Week Seventy

Alright family, here we go! Another week of emails! To start everything out, it's important to know that for the past 3 weeks, I've had no money. The mission is getting a new system in for how they deal with the money, and we haven't been allowed to send in receipts and stuff to get reimbursements. Life has been real over here! We're looking at a week of eating a lot of rice....which is good and bad. This transfer has definitely taught me that you only really need a couple of dollars to stay not hungry haha. If you like eating rice it's just no problem.

This last week has been pretty good. It was pretty nice to meet with a lot of people and get out and do some good stuff! Oh it basically rained like the whole week. Non-stop. Let me just tell you about it.

Dienstag: I'm starting with Tuesday again. We were in Hamburg to email and enjoy p-day again. I had no money, so the term 'enjoy' is being used very loosely. It was still fun though. Elder Lykins paid for the KFC....yea KFC again haha. 

 

Hamburg Fried Chicken???

Worth it. Not much else. I took a nap. We had GEMIKO that night with Bruder Z.

Mittwoch: Wednesday morning was District Meeting in Lübeck. It was a good meeting! We didn't have too much to talk about in terms of our investigators and how we can help, but the Themas that were given were pretty good, in my opinion. I learned a lot. The Zone Leaders were there, which was good. When we got home, we changed right away, and went to the S's to help with the ceiling. We are so close to being done! Scraping the paint/stucco stuff off the ceiling is way harder than it sounds. She gave us some delicious pastries, so our efforts were rewarded. That took a while haha. We ended up coming home, getting changed, and getting back on a train to Kiel to go on exchanges. I was with Elder Rückauer, a German missionary from Freiburg. He's sweet. I spent a long time on trains that night! All the way to Kiel and all the way back was like 4 hours. Riding trains is so tiring....

Donnerstag: Thursday was way cool. I learned a lot of German hints and tricks from Elder Rückauer, who just happens to speak like perfect English. It's not fair at all. Americans are just at a disadvantage because English is our mother language..usually. Almost everybody in Germany can speak English, and if not, they can at least say a couple of words. But yea he helped me with some things. We had a couple of great appointments...one with Herr V. He was the referral from the other missionaries. He's way cool, I like him a lot. He's very open and honest about what he understands and knows. We just have to help him realize what he actually believes in. He has a family, so hopefully we'll be able to help the whole family! Elder Rückauer and I made a very interesting lunch, after he decided to challenge me to a hot chili eating showdown. I didn't have any problems....but oh man haha he did. Germans aren't the biggest fans of spicy food...as a general stereotype. Anyways we made some spaghetti, pea, carrot, spicy chili, egg pasta thing. It was good. After lunch we went by a couple of contacts in Ahrensburg. We got into contact with one man who told us to come by in a couple of weeks, which was sweet. We also had an appointment with Herr S, the man we found right when I arrived in Ahrensburg. He talks a lot....so it's hard to teach. That seems to be a problem with a lot of investigators. It turns from a teaching/learning environment into a sit and listen to me talk one...Oh well. After that appointment we had to race home, pick up Elder Rückauers bag, and ride the bikes back to the train station. No big deal. Elder Lykins was back in Delingsdorf area, and we had an appointment with the family W. They made us some delicious potato cheese thing. I just ate it up. After the eating and spiritual though, we went home and crashed.

Freitag: Friday was weird. We studied in the morning, went and had to carry a 50 pound package into the city and mail it.....my goodness that sucked. It was actually one of the most challenging things I've ever had to do. No big deal though. We came home and ate lunch, and started weekly planning. That went for a while until Bruder S from the office came and had us clean out our basement. That took a while haha. There's like this big push in the mission to make nasty old apartments nice again. With new furniture and painting and what not. It's a blessing and a curse. It usually takes like a lot of time and is annoying and hard work. But then you can just enjoy the nice new apartment! well after finishing planning, we had an appointment kind of far away with the family Thomas. They're way cool! They young and the have bunnies like Emily and Matt. I don't know if they still have their rabbits after the move...but it's cool anyways. They made us taco salad. Taco Salad is apparently like the most American thing you could make for the missionaries. It's really good, but we eat it a lot haha. We ate and gave them a Book of Mormon. They wrote their testimony in it and then we got them to promise to pass it out to one of their friends. Good stuff!

Samstag: Saturday was sweeeeeet. We started with soccer in the morning. There were these kids there from Spain or something. They couldn't speak any German but the were sooo good. It was incredible. Not too big of a deal though...still scored two goals. Be proud. It rained a lot and I was very tired afterwards. We had an appointment right before lunch with a man from Angola, who had grown up in the Congo, so he only knows French. His German is alright, but it was hard to communicate. We're going to try to bring a member from the ward who can speak French next time obviously. He was way cool though! We also had our weekly meeting with Dr. M. This time was a lot better. Bruder M went an hour early to talk and we could come in and start with teaching. We taught about reading the scriptures. It was good to focus on that. We learned a lot about where he stands right now with God and what he expects from him. We said he'd try to read in the Book of Mormon. That would be good progress. After that appointment, we walked around Bargteheide for a long time in the rain to go by on contacts there. 

 

 

We found a couple of them. We came home and ate and then something crazy happened.....I just passed out. I sat in my bed intending to sit there for like 15 minutes. I woke up on Sunday morning.....

Sonntag: Which just proves how tired missionaries really are! I felt bad, but am grateful for the 12 hours of sleep. We were intending on planning anyway. Elder Lykins said he just let me sleep because I seemed really tired. When's the last time you remember me being tired? I slept so much at home that I was never tired haha. But anyways Sunday was good. It was great to see some people at church that we've been trying to help come back. No investigators yet, but members that we've been working with. I love seeing that. Because members see their old friends and people they already know and everyone talks. It's like coming home for the one who's been staying away. H A came to church for the first time like a while. Probably like a month. Not SUCH a long time, but it was still good to see him there. After church we had to RACE our bikes home and RUN to the train station to catch our train. It was annoying. But we made it and were one time for our eating appointment with the family Z. Brother Z served in HOF a while ago! So it was super cool to talk about the city and the people there. We ate delicious lasagna. We came home and cleaned up the apartment a little, and then had an appointment with Herr Friedrich, who I met for the first time. The guy is so cool and he loves reading books about religion. He has so many of the same beliefs as us, just not hat he needs to belong to a church or anything like that. I loved the appointment. He's a smart guy.

So that was the week. I also talked to the Mission Doctor about my knee. The bad one haha. It was bothering me pretty bad yesterday and it was even swollen. He said that I could have some torn cartilage in my knee, but he really can't say anything. His prescription was to tough it out and not destroy my knee while I'm in Germany haha. Good stuff. The week was long and wet. So much rain...but it was also way good. I'm happy in Delingsdorf area. I'm super excited to get the work going here.

Oh by the way! Do you remember F from Rostock? He was baptized confirmed over the weekend! How cool is that?! I didn't get to go to the baptism, but it was just super good to hear that he finally made it. It seems that the Rostock branch is also pretty excited for him. I remember that night that he talked to us that night in the bahn! Like it was yesterday! the Lord is hastening his work.

I hope you have a good memorial day! Enjoy the day off of work. Eat good food for me.

Well anyway, things are still chugging along here in Germany! I love and miss you all and I pray all the time for you!

Have a great week!

Elder Pollard

Week Sixty-nine

HELLO

Emailing the world from Hamburg, Germany. It's a good place to be right now if you like grey skies and drizzle. It's been kind of bad weather for the past couple of days. But bad weather doesn't come into account when you're planning for the day. You just go and do....which is good. Annoying some times when it rains because come on....who wants to stop and talk when it's just pouring? The PREPARED people, that's who! Still doesn't make walking around in the rain fun...but oh well we do it anyway. I'm still super pumped from the Mother's Day call, too! It was really great and basically a small miracle that we got it to work at all haha. I apologize again for not telling you any information about when and how we were going to skype.....just slipped my mind haha. I feel very bad. But thank goodness everything worked out. It was the best Mothers Day gift for me too haha.

I've been riding the excitement wave of skyping this whole past week haha. This past week was just CRAZY! I'm telling you haha. It was super hectic and surprising. We had to travel a lot, too. Let me tell you about it.

Dienstag: (We did P-Day last Tuesday instead of Monday) P-Day was good. Elder Lykins and I were in Hamburg for a while and we had a district P-Day in Schwerin after. We got permission to all go and visit the castle in Schwerin, which was pretty cool. It was kind of boring on the inside haha, just like a small selection of art....wooooo. It was nice and cool but it was just because we could be with the district and all hang out. We ate lunch together and then came home. Not much else!

The castle at Schwerin

Mittwoch: Wednesday was day one of madness. Someone from the office called and wanted to come check out the mold in the apartment....there's a lot of mold in Germany. But he said that he was going to need like a lot of our help. I was thinking like why on earth would he need our help to check out mold? Well he basically walked in and started pointing out old furniture that was going to be thrown out. He said we were also going to paint the whole apartment and have to help build new furniture! Which is really a blessing. But when you have to do it all...it's pretty tiring. And we only had two days to finish everything. Well we started by like cleaning up a little and throwing a lot of old things away. We had to pull all the furniture away from the walls because someone was going to paint. It was kind of hectic. We had to leave in the middle of everything to go to a service project, but that fell through, so we went right back home to continue helping. That night we had an eating appointment with Bruder Z, our GML. It was way cool. They made like like different wraps and stuff. Just good. We were able to talk about some cool mission stories too. Bruder Z was in Manchester, England and Sister Z was in Temple Square. It was just way cool to hear the stories. Good stuff. We also had Gemiko.

Donnerstag: Thursday was more craziness. This time they brought a bunch of new furniture that had to be set up. We were able to get a bunk bed and 1 1/2 dressers set up before we had to go and eat lunch with Schwester B. She is so nice! I met her for the first time and we went to a Chinese buffet for lunch. It was pretty good. Chinese buffet in Germany is all the same.....average food for a great price. It's just a missionary favorite haha and there's so many of them. After that appointment, we met with Bruder D. We taught about how to stay happy in life. It was a good appointment and he gave us some cola which was very much appreciated because it got hot that day. We were busting out the short sleeve white shorts! After that appointment, we took a break and ate ice cream. It was good. Then me had an appointment with H A and Bruder M. H is a member that we're working with. He's super friendly and loves giving us food. Which is cool because he's a great cook. We ate rice and like lamb celery stew stuff. It was Persian food. So good. After that, we went home.

Freitag: Friday was kind of frustrating because we just didn't work a lot. We had planned two appointments, but one just didn't work and we couldn't get a joint teach for the other. That's just annoying. We should have planned better. But we didn't. We had weekly planning though, which was good.

Samstag: Saturday was fun. We played soccer in the morning, which was super fun as usual. I'm getting good. Watch out Wayne Rooney. We had an appointment fall out, which wasn't cool. But we had a good appointment with Dr. M that afternoon. His neighbor was also there and had some things to say. He's Albanian actually and said he would come to church haha so great. We missed out train out of Bargteheide though, so we had to wait a little more. And then another service project fell out. Not cool.

Sonntag: Sunday was church, which is always good. It was Pfingstsonntag, which is this big weekend holiday in Germany. Beats me why it's a holiday haha something to do with the Holy Ghost. Germany has a lot of religious holidays but not a lot of people know why. They just know that it's a day off haha. We did a lot of contacting the evening and were asking people if they knew why that day was a holiday. No idea usually. It was a good day though. We did a lot of work.

Montag: Monday was the highlight of the week. We got to play soccer again! Spontaneous ward soccer because it was a holiday. And there were people there the we as missionaries actually work with. So good stuff. We came home and studied and ate lunch. Elder Lykins was feeling sick so that was rough. The evening we contacted for like 2 hours. Walking around in the rain haha. It was great though. We made out an appointment with a past investigator and got the contact information for a referral for the Elders in Hamburg. That night we contacted and had an appointment with a referral. Herr V! It was a good appointment. He is very open and like wanted to learn. He said he'd be baptized if he can get an answer that everything is true. That is music to a missionaries ears. He has a small family too. So we were stoked.

And that was the week. It was actually pretty long and hard at times, but it was capped off with a great lesson and we got to meet an awesome guy. We also experienced cooking a lot of friend rice this last week. Getting fancy with our recipes haha. It was actually something that Christian and I cooked a lot at BYU. It's good food. I could sum up the week by saying: soccer, new furniture, contacting, and Herr V.

I've been doing this kind of intense study of the Book of Mormon from the beginning again. That's so much fun haha. It's just great to read and feel the spirit and testimonies of Lehi and Nephi always working together to improve the situation. I admire that! Whatever the situation was, they were both capable of saying yeah it's rough, but we know that what we're doing is true. I haven't gotten to the broken bow part where Lehi get's a little down yet though haha.

My adress is

Elder Tim Pollard
Kirche Jesu Christi

Hermann-Löns-Strasse 48

Ahrensburg 22926

Germany

I love you all so much! I miss you every day! I hope me serving this mission is having a positive affect on my family.

Week Sixty-eight

OH MY GOODNESS! Skyping was just a dream haha.

I told you like everything on Sunday, so I'll just let you know how the last week went.

Montag: Last Monday was way cool. Writing emails was weird, but everything was so distracting and it was just hard for me to sit down for two hours and concentrate. Hamburg is a cool city. I had NO money though haha all my money was in the office waiting to be refunded. That was rough. But we got to see some cool stores and eat KFC......Yea I ate KFC last week. No big deal. It was way too much food and I just felt gross after. But it was OK. We cut P-Day short to visit Sister S and help her with her apartment. We have this on-going service project to help her chisel the stucco off of her ceiling so she can re-do it all. It's actually kind of fun. It's hard work and really tiring, but  it's always good to serve. After that, we had to walk to the church and pick up our bikes haha. It took like 40 minutes to walk to the church. Kind of annoying. But it was a good day.

Diesntag: Tuesday was good as well. We went by on a referral in the morning and contacted him. He had no interest, but it was good to meet him. Planting seeds of faith over here. We had some good lunch, and then had an appointment with Herr S, who we found on the street last week. It was an OK appointment haha. He talked a lot. We didn't get much teaching in, but we have an appointment today, so hopefully it will be better. We got to take some P-Day time from Monday that we had left over and kind of relax. We went home and did some area book work, calling and organizing and such. That night, we had an appointment with a less active member, who just has a lot of problems in his life. It was great though. We told him that we want to be his friends and help him. All in all, great day.

Mittwoch: We had a way cool miracle on Wednesday. We were eating with the K family (which was way good) and their friend came and started talking with us. He told us about how he visited Salt Lake and enjoyed it a lot and stuff. We told him that we would want to sit down and talk, and he agreed. We need to make out another appointment with him. The rest of that day, we cleaned. The office called and wanted us to move out because of mold. We had to clean up a lot of stuff so our GML could come and inspect it all. We also made a lot of calls.

Donnerstag: The only interesting thing that happened on Thursday was that a Russian lady talked to us for like 30 minutes about how her child's Bible with pretty pictures in it was more spiritual than the real Bible.

Freitag: I was in Lübeck on Friday. I led exchanges with the elders there. It was a really good exchange. I got to see how they work and everything. We had a cool eating appointment with members there and the sisters were also there. It was some good contact to the district. That night, we met with Dr. M. It was interesting haha. He also talks a lot. But we're going to help that guy.

Samstag: Saturday mornings are SOCCER! I love it. I get tan. And exercise. We also planned for the week, and did more service for Sister S.

Sonntag: Sunday was Stake Conference in Neumünster. 

 

Neumünster Zone Missionaries

We had to ride the train there. We also ate with the L family. They made us enchiladas. It was delicious. We also got to skype that night!

Montag: And yesterday was interviews in Kiel. I got to sit down with President and talk about the district and everything. We came home and ate with the M's. Also a very good eating appointment.

Other news: President Kosak is going to look into the ecclesiastical endorsement and the scholarship.

Sorry for the short email! We just talked though haha. I love you all!

Elder Pollard

Week Sixty-seven

 

Hey friends and family! I'm emailing you now from Hamburg, instead of Rostock! Hamburg seems like a pretty big place haha. I haven't seen too much of it, but I know it's way bigger than Rostock. I'm now serving in Delingsdorf, which is where the church building for our ward is. My area is way bigger than just Delingsdorf though. There is like 3 average size cities, and then a big chunk of Hamburg that we work in. So we basically work and live in Hamburg haha. 

 

It's a very unique area and situation. But I'm loving it so far. My companion is Elder Lykins from Iowa. We're getting along great so far! The district is us and two companion ships from Lübeck, which is a big city not too far away. There are elders and sisters there. It should be really fun to work with them. I kind of feel really rushed right now haha I have no idea why, but I hope I can write a good email for everybody.

I'll just start with the week.

Montag: Monday was my last P-Day in Rostock, which was pretty bittersweet. I mean after 5 transfers in a city, you start feeling like you're at home. So having to leave doesn't sound too great. But it was pretty fun. Sister Holbrook took us to Ikea so we could celebrate her Swedishness. That was way fun. Meatballs were good. We did the usual Rostock P-Day activities, which includes Tiger, T K Max, and walking around getting the essentials for the week. I can honestly say that coming to Delingsdorf has been a drastic change in my life. Kind of intense haha. But we also had some great lessons. We met with T and also with C M that day. We had two great appointments, and I felt great leaving these two baptismal dates in Rostock. After our appointments, we just walked through the city haha. A last night in Rostock.

Diesntag: Tuesday was the day of travel. I got up at the normal time, had everything packed, caught a train at like 9:30. It was really sad then to say bye to Sister Wunderli and T at bahnhof. But it was just like so fast that I'm still dazed and shocked haha. I'll get over it though. So it was only a 2 hour ride to Hamburg bahnhof, not too bad at all. I met Elder Lykins there. It was only like a 20 minute ride to Ahrensburg, where we really live. And then a 15 minute walk with the suitcases to the apartment. The apartment is actually pretty nice. It's bigger then the apartment in Rostock, but that's not saying much. And the beds are nicer and more comfortable. But like it's not really home yet. It'll get there. We started working that day, and rode to Hamburg where we talked to some people. It was nice to just talk to people and they were usually pretty nice haha. We did some doors as well and got a couple of contacts that we need to go by on.

Mittwoch: We started our first real day of working off with a mini intro to the area and going through the area book. It was fun. We have a big area book with a lot of old records, so we're sorting and going through and seeing who we want to go by on. We ate with the V family in Delingsdorf. It was a way good first member appointment. They made us chicken and veggies and stuff. Super good. And it was nice to meet members. We rode our bikes (yes bikes) back and worked on the area book more. After that, we went to Hamburg again and started going by on members and less actives and talking to people. We spent a lot of time walking haha. But we got to talk to some people. It was good. We had language study that night.

Donnerstag: Thursday was fun! We rode to Lübeck and helped build the sisters new apartment!  We built like dressers and shelves and just everything. They have such a nice apartment with like everything all brand new. Just jealous. I also had a good opportunity to have a baptismal interview with S, from Lübeck. He was really cool and I felt like he was prepared to be baptized. It was a good first baptismal interview. After that, we got on a train and drove to Hamburg and had Gemiko with Bruder Z. he's way cool and a great teacher. It was fun.

Freitag: Friday we rode back to Lübeck and had district meeting. It was good to meet the sisters, and to come together and talk about the work. I'm like really excited to work with the district. Especially because there's no real reason for anybody to be transferred soon, so we could stay together for a while. It went well. I gave a thema about staying happy and obedient. We ate with the F family after, which was just was cool too. I say way cool too much, but that's just what it was haha. They made us like taco salad which was good. It was super good to meet Brother F, who then told us that we really wants to go on joint teaches with us and we wants to be involved.  We had a service project with Sister S after. We helped her scrape like glue off of her ceiling. And we had weekly planning after.

Samtag: Saturday morning was my favorite! Soccer in the morning. Soccer is great. I'm actually not too bad. I think haha. I was surprised that I could run that whole time. I scored two goals. Because I'm a beast. After soccer we helped the ward clean. We also had a  lesson with an old investigator in Delingsdorf. It seems like he isn't ready to make any big steps right now, which is too bad. After that, we had to ride to Kiel to have a meeting. It was good.

Sonntag: Sunday was amazing. Church was so good and I got to meet a lot of way way cool members. Like the ward here is amazing, that's all I have to say. Church went well. I gave my testimony and introduced myself in relief society and priesthood. After church, we ate at the bishops house and we had a great talk with him about the work. It pumped us both up like a lot haha. The bishop here sounds like he's just on top of everything. It was nice. After that, we had an appointment with a less active sister in Hamburg. It was just good.

The week was good. Way way cool haha. I'm really thankful to be here and to be working with Elder Lykins. I know that I'm going to just love working here. Just as much as I liked Rostock.

I'm like really rushed though, so have a great week! I love you all!

Elder Pollard