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