Hallo Familie!

Soo...this week has been interesting I guess. Sharing a city with 2 other sets of missionaries is weird, because the work is split up, which also means we have a lot less work than I'm used to, but it's not bad at all. It's nice to be like break-neck busy, but it just means that I can focus on the few people that we have just a bit more.

So as far as Pday activities of last week--the Elders wanted to go to this...cheese factory-thing-a-ma-jiig which turned out to not be a factory. Anyway, it was this fancy place in the Neustadt part of town that sells really expensive cheeses from Germany and I think they have a museum/factory/was auch immer thing but it was closed. So we were kinda like, "now what?" We decided (stupidly) to buy this platter of different cheeses, and I like, believe it or not I actually like the cheeses they have here, but we got the STINKIEST cheeses ever and we, being missionaries, don't like leaving food on our plates, we ate it all. Every time I burped it was ICKLICH! So that was like, waste of money, but hilarious. Priceless, even. We decided to go back to Innenstadt were all the cool things are like Frauenkirche and looked around. THAT was cooler. Dresden got bombed out pretty bad during the war, but there's a lot of things that they've either rebuild or refurnished and it's so old and beautiful. Travel snob! :P

Tuesday was our Zone Training MTG--my last one, so I had to give my Tschüss Testimony--just like, my "last one" so to say. I had Präsident Interviews and I talked again about my Ecc. Endorsement and he said it should be done pretty fast--sometimes he gets an email from BYU asking about people going home to renew their endorsements and sometimes they don't--but all and all, it should be already taken care of; it's all electronic. So that's a relief! In my interview, Präsident said he had no worries about me "finishing strong" and working until the last day, and said that he got a good email about me from my GML in Bielefeld. He said that I always leave a good impression in each city and I certainly hope so. I also got a lot of "after Christmas" cards from Familie Bingham, the Ward, and from a lot of other people, Danke sehr!

The problem with this week, is that a LOT of things fell out. And it's a little bit harder to have the will to go outside when it is BUM freezing cold outside! I am bundled up and everything, but it's just bitter. For example, we went out to find a referral sent to us by the Chemnitz Sisters, and while we were unterwegs, we had two appointments cancel within 10 min. One was Andre the Golden (he's out of town to visit his sick father) and Cuong, Tan's friend. He actually tschüssed us, saying he wasn't really ready to do all the things we are "trying to persuade" him to do. He was very polite about it, but I already know that WoW is really hard for him and it was why he wasn't baptized a year ago. So that was kind of hard; I sorta celebrated too early and thought it was a miracle because of me, but na ja, it means we have to focus our energy elsewhere. Also, on Wednesday, our Ehepaar came to the church and told us they were being blitz'd to Kiel and were leaving the next morning, so a rough day, and having to say goodbye to our Ehepaar...it was rough. I only got to know them for 3 weeks and they already felt like my 3rd set of grandparents, and it was pretty hard for Sis. Tidwell because she's worked for quite a long time with them.

Thursday, we had an Austehlung. Remember those? They are literally the best of times and the worst of times. Mainly because Germans tend to be a tad bit grumpier when it's snowing outside and don't want to take our card, because that requires them taking their hand out of their pocket to take it! :P There were also some people that were pretty rude to us, sort of hard to ignore sometimes, but we made it fun, but shoveling an area next to us, and Sis. Tidwell drew part of the plan of salvation with sidewalk chalk next to our stand. A lot of people stopped to look at it while she drew, so that was pretty cool. The miracle was literally one YES out of a thousand no's. We met this Russian lady (I'M A RUSSIAN MAGNET!) who wanted a BoM after we talked about it, but for some reason we didn't have it dabei, but she agreed to meet us at the church for one, and she was like, "don't worry, I'm reaally gonna come!" I tried out the one sentence I can say in Russian and she loved it. Her name is Olicia! We are super excited. You can tell that she's special because not everyone says, "There aren't as many young people about you that care this much about religion anymore." When people notice our efforts and are moved by it, it makes it so worth it. Not to mention we taught 6 street lessons during those 3 frigid hours.

Friday was Sis. Tidwell's one year mark, and so we celebrated by...going to the Tafel again! It's our weekly service project and they really love having us come to help. We mainly do a lot of sorting but it really helps when things are organized! I also made Sis. Tidwell some Schnitzel! :)

On Friday, we also got to teach Cheng, the Neubekehrt, and it was an Essenstermin, so we got to eat some real Chinese food! We had to warn him to not make it so scharf, so this time it was a good level of spicy but not so bad, it would've made Dad sweat just a little. but we ate with chopsticks! I was apparantly the only one that knew how to eat with them! Jeez. Jordo's probably pro, though.

On Sunday, we actually had most of our termins...it was a pretty leer week because so many people fell out, so it was a LOT of finding this week. Makes you a man! haha But we taught our Aufbauklasse, MELANIE GOT THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST, and we taught some great lessons this week. We met again with Zerrit and he really does want to read the BoM and know if it is true, so we are pretty excited about it. We also had a pretty powerful and intense lesson with Fr. Frömmel last night, mainly because it was on the Atonement and how it could heal us from the past and present. She's an older lady, which sometimes makes it harder to "push" her to take on commitments, but she has that desire to change. And she has such a great friend who's the member of the church. This member, Schw. Busse really knows how to explain things and make us look GOOD. :) So it wasn't so much quantity but more qualitiy this week. Hopefully we'll get to meet with Andre the Golden this week--everyone wants to know how he's doing  and get updates from him, i know!

I think...that's about it from my end! I hope to have more stories this week, but I mean, I don't think about home, but knowing that I have 3 weeks to enjoy everything I love makes me work hard, and knowing that I just have to ausdauer for 3 more weeks on the annoying things gives me a good attitude, so somehow it all balances out. It's a weird feeling, like I feel like I'm NOT going home, and I hope it lasts as long as it can. THEN I can cry, or whatever. :P

Ich habe euch lieeeeeeeeeeb! Miss ya!

love,

Sista Whit