That's super exciting about Joseph Hallman and Chris Willis. Missions are good things. And yes, the Harz is pretty, and yes, I have pictures, but until I find a replacement cable or something I have no way of getting them to you.
Mmmm. Where to begin? Well, the first real exciting thing was our Tausch with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday. It was a pretty action packed day. First we had District Meeting with Magdeburg - The Zone Leaders were supposed to be there too, but they missed a couple trains and didn't arrive at Bahnhof until we were finished. Then we all ate Döner together, and the rest of the missionaries took off and Elder Hunziker and I were left to roam the streets of Halberstadt. After a little bit of that, we drove to our appointment with R for the Tauf(baptismal)interview. More specifically, I drove. And I didn't die. You would be so impressed. ;P Mostly Elder Olson Drives (And that day mostly Elder Hunziker drove) but I drive every once in a while. I still drive like an old lady, but Elder Olson says I'm getting better. Anyhoodles, The point was that we went to R's Taufinnterview (the main reason for the Tausch), which she passed with flying colors. Then we were able to door a street up above her and head off to Gemiko.
Our GML, Bruder S, does so much for the missionary work here. He printed out a bunch of brochures for us to go pass out before we door streets and planned for the lessons we'd be teaching with him. It's a great help to have such an active ward mission leader (I haven't said that for GML in like forever...) He also told us we should be more like the sisters. (Halberstadt had sisters up until about December.) Just that we should use visuals and leave something behind to help the lesson stick. I actually love the idea - I really enjoy that sort of thing. The tricksy part is coming up with the ideas of what to make. And I'm pretty sure I won't be able to live up to the sisters, so I'll have to develop an Elder Cloward Style lesson visual and not just the Elder Cloward fraudulent Sister style visual.
Mhmmm..... Then we arrived a little late to Institut because we took a wrong turn and then got really confused by the Navi... But we made it. It was really cool. It was just us and two other young members of the branch. And that was pretty much that day. Pretty Power packed, na?
Thursday as we were Tausching back, we arrived in Halle where we met up, then Elder Olson and I had the marvelous train departure options of: Leave in -2 minutes or in 2 hours. And, because I'm not yet able to control my time travel abilities, we took the 2 hours of hanging out in Halle option. It was pretty intense. We actually ran into the missionaries there (Though one of them was Elder Beck, currently stationed in Köthen - they were also Tausching back) We went straight from there to another appointment with R, where we just made sure of everything for the baptism and filled out the rest of the Taufschein.
Friday morning we visited some Men we had met on the street from Mali. They live in the Ausländer/Azulheim, sort of an apartment complex owned by the state for foreigners. I've been to one or two, (that's where a couple of the members in Bad Bentheim lived) but this one's a little more prison like than that one is. We have to go through this gate and give up our passports when we go in. I don't really understand why though - the people seem to be able to come and go freely. In any case, we had a really cool appointment with those three. They've only been here for about a month and really seemed to appreciate our visit and the Book of Mormon.
In the afternoon we went to the Old Folks' home to play chess with Herr Fischer. We actually do that every week as service. It's a lot of fun and that guy's really nice, and he kicks our trash at chess. But at home I played against Elder Hunziker and Elder Olson and won both times. But with Elder Olson it was sheer dumb luck. He totally had me beat and neither of us could really figure out how I turned it around. Because you know, chess is what really matters in life. Speaking of games lying around the apartment that none of you actually care about, I found this Nerdy Lord of the Rings Gandalf vs. the Balrog game the other night. It looks pretty intense, let me tell ya. Ummm... Moving on to things that matter, like...
R's baptism! It was really nice. After church we all had a nice little luncheon, then drove off to Braunschweig, where we had the baptism. She was baptized by the Branch President. Elder Olson played guitar for and I and the GML's daughter sang "Komm du Quelle" ("Come thou font") as a musical number, and the primary kids sang a couple other songs. R also gave a talk, which was really cool. She understands so well, and is so ready to have the gospel as a part of her life. Her mom was also there. She is a very nice woman as well. She had originally not wanted to come, but at our appointment on Thursday, Hr, humourfully informed her over the phone that they'd be picking her up. I think she really enjoyed it. She seemed pretty comfortable. It was wonderful. I cannot think of a better way to end a week than with a baptism.
Well, I love you! Have a wonderful week!
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