So instead of the smokey Turkish internet cafe that I used in Hannover, I am now in a small restaurant called 'Taj Mahal'. It's pretty small and dark and it smells like spices from the East. But it's chill. Last week felt like an eternity. Literally. I don't know why, I think it's just barbecue of traveling/getting used to everything. But despite it feeling really long, last week was cool.
My second area! Hof, in Bayern. Ganz oben. And it's pronounced like hope, but with an f instead. HOF. It's a cool little town! It's super hilly. It kind of has the feel of if someone took super hilly San Francisco at the turn of the century and dropped it in the middle of 4S Ranch. Haha I don't know if that makes sense, but the city is really old and big, intense, old buildings, but the outskirts are like fields and big houses. I like being here! The ward is actually a branch. There are only like 25 people on the ward list, and like 18 active members. But the members are pretty cool. Especially the branch president and his family. We spent a lot of time at their house last week...
Let me tell you alll the details haha
Montag: My last day in Hannover! NO! I love Hannover. It will always be special because it's where I was trained. It's where I learned German, and how to be a missionary haha. It's a lovely city, really. But for my last P-Day in Hannover, we watched movies in German! Haha it was so cool to watch Disney movies and actually understand what they were saying. It was crazy. Actually a couple of week ago, Elder Wightman and I were going by on a less active member, and we walked by this huge cardboard box of Disney VHS movies in German. Jackpot. We ended up watching 'Der Weg nach El Dorado' (The road to El Dorado) and Toy story 2. AUF DEUTSCH! It was super cool and I enjoyed it. I said bye to all the missionaries in my first district, too, which was sad. Monday night, we were supposed to meet with R, the African investigator, but she fell out, so we played basketball with the other missionaries and our second counselor in the ward bishopric and some youth. It was fun. A good last day to remember Hannover and all the missionaries there.
Dienstag: Tuesday was travel day. I was actually really nervous, and for good reason. I rode a train from Hannover to Göttingen, then had a 30 minute layover, then rode from Göttingen to Gera (outside of the Berlin mission boundaries) where I had a 7 minutes umsteig (transfer), then from Gera I rode to Hof. That was SO nerveracking. The 7 minute umsteig was a nightmare! Oh and my luggage broke while traveling. I guess that's what you get when you take the luggage you won at grad night on your mission. Anyway, I ended up carrying all 3 of my packed suitcases in my hands, and sprinting up a flight of stairs to catch my train. Not the greatest experience of my life, but I'm glad that I made it. Traveling cost 60 euro too, so I've been living with no money for the past week. Bu oh well. I got into Hof unharmed, met Elder Huber for the first time, and went to my new Wohnung. The apartment here in Hof is swanky. Super classy and nice. Really big and clean too. Hof has only been an area for the past year, so everything in the Wohnung is new and nice (missionaries have been using the Wohnung in Hannover for the past 25 years, so it was a little less nice). Basically I'm super happy that the Wohnung is nice. We also live like smack dab in the middle of town, which is also good. After I got in and unpacked and situated, we went shopping for food for the week. We shopped at this place called Markhof, which is kind of more like an American grocery store. It was cool. After that, we kind of sat around. Which was weird for me. Because we were hard workers in Hannover. We worked all day, and I got used to it. There's not really anything going on in Hof right now, so I'm excited to get it up and running.
Mittwoch: Wednesday morning, we had District Meeting in Plauen, the next area north. It was cool to meet my new district, but traveling there was...something else. Because we're in Bayern, and everyone else is in Sachsen (Saxony), it would cost 40 euro to cross the border in a train. So we had to take a bus. Which took 50 minutes. And it's hard to fall asleep on buses! Impossible really. But anyways, we got to Plauen, walked a little, met up with the whole district, took a Bahn to the church haus there and had DM. It was cool. I like meeting new missionaries. After DM, we took the bus the 50 minutes all the way back haha. We got home and ate lunch. Chili I think. Elder Huber made it. And after that, we basically spent the whole rest of the day calling people from the phone. Our phone was a bunch of old investigators in it, but Elder Huber doesn't know who they are, so we called all of them and made out appointments with some of them. Hopefully they'll still have interest!
Donnerstag: Thursday morning was hectic. I got up as normal and did everything. At around 11, the elders from Freiburg came, because one of them had a dentist appointment in Hof. So we basically entertained them until the appointment. While they were out, we went shopping for some important stuff (toothbrush, body wash, wall clock) on our way back, we stopped by the tourist center to try and find pins! Pins are cool. I'm going to get one from every area I serve in. We went in, asked if they sold pins (which they didn't) but the lady behind the desk just gave us some for free! It was way cool. The say 'Hof in Bayern ganz oben' (ganz oben means way north basically) That was cool. We got back to the apartment, and made canned soup for ourselves and the Freiburg elders. Then they left. After that, we went by on a couple of less actives/contacts. Nobody was there, but we made out an appointment with somebody on the way. We then went by on Bruder L, a less active. This guy is super cool. I love talking to him. He's funny, too. We actually watched Passion of the Christ with him. Which was weird. I have seen Passion of the Christ in German. But like there's nothing factually of doctrinally wrong with the film. It's just really graphic. I kind of liked it. It was just real. We then came home and finished calling everyone in the phone, made out a lot of appointments. Good stuff. Area book/phone work.
I'm in this Indian restaurant/internet cafe and it smells delicious.
Fritag: Friday was OK. I go up like normal, and studied. Studying rocks. I started a study journal/I am reading the BOM with this student study guide and it's super interesting and cool. I love studying. It's the highlight of my day sometimes. At 11 we went out and 'BAMed' (Be a missionary...it means go and talk with people, go by on contacts, etc.) We then came back and ate lunch. Spaghetti I think. Elder Huber made it again. After lunch, we had weekly planning, which didn't last too long, because we don't have any investigators. We talked about the area, what we want to do, and that kind of stuff. We then finished up on area book work, calling everyone we could, writing down the addresses of people we need to go by on and stuff. Friday was scary. I caught myself being lazy. I just sat on the couch (we have a really big, nice couch) and I was like...I would be totally OK if I just took a nap right now. BUT THAT'S NOT GOOD! It's called missionary WORK. Some missionaries don't understand it. I just say hey if you want to take naps, sit around and do nothing all day, go on Facebook, just disobey the rules we have, then go home! The mission is not the time to be doing this. Some people just don't get it. Anyway, I promised myself I wouldn't do it again.
Samstag: Saturday was supposed to be a 'Sommerfest' (summer party) with the ward at the lake here in Hof (Untruesee) but it was pouring on Saturday. Hof is notorious for it's crazy weather. It's called the Siberia of Bavaria. Nice. Anyways, we studied in the morning, then went by contacts/less active members at 11. We came home and ate brats. Mmmmmm. After lunch, we hung out for a little (stupid) and then went to the M's house. The M's is the family of the branch president. They're super cool. They have 3 daughters, 19, 17, and 14. They're super cool, but I feel like over time, the relationships between the family and the missionaries became kind of weird. We go over there and it's like we become their personal butlers and servants. It's like...I'm OK with helping around and I love serving and doing service projects...but we shouldn't be spending hours on end at their haus just to do little chores around the haus. Also we played a bunch of games. Like Kniffel, Uno, and others. I love the family. They're super nice and they love the missionaries, we just can't spend all day there. Like we did on Saturday.
Sonntag: Sunday was my first church experience here in Hof! Church here is only 2 hours, because there's only like 20 people in the branch. We meet in this conference room thing in a hotel haha. But it's chill. I gave a talk yesterday. Actually the Elders Quorum president called me last night at like 8:00 pm and said "can you introduce yourself tomorrow morning and give a 10 minute talk on Jesus? OK thanks bye"). So I talked about chapter 8 in Preach My Gospel where it talks about the Christ-like attributes. It was OK. I talked for like 15 minutes instead of 10. I should have prepared better. Oh well church was cool. After church. We went with Bruder L to the G's. We ate like potatoes and ground beef there. And Eis for desert. It was good. We shard a spiritual thought there and then went to the M's...for the rest of the night...again. I love this family. They're super cool. But there is no reason we should be there for more than an hour and a half. We have these rules. We ate cake there. It was delicious.
That was my first week in Hof. If you couldn't tell...we taught nobody last week. That makes the week go by realllllyyyyy slowly. It sucks. But we just need to put our heads down and put forth some effort and that will change. We'll see if that happens next week. I'm ready for it. Hof has such a good potential to explode and be a great area. But I feel like the missionaries here just got lazy. There's like zero work being down here, and the branch is so excited and has been waiting for so long for work to be done. It needs to change.
Other than that, it was a really good week! I like Hof a lot. It's an awesome place. And I'm in Bayern! That accent here isn't really that bad. We get some people (like our GML) who are from Sachsen (Saxony), and that accent is crazy. But I haven't really heard Bayrisch yet. Hearing some from Sachsen speak German is like hearing someone from Scotland speak English. Sometimes even the fluent German speakers don't understand it haha. Oh well.
MOM - hi. We have a mini deep fryer in the apartment haha. I was wondering if you could suggest anything that we could cook in that. I think that would be cool.
My new address is:
Elder Tim Pollard
Kirche Jesu Christi
Ludwig Strasse 52
95028 Hof
Deutschland
Hof is hopping. I like it here. I'm doing good.
K I love you all and miss you a ton!
Elder Pollard
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