Germany Week 53

Als ich so alt war wie du, damals hatten wir keine Schuhe! Wir hatten nur Stacheldraht womit wir unsere nackte Füße einwickeln würden, damit wir auf dem Eis nicht rutschen würden! Und wir waren Glücklich! Was denkste? Haben wir je geklagt? Nay! Das haben wir gar nicht! Wir haben nie gemeckert. Aber heutzutage nörgelt jeder, wenn er die teureste Schuhe nicht bekommt! 

I'm counting on most of my readership not speaking German, cuz I probably made several mistakes in there. Perhaps I'll learn German some day. So, for my higher level of humour, it's important to make allusions to inside jokes in public settings, but since you asked specifically, I can tell you that when ones brain is fried, one may have lost the mental capacity to report their condition properly, saying instead that their "Brian is Fired." The situation there described puts Brian into a state devoid of income (Or at least of a lower income, depending on the social system under which he is living), a position from which he might find it favourable to obtain new employment.

Now that I've wasted all of my email time, I guess I can give a brief report on my life. I am still alive.

Since pictures are worth a thousand words and I don't want to short change you, I'mma start by cheating and giving you a couple pictures.

Elder Pack is a Super Hero

He's also good at carrying all of the

 bottles the Gemeinde gives us to take

I actually saw this the day before
 I headed off to Berlin, but It was cool that I
got to see another Family member unexpectedly

So yeppers. This week was pretty intense.   We spent a lot of time looking for people, and were able to have some nice chats with people. I'm finding that I really need to step it up in a lot of ways, now that I'm the senior companion. I need to work on being better at making out appointments, and being less scatter brained and planning better. Overall, things are going well. Elder Pack and I are getting along really well, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be training, I hope I don't ruin him too bad! I'm trying to think of some good stories that happened this week, but I'm really coming up with nothin'.... We were actually able to have a couple of unexpected but really good appointments with some members. Yeah. 

I'm sure you've already got a very similar
bad boy from the other end, but here's mine

Well, love you all! 

Germany Week 52

So I have once again made the ghastly error of somehow leaving myself only 20 minutes to write this email. Not sure how I managed that one. I hope that's the only ghastly error that I've made though. Man, that was crazy.

   The adventures began Tuesday morning as Elder Welker hopped on a train to Minden and I on one to Hannover and Subsequently Berlin. It was a crazy feeling to step onto a train in li'l Nienburg and step out of another a couple hours later in Berlin Hauptbahnhof. That was crazy. It was huge, and there were lots of people, and I was freaking out about training, and my brain was totally durcheinander. Let's just say Brian is going to have to find a new job. Joseph had said he would meet me, but we hadn't made any specific plans, so I was thinking a little bit like, "Is he just planning on bumbing into me... there are only like 3 million people here...." He did a good job of it though - he and his cute little bicycle just popped up behind us out of nowhere as we were waiting for the new Tiergarten zoneleader to come in. Weirdest thing of my life. But so awesome. We had a lot of fun. You people have probably seen that on facebook anyway.

4 of the 6 Trainers staying in Marzahn

  Fastforward through a couple of crazy cool days with Elder Clayton in Marzahn, and having six trainers together in that apartment Wednesday night - that was all a lot of fun. I could not sleep - I was so nervous! I would blame the bed, but I slept like a baby Golem in the same one the night before. I tried to calm my nerves by simulating what it would sound like if the Apostles were to play tag in the office. The other trainers must've been nervous and tired too, because they laughed a lot more than the jokes deserved.... 

  I just feel like a crazy as I write. Probably because I am.

  Then Thursday morning we had Golden Conference, which was awesome, but nerve wracking. We had a very quick training presentation of how we're to train, and then the new missionaries came in. Ohmylanta, I'm already out of time. I feel like you guys always miss everything because I'm bad at writing emails. Sorry.

  So Anyway, my new companion is Elder Pack. He's from Lehi Utah, he's super cool, and I'm going to learn a whole lot with him!

Love ya!

Elder Pack, the Kosaks and I

Germany Week 51

 Hehehe, those rebellious Nursery Kids. I had a similar experience on Sunday - I went into a Primary class to help translate for E, who has pretty good German, but he needed help. They had a lesson about resisting temptation and choosing the right, then we played this game where they had to say what was the right thing to do in different situations... for instance, when they're playing games, how to be good sports. From the answers they gave, it was clear they knew what was right, but from the way they played, you could see they needed some more practice. Not quite so directly ironic as interrupting a prayer at the end of a lesson on prayer to say that you don't like praying, but nonetheless entertaining. The truth is that we're all like that though - just on a different scale. We all have a ways to go in living up to the principles we're taught. We just need to keep practicing.

    Saturday Morning we met as a district in Hannover for Transfer calls (We'd been on Tausch with Hildesheim), we had a wonderful breakfast - Pancakes, and fruit, and bacon, and I brought peanut butter and homemade syrup (Aka Boiled Sugar Water) (Not that y'all care 'bout that or nuthin') - Then at about 9:55, we call into the conference call, and it plays this nice elevator music, saying it will play until the host joins the meeting. Only.... the host never joins the meeting.... so we are sitting around waiting for quite a while... Then the zone leaders call the APs, who say the system isn't accepting their Host code... so eventually, they just go in through another phone I guess, and say, everyone else mute your phones, we're just going to talk over the music. It was super hard to hear what they were saying over the music. It was pretty intense. Then it got a little bit more intense when I heard President Kosak's voice, "Nienburg - Elder Cloward - Training." Then I kinda freaked out. Or, rather, as described by Elder Welker, I slumped in my seat like Elder Marshall always sits. So I guess it was a pretty passive looking freak out. I'm getting a Golden! I'm super excited! But I'm also terrified. I do not feel like I'm ready to be senior companion, much less a trainer. But I never feel like I'm ready for anything until I'm perfect, which, as we all know isn't how it works. So I'll just have to trust in the Lord and be quick to obey, so that he will qualify me for the assignment. The Other changes in the District - Elder Welker's going to Minden, not so far away, and Elder Spendlove is becoming Zone Leader in Kiel, and being replaced by Elder Price, who is Elder Ririe's son, and from the same Golden Group as Welker and Spendlove. And Elder Pollard's getting sent off to Hof with Elder Huber. I just wanted to test to see how well you've been listening to my emails - you should know who those people are. ;P

Oh - by the way, the new mission blog is http://germanyberlinmission2012-15.blogspot.de/ Sis. Kosak's doing it, I believe...

  I had a blast with Elder Marshall on Friday - we picked some cherries for a member family - unfortunately they were all bad, but apparently if you leave them on, these fly eggs hatch inside next years batch... or something like that, and we helped them around the yard, then we ran around Neustadt from door to door and person to person. He's a great guy.

  And Church was marvelous yesterday. The High Councilor, his wife (in the Stake Relief Society) and The Wilhelms, the Ehepaar in Hannover were all there. It was great. 

  AAaAAAnnnd.... I get to play with Josey Pookins! I'm going to be in Berlin with Elder Clayton for the next few days while we both wait on our Goldens!

Church is true! Live Well!

Germany Week 50

I like how eventful your uneventful week was. I feel like that all the time. I'm like absolutely nothing happened this week. Except for that one thing. And that other one thing, and that one life changing event. Let's see if I can remember anything that happened this week...
  The Biggest thing was definitely on Wednesday when we had our first Zone Conference with our New Mission President, President Kosak. He and his wife are super cool. I very much enjoyed their Themas and getting to know them a little bit. I'm excited to have them. At the same time though, it just seems really weird to have someone new. It definitely seems like it'll be easy to get used to him and to love having him. 
  We also finally got the June Liahona while we were there. I read your article aloud to Elder Welker, but didn't tell him why. (For those of you reading this who aren't my mother - If there are any - She wrote a story which is in the June Liahona - it's cute, you should read it) The whole time he just sort of seemed like, "this is a nice story, but why are you reading it to me?" He probably also wouldn't've understood why I cried at the end if he had noticed... I had kind of hoped that people would notice it and ask me about it, but apparently nobody looks at the author's name anyway. Or they don't feel like consulting me about it. Then yesterday when we were at a members and they pulled out their June one, I opened to it and was like, "Do you recognize this name?" which they did, because it happened to also reside on my nametag, and I told them that you were my mom, and Elder Welker was like, "Wha? So that's why you read me that!" yeppers. 
  I actually can't think of anything else worth reporting... we did a lot of doors - Oh - this one lady said she was gonna call the cops on us, and I was actually pretty excited for it. Like, oh boy, I'll finally have a police encounter story. But she must've been bluffing, because they never came. Some people are just so inconsiderate. 
  Well kids, I love your guts, the church is true! Have a great week!

Germany Week 49

Well friends, It's July. That is pretty much the most ridiculous thought ever. Just kidding. I have way more ridiculous thoughts than that all the time. But it's still pretty crazy.
Sounds like you're all having quite the party back home. I'm glad to hear it. Also, just so you don't feel bad, I can't smell the Alps up here either. Mostly just farm smell... nom nom nom...

  Hmm.... What have I been doing with my life? Good question. It was a pretty tough week, but we pulled through alright. Just lots of "finding" without any actual finding. But there was actually some really cool stuff that happened. For instance, On Tuesday, we had our first lesson with this lady named M, we actually had the appointment at six, but we were going to do more doors on her street first, but at like 5:30, this girl (her daughter) stuck her head out the door and was like, "Are you looking for someone? cuz, we're expecting you..." And at first I wasn't positive what to do, so I was like, "We're just looking for people who are willing to listen." And she was like, "Oh, ok" and shut the door. I looked at Elder Welker and was like, "wait... does that just mean we should go now?" So then like 2 seconds later we went and knocked on their door, and Melanie invited us in. We had a great discussion, definitely one of the best first lessons I've ever had. We did a good job of "Teaching People, not Lessons," or at least Elder Welker did, and I piped in occasionally. We were able to teach just about everything that's in the first lesson, but we did it through asking her questions, and answering the questions that she had. I think the best thing about that was that it was very clear to her what we were there to do, as well as the significance of the Book of Mormon. At the end, she said that she would definitely read and pray about it. She seems to be someone who is really open and has a great outlook on life. 

  We also spent a lot of time getting wet this week. The weather has just been switching back and forth really quickly between sunny and clear skies and ridiculous storm. So we got caught in that a couple times. The best was on Wednesday morning, we walked quite a ways out to try some contacts, then we just kind of kept walking around, to see if there was somewhere we'd want to try doing doors later, ended up getting a little bit lost, and then it started raining like crazy. So our suits were totally soaked. It was purty awesome. 

  Friday Morning there was a huge storm, but it was cleared up by the time we were done with study. But in the afternoon, we got a call from a member saying that the basement in the Church was flooded, so we got to go scoop up water with little shovels into buckets. That was actually fun, but it kinda stinks for the church. Apparently that's not an all too uncommon occurrence either, due to a poor design in a basement door or something....

  Yesterday was also nice - After church we went with the L's out to the H's and had a nice lunch. As always, it was a lot of fun. Then we went out and did some more doors. 

  Looking back on it, it was actually quite a good week, but throughout most of it it was less than exhilarating. But I suppose what matters is that I survived long enough to get the better hindsight....

  Ok kids, well I hope that you all have a beautiful week! Love your Guts! the Church is True!