Germany Week 31

Why Chalopa!

First off - Something I forgot to tell you last week- They've picked who our new mission president will be in July. He's a German - President Kosak, who has been working over CES in Moscow.... That'll be weird. But quite the party.

Second off - One of the questions I'm asked most often is where my name comes from. I know I've fruitlessly googled in the past, but if you can shine some light on the origins of Cloward, I would greatly appreciate it.

Third Off, my tongue just informed me that it would appreciate a recipe for chocolate peanutbutter bars. So if you've got one, feel free to enlighten me.

So I'm sure something happened this week.

Let's see... Yesterday was Sunday, which may or may not come as a surprise to some of you. We had a German-speaking wide stake conference broadcast out of Salt Lake. It was nice, even though we missed most of the first talk and a fair deal of a couple others due to some tricksy broadcasting stuff. Elder Nelson and Elder Eyring spoke. It was kind of funny to be able to hear them a little bit, but mostly hear the translators. It was a nice conference.

Yesterday evening, we got to teach B, an 8 year old fosterchild of a member family. Actually we do that every Sunday. It's fun. They're a great family. We also played a very amusing game of "Versteck" (Hide 'n' go seek) right after church with him....

Saturday we had President's Interviews in Kiel. That was quite the party.

While we were getting interviewed, our GML was presenting his plan to all the other GMLs in the stake.... also quite the party.

Well, On Wednesday night, as we were trudging across a frozen lake doing OYMs, an angry dwarf popped out of a slush puddle and started yelling at us in Danish. I of course, didn't understand a single word of it, except for "ble" which means diaper. I was trying to figure out what he was so mad about, and what it had to do with daipers (Or nappies, if we happen to have any british readers in the audience today) when my thoughts were cut off by a battle axe sinking into my thigh. That angry little man had attacked me. So I did the only thing I knew to - I pulled out my two handed Claymore and engaged him in battle. We were both moving so fast that our body heat melted all of the ice around us, but then we sped up just a little bit and were able to stand on the water. After several hours of combat, a nice old lady who could speak German and Danish came along and was able to help us resolve our problems. It was nice.

We've also been meeting with a cool guy who was a former investigator. He's very happy to meet and discuss with us, and he's open. I can definitely see him making progress. Earlier when he was investigating, he came to church a fair deal, and he wants to again, but lives out where it's really difficult to get to church. He is working on moving back to Flensburg. He's definitely one of our most promising investigators.

F is another of our most promising investigators. I imagine I've at least mentioned him before. This week we set a new baptismal date with him and talked about the Word of Wisdom.

Another Adventure was meeting with H, a very very alcoholic man. He was friendly, but he isn't all there. He would contradict himself within a single sentence and couldn't remember things that we'd just said, or he'd just said. He had more sober friend there with him, who just kind of made fun of him. On the surface, it was really funny, but it's really just so sad that someone - and that so many people - let their lives deteriorate to that point. And worse still, that you know it'll most likely just continue to get worse. He seemed to me to be an earlier version of an investigator we had in Elmshorn. We are so blessed to have the Word of Wisdom to sheild us from such fates.

Well, I think I'mma be pretty much done for today. I know this church is true, and I am glad to be in a position to invite people into it. There are so many blessings that we are provided because of the gospel. I'm so grateful for that.

Well, love ya! Have a beautiful week!