Week Ninety-two (71 days/10+ weeks left...)

Hi family. And Friends. And strangers that read my blog.

The last week was distinctively average for us in Hof. We did a lot of work. The big things were meeting with M, our newest investigator from Romania, and U. We also started an English class that some members will be attending, and hopefully investigators and others who need help with English. Well, we met M while talking to people on the streets in Hof. It was actually a little miracle because we had passed her once and didn't talk to her. But on the second chance we did and she was interested. She has 2 daughters and has only been in Hof for a couple of months. We met with her 3 times last week and she came to English class...she speaks really good English. Good enough that we talk in English instead of German. She couldn't come to church unfortunately. We also met with U, who said he doesn't want to come to church because we might be the "M.I.B." haha. Two young guys in suits inviting him to the Hotel for church. Oh well, he'll never know until he goes. Also, we were awoken at like 3 in the morning a couple of time by drunk people yelling. One night we heard, "I am the undertaker!" over and over again in English.......That was our week basically. Oh and I learned how to juggle.

Elder Donner and I are doing well. We're looking at 10 weeks on our missions left, which is a weird feeling. Trying to balance working with stubborn members and people on the streets trying to get their dogs to attack us. Oh and we"re flat broke. 0 moneys haha. But the church is true, so it doesn't even matter. We"re both pretty happy to be in Hof and giving our best.

We were both complimented on our German, which is good because I've been studying really hard. Complicated German grammar that Germans don't even use like, "Ich habe gehört, dass er das nich hat machen können." And some members were super complimentary of our Germans! So that was super nice to hear. I like being an "experienced missionary" It's good.

Our week was pretty average. We had mixed reactions from the ward here to missionary work...I hope you do what the missionaries ask you to haha and aren't complacent about the work.

Hof is alright. We just had "Hof Film Days" which is like a film festival that people freak out about. It sounded kind of lame. My health is great. I am really going hard in the morning and evening with my workouts. And I've been losing weight (kind of) I'm at about 195 right now. hopefully 190 or 185 when I'm home. Which would be weird because I haven"t been that light forever. I was kind of tubs when I left on my mission. Oh boy. That weather is actually pretty nice right now. About 15 degrees Celsius.

Check out the changing leaves...

I don't have too much time so I'll talk to you next week!

Love you!

Elder Pollard

Week Ninety-one (80 days/11.5 weeks left...)

This last week was a slap in the face from life haha. Elder Donner and I put in so much work haha. We didn't have any investigators at the beginning of the week...and Sister Kosak said it best, 'When you can't teach investigators, teach members. Finding is not efficient.' But, being in Hof, we don't have a ton of members to go by on. The two main priesthood holders in the branch are not in Hof during the week, and the rest don't live in Hof, and a trip out to them would take a day....so we were finding. Basically hour blocks of dooring in one place and then moving on to the next or talking to people in the city. Who haven't we talked to in this city? We're looking for them. There's only 45,000 people here. We'll probably talk to them all by the end of the year haha. So we found all week. God was really testing our patience and faith haha because it took until Friday to get somebody to stop and talk with us. But, on Friday we found 2 people who wanted to learn more. The Church is true, the book is blue.

We did get to meet with our recently activated members though. Sister S is the best. She understands the gospel and notices the difference it makes in her life when she applies it. What more could a missionary ask for?! That's true conversion. We meet with her every week usually on Tuesdays with the senior couple, the 
M's.

Elders Donner and Pollard doing work...

We also taught family home evening, which was focused on missionary work. We shared a thought and a video and then talked about inviting others to family home evening. Super easy goal. 'Hey, who wants to come and eat good food and play games?' I'd be down haha.

Yummy...

We got to meet the new district on Wednesday. By new, I mean Elder Brown. He's our new district leader, and the only change in the district. He's cool. We like him.

Friday was the crazy day though! We met with M, a lady from Romania, in the afternoon. We found her earlier in the week and she said we could come by. We couldn't really stay, because she was alone at home, but we talked for like 5 minutes about the message and if she had interest. She had a lot of questions! And like she said she'd read the Bible and didn't understand it and that the church she was in didn't help her understand it, but she believes in Christ and everything. So we're going back tonight actually. Then we were walking to go do doors somewhere else and we talked to a guy named T who listened to us, asked us, "so this book can actually help me understand Christ better?" And then made out an appointment with us! Super cool. And then that night the cops were called on us.....haha we apparently scared a little kid who was home alone when we rang his name. We didn't even see him or anything though. But the cops were really nice to us! We're cool now.

Saturday and Sunday we were in the great city of Leipzig for Stake Conference. That city is so cool. And big haha. The conference was good. Only one family from Hof was there though...

So that was the week! Kind of not too much, but the weekend was great. We literally went finding the whole time haha.

A Brezel is a Pretzel mom. And I love Rotkohl so much. You need to learn how to make Klöse too! Sometimes they're called Knödel. They're like potato mush balls. And Rouladen. Or Leak-Cheese-Soup. I like those Maggie packs. 

Well, the work goes on! Elder Donner and I are chugging away.

The work in Hof is interesting. We're being told like left and right to work with the members better and encourage them to do missionary work but.....we're in Hof! And there's less then 10 active adults...we're trying though! I hope you are able to do some missionary work. Do the missionaries talk about the work when they're over? Elder Donner is doing well. He says, 'I want to visit the beach with you guys and learn how to surf from you.' Can you surf? When's the last time you got in the water?! We should go. My shoulder is interesting. I can work out in the morning no problem like pushups and weights. But sometimes after a long day it aches. I can move my bone back and forth too. Kind of cool. And my health is alright. I'm doing good.

I found my newest favorite scripture the other day.

And it came to pass that he planted vineyards round about in the land; and he built wine-presses, and made ^awine in abundance; and therefore he became a wine-bibber, and also his people.

In Mosiah 11. Moral...don't surround yourself with sin.

Food for thought!

Love,

Elder Pollard

Week Ninety (86 days/12 weeks left...)

This last week was like super long and nothing happened. But those kinds of weeks happen. The week ended pretty well though. Right at the end, Elder Donner and I heard that we're going to stay together for the next 6 weeks until the end of Novemberish. Good news! We got to announce that in church and some of the members were really happy haha. That's good to know. And then Sunday night Elder Donner and I freaked out at Hof and went home and did some good planning on how to help the area more effectively. This area is hard! I didn't realize that last year. We just worked our butts off for a transfer and we've seen success and have met some cool people, but it is definitely not as much success as we wanted. So we're changing it up and doing a lot more planning, a lot more activities, and a lot less grunt work door to door. We want to be working with the members to teach their friends and everything, but that work seems to not excel in Hof. But personally, I feel really good about the work we can go here. And I'm excited to plan out a lot of activities and find some new people. 6 weeks at least!

That was our big freak out at Hof haha. I feel like Hof has had missionaries in it for so long, but nobody wanted to do more than just doors and talking to people. Something's gotta give! We're working hard.

I forgot my planner for last week, so I don't remember everything I did. But we did have a Zone Training Meeting in Chemnitz on Wednesday. Elder Donner and I taught a workshop about the Book of Mormon. We wanted to focus on practicing applying the BoM to investigators. I personally feel that a lot of investigators don't understand the gravity of the message that we're laying out in front of them. Missionary work in Germany is like trying to motivate people to take baby steps to God. And a lot of people (probably not only in Germany) just want nothing to do with these baby steps! It's frustrating. But our workshop was good. We got all the missionaries to listen to us and do some ROLE PLAYS! My favs.

Zone Conference in Chemnitz (that's Elder Pollard on the right with his new look..."Blue Steel...")

Other than that, we had a couple of appointments this week, but they all ended with a, 'When you have time and interest, give us a call, but we're not going to try to force you to listen to us.' Including Herr S (grain man) The Romanian family, and a member's son who wanted to stop smoking. Kind of a bummer saying bye to people, but like there has to be prepared people in this city that we need to find! They're there!

Your Oktoberfest sounds great. I miss the Fishers! They're cool. Cool enough to have an Oktoberfest in SD. Oh my gosh, I love Rotkohl with all of my soul. The pictures look good. Except the Brezel! Even though I'm in Bayern, we're too north to have Brezel. I love Magi Packs though. Are there Magi Packs in America?

Elder Donner and I will celebrate Columbus day as our p-day.  It's way cool with Elder Donner though haha my comp is the least of my few problems. We're way tight. It's good to work with someone like that. It's just like always stress free and total equal respect and stuff. Fun. The weather is starting to get kinda gnarly though. It's like 6 or 8 degrees every day and cloudy if not raining. I miss the sun already. The trees are going crazy and they're all yellow. And I don't think there are any good festivals coming up. Besides the Hof film festival, but we have nothing to do with that haha. The Mormon missionaries will have a street display coming up. WATCH OUT!

I read Mosiah 3 this morning and it's sticking in my head. I have this book of Mormon study guide and this is something Neal A. Maxwell said:

“Imagine, Jehovah, the Creator of this and other worlds, ‘astonished’! Jesus knew cognitively what He must do, but not experientially. He had never personally known the exquisite and exacting process of an atonement before. Thus, when the agony came in its fulness, it was so much, much worse than even He with his unique intellect had ever imagined! No wonder an angel appeared to strengthen him! (See Luke 22:43.)

“The cumulative weight of all mortal sins—past, present, and future—pressed upon that perfect, sinless, and sensitive Soul! All our infirmities and sicknesses were somehow, too, a part of the awful arithmetic of the Atonement. (See Alma 7:11–12; Isaiah 53:3–5;Matthew 8:17.) The anguished Jesus not only pled with the Father that the hour and cup might pass from Him, but with this relevant citation. ‘And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me’ (Mark 14:35–36).

“Had not Jesus, as Jehovah, said to Abraham, ‘Is any thing too hard for the Lord?’ (Genesis 18:14). Had not His angel told a perplexed Mary, ‘For with God nothing shall be impossible’? (Luke 1:37; see also Matthew 19:28; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27).

“Jesus’ request was not theater!

“In this extremity, did He, perchance, hope for a rescuing ram in the thicket? I do not know. His suffering—as it were, enormity multiplied by infinity—evoked His later soul-cry on the cross, and it was a cry of forsakenness. (See Matthew 27:46.)

“Even so, Jesus maintained this sublime submissiveness, as He had in Gethsemane: ‘Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt’ (Matthew 26:39)” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1985, 92; or Ensign, May 1985, 72–73).

Hopefully you like that! It really hit me.

Thanks for emailing me always!

I love you all so much!

Elder Pollard

Week Eighty-nine (91 days/13 weeks left...)

How is everybody doing?! I'm just swell here in Hof. Coming to the end of my third transfer in this town. With 2 more to go. Last week was weird and the work was so slow....especially because we were out of Hof for 2 days watching conference. But the work goes on! I thought of something cool this morning during study. I was reading Jacob 5 about the wine garden. The thing is the the Lord will always have a PLAN for us that WORKS. He just needs the right servants who will also WORK. And if it ever got to the point that there was nobody willing to work for him, there would still be a back up plan. God is good. And he loves us. Oh yea and sorry about last week. We did district P-Day and I literally had 30 minutes to email. I usually take 30 minutes to read all the emails before I start writing back. So a thousand pardons. But the week was interesting.

The week was something like:

Montag: Last P-Day was good. We were in Plauen for district festivities. We got there early....well our train was being a fart and didn't come on time....but then we emailed super short and played volleyball. We ate at the McStanky's and went home. We got home in time to visit this old book shop. The husband of a member owns this little shop full of cool stuff. He went and purchased some super indie high school classics in German. I'll be able to read them when I'm home. Among the classics that were purchased are: Lord of the Flies, and Fahrenheit 451. That was just a side note haha. We then had family home evening and Elder Donner and I taught about personal revelation and how our own actions are a big part of that. We were supposed to have a lesson with an investigator that night, but Uwe got sick, so we visited Bruder L instead. I love that guy! We played guitar for like a little and then had a good gospel talk. He's less active but really wants to come back, so we'll be working with him a lot.

Diesntag: Tuesday was full of finding. We didn't find anybody, but had some good discussions. We did get to meet with Schwester S again and she taught us about repentance! That was really cool. She's only recently come back to the church and she taught a bomb lesson about repentance! We loved it. And that night we got to meet with Bruder R and talk about missionary work. It was ok haha.

Mittwoch: Wednesday was district meeting...and then Elder Donner got Pink Eye. No bueno...or maybe some sort of irritation, but it looked gnarley.

Donnerstag: Thursday was the pits. Tag der deutschen Einheit....the day that east and west were reunified...or the day they celebrate it. Holidays in Germany are funny. Because NOTHING HAPPENS. Thank goodness we were invited to two member appointments. Sister E fed us some great food! Sauerkraut, Schweinbraten, and Klösen. So good. And then the M's ate Döner with us. We shared some things from the work of salvation and tried to inspire some missionary work with the members......yeah.

Freitag: Friday was weekly planning, and some fallen out appointments. Elder Donner and I spent a long time planning because we had stuff to take care of. We were able to call a lot of people and make out appointments with investigators and members. It was splendid. That night, Elder Struve from Plauen came and we went on exchanges. I stayed in Hof, which was cool.  I don't really like staying though, I like getting out and seeing other areas. It was a good though.

Samstag: Saturday was good. Elder Struve and I had a very interesting discussion with a Russian guy about the Bible. He was just kind of crazy and wouldn't listen to us at all. Like he'd ask us a questions and then start talking before we could finish haha. It was just kind of funny. Then we went and ate and then played basketball with U! It was legit haha. Well we taught him a little about the Book of Mormon. It was cool because he has so many questions. And he wants to meet more and learn. Solid. Then we rode a train to Plauen and watched General Conference and slept over. Elder Vaughen told scary stories about Bigfoot. I couldn't sleep.

Sonntag: GENERAL CONFERENCE. So sick haha. There was only like 3 themes though...missionary work, repentance, and the atonement. That was about it haha. I wonder what the church needs to work on as a whole...

I was super grateful for General Conference. We've been trying hard to motivate members to do work and the responses we've gotten were poor. Some even said the the missionaries were asking the members to do something impossible. Who says that?! 1. It's not even the missionaries asking the members to do this. It all comes from above. And 2. it's NOT impossible. Why on earth would God have missionaries if this work was impossible. Why would there be such a huge increase? Let's think.

I did get to watch all session of general conference except for the Sunday afternoon. But oh my gosh so many good talks! My favorite was from Elder Dyches (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1fM-K-U2Ic&feature=youtube_gdata). It really spoke to me and my situation and stuff. You should watch it again. It's weird to take a step back from life and to think like really what can I do better? There's so much. It's crazy. I loved all the talk of missionary work. It's so hard to motivate members here! It's kind of funny. How can you believe in everything, but not want to do missionary work? It's all pride and a lack of understanding.

The weather here is good. It's light coats weather over the suit. But not too cold. I like it. It's brisk. Like clear skies but cold and windy. Brisk haha.

Weird that you got a letter from the mission. Yep I'll be home in 3 months...what about it. I'm scared haha. Home sounds scary.

The week was good. I learned a lot about myself haha how cheesey is that? But I did. I love the scriptures and I love all the blessings in my life. I'm pretty content with my life. I do need to fix a lot. But at least I know what needs to be improved and changed. God loves us.

Germans do celebrate Halloween! Not as intensely as Americans. And it's more of a fall/harvest fest...going back into the day you know?  But they have parties and stuff. The zombies last year was a flash mob of students on Halloween haha. So yes. I'm glad to hear that you're taking care of the missionaries. Think about tithing and stuff and how much we sacrifice for them to be there. Why would we not treat them great now that they're actually in front us us! I'm going to be so good to missionaries when I'm home haha. 

Well...that's about it! Another week. I started collecting presents for everyone for Christmas. Some good German stuff. So get excited!

I love you all!

Hope you have a good week!

Elder Pollard