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Hallo Familie!

Things have been a little chilly--it's been snowing like Christmas here! But it's just the "pretty" snow--it's not too deep or too hard to manage. But it HAS been pretty dang cold.

For Pday, dad would be pretty proud of me--we went to tour the Gläsermanufator for Volkswagen, the only one there is! We did the tour in German and meine FLIPPIN gute, I learned a lot of new car vocab! It's like the BMW one in München, where people order custom cars and you see them build them there. Everyone wears white work overalls like Oompa Loompas or suits if they're giving tours. So that was pretty interesting. They wouldn't let us take any pictures, blarg. But our tickets looked pretty cool. We went with our Elders and they just geeked out over everything. *sigh* Act like they've never seen a shiny car before!

On Tuesday we were hoping to see this "golden" Russian lady, Olicia, but to our dismay, she never came, and that was a disappointment because we thought she was pretty solid. But she has our address and our number--if she wants a BoM, she knows who to call!

We taught Shun that day, and it went pretty well. For someone who didn't really believe in God before, he's pretty demut and willing to learn and keep the commandments. He said that keeping the word of wisdom would be hard for him because in China, just like any Asian nation I imagine, being able to drink, or to drink when the Chef wants him to...that's how they keep their jobs or move further in their careers. Pretty sad. But he's willing to try anyway. He's like, "I really think the 10 Commandments are quite wonderful." "Will you come to church this Sunday?" "Errrrm, I don't think I can make it." "Shun, that's the 4th commandment!!" Na ja. When students make it to church, it's a pretty big deal.

On Wednesday we had another shock. We went to find Andre at his apartment, and we met his "roomate," an older woman in his "cult"/group/Dingsbum that took him in because he had no where to go--well he told us that he went to Köln because of his father being sick. But she told us that his father died...and that Andre stole HER money to make it to Köln and if you can imagine, he's too scared to come back. But it sounds like he was pretty mentally unstable because of some things his father did to him in his childhood...and so yeah, we can't really meet with him anymore. We just left the apartment like, "are you serious?" We are in the middle of the craziest scenarios sometimes! But I can say mom, I've never been in any scary/dangerous situations! I know the Holy Ghost protects me, but I don't push the limits at all. But there are some things you can't control. Like our crazy investigators "living on faith".

We, however, had the best pick-me-up lesson ever right after. We taught a German class for Peter, a student from South Korea (they have to learn German here to be able to start their Masters or other classes, pretty intense, right?), but Chang and his "joint teach", Bru. Kato came early and sat in our German class. Can you imagine? A Japanese, South Korean, and a Chinese guy in our German class--taught by two American girls? Meine GUTE. Apparantly Bru. Kato can decifer Chinese characters, so I guess this means Jordo could potentially understand Chinese as well, mal sehen! We also taught Chang some of the Nachbelehrungen, aka, we retaught or reviewed the Plan of Salvation and it was just GREAT. It's great when they not only understand all the parts, but they realize how important it is and how great it is to know this stuff. Loved it!

We still went to see Frau Frömmel and had a pretty great lesson on prayer. It's kinda hard to hold a commitment to this lady, because she's old and wants to go at her pace, I guess. But we're patient and Schw. Busse, her friend is really nice and totally, the best joint teach ever!

Hilarious story. For a Stake FHV Aktivität, our ward is singing "Oh Happy Day" from Sister Act as a thing for a talent show or something, so this Friday we had the first practice. We needed Whoopie's help because...Germans can't sing GOSPEL! If Mr. Pellaton was there, he'd say they sounded pretty "white bread." But they at least asked us for help on pronouncing the w's. Meine flippin GUTE. It was still pretty hilarious, AND full of drama. Choirs in Germany are so full of drama because everyone says it like it is, if they think something's wrong of if it sounds bad. :P

After that, we tried to have a lesson with Chang. We decided to meet him at KFC because that is LITERALLY his favorite place in the whole WORLD, but it was pretty funny; we were going to meet at a Haltestelle and go together because he didn't know where it was...and after 30min of waiting we saw him walking away from KFC! He wasn't waiting where we told him to, but he found the place and ate like, a bucket of chicken while he was waiting for us! Meine gute. We want to help him be ordained a Priest and get the Aaronic Priesthood! Woot!

On Saturday I had to call out some less active on smoking, because her apartment smells like smoke all the TIME. That was a bit awkward! She blamed it on her son though, "My son comes and smokes here." What, all the TIME? So yeah, awkward dinosaur.

Sunday was wie IMMER, just a crazy day! For one thing, Familie Heitbreder came to visit their daughter in Dresden and came to church this Sunday--Präsident Heitbreder was the Branch President in Eisenhüttenstadt! It was pretty cool to see some members that I literally met a year ago. WEIRD. Their daughter, Della is going on a mission in May and I'm pretty excited for her. It was nice that they recognized me and were pretty happy to see me. Schw. Heitbreder is pretty crazy as usual. So yeah, blast from the past! Della told me that they're going to get Elders in FFO and the Sisters will live in EHS, the work is just booming there, doing me proud!

I also just got an email from Sis. Young--Michael Mauritz in Bielefeld moved up his baptismal date--he's getting baptised THIS SUNDAY! That's Feb 3rd, officially my 18th month mark. WHUUUUUUT??!?!?! So crazy!! I hope to get me some pictures! So great.

We also had the most hilarious eating appointment yesterday. We ate with Familie Lee, aus Tiawan and man, that family is hilarious. They all speak perfect English, because Bru. Lee (not Bruce Lee) worked a lot in the States--they move every two years! But the kids told us jokes the whole time and they were actually pretty good ones. The youngest one, Cydney was just random. We were sharing a spiritual thought about the Holy Ghost and she sits with her elbows on the table holding her head up, with a pout on her face and she said, "I don't like port-a-potties." What? How'd you go from the Holy Ghost to port-a-potties? Craaaazy stuff. We ended our day by teaching a great 2.Lektion to Zerrit....and we blew up 200 balloons at the church for Elder Wride's (one of our ZL's) birthday....today. Well, I popped a few, so there's 197. But still. That and we've been prepping for this Golden since Thurdsay...so I'm gonna write Präsident, and then we're going to go pick her up! MENSCH.

Well, hope that everyone's doing great! I heard there was a lot of crazy weather going on in Utah, so I hope everyone's doing alright. Ich habe euch lieb!

love,
Sis. Whit