Week Fifty-one

Crazy Missionary named Pollard
From the church of Latter-Day Ballers!

I just made that up. Ice Cube would be proud.

Well It was a pretty solid week! I was traveling A LOT!! Oh man I don't think I've ever ridden more trains in one week. I certainly got used to falling asleep on the Deutsche Bahn trains haha. This past week was really cool though. It's been full of little spiritual experiences that have all told me that being in Germany and talking to random people about Jesus Christ is the right thing to be doing at this time in my life. I just know that this is true and I'm loving it. Really, to all family, friends and whoever reads this: being a Missionary is just so fun and so fulfilling. I know I made that right choice over a year ago to submit my mission papers in.

Well let me just tell you about this last week.

Montag: Monday was Elder Stanley's last P-Day, which was sad. BUT It was a great P-Day haha. It was New Years eve, which meant a couple of things. All the stores were going to close at like 2...BUT they all had nice sales! All we do is shop until we drop haha. But anyways, after emailing, we went out and ate. It was Elder Stanley's LAST DAY IN ROSTOCK! So we ate steak. Which was just amazing. After lunch though..........I bought a new suit. Grandma and Grandpa sent me money, and it was just enough to buy a suit haha. 44 euro suit! Super cheap! And it fits me pretty well (a lot better than my old one) So I was really happy about that. After shopping, we went and played this board game with one of the investigators from the sisters. It was really cool, kind of like chess, more strategy and stuff. I enjoyed it. And then we had to be in the apartment from 6 in the evening until we went to bed. On new years eve, Germans launch off just millions of fireworks haha. We just watched from our windows all the fireworks going off. There were some hoodlums in our backyard/court thing being stupid haha. It was good entertainment. We spent the night cleaning and Elder Stanley packed.

Dienstag: Tuesday was hectic. I rode on the train with Elder Stanley to Berlin (I did this all to meet up with Elder Gibson and spend a couple nights in Prenzlau while we waited for the new missionaries to get to Germany) and put him on his train to Dresden. Alles Gute! I was with Elder Gibson in Berlin Hauptbahnhof for a while. We ate McDonalds. Then we caught a train up to Prenzlau. I helped him clean up the apartment and rearrange things, then we went and did finding.

Mittwoch: I was in Prenzlau the whole day on Wednesday. We did grocery shopping, finding, and had one really good appointment with this older guy who was really impressed when I knew where it says in the Bible that God says he's a jealous God...I feel like that's pretty common knowledge. But yea, it was a good day in Prenzlau.

Donnerstag: Thursday was the day! Elder Gibson and I got on a train at 7 in the morning and were in Berlin at 930, listening to President Kosak talk. It was way cool to see President again, and I learned a lot from the meeting. Then they brought all of the new missionaries in and we had our new missionary conference. I met Elder Collins there, and President told us that we'll be serving together!

President and Sister Kosak and Elders Collins and Pollard

 It was a way cool experience and I really enjoyed it. I helped Elder Collins take his luggage around Berlin and we finally got back to Berlin Hauptbahnhof. It was only a 4 hour train ride back to Rostock, where Tobias was there to pick us up. We dropped everything off at the apartment, and went finding in Innenstadt. There was like nobody there though haha. We ended up eating Döner instead.

Freitag: Friday morning we had District Meeting. Our new District Leader is Elder Barr who's serving in Schwerin. He's a cool guy. Our district is small now though, it's kind of weird. After District Meeting, we met T at the Kantine, our favorite little restaurant, and we ate. We had Gemiko at the church after lunch. After that, we headed up to Möllner Straße and tried to get in contact with W. He wasn't there, but we made out two appointments with students, which was cool. After that, we went to the Senior Sister's apartment and studied while I did a load of laundry (yes, we still don't have a working washing machine.) It was cool though. After that, we went and had an appointment with Bruder S. We're studying Preach My Gospel with him, it's way cool. He gave us Abendbrot, too haha. I ate Leberwurst. Not good. Never eating it again. First thing I don't like in Germany. We went home and studied more after.

Samstag: Saturday was cool. We were supposed to have an appointment at 10:30, but they never showed up, so we went and talked to people instead and we made out an appointment, which is awesome. After that we went and ate lunch. We ate tortellini. Mmm. So after lunch, we had an appointment with A! It was the first appointment we've had in a while. He talked a lot, like usual, but at the end we had a super solid lesson and he said he wants to learn more about the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith. Andy is super awesome. He's way friendly and real. I really enjoy meeting with him and hope that he'll make some progress. Well the appointment ended up taking a really long time...haha so we went home and studied for a little and then went to Ping-Pong. Unfortunately, nobody came, so it was just the missionaries and Bruder S. We played anyways haha it was cool. We went home and studied after.

Sonntag: Fast Sunday, so we had meetings before and after church. We also had Gemeinde Essen! Which was way good. I talked with Schwester S for a while about her mission (she served in the East Germany Mission in the 50's) and I was so amazed at how different missionary work is today. And I'm so grateful to be a missionary today and not in the DDR in the 50's. After eating, we went by a couple of contacts who weren't home. We ended the day with planning and study.

The highlight of the week was just this self improvement that I've been noticing. I think it comes with training and really having this responsibility kick you in the pants. But like the work is going great, and my study has been awesome. We're reading the Book of Mormon as a mission and We're going to finish it before April I think. Focusing on the Holy Ghost and how the spirit will help us and our investigators. It's was cool and helping me a lot. I love it!

I'm jealous of all the new years snacks you talked about! Ah I miss food from home so much. The food here is excellent, but it's just not homemade onion dip and little smokies good. I'm super happy that you liked the package, and that it got there on time. It's like a little miracle haha. That's really why I wanted money so bad! So I could send the packages home! The chocolate is excellent here and I hope you really liked it all. And if you ate that heart cookie, it's ok but you usually don't, they're just decoration really. But you totally can if you want.

It's way cool that Emily and Matt are moving to SD! Emily said that she's email me, and I even bribed her by telling her I'd send some chocolate if she emailed me her address, but she still hasn't haha. Oh well! I can't wait to see everyone again. I'm super happy that I could skype with Matt and Emily also, it was a lot of fun.

Well, everything is going well! Elder Collins is liking Germany, I think and hope, and we're getting along. I'm learning a lot haha like every day. I'm super grateful to be hear too.

Mom and Dad - please send me an email about your conversion story! I'd ove to read it.

I love you all!!!

Elder Pollard