Week Twenty-five

Moin.

Moin means 'morgen' but over time it's slowly devolved into just 'moin'. Thought you'd like to know. German is fun. I love the language. I'm starting to try and deepen my vocabulary, which is fun/hard. But I love talking to the members! Everyone tells me how much I've improved. And compliments are the best. We ate with the K's yesterday, which is funny, because my very first eating appointment in Germany was with them. They were talking about how much I've improved! It made me feel good. I'm trying really hard on being able to speak, because one of the coolest things about being a missionary is just taking to EVERYBODY. Literally. I meet so many interesting/weird/funny people just walking up and down the streets. I love it. Last week, we met this guy named A who was from Tanzania. He spoke Swahili! Haha which is Hakuna Matata language. And I was just thinking how crazy that was because we're just two American kids, in German, speaking with this guy from Africa. Crazy!

Anyways, last week was really awesome. Let's just say, I LOVE the ward here. It's big and a little hard to get to know everybody, but they take care of the missionaries. Let me tell you about my last week:

Montag: Last Monday was cool. We planned on having a Zone P-day. We did all the morning stuff like usual: get up, morgen sport, eat, shower, study, clean, email. After we emailed, I went to Primark and bought the suit jacket to the sexy Euro pants I've had for a while. That means new Euro Suit, which = classy.

 

 Hannover Zone Conference (Elder Pollard and his suit are second row/5th from the left...)

And I love wearing it and it makes me feel good about myself. That's all I have to say about that. After all that, we hit up BACK FACTORY! my favorite German bakery chain. This place is ridiculously delicious. I payed 5€ I got: a spicy chicken sandwich, a hot dog brötchen cheese thing, a pretzel, and some other leckere kleinigkeit. #yum. That was good. We then found and empty field, and played football, soccer, ultimate Frisbee, and other sports with everyone from the zone. Fun times. That night, we had a joint teach! Taking members to help teach investigators rocks. Last week we took Brother E (a recent convert from Instanbul) along to a man named S. P. who is from Iran. It was really cool. Brother E bore awesome testimony, and was really helpful. That was Monday...not too much.

Dienstag: Tuesdays are never awesome. Last Tuesday was just long and slow. In the morning, we went to the Wilhelms (the senior missionaries) place and used their computer to email a referral that we got. While we were there, Sister Wilhelm hemmed my companions pants. We were invited to stay there and eat lunch with them, which consisted of leftovers, but it was still way good. After that we went by on a couple of first appointments with people. We didn't teach anything, but made out more appointments, so that was good. We then met and taught A. W. She's super cool and sweet. She made us Tea though, which on these super hot German days isn't the most refreshing drink, but whatever. We had a good lesson with her. She's not quite progressing, and I'm not sure if she understands exactly what we expect from her, but she's awesome. One thing I've noticed about people, is that nobody is open for everything. I always say, we have this book, and because we have it, it has to be either true or false. There is a definite way that you can use to figure out if this book is true or false, will you do that? Nobody does. Oh well, religion and God just isn't important to a lot of people. I don't understand why, but oh well. After A., we went by on our huge ward list, trying to wittle down who still lives in Hannover/who is less active/who is still alive. We then met with a lady named G. I., from Ghana. We just gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to church. That night we had a meeting with our ward mission leader.

Mittwoch: Wedenesday was awesome! ZONE KONFERENZ! We got to meet our new mission president and his wife,  President and Sister Kosak, who are super cool. They talked to me about a Pollard they new who was from Scotland for a while.I had to give a Thema (workshop/lesson/thing) at Zone Konferenz, and I talked about John 15. It talks about how Christ is the true Vine and how we are branches of of this vine. If we aren't connected with the vine, we can't make fruit. It was cool, and I enjoyed teaching it. We heard a super cool Thema from Sister Kosak. She talked about how today's tests are tomorrows testimonies. I thought it was cool. After Zone Konferenz, we jumped on a train and went to die Familie K's house. We celebrated America. We had burgers and chips and potato salad, and root beer floats, which is awesome, because there's no root beer in Germany. Special order from America haha. That was such a fun day.

Donnerstag: Thursday was alright. We went by on J in the morning. He's the African guy who's like 26. His phone hasn't been working lately, so we just had to go by on him. He couldn't meet right then, but we made out an appointment for this coming week. We then rode to Frau A's, who is an older lady who just likes to talk about religion and the Bible. I'm not sure how much interest she has, but we'll figure that out. That's a hard part of missionary work, is figuring out who really has interest, and who just likes to talk. The rest of that day was interesting. We just went by on members/did doors and talked with people. We got in contact with a member who invited us in. I had never seen him before haha and I've been in Hannover for a while now. He doesn't go to church, but he says that he's an active member.

Fritag: Friday rocked. We started off our day by going by on W., and older member from Poland. She has health issues and it's hard for her to get to church, so we visit her and make sure everything is going good for her. That was fun. After that, we ate with the S's! (Maybe for the last time :( ) which would suck. We had potatoes, meatballs, and red beets. She also gave me socks. Yes, a nice old German lady knit me socks. That's what's up. I already wore them, they're way comfy. After that, we went by on N to work in his Garden. That was so much fun. I love doing service. Being able to help someone is cool, but I love manual labor haha it's such a good stress reliever. We painted a lot of his garden house, and chopped down a tree.
 

 Elders Wightman and Pollard and their victim (you give a boy an axe...)

By chopped down a tree, I mean we hacked at this thing for about an hour with a hatchet. My hands still hurt. It was actually way fun.

Samstag: Saturday was awesome too! We had weekly planning in the morning. After that, we went to another America Party haha. This time the S's (an actual American family) invited us and a lot of the ward over. We had homemade fried chicken, ribs, hot dogs, hamburgers, and more root beer floats haha. It was super delicious and I got to talk with a lot of the members. Speaking German is crazy. That basically took the whole day. It was a nice break.

Sonntag: Church was good. Not too much happened. We had a really good lesson in Sunday School talking about how God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are three different beings. A lot of Book of Mormon scriptures. And the big whammy in Acts during Stephans stoning where he looks up to heaving and sees God and Jesus Christ as two separate beings. That was a good lesson. After church, we went to the K's and ate. And that, we meet with a guy named B. We're teaching him how to speak English. Which isn't as easy as it sounds. That was a hectic hour of bad English and us not knowing what to do haha. After B, we met with a lady named R...from Ghana. Haha I LOVE people form Ghana. They all love Jesus so much. And they're really open and kind people. We had a good lesson with her. When we were done meeting with R, we saw that it was like 9:00, and We have to be back in by 9:30. We still hadn't made out an appointment, so we were kind of in a sticky situation. Luckily, we're missionaries, and our prayers are straight up answered. We prayed so we could run into someone who was ready to hear about the gospel, and sure enough, we met someone on the street, gave him a Book of Mormon, taught a lesson right there. It was amazing.

So last week was actually pretty good. Not as good as we though it was going to be, but not too bad at the same time.

PARENTS! Hi mom and dad. I love you guys so much. I miss you a lot too. I love reading the emails I get, and just knowing how much good food I'm missing out on haha. But I know I'm going good by being here. I hope you like the picture of the tree we cut down! Look how small that stupid hatchet was.

I read something interesting this morning. It was about the small/large plates and what they exactly were. The large plates contained a history of the political/war side of things, and started from Lehi leaving Jeruselam, and go until the end of 4 Nephi. The small plates are more of a religious/prophesy kind of aspect, and start from Lehi leaving Jeruselam, but only go until Omni. The Words of Mormon are a connection from the small to the large plates. And the 116 pages that Martin Harris lost, is the beginning part of the large plates (what would've been 1 Nephi until Omni). But those were lost. Nephi was commanded to start the small plates, because God knew that part of the large plates would be lost. I thought that was cool!

I love you all soooooo much. I miss you. I hope everything is going well.
Till next week!

Elder Pollard