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!