city, I just learn all day!

Let me tell you about my week. It was the first week of the second transfer (Elder Thorley's last transfer), and we set out to make it really good. Unfortunately, we had A LOT of appointments fall out. We didn't teach as many lessons as we wanted, and unfortunately, we lost one investigatorss baptismal date. He didn't show up to church again, so he won't be able to attend sacrament meeting 3 times (the required amount) before his baptismal date, so we have to move it back.

Monday: Last P-Day was hectic. We emailed in the morning as usual. After that, we met up with the Elders from Braunshweig and the sisters from Celle. It was raining earlier in the day. We went shopping a little, and got  Döner. I really wish that you guys could eat a Döner. They are ridiculously delicious. It's like a gyro. It's lamb that rotates and cooks and they cut it off and put it in a pita with Kohl (cabbage) and some delicious sauces. After that, we shopped a lot, and visited Herrenhauser Garten! That was so fun. It's a British-style garden in the middle of Hannover. It was super cool and pretty, and when we got there, the sun was out! It was nice. You should look it up online and see some of the stuff that I saw! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrenhausen_Gardens) You guys would like it for sure. After that, we went grocery shopping and P-Day was over. After that, we had THREE appointments fall out. It was really frustrating. But we had some time to do finding, and we made out 2 appointments, so it wasn't too bad.

 At the Herrenhauser Garten

Tuesday started off normally. Elder Thorley and I have started running in the morning. Part to wake ourselves up, and part to get exercise. We usually run for only like 15 minutes, but it's nice. We did our regular study and that was good. After that, we traveled up way north to visit our African lady investigator. She's showing some good improvement, but she's a little unfest (there's no English word for this-it's just like sketchy). But hopefully we'll see some good improvement with her. She speaks English, so teaching her is fun. After her, we helped some missionaries out during transfers. We went to Hauptbahnhof (like the main train station) and waited for missionaries moving through Hannover with their bags and getting on new trains. I got to meet my "brother" Elder Reesen, who Elder Thorley also trained. Elder Thorley is my trainger aka my "dad" so that makes Elder Ressen my "brother", if that makes sense. We ate Burger King (this week was horrible, we ate out too much). We had a meeting with a new member fall out, so that wasn't fun. After all this, we went by on a member family home for Elder Carlson's surprise birthday party. Elder Carlson is on of the Zone Leaders that live in our apartment with us. We said it was a service project, but when he got there, the family had made some really delicious cake. We had a little party with us and the Eheparr (senior companionship). We had a grand time, telling stories in German, eating German Apfel Kuchen and drinking Caro Coffee. After that, we had TWO more appointments fall out. Not fun at all. We go through so much effort running around trying to meet with people and they seldom show up. After everything, we had GEMIKO (ward mission leader meeting) and I got to lead our companionship's weekly inventory meeting. It was cool.

Wednesday started off normal. We studied, got ready, and headed out to an appointment we had made earlier in the week. He wasn't there, but on our way home we made out a pretty cool appointment. After that, we had lunch with a brother! This is the sweetest, nicest, coolest old man on earth. He bought the ZLs and us Döners! He's around 80 years old, and he ate a Hawaiian pizza, and orange Fanta. What a boss. I got to know him and he's super nice and loves the missionaries. After him we met with a younger man from Ghana who knows the Bible really well and loves to teach us what HE believes. Too bad, but that's not why I came to Germany for two years haha. I came here to help spread the true gospel and fundamentals of what Christ taught. It's frustrating at times. But he is a good guy and he always apologizes for talking too much. Hopefully we can teach him more, and he'll be more willing to learn what we have to teach him. After this, Elder Thorley had to go to Nienburg to conduct a baptismal interview, so one of the Elders from Nienburg (Elder Cloward) came down and I took him around Hannover. We had two appointments fall out, but we did a lot of contacting, and I MADE OUT MY FIRST APPOINTMENT IN 100% GERMAN! I was so excited! It was a good day. We ate piyya ate night for our tausch-treat (tausch means exchange.)

Thursday morning we had district meeting. I almost won the "preach my gospel quiz", but not quite. After all that, we grabbed a döner at Hauptbahnhof. We were really late on time, so we had to eat out again haha. We then proceeded to "Dorf-hop" Dorfs are small towns outside of main cities, that are only reachable through trains. There are a lot of Dorfs here, and they're in our area, so we have to visit them a lot. We went to Burgdorf first. There, we met with an American; she's about 18, she lives with the bishop and his family at their house. She's going to serve a "mini-mission" here in Germany soon. I guess she'll live with the sisters for a couple of months or something. We're just trying to prepare her for this mini mission. After that, we went to Lehrte, where we met with a convert sister. Sad story. She was baptized a while ago, but is someone that we refer to as a "church hopper"-just joins whatever church she thinks is cool. So she just asked to stop being visited by the missionaries, and she wants her name off the records of the church. So sad. We went back to Burgdorf after her and met with, the 14 year old girl who we baptized the first week I was here. We're just doing follow up lessons and teaching her 10 year old brother about the church. It was back to home for that day.

Friday started off with a dropped appointment, then we went by on an investigator. We asked his wife if he was home, but he had been in Spain all week. Which is cool, but bad because he didn't contact us or anything and we were expecting him at church. That makes me feel like he's pretty unfest. Oh well. We went home and ate home made schnitzel! I got to eat schnitzel for the first time. It tastes like Denny's country fried steak. It was way good. We then met with the less active member from Spain. She's so sweet and funny. She just doesn't understand what it means to be a contributing member of the ward. But we're working on it! The rest of the day was a lot of traveling, fallen out appointments, and finding.

Saturday was cool. We did all of our studying in the morning, so about until 11:30. I made bratwursts with grilled onions and mustard. They were delicious. Bratwursts here are dirt cheap. After that, he got the special opportunity so see a TAUFE (baptism)!!! The Elders in Nienburg had been working with this African family for a while, and they got baptized on Saturday. HOW EXCITING!!!!!! It's so great to see the joy in someone's face after being baptized. It's really a miracle. The man being baptized had some trouble getting under the water haha. He's a bigger guy and he was being baptized by Elder Welker (about Thomas' size) it was tragic, but eventually he sat on his butt in the font and laid down to be baptized. It was a way cool experience, and we feasted on cake afterwards. We had weekly planning\study after that. We then went by on my favorite, wacky, hippie, bio-eating family. They made us "american food" which was chicken wings and fries. After we played Kniffel (Yahtzee) and returned home.

Sunday: Church was way good yesterday. We watched the last sessions of general conference (it comes late here for some reason) I stay in the English translation with Elder Staheli (Elder Staheli replaced Elder Locher as the ZL. He's super cool and has ridiculously good German). After those two hours, we had sacrament meeting. After church, Elder Thorley, the Eheparr, and I went by a sister's home, and she made us lunch. She is from the Philippines and she's way nice and sweet and is a super good cook, and we ate Filipino food, which was DELICIOUS. Elder Thorley and I taught a super good geistige gedanke (spiritual thought) about Alma 32. Everyone liked it. After that we went by on a less active member from Ghana. She is nice, and has the cutest little kid. We had a way good lesson with her too. After that, we went by on the lady who I made out my appointment with all by myself...but she didn't want to meet. Oh well. After that we made out an appointment with a man who speaks Tamil! Tamil is the language  from Sri Lanka, and it looks like alien language. It's a good achievement to give away a Tamil Book of Mormon.

And now it's P-day and I'm emailing you guys! We had a bad week, and a ton of appointments fell out, but Elder Throley and I talked about it a lot and we know how we're going to fix our situations and make this transfer rock. We have a lot of big goals for this transfer, and I have faith that we'll achieve what we want.

Now to answer some of your questions.

German food is really similar to American. I love the boiled potatoes here. And we always eat with apple juice for a drink which is cool. My least favorite is...I can't say that I have eaten anything yet that I haven't liked. It's all so good!

Love,

Elder Pollard

Week Fourteen

Hello Family!

Thank you so much for your emails! Honestly, like I wake up on Monday mornings like any other day until I realize that I get to read emails from people who love me!  It makes me so happy that I get this couple of hours to see how everybody is doing and to let you know that I am constantly having a good time and improving myself in so many aspects of my life. But that's not what being a missionary is about! It's about helping others to improve themselves, but as I try really hard to do that, I find myself growing up and what not. I love it!

OK so let's start off with my past week.

Last Monday, I woke up and went on a walk. Elder Thorley and I started going on walks in the morning. It was a way to help me break my habit of waking up at 6:30, praying, going out to the living room, and immediately falling back asleep face down on the floor...but the walks are really helping! After that, we went and got McDonalds! McD's in Europe is super weird. They have like 5 menu items, curly fries, and no dollar menu. All the McD's are super nice and fancy, and a meal costs about 8 Euro...which is insane. I don't know why we chose to eat there, but it really wasn't worth it. After that we bought sweet lapel pins! The are a red shield and they have the Hannover Crest and say Hannover. Pins are the cool thing to have at Zone Conference and other times. I feel like the Germany Berlin Mission representative from Hannover when I wear it. Kind of like a delegate of the city. After that, we went shopping. We checked out C&A, Karstadt, and Primarkt, which are all like Macys/H&M. I'm on the prowl for a cheap euro suit, but unfortunately, I'm the biggest person in Germany and none of them fit. So I've decided to lose weight. Which should be easy, considering we eat once a day and walk around all day. And the super cheap ones are smaller sizes. I'm not going to worry about it for a while. Also, I found the best white shirt on Earth. Euro cut, so the collar is kinda funny looking, but they're only 6 Euro! Which is crazy and all the missionaries here love them. After shopping, we went to the Hannover Rathaus! It was so so so cool. Like this crazy old capital building that survived the war. We took a 3 Euro elevator to the top and got to see all of Hannover. And they have models of the old city like in 1700, right before the war, right after the war, and now. Hannover got leveled in WWII. Like literally 5 buildings were untouched. It was cool to see the intense architecture and what not. I took a lot of pictures, but I don't know how to send them home yet. I'll figure it out. After P-Day was over, we went by on a neubekehrt (recent convert). She is from Ghana, single and has 2 little kids. She's really shy and doesn't go to church, but she's way sweet and nice. Her little kids are hilarious too. We talked to her about Alma 32 (which was the geistige gedank or spiritual thought of the week). It went well.

 At the Hannover Rathaus

Tuesday: We started off with our walk and study like normal. We usually end study at around 10:00, which is when we go out. We rode the Bahn all the way up North to visit an investigator from Ghana (you've probably figured out by now that around half of our investigators are originally from Ghana...about half of them speak German, which is cool). Unfortunately, she was sick or she didn't want to meet, so we got back on the Bahn and rode 30 minutes home. We had lunch with the whole Whonung (my room mates) and two other Elders who came down to get their tires changed at the stake center, so they were in Hannover. We made giant pots of Hackfleisch-Käse soup. It's starts with a maggie pack and in the is soup is leek, ground beef, and melted cheese, and it's actually pretty tasty. It's super filling and cheap, so it's nice. After lunch, we had 3 consecutive appointments fall out. Which is not fun, because it's just a waste of time and really frustrating. But, we see miracles LITERALLY everyday, so we prayed where we go/what we should do, and we decided to go by on an older appointment. We got to her house, and she gladly let us in. She is from Kenya, and she had two friends there from Rwanda. We teach so many Africans. Her mom had just passed, but she was doing good and was happy to hear our message. We're going to meet with her and her two friends again soon. That's 3 new investigators! That's what's up.

Wednesday was weird, because we decided to do all of our studying in the morning, but when that happens, you don't get outside until like 1:30. It's nice to study and focus for a long time, but it's weird to get out that late, and I like it better when we break it up between morning and night. Anyway, we studied a lot. For lunch we had Steak with peppers in this maggie pack sauce over rice. It was good but super filling. After all this, we met with a contact from Ghana...he is a cool guy, but I don't really think that he wants to learn. He knows his Bible well, but when we tried to teach he just told us why he thought we were wrong. But like he's a really good guy. We just need to establish why we come to meet with him haha. After that, we had another appointment fall out with this Polish family. After that, we had family home evening with a member family. They're SUPER COOL! I love them. The brother speaks Finnish, German, English, and Greek. The sister speaks German and English perfectly too. They're just a young couple with the cutest kids and they're a great family. The sister also plays for like a professional woman's soccer team here in Germany. Something intense. They're teaching their children English, so we got to take a break from German and speak in English to them. The made us "German Pancakes" we ate with jam. It was delicious. After that, another appointment fell out, but it was OK because we got to play volleyball after that with an Indian guy who got to know the church through going to BYU on an exchange program. He loves the church, but doesn't want to join it really. We take him to volleyball on Wednesdays to play with the JAEs (young single adults). he enjoys it. We're hoping that he'll become better friends with some members. That was Wednesday.

We had district meeting on Thursday from 9:30 to around noon. It went well. After, Elder and Sister Willhelm, our Eheparr (couple missionaries) fed us leftover zucchini lasagna, which was pretty good. I then ausgetauscht (went on exchanges) with Elder Spendlove in Hildesheim. Hildesheim is a smaller city about 45 minutes on train from Hannover. I really enjoyed my time there. Elder Spendlove is awesome and nice and goofy. He's a good guy. While we were there, we did Street Contacting, had an hour long appointment with some guy on a bench, met with an older member lady for like 3 hours...(she's a talker) and then met with their investigator. He in some Hells Angels biker gang, but he loves cats. Weird combination. He lives alone and his Wohnung (apartment) smells like a casino because he smokes so much. He yelled at me for not closing the door all the way, and his cats could have gotten out. But they didn't and he was nice. We read a conference talk with him after that, and it went well. After that, Elder Spendlove and I went back. He bought a tausch treet for us, which was a buffet of German deliciousness. We had these wafer nuttella sandwhiches which were a heart attack, Karamel Waffelns, which is basically butter, carmel, and brown sugar in between two wafles, again a heart attack, and Quarck Brötchen. That was quarck (i don't even know what quarck is. I think it's like one of the steps in between milk and cheese) cheese, egg, ham, and peppers all mixed together, put on bread and toasted. So good. After that we played guitar, the organ that they have in their Wohnung, and went to bed.

Friday morning we exchanged back. We tried to go by on an appointment before lunch, but it fell out. We went home and ate pasta with meet and pepper sauce, which was good. After that we met with our best investigator right now. He's from Ghana and he loves talking about God. He's just so happy and giggly when we visit him. It's always a pleasure. He say Amen to everything that we say in our prayers with him, so he says Amen out loud during our prayers all the time haha. After that, he did some finding over in Mittefeld where he lives (I like to call Mittefeld little Ghana). Full of Africans that love talking about God and Jesus. It was cool. Then we meet with...the coolest guy. He invited us over for Spargel! Which is asparagus in English. It was way cool. He drove us from our stake center to his home in Ronnenburg, which is like 30 minutes away. We ate right away. We had Cream of Spargel Soup to start off with. For the main course we ate Spargel (In Germany, the asparagus is like the size of big carrots and it's white) with a hollandaise-ish sauce, super thin fancy smoked ham, and potatoes. It was so good, but I thought I was going to throw up before I could finish the massive portion they gave me. For nachtisch (desert) we had strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate pudding. This guy needs to get baptized. He's an "ewig" (which translated from German means eternal) investigator. He's been investigating the church for about 4 years I think. We read Alma 32 with him. It went great and he agreed with everything and said that he believed it was true, but his wife (who is a super nice lady) didn't like it and said that she doesn't want to change religions. Which doesn't really matter, but it affects how he investigates that church. Anyways, he's way cool and I enjoyed my time there.

Saturday morning was transfer calls. My first transfer call was nerve racking haha. Basically, everyone calls into this one line, and president reads off all of the areas and who's tranfering and so on. There was no change for the Hannover elders, which is a relief. I'll be staying with Elder Thorley in Hannover for the next transfer, but he dies after that! Which is sad, but it's cool that he is going home in 6 weeks, because he's still so focused and diligent. He's just a good example. Anyways, Elder Locher (the zone leader from Switzerland) is being sent to Hamburg, so I have to say bye to him. It's rough, but I heard that the Elder who is replacing him is super cool. After that, we had a weird day. We meet with another ewig investigator. She's older, but she was really nice and funny. She had just returned from a trip to Thailand. She gave us Baumkuchen (which is like pound cake covered in chocolate) and herbal tea. So much tea. And I hate tea. But it was OK. We talked for a while, asked her about Thailand, shared Alma 32, and it was all good. From that appointment, we meet with a new investigator family. They're from Russia and speak German with a funny accent. It was our first meeting with them, so it was kind of awkward, but it went well. We left a Book of Mormon with them, and hopefully when we return, they will have read a little of it so we can talk about it. I really don't remember what we did for the rest of Saturday. We went and bought Elder Carlson (the other zone leader that we live with) a birthday present. The Hannover soccer team is called Hannover 96 and we got him a cool mug with their logo.

Sunday was cool. One of our investigators showed up to church, but he's been coming for like the last 2 years so it's not that special. He needs to be baptized, but he just won't make that step of faith. Sad story is that our investigator from Ghana didn't come to church like he said he would, and when we called his phone was of the line. It's actually sad because I was so excited to sit in English translation class with him and talk to him. But oh well. Church was good. I fell asleep on accident. After church, I was asked to do English translation next week which I'm super nervous for. Hopefully I'll get enough of the German to be able to translate the big ideas haha. After church we meet with 2 friends of an American girl in our ward. The two friends were from her class at school and we talked to them about what missionaries do and about the church. It was kind of awkward but it was cool. We then ate at a member family's home. They made this delicious salad, which was pretty American. The also made this giant...I don't know how to describe it. It was potatoes slices, cauliflower, cheese, and sauce baked in this huge pan. It was pretty good. After that we did Home teaching with a JAE. That only took like 4 hours. So boring because he is from South America, so his German is super hard to understand. I was basically lost for the 4 hours haha. After that we did finding in Innenstadt, made out a new appointment, and went home.

That was my week! It was really good and went by pretty fast.

I really hope that all is going well back home! I pray for you guys ever morning and night. I pray that you all are comforted and know that I'm having a good time, that I'm safe, and that I'm working by butt off. Please keep me in your prayers too. there are some days that are real hard for missionaries.

I hope this email isn't too long. If you guys could pray for our investigators, that would be awesome. These are people that need the fullness of the gospels in their lives. Thanks!

I LOVE you all. Really so much. I miss you all too!

Elder Pollard