Nine more days.....

Hallloooooooo Familie!

So this week has felt like a year, but also like 5min--all at the same time. Time is pretty weird when you're down to the wire. I'm not in denial, but it definitely doesn't feel like I'm going home. Maybe because I've had so many weird dreams about me being home it just doesn't feel real! But for right now I'm using it to my advantage and I'm just working like there's no tomorrow!

Well, one of our zone leaders had a birfday last Monday and we celebrated....by picking up our Golden! So for some missionaries, they get their call but they have to wait for their Visa for a few months...so she has a call but can't leave the country yet. If missionaries stay in Europe they go to Preston and the process isn't so lame. But she is going to Mesa, Arizona and so we're giving her pre-MTC training how a mission REALLY is, but her English is good enough that she'll probably be fast-tracked. She can teach in English schon.She is actually from Armenia but has lived in Germany for 15 years so she can speak really good German but ISN'T German, so it's great. She's actually learning a lot of slang from us, that'll get her places! Nothing too bad, just things like "dangit", "crap", "true dat" and solche andere Sachen. But don't worry, she's taught us some hiLARIOUS slang back. It's pretty intimidating to see three Sisters power walking across the street, so I'm sure we've given Dresden a run for her money. We are too le-dritt to quit! So yeah, btw, her name is Sis. Avanesjan which sounds like "I'm an Asian"--that's what I made up to help the Elders say her name right, because they don't want to get caught looking at her name tag. It's really funny because she says exactly what's on her mind in the most hilarious English ever, and I find myself looking over at Sis. Tidwell like, "should we correct that English?" Na ja, she' super sweet and ready to rumble, so we love it.

But for our actual Pday, we went to a cool museum to see a lot of cool artifacts and all these tiny, expensive things that people have crafted for the kings and queens here, kinda like looking at a jewelry. There was a special exhibit of stuff that used to belong to Ivan the Terrible and stuff like that, pretty impressive. We also had a surprise party for Elder Wride, and we blew up 195 balloons, made him a cake, and just hung out before our lessons at the church. It was pretty great.

As for our week, we had a LOT of finding time, aka not a lot of time to let Sis. Avanesjan get some practice on teaching the lessons. But we made a spontan visit bei Chang since our appointment fell out. And I pulled a random scripture out of NOWHERE to share with him as a spiritual thought, and he said (imagine in the coolest Chinese accent ever), "Olsen, that scripture was quite helpful!" Yeah, he calls us just by our last name, it's funny. But he's been stressin and I found a scripture I liked and he really needed it--quality, people!

On Wednesday, we got to go to the temple--my last time at the Freiberg. It was pretty great and I was able to do the whole session in German! I also saw some members from Chemnitz there! So that was a great surprise. It was a really great experience. What was even...more interesting as an experience was that after we ate Döners at the Dönerladen, a couple of dumb kids started throwing ROCKS at us. Like, in Germany, they don't salt the sidewalks, they use little rocks that get stuck in your boots, and the kids just picked those up and chucked them at us, like I got hit in the face a few times. We...couldn't really do anything because we're missionaries and we didn't want to do anything that would get us in trouble so we just walked away. Actually, we all stared at them dumb-founded like, "are these little snots really throwing rocks at us?" But we just walked away and the Elders were like, "we just got stoned! We're like the Apostles!" They WISHED they could call out some she-bears, meine GUTE. But if it makes anyone feel better, the weather has warmed up QUITE a bit this past week, all the snow melted away like THAT. It's back to being cold, but not really cold enough to snow. Woot.

We had this pretty cool German class--now that we actually HAVE a German-speaker with us. But we taught Peter, the investigator from the Elders how to say a prayer in German, SO cool. It's cool to be able to suppor the other Elders in their work as much as they support us.

We also had a miracle! We saw Alejandra! We haven't been able to get into contact with her this entire time and now, we finally have a Termin set up! That was a miracle for sho! Also, we've been having some major Golden Power as we call it. We had Sis. Avanesjan call people while we were updating records and she set up 8 appointments with less actives and contacts from our Area Book, in a ROW! That like, never happens, meine gute. 

My 18th month mark was this past Sunday! holy meine GUUUUUUTE. It goes by pretty fast, it's true what they say. But it was pretty great. We taught Fr. Frömmel, and ate a ton of food at our Essenstermin. I have a checklist of all the things that need to get done this week and I'm pretty excited to get it all done. I've learned a lot this past week about myself, that when others are like, "this is HAAARD" I'm like, "watch me how I WORK!" and we just get it done! And it's been great to show Sis. Avanesjan the ropes and such. We're doing a joint-training thing and it's been like, the best way to end my mission, because we're like 110% obedient and she wants to work, and we're hopefully going to see a lot of miracles this week, we already have! Sorry my email is so, lame, but our week didn't have too much to talk about and surprisingly I'm almost out of time! Email time i mean!

Anyway, have a great week everyone! I'm excited to finish strong and keep going on.

love,

Sis. Whit