No transfer...

Aaaack, I really had a crazy week this week! It's been weird because nearly every day this week I've been in charge of setting up a lot of appointments because apparantly not many Goldens have the guts to call someone and ask them to meet with us over the phone, but I needed to know how to manage our time so we can meet with a lot of people in one day and give good directions or whatever. It's basically Sis. Allen transferring responsibility to me so that I know what I'm doing when she leaves this Wednesday.

I say this week has been crazy because we've had so many things planned for this week and a lot of it fell out with people being sick or not making their appointments and other crazy things we couldn't control, it's been cra-zy. But the fact that we still had 15 lessons this week is pretty good, which is still the normal, if not better than usual. So even though everyday was rearranged somehow or people "wasting" our time by saying they can't make it on time...it all still worked out!

We've had some intense lessons this week, mainly turning our investigators to the scriptures. We have quite a few investigators that are just doubting about the answers they recieve or if they can even recieve answers, and so we have been turning them to scriptures and prayer, because it says in the PMG manual (and it's so true!) that anyone no matter how much they know about Christ, they can know Him through the Book of Mormon, and if they know what Christ has done for them and that He listens to prayers and answers them, everything just falls into place.

We have had some really cool meetings with our investigators this week (the ones that actually were on time or didn't reschedule!) one in particular was Sven, our guy we met outside of H&M. He has already started reading the BoM which is AWESOME. He really doesn't have a faith to say, but he has sort of a Meinung about knowledge and how we know something is true. It was an interesting conversation, because when I talk about the scriptures, commandments anything, I always say that we have this life to really test out our faith--we have to have faith to see miracles, answers, comfort, and when we come to the middle first and ask Heavenly Father for help, He will meet us there and it works, but if we knew everthing, knew with concrete evidence that He was there, then what's the point of life? There's nothing to experience or learn about what it means to trust, love, serve and learn!I know it's fun to say and harder to do, but being able to bear my testimony in a busy coffee shop is a pretty cool experience (don't worry, Sis. Allan and I had kakao!)

We also had this really random meeting with Herr Starick, our contact we talked to outside his balcony for like 30min while dooring. He invited us to "Männerabend" which is just him and his buddies getting together and "being guys" and seeing how we wanted to meet but knew we would be out-numbered, we brought two Elders with us from our district for help. We all stood outside (and it's getting way colder now!) and gave a really brief first lesson, because yeah, probably the most awkwardly funny lesson ever. Mainly because I think H. Starick wants to know more about the church, no doubt about it, he just wanted his friends to ask for him! We're going to stop by super soon and just talk with him and not his friends but it was yeah, pretty interesting. We got to talk to five people at once, but we didn't plan on getting too much time to talk or much progress because the other guys were mindlessly standing around wondering when they can go back inside and drink. But yeah, pretty funny the circumstances and settings we get to teach! I don't know if as a Sister I'll be invited to talk about religion at a Männerabend again! :P

I can't believe I got this far in my email and haven't even said anything about our new transfer! I'm happy to say that I'm staying in Cottubs, and because of a blitz transfer right before Christmas I might potentially have Christmas somewhere else, but President promised I'd get to come back which means that I should be able to stay in Cottbus until January and I hope longer, too! Sis. Allan leaves Wednesday morning and I get my new companion tommorrow, Sis. Anderson. I hope she spells it with an "-en" because we'd be two sisters with rad Danish last names! I've talked to her on the phone for a bit and she sounds cool. All I know is that she comes from Texas and is coming here from Kiel so all I really know is that Sis. Allan says she's nice. More deets next Monday!

Ack, so this week has been mainly using the excuse of Sis. Allan leaving to meet with as many members and investigators as possible, which has been fun. Our Arabisch-speaking investigator brought us flowers and cookies this past week because even though there's a huge language barrier he's happy to be reading the BoM with us and that we help him relearn English and learn more German. Our investigators really love us! I could tell because our part-member couple (Sis. Brigitte and Bruder Kallies) cried when they had to say good-bye to Sis. Allan last night. As a missionary you're allowed into these peoples' lives and then you have to leave so soon and it's hard to accept. Luckily Sis. Allan is going home, she can add the whole ward as Facebook friends! haha

It's really cool to hear from the boys and it's even funnier to hear how Jordo is doing. It sucks I know trying to read people and what they're "really" saying when they say they have SO much homework they have to turn down a date. Girls are hard to read because they try to be nice but still lead you on because they don't flat out say no! But it sounds like mom is helping decifer the code! I took a picture for Justin the other day of this driving school ad: the cars are all orange and black and the doors swing up rather than out--some really fancy cars to practice driving in! That's the thing, here every other store is either a driving school place or a Friseur, it's absolutely ridiculous. And Germans totally ruin their hair with atrocious colors and cuts! Too many lady-mullets!!

I don't think I have any other stories for this week, everyone is still progressing though, and today we get to FINALLY meet with Anna since she was sick last week, so I'm excited for that! I'm excited for my new companion; I know that I'm lucky because all the Sisters here are serious about work and love it, so if President/Heavenly Father thinks it's a good match, I'm all for it! I am really sad to see Sis. Allan go, but I know that she will love seeing her family again and get back to school and friends. And Facebook! I've been doing really good about not getting trunky, and she hasn't been rubbing it in or anything! I feel like I've just scratched the surface and I've got limited time to help make some miracles happen.

Thanks for all the updates and I already can't wait to hear from you all next week!