Oh herro famry,
This last week was insane! We traveled so much. And traveling on trains is probably one of the most exhausting activities on Earth.Especially when every train in Germany is jam packed like a sardine can. Wall to wall, hugging some strange smelly German man. But last week was good as well. A lot went down! Let me tell you about it all.
Montag: Last Monday was boring. Haha no but we didn't really do much. We went shopping for groceries early in the morning. We then went to the Taj Mahal to send emails, and then we got Chinese food. My new
favorite Chinese food place, Mah Tahn Mal...or something along those lines, is right across the street for where we live. Dangerous haha. It's pretty cheap and you get pounds of Chinese food. It's great.
After we ate, we went around Innenstadt and looked in the shops, explored the town, and watched some mission approved movies. Fun time. The rest of the day wasn't too exciting, sorry.
Dienstag: Tuesday was cool/interesting. We started our day off by going by on a referral that we got from the Elders in Zwikau. We walked pretty far to get there, and when we showed up, it was a wrong
address. No name on the klingel, and nobody was home, which is sad. But it lead us to this second hand/salvation army shop. Which was awesome. Just old German stuff, but I came out of it with a super old
Bible (printed in 1900), which was written in old German script, so it's crazy looking. I'm keeping it to smack demons in the face if they try to mess with us. And also a really cool Bier Krug. Like a giant glass beer mug. German style. I bought both of those for 1€. We then went home. We ate Brats. Brats are great. They're super cheap, super fast to make, and super delicious. Not anything like Johnsonville Brats, or anything you get from Vons. After lunch, we went by on a nonactive member, who said we could come by, but wasn't there, so after that, we went back home. Elder Huber has been having problems with really bad nose bleeds. I'm talking like pints of blood flowing out his nose. Like it's bad. So that happened. We kind of chilled a
little because he wasn't feeling good after. I studied German. That was our Tuesday.
Mittwoch: Wednesday was busy. After study, we went and bought some stuff that we needed (light bulbs, soap, etc) and then came back at noon for lunch. I think we ate rice, tuna fish, and curry ketchup
again. Meal of champions. After lunch, we did a little planning, Elder Huber got another bloody nose, and then we left. We went by on this referral from F (the most interesting man in the world in Hannover).
We got all the out to where he lives, and his wife said that he would have no interest. That's annoying. Like we believe her and everything, but it would have been cool to hear it from him and not have someone
talk for him. But oh well. We were politely asked not to return. After that, we had an appointment with a new lady, who said she'd meet us on a corner somewhere. We were that, unfortunately she wasn't. So after
that, we went by on other contacts.
Donnerstag: Thursday morning we had district meeting, which means an hour bus ride to Plauen. Waking up early and getting on the bus. The best. District meeting was cool. After that, Elder Coleman came home
with me, because we were on exchanges. Elder Coleman is cool. He's from London, England. I have international friends. We had a good day in Hof. We got back and ate more Chinese food haha. I love that stuff. After lunch, we had an appointment with this guy named Herr M. He's from Poland and he's awesome. We we came in, he was watching Olympic Women's Kickboxing. He was getting into it, too haha.
We came in, gave him the book, got to know him a little, and had a good lesson. It ended with him telling us that he doesn't understand too much German, and wants a Polish BOM. He's our new investigator.
He's awesome. After that, we went and bought some stuff for our tausch treat. Elder Pollard is a strong believer in tausch treats. Basically on exchanges, the missionary who's city they're in buys or makes a
treat. I bought vanilla eis, peanut,butter, and oreos. Milkshakes. After that, we went by on contacts, and did doors. And ended our night with milkshakes.
Fritag: Friday was the best. We went to the temple! The temple in Freiberg is super small haha. But it was awesome. Elder Coleman and I got on a train at around 9.30. The train met up with all the other
missionary's city, so by the time we were in Freiberg, all 8 of us were there. The temple was a really cool experience. Everything was in German, so I had an English translator thing, but I understood the German, so I stopped using it halfway through. It was just sweet. After that, we met up with the Elders in Freiberg, and we got döners. Elder Huber and I ate our döners with the Frieberg Elders, and everyone else went home. We got home super late. Like 8.30, so there wasn't much time to do work.
Samstag: Saturday morning, we got back on the train. We road from Hof to Zwikau to do a Straße Austellung. (street display). It was pretty successful. I talked to 3 different people who actually had interest,
which was cool. We were there for about 2 hours doing the street display. After we were done, I bought leberkäse. MMMMMM. It's basically Germany's version of meatloaf (I think?) but it's delicious and you eat it on a brötchen with onions and mustard. SO GOOD. We also got bubble tea. Which isn't really tea. It's kind of like boba (the Asian drink with the tapioca balls) but it's fruity. It was good. Unfortunately, we missed our train going back, so we had to wait an hour in zwikau. We were entertained by the riot police battling against the angry drunk soccer fans for a while. That was interesting. We got home pretty late that day too.
Sonntag: Sunday was pretty normal. We went to church, which was pretty normal. In the middle of church though, some random guy came and just started listening. Too bad he left before it ended, because I wanted
to talk to him and see if he wanted a BOM or anything. Oh well. After church, we ate at the Hemmans house. Which was awesome. Bruder H isn't a member, but he's an awesome guy. He owns an antique shop in Hof, so there house is like crazy filled with everything. Like a million old books everywhere, and just cool stuff on the walls. I read this comic book while I was there. It's called "Bones." I liked it a lot because it was in German and I understood it. And it was funny. We ate chicken, potatoes, and some veggie mix. With quark for desert. MM. After, we went home and did weekly planning/cleaned the apartment.
It was actually a good week. This transfer is flying. Like I feel like I got to Hof yesterday haha. I love the branch in Hof. Everyone in it is super cool. And now I've met basically everyone on a personal
level, because we've eaten at everyone's house for Sunday already haha. Hof is a cool place.
Exciting news: P-Diddy was caught on twitter quoting L. Tom Perry haha. Check that out familie. Ok, thanks for the email! I'm sorry this week wasn't more exciting and that I have no pictures, but next week will be super exciting.
Die Kirche ist wahr, und ich weiß, dass Missions Arbeit die Arbeit des Hernn ist. I habe alle eauch sehr Lieb!
Elder Pollard
Monday, August 13, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Week Twenty-nine
Herro Famiry.
Greetings from the Taj Mahal Restaurant/Internet Cafe in Hof, Germany. This last week was really awesome! I can't believe that this transfer is almost over, too. The time is flying SO fast, I can't even believe it. Sometimes I feel like it's going by too fast. Like I'm missing out on opportunities to learn and progress personally. But it's all good. I don't like to think about the time as a whole (like in regards to two years). Taking it week by week is what works well for me. I love the missionary work.
This last week was jam packed, but at the same time kind of uneventful. I'm going to apologize in advanced if this email is boring. I'm trying to keep them interesting! But let me tell you about my last week.
Montag: Last p-day was cool. Our morning was normal. After emails, we headed to the M's house. We had planned on going to the 'Hofer Volksfest' that day. Basically the San Diego County Fair, but 1/50 of the size and awesomeness. Just kidding, it was super cool. I ate 6 Burger Kings burgers before. On Mondays, they're only 50 cents. Which is dangerous for missionaries. Anyway, we all went to the fest. We rode 4 rides. All pretty normal fair rides. Except for this super shady Rocket ride that brought us super high up, spun us in circles, and then rotated the rocket things we were sitting in, so we were upside down. The whole time, the cables holding us up are making the most terrible noise ever. I thought I was going to die. For the first time in my life I was scared of dying haha. You all would have been so upset if I died in Germany on a 3 Euro Rocket ride. That would have ruined the week. But I had fun. After the fest, we left P-Day early to meet someone. We were supposed to meet in front of a supermarket, but unfortunately, they never showed up. Schade. But the Lord works in mysterious ways, and on our way back, we were spotted by this part-member family eating ice cream. They're super cool. We got free ice cream, and got to have a good little spiritual moment. It was coooool.
Dienstag: Tuesday morning we shopped for groceries. Last week I was on the 'tuna fish-rice-curry ketchup' diet. It's really cheap and apparently it helps lose weight. So the bill for the week was like 10 dollars. Which is always nice. We wet home and ate, and made some important phone calls to try and get in contact with some old investigators and contacts. After calls, we had an appointment with this man named Herr S. (Herr means Mr.) It took forever to find his house/walk to it. He gave us his address over the phone, and we didn't really understand it too well. But after like 45 minutes of walking and looking, we found him. Turns out, he's a super cool old guy who loves to talk. He admitted that he really didn't have interest in finding the truth, even if we were the ones who had it. That was weird to hear, but I'm in super missionary mode and I think everyone should be having these deep thought-provoking questions like is there a God and where do we come from?. Turns out some people just don't think about that or don't care. Anyways, he was really nice and said we could come back whenever we want to talk with him. Maybe we can help him change his opinions. After Herr S., we looked for a referral that F from Hannover (most interesting man in the world) gave me when he heard I was coming to Hof. That only took another hour of walking. We got to his house and his wife answered and said he was out...Schade agian. But at least we have this contact.
Mittwoch: Wednesday was Mission President Interviews! In Leipzig. It was a 2 1/2 hour train ride to get to Leipzig from Hof. We woke up at 4 a.m.....totally worth it. President Kosak is a super awesome person. His wife is, too. I had a good interview. President shined and polished all of the missionaries shoes. I think it was symbolic for washing feet....it was cool. We heard some good workshops and such. I gave the closing prayer and my new Zone Leader said I have awesome German, which is also cool. Vollprima.
The Hohenstein District
It was cool being with my new zone for the first time, and I even got to see Elder Scholes! He was in the MTC with me. The first missionary I saw that was in the MTC with me. It only took 4 transfers haha. We then rode the 3 hours back to Hof. And got Chinese food. |
| The Leipzig Zone (Elder Pollard is in the back...) |
Donnerstag: Thursday was a little annoying. The morning went normal. Right at 11am, we left to go by on some contacts. We found out that one doesn't live there anymore which is useful information. Then we meet this other guy who said we could come back another time. We were then supposed to eat with a member and he friend who is a non member. (It was supposed to be an awesome eating appointment and joint teach) but she wasn't there! Oh no! haha Now we were hungry, didn't know where the member was, and the whole situation was just a little tragic. So then we went home and ate. Because we were hungry. After that, we made a grid of the city. We have around 120 contacts that we need to go by on, and they live all over the place, so we're making a grid of the city to categorize all of the contacts. That took a while. At night, we went out on the bikes. Elder Huber got permission from President to take the bikes out every night. Exercise and stuff. Hof is a beautiful city, and Germany is a beautiful country. We just rode up hill until we found a cool view. It was fun.
Fritag: Friday was Friday. We woke up, did stuff, ate lunch. After lunch, we started our weekly planning session. That went well for a couple of hours, then we had an appointment, so we had to take a break. We went to Brother R's place. he's way cool. He has a super strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and he's super friendly. He has a friend who wants to be baptized, but is always super busy and stuff. I think we're meeting with the two in a couple of weeks. After that appointment, we went by on an inactive member who lived by Brother R. She was busy, but nice and said we could come back later. So went went home and finished Weekly Planning. We then took the bikes out again. At night, I wrote some letters! I got a lot of letters this week. From. Chris Sherman, Nicole D'Souza, Christina Shoesmith, and the RB ward Relief Society! Much love from back home. I replied to all of them as fast as I could.
Samstag: Saturday was SICK! In the morning, we had district finding. The Elders in our district (from Plauen, Zwickau, and Meerane) came down to Hof to help us out with some finding. It was awesome. I was with Elder Coleman (my new British friend) we walked around, talking to everyone. Some homeless people asked us if we had a Bible to give them. We said no, but we have this other book haha. They took it gladly and said they'd read it. Hey, why not. District Finding was a success. This Indian Restaurant just started making some delicious smelling. After District Finding, we ate lunch. Tuna. Rice. But this time I used Zaziki instead of Curry Ketchup. I love zaziki so much. After lunch, we went to Untreusee for the branch Sommerfest. We hung out with the branch, grilled, and relaxed at the lake. ALSO, Bruder G. taught us how to throw boomerangs! Like really. How cool is that? Parents: Your middle son has thrown a boomerang, had it come back to him, and caught it. Be Proud.
Sonntag: Sunday was low key. We had fast and testimony meeting, with 8 people. Haha the branch here is kind of small.... But it was an awesome meeting. After church (which is only two hours here) we ate at the F's house. They're a super cool family. Super nice, and Schwester F. made AMAZING food. Oh my gosh. Like some meat that reminded me of pot roast, Knudle, Rotkhol, and veggies. With a lot of gravy. We had Strawberry Tort after. I ate so much. It was delicious. I am so thankful for the members here haha. After that, we went home and kind of hung out. Elder Huber is sick, and I kind of feel something coming too. So we relaxed to try and prevent further illness. I feel good today.
The week was awesome. I really like Elder Huber, he's a cool guy. We get a long pretty well. I'm excited to be here in Hof and with him. And President kind of hinted to him during interviews that we'd be staying together another transfer after this one. I'm excited. The work in Hof WILL explode. I love being a ´missionary.
MOM! Thank you so much for all of the recipes! I'm going to see if I can get everything for the wontons. There's an Asian store kind of by our house, so I'm sure I can get everything. So excited to try out these recipes! Can I get a recipe for chicken strips?! Please and Thank you mama.
It sounds like you (Mom and Dad) had a good week. The house was empty, you got to road trip, and visit a huge Cotsco. That sounds awesome! I'm happy to see everything going well back at home. I love and miss you all so much! I really miss your cooking Mom, like a lot. I didn't realize how lucky I was... haha but I am well fed here, so don't worry! I actually gained weight this past week. I need to keep losing! Right now I'm at like 205. But still 25 pounds lighter than the last time you saw me!
I want you to know that I'm actually doing really good. I am comfortable, happy, and trying my hardest. Or trying to try my hardest haha. Like I sound all good and happy in my Emails, and I AM! I love it here in Germany. I love the freedom to responsibility ratio we have as missionaries. I love having goals and seeing myself reach them. I love the scriptures and being able to study them everyday (starting Alma soon) (third time through the BOM since January). I love how my prayers have gotten soooo much better. My relationship with prayer and Heavenly Father is awesome. The church is true! This stuff is real! And I know it.
I LOVE YOU ALL!
ELDER POLLARD
Monday, July 30, 2012
Week Twenty-eight
FAMILY!
Hello fambam. I sent a couple other emails that have pictures of Hannover, and some from Hof! Cool stuff, I hope you enjoy the pictures I send. I like sending them home, so you know what Germany is like and all that stuff. AND I found the memory card reader thing at a super market here for only 3€ so I bought it! Super cheap and it makes sending pics a million times easier. So you guys don't have to worry about trying to get me one. Good stuff.
It sounds like the house is super quiet and lonely haha. Especially since Thomas is going to be leaving for EFY. What are you guys going to do? Probably just be really really bored. But then again, it will probably be nice having nobody in the house. Nice and quiet.
I'm sitting in the Taj Mahal Indian restaurant/internet cafe right now. There's a guy next to me using skype, skyping somebody probably in Turkey or some other Muslim country and he is full on shrieking. Like yelling at the top of his lungs in some crazy language. It's only a little annoying.
Anyway, our past week was better! We did more work, saw more success. Simple math equation. I keep having to explain that if we want investigators or to see any success at all, we're going to have to actually go outside and work. It's slowly sinking in. The work in Hof will go on!
Montag: Last Monday, we spent our P-Day with the Elders from Plauen (the next closest area). We went to the Untreusee (big lake thing) and played mini golf there. I almost won. I lost by 2 strokes because of the stupid last hole. It was almost a reenactment of Happy Gilmore with the clown. Tragic, but I got over it. After P-day, we went back to the apartment and made some important calls. That was basically Monday.
The screaming Arabic guy just left. Bonus.
Dienstag: Tuesday was kind of boring/slow/weird. The morning went alright. The only lesson we taught was to some guy in a car who stopped us and asked us if we wear 'unterhosen aus gummi' (rubber underwear). We were very confused and quickly turned the conversation to the Book of Mormon and taught him a little about it. Solid. He then drove away. For lunch, I made mom's spaghetti carbonara! Elder Huber was really excited to eat it. He actually liked it a lot. The rest of the day was spent walking miles going by on contacts/important people we need to get in contact with, but everyone was sick, or had visitors or some nonsense.
Mittwoch: Wednesday morning we had district meeting. The 1:30 hour bus ride to Plauen is always fun. But district meeting was cool. I like the missionaries in our district. We got home kind of late, around 1 and ate the classic Germany Berlin missionary meal: rice, tuna fish, and curry ketchup. It's probably the cheapest thing a missionary could eat in Germany. And it doesn't taste bad, but it certainly isn't gourmet. Oh well. It made me not hungry. Mission accomplished. We meet with Schwester E after lunch. She is cool, I like her. She speaks Bayrish though (the dialect out of super southern Germany) and it's a little hard to understand her sometimes. She has these two crazy dogs that live in her apartment with her. I think they're insane. Like really. But she's a super sweet lady. That was Wednesday.
Donnerstag: Thursday morning we registered ourselves in the city of Hof. We need to do that whenever we switch cities. Elder Huber had never done it either, so we went and took care of that. The German lady tried to spell 'San Diego' like ' San Jyeko' hahahah even though I spelled it out for her. Oh well. We then ate. Bratwursts and fried potatoes. (Deep fried, with our magical DDR deep fryer) The deep fryer is amazing. It's horrible for my health, but we've been deep frying everything haha (deep fried Oreos, deep fried Snickers, deep fried Lion bar-german chocolate bar, and deep fried cinnamon sugar balls-Elder Pollard's home made recipe). GO FRIED OR GO HOME. After lunch we visited with Bruder L for basically the rest of the day. He's a less active who likes to drink. He knows that it's wrong but he can't stop, so were meeting with him a lot to help him out. He's a way cool guy. We watched 'The Testaments' and 'Legacy' with him. Good stuff.
Fritag: Friday was hectic! And ridiculously hot. It's super warm here by the way. After study, we went by on a contact who lived super far away and we walked for like an hour in the super hot sun. I was sweating so much. We got there, and he said he didn't have time....oh well. We then walked home. We ate tortellini and sauce. Then we had weekly planning. It was nice to be inside for a while, because it was so freaking hot. After weekly planning, we met this guy named E Z. He was in the area book as an old investigator, so we called him up to see if he wanted to meet. Our meeting was intense. Basically him telling us what he believes on. And how he interprets the Bible. 'Scriptures mingled with the teachings of man' basically. He then healed a homeless guy.......yea. Some bum walked up and started listening and then asked this guy for a blessing. Very dramatic. He was a nice guy though and maybe we'll meet again.
Samstag: We spent the whole day at the M's house. We did service from like 10 to 5 and then went to this weird school fest thing with music and stuff. I don't know. It was weird and we probably could have been doing actual missionary work. But we stayed...I would have loved to go do some doors or something. But we stayed...
Sonntag: Sunday. I made delicious banana pancakes on Sunday morning. Complete with homemade wildberry syrup. Church was at 10. Which President M. gave a really good talk and lesson. That was cool. (It just started pouring rain. Weird) Shwester E also brought a friend to church! That was cool. And he friend was really interested and we're meeting her again on Thursday! Good stuff. Also, my euro pants ripped at the end of church. A little embarrassing, but nobody knew. I sewed them up this morning. After church...we spent the whole day at the M's house again. We ate 3 different times from noon till 9. I also learned how to play Adele on the piano. And I learned how to play this game called Ligretto. Good stuff.
The week was cool. An improvement from last week, but still a work in progress.
Hof is way cool. I think I said this last week, but if there were two super diligent missionaries here who just worked 24/7 and worked their butts off, this place would explode. I'm looking forward to that.
Everything is going good with Elder Pollard!
MAM - thanks for the recipes. Last week I asked for some recipes that I could use the deep fryer with. That would be cool.
Also...here's a new subject/obsession. Lederhosen. I told myself that I would never buy lederhosen because they're so expensive. But I've grown to love them! haha seriously. They're super cool and I just happen to be in the only area in this mission where you can buy them. They're like 100€ though. Pricey. Just a thought parentals. Christmas is coming up.
Anyway, I love the emails still! I love you all. I love being a missionary!
Elder Pollard
Hello fambam. I sent a couple other emails that have pictures of Hannover, and some from Hof! Cool stuff, I hope you enjoy the pictures I send. I like sending them home, so you know what Germany is like and all that stuff. AND I found the memory card reader thing at a super market here for only 3€ so I bought it! Super cheap and it makes sending pics a million times easier. So you guys don't have to worry about trying to get me one. Good stuff.
It sounds like the house is super quiet and lonely haha. Especially since Thomas is going to be leaving for EFY. What are you guys going to do? Probably just be really really bored. But then again, it will probably be nice having nobody in the house. Nice and quiet.
I'm sitting in the Taj Mahal Indian restaurant/internet cafe right now. There's a guy next to me using skype, skyping somebody probably in Turkey or some other Muslim country and he is full on shrieking. Like yelling at the top of his lungs in some crazy language. It's only a little annoying.
Anyway, our past week was better! We did more work, saw more success. Simple math equation. I keep having to explain that if we want investigators or to see any success at all, we're going to have to actually go outside and work. It's slowly sinking in. The work in Hof will go on!
Montag: Last Monday, we spent our P-Day with the Elders from Plauen (the next closest area). We went to the Untreusee (big lake thing) and played mini golf there. I almost won. I lost by 2 strokes because of the stupid last hole. It was almost a reenactment of Happy Gilmore with the clown. Tragic, but I got over it. After P-day, we went back to the apartment and made some important calls. That was basically Monday.
The screaming Arabic guy just left. Bonus.
Dienstag: Tuesday was kind of boring/slow/weird. The morning went alright. The only lesson we taught was to some guy in a car who stopped us and asked us if we wear 'unterhosen aus gummi' (rubber underwear). We were very confused and quickly turned the conversation to the Book of Mormon and taught him a little about it. Solid. He then drove away. For lunch, I made mom's spaghetti carbonara! Elder Huber was really excited to eat it. He actually liked it a lot. The rest of the day was spent walking miles going by on contacts/important people we need to get in contact with, but everyone was sick, or had visitors or some nonsense.
Mittwoch: Wednesday morning we had district meeting. The 1:30 hour bus ride to Plauen is always fun. But district meeting was cool. I like the missionaries in our district. We got home kind of late, around 1 and ate the classic Germany Berlin missionary meal: rice, tuna fish, and curry ketchup. It's probably the cheapest thing a missionary could eat in Germany. And it doesn't taste bad, but it certainly isn't gourmet. Oh well. It made me not hungry. Mission accomplished. We meet with Schwester E after lunch. She is cool, I like her. She speaks Bayrish though (the dialect out of super southern Germany) and it's a little hard to understand her sometimes. She has these two crazy dogs that live in her apartment with her. I think they're insane. Like really. But she's a super sweet lady. That was Wednesday.
Donnerstag: Thursday morning we registered ourselves in the city of Hof. We need to do that whenever we switch cities. Elder Huber had never done it either, so we went and took care of that. The German lady tried to spell 'San Diego' like ' San Jyeko' hahahah even though I spelled it out for her. Oh well. We then ate. Bratwursts and fried potatoes. (Deep fried, with our magical DDR deep fryer) The deep fryer is amazing. It's horrible for my health, but we've been deep frying everything haha (deep fried Oreos, deep fried Snickers, deep fried Lion bar-german chocolate bar, and deep fried cinnamon sugar balls-Elder Pollard's home made recipe). GO FRIED OR GO HOME. After lunch we visited with Bruder L for basically the rest of the day. He's a less active who likes to drink. He knows that it's wrong but he can't stop, so were meeting with him a lot to help him out. He's a way cool guy. We watched 'The Testaments' and 'Legacy' with him. Good stuff.
Fritag: Friday was hectic! And ridiculously hot. It's super warm here by the way. After study, we went by on a contact who lived super far away and we walked for like an hour in the super hot sun. I was sweating so much. We got there, and he said he didn't have time....oh well. We then walked home. We ate tortellini and sauce. Then we had weekly planning. It was nice to be inside for a while, because it was so freaking hot. After weekly planning, we met this guy named E Z. He was in the area book as an old investigator, so we called him up to see if he wanted to meet. Our meeting was intense. Basically him telling us what he believes on. And how he interprets the Bible. 'Scriptures mingled with the teachings of man' basically. He then healed a homeless guy.......yea. Some bum walked up and started listening and then asked this guy for a blessing. Very dramatic. He was a nice guy though and maybe we'll meet again.
Samstag: We spent the whole day at the M's house. We did service from like 10 to 5 and then went to this weird school fest thing with music and stuff. I don't know. It was weird and we probably could have been doing actual missionary work. But we stayed...I would have loved to go do some doors or something. But we stayed...
Sonntag: Sunday. I made delicious banana pancakes on Sunday morning. Complete with homemade wildberry syrup. Church was at 10. Which President M. gave a really good talk and lesson. That was cool. (It just started pouring rain. Weird) Shwester E also brought a friend to church! That was cool. And he friend was really interested and we're meeting her again on Thursday! Good stuff. Also, my euro pants ripped at the end of church. A little embarrassing, but nobody knew. I sewed them up this morning. After church...we spent the whole day at the M's house again. We ate 3 different times from noon till 9. I also learned how to play Adele on the piano. And I learned how to play this game called Ligretto. Good stuff.
The week was cool. An improvement from last week, but still a work in progress.
Hof is way cool. I think I said this last week, but if there were two super diligent missionaries here who just worked 24/7 and worked their butts off, this place would explode. I'm looking forward to that.
Everything is going good with Elder Pollard!
MAM - thanks for the recipes. Last week I asked for some recipes that I could use the deep fryer with. That would be cool.
Also...here's a new subject/obsession. Lederhosen. I told myself that I would never buy lederhosen because they're so expensive. But I've grown to love them! haha seriously. They're super cool and I just happen to be in the only area in this mission where you can buy them. They're like 100€ though. Pricey. Just a thought parentals. Christmas is coming up.
Anyway, I love the emails still! I love you all. I love being a missionary!
Elder Pollard
Monday, July 23, 2012
Week Twenty-seven
Hey family,
So instead of the smokey Turkish internet cafe that I used in Hannover, I am now in a small restaurant called 'Taj Mahal'. It's pretty small and dark and it smells like spices from the East. But it's chill. Last week felt like an eternity. Literally. I don't know why, I think it's just barbecue of traveling/getting used to everything. But despite it feeling really long, last week was cool.
My second area! Hof, in Bayern. Ganz oben. And it's pronounced like hope, but with an f instead. HOF. It's a cool little town! It's super hilly. It kind of has the feel of if someone took super hilly San Francisco at the turn of the century and dropped it in the middle of 4S Ranch. Haha I don't know if that makes sense, but the city is really old and big, intense, old buildings, but the outskirts are like fields and big houses. I like being here! The ward is actually a branch. There are only like 25 people on the ward list, and like 18 active members. But the members are pretty cool. Especially the branch president and his family. We spent a lot of time at their house last week...
Let me tell you alll the details haha
Montag: My last day in Hannover! NO! I love Hannover. It will always be special because it's where I was trained. It's where I learned German, and how to be a missionary haha. It's a lovely city, really. But for my last P-Day in Hannover, we watched movies in German! Haha it was so cool to watch Disney movies and actually understand what they were saying. It was crazy. Actually a couple of week ago, Elder Wightman and I were going by on a less active member, and we walked by this huge cardboard box of Disney VHS movies in German. Jackpot. We ended up watching 'Der Weg nach El Dorado' (The road to El Dorado) and Toy story 2. AUF DEUTSCH! It was super cool and I enjoyed it. I said bye to all the missionaries in my first district, too, which was sad. Monday night, we were supposed to meet with R, the African investigator, but she fell out, so we played basketball with the other missionaries and our second counselor in the ward bishopric and some youth. It was fun. A good last day to remember Hannover and all the missionaries there.
Dienstag: Tuesday was travel day. I was actually really nervous, and for good reason. I rode a train from Hannover to Göttingen, then had a 30 minute layover, then rode from Göttingen to Gera (outside of the Berlin mission boundaries) where I had a 7 minutes umsteig (transfer), then from Gera I rode to Hof. That was SO nerveracking. The 7 minute umsteig was a nightmare! Oh and my luggage broke while traveling. I guess that's what you get when you take the luggage you won at grad night on your mission. Anyway, I ended up carrying all 3 of my packed suitcases in my hands, and sprinting up a flight of stairs to catch my train. Not the greatest experience of my life, but I'm glad that I made it. Traveling cost 60 euro too, so I've been living with no money for the past week. Bu oh well. I got into Hof unharmed, met Elder Huber for the first time, and went to my new Wohnung. The apartment here in Hof is swanky. Super classy and nice. Really big and clean too. Hof has only been an area for the past year, so everything in the Wohnung is new and nice (missionaries have been using the Wohnung in Hannover for the past 25 years, so it was a little less nice). Basically I'm super happy that the Wohnung is nice. We also live like smack dab in the middle of town, which is also good. After I got in and unpacked and situated, we went shopping for food for the week. We shopped at this place called Markhof, which is kind of more like an American grocery store. It was cool. After that, we kind of sat around. Which was weird for me. Because we were hard workers in Hannover. We worked all day, and I got used to it. There's not really anything going on in Hof right now, so I'm excited to get it up and running.
Mittwoch: Wednesday morning, we had District Meeting in Plauen, the next area north. It was cool to meet my new district, but traveling there was...something else. Because we're in Bayern, and everyone else is in Sachsen (Saxony), it would cost 40 euro to cross the border in a train. So we had to take a bus. Which took 50 minutes. And it's hard to fall asleep on buses! Impossible really. But anyways, we got to Plauen, walked a little, met up with the whole district, took a Bahn to the church haus there and had DM. It was cool. I like meeting new missionaries. After DM, we took the bus the 50 minutes all the way back haha. We got home and ate lunch. Chili I think. Elder Huber made it. And after that, we basically spent the whole rest of the day calling people from the phone. Our phone was a bunch of old investigators in it, but Elder Huber doesn't know who they are, so we called all of them and made out appointments with some of them. Hopefully they'll still have interest!
Donnerstag: Thursday morning was hectic. I got up as normal and did everything. At around 11, the elders from Freiburg came, because one of them had a dentist appointment in Hof. So we basically entertained them until the appointment. While they were out, we went shopping for some important stuff (toothbrush, body wash, wall clock) on our way back, we stopped by the tourist center to try and find pins! Pins are cool. I'm going to get one from every area I serve in. We went in, asked if they sold pins (which they didn't) but the lady behind the desk just gave us some for free! It was way cool. The say 'Hof in Bayern ganz oben' (ganz oben means way north basically) That was cool. We got back to the apartment, and made canned soup for ourselves and the Freiburg elders. Then they left. After that, we went by on a couple of less actives/contacts. Nobody was there, but we made out an appointment with somebody on the way. We then went by on Bruder L, a less active. This guy is super cool. I love talking to him. He's funny, too. We actually watched Passion of the Christ with him. Which was weird. I have seen Passion of the Christ in German. But like there's nothing factually of doctrinally wrong with the film. It's just really graphic. I kind of liked it. It was just real. We then came home and finished calling everyone in the phone, made out a lot of appointments. Good stuff. Area book/phone work.
I'm in this Indian restaurant/internet cafe and it smells delicious.
Fritag: Friday was OK. I go up like normal, and studied. Studying rocks. I started a study journal/I am reading the BOM with this student study guide and it's super interesting and cool. I love studying. It's the highlight of my day sometimes. At 11 we went out and 'BAMed' (Be a missionary...it means go and talk with people, go by on contacts, etc.) We then came back and ate lunch. Spaghetti I think. Elder Huber made it again. After lunch, we had weekly planning, which didn't last too long, because we don't have any investigators. We talked about the area, what we want to do, and that kind of stuff. We then finished up on area book work, calling everyone we could, writing down the addresses of people we need to go by on and stuff. Friday was scary. I caught myself being lazy. I just sat on the couch (we have a really big, nice couch) and I was like...I would be totally OK if I just took a nap right now. BUT THAT'S NOT GOOD! It's called missionary WORK. Some missionaries don't understand it. I just say hey if you want to take naps, sit around and do nothing all day, go on Facebook, just disobey the rules we have, then go home! The mission is not the time to be doing this. Some people just don't get it. Anyway, I promised myself I wouldn't do it again.
Samstag: Saturday was supposed to be a 'Sommerfest' (summer party) with the ward at the lake here in Hof (Untruesee) but it was pouring on Saturday. Hof is notorious for it's crazy weather. It's called the Siberia of Bavaria. Nice. Anyways, we studied in the morning, then went by contacts/less active members at 11. We came home and ate brats. Mmmmmm. After lunch, we hung out for a little (stupid) and then went to the M's house. The M's is the family of the branch president. They're super cool. They have 3 daughters, 19, 17, and 14. They're super cool, but I feel like over time, the relationships between the family and the missionaries became kind of weird. We go over there and it's like we become their personal butlers and servants. It's like...I'm OK with helping around and I love serving and doing service projects...but we shouldn't be spending hours on end at their haus just to do little chores around the haus. Also we played a bunch of games. Like Kniffel, Uno, and others. I love the family. They're super nice and they love the missionaries, we just can't spend all day there. Like we did on Saturday.
Sonntag: Sunday was my first church experience here in Hof! Church here is only 2 hours, because there's only like 20 people in the branch. We meet in this conference room thing in a hotel haha. But it's chill. I gave a talk yesterday. Actually the Elders Quorum president called me last night at like 8:00 pm and said "can you introduce yourself tomorrow morning and give a 10 minute talk on Jesus? OK thanks bye"). So I talked about chapter 8 in Preach My Gospel where it talks about the Christ-like attributes. It was OK. I talked for like 15 minutes instead of 10. I should have prepared better. Oh well church was cool. After church. We went with Bruder L to the G's. We ate like potatoes and ground beef there. And Eis for desert. It was good. We shard a spiritual thought there and then went to the M's...for the rest of the night...again. I love this family. They're super cool. But there is no reason we should be there for more than an hour and a half. We have these rules. We ate cake there. It was delicious.
That was my first week in Hof. If you couldn't tell...we taught nobody last week. That makes the week go by realllllyyyyy slowly. It sucks. But we just need to put our heads down and put forth some effort and that will change. We'll see if that happens next week. I'm ready for it. Hof has such a good potential to explode and be a great area. But I feel like the missionaries here just got lazy. There's like zero work being down here, and the branch is so excited and has been waiting for so long for work to be done. It needs to change.
Other than that, it was a really good week! I like Hof a lot. It's an awesome place. And I'm in Bayern! That accent here isn't really that bad. We get some people (like our GML) who are from Sachsen (Saxony), and that accent is crazy. But I haven't really heard Bayrisch yet. Hearing some from Sachsen speak German is like hearing someone from Scotland speak English. Sometimes even the fluent German speakers don't understand it haha. Oh well.
MOM - hi. We have a mini deep fryer in the apartment haha. I was wondering if you could suggest anything that we could cook in that. I think that would be cool.
My new address is:
Elder Tim Pollard
Kirche Jesu Christi
Ludwig Strasse 52
95028 Hof
Deutschland
Hof is hopping. I like it here. I'm doing good.
K I love you all and miss you a ton!
Elder Pollard
So instead of the smokey Turkish internet cafe that I used in Hannover, I am now in a small restaurant called 'Taj Mahal'. It's pretty small and dark and it smells like spices from the East. But it's chill. Last week felt like an eternity. Literally. I don't know why, I think it's just barbecue of traveling/getting used to everything. But despite it feeling really long, last week was cool.
My second area! Hof, in Bayern. Ganz oben. And it's pronounced like hope, but with an f instead. HOF. It's a cool little town! It's super hilly. It kind of has the feel of if someone took super hilly San Francisco at the turn of the century and dropped it in the middle of 4S Ranch. Haha I don't know if that makes sense, but the city is really old and big, intense, old buildings, but the outskirts are like fields and big houses. I like being here! The ward is actually a branch. There are only like 25 people on the ward list, and like 18 active members. But the members are pretty cool. Especially the branch president and his family. We spent a lot of time at their house last week...
Let me tell you alll the details haha
Montag: My last day in Hannover! NO! I love Hannover. It will always be special because it's where I was trained. It's where I learned German, and how to be a missionary haha. It's a lovely city, really. But for my last P-Day in Hannover, we watched movies in German! Haha it was so cool to watch Disney movies and actually understand what they were saying. It was crazy. Actually a couple of week ago, Elder Wightman and I were going by on a less active member, and we walked by this huge cardboard box of Disney VHS movies in German. Jackpot. We ended up watching 'Der Weg nach El Dorado' (The road to El Dorado) and Toy story 2. AUF DEUTSCH! It was super cool and I enjoyed it. I said bye to all the missionaries in my first district, too, which was sad. Monday night, we were supposed to meet with R, the African investigator, but she fell out, so we played basketball with the other missionaries and our second counselor in the ward bishopric and some youth. It was fun. A good last day to remember Hannover and all the missionaries there.
Dienstag: Tuesday was travel day. I was actually really nervous, and for good reason. I rode a train from Hannover to Göttingen, then had a 30 minute layover, then rode from Göttingen to Gera (outside of the Berlin mission boundaries) where I had a 7 minutes umsteig (transfer), then from Gera I rode to Hof. That was SO nerveracking. The 7 minute umsteig was a nightmare! Oh and my luggage broke while traveling. I guess that's what you get when you take the luggage you won at grad night on your mission. Anyway, I ended up carrying all 3 of my packed suitcases in my hands, and sprinting up a flight of stairs to catch my train. Not the greatest experience of my life, but I'm glad that I made it. Traveling cost 60 euro too, so I've been living with no money for the past week. Bu oh well. I got into Hof unharmed, met Elder Huber for the first time, and went to my new Wohnung. The apartment here in Hof is swanky. Super classy and nice. Really big and clean too. Hof has only been an area for the past year, so everything in the Wohnung is new and nice (missionaries have been using the Wohnung in Hannover for the past 25 years, so it was a little less nice). Basically I'm super happy that the Wohnung is nice. We also live like smack dab in the middle of town, which is also good. After I got in and unpacked and situated, we went shopping for food for the week. We shopped at this place called Markhof, which is kind of more like an American grocery store. It was cool. After that, we kind of sat around. Which was weird for me. Because we were hard workers in Hannover. We worked all day, and I got used to it. There's not really anything going on in Hof right now, so I'm excited to get it up and running.
Mittwoch: Wednesday morning, we had District Meeting in Plauen, the next area north. It was cool to meet my new district, but traveling there was...something else. Because we're in Bayern, and everyone else is in Sachsen (Saxony), it would cost 40 euro to cross the border in a train. So we had to take a bus. Which took 50 minutes. And it's hard to fall asleep on buses! Impossible really. But anyways, we got to Plauen, walked a little, met up with the whole district, took a Bahn to the church haus there and had DM. It was cool. I like meeting new missionaries. After DM, we took the bus the 50 minutes all the way back haha. We got home and ate lunch. Chili I think. Elder Huber made it. And after that, we basically spent the whole rest of the day calling people from the phone. Our phone was a bunch of old investigators in it, but Elder Huber doesn't know who they are, so we called all of them and made out appointments with some of them. Hopefully they'll still have interest!
Donnerstag: Thursday morning was hectic. I got up as normal and did everything. At around 11, the elders from Freiburg came, because one of them had a dentist appointment in Hof. So we basically entertained them until the appointment. While they were out, we went shopping for some important stuff (toothbrush, body wash, wall clock) on our way back, we stopped by the tourist center to try and find pins! Pins are cool. I'm going to get one from every area I serve in. We went in, asked if they sold pins (which they didn't) but the lady behind the desk just gave us some for free! It was way cool. The say 'Hof in Bayern ganz oben' (ganz oben means way north basically) That was cool. We got back to the apartment, and made canned soup for ourselves and the Freiburg elders. Then they left. After that, we went by on a couple of less actives/contacts. Nobody was there, but we made out an appointment with somebody on the way. We then went by on Bruder L, a less active. This guy is super cool. I love talking to him. He's funny, too. We actually watched Passion of the Christ with him. Which was weird. I have seen Passion of the Christ in German. But like there's nothing factually of doctrinally wrong with the film. It's just really graphic. I kind of liked it. It was just real. We then came home and finished calling everyone in the phone, made out a lot of appointments. Good stuff. Area book/phone work.
I'm in this Indian restaurant/internet cafe and it smells delicious.
Fritag: Friday was OK. I go up like normal, and studied. Studying rocks. I started a study journal/I am reading the BOM with this student study guide and it's super interesting and cool. I love studying. It's the highlight of my day sometimes. At 11 we went out and 'BAMed' (Be a missionary...it means go and talk with people, go by on contacts, etc.) We then came back and ate lunch. Spaghetti I think. Elder Huber made it again. After lunch, we had weekly planning, which didn't last too long, because we don't have any investigators. We talked about the area, what we want to do, and that kind of stuff. We then finished up on area book work, calling everyone we could, writing down the addresses of people we need to go by on and stuff. Friday was scary. I caught myself being lazy. I just sat on the couch (we have a really big, nice couch) and I was like...I would be totally OK if I just took a nap right now. BUT THAT'S NOT GOOD! It's called missionary WORK. Some missionaries don't understand it. I just say hey if you want to take naps, sit around and do nothing all day, go on Facebook, just disobey the rules we have, then go home! The mission is not the time to be doing this. Some people just don't get it. Anyway, I promised myself I wouldn't do it again.
Samstag: Saturday was supposed to be a 'Sommerfest' (summer party) with the ward at the lake here in Hof (Untruesee) but it was pouring on Saturday. Hof is notorious for it's crazy weather. It's called the Siberia of Bavaria. Nice. Anyways, we studied in the morning, then went by contacts/less active members at 11. We came home and ate brats. Mmmmmm. After lunch, we hung out for a little (stupid) and then went to the M's house. The M's is the family of the branch president. They're super cool. They have 3 daughters, 19, 17, and 14. They're super cool, but I feel like over time, the relationships between the family and the missionaries became kind of weird. We go over there and it's like we become their personal butlers and servants. It's like...I'm OK with helping around and I love serving and doing service projects...but we shouldn't be spending hours on end at their haus just to do little chores around the haus. Also we played a bunch of games. Like Kniffel, Uno, and others. I love the family. They're super nice and they love the missionaries, we just can't spend all day there. Like we did on Saturday.
Sonntag: Sunday was my first church experience here in Hof! Church here is only 2 hours, because there's only like 20 people in the branch. We meet in this conference room thing in a hotel haha. But it's chill. I gave a talk yesterday. Actually the Elders Quorum president called me last night at like 8:00 pm and said "can you introduce yourself tomorrow morning and give a 10 minute talk on Jesus? OK thanks bye"). So I talked about chapter 8 in Preach My Gospel where it talks about the Christ-like attributes. It was OK. I talked for like 15 minutes instead of 10. I should have prepared better. Oh well church was cool. After church. We went with Bruder L to the G's. We ate like potatoes and ground beef there. And Eis for desert. It was good. We shard a spiritual thought there and then went to the M's...for the rest of the night...again. I love this family. They're super cool. But there is no reason we should be there for more than an hour and a half. We have these rules. We ate cake there. It was delicious.
That was my first week in Hof. If you couldn't tell...we taught nobody last week. That makes the week go by realllllyyyyy slowly. It sucks. But we just need to put our heads down and put forth some effort and that will change. We'll see if that happens next week. I'm ready for it. Hof has such a good potential to explode and be a great area. But I feel like the missionaries here just got lazy. There's like zero work being down here, and the branch is so excited and has been waiting for so long for work to be done. It needs to change.
Other than that, it was a really good week! I like Hof a lot. It's an awesome place. And I'm in Bayern! That accent here isn't really that bad. We get some people (like our GML) who are from Sachsen (Saxony), and that accent is crazy. But I haven't really heard Bayrisch yet. Hearing some from Sachsen speak German is like hearing someone from Scotland speak English. Sometimes even the fluent German speakers don't understand it haha. Oh well.
MOM - hi. We have a mini deep fryer in the apartment haha. I was wondering if you could suggest anything that we could cook in that. I think that would be cool.
My new address is:
Elder Tim Pollard
Kirche Jesu Christi
Ludwig Strasse 52
95028 Hof
Deutschland
Hof is hopping. I like it here. I'm doing good.
K I love you all and miss you a ton!
Elder Pollard
Monday, July 16, 2012
Week Twenty-six
HEY FAMILY!!!!
HUGE NEWS!
I GOT TRANSFERRED!
Kinda cool. I'm really sad and upset that I have to leave Hannover. It's a wonderful place, I love the ward, and I'll always remember the city that I learned German in. But where I am going is a very special place in our mission.
Say goodbye to Hannover...
Tomorrow I will get on a train to take a 5 hour trip to HOF. Hof is a very special place in the mission, because it's the most south area in the Berlin Mission, and the only area in Bayern (Bavaria)! That's right, I'm going to Bayern. Lederhosen, Beer, Oktoberfest, anything typically German. That's where I'm going. I'm super excited to have my first transfer! And another crazy part is that my new companion (Elder Huber) is from Austria! Er kommt aus Österreich! My Deutsch is going to explode! I'll be with a native speaker and I'm just super excited for this opportunity. I am planning (of course) to make the best of it and take advantage of this maybe short time. AH! It's so exciting.
So anyways, that was the big news this week. I'm going from Hannover in the Hannover zone to Hof in the Leipzig zone. Elder Pollard's first real transfer! Other than that, the week kind of dragged....I was just looking forward to transfer calls because I was so nervous. But I'm happy that I get to go experience a new area of Germany. All of the members were making fun of me because of the accents the people have in Bayern. They said that it's a totally different language haha I guess we'll see! So last week:
Montag: Last P-day was slowwwwww. We played basketball like the whole p-day. It was awesome and a good workout and I got to try out my new slim downed body. White lightning. Nuff said. But no it was really really fun. After P-Day, we went by on C, the less active member from Ghana. She is super cool. She has two of the coolest little children two. I just don't understand why she doesn't come to church! She would be such a good addition to the ward, to the English class, and would be awesome for joint teaches with Africans who can only speak English. I wish she would come back to church! We try to help her, and I always pray for her, but I just don't know what to do anymore. It's sad. Anyways, we had a really good talk with her. We shared 1 Nephi 21:15-16, which talks about how Jesus Christ will never forget us because he loves us so much. I hope she comes back. After that, we walked around Hannover, talking to people trying to find anyone who wanted to hear about the Book of Mormon. We made out a couple of appointments.
Dienstag: Tuesday started off normally. Wake up, work out, eat, shower, study, get ready. The basics. After that, we were going to visit with A, but she canceled on the way over there. That was sad, but it gave us some time to go get lunch. We found this fancy Döner laden and ate some good Turkish food. mmmmmmm. That's something that America is missing. Turkish food. It's so bomb. After lunch, we traveled a far way to meet with this one guy, who wasn't there. This week was kind of like that. We then came all the back to the church to meet someone, who didn't show up. After that though, we went and met with a lady named G, from Ghana. She was pretty cool. Kind of didn't really want to meet with us, but we gave her a BOM and talked a little about it. She say she wants to come to church, which is exciting. After G, we went back to the church to meet with a guy named C. He didn't show up. After that, we met with the D's, who made us pizza. They are so awesome. For desert, we ate cake. We played Kniffel, and I gave Sister D a blessing because she wasn't feeling good.
Mittwoch: Wednesday. We had district meeting on Wednesday morning, which was cool.
After that, we meet with a guy named B, and we tried to teach him English. It's SO hard to teach English haha. But we try. He isn't too interested in the gospel, but we're here to serve so we teach him English. After B, we went out to meet with J, who wasn't there! Man! It stinks. Anyways, we got to go home a little earlier to eat lunch. I made the burger tacos again. Primo. After that, we went and did a lot of finding. Which is always fun. We went out to a couple of appointment/go bys, but they weren't there. That night, we played volleyball with the ward. Supes fun.
Donnerstag: Thursday morning we visited Frau A. She is kind of really old, but super sweet. She's a quatcher = she loves to small talk. For hours. It's always a struggle to keep on topic. She doesn't think she can be baptized because she's too old. And it would be dangerous. But she could do it if she really wanted to. Excuses! The rest of the day was basically going from fallen out appointment to fallen out appointment. Hey some days are like that. You can't let it get you down. People forget, other stuff comes up, whatever. It's just life. We did meet with N though, who told us that he thinks our church is just like everybody else and we talk about being christian, but don't actually do anything. Er ist total falsch informiert. We pretty christian. And we talk about it. And we practice what we preach. He needs to come to church to figure that out. Good day though.
Fritag: Friday was fun! We did weekly planning in the morning, ate lunch, went by on an appointment that was a false address, and went back to planning. After we were done with weekly planning, we went to Burgdorf to eat with K for the last time. K is the American girl living with her uncle. We made our own pizza, talked, sang Tarzan in German. Good times. I drank non alcoholic beer. Beer and Pizza. Tarzan in German. How could it had not been fun? After that, we came back and talked with people on the street.
Samstag: Saturday was my favorite day. Saturday morning, we had transfer call, so our whole district came to Hannover and we made pancakes in the church and all sat together to listen to transfer calls. It was super exciting! But kind of dumb because the transfer call wasn't working and president had to talk really loud over this weird music. It was hard to hear everything, and when president said where I was going for the first time, I didn't hear it! I was so upset! I had to call the Assistants after the call was over and ask them. Going to Hof. Bayern. I'm pumped. After that, I was on splits with Elder Henderson. We went around talking to people, meeting with people. We also went to the D's to give Brother D a blessing. At the end of the night, I literally experienced a dream. The K's took all four of us to their garden, where they have 6 puppies. (as seen in picture) It was so ridiculously fun! The puppies were cool. I loved it.
Sonntag: Sunday was fun. Church consisted of me saying goodbyes, taking pictures with people, and being made fun of because I'm being sent to Bayern (Bavaria) haha. I gave my last testimony in Hannover. It was a really good Sunday. We ate at the family K after. Sister K made lasagna (oh my goodness) and it was so delicious. I'll never forget it haha. After we had a couple of appointments and what not. I started packing last night. Super stressful!
Last week was cool! I'm sending you a bunch of pictures! Some from the MTC, Hannover, and whatnot, I hope you enjoy them all!
I am soooo excited to go to HOF!!! Freaking Bayern! How amazing is that? Like typical Germany haha. I am soooo happy that I am here in Germany. I wouldn't have it any other way! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be here, parents. I love you all so much.
Anyways, thanks for the email! Thanks for the maple syrup recipe too! How about a sloppy joe recipe, Mom?
Thanks for everything! I'll let you know next week how HOF is!
Elder Pollard
HUGE NEWS!
I GOT TRANSFERRED!
Kinda cool. I'm really sad and upset that I have to leave Hannover. It's a wonderful place, I love the ward, and I'll always remember the city that I learned German in. But where I am going is a very special place in our mission.
Say goodbye to Hannover...
Tomorrow I will get on a train to take a 5 hour trip to HOF. Hof is a very special place in the mission, because it's the most south area in the Berlin Mission, and the only area in Bayern (Bavaria)! That's right, I'm going to Bayern. Lederhosen, Beer, Oktoberfest, anything typically German. That's where I'm going. I'm super excited to have my first transfer! And another crazy part is that my new companion (Elder Huber) is from Austria! Er kommt aus Österreich! My Deutsch is going to explode! I'll be with a native speaker and I'm just super excited for this opportunity. I am planning (of course) to make the best of it and take advantage of this maybe short time. AH! It's so exciting.
So anyways, that was the big news this week. I'm going from Hannover in the Hannover zone to Hof in the Leipzig zone. Elder Pollard's first real transfer! Other than that, the week kind of dragged....I was just looking forward to transfer calls because I was so nervous. But I'm happy that I get to go experience a new area of Germany. All of the members were making fun of me because of the accents the people have in Bayern. They said that it's a totally different language haha I guess we'll see! So last week:
Montag: Last P-day was slowwwwww. We played basketball like the whole p-day. It was awesome and a good workout and I got to try out my new slim downed body. White lightning. Nuff said. But no it was really really fun. After P-Day, we went by on C, the less active member from Ghana. She is super cool. She has two of the coolest little children two. I just don't understand why she doesn't come to church! She would be such a good addition to the ward, to the English class, and would be awesome for joint teaches with Africans who can only speak English. I wish she would come back to church! We try to help her, and I always pray for her, but I just don't know what to do anymore. It's sad. Anyways, we had a really good talk with her. We shared 1 Nephi 21:15-16, which talks about how Jesus Christ will never forget us because he loves us so much. I hope she comes back. After that, we walked around Hannover, talking to people trying to find anyone who wanted to hear about the Book of Mormon. We made out a couple of appointments.
Dienstag: Tuesday started off normally. Wake up, work out, eat, shower, study, get ready. The basics. After that, we were going to visit with A, but she canceled on the way over there. That was sad, but it gave us some time to go get lunch. We found this fancy Döner laden and ate some good Turkish food. mmmmmmm. That's something that America is missing. Turkish food. It's so bomb. After lunch, we traveled a far way to meet with this one guy, who wasn't there. This week was kind of like that. We then came all the back to the church to meet someone, who didn't show up. After that though, we went and met with a lady named G, from Ghana. She was pretty cool. Kind of didn't really want to meet with us, but we gave her a BOM and talked a little about it. She say she wants to come to church, which is exciting. After G, we went back to the church to meet with a guy named C. He didn't show up. After that, we met with the D's, who made us pizza. They are so awesome. For desert, we ate cake. We played Kniffel, and I gave Sister D a blessing because she wasn't feeling good.
Mittwoch: Wednesday. We had district meeting on Wednesday morning, which was cool.
Hannover District Meeting
After that, we meet with a guy named B, and we tried to teach him English. It's SO hard to teach English haha. But we try. He isn't too interested in the gospel, but we're here to serve so we teach him English. After B, we went out to meet with J, who wasn't there! Man! It stinks. Anyways, we got to go home a little earlier to eat lunch. I made the burger tacos again. Primo. After that, we went and did a lot of finding. Which is always fun. We went out to a couple of appointment/go bys, but they weren't there. That night, we played volleyball with the ward. Supes fun.
Donnerstag: Thursday morning we visited Frau A. She is kind of really old, but super sweet. She's a quatcher = she loves to small talk. For hours. It's always a struggle to keep on topic. She doesn't think she can be baptized because she's too old. And it would be dangerous. But she could do it if she really wanted to. Excuses! The rest of the day was basically going from fallen out appointment to fallen out appointment. Hey some days are like that. You can't let it get you down. People forget, other stuff comes up, whatever. It's just life. We did meet with N though, who told us that he thinks our church is just like everybody else and we talk about being christian, but don't actually do anything. Er ist total falsch informiert. We pretty christian. And we talk about it. And we practice what we preach. He needs to come to church to figure that out. Good day though.
Fritag: Friday was fun! We did weekly planning in the morning, ate lunch, went by on an appointment that was a false address, and went back to planning. After we were done with weekly planning, we went to Burgdorf to eat with K for the last time. K is the American girl living with her uncle. We made our own pizza, talked, sang Tarzan in German. Good times. I drank non alcoholic beer. Beer and Pizza. Tarzan in German. How could it had not been fun? After that, we came back and talked with people on the street.
Samstag: Saturday was my favorite day. Saturday morning, we had transfer call, so our whole district came to Hannover and we made pancakes in the church and all sat together to listen to transfer calls. It was super exciting! But kind of dumb because the transfer call wasn't working and president had to talk really loud over this weird music. It was hard to hear everything, and when president said where I was going for the first time, I didn't hear it! I was so upset! I had to call the Assistants after the call was over and ask them. Going to Hof. Bayern. I'm pumped. After that, I was on splits with Elder Henderson. We went around talking to people, meeting with people. We also went to the D's to give Brother D a blessing. At the end of the night, I literally experienced a dream. The K's took all four of us to their garden, where they have 6 puppies. (as seen in picture) It was so ridiculously fun! The puppies were cool. I loved it.
Elder Pollard (and Wightman) with a new friend...
Sonntag: Sunday was fun. Church consisted of me saying goodbyes, taking pictures with people, and being made fun of because I'm being sent to Bayern (Bavaria) haha. I gave my last testimony in Hannover. It was a really good Sunday. We ate at the family K after. Sister K made lasagna (oh my goodness) and it was so delicious. I'll never forget it haha. After we had a couple of appointments and what not. I started packing last night. Super stressful!
Last week was cool! I'm sending you a bunch of pictures! Some from the MTC, Hannover, and whatnot, I hope you enjoy them all!
I am soooo excited to go to HOF!!! Freaking Bayern! How amazing is that? Like typical Germany haha. I am soooo happy that I am here in Germany. I wouldn't have it any other way! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be here, parents. I love you all so much.
Anyways, thanks for the email! Thanks for the maple syrup recipe too! How about a sloppy joe recipe, Mom?
Thanks for everything! I'll let you know next week how HOF is!
Elder Pollard
Monday, July 9, 2012
Week Twenty-five
Moin.
Moin means 'morgen' but over time it's slowly devolved into just 'moin'. Thought you'd like to know. German is fun. I love the language. I'm starting to try and deepen my vocabulary, which is fun/hard. But I love talking to the members! Everyone tells me how much I've improved. And compliments are the best. We ate with the K's yesterday, which is funny, because my very first eating appointment in Germany was with them. They were talking about how much I've improved! It made me feel good. I'm trying really hard on being able to speak, because one of the coolest things about being a missionary is just taking to EVERYBODY. Literally. I meet so many interesting/weird/funny people just walking up and down the streets. I love it. Last week, we met this guy named A who was from Tanzania. He spoke Swahili! Haha which is Hakuna Matata language. And I was just thinking how crazy that was because we're just two American kids, in German, speaking with this guy from Africa. Crazy!
Anyways, last week was really awesome. Let's just say, I LOVE the ward here. It's big and a little hard to get to know everybody, but they take care of the missionaries. Let me tell you about my last week:
Montag: Last Monday was cool. We planned on having a Zone P-day. We did all the morning stuff like usual: get up, morgen sport, eat, shower, study, clean, email. After we emailed, I went to Primark and bought the suit jacket to the sexy Euro pants I've had for a while. That means new Euro Suit, which = classy.
And I love wearing it and it makes me feel good about myself. That's all I have to say about that. After all that, we hit up BACK FACTORY! my favorite German bakery chain. This place is ridiculously delicious. I payed 5€ I got: a spicy chicken sandwich, a hot dog brötchen cheese thing, a pretzel, and some other leckere kleinigkeit. #yum. That was good. We then found and empty field, and played football, soccer, ultimate Frisbee, and other sports with everyone from the zone. Fun times. That night, we had a joint teach! Taking members to help teach investigators rocks. Last week we took Brother E (a recent convert from Instanbul) along to a man named S. P. who is from Iran. It was really cool. Brother E bore awesome testimony, and was really helpful. That was Monday...not too much.
Dienstag: Tuesdays are never awesome. Last Tuesday was just long and slow. In the morning, we went to the Wilhelms (the senior missionaries) place and used their computer to email a referral that we got. While we were there, Sister Wilhelm hemmed my companions pants. We were invited to stay there and eat lunch with them, which consisted of leftovers, but it was still way good. After that we went by on a couple of first appointments with people. We didn't teach anything, but made out more appointments, so that was good. We then met and taught A. W. She's super cool and sweet. She made us Tea though, which on these super hot German days isn't the most refreshing drink, but whatever. We had a good lesson with her. She's not quite progressing, and I'm not sure if she understands exactly what we expect from her, but she's awesome. One thing I've noticed about people, is that nobody is open for everything. I always say, we have this book, and because we have it, it has to be either true or false. There is a definite way that you can use to figure out if this book is true or false, will you do that? Nobody does. Oh well, religion and God just isn't important to a lot of people. I don't understand why, but oh well. After A., we went by on our huge ward list, trying to wittle down who still lives in Hannover/who is less active/who is still alive. We then met with a lady named G. I., from Ghana. We just gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to church. That night we had a meeting with our ward mission leader.
Mittwoch: Wedenesday was awesome! ZONE KONFERENZ! We got to meet our new mission president and his wife, President and Sister Kosak, who are super cool. They talked to me about a Pollard they new who was from Scotland for a while.I had to give a Thema (workshop/lesson/thing) at Zone Konferenz, and I talked about John 15. It talks about how Christ is the true Vine and how we are branches of of this vine. If we aren't connected with the vine, we can't make fruit. It was cool, and I enjoyed teaching it. We heard a super cool Thema from Sister Kosak. She talked about how today's tests are tomorrows testimonies. I thought it was cool. After Zone Konferenz, we jumped on a train and went to die Familie K's house. We celebrated America. We had burgers and chips and potato salad, and root beer floats, which is awesome, because there's no root beer in Germany. Special order from America haha. That was such a fun day.
Donnerstag: Thursday was alright. We went by on J in the morning. He's the African guy who's like 26. His phone hasn't been working lately, so we just had to go by on him. He couldn't meet right then, but we made out an appointment for this coming week. We then rode to Frau A's, who is an older lady who just likes to talk about religion and the Bible. I'm not sure how much interest she has, but we'll figure that out. That's a hard part of missionary work, is figuring out who really has interest, and who just likes to talk. The rest of that day was interesting. We just went by on members/did doors and talked with people. We got in contact with a member who invited us in. I had never seen him before haha and I've been in Hannover for a while now. He doesn't go to church, but he says that he's an active member.
Fritag: Friday rocked. We started off our day by going by on W., and older member from Poland. She has health issues and it's hard for her to get to church, so we visit her and make sure everything is going good for her. That was fun. After that, we ate with the S's! (Maybe for the last time :( ) which would suck. We had potatoes, meatballs, and red beets. She also gave me socks. Yes, a nice old German lady knit me socks. That's what's up. I already wore them, they're way comfy. After that, we went by on N to work in his Garden. That was so much fun. I love doing service. Being able to help someone is cool, but I love manual labor haha it's such a good stress reliever. We painted a lot of his garden house, and chopped down a tree.
By chopped down a tree, I mean we hacked at this thing for about an hour with a hatchet. My hands still hurt. It was actually way fun.
Samstag: Saturday was awesome too! We had weekly planning in the morning. After that, we went to another America Party haha. This time the S's (an actual American family) invited us and a lot of the ward over. We had homemade fried chicken, ribs, hot dogs, hamburgers, and more root beer floats haha. It was super delicious and I got to talk with a lot of the members. Speaking German is crazy. That basically took the whole day. It was a nice break.
Sonntag: Church was good. Not too much happened. We had a really good lesson in Sunday School talking about how God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are three different beings. A lot of Book of Mormon scriptures. And the big whammy in Acts during Stephans stoning where he looks up to heaving and sees God and Jesus Christ as two separate beings. That was a good lesson. After church, we went to the K's and ate. And that, we meet with a guy named B. We're teaching him how to speak English. Which isn't as easy as it sounds. That was a hectic hour of bad English and us not knowing what to do haha. After B, we met with a lady named R...from Ghana. Haha I LOVE people form Ghana. They all love Jesus so much. And they're really open and kind people. We had a good lesson with her. When we were done meeting with R, we saw that it was like 9:00, and We have to be back in by 9:30. We still hadn't made out an appointment, so we were kind of in a sticky situation. Luckily, we're missionaries, and our prayers are straight up answered. We prayed so we could run into someone who was ready to hear about the gospel, and sure enough, we met someone on the street, gave him a Book of Mormon, taught a lesson right there. It was amazing.
So last week was actually pretty good. Not as good as we though it was going to be, but not too bad at the same time.
PARENTS! Hi mom and dad. I love you guys so much. I miss you a lot too. I love reading the emails I get, and just knowing how much good food I'm missing out on haha. But I know I'm going good by being here. I hope you like the picture of the tree we cut down! Look how small that stupid hatchet was.
I read something interesting this morning. It was about the small/large plates and what they exactly were. The large plates contained a history of the political/war side of things, and started from Lehi leaving Jeruselam, and go until the end of 4 Nephi. The small plates are more of a religious/prophesy kind of aspect, and start from Lehi leaving Jeruselam, but only go until Omni. The Words of Mormon are a connection from the small to the large plates. And the 116 pages that Martin Harris lost, is the beginning part of the large plates (what would've been 1 Nephi until Omni). But those were lost. Nephi was commanded to start the small plates, because God knew that part of the large plates would be lost. I thought that was cool!
I love you all soooooo much. I miss you. I hope everything is going well.
Till next week!
Elder Pollard
Moin means 'morgen' but over time it's slowly devolved into just 'moin'. Thought you'd like to know. German is fun. I love the language. I'm starting to try and deepen my vocabulary, which is fun/hard. But I love talking to the members! Everyone tells me how much I've improved. And compliments are the best. We ate with the K's yesterday, which is funny, because my very first eating appointment in Germany was with them. They were talking about how much I've improved! It made me feel good. I'm trying really hard on being able to speak, because one of the coolest things about being a missionary is just taking to EVERYBODY. Literally. I meet so many interesting/weird/funny people just walking up and down the streets. I love it. Last week, we met this guy named A who was from Tanzania. He spoke Swahili! Haha which is Hakuna Matata language. And I was just thinking how crazy that was because we're just two American kids, in German, speaking with this guy from Africa. Crazy!
Anyways, last week was really awesome. Let's just say, I LOVE the ward here. It's big and a little hard to get to know everybody, but they take care of the missionaries. Let me tell you about my last week:
Montag: Last Monday was cool. We planned on having a Zone P-day. We did all the morning stuff like usual: get up, morgen sport, eat, shower, study, clean, email. After we emailed, I went to Primark and bought the suit jacket to the sexy Euro pants I've had for a while. That means new Euro Suit, which = classy.
Hannover Zone Conference (Elder Pollard and his suit are second row/5th from the left...)
And I love wearing it and it makes me feel good about myself. That's all I have to say about that. After all that, we hit up BACK FACTORY! my favorite German bakery chain. This place is ridiculously delicious. I payed 5€ I got: a spicy chicken sandwich, a hot dog brötchen cheese thing, a pretzel, and some other leckere kleinigkeit. #yum. That was good. We then found and empty field, and played football, soccer, ultimate Frisbee, and other sports with everyone from the zone. Fun times. That night, we had a joint teach! Taking members to help teach investigators rocks. Last week we took Brother E (a recent convert from Instanbul) along to a man named S. P. who is from Iran. It was really cool. Brother E bore awesome testimony, and was really helpful. That was Monday...not too much.
Dienstag: Tuesdays are never awesome. Last Tuesday was just long and slow. In the morning, we went to the Wilhelms (the senior missionaries) place and used their computer to email a referral that we got. While we were there, Sister Wilhelm hemmed my companions pants. We were invited to stay there and eat lunch with them, which consisted of leftovers, but it was still way good. After that we went by on a couple of first appointments with people. We didn't teach anything, but made out more appointments, so that was good. We then met and taught A. W. She's super cool and sweet. She made us Tea though, which on these super hot German days isn't the most refreshing drink, but whatever. We had a good lesson with her. She's not quite progressing, and I'm not sure if she understands exactly what we expect from her, but she's awesome. One thing I've noticed about people, is that nobody is open for everything. I always say, we have this book, and because we have it, it has to be either true or false. There is a definite way that you can use to figure out if this book is true or false, will you do that? Nobody does. Oh well, religion and God just isn't important to a lot of people. I don't understand why, but oh well. After A., we went by on our huge ward list, trying to wittle down who still lives in Hannover/who is less active/who is still alive. We then met with a lady named G. I., from Ghana. We just gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to church. That night we had a meeting with our ward mission leader.
Mittwoch: Wedenesday was awesome! ZONE KONFERENZ! We got to meet our new mission president and his wife, President and Sister Kosak, who are super cool. They talked to me about a Pollard they new who was from Scotland for a while.I had to give a Thema (workshop/lesson/thing) at Zone Konferenz, and I talked about John 15. It talks about how Christ is the true Vine and how we are branches of of this vine. If we aren't connected with the vine, we can't make fruit. It was cool, and I enjoyed teaching it. We heard a super cool Thema from Sister Kosak. She talked about how today's tests are tomorrows testimonies. I thought it was cool. After Zone Konferenz, we jumped on a train and went to die Familie K's house. We celebrated America. We had burgers and chips and potato salad, and root beer floats, which is awesome, because there's no root beer in Germany. Special order from America haha. That was such a fun day.
Donnerstag: Thursday was alright. We went by on J in the morning. He's the African guy who's like 26. His phone hasn't been working lately, so we just had to go by on him. He couldn't meet right then, but we made out an appointment for this coming week. We then rode to Frau A's, who is an older lady who just likes to talk about religion and the Bible. I'm not sure how much interest she has, but we'll figure that out. That's a hard part of missionary work, is figuring out who really has interest, and who just likes to talk. The rest of that day was interesting. We just went by on members/did doors and talked with people. We got in contact with a member who invited us in. I had never seen him before haha and I've been in Hannover for a while now. He doesn't go to church, but he says that he's an active member.
Fritag: Friday rocked. We started off our day by going by on W., and older member from Poland. She has health issues and it's hard for her to get to church, so we visit her and make sure everything is going good for her. That was fun. After that, we ate with the S's! (Maybe for the last time :( ) which would suck. We had potatoes, meatballs, and red beets. She also gave me socks. Yes, a nice old German lady knit me socks. That's what's up. I already wore them, they're way comfy. After that, we went by on N to work in his Garden. That was so much fun. I love doing service. Being able to help someone is cool, but I love manual labor haha it's such a good stress reliever. We painted a lot of his garden house, and chopped down a tree.
Elders Wightman and Pollard and their victim (you give a boy an axe...)
By chopped down a tree, I mean we hacked at this thing for about an hour with a hatchet. My hands still hurt. It was actually way fun.
Samstag: Saturday was awesome too! We had weekly planning in the morning. After that, we went to another America Party haha. This time the S's (an actual American family) invited us and a lot of the ward over. We had homemade fried chicken, ribs, hot dogs, hamburgers, and more root beer floats haha. It was super delicious and I got to talk with a lot of the members. Speaking German is crazy. That basically took the whole day. It was a nice break.
Sonntag: Church was good. Not too much happened. We had a really good lesson in Sunday School talking about how God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are three different beings. A lot of Book of Mormon scriptures. And the big whammy in Acts during Stephans stoning where he looks up to heaving and sees God and Jesus Christ as two separate beings. That was a good lesson. After church, we went to the K's and ate. And that, we meet with a guy named B. We're teaching him how to speak English. Which isn't as easy as it sounds. That was a hectic hour of bad English and us not knowing what to do haha. After B, we met with a lady named R...from Ghana. Haha I LOVE people form Ghana. They all love Jesus so much. And they're really open and kind people. We had a good lesson with her. When we were done meeting with R, we saw that it was like 9:00, and We have to be back in by 9:30. We still hadn't made out an appointment, so we were kind of in a sticky situation. Luckily, we're missionaries, and our prayers are straight up answered. We prayed so we could run into someone who was ready to hear about the gospel, and sure enough, we met someone on the street, gave him a Book of Mormon, taught a lesson right there. It was amazing.
So last week was actually pretty good. Not as good as we though it was going to be, but not too bad at the same time.
PARENTS! Hi mom and dad. I love you guys so much. I miss you a lot too. I love reading the emails I get, and just knowing how much good food I'm missing out on haha. But I know I'm going good by being here. I hope you like the picture of the tree we cut down! Look how small that stupid hatchet was.
I read something interesting this morning. It was about the small/large plates and what they exactly were. The large plates contained a history of the political/war side of things, and started from Lehi leaving Jeruselam, and go until the end of 4 Nephi. The small plates are more of a religious/prophesy kind of aspect, and start from Lehi leaving Jeruselam, but only go until Omni. The Words of Mormon are a connection from the small to the large plates. And the 116 pages that Martin Harris lost, is the beginning part of the large plates (what would've been 1 Nephi until Omni). But those were lost. Nephi was commanded to start the small plates, because God knew that part of the large plates would be lost. I thought that was cool!
I love you all soooooo much. I miss you. I hope everything is going well.
Till next week!
Elder Pollard
Monday, July 2, 2012
Week Twenty-four
Einen shönen, guten Tag!
Hey guys.
Sup.
SO this last week was a little rough. Ever since Elder Wightman got here, we've been on fire! We were just doing work. Bouncing from appointment to appointment all day, finding a bunch of cool people on the way, making out baptismal dates, and just having a good time while keeping busy. This last week however, was the exact opposite. Yes, we did put in work all day every day, but the success factor just wasn't up to par. Oh well, I've grown to learn that you don't measure your success on the numbers, just how hard you worked and how willing you were to do the work. The rest falls into place when you put forth the effort. I think that's something that I've learned a lot about on my mission so far. Just setting and having a goal, and doing what it takes to reach that. And when/if you fall short of that goal, you just look back on the effort, and you plan accordingly. Being a missionary is cool.
So like I said, the last week was a little slower, but I enjoyed it a lot.
Montag: After the usual Monday morning routine of getting ready, studying, cleaning, and emailing, we went to go get lunch. This is the exact point and time in my life when I discovered...BACK FACTORY! Oh my goodness. This is a momentous point in the history of my short life. Back Factory is a bakery/sandwich chain that is all over Germany. Little did I know (because I had seen it so many times before), that it is the most delicious/cheap/filling fast food on the face of the Earth. for 5€, you can buy 4 assorted sandwiches. And they are all primo. Most definitely going back there today. After eating, we went and played sport in the cultural hall of our building. We played football (short routes), a little soccer, and frisbie. Fun times were had by all, and nobody was hurt. I also purchased a 5€ 'cat lady' sweatshirt (good for studying), and a 1€ tie. Solid. After P-Day, Elder Wightman and I went to an appointment with a man named S P. He's from Iran, Muslim, super nice, lives alone, around 50ish. Anyways, he made us Iranian food! Which was awesome and delicious and a cool experience. We ate it sitting crisscross on the floor. Which was hard with my euro trash skinny slacks. Aber ich habe es geschaffed. So the food was rice, with some goulash meat sauce, tatziki sauce, citrus stuff. I don't know but it was delicious. We tried to teach him a little after we ate, which went as far as him telling us that he's the only person left in the world who can think, and he thinks he writes holy scripture in school spiral notebooks. A little wacky, but we're still meeting with him. Monday was fun.
Dienstag: Tuesday morning started off by going by on an appointment who wasn't there. Oh well it happens. We made our way home, and the Zone Leaders wanted to eat at the university cafeteria. That sounded like a good idea, until we got there and it was super packed and everyone was screaming in German. I politely backed out and we went home and ate bratwursts. I love wursts. After lunch, we went by on J, our super old baptismal date, but he wasn't home either. A Lamborghini just blew by the internet cafe and shook the windows of the store. Anyways, it's really frustrating when appointments go through. It's like we're two 20 year old kids who plan stuff all day and are always super busy and we're always on time and remember our appointments. And we meet with these adult people who are always forgetting and making excuses. Childish! That's what I have to say about it. Oh well. After all this we went over to a different area of Hannover. We did doors for a while, and found two cool-ish contacts/appointments. Actually one was super cool. A literal, tangible answer to a prayer. We were about to finish our finding time, so we prayed in order to get one more appointment made out. We wanted/needed it really bad. So we said a prayer. The second I opened my eyes, a girl was just standing in front of us haha. We talked to her and made out an appointment/gave her a BOM right there! That was super cool. After all this, we visited an older lady named G. She's from Iraq. She speaks better English than German, so we teach her in English. She was pretty cool, but pretty orthodox and not really willing to be open to what and how we believe. We'll see.
MIttwoch: Wednesday was insane. The weather on that day was: sideways typhoon. It rained like none other. And my euro slacks got drenched. Not fun at all. It's OK, they needed to be washed anyways. Wednesday started off normal. We went by a contact/appointment in the morning who wasn't there. We then went by 4 other contacts in the area who also weren't there. That was the theme of this last week. I made something new on Wednesday. Burger tacos. I just cooked ground beef in a pan with mustard and ketchup all cooked together in the pan. Then we ate that on tortillas with burger veggies and stuff. Not the greatest, but it was alright. I'm looking to improve the recipe. Suggestions are welcome. After that, we went by on a couple of people off of our HUGE ward list. A lot of the people on the ward list are dead/moved away, so we're playing runaround Hannover and narrow the list down to people who need our help. Which is fun. Pretty time consuming though. Es ist eine Zeitverschwindung! But it's still missionary work. After all this, we tried doing some finding in a student wohnheim, or dorms. Not too much luck. That day was slow and wet.
Donnerstag: Thursday started off with district meeting, which went well. After that, we ate hotdogs that the W's prepared for us. Delicious. After district meeting, I went on exchanges to Hildesheim with Elder Spendlove. I love that guy. He's such a good Elder, knows the language super well, and is just a good guy. I really enjoy spending my time with him. That day was super hot. And humid as heck. That's the worst combination. Hot/humid/suit. Worst! We did a lot of walking around. We walked like 30 minutes out to this appointment where we drew out the plan of salvation. That was way fun. We taught a mom and her three children about everything. After that, we walked the 30 minutes back (we would have ridden bikes, but they were broken). After that, we went by on J (I've talked about him before) He's my favorite 50 year old, Harley Davidson-riding, chain-smoking, cat-loving, Hells Angel. Solid. He's way cool. The people you meet on your mission haha. After that, we did some finding, and ended off with the usual Hildesheim treat: vanilla eis, peanut butter, Oreo milkshakes, listening to Phil Collins sing the Tarzan soundtrack in German (zwei Welt, eine Familie) and talking about life. I loved it.
Fritag: I came back to Hannover on Friday morning. we promptly went home, ate brats (I would've bought more Back Factory, but I ran out of money haha) and did weekly planning. I would also have to describe the weather on Friday as sideways typhoon. Tough luck haha. After weekly planning, we were supposed to meet this younger African kid at a Bahn stop, but he didn't show up. We then went by on a couple of contact near the church and taught one lesson.
Samstag: Saturday was way fun! We ate right after study, because we had the Sommerfest that evening. So we left the apartment around noon to go by on the ward list. We narrowed it down by 4 more names! Slowly but surely. We also went by on A impulsively, because we walked by her place. We taught a good lesson to her, and made out another appointment. Solid. We then went to the Sommerfest and enjoyed the next three hours. I rode a Segway, that was exciting. Other than that, I conversed with members, talked with Fred (who was there with his wife), ate slushies, shot bows and arrows, played basketball with little kids, missionary stuff. That was way way fun. We also gave a member from Britain a blessing. He was in India and just came back, and didn't feel too good so he asked for a blessing, which was cool. After the Sommerfest, we went by on a BUNCH of contacts. Nobody was there though! Sucks, but that's life I guess.
Sonntag: Yesterday was alright. I really didn't have a good attitude all day for some reason, which was stupid of me. The highlights of yesterday were eating at the B's house (super good) and trying to explain to everybody about my haircut. Elder Staheli, the ZL, cut my hair. He did a really good job except for the one big giant chunk missing from the back of my head.......I need to do something about that before I meet President Kosack for the first time on Wednesday. First impressions.
So that was it! Last week was kinda slow, but good. We didn't get the best numbers, but that's not what's important.
Hi parents! I miss you guys. I just hear about the food you guys make and the stuff you do and I miss SD and my family. Germany is awesome though! Today, we're having Zone sport day. American football haha it should be fun. I'm doing really well, I want you to know that. I've been assigned to teach a workshop at Zone Conference this Wednesday, so I've been studying that a lot lately. It's about the power and authority of our callings as missionaries. I'm comparing it to John 15:1-6 about how Jesus says he's the vine and we're the branches, and unless we're grafted to the vine we won't bear fruit. Pretty cool huh? Also, yea. I'm missing a chunk of my hair. IDK what to do about that. Also parents, none of the pants I came here with fit me. I weigh like 200 pounds...not 230 anymore. It's kind of a problem now. My pants literally fall off of me. Just let me know next week what I should do! because my dang pants don't fit!
Other than that, everything is going super well. What's it like only having Thomas zu hause? It's weird that everyone is getting married too! Rachel, Alissa, Emily. I'm super excited for them! Especially Emily. Tell her that please. Also, it's still way in the future, but what if you could send me a tie from the wedding?!? Like the best mans ties or something. Idk I was just thinking that it'd be cool.
Anyways, I love hearing from you guys! Tell me a little more in your emails!!!!!!!! Dad...tell me about sports please. I need it.
I love you all! BYE!!!
Hey guys.
Sup.
SO this last week was a little rough. Ever since Elder Wightman got here, we've been on fire! We were just doing work. Bouncing from appointment to appointment all day, finding a bunch of cool people on the way, making out baptismal dates, and just having a good time while keeping busy. This last week however, was the exact opposite. Yes, we did put in work all day every day, but the success factor just wasn't up to par. Oh well, I've grown to learn that you don't measure your success on the numbers, just how hard you worked and how willing you were to do the work. The rest falls into place when you put forth the effort. I think that's something that I've learned a lot about on my mission so far. Just setting and having a goal, and doing what it takes to reach that. And when/if you fall short of that goal, you just look back on the effort, and you plan accordingly. Being a missionary is cool.
So like I said, the last week was a little slower, but I enjoyed it a lot.
Montag: After the usual Monday morning routine of getting ready, studying, cleaning, and emailing, we went to go get lunch. This is the exact point and time in my life when I discovered...BACK FACTORY! Oh my goodness. This is a momentous point in the history of my short life. Back Factory is a bakery/sandwich chain that is all over Germany. Little did I know (because I had seen it so many times before), that it is the most delicious/cheap/filling fast food on the face of the Earth. for 5€, you can buy 4 assorted sandwiches. And they are all primo. Most definitely going back there today. After eating, we went and played sport in the cultural hall of our building. We played football (short routes), a little soccer, and frisbie. Fun times were had by all, and nobody was hurt. I also purchased a 5€ 'cat lady' sweatshirt (good for studying), and a 1€ tie. Solid. After P-Day, Elder Wightman and I went to an appointment with a man named S P. He's from Iran, Muslim, super nice, lives alone, around 50ish. Anyways, he made us Iranian food! Which was awesome and delicious and a cool experience. We ate it sitting crisscross on the floor. Which was hard with my euro trash skinny slacks. Aber ich habe es geschaffed. So the food was rice, with some goulash meat sauce, tatziki sauce, citrus stuff. I don't know but it was delicious. We tried to teach him a little after we ate, which went as far as him telling us that he's the only person left in the world who can think, and he thinks he writes holy scripture in school spiral notebooks. A little wacky, but we're still meeting with him. Monday was fun.
Dienstag: Tuesday morning started off by going by on an appointment who wasn't there. Oh well it happens. We made our way home, and the Zone Leaders wanted to eat at the university cafeteria. That sounded like a good idea, until we got there and it was super packed and everyone was screaming in German. I politely backed out and we went home and ate bratwursts. I love wursts. After lunch, we went by on J, our super old baptismal date, but he wasn't home either. A Lamborghini just blew by the internet cafe and shook the windows of the store. Anyways, it's really frustrating when appointments go through. It's like we're two 20 year old kids who plan stuff all day and are always super busy and we're always on time and remember our appointments. And we meet with these adult people who are always forgetting and making excuses. Childish! That's what I have to say about it. Oh well. After all this we went over to a different area of Hannover. We did doors for a while, and found two cool-ish contacts/appointments. Actually one was super cool. A literal, tangible answer to a prayer. We were about to finish our finding time, so we prayed in order to get one more appointment made out. We wanted/needed it really bad. So we said a prayer. The second I opened my eyes, a girl was just standing in front of us haha. We talked to her and made out an appointment/gave her a BOM right there! That was super cool. After all this, we visited an older lady named G. She's from Iraq. She speaks better English than German, so we teach her in English. She was pretty cool, but pretty orthodox and not really willing to be open to what and how we believe. We'll see.
MIttwoch: Wednesday was insane. The weather on that day was: sideways typhoon. It rained like none other. And my euro slacks got drenched. Not fun at all. It's OK, they needed to be washed anyways. Wednesday started off normal. We went by a contact/appointment in the morning who wasn't there. We then went by 4 other contacts in the area who also weren't there. That was the theme of this last week. I made something new on Wednesday. Burger tacos. I just cooked ground beef in a pan with mustard and ketchup all cooked together in the pan. Then we ate that on tortillas with burger veggies and stuff. Not the greatest, but it was alright. I'm looking to improve the recipe. Suggestions are welcome. After that, we went by on a couple of people off of our HUGE ward list. A lot of the people on the ward list are dead/moved away, so we're playing runaround Hannover and narrow the list down to people who need our help. Which is fun. Pretty time consuming though. Es ist eine Zeitverschwindung! But it's still missionary work. After all this, we tried doing some finding in a student wohnheim, or dorms. Not too much luck. That day was slow and wet.
Donnerstag: Thursday started off with district meeting, which went well. After that, we ate hotdogs that the W's prepared for us. Delicious. After district meeting, I went on exchanges to Hildesheim with Elder Spendlove. I love that guy. He's such a good Elder, knows the language super well, and is just a good guy. I really enjoy spending my time with him. That day was super hot. And humid as heck. That's the worst combination. Hot/humid/suit. Worst! We did a lot of walking around. We walked like 30 minutes out to this appointment where we drew out the plan of salvation. That was way fun. We taught a mom and her three children about everything. After that, we walked the 30 minutes back (we would have ridden bikes, but they were broken). After that, we went by on J (I've talked about him before) He's my favorite 50 year old, Harley Davidson-riding, chain-smoking, cat-loving, Hells Angel. Solid. He's way cool. The people you meet on your mission haha. After that, we did some finding, and ended off with the usual Hildesheim treat: vanilla eis, peanut butter, Oreo milkshakes, listening to Phil Collins sing the Tarzan soundtrack in German (zwei Welt, eine Familie) and talking about life. I loved it.
Fritag: I came back to Hannover on Friday morning. we promptly went home, ate brats (I would've bought more Back Factory, but I ran out of money haha) and did weekly planning. I would also have to describe the weather on Friday as sideways typhoon. Tough luck haha. After weekly planning, we were supposed to meet this younger African kid at a Bahn stop, but he didn't show up. We then went by on a couple of contact near the church and taught one lesson.
Samstag: Saturday was way fun! We ate right after study, because we had the Sommerfest that evening. So we left the apartment around noon to go by on the ward list. We narrowed it down by 4 more names! Slowly but surely. We also went by on A impulsively, because we walked by her place. We taught a good lesson to her, and made out another appointment. Solid. We then went to the Sommerfest and enjoyed the next three hours. I rode a Segway, that was exciting. Other than that, I conversed with members, talked with Fred (who was there with his wife), ate slushies, shot bows and arrows, played basketball with little kids, missionary stuff. That was way way fun. We also gave a member from Britain a blessing. He was in India and just came back, and didn't feel too good so he asked for a blessing, which was cool. After the Sommerfest, we went by on a BUNCH of contacts. Nobody was there though! Sucks, but that's life I guess.
Sonntag: Yesterday was alright. I really didn't have a good attitude all day for some reason, which was stupid of me. The highlights of yesterday were eating at the B's house (super good) and trying to explain to everybody about my haircut. Elder Staheli, the ZL, cut my hair. He did a really good job except for the one big giant chunk missing from the back of my head.......I need to do something about that before I meet President Kosack for the first time on Wednesday. First impressions.
So that was it! Last week was kinda slow, but good. We didn't get the best numbers, but that's not what's important.
Hi parents! I miss you guys. I just hear about the food you guys make and the stuff you do and I miss SD and my family. Germany is awesome though! Today, we're having Zone sport day. American football haha it should be fun. I'm doing really well, I want you to know that. I've been assigned to teach a workshop at Zone Conference this Wednesday, so I've been studying that a lot lately. It's about the power and authority of our callings as missionaries. I'm comparing it to John 15:1-6 about how Jesus says he's the vine and we're the branches, and unless we're grafted to the vine we won't bear fruit. Pretty cool huh? Also, yea. I'm missing a chunk of my hair. IDK what to do about that. Also parents, none of the pants I came here with fit me. I weigh like 200 pounds...not 230 anymore. It's kind of a problem now. My pants literally fall off of me. Just let me know next week what I should do! because my dang pants don't fit!
Other than that, everything is going super well. What's it like only having Thomas zu hause? It's weird that everyone is getting married too! Rachel, Alissa, Emily. I'm super excited for them! Especially Emily. Tell her that please. Also, it's still way in the future, but what if you could send me a tie from the wedding?!? Like the best mans ties or something. Idk I was just thinking that it'd be cool.
Anyways, I love hearing from you guys! Tell me a little more in your emails!!!!!!!! Dad...tell me about sports please. I need it.
I love you all! BYE!!!
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