Brrr.....

So it is b-b-b-b-BUM freezing cold outside! It's ridiculous getting forwarded emails from my friend in Peru of her tan lines in February and I'm adding a new layer of something or another to keep myself alive! The snow came and finally stayed last Thursday, although still not a lot, but it's still cold! It's hovering around -11/-10°C everyday, all day, and holy meine freezing gute, measuring the temperature in Celsius is always sort of depressing, because it sounds colder. M-m-m-m-menschhh!

So first news of the week: Transfer calls! Sis. Neukomm and I are staying in Eisenhüttenstadt! This is the first transfer where I'm not getting a new companion, kinda nice for a change! We're both pretty happy to stay, because at every transfer call, I always think, "I've barely scratched the surface, there's so much to be done!" But we still did the usual "spring cleaning" that happens at every beginning of a transfer.

Last Monday, we had a fun Pday in Berlin, we went and took pictures by the Brandenburger Tor which was a-mazing! We hope to keep doing fun stuff in Berlin, but we were seriously in Berlin 4 times this past week, which is a lot of travelling. It's an hour each way, and that adds up. But we plan on getting fun Berlin shirts as a companionship, so we hope to find something cool. With the cold weather, I'd much rather find cool sweatpants that say Berlin on them or something, we'll see. It was cool just to go back, because it reminds me of our family trip there in '04 and how cold it was then as well! Meine gute!

So this week I finally got around to reading some General Conference talks in the Ensign, and if Jordan hasn't read the articles from the Priesthood session, he should defnitely do it soon! There's two phenomenal talks about missionary work, and I laughed out loud at the one by Elder Holland. I felt my eyebrows singe just from reading it, and I'm already out here as a missionary! It's funny to compare and contrast (as usual) the priesthood talks from the FHV talks--where Uchtdorf tells the Sisters how special and wonderful they are, and Elder Holland is grabbing the men by the lapels and boxing their ears and telling them to get up, grow up and get to work! Haha! There's another good talk about the blessings of serving a mission that I think should heal the burn, that I really liked and I think Jordan could read that if he hasn't already. There's also a talk I found, maybe I'll make a copy of it, because I got it during Zone Conference, but it's an MTC talk I think by Bednar called something like "How to Become a Preach My Gospel Missionary" which was also superb. Bednar is also very clear and crisp with his words.

As I said, 4 times this week in Berlin, doesn't get any cooler than that! Monday for Pday, Wednesday for District meeting, and I was there Thursday-Friday for Tausch (exchanges) for a day. It was really cool--I got to spend a day with Sis. Warnke, a German Golden, which was weird for me, I haven't really worked with anyone "younger" than me on the mission, but she's totally a pro because of this new program that Jordan will use on his mission, so I have no doubts about him. We got to teach a lot that day, found a ton of people on the streets and yeah, just über awesome. One of the people we got to teach was a Neuebekehrt, named Igor, who's just awesome. He's a real bookworm and if you give him something to read, he just scans and scans and eats it up! They also had Institut at the building the night we were there, and the Senior couple made a bunch of "American food" like REAL brownies, for instance. The Elder Johnson from the Senior couple is hilarious, he just goes around to all the Institut kids and speaks German with the best American accent you can imagine; he just always says, "Mein Deutsch is ganz schlecht!" with just the goofiest grin ever.

What was even cooler--we did dooring in a student Wohnheim there, and for some reason, not many people even answered, but one of the few girls that answered the door was this Chinese girl with the cutest German ever (she's been in Germany as long as I have) and was really sweet. She's going home to China in 5 days, so we told her we'd bring her a Chinese Book of Mormon the next morning just before we would Tausch back to our normal companionships. She was so happy to have the book and since I knew I wouldn't really see her again, I was like, "Can I get a pictures with you?" And she had no problem with it--she treated us like we were life-long friends and in the pictures, she even held my hand. All of this was on Feb 3rd, my exact 6 month mark, and I just thought to myself, "This is why I'm a missionary." I mean, an American and German companionship teaching a Chinese girl--what other gospel brings such miracles? A lot of people who wouldn't hear the gospel in their own country are finding themselves studying in countries where there ARE missionaries, and like Elder Holland says, the church needs thousands of more missionaries in the next few years. That sounds a bit urgent, don't you think? Hmmmmm? So that was like the coolest Tausch EVER.

All this talk of Super Bowl-ness is weird, but fun. Sometimes I forget that things like that exist. And I was slightly surprised that dad "leaked" a bit of politics my way--you guys told me you didn't want me to worry about it while I was gone! But yeah, Germans here love Obama, even though they don't have a CLUE what politics are like in the States; they just like the idea of seeing an African American as president--but we just have to say that we aren't here to discuss politics, because as representatives that's really not part of our job. But personally, I don't care if our next President is Republican, Democrat pink, purple or blue, or wears an eyepatch or something--if the President can lead right and fix some problems with common sense, then that's fine with me!

As far as what you asked about dooring--we do it a lot now because of the cold--more people are seeking shelter inside, even though when we're out and about, we try talking to people on the streets as well. People are usually willing to talk longer at their doorstep because it's warm and they aren't rushing to anywhere in particular. We occasionally have really good conversations like the one you shared with me--how people can have different Meinungs but they sitll listen and we can teach an impromptu "lesson."

As far as our ward news goes, we've been teaching a Schwester Zimmer every week, because every convert is taught all of the lessons again after the baptism, and there were a few things she still needed to be taught, even a year after her baptism. We just finished all the lessons, when suddenly her cancer started getting worse, worse enough that she was moved to a clinic sort of specially prepared for people to die, meaning that it's really bad. She can hardly speak and is hardly there anymore because of all the drugs she's given, so we said goodbye to her yesterday and will just let her family have time with her. For me and Sis. Neukomm, we've taught her all the lessons, and as we thought about it--her greatest desire is to serve and be a "Sister" in the next life, and I don't know, maybe there are people who need her there sooner than imagined...

We finally got to meet with Chanrith after a few weeks of calling him all the time with no luck. He still wants to be baptized and wants to be baptized in early March when his papers and assignments are all taken care of--and after we teach him all that he needs to know. So yay!

We have had a craaazy week. Before it snowed we actually did a lot of biking around Eisenhüttenstadt to get to appointments, since it's big enough that we need bikes to get around, but small enough that there's only one bus that comes every 1/2 hour. That's painful to the face, but I'm actually not that bad with biking, it's pretty fun and fast, just yeah, extremely cold face. We haven't used bikes since the snow because Germans don't use salt for sidewalks really; some just sprinkle small rocks, like that helps. it just looks icky. So yeah, we get around.

So those are all the hilights of this week, there's always soemthing going on! But yeah, I'll be here for another 6 weeks at least, hoo-rah! So keep the mail coming this way please! I hope you are all having a fun week this week, and Jordan, the wait will go by faster than you think! Enjoy all the movies and stuff that you would miss in the next two weeks, and get some naps in there, too! Naps don't really exist on the mission!

Oddly enough, being on a mission sort of reminds me of my crazy gym teacher, Coach G who would always yell at us (me) when we would run on the track, "THERE'S NO WALKING IN P.E.!" And that's how it is here, there's no (time for) walking on a mission! Each day you have to get up, grow up and get to work! But being busy help others sounds pretty worth it to me. In Jacob 5 where it talks about the Olive tree allegory, at the end, the Lord asks his servants to help Him with His work, and the idea of working alongside the Lord makes it worth going outside into the bleak weather each day.

I love you all! Bis nächtes Mal!

--Sis. Whit