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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check out the changing leaves...

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

Love you!

Elder Pollard

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

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

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

Elders Donner and Pollard doing work...

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

Yummy...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I found my newest favorite scripture the other day.

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

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

Food for thought!

Love,

Elder Pollard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Jesus’ request was not theater!

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

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

Hopefully you like that! It really hit me.

Thanks for emailing me always!

I love you all so much!

Elder Pollard

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

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

The week was something like:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love you all!

Hope you have a good week!

Elder Pollard

Week Eighty-seven (15.5 weeks/107 days left...)

I'm too old for this.

Not really. All's well in HOF! From the Mexican partnership of Donas y Poyard, I thank you all for reading this letter. Last week started off pretty rocking. We also had a cool day in Dresden at a zone conference. It was my first time in Dresden, and it was sick! I had always heard so much about Dresden, but had only been there twice in the Train Station to catch trains. Unfortunately, we didn't get to actually see the city haha. We drove with the M's there, in the car. We rode the train home. But it was still cool. The end of the week slowed down a lot......we didn't slow down, but our 'success' did. We worked hard and walked a lot but didn't find too many people who were interested to even stop and talk for 2 minutes. Hof can be hard at times. But it's way cool having a comp that you already know super well and just joking around and staying positive when the circus comes to Hof and nobody wants to stop because they're all going to the circus....in a small town like this, the circus is a big deal. Oh yeah, I saw tigers. Crazy.

Elders Donner and Pollard on the trapeze (window scaffolding...)

 Montag: Last P-Day was intersting...as Elder Donner and I gave out our last Euros....haha we ran out of money fast. But that happens when you have to whitewash an area. Buying stuff like old broken lightbulbs and bottles of ketchup and silly stuff like that adds up after a while. But It's all good in the hood. We had a pretty relaxed P-Day. Just hung out and checked out cool little shops in Hof. We had Family Home Evening that night and ate Abendbrot. Which is like a bunch of bread and meat and cheese and stuff like that. It was just the M's, Schwester S and us. We also made pumpkin cookies and put our Reeses pieces in the cookies.

Missionary gold...

They were way good. We went to drop off cookies at the G's house that night when he invited us in to help him build a closet thing. Good thing is, that it was the same one from Ikea that I've built like 5 times now on my mission haha. So it went pretty fast. That was it though!

Diesntag: Tuesday was cool because we found someone new! It's kind of a cool story. We came to a fork in the road.....classic situation. We knew one was had a huge hill and the other had a smaller. Naturally we'd take the smaller, but we knew that there was this store on that hill with inappropriate stuff in the windows, so we decided to take the big hill. And that's where we found U! Some hippy guy with strange ideas about religion. That's how he described himself haha. But we had a good convo with him and made out another appointment. Good stuff! We also visited Schwester S and taught her. We were able to help her neighbor carry some stuff up the stairs, too! Service opens hearts. That night we visited Brother R at his house and talked about missionary work with him and after that we dropped cookies off at the M's!

Mittwoch: Wednesday was interesting haha we had an appointment with Herr S, an older investigator. Funny story, I actually found him a year ago when I was here haha and now we got to teach him. He made us lunch. He's on some weird diet that only lets him eat a handful of grain....so he made us his hippy food and we taught. He's Unitarian, but doesn't believe in anything, really. We established that we can help him and he agreed and said we can come back. SOLID! That night we met with our Romanian family! It was kind of disappointing, though. The father said he got an answer that he only needs to read in the bible and that the Book of Mormon isn't important. That can't be though! God wouldn't tell him that, and Satan wouldn't tell him to read in the Bible. So I'm concerned that he's just scared to learn more or something silly like that. We'll meet with them again though.

Donnerstag: Thursday was Zone Conference. We learned about working with the members better and bearing pure testimony. It was way cool. We had some good food, but not a lot. Then I got to have a temple recommend interview with President Kosak. That was also cool. He told me in the interview that Elder Donner and I could stay together until the ends of our missions. That'd be sick. Oh and we almost missed our train home haha it was so close.

Freitag: Everything fell out of Friday haha and we planned.

Samstag: Saturday morning was sick. I almost cut my toe off. We helped the M's in their garden. We stacked wood, chopped wood, walked dogs, and picked up leaves. And I was using this crazy sharp axe to chop wood. It came off the wood at a wierd angle and hit me right in the toe. Good thing Nike shoes are just solid and I remain uninjured haha. Kind of disappointing though, because everything fell out on Saturday, too. the M's took us to pizza because we were cold and sad that everything fell out.

Sonntag: Sunday is usually a good day haha. Church was good. We taught Elders Quorum. That was interesting. We wanted to talk about the work of salvation and working together to find people. But they just ended up blaming everything on the fact that we don't have a room. Lame. We ate with the M's after. Oh we had an interesting meeting with a way less active member. It was weird.....but good that we were there.

The week was slower. But good. Dresden was the highlight! Such a cool conference!

Zone Chemnitz

I've been doing pretty well. My shoulder is a little better. It's getting better all the time. Better, better, better. I worked out this morning with weights and it was OK. My left arm is SO week. I'm curling like 20 lbs and struggling. I guess that's what happens after 7 weeks of not really using it. But my health is pretty good. I'm at like 80% health I'd say. Chugging a long. I kind of feel like a have a small lingering cold. But that's it. It is starting to get colder here in Hof. Like between 10 and 15 degrees Celsius. I don't know how much that is in Fahrenheit. Maybe like 50-60. Kind of chilly. It's still suit weather though.

I like what you said about obedience. It kind of has something to do with the topic of 'The will of God/Free Agency', which is just way over my head. What is important to know is that the commandments are there to enable us to return to our heavenly home. Why wouldn't we follow them? But knowing that all commandments are both timely and spiritual, it's safe to say the the commandments help us be happy during our time of probation AND set us up for eternal joy in the time after this. I like to think that obedience is also training. Let's get real, God follows the commandments of nature. He also at one time experienced what we are experiencing now with our lives. Being obedient on earth will help us in the life to come. Obedience, laws, and commandments don't end when this life does. It's an eternal aspect. To end it off, I like what's said the the Book of Mormon like 60 times, that if the family of Lehi would keep the commandments, that everything would be well with them. What a promise!

Well, everything really is going well here. I love my comp! He's sick. And we work well together. I love missionary work. And the gospel is true. Word.

Elder Pollard

Week Eighty-six (16.5 weeks/115 days left...)

Hello!

This last week was just fantastic. Elder Donner and I were able to do a lot of work and we didn't go insane. That's always a goal on the mission. We saw some crazy cool miracles this week, too and got to meet some amazing people that we want to help. I love missionary work, because it's so easy to develop a love for these people. It's obviously what we should be doing (how do you help people that you don't like), but it's just so cool when you leave an appointment on some spiritual high thinking, 'I can really help these people. And I want to.' I felt that a lot this last week.

Elder Donner and I are scraping the floor to find change haha we have NO money. We are 'whitewashing' this area, which means we both come in at the same time and the old Elders leave. So that's expensive to buy all new food and stuff. The apartment wasn't in the best shape when we got here....a lot of cleaning. But our apartment is now pretty clean and we've arranged everything the way we want to.

Our last week was like:

Montag: Monday was good. We went shopping, got some new Turkish haircuts (great looking) and did P-Day stuff. We went to Family Home Evening with the M's and a couple members, which was also good. After that we did a couple more hours of work, but didn't contact anybody that we had planned to. Too bad. #turkishswag

 

a new haircut...

 

Dienstag: Tuesday was slower. We only had one appointment go through. That was with Sister S. We're working with her to keep her active because she JUST came back to church. She's super nice and I think she likes us. She's been a member for like 15 years I think but only recently came back. She actually remembers me from a year ago haha Elder Huber and I went by at least once...other than that the day was slower. A lot of talking to people. We made cookies for the M's though and we gave them to them. That was good. #doagoodturndaily

Mittwoch: Wednesday was our miracle day!!! We had district meeting in the morning, which was cool...kind of boring actually. Elder Donner and I were both released from District Leaderness so we just kind of go and hang out now haha. We're the oldest in our district by a long time haha. The day was alright, just trying to contact some older investigators and referrals. Nothing really. But at night, Elder Montgomery drove us to Rehau to go have an appointment that fell out. Good thing we made back up plans and stopped by on a family that the older missionaries said that we'd be good to go by on. Turns out...they have 8 kids! Wow haha that was overwhelming. And they totally listened to us which was cool. The parents and all the kids. They're actually from Romania! And they had lived in Switzerland for a couple of years. They learned German there and met with the missionaries and went to church there. They didn't know how to contact the church in Germany, so they said they were super happy when we came by. We taught them a get to know you lesson and said we want to teach more! We're meeting like 2 times a week now. It'll be hard to get them to church because they don't actually live in Hof. But it'll happen. I like love this family so much and all their kids are so cool. It's the best. #wearefamily

Donnerstag: Thursday was also slower. We found out that our DVD player is broken....that's fun haha. We kind of went insane on Thursday. If I remember correctly. Just trying to fix the DVD player and stressing about stuff. We ended up going by on an investigator who has no phone number, only an address. We walked like 45 minutes uphill to get to him haha it was the worst. And he wasn't even home! We had to talk to his mom. Hopefully he'll call soon. I don't want to walk out there again for nothing.#iwouldn'twalk500miles

Freitag: Friday was planning day. Always solid. We actually had a really good planning session and got a lot taken care of with the time. We ate Mai Tahn Lang, the Asian restaurant across the street from our apartment. It was good to be back haha. We were supposed to have an app with the really cool guy we found last week, but it fell out. He was nowhere to be found. Didn't answer his phone either. I don't like that haha it's so frustrating. We ended up going to Schwester E's house and eating left-over chili from when she fed the senior couple. We taught a good lesson about Jonah and running away from the Lord. Don't do it. #gottaplan

Samstag: Saturday was super legit! We started the day with service! An American family in Rehau (the little city outside of Hof) invited us over and asked that we helped in the yard. They're from Virginia. We pulled weeds and chopped down bushes and shredded stuff for like 3 hours. Then he fed us some really good vegetarian stuff and rewarded us with two huge bags of Reese's. Not too interested in the church, but service opens the heart. Then we went back to Hof and got changed. We met with Schwester S's son, and we're going to help him stop smoking. That will be interesting. That night was the best! We called G, a guy from Africa, and met him in Innenstadt and taught a lesson and he agreed to meet again. I love me Africans!

Sonntag: Sunday was also great! We had church, only 15 members there. Sad, but good. We ate with the Merkels after, which was SO good. Shcwester M made some legit gourmet spaghetti. After that, we drove with the Montgomery's out to Rehau and met with the S's, the Romanian family. We taught for like an hour and finished talking about Joseph Smith. The father and oldest son have some concerns, but nothing huge. They're the best. After that, we met with Schwester L. She was super cool too! And way nice. She needs a lot of help from the branch and from us. Just spiritually. We're going to meet weekly and it'll be wonderful. I'm glad I met her. After that, we came home, went by on contacts and went door to door. And made pancakes. #keepthesabbathday

SOLID WEEK!

And now it's Monday. We finally got our water heater fixed. We were taking freezing cold showers, which was NOT fun. But the nice man came in this morning and hit our heater with a hammer until it worked again. Blessings. 

Mumsy! I am in the same apartment with the same DDR fryer haha. We're going to use it this week actually. And I love the cookies and cream chocolate bars from Ritter. That's dirt cheap in Germany haha I eat way too much chocolate. It sounds like everything is going well with the family! I'm jealous that you ate bagels. No bagels in Germany. Lachs is a German word though. It means salmon. Bagels and Lachs sounds legit.

Well I was reading the Jonah story this last week and it was really interesting how Jonah, being a prophet, still made mistakes. We all do! It's unavoidable. Good this we have the atonement. Life would suck without it.

I love you all so much!

Have a good week!

Elder Pollard

 

 

Week Eighty-five (121 days left...)

Greetings once again from the luxurious Taj Mahal internet cafe in Hof, Germany. This time accompanied by my good friend Elder Donner. I'M BACK IN BAYERN! And it's great haha. Elder Donner and I arrived on Tuesday in Hof and we've just been tearing it up ever since! I'm way stoked to be here. All of my other areas and companions were all great and I learned so much from them, but this is like prime time missionary work now. We're both 'old' missionaries and working with him is like working with a second version of me. It's kind of weird. But I'm just a happy camper.

The boys from Hof...

 
The week went by fast. It was like:

Montag: P-day.

Diesntag: Travel. I left Hamburg at 8:30 in the morning and sat on the train next to an Asian lady haha she is a sports journalist from Singapore. 'Who is better, Kobe or Lebron?' (Asian accent). It was pretty funny and she didn't speak German so I helped her out. And then I got to Dresden and met up with Elder Donner. We rode a train to Hof and Elder Montgomery picked us up in the car. The Montgomery's are the senior missionary couple here in Hof. They're from Utah, but live in Idaho. They're really nice and they took us out to dinner the first night! To a schnitzel place. I ate some good Schnitzel. And there was a way drunk guy from England in the restaurant. That was a hoot. And we went back and unpacked.

Mittwoch: Wednesday was so cool! Well we shopped in the morning because we had no food and ate some good stuff. We had an app with Schwester S from the ward and the Montgomery's were there with us. It went really well and it was good to get to know her. I think she likes us haha. Which is good. And after that we went to the M's to say hi but they invited us in for cake. It was good and we asked that they would pray for us so we could find some contacts, and it worked. We found A! A younger Turkish student/dancer guy. Who speaks really good English haha. We met and talked and he seems pretty interested. So miracles. We also had to purge the apartment because it was pretty dirty. Not cool.

Donnerstag: We had a lot planned for Thursday, but it all fell out...But I remember that we got a lot of like paperwork done and talked to a lot of people who said we could call them later.

Elder Pollard deep in contemplation...

Freitag: Friday was our first district meeting in Plauen. Donner and I were both 'released' as DL, which is great. We're like the creepy old guys in the district. #gohard. We came home with the Montgomery's and had an app in Rehau, a smaller city outside of Hof, but that fell through. So we ate Döner instead. So good. That was about it.

Samstag: Saturday was cray. We went to a funeral in Freiberg. It was cool because we got to sing and see a lot of other missionaries, but it was a funeral...like not the happiest place on earth. Good thing the gospel is true...We came home after a long long time and did some finding in the city. Then I had to prepare a 15 minute talk for the next day.

Sonntag: Sunday was great. Back to the Quality Hotel! Elder Donner and I gave our talks, which were perfectly timed, and we enjoyed getting to know the ward. Everyone remembers me haha, surprisingly. We ate with the H's after, which was also good. They made chicken and spaetzle and veggies. And we ate really good cake too. We were there for a while though. After, we went and did some finding, found some good contacts, had some good talks. Bueno.

I am having a hard time emailing! Like I'm super distracted for some reason haha. So I'm sorry if this was just like boring. New goal is to write better emails! My shoulder's doing better though. I can't really do pushups yet, but normal work is OK. That's exciting to hear about Thomas and how soon he'll be a missionary! Good for him.

Well, I'm doing well. I hope you are too! I pray for you! Love you!

Elder Pollard