Germany Week 81--"Tree!?!? I am no tree!"‏

"I am an Ent!" This phrase somehow made its way very deeply into my delirious mind last night as I was trying to fall asleep. Now that I'm awake and slightly less delirious, It doesn't seem quite as moving as before. You see, I decided that even though I am by no means hasty, I can put a pretty big dent in Isengard once I've gotten around to putting my mind to it. (I mean, I've gotta have some sort of redeeming quality, right?) So, I boldly determined that the Ents are going to War. It's gonna be awesome. I'm going to be a super hardcore missionary for the next three transfers. Not that I haven't been trying to do that the whole time, but now that I'm aided with my image of being a giant walking tree tearing down dams and throwing rocks, there's nothing that can stop me. Heheheh. I'm a lunatic.

I'm on a bridge...

 So one of the chief reasons for my delirium is that I'm awfully sick. It started with a slight sore throat on Saturday that got worse throughout the day, and when I woke up yesterday, I had a throat so dammed up by phlegm that only Treebeard himself could release that river. By the end of the day I had a fever of 101.3 - I actually have no idea how bad of a fever that is, but I don't feel too great. So today we've been taking it slow. Poor Elder Linderman. I totally ruined his Pday. I've still got to pack today because...

Elder Linderman sat on a wall...

 I'm getting transferred to Halberstadt tomorrow! It's really cool, because 1. I'm going to be with Elder Olson, who was in the MTC and in the Flensurg district with me. As was our district leader, Elder Sullivan. That'll be quite the party. 2. because it fulfills both of what I was thinking were incompatible requirements: Halberstadt is in the East, where President keeps telling me I'm going to go, and it is part of the former Hamburg mission - So I'll've kept up my Hamburg streak and made it to the east. Pretty Cool, na? 3. That's in the Leipzig Zone nowadays, which as I understand it means I'll be able to go to the Temple! It's been quite a while since I got to do that. I'm told that Halberstadt is a very small city, with a small branch, but that we've got a large area with a car, and that it's pretty mountainous (or at least hilly -we'll see) So that train ride'll be my Tuesday.

 Speaking of Tuesdays, this last Tuesday I had a Tausch with Elder Baker - It was nice to be with him again, even if our one appointment fell out and we ended up walking around talking to people the whole day.

 Wednesday was looking like a pretty exciting day with an appointment with a less active member who we'd only met just once before and with a contact that the Elders in Stade found -but both of those ended up falling out. Or wait... I seem to recall Joseypookins saying I'm supposed to say through... In any case, that was disappointing. Hopefully we'll be able to arrange something this week - or rather, Elders Linderman and Von Nieda will be able to arrange something. But we did have our usual Wednesday eating appointment with the Rs, which was really nice, as always and helped keep us afloat.

My last Spielabend with R

 Thursday we met with R and did a lot of Hymn singing. And I tried to explain notes and counting... don't think I did a great job, but it was fun. Then we had a lesson with Herr Y, which was really nice. We were able to answer a few of the questions that he had, and the spirit was there. One of those questions was about Baptism for the Dead - he thought that we baptize corpses. It's always nice to be able to clear that one up.

 Friday we had transfer calls. Sort of - It was a bit different this time. Normally we have a big conference call and learn where everyone is going, but this time the AP's called us individually. President Kosak has slowly been diminishing our contact with the other missionaries. It makes me sad, but I'm sure he has a reason. Then our appointment with the Js fell through, but we had a fun Spielabend aka Hangout with R because no one else shows up even though it's an official branch activity.

Elder Linderman, V and I looking awesome

 Saturday afternoon we met with V - he made a fancy Ukrainian/French dish that they eat on special occasions - It was chicken with mayonaise, egg, onion, cheese and Pineapple juice baked on top of it. It was nummy. We also ended up showing him Johnny Lingo...

 Sonnday was when I woke up feeling awful, but it seemed to get a little better once I'd coughed it up, and we still made it to church. Pretty much everyone there was sick too. And Half of the regulars weren't there because they were sick anyway. That led to me being asked to try to stretch out my goodbye Testimony to ten minutes. I did an awful job of looking at my watch and of judging the time I'd spoken for, and ended up only speaking for three... whoops... I'm pretty sure the other guy who spoke had been asked on the fly too... but I think he got to somewhere around twenty minutes... We got out a little early. I felt like an idiot.

Well. I can't think of anything else to say, but I don't want to end on that note. Oh - I haven't been able to send pictures for a while because I lost my cable, but with the services of Elder Linderman I present to you some random pictures from the last little while.

Our district picture