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