Germany Week 93

It has been one whirlwind adventure since we adjourned our last email writing session. Monday itself was pretty crazy, we did emails in the Morning, then ran off to Magdeburg to exchange pictures and play some sports or something in the park. We swung by Burger King (The people there were very friendly and remembered us from our earlier excursion ;P) and by the time we finally got to the church we only had like a half hour/forty five minutes. So we exchanged pictures and hung out with the Magdeburg Elders in their church. We then took off to Schw. M's who cooked us some delicious food to say goodbye to me. We then bounced with our bloated bellies off to Institut. It was a great day.

Elder Cloward Pondering Ancient Greece

 Followed by several others. Tuesday Morning Elder Olson and I drove off to Magdeburg where Elders Sullivan, Williams and I hopped on a train to Berlin to go the the Office. Elder Sullivan, to make a one day stop then head home, I, to make a six week stop, and Elder Williams to pick up a cell phone for the 2nd Elders Program opening up in Magedburg. Quite the Cell Phone Shipment, nah? We arrived in Berlin and were picked up by the APs, and voila, we were in the Office. Elder Beck got there at about the same time and we went straight to work. The moment we walked in, he asked the Office couples, "What can we do?" They put us to work playing tetris with Copies of the Book of Mormon and other church materials so they could fit in boxes that we could bring to the missionaries opening new areas. We kept busy that day with lots of other office tasks too. It was kinda weird just because people who I was in the MTC with were just hanging out talking in the office about to go home, and I was running around doing office work. It was great to be able to see them. And we got to eat lunch with them. I've finally seen them all! I'm pretty sure I've spent my whole time in the field dodging Elder Stovall, but I finally got to talk to him again on his death bed.

 That day, president also mentioned shortly to us that we will be working on the mission history and that that will be a large portion of our assignment here. Otherwise, exactly what our assignment is has been kept a mystery to us. In daily planning, we've mostly been like, "Well, I guess we just go down to the Office and do what ever they tell us to." That of course doesn't prevent us from writing down meaningful activities such as "arts and crafts," which Elder Taylor saw in my planner, then laughed and shared it with the class at District Meeting. We've definitely been kept busy though, and with time our job has become a little bit more refined. Elder Beesley, the Logistics secretary also gave us charge over a big project involving Apartment keys throughout the mission. To a large extent though, we really are to just be around the office and help wherever help is needed. We've certainly got our work cut out for us.

 Tuesday night we -Man, usually I'm a little past Tuesday night after writing this much email - Followed the Sisters to Gemiko and an eating appointment with a really cool family who wanted to give us a welcoming party. They're Thai, but have been living in Germany for 30 (?) years, and made delicious, if very spicy food. We played games and had a lot of fun.

 Wedensday Morning we started off with District meeting. We met the Sisters at the Bus Stop and it took me a few minutes, but I eventually noticed peering over the top of a seat the head of none other than Elder Turney. So I ran back and gave him a big hug. He's my Zone Leader and in my district now! It's been too long. He's companions with Elder Taylor, who is hilarious and from Elder Pack's group. We had such a party at District meeting. I must say, It made me very happy that it was the Zone Leaders that were goofing off the whole district meeting, while everyone else was comparatively solemn (except for me, I guess...) We then went to help with the new missionaries who'd just arrived. Elder Beck and I were in charge of taking pictures of them that'll be used throughout their missions (hopefully I did an ok job). Then I got to do my first "First Finding." Had I actually had that when scheduled, It would've been called "Golden Finding," and it would've taken place almost two years ago, but our 747 was having technical issues and we had to cut things short. (My Prayers were answered that day... [are you following this?]) Anyway, I got to take out three excellent missionaries, Elder Meeks, Elder Youngblood, and Elder Becar. We hopped on the Sbahn, got a little lost in my new area, talked to some people, handed out some cards, knocked on some doors and had a good time. Hopefully the new missionaries enjoyed it. I was really impressed with all of them.

 Thursday we started off processing a bunch of stuff in the office. They said they wouldn't need us for the New Missionary conference, so we stayed in the Office. But I really wanted to go, mostly to see Elders Linderman & Beck(Köthen/Lauenburg Beck, who are training, so we went over to the church during our lunch break. We were able to be helpful which was good. Then when it was time for the missionaries to leave, President charged Elder Beck and I with helping some sisters get their luggage to Bahnhof, because they had quite a bit. So we went with them. At the Sbahnhof, Elder Wolfley gave me the charge of guiding everyone to a gathering place in Hauptbahnhof and announced to everyone to follow me. It wasn't all that big of a deal, but It felt like a fair deal of responsibility to keep a pretty big group of missionaries together on the trains. On top of that, I didn't really know where I was going, so I appointed Elder Tolbert as my personal guide. I was really grateful to have someone who knew the way. We ended up carrying a lot of luggage up a lot of stairs. The place where we had to switch trains was full of stairs. It was quite the adventure. Everybody was helping each other, it was pretty cool to see. Then everyone was able to head off to their areas. After that we finally got a chance to go grocery shopping, and then we had a late night spaghetti party with the APs and the Kiel Zone Leaders, Elder Lüning and Rückauer.

Elder Beck and the Ishtar Gate

Disembodied heads and the Babylonian Empire

 Yesterday, Friday, we worked in the Office pretty much the whole day, mostly on the Key assigment. Last night though, at about 10:15, Elder Bangerter woke me up of the couch (How did I get there?) and said the Tiergarten Elders were going to be sleeping there. Apparently they were downstairs in the office fixing Sister Kosak's computer. We then thought about how we still didn't know when we were supposed to take Pday, so we figured we could go down and ask president. But we decided to just text him, and I got ready for bed. He sent a text back that said to come down and ask him. So we went down, me in my pajamas and Elder Beck in his white shirt and tie, to ask him. After saying we should take our Pdays on Saturdays, president asked, "What are you doing tomorrow?" We were like, "we don't know, we didn't even know if we had Pday or a work day." He said, "Go to the Pergemon Museum and see the Ishtar Gate. And Go to Potsdamer Platz, they have the best Ice Cream." Well, an order is an order, so we did that today. It was really cool. All the museums and fancy stuff there in Berlin are so amazing. We're going to be having a few more P-days over in that Ecke. Though, we didn't have enough time to order the Stawberry Ice Cream Becher like we were supposed to, so we just grabbed ice cream cones. Next time though.

 The reason we didn't have time though was super exciting, und zwar, we had an apopintment! The contact was found during "first finding" and we'd called and made out the appointment yesterday. It was with a man named R, he's turkish, but has been living in Germany for a while. He want's to learn better German, a large part of why he wanted to meet with us. We had a great time with him, we gave him a tour of the church, explaining a lot of elements of the first lesson as we showed him the pictures hanging around. There's definitely a lot he didn't understand because of the language barrier, but he was very friendly, humble, and willing to learn. He's planning on coming to church tomorrow and we're excited for him. We didn't have a Turkish Book of Mormon with us, but the Sisters were in the Area and they grabbed one from the Office for us, and were there for the very end part of our lesson where we prayed together, and R offered a prayer. It took him a while to figure out how we wanted him to do it, but with the help of one of the pamphlets and explaining it a bunch of times, he offered a marvelous prayer. And then we came home to write emails.

 Man o man. This has been awesome here in the office so far. These next few weeks are going to be an adventure. I'm so excited to be a part of this great work and to be able to contribute to it. I know it's true, I know god loves us and he wants what's best for us. Have a great week, everybody!