Week Sixty-six

Elder Pollard is leaving Rostock. Leaving behind the blood, sweat and tears that stain the streets of this great city! After 5 transfers...6 months of walking around the streets of the Hansa City Rostock, I am being transferred to a place called Dellingsdorf.

The next destination...

I have no idea what this place is like, and basically everyone I ask also has no idea. Haha I'm not sure if that's a good sign. But we'll see! I'll just have to try my hardest to make it a well known place. It is apparently really close to Hamburg, and I'll actually have a chunk of Hamburg in my area. So it's like Dellingsdorf/Hamburg/Ahrensburg. That's my new area haha. I just need to say that I would probably stay in Rostock a lot longer if I had the choice, but I don't. It is so incredibly comforting knowing that wherever I am and whoever I serve with is really the will of God. Facing hard times or maybe slow work can just be put to the side, but I know I'm supposed to be working in Dellingsdorf with Elder Lyken (spelling?). I'm super excited!

Let me just tell you about my last week:

Montag: Last Monday, seems like a long time ago haha. I remember that T took us to this Italian restaurant, which was really good. I had pasta. We also kind of milled about and went shopping and enjoyed resting. I wrote a letter, too. We actually just kind of relaxed and hung out at the church. After P-Day was over, we rode to Neubukow with T and helped him with his English class. It was a really good way to help out and to meet knew people and introduce them to the church. We were pretending like we couldn't speak German at all until the end haha it was great. They were so surprised. It was so hard not laughing at the jokes in German or like responding in any way to the German. It was just really fun!

Diesntag: Tuesday was a great day! Oh my goodness haha probably one of the better days since coming here in October. We started by eating with F and Frau K. They made us Roulade, Rotkohl, and Klöse. It was pretty good! I was just grateful that they made us food, because I know that they both can't be throwing money around. It was cool though. We went after that and had an appointment with M R. Also great! We talked about reading in the scriptures again, because it's been a while since he's been active at all. We gave this plan and told him that we'll be reading with him as well. He got kind of excited haha so hopefully we'll be helping him through that. After that appointment, we met with the P's haha. Two members from India! There names are M K and A K. They're not related though. They are so cool. We shared a good thought and they just bore testimony about how the Gospel gets them through hard times. It was so cool. After that, we went and met with T! We brought Sister Holbrook and it was just a good appointment. T has been really sick lately. But we had a good lesson, talked about baptism (she's being baptized on the 11th of May) and gave her a blessing. It was a really cool opportunity. After that, we went and ate at institute.

Mittwoch: Wednesday was pretty cool. We had an appointment with A in the Ausländer Heim. He basically lives in this place like a really bad student dorm. It's where they put people who don't have their papers for Germany yet. They can't work and they basically sit around all day and wait for something to happen. It's really sad I really don't like those places too much. I couldn't imagine not knowing what's going to happen with me haha. It would be scary. But we had a good lessons about reading in the Book of Mormon. After that, we had to come home and I caught a train to Neubrandenburg. We went on splits with the Zone Leaders. We had to go to the meeting on Thursday.

Donnerstag: Thursday was good. We were in Berlin for the leadership meeting, which was awesome! It was good to see like everyone I know and it was even better to listen to the workshops and everything. I took a lot of notes and learned a lot. We also got Subway. For free. That's just a blessing. We had to wake up at 5 in the morning, and we got home to Rostock at about 11 haha. It was a long day with a lot of sitting. Uncle Craig sent me a package! Oh my it was so exciting! It had a bunch of American candy in it haha. Such a blessing haha.

Freitag: Friday was great. We had a really good lesson with R L. We talked about reading in the Book of Mormon with her, too. It was super cool, because she got excited to read with us! Also, on Sunday when I saw her again, she said she's been reading. That's like amazing haha. It was so cool. And then we met with Schwester S and the G's. That was also a great appointment. That night, we met with B and took a tour of his house and all his taxidermed animals. Kind of creepy. But way fun.

Samstag: Saturday morning was the call! We also played basketball, and I got to say bye to all of them. That night was a miracle. We met with F and had the best appointment we've ever had with him. We went over the baptismal interview questions and he basically passed. He's made so much progress and he gives us the credit, even though he needs to give himself and God all the credit. He's just very thankful and that helps haha. It was great to see that.

Sonntag: Sunday was kind of boring. We went to church and watched general conference, then we went and gave Bruder S the sacrament at his house because he was sick. We came home and did weekly planning, cleaned and ate, and studied/packed.

So the last week just went by really fast. I can say that I just don't want to leave Rostock at all haha, but it has to happen.

Say goodbye to Rostock...

I am looking forward to Dellingsdorf though. Especially because we work in Hamburg kind of. Hamburg is like the second biggest city in Germany. It's just huge and I've never been there. So things will be ok.

I was really impressed this last week from what I read in the Bible 1 Corinthians 13. It's about love! Definitely something I need to work on. But it basically talks about how we really can't do any of God's work if we don't have love for the people we're serving. I would suggest that you all read it.

I love you all so much! I'm moving on to another city, but not quite moving on back to San Diego. We'll just have to wait, because I have so much more to learn and so much more work to do. Wish me luck! Thanks for all your support and love.

Have a great week.

Elder Pollard