Week Forty-seven

Hi,

It's totally cool to hear about all the missionary news back at home! I can't imagine Brandon speaking Tongan. I don't even know how that sounds! But that's way cool. Elder Stanley said that the Billings Montana mission has to be the most boring mission on earth, but that every companionship there gets a car. So that's a plus. Elder Stanley played basketball at a school in Montana, and he lived in the mission boundaries haha. But I'm just happy that I'm in Germany! I feel like it's totally fun and great, but when I think about it I realize how hard it is. I like it though, because I just feel like I have things that I have to prove to myself. And being here can help me! I love Germany.

Thanks for the money mom! That will be enough to send some presents home. Hopefully I can send them off today, so you can have them kind of in time for Christmas haha. I want to send home some authentic German stuff. Like stuff you won't be able to get unless you're in Germany! I'm doing that. I will pick up the packages that you sent here on Thursday. We have another big missionary conference then.

German food is excellent. If you feel like you want to make some INTENSE German food, look up a recipe for Rouladen. Eat the Rouladen with boiled...not mashed potatoes and a gravy/sauce. That's just the most typical German meal I can think of haha. Kohlrouladen would be even better! I certainly do miss you cooking though mom and dad! I haven't eaten a steak for 10 months...that's just a problem.

So get this story...

It started snowing A TON this last week. It's around 20 degrees during the day, and there's like a foot of snow everywhere. It's winter. But the giant hole in the bottom of my shoes was just a problem haha...I'll send the picture so you can see just how much snow was coming through the bottom of my shoes. It was a real problem. And since I had just zero money, I had to call President Kosak about it. Luckily, there is a mission fund that is especially for missionaries like Elder Pollard, walking around all day with freezing feet. So they hooked me up with some new shoes! Elder Pollard is stomping around with great new shoes. It was a Christmas miracle. I was also given just a little money 'for other warm things' so I think I will survive this winter! But keep praying for me! haha

Elder Pollard is cold...

This last week was really slow and now that I look back on it, there was definitely a lack of motivation and effort on my part. Partly because the snow just dumped and my feet were cold and I'm getting sick and all these excuses. But that like shouldn't stop the effort part of missionary work. You know? So I only have a couple of things to report on from this last week. I feel like I didn't do much, but I learned a lot.

Noteworthy events:

Last P-Day was fun. I helped Elder Stanley shop/ship all of his Christmas presents back home. P-Day is always just great. Nobody showed up to Family Home Evening though! Which wasn't really the biggest problem, but it was kind of weird. So Sister Holbrook (one of the senior sisters) led FHE with some tradition Swedish Christmas activities like singing and lighting candles and other Christmas-y stuff. It was great.

Tuesday I went on splits to Greifswald. Tuesday was the day that it really started snowing a lot. Like it all just came down Tuesday night. We had a couple of good lessons while I was in Greiswald, and got to spend the whole day riding a bike around in the snow and slush. Good times.

Wednesday was district meeting in the morning. Elder Dospil is our new district leader. He's from Austria, which means that Elder Pollard is like the only missionary in the mission to have directly worked with both of the Austrians here! Kind of cool.

But we did an egg-drop activity which represented taking care of our investigators. It was fun.

The construction of the egg safety pod...

It didn't work...

Wednesday night though, (I say night, but I mean 4 in the afternoon, because that's when it gets dark here) we went by on a less active member in this little city called Krakow am See. This was just an adventure. We got there after riding a train and a bus for about an hour, and noticed that the bus going back left in 30 minutes, so we only had 30 minutes to find this member and meet with them. So Elder Stanley and I are running through this little town while on the phone with Sister Holbrook who's using Google maps to lead us to the right address haha. Turns out that the address on the ward list just doesn't exist. And the number for this member belonged to a guy who had no idea who U. was. Oh well haha. But here's the problem...we looked and saw that we only had 5 minutes to get to the bus. So it was just a dead sprint for like 5 minutes!!!!! When we got back to the bus stop that bus was just leaving so we waved it down and got in. Miracles.

Friday was fun. This worker for the church came to inspect the mission apartments here. Not like a check to see if we're keeping it clean like pass or fail thing, just to see what they need to fix and stuff. And our apartment is just horrible haha. Nothing works. So the guy was there for like 3 hours. He was really nice and cool though. We have a list of things we need to clean, which is great.

Saturday was basketball!!! But before that we met with M, one of our  investigators. Our lesson went really well. We always have bomb lessons with Mark. Then we played bball and ping pong. That was that night.

Sunday was cool. After church, we ate with Schwester L. The ordered this Kohlrouladen and potatoes and it was so delicious. BUT SO MUCH FOOD. I don't think I've ever eaten that much. It was just amazing how much food I put down. That night we planned, cleaned, and studied.

So the week was just slow. Like there's no reason for it, it just was. Oh well. This week is going to be better. This transfer is half over, so these next three week just have to be great!

I'm really not sure when we'll be skyping. I know it will be on the 25th. But we haven't worked out anything else. I'm guessing that we'll know by next week. And don't worry, I will definitely let you know when I know haha.

To end, I wanted to talk about this scripture that really impressed me last week. It's in 2 Nephi 25: 23. It says basically that we are saved through the grace of Christ, but only after we've done everything that we can. You know, you hear a lot of people say 'You're saved through grace! Just believe in Christ and you're saved!' which brings me to the scripture in James 2, faith without works in dead. So like that goes hand in hand with my whole effort thing. God's totally here to help us, but he definitely wants to see us put forth the right effort. Does that make sense? I feel like I get it.

Anyways, I love you all! I hope you're enjoying the season! Just remember that I'm doing well.

Love,
Elder Pollard

Week Forty-six

Hey guys,

So honestly, this last week was just rough. For a bunch of reasons. But mainly: we lost like ALL of our solid investigators, my health is down the hole, I had no money, and I have no warm clothes and it's just freezing outside. So it was just like really hard to step back and see all the positive sides of the week. It's sometimes just a lot easier to complain haha. It goes along the lines of the natural man in Mosiah 3. But it's the Christmas season, and Germany is going hard with the festivities haha. So it's a cool time of the year. I just wish I wasn't a walking ice cube. The week was long haha and just not a lot happened.

Last Monday was P-Day. We went around and explored the Christmas market in Innenstadt for most of the day. I ate a delicious smoked sausage thing. It's supposed to be very local and special to Rostock, but it just tasted like a Hillshire farms polish sausage. Still good though. It was way cool to walk around and see all the the 'German' Christmas things. They're really into little wooden things. It was a fun P-Day. After that we had Family Home Evening. It was only the missionaries and M, so pretty low key. We had a spiritual thought, ate some food, and decorated trees. It was solid.

Last Tuesday was rough. We had 3 appointments fall out. And we were like pretty sure that 2 of them were super solid and just wouldn't fall out haha. But oh well. We got in contact with this family that had investigated the church a while ago, and they told us they were moving so we offered to help and they invited us to come over on Saturday! Kind of random but super cool. We had institute that night. We had a good number of members and investigators show up, so it was pretty cool. Sister Wunderli made pumpkin soup which was good. We gave M a blessing that night, because it was the last time we'd see him! And now he's gone. So sad.

Wednesday we were in Berlin. We got up super early and got on a train. It was way cool though. I got to see literally everybody that I know! Which was cool. We heard some good workshops, exchanged presents (I got a magnet...) and ate Subway. Except the mission ordered like no food haha. We each got like a quarter of a sandwich. That took all day.

Thursday was cold. And long. 2 of our 3 lessons fell out. Just wonderful. But we used the extra time to go by on some members. We visited M. R., who's been less active for a while. Hopefully we can start meeting with him often and get him back into it. We also stopped by on Bruder S, who's just awesome. That night we had this insane lesson. 5 missionaries and 1 investigator haha. It was just chaos and nobody could get a point across. The investigator was B, who's been investigating/taking English lessons for a while. It was still an ok lesson. He wants to learn more, which is cool.

Friday was better. It started snowing on Friday though.....In the morning we had gemiko. We gave T some birthday presents, because Thursday was his b-day. That was fun. Then we went home and finished studying. We ate out with T and all the missionaries. And a guy named J from England who served in Rostock a while ago. He was really cool. After eating, we went and tried to find some people in our außländerheim. That's like a college dorm where they house foreigners who don't have money. We got in contact with a guy who knew like everyone haha and he told us who still lived that and who'd been moved. Then we had a lesson with an old investigator names K. He's a boxer who's like 5'4, looks 45 but is really 26 haha. He's cool though. And that we went by on more old investigators. We did weekly planning that night.

Saturday is always a good day. In the morning, the sisters and we helped the family K to move. It was super random but it was good service. One of their friends was saying how impressive it is that we just help total strangers. It was fun and they gave us sandwiches so worth it. It's all about the immediate temporal blessings. After that we went and played Bball. That's always fun. It's starting to look like there's not a lot of interest from the people who play though, which is sad. After bball we went home, showered, changed, and went to ping pong. Always fun.

Sunday was great actually. We had a cool church meeting, and after we had a Christmas party/singing thing. The food was way good. We got M to come, but he told us that he doesn't really want to meet any more. We'll see. B was there too. It was nice to celebrate with the whole branch. I was feeling sick though. After that, we walked around, trying to find old investigators. We came in contact with quite a few actually, but a couple said that they didn't have interest anymore. That night we finished studying.

IT WAS FREEZING THIS PAST WEEK. And it's only going to get worse. I am going to need some warmer clothes if I'm ever going to live to see summer again haha. It's like seriously cold here! I'm not a fan. But, when you focus on the negative parts of life, then you're going to have a bad time! So it's all about attitude. I forgot where I heard it, but someone said something along the lines of...Peter cut someone's ear off because he was mad, and denied Christ three time....if that's all you know about him, then he sounds like a bad dude. But if you focus on the great things he did, then we realize the miracle and everything. So I've been trying to be really optimistic lately. It's good for you.

The Weihnachtsmarkt here is huge. It's like all of downtown is filled with little booths selling Christmasy stuff. It's way cool. We like like a 5 minute bahn ride from Innenstadt. That's crazy that Brandon is already home! Time really flies. That recipe sounds really good mom. Germans love pork, it's all they eat. I haven't gotten the packages yet. I'll pick them up on the 13th when I'm back in Berlin. Carrying 4 packages through Bahnhof is gonna be crazy! But totally worth it. You sent them to the mission office right? Germans love advent calendars they're like everywhere haha. M, our investigator, gave us this intense one with little games every day instead of chocolate. I'll totally be in Rostock for a least 9 more weeks. Probably 15 really, so I'll be talking to you from here.

I love you all a lot. This last week I feel like I got away from prayer and scripture study, which is why I was in such a bad mood. I've realized how important it is to stick to studying, and making sure that your prayers are good. So I invite all of you to try it too!

Enjoy your first advents week!

Love you all!
Elder Pollard

Week Forty-five

Hey guys!

So this last week was just like...amazing. I guess that's a good word for it! Elder Stanley and I were just way busy, but it was great because we got a lot of work done, and experienced some cool things. It's been getting like cold though. So that's always rough. When it's noon here it's colder than the coldest night ever in San Diego. It's just rough haha. Anways let's get to the week!

Montag: So last P-day was kind of cool/hectic. So in the morning, we got up and cleaned like usual. We were emailing, and in the middle of emailing I get this phone call from an unknown number. So I answered and heard 'Hallo, hier sind die Polizie'. The police were calling me! I was just like...what. I really didn't know how to respond. Well apparently, we left our front door open. A neighbor called the police, because we weren't there and we had to stop emailing and go home to talk with the PoPo. That was just lovely. Well everything worked out and the police told us to be more careful. It was just weird. After that, the senior sisters, regular sisters, and we went to Ikea! Haha there's a tradition with Sister Holbrook (one of the senior sisters) to go to Ikea on the last P-Day of the transfer. She grew up in Sweden so she likes Ikea. We went there and ate some delicious food (Ikea in Europe goes hard with the cafeteria). After eating, we walked around the store for a little. I bought some house slipper things. They're purple. It's cool. And some way nice and cheap pens. Ikea rocks. After P-Day, we met with M. M told us that he thought about his baptism and decided that it would be better to be baptized in Switzerland. Which is great actually, because we agree with that. It's cool that he's making these decisions that are just good and best for him. So unfortunately, we didn't have a baptism on Saturday, but it's ok. After meeting with M, we had Family Home Evening. There was a spiritual thought, some good snacks, and we played this game called phase ten. It's my new obsession. No big-just naturally talented at card games. THIS IS REAL LIFE.

Diesntag: Tuesday morning Elder Stanley and I made the decision to go by on a less active member. Schwester P is her name. She live(s)(d) in the city called Ribnitz-Damgarten though, which is like a 20 minutes train ride from Rostock. And she doesn't really live in the city. She lives like 45 minutes outside of the city haha. Well we got there and just had no idea how to get to her street. Luckily we found a map and figured it out. After a 45 minutes walk we got the Papelallee 24. And she just doesn't live there! Haha we walked forever just to find out that the address is wrong. Oh well I guess that's missionary work. There's no number on the ward list, so there's no other way of contacting her! And nobody knows who she is. It's ok though because it was an adventure. After we got home we hung out a little to recover and then had another lesson with M. We talked about Tithing and Fasting and he just had no problems with either of the subjects. After that we had Institute, which was cool because T came! We changed it from Wednesday to Tuesday night just so T could come. We love T. If you don't all know by now, T is our 2nd councelor/ward mission leader. He's 24 and speaks 100% perfect English with no German accent. He did an internship at BYU for teaching English or something. He's just amazing and we talk with him at least once a day about the work. That went well. Bruder G came up from Berlin to teach institute and he taught an amazing lesson about Luke 5 and Christ telling Simon to cast out his nets again. He related it to trusting in Christ and never giving up when we need to find an answer or overcome a trial. It was cool. We ate some good food after.

Mittwoch: Wednesday morning we had District Meeting. Our new District Leader is Elder Dospil from Austria. He's cool! We had a good meeting and got to know each other again haha. After DCM we went home and ate. That afternoon we were going by old investigators and two things happened. We made out an appointment with this older man named Herr S. Herr means Mr. He's Atheist, but made out the appointment and was super nice. And after that, we got in contact with this old investigator. She said she couldn't meet because she was moving, but we said we'd love to help the family move and she said that'd be cool. We're still waiting for them to call us, but hopefully we can help! After that we met again with M haha. After meeting with M we hung around for English class and played this game with Sister Holbrook and Bruder G, who's learning English. It was cool to get to know him better. That night we played basketball with a new group of guys. So like 4 weeks ago this British guy just stops Elder Stanley and I and says, 'You're those American guys aren't you?' haha he invited us to play bball and so this week we actually went and it was super fun. Elder Stanley is so good at baskteball it's insane. I'm just average. But average for an American is super for a German, because they're just not athletic people. It was fun though. And best twist! This British guy who invited us to play turned out to be T's English Professor! haha that's just great.

Donnerstag: Thursday was Thanksgiving! But not in Germany. It was just a normal day. Thursday morning was normal, except we did our German study at the church with Sister Holbrook and the other sisters. It was cool. We learned a lot. So we went by on this guy who said he wanted a Book of Mormon, but he had no time so we made out another appointment for this week. He's cool and hopefully we'll be able to meet with him a lot. We went back and had lunch, then met wit M. We had a KILLER lesson with M! But at the end we talked with him about baptism and he just said that he could never ever be baptized. He showed us this letter that he wrote to us and it was way confusing but basically said he'll never be baptized. We're still working on that. After M, we met with Herr S! We gave him a BoM and talked a little. He's Atheist so it's kind of different teaching him. That evening we were walking around going by on old investigators. We came in contact with one, and made an appointment on the street. Good stuff!

Freitag: Friday morning was Gemiko (Ward Mission Leader/Missionary meeting) and it went well. We taught M again after the meeting. After meeting with M, we went out to lunch with T. I ate Kassler. It was good. We went and check out the Christmas Market at Innenstadt after that! Our whole downtown is just a huge Christmas Market! It's way cool and intense and packed. Germans go hard on Christmas. After that we went back and studied more. Then went by on old investigators. Then we had an appointment with this guy named Herr G. He has a super intense story about living in Chile during the revolution down there. We talked for a while and we were able to relate the gospel to his life, which was awesome. And my German was just firing! It was the best. That night we planned for the week.

Samstag: Saturday is always a good day. We studied in the morning and ate an early lunch. We went to the basketball guys, but had a meeting with A before we played. T came with us. A wanted to learn about Tithing before he committed to learn anything else, and T is just the best teacher on Earth so it went really well. Hopefully we can meet more often with A. We played Bball. We killed it. The Germans love us because we're athletic. After Bball we had Ping Pong, which was fun. One of the sisters investigators came and brought a bunch of old DDR coins, which was cool. After Ping Pong we had a good discussion with M about 'real intent' when reading and prying about the BoM.

Sonntag: Sunday was normal. We had church. I gave a talk about the BoM and it's 'converting power'. We had 3 investigators at church, which was cool too. We ate at Bruder S's with the sisters after. It was way good and Bruder S is just awesome. After that, we went by a couple old investigators. We met with the senior sisters for a little and talked about M and then went home and planned.

It was a good week! Probably the best week I've had in Rostock, and definitely the best week German wise. I love German, especially when it's just working for you. Some days it just comes out, and some days you just can't speak a word of it. It's cool though. It's super hard to learn, so when you can actually have a good conversation, it's just the most fulfilling thing ever.

Family! There's a new laptop!? That's just amazing news! Is there a webcam?? That's the important question. I really don't know how we're doing skype this time. The senior sisters have laptops, so we might use though. I just don't know though haha. It'll be on Christmas, and definitely before noon, because we're 9 hours ahead. But it's all good. We have a zone conference this week, so I'm assuming that president will tell us what to do there. Not too worried about it, but I'm super excited to skype!

I'm just so jealous of the Thanksgiving you guys had! On Thursday, Elder Stanley and I at tortellini for lunch, and then fasted the rest of the day. Fun right? haha. It'll just make coming home THAT much better when I can eat some home cooked meals.

I'm glad my raptor picture amuses you all.

I love you all! So much! I can't wait to skype and see how you all are! I want to see your faces. I really want to send you a present too! I'm planning on sending you some authentic German Christmas stuff! You'll love it!

Love you all!
Elder Pollard

A note from King Papi...

So there have not been any postings in the last few weeks.  Elder Pollard's photos are of such high resolution that they do not show up in this blog (other than on my computer).  While we are working to fix this issue, we will resume our normally scheduled postings (albeit with fewer photos...). 

Happy New Year

Week Forty-four

Oh hey everybody!

Last week was just insane. This might just be the most exciting/weird email I send home haha. It very well could be. I just want to get to telling you about my week. I have a lot of pics to send tool.

Monday: Last monday Sister Wunderli and Holbrook (the senior sisters), Elder Stanley, and I went to this place called 'Karls Erlebnis Dorf'.

The happiest place on earth?

This place used to be/still is a strawberry farm, but now it's like Disneyland. There's this huge shop that sells these super indie products that are all made right there on the farm. Like a bunch of strawberry jam, they make soap, candy, toys, a bunch of Christmas stuff, any food product you can think of too. It was way cool. There's also an outside that's like a mini Disneyland. There are rides and animals and thins to see and do. It was way fun. There's also this super good restaurant where you get whatever you want on your plate, and pay by weight. It was cool. The food was so delicious. I ate a huge schnitzel and veggies and kohl and rouladen. It was amazing. And filling. So we hung out  there all p-day. When we got back, we had Family Home Evening. My planner says that we taught a lesson. I'm guessing it was with M. He's so cool. We also made out an eating appointment with one of T's friends. It was a good day.

Dienstag: Tuesday morning we went by on a less active again. I've said it before, but it's just amazing how the people you NEED to get in contact with are just never home and never answer the phone. People might just be really good at dodging the missionaries. BUT we just keep on keeping on haha. So the member wasn't home and we did a couple of doors there. An old guy told us not to do doors in Mecklenburg....which is like the giant region/state of Germany that we're in haha. We met with M. after that. AH M. We want to help him so bad, but he's not letting us help him! He's super nice and chill but a little hard to teach. We really want to focus on working with him and helping him out. You'll hear a lot about M. in the coming weeks. So after M. we went to Toitenwinkel/Dierkow. This is basically the ghetto of Rostock. The sisters aren't really allowed to be there after dark...that's how sketch it is. We spent our whole evening walking around going by on contacts and less active and got nothing. But this is the great part. Elder Stanley and I were crossing over these train tracks to get to the other side, and I stepped on this huge piece of glass that went right through my shoe into the bottom of my foot. NO JOKE it felt like it went right through my foot. I freaked out haha. I'll send the pic. So we had to ride the bahn back to the church. That only took like 20 minutes and my foot is just bleeding this whole time haha. We got to the church and Sister Linford (just one of the sister missionaries here) is like a med major and worked on an ambulance and stuff so she checked it out and said it was good. We got some neosporin up in there and bandaged it up. Crazy though.

Mittwoch: Well I couldn't walk on my foot haha. We had to let it heal up or something. So I spent Wednesday in the apartment. With orders from Sister Kosak. It was hard just because there was NOTHING to do! So boring. Elder Stanley an I did a puzzle. And caught up on sleep. T came and hung out with us for a little too. That evening I HAD to get a haircut because President interviews were the next day. So with my foot and all and hopped over to the haircut place and got one. It's a very average haircut. Nothing special haha. It was kind of cool actually. Talking to the haircut lady in German. Classic. So that night we had an appointment with Marcel at the church. Sister Holbrook was there too helping us. We taught the gospel of Christ. Marcel is super smart and catches on quick. he studies a lot on his own too. Like he knows a lot of Book of Mormon scriptures now. We had institute after that. And that was the day.

Donnerstag: Thrusday was interviews! We all went to Berlin to meet with President. I had a cool interview with him. Nothing super crazy. He told me I was staying in Rostock, which was cool. It was cool to see everyone in the zone too, even though we see them like every week. It was way cool to see President and Sister Kosak though, and the Assistants. SO GET THIS! I got a package from Sister Brockbank! I was so happy! But like it was 2 months ago!! Like what's up with that? Weird German Post. But I was super happy and just thankful for it. I'm going to write her a way good thank you note. SHE SENT ME PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!!!! And letters from the Primary. I died. Overall good day.

Freitag: Friday we did zone finding in Neubrandenburg. It was boring haha honestly. He did doors (because of my foot I couldn't walk around all day) for like 4 hours. It was killer. We came in contact with one lady who had met with the missionaries before. And we saw the biggest dog on earth. That was it. We went home and ate with T. and his friend L. We really want to get L. involved and excited about the church. So maybe! She was way nice and we're like friends now. So good.

Samstag: Saturday morning was transfer calls! It was exciting but not much changed in the Zone. We have a new ZL, Elder Riesen, who is my 'brother' so Elder Thorley trained him too. And a new DL from Austria. Other than that everything stayed the same. Elder Stanley and I are still in Rostock. Which is good haha. After the call we went home and studied/planned. We played BBALL that afternoon and made out two appointments with the bball guys! That was just a huge blessing. We came home an go ready for Ping pong. So Y is one of the bball players and he came to ping pong. He won haha. And we taught him a little after. It was sick.

Sonntag: Yesterday was just killer. Before church started M. told us that he wanted to be baptized! Which is just great for him. T. taught a good lesson in Investigator class. And Sacrament was good too. We ate with T. and his family after church. It was way good. And after that we went back to the church to watch this fireside. We ended up watching a Mormon message about the priesthood and taught M. HE WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY! How great is that!? So hopefully we'll have a baptism this week. It's sad because he's moving to Switzerland in a couple of weeks. I just want to see him totally understand baptism and see him do it. It'll be sick.

So the week was exciting and crazy! And Elder Stanley and I are stoked to stay together and keep working. We feel real good about this transfer coming up. Pray for us!

Parents!

Thanks a lot for the family history stuff! So the Senior sisters here help out at the geneology center here and were asking me and like I just had no Idea. I knew that Grandpa was Irish and that Grandma terry was eastern Europeanish haha. But thanks a lot. How cool is it that my great great grandpa (?) was born in Hannover! That's awsome. So you guys don't need to worry about my foot haha it's all good and healing up. It hurt really bad though. Glass like right through the bottom of my foot. And how crazy is it that it went right through my shoe?! But it's all good. I'm still enjoying my time a lot here!

Thanks for the money. I'll try to take it out today. We're going to Ikea today! How fun is that. Well hey! Thanks for everything you do. Elder Fullmer (the assistant) said I had a package already!

Everything is GOOD. I love Rostock and I'm super stoked to keep working. I want to send you some Christmas presents though! So maybe a little more money......I just want to send you some German chocolate and maybe something cool.

I love you all!
Elder Pollard

Week Forty-three

My adoring fans,

Elder Stanley and I put in work last week. We seem to have the same conversation a lot: we are just always busy and working, but we can't seem to make out appointments, and get any teaching in. It's hard, because I love teaching way more than finding, and it's rough to not see any direct result of all the work. But as long as were doing it and not being lazy then we have nothing to worry about. I love being a missionary and having this aim and focus. It makes life really simple, and I just learn a lot about myself and life and all these deep
philosophical things. Loving it.

But like I said, we were super busy last week and ran around non-stop. We just didn't get through to anyone really, or even have the opportunity to.

Montag: Last Monday. Oh my gosh. It started off pretty normal. You know, waking up, eating Nougat Bits, studying, cleaning, emailing. We ate lunch at McDonald's, because we got some sweet coupons in the mail. But while we were eating, we got a call from Bruder A. He told us that the toilet in the church was overflowing and that we needed to come hang out at the church and wait for the repair guy. On P-Day. Haha at least we had something to do. But it gets better. We got another call like 10 minutes later, saying that we had to go and pull up the old carpet that was now soaked in poo water. So, Monday from like 3 to 7, Elder Stanley and I tore out the old Poo Carpet. It was wonderful. We had Family Home Evening after. I think only like 1 person showed up, but it was still fun.

Dienstag: Tuesday we were supposed to go on splits with the Zone Leaders, but that didn't happen. Instead, we finished up some planning and then one of the Sisters investigators took us out to lunch to celebrate the election. We're not sure why, but he thought that election day was like a super huge deal and that we celebrated and stuff. Oh well he bought us some Chinese food. After eating, we went back and finished this 'grid'. We made a grid of the city and marked where we have old investigators and contacts and stuff. Just so we know who lives by each other and where they live. It's helping. We then went and bought some gummy bears. We met T. and ate at the D's that night. It was so cool. They made this 'bread soup' thing from Italy. It was super good and Sister D. made Snickerdoodles that we just ate in 2 seconds. It was delicious. After eating, we went with T. and dropped the gummy bears off at M's house. M. is investigating the church and has a lot of friends and connections with the members here. She just got back from a big trip and has been really sick. So we got her a present.

Mittwoch: Wednesday was alright. We had District Meeting in the morning and after that, I was on splits with Elder Smith, our District Leader. He's sick. He's from Beaver Utah, and is a wrestler. He's pretty good too, like he's wrestling at college when he gets back. He's super nice too. He had a good time on splits. We went by a bunch of people on our grid thing. It's been really helpful in finding out who still lives in Rostock/has interest to learn about the Book of Mormon and stuff. We've been weeding down our area book and getting
rid of teaching records that we don't need. We also met with Mark, who's super cool. We didn't really teach a lesson, we just kind of talked about a lot of different topics. It was good though. We then had Institute, which went well. After Institute, we talked to people in Innenstadt and made out 2 appointments. Bonus.

Donnerstag: Thursday we were in Prenzlau haha. Prenzlau is interesting. It's super small, but has like 5 huge churches. It's a cool place. We were doing zone finding. It was rough, because there's not a lot of people in Prenzlau, but we were there for 5 hours talking to everybody haha. We had 6 missionaries there, and we probably talked to everyone twice. It was cool though. We made out a couple of appointments for the Elders in Prenzlau. I ate a huge Döner too. like 5 pounds. It was just a mistake. After Prenzlau, Elder Stanley and I rode back to Rostock and did some studying that night.

Freitag: Friday was hard. We had Gemiko with T. in the morning, but from like 1 until 7:30 we were walking around, going by people on the grid, going by members, and talking to everybody. But at the end of the day, we made out no appointments, and taught no lessons. Just like a whole day of walking around and talking to people haha. Oh well.That night we studied German with T.

Samstag: Saturday was just a blessing. We had all the elders in the zone come to Rostock and we did service for the zoo.

Working at the Zoo...

It was so sweet. We raked leaves for about 3 hours, but after that we got to go for free to this thing called 'Darwineum'. It's about Darwin's theory and evolution. It was super interesting, and we got to see a lot of monkeys. The monkeys were the best. Like orangutans and gorillas and little monkeys. I just love zoos.

Velociraptors in Germany...who knew?

After serving, we decided to have ping pong that night. So we invited M. and he said he'd come. Which is just awesome. We had to go buy some ping pong balls, which was a hassle, but ping pong was fun. We met with M. after and talked about Joseph Smith, and how we can find answers to our questions. It was a good lesson, I just hope M. can see how bad we're trying to help him.

Sonntag: Sunday was church. Marcel was there, which was cool. We had 'investigator class' and one of the sisters investigators was there, too. T. taught the class in English and it was cool. Sacrament meeting was also fun. After church, we went home and planned and then had an eating appointment with the F's. We ate potatoes, Rotkohl and some sort of meat. It was way good. Bruder A. drove us back and was driving like 130 in his VW on the autobahn. It was a little crazy. Well Sunday night was hard, too. We just got nothing. We came home earlier and studied/made and ate home made potato chips. It was delicious.

So as you could probably tell, not a lot happened last week. Going on splits and visiting the zoo were super fun, I just wish we could have done more work. Missionary work isn't all about finding! And sometimes it just seems that way. We just need to get more people who we can TEACH. It seems like everyone is super busy always, and has no time to meet with us. But next week will be better. I'm already looking forward to it.

In other news, I hit my 10 month mark this week. 10 months doesn't seem special haha. But I've been in Germany forever haha it seems like that. I love Germany! It's super cool.

Learning to appreciate German Art...

It's not as cool at America, but there are thing in Germany that American just doesn't have. Like public transportation. The bahns and buses here are just nice and everyone uses them. It's way too expensive to have a car here, which is ironic because Germany is known for their cars. Also, bakery. There are bakeries on every corner and they're all so good! I could just eat bakery all day. And Nougat Bits!  Chocolate cereal, filled with Nutella. Just try to imagine that. So good.

Elder Stanley and I are doing real well together. Like I said, the work needs to pick up, but we get along really well and always have fun. It's a real blessing to have a companion who wants to work haha. I'm loving my time in Rostock. Transfer calls are on Saturday, which is crazy. Hopefully we'll stay together! We're praying for it.

I love the ward. It's small, like 30 people, but it's fun. T, who is the 2nd counselor in the branch presidency, and our Ward Mission Leader, is awesome. We hang out with him a lot. We only have like 4 or 5 people who are 'investigators'. M.S. and M.E. are our most promising right now. M.S. is cool he's like 28 and from Indonesia. He has some really intense emotional problems, but he's super friendly and outgoing. He's a Bible freak and doesn't really want to change. We heard very quickly that Obama won. President Kosak even texted us at 6 in the morning haha. I'm kind of really indifferent about it at this point. Like I just don't know anything about the situation haha. It's something I'd like to know a little about when I come back.

Thank you very much for the more money. I just need stuff. Like a couple weeks ago I had to buy new shoes. I honestly need a new suit, but I don't want to get one right before winter. Hopefully after. It's not too terribly cold yet, so the jackets I have will do for a while. I do need long underwear. I'm gonna buy some more super warm socks, too.

Everything is going well! I'm so happy that I have a loving family who emails me every week haha. I love talking to you guys! And before we know it, we'll be skyping! It will be great.  I'm super stoked for Christmas, even though it will be my first away from home. Germans go hard. The Christmas Market is going to start on the 22nd of November, and last until Christmas haha. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures!

Anyway, I hope everything is going well at home and that you're all happy. I'm getting really into reading conference talks. They just rock. I suggest it!

Elder Pollard

Week Forty-two

How's it going?!?

This is Elder Pollard reporting from the mission field. I am currently in Rostock, Germany just hanging out at the usual internet cafe and reading all the great emails from home. I love P-Day so much. It just means cleaning the apartment, e-mailing, eating out, and walking around the same 5 stores we do every week haha. It sounds boring, but it's just the best. I eat it up. So this last week was hard. Elder Stanley and I were just always busy all the time, running around the city non-stop, but we just didn't get to see any reward from our
efforts. It was rough, and finding people was really hard this week, but this one week doesn't effect anything. We know like what we have to do and why, so on a daily basis, it's nice just to refresh your mind and get back to basics. It's just great. But let me tell you about this last week.

Montag: Last P-day was cool. Our weekly shopping only cost 12 Euro, which was nice. we emailed, ate Döner, and shopped. We ended up playing games with the sisters at the institute, and listening to music. We also started a beast puzzle, that we didn't get to finish, unfortunately. Oh well. After P-Day, we were supposed to have an appointment with a guy named K. K is super cool and really wants to meet with us (we think) but the appointments keep falling out. It's hard to tell if he really has interest haha. Hopefully he does. Well Monday night was Family Home Evening. Only one member came, so it was 5 missionaries (the senior sister was there too) and 1 member haha. Kind of weird, but it was cool. We had a spiritual thought, and ate abendsbrot. It was delicious. We also worked on the Puzzle. Good times.

Diesntag: Tuesday was just great. After studying, we met the sisters to go help an investigator clean up his apartment. This guy, E, is really sick and old, and we really wanted to help him. It wasn't going to be a lot of work, but it would have helped him A LOT. So like we were really in the mood to help him clean up. We got to his house and klingeled him. He talked to us over the speaker box and said we couldn't come up because his cat was sick...and then all of my good happy service thoughts just left. It was a joke haha, but he was dead serious. Oh well. Like we showed up and were ready to help him out. Then we went to anmeld. In Germany (and probably all countries) you have to register yourself with the government to tell them where
you're living/where you're from and all that good stuff. So I had been putting it off for a while, but decided that we just had to do it. So we took care of that. After lunch, we made a bunch of calls from the numbers in the phone/area book. We made out one appointment for Sunday night with a lady named S. After that, we met up with T to help him do his home teaching. He doesn't have a partner, so we just go with him. We met with Bruder S, who is just the coolest, and talked with him about teaching with the spirit of God. Bruder S has this dog named Mopple. Mopple is like the strongest animal on the face of the earth. When Mopple wants to sit where you're sitting, he just does. And there's nothing you can do about it. I love it. After
meeting with Bruder S, we went by on a couple of less actives, who weren't home. That night, we went to talk to people in Innenstadt. This was just the most memorable night of my mission haha. We were walking up Innenstadt, and we heard like a bunch of yelling and screaming. Then we saw the Zombies. Apparently a bunch of students got together and had a zombie flash mob thing. It was just crazy. And when they saw the Mormon missionaries, they just went crazy. Elder Stanley and I just got mobbed haha. They were all around us like bumping up against us, just being zombies. Fun times. After our little moment with the undead, I asked Elder Stanley if he had everything (wallet, keys, name tag)...and he just didn't have his name tag. I was thinking a zombie took it. So we found the zombies again and asked if any of them had the name tag. They did haha. We got it back and talked with them for a while. They were really cool guys actually.

Elder Pollard and Elder Stanley make a friend...

They were all students, so about our age. Then they wanted us to be zombies with them. We politely declined.

Mittwoch: Wednesday morning we had District Meeting in Greifswald. So we got on the train super early and rode there. The walk from the train station to the church was just miserably cold and long. But we
survived. After district meeting, I went on splits with Elder Risley, from Greifswald, and we both rode back to Rostock. Right when we got back to Rostock, we had an appointment with Mark. Mark is way cool. He
invited us up to his apartment to take part in his Indie Kid Muffin Party. We were kind of surprised, because it turned into us teaching a first lesson to 6 students. Kind of a cool experience, because they were all interested and asked questions, but I wasn't sure how many were super interested. Oh well! We left cards and stuff so if they have questions, hopefully they'll call us. After that, we had to go to institute. There was no official institute, because it was a holiday, but Mark showed up! Which was super cool, because he left his Indie Kid Muffin Party to come to Institute. It ended up being only him, which was rough, but we watched Johnny Lingo, did the Puzzle, ate food, and played Kniffle.

Donnerstag: Thursday was zone finding in Greifswald's area. Elder Risley and I got on a train at 9 and rode to Stralsund, which is a big city in Greifswalds area. And we did finding there for like 5 hours. It was cold and raining. And talking to people for 5 hours straight can be kind of rough. Whenever I find myself in situations that I just don't like, I just remind myself that it'll be over sooner than you know it. And when you look back, it's always great to know you didn't complain or cry about it. Just stick it out! Learning experiences. Good stuff. We ate at McDonalds and I came home with Elder Stanley.

Freitag: Friday was hard haha. We had Gemiko in the morning, which is always fun. Tobias is just a cool guy. And he's our Ward Mission Leader, so we just see him all the time. Almost every day. Its just great. Well after Gemiko (Ward Mission Leader - Missionary meeting) we hung out with Tobias and went in the city to find a card for one of his friends. We had a good talk about finding and how to find effectively. We found a good card. After that, we went home and worked on mapping out where all the less active members live. We really want to focus on working with less actives. After that, we met Tobias again at the Universität, and we ate at the Mensa (cafeteria) with him. He said it was going to be really good and cheap. It was actually super good, but kind of expensive. Bummer. After eating, I had to go buy shoes. So here's the story haha. Both the pairs of shoes I came here with are just toast. The brown ones fell apart super fast, and the black ones were doing OK. Until Friday. We had just walked home, and right before I was going to walk inside, I looked down at my shoe and noticed the GIANT just ice cream scoop sized piece of dog poo on my shoe. I tried really hard to scrape it off on the sidewalk, but that just made my shoes fall apart. So I had to go by shoes. I bought 30 Euro shoes, that look pretty good. After that little escapade, we printed out a talk from conference, and wanted to give it to a less active. We walked around FOREVER trying to find where this person lived. It took like an hour. Not cool. We didn't find it, and after we tried doing doors in the area, we got yelled at and escorted outside. That's the biggest joke because we're allowed to knock on peoples
doors and stuff. So the people who yell at us and tell us to leave are just being silly.

Samstag: Saturday morning we did weekly planning. After that, we ate Tortellini and played basketball.

Basketball, Rostock style...

Fun stuff. After Basketball we played Ping Pong with the branch. And after that, we talked with Tobias for a while. Not much else haha.

Sonntag: Sunday was just wild. The sisters had a really cool investigator at church, so we had investigator class. Tobias taught it and we helped. This girl was way cool though. I blessed the sacrament, and it was testimony meeting. After church we had Gemeindeessen, just like break the fast with the branch. That was way good. After that, we printed out a bunch of talks, and planned to drop them off at less actives houses. We spent the whole night finding these places, trying get in contact with these people, and leaving them a note and a talk if they didn't answer. It was fun, but nobody answered haha. I don't understand how sometimes we can go by on a person like 15 times and they're NEVER HOME! It's crazy.

Well that was the week! We didn't teach a lot, and didn't find a lot either. We were both kind of curious about where the time went. Because we were always busy! Kind of weird. But the week kind of went by slow. I have just been way way tired and almost sick just this whole last week. My feet are always cold, and my nose is always runny. But I'm still loving it! Attitude really does make or break any experience you're ever going to have in life. I have to remind myself often that it doesn't matter how many people we find who want to learn more, or how many lessons we teach, as long as we're always working and always trying hard.

Halloween at home sounds like it was way fun! I miss clam chowder, of course, and home made rolls. On Halloween here I ate Subway, and spaghetti pie. Kind of weird, but it was all good. That's funny that
Thomas dressed up as a missionary. That kid. I'm not cool with the giant shark being built so close to the house. Thanks for voting for me! I'm really excited to hear who wins. I really don't have too much of an opinion, or desire who wins, because I just know nothing about what's going on, but I still want to hear.

King Tobias was already here when I got here haha. Just a ferret statuette ordained with some fake foliage. No big. The food in Rostock is pretty normal haha. We eat the typical missionary meals. A lot of pasta. And they have Döner here. Hopefully we'll have a real Thanksgiving dinner here. The senior sisters might make it happen. There's no such think as Libby's pumpkin pie stuff here, and they just don't eat pumpkin pie in Germany. I'm bummed about that. I'm going to send some pictures! I hope you enjoy them.

I miss you all so much! The holidays are coming, and I won't be with you all...bummer. But they'll be good anyways. I want to send home some candies and stuff soon! Maybe hit me up with some moolah, and you
could have some way good chocolate and Haribo in the mail!

Love you all!

Elder Pollard