Birthday Week

Hey Familie!

So yes, I had a birthday and I shouted hooray! Or paa dansk, "hoorah, hoorah, hooraaah!"

It started out with a pretty eventful Monday, because we started out in Dresden to do emails and such, but we didn't really have a whole lot of time, and we wanted to go see the Sächsischer Schweiz, so we spent a total of two hours there. It looks pretty klein and süß like what everyone imagines South Germany to look like, but I get a Stück of it here in my mission! Sis. Schneider said it looked quite a bit like home and I think it made her pretty trunky. But we stepped out of the train and we saw a small mountain-hill thingie with a fortress on top and the Elders said, "we're going to scale that mountain and see that fortress!" and we did! It took us our two hours to get to the mountain, climb it, take pictures along the way, climb back down and get back in the train. It was blessedly warm, and really the week of my birthday was actually SUMMER. Like it should be, right? Today it's windy and icky. So that's a great present from above! I guess it's random that for the pday before my birthday I went hiking, I mean really, but it was fun trying to walk uphill and survive--since it's a lot harder to climb when I'm laughing like a lunatic. But keine Sorge, there's tons of pictures! The actual city is called Königstein so you can see where we travelled to, and Sis. Schneider and I dipped just a wee toe into the Elbe River. 

We also met with Noreen, or known affectionately by us, "Schwester Neugy-Neug" and we actually started a fast with her! Yes, I know fasting on my birthday, but I feel like it'll be totally worth it. If it helps her realize the church is true and that she wants to be baptized, I'm game. :)

As for my birthday, I got the package from home and I got a small package from Danmark! They sent me a pretty cool shirt and I wore it to the last Zoko this past week, so you can see it. However, it's like 3 or 4 sizes too big. Haha, but it's comfortable. I'm still like a 36/38 in shirt sizes and they sent a 42, but it looks good when tucked in. 

On my actual birthday is of course business as usual but a bit fun, natürlich. Sis. Schneider told me we had this random meeting at the Wörle's (Missionaren Ehepaar) to plan an upcoming Ausstehlung, and it sort of ticked me off because Elder Gouliash told HER and not ME, but as soon as I got there, I realized it was because it was my SUPRISE BIRTHDAY party! Jeez, a whole lotta stress trying to replan the day. But we had good cake and it was fun to relax for a few hours. The Elders gave me a card that was actually a funeral card, y'know, making fun of how OLD I am. Sheesh. It says on the front, "zum Mitleid." With a cross on it. 

We visited a less-active, and she fed us until I about busted like a pinata, and then we taught Manuel, one of our new investigators. We met him by the Stadthalle where there's this huge water fountain. And we discovered it's quite a distracting place to teach about the Restoration. You got naked little toddlers in the water, teenagers already drunk for the day, parkbenches running left and right of us with guys hanging out with cigarettes, beer bottles, and their dogs, and yeah! Ever tried bearing your testimony in a bar? Sorta felt a bit the same, but we will hopefully meet in the church preeeetty dang soon.

We also visited a young Ehepaar in the ward to get them excited about missionary work, and to help us get to know the ward a bit better. It went pretty well. The wife was in YOUR mission a few years ago in Münschen and so she talked about how HER birthday went on her mission. The husband is the Chor director and he had the choir sing "Happy Birrsssday" to me in English on Thursday. Good thing we have the easiest birthday song auf der ERDE.

Wednesday was just boom, boom, boom, Termins! We love it. We taught this awesome lesson to Andrea, one of my new favorite investigators, who's already friends with Carla. Andrea is from Portugal and so she gets along pretty well with Carla from Chile. 

We also have been making lots of progress with Tan. We encouraged him to pray on his knees every morning, every evening and any other time he needs it, and so far it's been helping him in his work. Yay for keeping commitments!

Thursday hit me like a bomb. We've been having issues with Xiao because she wants us to come over but uses it to replace her need to come to church. So we bring a stellar joint teach to get her excited to come to church and bring her son. We asked her last time to come to church, and to make personal prayer more meaningful (or to at least say one of the prayers when we meet). Well SHE set US straight!! Meine GUTE! She pulled out three handwritten pieces of paper and starts reading alloud to us about HER Meinung on such topics. For the first 45min, she basically said in a nutshell, "how to I feel about going to church? I don'T wanna, so quit asking me! How do I feel about praying alloud? I don't want to, so don't expect me to!" And it hit me like a ton of bricks. It's like, "what did I do wrong? I only asked her if she was coming to church and told her if she did we would translate. Why do I feel like a loserific missionary?" But as we tried to really listen to her, I had ideas come to my head already of things we could teach, new approaches, because now I REALLY know where she's lacking in testimony. THEN she says, "my family is coming to visit me, so the next time you can call is prooooobably early September." "Early September? We probably won't stay until then, can we atleast call you-- "I know! That's why I made this card for you!" and she gave me a card with a poem in Chinese, translated to English since she knows I study English Literature. Again, hit with a brick! It feels like transfers! So in that lesson we taught her a total of diddly-squat and had a joint teach to witness the whole thing. I kind of stared off into space like a vegitable for about a few hours until we were at our next appointment. MEEEEENSCH. There was nothing I could do to save that situation, but talk about going in with one expectation and watch as it's suddenly turned on its head. 

BUT. We met with another member family and got a really cool referral from the mom. We already went by to klingel, like right after the appointment, but there was no answer, so today we will try once more!

Friday was Zoko, and one of the hardest ones at that. It was mainly an extra Zone Conference to say goodbye, or "see ya later" to Präsident and Sis. Pimentel. It was hard, because they're really like our parents while we're here on the mission. We each got to talk to them for a few minutes to just say personal goodbyes and last minute comments. Präsident took my hand and shook it firmly, and just thanked me for being me, and told me I really stepped up early in my mission and said that I was one of his heroes, of course leaving me speechless. Me? a Hero? to PRÄSIDENT? But of course I say thank you, but I dunno. I try not to compare myself to other Sisters, especially those who just leave a trail of miracles and baptisms in every city they serve, but I did something right and I'll keep doing it. They left us "finishing" advice that they usually give every finishing missionary since they can't share it with us when we actually DO finish, but what they said is just as effective during the mission as well as after. I got a couple of great letters, one from my friend, Sister Redd who just finished her mission in Danmark, and Jordo's ridiculous package. He made a spin-off of the mission exercize booklet with his insane drawings, so I can tell it took some invaluable Pday time--or it better have only been on Pday!! He also sent me something, like a piece of cloth with a picture of typical Japan on it, but I'm not sure what to do with it. Did you get that thing at the 100Yen store? :P You might need to tell me what I should do with it. It looks like a picture that needs a frame because the ends aren't sewed or hemmed. But still, the Elders really enjoyed the booklet as much as I did. On our way home we were ansprach'd by a drunk British guy. MMMMmm, my favorite, *puke*

We did some more weeding bei Sch. Härtig on Saturday, and when we were done we also raked cut grass from this random hill behind her house. Yup, we raked a hill. It happens. Oh, and we hauled wood!

Saturday was a really good day of meeting with Stefan, Yi and Tan, and it ended with dinner at Familie Müller's. He's our GML and he does that every once in a while that he invites all the missionaries over, so it was pretty fun. However, it turned out to be a great experience for me. We shared a spiritual thought on miracles in missionary work, and really it just lit the fire in me to do missionary work. I really do love this work and what it does to me. I feel it changing me and my heart everyday, to do good and to be good. Sis. Schneider is at that point in her mission that she's super trunky and tells me all the time how she hates this city and thinks missionary work is hard, and one of our Elders is being Blitz'd into another area mid-transfer and she took that as some kind of personal wound like, "why me? E. so and so is so cool and fun!" And it's frustrating to keep the stamina, energy and Spirit for the companionship alone. And I just told her, that on a mission and in life in general--the city won't change, the gospel won't change, the work won't change, the only thing we CAN change is our attitudes about it all, and not even the Lord can make her or any of us happy unless we CHOOSE to be happy despite the uphill climb the mission seems to be at times. We keep working together through this, but I'm grateful I've never really hated a city or really anything about the missionary work. Yeah, I don't like finding like everyone else does, but I still do it, I don't avoid it or stay inside. I put on my tag and get out there! I hope my determination keeps us afloat until she changes her attitude, because I can't do much else to make her happy, she has to take care of that. I told her, if she thinks she should get Blitzed out like she half-jokingly says, then here, she can take our cellphone, call Präsident and tell him he and the Lord were wrong to send her here and that she knows where she should serve. She can't go back to Freiberg because it's an Elder city now, but jeez, being a missionary leaves no room for being picky or partial. You go to your city, you work with your companion and you love the people that are there, plain and simple. Anything else makes the work too complicated and much more harder than it really has to be. But in truth, the Lord has his methods of spreading HIS gospel, and it's the only way that works. So that's all in all what I'VE learned during my birthday week! Chew on that until next week! No seriously, things are going great and I think Sis. Schneider is getting it, it of course takes each day to progress.

We had a fun dinner appointment on Sunday bei Familie Schmaal. They have these two little girls and of course they wanted to show us their rooms and they wanted us to tell us stories (which is pretty dang hard when you don't have much fairy-tale vocab auf deutsch!) but it was pretty dang fun. I bet I was somewhat the same. It was funny because they made us Frikadeller but called them, "Bops"--just a family nickname, not some crazy deutsch. But the dad had a big ol' bottle of "Mississippi BBQ Sauce" that he ordered from the Internet. And he brought it out just for the "kleine Ami"--as if it was Root Beer or something. Ordering BBQ sauce online. The stuff here is really just that bad. 

It is pretty intense here with all the flags. I've been trying to find a jersey here that ISN'T €50 or more, so I'm trying not to lose hope. I thought they had more of them here and for a cheaper price. Germans here barely work during the week and still have expensive name brand crap! But I'll try to find some momentos for the boys if we can. Today is sort of a 1/2 pday because we will go to the temple this week, but next week we'll have more time for shopping, especially birthday money spending! I haven't checked mail yet this morning, but I'll tell you if more things come in the mail. I'm excited!

Thanks for checking my Facebook for me, mom. Haha, I was wondering how many people remembered I was on a mission and so it's nice to hear that FB at least reminded them that I had a birthday! Facebook is the only thing that makes transfers bearable--because one day you'll find those people again!! :) I still miss that stupid site. haha.

Well, I sorta wrote my usual CHUNK. Sorry I forgot to CC the last email to Jordo, I already corrected the slight mishap.
Have fun in Utah, lil' bros! Stop telling me I'm going home so much! I got work to do! :P It was really nice to hear from them and to get their cards. 

I love you all and miss you!
deine,
Whit