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!