Week Eighty-seven (15.5 weeks/107 days left...)

I'm too old for this.

Not really. All's well in HOF! From the Mexican partnership of Donas y Poyard, I thank you all for reading this letter. Last week started off pretty rocking. We also had a cool day in Dresden at a zone conference. It was my first time in Dresden, and it was sick! I had always heard so much about Dresden, but had only been there twice in the Train Station to catch trains. Unfortunately, we didn't get to actually see the city haha. We drove with the M's there, in the car. We rode the train home. But it was still cool. The end of the week slowed down a lot......we didn't slow down, but our 'success' did. We worked hard and walked a lot but didn't find too many people who were interested to even stop and talk for 2 minutes. Hof can be hard at times. But it's way cool having a comp that you already know super well and just joking around and staying positive when the circus comes to Hof and nobody wants to stop because they're all going to the circus....in a small town like this, the circus is a big deal. Oh yeah, I saw tigers. Crazy.

Elders Donner and Pollard on the trapeze (window scaffolding...)

 Montag: Last P-Day was intersting...as Elder Donner and I gave out our last Euros....haha we ran out of money fast. But that happens when you have to whitewash an area. Buying stuff like old broken lightbulbs and bottles of ketchup and silly stuff like that adds up after a while. But It's all good in the hood. We had a pretty relaxed P-Day. Just hung out and checked out cool little shops in Hof. We had Family Home Evening that night and ate Abendbrot. Which is like a bunch of bread and meat and cheese and stuff like that. It was just the M's, Schwester S and us. We also made pumpkin cookies and put our Reeses pieces in the cookies.

Missionary gold...

They were way good. We went to drop off cookies at the G's house that night when he invited us in to help him build a closet thing. Good thing is, that it was the same one from Ikea that I've built like 5 times now on my mission haha. So it went pretty fast. That was it though!

Diesntag: Tuesday was cool because we found someone new! It's kind of a cool story. We came to a fork in the road.....classic situation. We knew one was had a huge hill and the other had a smaller. Naturally we'd take the smaller, but we knew that there was this store on that hill with inappropriate stuff in the windows, so we decided to take the big hill. And that's where we found U! Some hippy guy with strange ideas about religion. That's how he described himself haha. But we had a good convo with him and made out another appointment. Good stuff! We also visited Schwester S and taught her. We were able to help her neighbor carry some stuff up the stairs, too! Service opens hearts. That night we visited Brother R at his house and talked about missionary work with him and after that we dropped cookies off at the M's!

Mittwoch: Wednesday was interesting haha we had an appointment with Herr S, an older investigator. Funny story, I actually found him a year ago when I was here haha and now we got to teach him. He made us lunch. He's on some weird diet that only lets him eat a handful of grain....so he made us his hippy food and we taught. He's Unitarian, but doesn't believe in anything, really. We established that we can help him and he agreed and said we can come back. SOLID! That night we met with our Romanian family! It was kind of disappointing, though. The father said he got an answer that he only needs to read in the bible and that the Book of Mormon isn't important. That can't be though! God wouldn't tell him that, and Satan wouldn't tell him to read in the Bible. So I'm concerned that he's just scared to learn more or something silly like that. We'll meet with them again though.

Donnerstag: Thursday was Zone Conference. We learned about working with the members better and bearing pure testimony. It was way cool. We had some good food, but not a lot. Then I got to have a temple recommend interview with President Kosak. That was also cool. He told me in the interview that Elder Donner and I could stay together until the ends of our missions. That'd be sick. Oh and we almost missed our train home haha it was so close.

Freitag: Everything fell out of Friday haha and we planned.

Samstag: Saturday morning was sick. I almost cut my toe off. We helped the M's in their garden. We stacked wood, chopped wood, walked dogs, and picked up leaves. And I was using this crazy sharp axe to chop wood. It came off the wood at a wierd angle and hit me right in the toe. Good thing Nike shoes are just solid and I remain uninjured haha. Kind of disappointing though, because everything fell out on Saturday, too. the M's took us to pizza because we were cold and sad that everything fell out.

Sonntag: Sunday is usually a good day haha. Church was good. We taught Elders Quorum. That was interesting. We wanted to talk about the work of salvation and working together to find people. But they just ended up blaming everything on the fact that we don't have a room. Lame. We ate with the M's after. Oh we had an interesting meeting with a way less active member. It was weird.....but good that we were there.

The week was slower. But good. Dresden was the highlight! Such a cool conference!

Zone Chemnitz

I've been doing pretty well. My shoulder is a little better. It's getting better all the time. Better, better, better. I worked out this morning with weights and it was OK. My left arm is SO week. I'm curling like 20 lbs and struggling. I guess that's what happens after 7 weeks of not really using it. But my health is pretty good. I'm at like 80% health I'd say. Chugging a long. I kind of feel like a have a small lingering cold. But that's it. It is starting to get colder here in Hof. Like between 10 and 15 degrees Celsius. I don't know how much that is in Fahrenheit. Maybe like 50-60. Kind of chilly. It's still suit weather though.

I like what you said about obedience. It kind of has something to do with the topic of 'The will of God/Free Agency', which is just way over my head. What is important to know is that the commandments are there to enable us to return to our heavenly home. Why wouldn't we follow them? But knowing that all commandments are both timely and spiritual, it's safe to say the the commandments help us be happy during our time of probation AND set us up for eternal joy in the time after this. I like to think that obedience is also training. Let's get real, God follows the commandments of nature. He also at one time experienced what we are experiencing now with our lives. Being obedient on earth will help us in the life to come. Obedience, laws, and commandments don't end when this life does. It's an eternal aspect. To end it off, I like what's said the the Book of Mormon like 60 times, that if the family of Lehi would keep the commandments, that everything would be well with them. What a promise!

Well, everything really is going well here. I love my comp! He's sick. And we work well together. I love missionary work. And the gospel is true. Word.

Elder Pollard

Week Eighty-six (16.5 weeks/115 days left...)

Hello!

This last week was just fantastic. Elder Donner and I were able to do a lot of work and we didn't go insane. That's always a goal on the mission. We saw some crazy cool miracles this week, too and got to meet some amazing people that we want to help. I love missionary work, because it's so easy to develop a love for these people. It's obviously what we should be doing (how do you help people that you don't like), but it's just so cool when you leave an appointment on some spiritual high thinking, 'I can really help these people. And I want to.' I felt that a lot this last week.

Elder Donner and I are scraping the floor to find change haha we have NO money. We are 'whitewashing' this area, which means we both come in at the same time and the old Elders leave. So that's expensive to buy all new food and stuff. The apartment wasn't in the best shape when we got here....a lot of cleaning. But our apartment is now pretty clean and we've arranged everything the way we want to.

Our last week was like:

Montag: Monday was good. We went shopping, got some new Turkish haircuts (great looking) and did P-Day stuff. We went to Family Home Evening with the M's and a couple members, which was also good. After that we did a couple more hours of work, but didn't contact anybody that we had planned to. Too bad. #turkishswag

 

a new haircut...

 

Dienstag: Tuesday was slower. We only had one appointment go through. That was with Sister S. We're working with her to keep her active because she JUST came back to church. She's super nice and I think she likes us. She's been a member for like 15 years I think but only recently came back. She actually remembers me from a year ago haha Elder Huber and I went by at least once...other than that the day was slower. A lot of talking to people. We made cookies for the M's though and we gave them to them. That was good. #doagoodturndaily

Mittwoch: Wednesday was our miracle day!!! We had district meeting in the morning, which was cool...kind of boring actually. Elder Donner and I were both released from District Leaderness so we just kind of go and hang out now haha. We're the oldest in our district by a long time haha. The day was alright, just trying to contact some older investigators and referrals. Nothing really. But at night, Elder Montgomery drove us to Rehau to go have an appointment that fell out. Good thing we made back up plans and stopped by on a family that the older missionaries said that we'd be good to go by on. Turns out...they have 8 kids! Wow haha that was overwhelming. And they totally listened to us which was cool. The parents and all the kids. They're actually from Romania! And they had lived in Switzerland for a couple of years. They learned German there and met with the missionaries and went to church there. They didn't know how to contact the church in Germany, so they said they were super happy when we came by. We taught them a get to know you lesson and said we want to teach more! We're meeting like 2 times a week now. It'll be hard to get them to church because they don't actually live in Hof. But it'll happen. I like love this family so much and all their kids are so cool. It's the best. #wearefamily

Donnerstag: Thursday was also slower. We found out that our DVD player is broken....that's fun haha. We kind of went insane on Thursday. If I remember correctly. Just trying to fix the DVD player and stressing about stuff. We ended up going by on an investigator who has no phone number, only an address. We walked like 45 minutes uphill to get to him haha it was the worst. And he wasn't even home! We had to talk to his mom. Hopefully he'll call soon. I don't want to walk out there again for nothing.#iwouldn'twalk500miles

Freitag: Friday was planning day. Always solid. We actually had a really good planning session and got a lot taken care of with the time. We ate Mai Tahn Lang, the Asian restaurant across the street from our apartment. It was good to be back haha. We were supposed to have an app with the really cool guy we found last week, but it fell out. He was nowhere to be found. Didn't answer his phone either. I don't like that haha it's so frustrating. We ended up going to Schwester E's house and eating left-over chili from when she fed the senior couple. We taught a good lesson about Jonah and running away from the Lord. Don't do it. #gottaplan

Samstag: Saturday was super legit! We started the day with service! An American family in Rehau (the little city outside of Hof) invited us over and asked that we helped in the yard. They're from Virginia. We pulled weeds and chopped down bushes and shredded stuff for like 3 hours. Then he fed us some really good vegetarian stuff and rewarded us with two huge bags of Reese's. Not too interested in the church, but service opens the heart. Then we went back to Hof and got changed. We met with Schwester S's son, and we're going to help him stop smoking. That will be interesting. That night was the best! We called G, a guy from Africa, and met him in Innenstadt and taught a lesson and he agreed to meet again. I love me Africans!

Sonntag: Sunday was also great! We had church, only 15 members there. Sad, but good. We ate with the Merkels after, which was SO good. Shcwester M made some legit gourmet spaghetti. After that, we drove with the Montgomery's out to Rehau and met with the S's, the Romanian family. We taught for like an hour and finished talking about Joseph Smith. The father and oldest son have some concerns, but nothing huge. They're the best. After that, we met with Schwester L. She was super cool too! And way nice. She needs a lot of help from the branch and from us. Just spiritually. We're going to meet weekly and it'll be wonderful. I'm glad I met her. After that, we came home, went by on contacts and went door to door. And made pancakes. #keepthesabbathday

SOLID WEEK!

And now it's Monday. We finally got our water heater fixed. We were taking freezing cold showers, which was NOT fun. But the nice man came in this morning and hit our heater with a hammer until it worked again. Blessings. 

Mumsy! I am in the same apartment with the same DDR fryer haha. We're going to use it this week actually. And I love the cookies and cream chocolate bars from Ritter. That's dirt cheap in Germany haha I eat way too much chocolate. It sounds like everything is going well with the family! I'm jealous that you ate bagels. No bagels in Germany. Lachs is a German word though. It means salmon. Bagels and Lachs sounds legit.

Well I was reading the Jonah story this last week and it was really interesting how Jonah, being a prophet, still made mistakes. We all do! It's unavoidable. Good this we have the atonement. Life would suck without it.

I love you all so much!

Have a good week!

Elder Pollard

 

 

Week Eighty-five (121 days left...)

Greetings once again from the luxurious Taj Mahal internet cafe in Hof, Germany. This time accompanied by my good friend Elder Donner. I'M BACK IN BAYERN! And it's great haha. Elder Donner and I arrived on Tuesday in Hof and we've just been tearing it up ever since! I'm way stoked to be here. All of my other areas and companions were all great and I learned so much from them, but this is like prime time missionary work now. We're both 'old' missionaries and working with him is like working with a second version of me. It's kind of weird. But I'm just a happy camper.

The boys from Hof...

 
The week went by fast. It was like:

Montag: P-day.

Diesntag: Travel. I left Hamburg at 8:30 in the morning and sat on the train next to an Asian lady haha she is a sports journalist from Singapore. 'Who is better, Kobe or Lebron?' (Asian accent). It was pretty funny and she didn't speak German so I helped her out. And then I got to Dresden and met up with Elder Donner. We rode a train to Hof and Elder Montgomery picked us up in the car. The Montgomery's are the senior missionary couple here in Hof. They're from Utah, but live in Idaho. They're really nice and they took us out to dinner the first night! To a schnitzel place. I ate some good Schnitzel. And there was a way drunk guy from England in the restaurant. That was a hoot. And we went back and unpacked.

Mittwoch: Wednesday was so cool! Well we shopped in the morning because we had no food and ate some good stuff. We had an app with Schwester S from the ward and the Montgomery's were there with us. It went really well and it was good to get to know her. I think she likes us haha. Which is good. And after that we went to the M's to say hi but they invited us in for cake. It was good and we asked that they would pray for us so we could find some contacts, and it worked. We found A! A younger Turkish student/dancer guy. Who speaks really good English haha. We met and talked and he seems pretty interested. So miracles. We also had to purge the apartment because it was pretty dirty. Not cool.

Donnerstag: We had a lot planned for Thursday, but it all fell out...But I remember that we got a lot of like paperwork done and talked to a lot of people who said we could call them later.

Elder Pollard deep in contemplation...

Freitag: Friday was our first district meeting in Plauen. Donner and I were both 'released' as DL, which is great. We're like the creepy old guys in the district. #gohard. We came home with the Montgomery's and had an app in Rehau, a smaller city outside of Hof, but that fell through. So we ate Döner instead. So good. That was about it.

Samstag: Saturday was cray. We went to a funeral in Freiberg. It was cool because we got to sing and see a lot of other missionaries, but it was a funeral...like not the happiest place on earth. Good thing the gospel is true...We came home after a long long time and did some finding in the city. Then I had to prepare a 15 minute talk for the next day.

Sonntag: Sunday was great. Back to the Quality Hotel! Elder Donner and I gave our talks, which were perfectly timed, and we enjoyed getting to know the ward. Everyone remembers me haha, surprisingly. We ate with the H's after, which was also good. They made chicken and spaetzle and veggies. And we ate really good cake too. We were there for a while though. After, we went and did some finding, found some good contacts, had some good talks. Bueno.

I am having a hard time emailing! Like I'm super distracted for some reason haha. So I'm sorry if this was just like boring. New goal is to write better emails! My shoulder's doing better though. I can't really do pushups yet, but normal work is OK. That's exciting to hear about Thomas and how soon he'll be a missionary! Good for him.

Well, I'm doing well. I hope you are too! I pray for you! Love you!

Elder Pollard

Week Eighty-four (126 days left...)

Yea, you heard.

It starts with a story.

We had interviews a couple weeks ago and my whole interview was just President Kosak looking at me with a sad face and saying, "It hurts, doesn't it" (referring to my shoulder) So at the end he asked f he could do anything for me and I told him about this dream that I really actually had. In this dream I was back in Hof! Doing yard work or something. So he wrote down Hof immediately and circled it and said he's pray about it. So I thought, what the heck and said, "Or just put me with Elder Donner". He wrote down Donner's name, too and circled it. And sure as heck Tobias, I'm going back to Hof with Elder Donner. 

 

 

And I'm super excited, even though I feel like I asked God for something I knew was wrong and God said, "Well now you have to deal with it!" Haha but I know it'll be way fun. I already talked with Donner and he is just pumped to WORK! Something I couldn't do in Hof last time. So that got me really excited too. Just a funny little story haha.

That is basically the only news from last week! I'll try to send pictures from me saying bye. But like that news just overwhelmed everything else and I can't remember what happened last week.

Love you!

Elder Pollard