Hey guys,
Wow! The emails I got from the family today were awesome. It's cool
how I come to this little internet cafe every Monday, and I am always
SO excited to read the Emails from my family. It's the highlight of my
day! And most of the times of my week. This past week was....meh. Not
enough work was done for me to say that I enjoyed it. Still 'stuggling'
in Hof. We're not supposed to write home about when times are hard or
annoying, but I don't want to, and won't lie haha. Times are hard and
annoying in Hof. Anyway, there's certainly room to improve! Which is a blessing.
Last week:
Montag: Last Monday was super normal. Just did shopping in the
morning, then emails, then ate Mai Tahn Lang, the Chinese Imbiß across
the street from our Wohnung, (freaking delicious) and then hung around, I
read a little, we watched some movies. Good stuff. That was basically
Monday.
Dienstag: Tuesday, we were going to meet with Schwester Ernst, but
she called and rescheduled. Which is great progress for
her. Normally, she would just not call or anything and then not be
home when we showed up. So good for her.
Mittwoch: Wednesday, we actually did meet with Schwester E.
Going there is always fun. She has two dogs, one is like 15 years old
and small and kind of sickly looking. The other is named 'Pepino' and is
the craziest, wildest dog on Earth. Pepino has already succeeded in
breaking my shoes haha. Apparently they taste good. And she's getting a
new one soon. Kind of crazy, but the are friendly dogs, and Schwester
E. is super friendly too. We talked about stuff. We are planning on
going over the Preach My Gospel lessons with her, because, even though she's already a
member, she needs to learn A LOT. She told us that she doesn't believe
that Joseph Smith was a prophet, even though she believes that the Book of Mormon
is true. And also, that none of the Prophets or Apostles are called of
God. So, obviously we need to talk about a lot of things. Our Branch
President told us to teach her like we were teaching an investigator.
So, we'll see how that goes.
Fritag: Friday was cool. Right after lunch, we were supposed to
meet with Brother R. and his friend C., but his friend
wasn't there, so it was just Bruder R.. He's pretty much less active
even though he believes 100 on everything. he just has trouble getting
to church. We had a good talk with him. After that, we went and did
service in Bruder M's garden. This garden is basically all of our
project haha. I'm really into it. I love garden work! Like taking
something that's old and nasty and making it look good is fun. And it's a
nice break from wearing white shirts and ties all day. And it's really
good exercise. I basically spent 4 hours taking a big bump/hill in the
ground and making it flat. It was a workout. After that, we
ate Abendbrot, and played Ligretto, a super fun card game. It was a good
day!
Samstag: Saturday we had our weekly planning.
Sonntag: Sudnay was fun. We got to church (the Hotel Quality) and
set up, and chatted with Bruder M. It was fast Sunday, of course,
and we had a grand total of 8 people at church. Which is kind of sad,
but it's awesome, because everybody was the opportunity to get up
and speak. And surprisingly, we filled the whole hour just with 8
people. It was cool. I did door service, so I hung out by myself in the
back. After that, we had a combined relief society/priesthood meeting
lesson. After church, we ate with the H's. They're way cool. We ate
goulash and noodles and cake. Yum. On the way home, we had a pretty good
chat with Bruder H., who isn't a member. It was cool. After that,
we went home and cleaned the apartment.
That was the week!
Like I said earlier, there is A LOT of room for improvement. Hof is getting a
senior couple though! To work with us. Hopefully that will help the
situation.
Other than the work going slow, everything is good with me. I need
some mom help though! MOM! Hey. I need some help and advice. I weighed
myself this morning at 90.4 kgs. Which is roughly 200 lbs. BUT I need to
lose more! It's getting hard to keep loosing, and I want all of your
advice and tips on how I can keep losing weight. PLEASE! Anything you
have.
I love my family! I say this every week, but I am so bummed that
I'm going to miss Emily's wedding. Weddings sound awesome. And I'll be
in Hof. But oh well, I'm happy that Emily and Matt are doing this! I
hope everyone else is coping well with the excitement!
I love you all!
Good Morning Rancho Bernardo,
And greetings from Europa. Am I really your favorite Elder Mom? That's sweet. You are my favorite parents, and favorite family too! I've actually been having A LOT of really vivid dreams, and my family is in
almost every one of them (or related to what I'm doing). Last night, I dreamed that I was on a plane home, and I was sitting in front of Jerry Seinfeld and Kramer, and they were making fun of me because I was Mormon. Kind of sad, but it's just a dream. Well this last week was definitely better. I feel like I've just been in build up mode to actually get back into the swing of things, and last week was the first real step. Not a giant step, but definitely progress. Which is awesome.
Last P-Day was tragic, because we ran out of money haha. Literally, I had 5 Euros Monday morning. 2 went to the internet cafe so I could email, and I had to save the rest to pay the bus for district meeting on Wednesday. So we didn't do anything. We couldn't even get Mai Tahn Lang! My favorite Asian food! I cried a little. So P-Day was the most boring day of the week haha. Asides from Emailing of course, which is
my favorite part of the week.
On Wednesday, we had district meeting in Plauen, which went well. We went on tausch with the district leader, Elder Fullmer, and he and I rode the bus back to Hof (50 minute ride). BUT I got my rückerstattung
back in, so I had money on my card again! YAY money! So, Elder Fullmer and I came back to Hof, and bought Mai Tahn Lang, because we couldn't shop for groceries on Monday, so we had no food, and had to eat out. Delicious. After lunch, Elder Fullmer and I went by on a lot of contacts. We got in touch with our old Polish man investigator, but he didn't have a lot of time, and went to the hospital the next day because he has blood clots. It was raining pretty hard, and like nobody was home, so that was sad, but it was good to be out. I remember being happy that I couldn't feel my fingers or hands haha. It had been so long since I was out in the cold. By the way, Germany is already getting cold. It's scary. After going by on contacts, we did some doors. We had a walk in with an ex-Jehovah witness, which lasted a long time, because she liked to talk. She was really nice and we had a cool little lesson, but in the end she told us that she wouldn't read the
BOM. Oh well. We talked to some other people, made out a lot of appointments. It was awesome. After all that, we went and looked for a tausch treat. We were looking for Baklava, a Turkish desert, but none of the Döner ladens had any. I just made pancakes.
Thursday morning, Elder Fullmer and I went on a run, which killed me haha. I'm pretty out of shape. Still loosing weight, but definitely not in shape. But that was fun. Thursday we went to the temple! So Elder Fullmer and I got ready, and went to Bahnhof. The ride is around 2 hours to the temple, but it's fun with Uno. We play Uno a lot haha because we ride trains a lot. The whole district is 8 missionaries, so it's way fun. The temple was awesome, and I even went through it in German! Without the English translator thing. That was cool. Iunderstood it all too. After the temple, we ate Döners. Actually, I ate a Dürüm, which is like a Döner burrito. It tasted like Taco Bell. SO GOOD. We caught the train home, and when we got to Hof, we had to help put some stuff into the new senior companion's apartment. That lasted basically all night, but it was worth it, because we got payed in PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!! Best day ever.
Friday morning, we went back to the new senior missionaries apartment, and put washing machines, fridges, other stuff in. After that, we went to the M's house and did a whole day of service. Our job was to move giant logs from the front yard to the back yard. They got a huge shipment of just like logs haha. It's for fire wood. The big ones had to weigh like 400 pounds. The little ones were like 200. It was crazy. A whole day of being a lumberjack. It was a good workout. We got half of the pile done haha. Crazy. We also played with their two new puppies. Presh.
Sunday was fun. The only priesthood holders were us and president M. haha no big. Church went well. I blessed the sacrament. We had 11 total, and despite a minor meltdown where a member said she wanted
a calling and kind of yelled at everyone, Church went well. There was some gathering of old army vets at the hotel, so I spoke to some old guys in English haha. It was sweet. After church, we ate at the M's. SO GOOD! Oh my gosh I love German home cooking. Not as good as moms, but still. We had an appointment at 17.00 but it fell through.
The week was better. With a lot of help from our district leader, Elder Fullmer. He's an awesome missionary. It was also really cool to go to the temple. I love the temple, and I regret not going more in SD. It's just so relaxing, and like you feel way good after. It's like a reset button on all the dumb things in your life. It's an awesome place, and everyone there is always so nice! It's getting cold now in Germany. I have to wear the big fuzzy socks that a member in Hannover knit for me to bed. I'm so happy I have those. It's back to suit
weather too. Which is fun. I'm doing ok with the diet. I weigh under 200 pounds. Under 90 kilo actually, which is like 197. So that's going good. (I left SD weighing 230...) my goal for when I see you all again is at least 180. Hopefully under that! That would make me happy. I'm also having a 6pack contest with Rachel, so I have to beat her. That is my motivation.
I am SO EXCITED for Emily!!! I can't believe it's happening so soon. And that I'm missing it...oh well. But I want her to now how happy I am for her and how much I miss her! But she doesn't write me. Sad Face. but I'm stoked to have a brother in law. Especially because it's Matt.
Everything else is running smoothly. I love being here. If I didn't, I would come home. But i do, so I'm staying, sorry haha. I'm healthy, relatively happy, and don't miss home TOO much. I do miss my friends a
lot. I miss food from home haha. Chic-fil-a.
Anyways, I love you all more than you know!
Pray for me, I pray for you
Elder Pollard
