Germany Week 98--There Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down

Everybody seems to think I'm dead. But I'm not dead yet. The other day, president called, and I answered, and he said, "Give me to Elder Beck. You're out of Order." Heheh. But most of the time he asserts that I am, in fact, still around. You know, the transfer call was today (though I had already peeked to see where people were going - bwahahahaa) The detail that I found the juiciest, is that Elder Pack is replacing me in the office. He is my true heir. He'll also have to finish my genealogy for me. But President has actually been saying stuff about him replacing me this whole transfer, so I wasn't too, or in fact, at all, surprised.

 Let's see if I, even in my delirious old age, have some recollection of this week. Well, Sunday. Sunday we had church.. And the Familie  came! It was really good. They seemed to enjoy it and certain members of the ward are really warming up to them. Elders Pack and Beck will just have to work with them some more, and I can definitely see them getting baptized. We also had a nice lesson with Herr M on tuesday, actually I didn't feel like it was the best lesson I've ever given, but we were at least able to answer a few of his questions and keep up good contact. We talked to him today too, and they're definitely coming to Church tomorrow. Hopefully EVERYONE is coming to church tomorrow. Though, quite honestly, I don't know how we're going to seat them. Berlin is a pretty populous area, and we've got a pretty small chapel. We are really hopeful for tomorrow though. It's our Tag der Offenen Tür - a church open house dealy. It's a stake wide thing, and we've put a pretty big emphasis on it. It's a big part of our Invitation month of June. It's also going to include a special evening sacrament meeting meant especially for those who go to their own churches regularly Sunday morning, but would be interested to see what our church is like. I'm excited for it. It will be a really good day to have as my last Sunday.

Crazy Kids and their walls...

 So every time you move into a German city, you have to go register (anmeld) with the city government. And When you leave, you have to abmeld (...disregister? unregister? deregister?) Anyhoodles, I had to go do that Tuesday morning to do one of those two things, along with Sister Gibson, who was taking care of that same thing for some other missionaries, and Elder Beck, who they wouldn't let anmeld the first time, and who was about to try again. So when we got there, there was a huge line that led to the place where you draw your number. That's always a good sign. Another good sign was the one at the front of this line that said, "Due to downsizing, our wait times have gone up." Oh boy. So we got to spend a couple hours there. After waiting for about an hour, Sister Gibson decided to walk back to the office and have us call back when they got a little closer to our number so she could save her husband who had been left alone to answer all of the phone calls. As you might guess, the moment she walked out the door, the numbers started coming up a lot faster. We actually called the office for her to come back right as she walked in the door. She got back in just the nick of time and we were able to get all of this registration nonsense sorted out.

 That night we also had an awesome eating appointment with V and J (our GML) and the Sisters. Vanessa is a really cool investigator of the sisters, who comes to church a lot and who has grown in faith a lot recently. We ate sushi, had an great time - my jaw has not been that sore from laughing in a long time. We also had a really great discussion about the process of receiving inspiration, reasons for obedience and a lot of other things. It turned out for a really good lesson. Her twin sister was also there and it was great to get to meet her and learn a little bit of her views.

 Wednesday we had district meeting here in the office, which was pretty handy for us, and which meant the Elder and Sister Gibson got to be included to. Then afterward we had a potluck, for which I baked a cake. Woo hoo. Right after that we took off to a members house to help do something with cabinets or something. "Something with cabinets or something" turned out to be tearing out a whole kitchen. It was actually a lot of fun, and it's always nice to be of service. The problem is, I was already not having the best allergy day. But then when you tear down cabinets and kick out counters and chip off paint, the air doesn't stay the cleanest. I was totally dying that whole time. But it was fun anyway. And afterward we ate some delicious Strawberry Rhubarb crumbly cobbler type stuff. nom nom nom. Then we ran home, showered real quick and headed off to Gemiko and Gemeinderat, both of which were nice.

 Thursday we got some office stuff done in the morning, - Ok, so we got a bunch of extra projects thrown at us that week and I feel like I have not had enough time to do them. We've gotten a lot done though. At least Elder Beck's gotten a ton done. I have no idea how he does it. I've still got a bunch of stuff that I need to finish, and a bunch of other stuff that I want to finish, and a bunch of stuff that it would be really cool if I finished, but I have no idea how I'll even find the time for the have to finish stuff. Anyhoodles, back to Thursday. So after that we went to our eating appointment with the J Family. We called to inform them once we realized we'd be a few minutes late, and they'd forgotten that we were coming. They still wanted us to come though and still managed to have loads of food for us. The whole place was super hectic the whole time and people were yelling at each other in Serbian, but it was still nice. The sisters had really been hoping to be able to start giving the lessons to the daughter in law of the member, but everything was just too crazy, and Sister Peine never even got to finish giving her five minute spiritual thought. It was fun, if disappointing. I do love that family.

 On the way back from that appointment is when my allergies really started to kill me. They'd been pretty bad, but my throat was destroyed from the dry itchiness and the phlegm. Oh the terror. So I actually took some of my Zyrtec - but then all that does is put me to sleep without actually relieving my allergies, which is why I can't remember the rest of Thursday or Friday. I'll try to do my best though. Friday morning we, on the command of President and Sister Kosak, picked up a couple missionaries from the Missionhome and took them to McDonalds for breakfast before sending them off on their way to their city. That was fun, even if they made fun of my driving and my nose was still running like an engine. Through the day I continued to be a drowsy mess and I got a good deal of work done on this short paper on Islam to help missionaries better understand it and help them to work with Muslims. It was really difficult for me though because I was all allergetic and drugged up. The function of every joint and of my brain just feel dampened. And my eyelids have gained like 20 pounds - not that there's any swelling - they're just really heavy. But somewhere in this haze that calls itself friday - which reminds me of another President Kosak Quote: "Elder Cloward, It's your last Friday. And yesterday was your last Thursday. And Tomorrow is your last Saturday." That guy can be such a punk sometimes. ;P But I love him for it. - (extra points if you still follow my train of thought) Elder Andersson called us and was in need of rescue. In the Tiergarten building they were having the Missionary Leadership Council, which Elder Stoddard, Elder Andersson's companion, was invited to (Which typically foreshadows that he's about to be made a Zone Leader in Dresden). There are only Sisters and AP's in their district, so he had no one else to go with, so he just went along with Elder Stoddard. But then he wasn't allowed in the White Council, so he spent the next hour calling all the missionaries in his phone to see if they could save him. We were the first who were able to respond to the call. So we went out to Tiergarten and rescued him. And I was walking around like a Zombie the whole time. It was pretty awesome.

 Then today, I was still groggy and allergy ridden, but Elder Beck and I went, bought a companionship tie just so I can pack my luggage a little more tightly, and then we gucked around Berlin a little bit, bought some Italian food and the

Nom nom nom

Ice Cream that President Kosak tells everybody about and then took off for our Straßenausstellung. It was down in Teltow, because that means oh so much to y'all. Our GML was there with his girlfriend, and the Bishop was there too. And besides that there was me and Elder Beck and a billion sister missionaries. And the majority of the time we greatly outnumbered the remainder of the populous there. We tried to keep a proper level of conspicuousness and mostly sang hymns and handed out flyers. It was nice. It's really weird to think that it was most likely my last finding activity. Man oh man, how the time doth slip. I've got some really mixed emotions about this whole thing, but mostly I just don't understand what's going on and life's just a big blur.

Ragtag team doin' their Ausstellung

 Well, I don't really know what else to say. It's been a good week, it's been a good transfer, it's been a good two years. Manno. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve. I know that it was the right thing to do and I hope I've done an acceptable job of it. I know that this is Christ's church. I know that he lives, that he loves and understands each of us.

 I love you. Have a great couple few days!

 Well, what can I tell you? I've got all kind of mixed emotions