Got to Ride the ICE 3/24/14

Happy Week of March!!

March has gone by sooooo fast. Well...is going by so fast. I can't believe it! And Sister Lehman and I were talking, and we realized that it's just going to get faster and faster and faster because of all the crazy things that are happening in the next couple months. Noooo! I just got out here the other day...The weather was colder this week, boooo. Today we're going to go just play games with our district because it's cold and rainy and gray outside. Hopefully next week will be nice, because Sister Lehman has always really wanted to go to this castle that is like Pride and Prejudice apparently. But we're still excited for today because our district is way fun. Last Monday was super super nice and waaaay fun. Ladenburg is really cool, and we ate delicious ice cream together as well.

Zone Conference was SO FUN. We got to ride an ICE up to Frankfurt (really fast train), and since I really haven't served too far away from Frankfurt, I haven't taken too many of those fancy trains. It was way fun...especially when the train was full and none of the Elders would give up their seats, so we stood the whole time, haha. Ohhh 19 year old-boys...But whatevs. Zone Conference was awesome. It was all I ever wanted!! I got to see Sister Beck and Sister Wilson, and we just laughed all day and had so much fun! And Elder Dyches and his wife were way awesome and taught us a bunch of stuff. I can't believe I only have one Zone Conference left. :( I'm way bummed about that, actually. But it's okay! I still have three whole transfers to make all my dreams come true!! Naja...that's really not up to me. Transfer calls are Saturday. I hope Sister Lehman doesn't leave! We haven't gone shopping yet, so no Kinder Egg right now, but I'm really nervous to open it.

It was a good week!! Cold, windy, lots and lots and lots of fallen out appointments...(seriously, more than usual this week), but it was really good anyway! We got to play soccer on Saturday in the mud and the rain, and I got kicked in the legs a lot so I'm a little sore right now, haha. And this week will be really good, too. I hope it's not my last week with Sister Lehman. We did way intense transfer predictions last night for all of the Sisters in the mission. Sadly, we had to predict that she was leaving to go to the other end of the mission, to Münster. :( But we can still hope!

Sometimes I hear of Elders who, when they get to around this point in their mission (the 13/14/15 month mark), everyone forgets about them and stops writing. Sometimes even their parents forget!! That would be sooooo sad. So point is, don't forget me! I love getting the emails and knowing how everyone is doing. I'm glad that life is continuing. Things are continuing here in Mannheim. 

St. Patrick's Day in Germany? 3/17/14

Happy Monday!

As far as I know, Germany doesn't officially celebrate St. Patricks Day. I could be totally wrong...but I don't think so. But don't worry, I'm wearing green! I remember St. Patricks last year in the MTC. People got way intense with it, haha. But enough about St. Patricks, the thing I'm excited for this week is Zone Conference!! Thursday. It'll be awesome. I can't believe how fast March is going by. It's General Conference soon, too. I'm so excited! I love General Conference.

We were especially busy this week. I don't think there was any specific reason, but we were just always on the go hurrying from one thing to another. It's nice to have a PDay, haha. Today we're going to go with a member to a little city called Ladenburg, and we managed to borrow some bikes from some members, so we'll just be biking around. Haha, I missed bikes! Not really...but today I'm wearing pants, so it'll be fine. The weather last week was the nicest weather everrrr. We pretty much never wore our coats. But this week is supposed to be a little colder. :( Boooo. Oh well, at least it's not as cold as it was last year. It was FREEZING when I got to Germany. I remember I slept with three blankets and made Sister Mosher put the heater on like full blast, haha. But the sun feels so good. We went on a picnic with a member and just enjoyed the sun.

Teaching is going great here! Lots of cool progress. We just had a really good week overall. Kinder Überraschung is next week!! Can't believe it. I hope Sister Lehman and I stay together! We both feel as if we're only in our like second or third week together, haha. Maybe that means we should stop having so much fun...nah. The Lord wants us to be happy out here, haha. We can work hard and still have fun. And we did it! We hit a lesson high this week, highest I've ever hit on my mission, so hopefully we're doing something right. For PDay emails, most of the time it just depends on the area. But here we usually get to the internet cafe at about 10:30, and I usually manage to get all my emails off (slash do a bunch of mission stuff online) in about an hour and a half/two hours.

Fasching 3/10/14

It's been a really cool week, and I have plenty of pics to accompany it, I think. Starting off with the usual weather bit, it was SO NICE these past couple days. I carried around my jacket mostly, and felt really nice in my cardigan and not-so-thick tights. Apparently this is one of the warmer areas of Germany, which is perfectly fine with me. I haven't worn my giant black coat in like two whole weeks. Wooo!! That's exciting. I will gladly mow the lawn when I get home, though...I miss mowing lawns, haha. Germany isn't too big on stand-alone houses, and even then their lawns are a lot of the time mostly landscaping with not a lot of grass. I mean there are always exceptions, but that's a lot of what I see. Anyway, on to the past week of my mission!

PDay last week was REALLY fun. After we emailed we found our district in a restaurant, and a couple of Elders had ordered SUPER spicy currywurst. Currywurst is basically cut up sausage with sauce and fries, and it's pretty good. Anyway, they ordered some that is way way WAY spicy, and to order it you have to be at least like 18 I think and have to sign a waiver. So that was really funny. I ate one piece. It was SPICY. I can do spicy usually, especially here in Germany where they DON'T do spicy...but that was really, reaaaallly bad spicy. Haha. I thought I had burned a hole through my tongue. The spicy level went 1-8, and the Elders had ordered a level 6. Sister Lehman got some really good action shots of them eating the last few bites, haha. THEN a lot of the Elders conquered another one of their fears and rode the Ferris Wheel!! Good for them, lol. It was waaaay fun. They were really scared, poor little guys, haha!! We rode the Ferris Wheel then went and walked around the booths and carnival. I ate probably too much...but it was all delicious, except the Dampfnudeln. It's a local specialty here, and it's just like salty bread. Most people really like them. I didn't like them as much, even with the sauce. But I ate enough other delicious stuff to make up for it. It was a really fun PDay, and it was fun to hang out with our district again. Fasching WAS really intense. The Mannheim Elders were out for a little bit on Tuesday night, which was the huge party night, and they said it was just like a wall of people drinking and puking and partying...wooo, fun. Sister Lehman and I were headed home around 5:30, and the trains were already picking up crazy drunk people in costume on their way to the Innenstadt to party. We were safely tucked away Tuesday night, and we made a lot of plans AND made cinnamon rolls. Those are such a pain...never again!! But they tasted really good, even though we didn't have proper brown sugar. But it was a really fun night, even more fun that being attacked by drunk people! (which happened to us again a couple days later at like 4:00 in the afternoon...Germany, what??)

Way stoked for ZOKO next week! ZoKos are super, super fun! They're basically this all-day spiritual feast where President just gives these awesome lessons plus makes his cute little German jokes and sometimes shows us funny clips from Finding Nemo, and then we have delicious lunch together and get to see all of our old friends from old areas/zones (or old companions!!!), and then we go back and have more themas, and it's really fun and sometimes we get to travel to places! Like this time it'll be in Frankfurt, so I get to go back. Yessss.

ALSO we did go back to Frankfurt on Saturday! The other Sisters in our district and we took a quickly-planned trip to the temple in Friedrichsdorf. That was soooo fun and really good. WE SAW THE NEW SESSION. It was amazing. It was sooooooo cool. I cried pretty much the whole time, lol. I learned so much. It was amazing!! It's all I've been thinking about the past couple days. I want to go back so badly and see it again. Anyway, it was the highlight of our week. The temple was much needed, and it was so fun to hang out with other Sisters for a while.

And for the German scriptures, they give us a set the day we enter the MTC, so I have a set of German scriptures. They don't have any quads or anything, but they do have a triple, so I have a German triple and a big red German Bible, haha. 

It was a really great week and I guess I had a lot to say. Things are going really well over here. I'm so blessed and happy to be where I am, even if it's really hard. Mannheim is a city of miracles! I know this is where the Lord wants me to be right now. I love you all so much and hope you have a great week. Thanks for everything!!

March is Here! 3/3/14

March is here already!!

And with it comes the chilly, gray rain, haha. Hopefully it'll clear up, because I am definitely not a fan of these tights...I've taken to wearing a lot of different colors to try to mix things up. Black and gray and brown get really old really fast. I was hoping it would be nice today because of PDay, but it's a little drizzly. Hopefully it'll clear. It was Fasching this weekend. Fasching is pretty much the Mardi Gras of Germany. It's the celebration people have before Lent, before they all give up something for 40 days. Basically another excuse to drink a lot, haha. But people wear crazy costumes, and there is a tradition of cutting off people's ties! So the assistants sent a text around last Friday warning the Elders to wear their least-favorite ties, because they run the risk of having them get cut off, haha. Tomorrow is the last day, which is good. There have been some parades and things, which mess up the trains, and yesterday we ended up walking to an appointment at the Bishop's because NO trains were running. Only an hour or so late...hooray Fasching!! :) But it actually is pretty crazy. There's a carnival here with a Ferris Wheel and other rides, and lots of little booths with delicious food, so that's what we're doing today for PDay with our district. Fasching festival!! Don't worry. No beer and no costumes for us. :) But we're actually really excited to go. How often do you get to ride a Ferris Wheel in front of the Wasserturm? Probably like...never.

I feel as if Germany has made me a much better driver! Actually we'll see...Maybe it's because all the Germans are such good drivers and they can avoid me?? Haha. But there has to be a reason they kicked me out of Hanau and took me away from the one Sister area with a car. Mannheim is doing great. The ward had a Fasching party last Friday night. It was a pretty crazy day, though, so we got there late and had to leave early, because President has asked us to be home before it gets too dark because of Fasching and all the crazy drunks wandering around. Blehhh got sick again this weekend. Not too bad, just a gross cough and head cold, but it feels like it's clearing up. Hopefully never again! This is stresssful enough without feeling physically gross. Friday we had to give over our really, really nice train tickets to some Elders in Rammstein. That wasn't fun. Now we have these dumb little dinky tickets that don't cover a lot of our area. Grr...Hanau all over again!! It was really cool to be able to go places without paying to get there. But...so ist es. At least the Rammstein Elders felt bad enough to give us Cadbury Eggs they managed to get from the Military Base. Score! If Sarah goes to Germany, they'll have access to the base and everything, so they will never be in want of American food, haha. I mean, the German food is amazing and delicious...but there really is no peanut butter, no brown sugar...you know, a lot of little things that would be nice to have sometimes. I might have to go over and visit her and teach her some things about Germany if she gets stationed there, haha. :)

Zone Conference is in two weeks. I'm sooooo excited! I'm thinking about all the people I get to see. It's going to be so fun! I get to see Sister Beck AND Sister Wilson!! And answering your question, I've been senior comp uninterrupted since my third transfer. So...7 transfers total? Something like that. I really have loved all my comps. It definitely hasn't been easy with some of them, but I really do love all of them. (Some got more love AFTER we were transferred, lol.) We have Zone Training next week. Should be good, too!

Haha, German. I try. Some days it comes easier than others. But I really do feel like the Lord has blessed me. I really do have better German than I deserve. I don't know why, but I really am grateful for that. Missions are so hard--they're hard enough without a new language, and so I think Heavenly Father just gave me one less thing to freak out and stress out about. I have plenty of other things, lol.