First year down...

Halllllllooooo Familie!

Quark is something that we get all the time--like with everything. It's like sour cream that you can use for desserts or as a dipping sauce, or for pretty much anything...and Germans always talk about how we don't have it--and really, we pretty much do with sour cream, but whatever. It's pretty good!

So this past Monday we had a Pday in Dresden! This time we just stayed in Dresden to see the huge Innenstadt (looks WAAAAY better in the Christmastime!) and the Frauenkirche. We also helped the Elders find stuff to send to their sisters and moms because they have no idea what's a good scarf or an ugly scarf. So that was interesting. 

The Urlaub blues are really getting to us--our workload is slashed to half of what we normally do, so we're trying to stay upbeat and we're trying to be creative on how we can use our time well. I don't know about Jordan, but working with less-actives is pretty rewarding, and if they really need people to help, finding people who need to come back is absolutely amazing. So we contacted Schw. Sonntag again after a few weeks of being "dodgy" with us. And she came to church on Sunday! It was absolutely awesome and the ward was really happy to see her there. She was in good hands. 

Because we aren't rushing from appointment to appointment, we are getting  A TON of walking in. We love that. But it would be nice if there were people to talk to or people who are interested in being talked TO.

We are teaching Cindy again! She's a Chinese student and I've taught her once, she went on vacation to China and is now back, and she is just as Golden as I remembered her being. She asks really awesome questions annd she remembers quite a bit that Sisters taught her in the past. For the past few weeks, it's been pretty hard looking for new people to teach, even with more time for finding, but the people we DO find, like old revived contacts, are totally back on track, I love it. 

Noreen....didn't really come up with a baptismal date. It must be a German thing or something, but they're afraid of even setting a goal DATE--we tell them it's just a goal date and if they don't feel ready, then we can make a new goal, but she thinks, when she knows the BoM is true, she'll get baptized. And who knows how long that could possibly take! So we're talking a lot about the BoM and she's starting to read all the way through AGAIN and she's already through 1 Nephi.

Speaking of 1Nephi, Tan has finished reading it in Vietnamese and German! He said that on Saturday, all he did was read the BoM. Can you imagine a whole day reading the scriptures?!?!?! This guy keeps his commitments and I can't stop bragging about him. He is SO CLOSE. He wrote the ward in Vietnam and he hasn't gotten a response. But the lessons that we've had with him this week have been electrifying with the Spirit and he says he loves reading because he can get to know God and he's learning German through the scriptures! When I first met him, he was like, "I'm 70% sure that God exists, and I understand 20% of what goes on in church, and I'm waiting for answers from God." and now he says, "I know God has answered me." He uses prayer for work, to know what he should study for his Doctrate and everything, and he REALLY understands so much. His effort and hard work is soooo paying off. I really think once he hears from this ward and they help him resolve his concerns with traditions in Vietnam that conflict with the Word of Wisdom, he'll make that plunge! Gaaaah, so happy!

We have been having Termins falling out left and right, so yeah, we've been trying to be creative. I mean, we have to report our numbers every week, and even when they're lower than normal, i know it's not my fault people want to take their vacations now, and it's not our fault when people fall out at the last minute, and I just worry about the things we can control, and that's something I've learned while being here, and what I'm still learning. 

Interesting that Jordan and Justin gave talks on Sunday, because I TOO gave a talk! I got to also talk about missionary work, and I wanted to talk about the blessings of member missionary work, so that the ward could benifit from what I had to say. I think it's the first time I wrote out a talk, but then ultimately I just looked up and never used it. Just pulled out scriptures like it's nobody's BID-NESS and hopefully I used correct grammar--that's usually why I write them out, but it was awesome. I shared stories off and on the mission to show how easy it really is to be a part of the work. There's a letter on the first page in PMG from the 1.Präsidentschaft and it says that missionary work is the most rewarding and fulfilling work that we will ever do--in a nutshell, really. 

We also got a new bischof a few weeks ago, and we were invited over yesterday to get to know him and his wife better- they're a pretty young family with a 1 and 5 yr old, so that must be...fun...

Something funny: so we have prank wars between us and our Elders--usually pretty harmless, clean fun. But this week, the Elders actually dumped a whole box of ChocoCrispies or something like CocoaPuffs in our mailbox. Apparantly they bought a lot of cereal for the toy inside, sound familiar? Sounds like a good way to waste grocery money, eh? It was a waste because we had to sweep it all up. it went EVERYWHERE. But don't worry, we pranked them back by pretending that we didn't find the cereal in our mailbox--pretending they put it in the wrong mailbox. They freaked out for most of church, but they took a video of them pranking us, so they know we were kidding. But that's just level one. We will think of something clever....

Yeah, so like I said, some of the Elders in my district are already looking for things to send their families for Christmas or to bring back--so I don't know if I'm asking too soon, but if there's something that I should look for, lemme know! Who knows where I'll be in the next few months...

Well, that might just be about it! Hopefully more things happen this week! My full-time work is looking for miracles. 

I love you guys! Make the most of summer before it's back to school! I hope Justin and Nicholas really enjoy their ATA-ness and that Justin does well with soccer. I look forward to my music soon! :)

Ich habe euch lieb!
Whit