Week Thirteen

Dear Parentals:

Here was my week.

Monday: After emailing, we ate subway (WAY TOO EXPENSIVE here in Germany. Like 7€ for a sandwich. Total ripoff.) Oh well, it was good. We then played this board game that Elder Locher (aus der Schweiz) had. It was pretty fun. After that, I took a nap because we couldn't go shopping for food, because Monday was a holiday here. Kind of like an extension onto Easter. When P-Day was over, we visited a member family. They're pretty cool, but they only eat BIO food. It was good though, they made us about 2 kilos each of spaghetti. SO MUCH FOOD. We shared a spiritual though, played Kniffel (Yahtzee) and went home.

Tuesday: We had our regular study, and then went on a street contact we made out. He was way cool-like way, way intelligent and has read all the Bible and Koran. He said "Wir bescheftigan uns in philosophy" Which means they study it and and discuss it and stuff. Way smart. We gave him a Book of Mormon, but didn't really get much out of the appointment. After that we had a different appointment fall out, so we used that time to go shopping at Kaufland (Buy-Land) for groceries. We got home, made delicious bratwursts in brotchen rolls. Lunch of champions. Bratwursts here are like hotdogs back home. There's a million different brands and they're dirt cheap. We then went out and had another appointment fall out. After that we had a meeting at the church with one of our ewig untersuchers (eternal investigators). So sad...she Tschussed us. Said she received an answer that the Church was false and corrupt, and kinda left a little angry. It was so sad and just like demotivating. But right after that, we said a prayer to make out another appointment, and the Lord answers missionary's prayers! Honestly every day I see prayers answered. It's great.

Wednesday: Zone conference. You saw the pictures on that blog (http://germanyberlinmission.blogspot.com/) . Dad - the lapel pin I'm wearing says Berlin Germany Mission and was the Brandenburg gate in the background. It's pretty cool. President Pimentel gave them to us the first day we were there. Zone conference was way cool. We just heard the President talk (he compared green eggs and ham to sharing the BOM) and other zone leaders and APs give themas (workshops) It was way cool. I got to meet everyone in our zone, which was also cool. After that we met a brother from Ghana (by the way, I'm learning the language of Twi, which is what the speak in Ghana-Ahoontisae is hello and Madauasae is goodbye) and he's just way excited about the gospel. He loves meeting with us and he's always smiling and I just love meeting with him. Hopefully he will go through and be baptized on May 10th. After that, we met with a brother fromy from Iran who just has had a hard life. It's fun to meet with him, but he likes talking and he likes complaining. He needs to open up and see how the gospel can help him with his life before he just keeps complaining. He will though-I have faith. We made out 2 more appointments that night.

 The missionaires of the Hannover Zone

Thursday: I was on tausch (splits) on Thursday with Elder Locher. We visited an African lady, and we MADE ANOTHER TAUF DATUM (baptismal date) OUT! It was way cool. After that, we went by on a neubekehrt (recent convert) and taught about the plan of salvation. I didn't get a lot out of that, because Elder Locher is from Switzerland, and the neubekehrt is German, so they just spoke way too fast and with vocab I don't know yet, but it was good. We then meet with another neubekehrt. We taught him about temples. It was a good day. It rained SO HARD and SO MUCH though. Not cool. My shoes and suit got soaked, even though I had an umbrella. It was rough.

Friday: We had our regular study, then went out to an appointment that fell out because the untersucher was sick. After that, we went by a member family to have lunch. They're so nice and they love the missionaries. They feed us ever week, and they have this super intense garden with crazy hedges and it's way cool. They made us pork shishkebabs, boiled potatoes, and Eierfrikassee...which was like this sauce\stew with mushrooms, curry powder, and whole hard boiled eggs. It was actually really good. I loved it. Dessert was strawberries and Eis (ice cream). We went home after that and got some study in. After that, we visited with a less active from Spain. The one who speaks Span-glish-deutsch.

We started off Saturday morning with study, then service at a member family's home, planting some flowers for her insane garden. It was nice. After, we ate german Kartoffeln Salat. It was interesting, and it had meatballs in it.  We then had Gemiko (meeting with the ward mission leader). That was nice. We then had TWO appointments fall out...it hurts. But we made out 3 new ones that night so it was OK.

Sunday: Yesterday was Fall Konferenz (Stake Conference) It was way cool, because our stake president just got called to the 70, so he left and a new stake presidency was called. I also met Elder Kapishka, who is in the area presidency for Europe, That was way cool and he spoke. I got to shake an area president's hand. WAY COOL. After that we ate at a sister's house. They're two sisters that are 24 and 29 I believe. The younger one went on her mission to Poland, so we had polish food. Like Potatoes, and this goulash with cabbage and meet. It was good.

Elder Thorley, President Pimentel and Elder Pollard at stake conference

It was a pretty good week!

Now for my daily routine because dad wanted to hear it.

I wake up at 6:30 every morning and pray and do morgensport. At 7 we all take turns showering and getting ready,and then it's study time by 8. Recently, I've been reading the old testament, just because we teach a lot of Muslims and intense Africans who love the Bible, so I want to know it better. The old testament is really weird though. At 10 we're usually out and on our way! Our day consists of talking to people on the streets to make out new appointments, doing doors, and meeting with our appointments that we've made out earlier (just with new appointments, members, or investigators) We come home around noon to make food and eat. We work literally all day. Elder Thorley is really good about being diligent so there are no breaks haha. We ride bahns a lot to get around. We're home usually by 9 when we plan out our next day and we're in bed at 10:30. That's a typical day!

Now comes the part where I make my puppy eyes and send you my wish list of stuff I want...

It would be so nice if you could somehow send me: PEANUT BUTTER. Like a huge jar of Jif or Skippy. There's no peanut butter here and I'm craving it!

I love you guys so much and the picture you sent is on my wall and I see it everyday. I'm happy that everything is going well back home. I don't know what else to say haha. I love getting emails from you.

BYE!

P.S.

I FORGOT TO TELL YOU ABOUT ARE NEW INVESTIGATOR!

He's an older man, and reminds me A LOT of Grandpa Dick (how is he doing by the way). Anyways, this brother is way cool. He speaks perfect English, but with a British accent even though he's from Germany. He worked for Mercedes for like 40 years and he's totally loaded. He bought us ice cream the other night! He's like the most interesting man in the world, and he found the church through free masonry....if that's possible. He heard that Joseph Smith was one, and he is one so he decided to check the church out. We're going to eat Spargel (asparagus) with him later this week. He's way cool and I wanted to tell you guys about him.

Week Twelve

FAMILY-

Hi. So I'm sitting here in Hannover, on Monday (Nobody is on the streets or anything because the Friday before Easter, Easter, and the Monday after are all holidays) in this InternetLaden, Emailing you! Pretty cool? I think so. The weather right now is pretty ugly. It's super cloudy, pretty cold, and raining. I think it's supposed to be like this all week.

This last week was pretty cool and uplifting. It was a definite answer to a lot of prayers. Lately, our whole district has been slowing down a lot. At one point we had no progressing investigators, and none of our other investigators looked promising. But now we're doing a lot better! We have one brother, who is from Ghana. He speaks English and he's super cool and excited about the gospel. We made out a baptismal date with him for May 10th. We also met another man from Iran. I'll tell you about him in my weekly breakdown.

Monday was P-Day-we got to watch the last session of conference at the Eheparr's (Missionary couple) place on their laptop. So I got to watch all of conference! Which was nice and I'll tell you about it later. After that, we got a Döner, did our regular P-Day stuff, then went to work! It was slow though and I think all we got was one new appointment.

Tuesday was pretty slow too. We traveled pretty far to try and meet with a member who just moved here/meet with an investigator (they live in the same neighborhood), but they were both gone so it was a waste of time really. We ate lunch...Maggiepacks. Maggie packs are a life saver. It's basically like a packet of spices and it tells you what you need for a whole meal and you just buy what it says and follow the instructions. It's pretty easy and usually good. We eat SO much for lunch. It's the biggest meal of the day here. Kind of like what Christian experienced in Mexico if I'm correct. We just stuff ourselves and sit back...try not to fall asleep. Germans go all out when they feed us. So much food. Surprisingly though, I've lost a little weight. Like 5 pounds nothing huge. After lunch we went to meet with an investigator, but he wasn't there. So we just made out appointments. We then taught an ewig (ewig meaning eternal). She's been taking the lessons for like 18 months or something and her investigator sheet is huge. She reads and studies the BOM and Bible like every day, goes to institute, lives the commandments, and has a good friend in the church. We can't figure out why she won't be baptized, so that's really what we need to work on. She's really shy, but she's nice. Ewigs are hard, because they don't really improve or make progress. They just are stuck on being baptized. We'll figure it out though.

We started out Wednesday with our study, like usual. We tried doing finding after, and it was my turn to chose where we were going to find. I choose a place, but we got nothing. Shut down everywhere we looked. It's not a good feeling at all. Our day was pretty slow after that. Went by on a couple of appointments, but nothing really spectacular or amazing. We were able to play volleyball with the JAE's (young single adults) after. It was fun.

 Knocking on doors...

Thursday morning we had district meeting. After that I went on tausch (or splits) with Elder Welker, and we went to Nienburg. Nienburg is a really small town probably 30 minutes North of Hannover by train. The tausch was nice. We didn't get a lot done there though. Nienburg is super small. The ward is like 25 people and the city is like 500. Or something I'm not entirely sure. It was a good experience though, and it was nice to get my first tausch done. I helped make out an appointment for them, which was good.

On Friday, I returned to Hannover after morning study. We then went to a local member family that are super nice! They're an older couple, and they just LOVE the missionaries and love feeding us. I ate at their place a couple weeks ago right when I got here, but was so Jet-Lagged that I had no appetite. Apparently that disapointed them. So this time I came prepared. I ate like 6 pieces of meat (assorted chicken/pork/wursts) and like 5 baked potatoes. SO MUCH FOOD. I just wanted to show that I really like their cooking (because it's delicious) and appreciate that they feed us and love us so much. I think I made a good impression. After that Elder Carlson destroyed his ankle on the way home. (Elder Carlson is one of the zone leaders that live in the apartment with us). It was so bad and swollen and bruised. We escorted him home to ice it. I think it's a little better now. We then met with the older lady from Spain. She speaks Spang-lish-deutsch. It's interesting, but she is nice. She was baptized around 3 years ago, but is having problems, so we meet with her. After that, we met with another Neubekehrt (recent convert). She's cool and I like meeting with her, but she speaks German SO FAST. It's kind of ridiculous. The appointment went well, but on our way home we were late for a Bahn, so we had to run after it. I'm stupid fast so it wasn't a problem getting there, but I got a HUGE blister on the bottom of my foot that's been giving me problems. It'll heal though.

Saturday morning we watched Elder Thorley (my comp) and Elder Locher (the other zone leader, aus der Schweiß) play soccer with the JAEs. Elder Carlson and I watched because of our foot problems. We got Bäckery though, which is so so so good. After that we had lunch. I attempted to make Leek/Ground beef/cheese soup from a Maggipack. It turned out pretty good. It tasted good, but it had this weird grey color to is. We ended up calling it "Russkie Goulash". It's a favorite. After that we had weekly planning and study. After that, we meet with the coolest guy ever. We though he wasn't going to show up, but he did. He took us to this cafe in a department store in Innenstadt. We drank delicious hot chocolate and talked. He's from Iran and used to be Muslim, but found too many faults with the religion, so he left. (By the way, Muslims are the most inconsistent religious group of people I've ever met. You can meet one and talk about how everyone worships the same God and how they respect missionaries and it'll be really cool, and then right after talk to one who says the exact opposite and yells at you. Weird).  This brother has a crazy story involving his ex-wife. She basically left him and tried to sue him and was real nasty to him, but he still loves her and it's really sad. He's a great guy though and was really excited to meet and wanted to meet again soon. I see potential in him.

On Sunday, we went to church not having an eating appointment set, but that changed right when we walked in the doors. The ward is good to us, and we probably got like 15 offers to eat. We ate some questionable meet (I think boiled pork), Rotkohl (red cabbage) and boiled potatoes with gravy. It was a pretty good meal. Straight up German. We stayed there way too long though, which cut into our finding time. Luckily enough, our prayers were answered and we made out an appointment!

That was my week!

Now to answer your questions:

I'm not entirely sure when I get to call you on Mother's day or how it works, but I'll let you know asap. I'm sorry that I haven't sent any photos home yet...we're super busy every day so we never have time to print them out, and the only other option is sending the SD card home, but it's a huge card and not full at all. I'm not sure if I can upload them onto an email from this crazy Turkish internetladen either. If you sent me like a 2G memory card, I could copy photos onto it from my big one and mail that home. I feel like that would work. Elder Thorley is a really great guy and good missionary. He's funny and we joke around a lot, but we always get a lot of good work done. He's leaving after the next transfer, so that means I'm killing him. I'll be the last companion he has in the mission field. It'll be sad. But he has around 7 more weeks with me. My German is coming. I understand almost everything that is said, but I have trouble speaking. We're working on it though. I can talk to people on the streets pretty well now though!

I enjoyed conference. I really like how they stressed forgiveness. I feel like that's a problem that I've faced for a while, just letting things go and not holding grudges, but I'm trying to fix that. They mentioned something that was really good for investigators. They talked about being converted to the church and the gospel and how you have to be converted and understand both. I like that. I also like that they talked a lot about love and I think it helped me understand a little better why we do missionary work. I enjoyed conference and took a lot of it to heart. I hope you guys did too!

Well that's it! There's not much else to say. I'm still doing good! Keeping busy and tired haha.

I love and miss you all! A lot.

P.S. If you can get a webcam hooked up to the computer, I can skype you on Mothers Day!

Love,

Elder Pollard

Week Eleven

Liebe die Familie Pollard,

I'm so happy that all of you sent me Emails! I kind of forget about being able to email on my P-day until the day actually comes, but then I get super excited that I get to read your emails! My first full week in Germany has just been so great! It's been really fun, and I've learned a lot about myself, (how to be a good missionary, and how to communicate with everybody-people on the street, church members, Elders and Sister, etc.). I've had really really good days, and a couple hard days, but at the end of the week, all you have to do is get prepared for next week. I love being a missionary. We have one focus and care in the world, and in that sense, being a missionary is really easy! You put all your focus and attention into missionary work, and it's just great.

Let me tell you what I did this week/how it went:

Monday: P-Day was fun. I Emailed, got a Döner (kind of like a gyro, but Turkish and dirtier), looked around the stores in Innenstadt, visited Marktkirche (this creepy super old catholic church that got bombed out), and did some cleaning/unpacking. After P-Day was over, we visited a local member family. They were really nice and interesting, but they fed us WAY too much lasagna. Members in Germany make the missionaries ridiculously large meals and expect us to eat it all, but that just shows how much they care for us. I thought I was going to throw up. WE played "kniffle" (kind of like Yahtzee), and went home.

My first Döner...

Tuesday: We went by on a member who had converted about 3 years ago, but he had become less active and apparently moved away from the address he gave the church, so we had to travel way out of the city for nothing, but it was nice to get a little more familiar with the area. We ate lunch (Maggie packs-they are a missionary's dream! They're not incredibly delicious, but the are fast, easy and pretty good. Stuff like rice mix that you add meat too or soup mix.) All three of our appointments fell out. They were all in Mittefeld, which is a neighborhood that is mostly Africans or Russians. We then met with a progressing investigator. She was cool, but she's been being taught for like the past year, so I don't know how promising that is. Then we had Gemiko, which is Ward Mission Leader Conference, which went well.

Wednesday: There was a leadership training on Wednesday, so Elder Thorley had to go to that and I went on splits. I ended up in a quad with Elder Reeze, Elder Von Niede, and Elder Prima. We had quad study, went to Burger King (way swanky in Germany), and then helped out a member moving some stuff. I was proud because I used the Bahns without any help, and knew how to get around Hannover, which is a pretty big city. We then had an appointment fall out, but after, we visited a in Mittafeld. They're an African family with two children. The husband, is really great and spiritual and nice. We made out a baptismal date with him! Elder Thorley had me ask (In English because none of the Africans here speak German) if he'd be baptized and he said yes! So cool. Then we met with an Indian man and played volleyball with him and the ward youth. It was a really cool day.

Thursday: We have district meeting on Thursdays. We meet with the companionship from Hildesheim, and Nienbürg, and the Eheparr (married couple) and us and the zone leaders (Elder Locher and Carlson who live in the apartment with us). We then met with an African lady. We talked about prophets and the chance we had over the weekend to hear general conference. After that we met with returned missionaries in the ward, and students at the university here. The fed us meatloaf with a bunch of melted cheese on it, really good buttery corn, and boiled potatoes (my favorite). Again, always way too much food haha. After that we met with an older lady from Spain who speaks Spangledeutsch (Spanish/English/German. Zum Beispiel: So these are die zwölf Aposteles?). She's been a member for a couple of years, but has some problems so we meet with her. She said that Elders Pollard and Thorley are angels, after we described how we don't get payed to do this work. After that we met with another African lady. It went well.

Friday: We started off our day by visiting a very smart and intellectual man who kind of argues with us the whole time, but it went well. He is stuck on the resurrection. We had weekly planning and ate lunch after. After, we met with an older Russian lady that we had a walk in on while klingeling (doors) She's hesitant, but I feel good about her.

The weekend was just full of lounging around at the church watching conference in the big comfy chairs they have. I took a lot of good notes! I thought conference was great. Especially all of the points they made about forgiveness and love. We took breaks in between sessions to go street contacting so we could make some new appointments. Saturday night was really hard and frustrating for me. We probably spoke to everybody in Hannover that was drunk that night, or didn't speak any German of English.

Anyway, That was my week!

Now to answer your questions:



Hannover is a really great and big city. Most of the buildings here just look so old. There are a couple REALLY old churches and other things like the Rathause or the Opera house that are way cool looking. We ride the Bahns all day, every day. The public transportation system in Hannover is just way good, and it's too big of an area to ride bikes in. I buy German products everyday!  I shop at a place called Kaufland (Buyland) which is like Walmart. It's just pretty normal. Except the have escalators for shopping carts because it's two stories. My apartment is nice. It's right near downtown Hannover, but it's not loud at night or anything. I live there with my trainer/companion Elder Thorley, and the two Zone Leaders for the Hannover zone Elder Locher and Carlson. (I'm in the Hannover area which is in the Hannover zone). I called President Pimentel the other day to tell him about our baptismal date, but other then that we just email him and see him at conferences and stuff. The ward is cool. It's pretty big: around 150. I'm trying to meet everybody! They all said my testimony was good.

Well I hope this is enough information for you! It took me 50 minutes to write haha so I need to move on to some other emails but I love and miss you all so much! I can't wait to hear more from you!

Elder Pollard

Housekeeping post...

OK, we lost a few weeks there...

These are the photos of Elder Pollard's arrival in Berlin on March 19th, prior to his being sent to his first assignment in Hannover.  Some of these are from the Mission President's wife's blog (http:germanyberlinmission.blogspot.com).

Back: Elders Linderman, Pollard, Scholes, Donner, Guccione

Beckstead, Sniatynsky

Sisters: Tidwell, Moon, Schneider

Elder Pollard and friends in the Berlin Airport after a day and a half of traveling...

 New arrivals filling out visa papers...

Walking across no-mans land (MauerPlatz)...

 Elder Pollard in front of the mission home in Berlin

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog postings...

Week Ten

FAMILY!

This is my first P-Day in the field! It's pretty exciting stuff!

Here's what's up: I got to Berlin safely on Wednesday, met President Pimental and had some good German food and went street contacting, all in my first night! President P is so awesome! He's super on top of everything going on in the mission from what I can tell. He's a great guy, too. Wednesday we went to Maurplatz (the place of the wall) which was cool. We ate more German food and then had our GOLDEN CONFERENCE (they call the new missionaries here goldens instead of greenies). I was assigned to serve and be trained in Hannover. So it's like a really downtown city where I'm living and working. The city is like amazing. I ride Bahns all day every day, which is a new experience, but I like it a lot. My trainer is Elder Thorley.

(If you look on the blog picture of us at the golden conference, you'll see him. He's sitting to my left.)

 

He's like way legit. He used to be an AP and he's been all sorts of zone leaders and he speaks the language really well. He's a good guy. The travel to Hannover wasn't bad. We took and ICE train from Berlin and it took about 2 hours. I'm all unpacked and just doing work now!

Elder Pollard and Elder Thorley

My first Sunday was interesting. Listening to german and how fast they speak it and trying to understand what everybody is saying is mentally and physically exhausting. I haven't fallen asleep yet, but I've been close. I met a lot of members of the Hannover Gemeinde (ward). I get the feeling that members in Germany are kind of skeptical of new missionaries. I've been told that you have to earn their trust. I plan on doing that. I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting. Everybody said it was really good, which makes me happy. I had to break off and speak in English for a part of it, but it was ok. There's a family in the ward that is from America, doesn't speak German, and they love the missionaries, which was such a relief to hear. Until I learned that they're moving back to Phoenix tomorrow, so I only got to meet them once. But they were super cool. So that's how church went!

I've had three eating appointments so far, all of which were really good. The first was on Friday with die Familie Stefan. They're an older couple who feeds the missionaries very Friday, so expect to hear a lot about them. They made some sort of pork cut that tasted a lot like bacon, but it was like a steak, with boiled potatoes with a really good gravy, and sauerkraut with pineapples cooked with it. It was all SO good. But I was still jet-laggy so I didn't really have an appetite. Then, for dinner on Friday, we ate at the Lachheads (the American family that's moving tomorrow). They made chili and it was good. Yesterday, we ate at the Kollmeyers. We had Progresso soup, salad, chicken with tomatoes and cheese cooked on top, boiled potatoes, that Italian potato pasta stuff, and veggies. All the food has been so good. I can't wait for more eating appointments!

AND GUESS WHAT?!?!?! I inherited a baptism. Mark one for Elder Pollard! I got to Hannover on Thursday, and Pia Paschen was baptized on Saturday. Everyone says it counts as a baptism for me because I taught her once, but I don't really feel like it does at all. Anyway, I hope it's a foreshadowing of my mission to come. I am striving for a lot of tangible success.

My apartment address is:

Elder Timothy Pollard

Kirche Jesu Christi

Königsworther Str. 15

30167 Hannover

I'm loving Deutschland and everything is going good!

I Love and miss you all!

Love,

Elder Pollard

Week Six

FAMILY. Sup.

Today is P-day and that is always a good day. I went to the temple this morning at 6 and did initiatories. It was cool. All the temple workers asked me if I was related to 'Pearl Pollard'? IDK he's some BYU basketball player or something. I just finished my laundry so now it's time to Email! Woooo.

I'm so excited to leave for Germany! A week from tomorrow and I will be on an air-bus to Europe. It's crazy to think that it's already been almost 9 weeks. It's also crazy to think that they expect me to speak with native German people right when I get there! We have 4 companionships heading to Berlin on the same day, so we'll all travel together. Also, the 7 people going to the Alpine mission fly with us until Amsterdam, where we leave to Berlin and they go to Munich. So I'm not to worried about traveling. I WILL CALL YOU GUYS AT THE AIRPORT. Maybe from SLC, maybe from JFK I don't know yet. I understand the language pretty well up to this point, but I'm still nervous. There's an Elder here (Elder Breckwolt) who is from Germany and going to Korea. He's pretty cool but when he talks, it's so fast that I can only pick out some words.

We don't do our visa stuff until we get to Germany actually. Apparently it's like the easiest country in the world to get a visa to so they don't stress it until we're actually there. I'm just so excited. My teacher has been telling us stories all week long about how cool Germany is and everything! So STOKED.

Thanks for sending that heavy coat-it will be so nice. I regret not bringing it.  I will probably not be able to finish all the stuff Christian sent me haha. I'll have to gift the 54 oz bag of Skittles...along with my Nerf gun...to one of the new Deutschers coming in on this Wednesday.

There's really not much to say now haha. I've been so antsy to go to Germany this whole time. Time just flies and I don't know if my memories re from this week or last. Our 'investigator' was baptized on Saturday. That's pretty exciting. We haven't really been able to break through to our other 2 though...but SOME PEOPLE AREN'T READY. That's my excuse.

ONE WEEK LEFT. I just really want to get to Germany. I'm so so so so so excited!

 Discussing travel plans over a nutritious lunch...

Love,

Elder Pollard

Week Five

Hello Parentals,

I'm not entirely sure what time I'll be able to call you from the airport, but I definitely will. Tell me which number to reach you guys at and I will 100% call you guys on the 19th.

Christian sent me this ridiculously huge snack package. Like it weighed 40 pounds. I'm not sure if he meant to send it, or if he clicked "send mega super 40lb snack package for only $75" button. Anyways, my district and I were really grateful for the nice gift and we're working on finishing it before the 19th. Speaking of which, the 19th is so soon! I can't believe that I'm going to Germany. Like what the heck...I feel like I got here yesterday.

My "investigators" are cool! One is from Africa and he's getting baptized this Saturday. Pretty cool!

I'm glad that you guys like my talks! I write them every week, but I never get picked to say them in sacrament, so I figured why not send them home. It's cool that you guys got them translated and understood them and everything. I've learned a ton about the Gospel since being here. I've read all the way to Heleman and it's way cool. I haven't understood the BOM like I have in the MTC my whole life. It's cool to read the BOM with the Spirit. I'd say the best that the MTC has helped me with (besides Deutsch and learning how to be a missionary) is how to feel the Spirit. They emphasize that in everything that you do here. It's pretty cool.

 The boys in the hood...

I don't really know what else to say...The weeks all mesh together here. Oh, we heard from Jefferey R. Holland on Tuesday. Nobody knew he was gonna be here until he just walked in haha. It was a good talk.

I LOVE AND MISS ALL OF YOU GUYS!

especially you Thomas.