Time goes by too fast 4/14/14

The weather here has been pretty nice. Except PDays...for the most part. Germany decides that it wants Mondays to be cold and windy, and most of the other days to be warm and sunny, haha. It's not raining (yet), but it's pretty chilly. Everything here has been fine!! Really good. Zone Training was really, really good. Probably the best one I've been to! I learned so much. And President was able to be there for the last little bit, and he really taught me so much. Seriously, questions I've had literally my whole mission were answered. I love that little German guy! I went up to Darmstadt afterward to go on a split. Darmstadt is a way pretty city! It was a really fun split. Luckily all our trains were punctual this time, haha.

Sister Lehman and I were talking about missions this week (surprise surprise haha), and I am just SOOO happy that I get to be out here! Sometimes I really take it for granted, but it's really so cool to be able to be here. I miss you guys a lot and stuff, and sometimes it's way hard and I just want to quit, but it's really such an awesome blessing and opportunity. I've learned so much and have met so many amazing people. Missions are the best! 

We forgot to go shopping last week, so we got a little creative/desperate during the week. Luckily I was in Darmstadt for a day and a half, and they had food there. But last nights dinner was some concoction of eggs...and old peppers...and old onions...and curry stuff. Luckily I had Cadbury Eggs!! Haha. But we did not forget this week. Our shopping is all done, thankfully. If only I knew how to cook it all, haha.

I really have stayed pretty close to Frankfurt my whole mission, haha. Pretty much I've stayed in Hessen, which is kind of like...a state of Germany?? No like a county or something. I dunno, it's just like this area of Germany called Hessen, haha. But I sometimes get to go to Baden-Württemberg! Mannheim is on the border of those two. But it's okay, I really love this area of Germany, and I really do feel like I've been to a ton of places. So cool!! I love Germany. I miss you guys a lot, but I want to stay in Germany for another couple months. Besides, I can't believe that we get to Skype in a month or so. Time goes soooo fast!! 

Conference! 4/7/14

Happy April! The weather here is sooooo nice. Seriously, Mannheim looks so much better with green in it. The parks are so pretty now. I love the good weather! I think I may have blinded all of Germany because I finally unleashed my pasty legs from their tights last week. They are in serious need of some Vitamin D.

General Conference was soooo great! We watched the Womens Session in Heidelberg on Saturday afternoon. Then we were able to watch the Saturday morning session on Saturday evening. Next day they broadcast the Saturday afternoon session, which we watched in Heidelberg with one of our investigators. That evening they broadcast the Sunday morning session, and we watched that with some members. Usually they'll broadcast the Sunday afternoon session the next week at church. I hope they do that here, too! It was soooooo amazing! I learned so many things. I'm way bummed that that was the last conference of my mission, but I'm glad that I learned how amazing and important General Conference actually is! I hope that I remember all that I learned and that I actually do something about it, haha.

Glad that everyone is alive! We're still alive too. This week was good. We were able to be outside a lot and do some service projects and stuff, and I was way happy that there was no rain or anything. We had our last district meeting at the Wasserturm and then went out to eat together. That was way fun. The new district is cool, too! We also have Zone Training tomorrow, surprise! Told us about that one just a couple days ago, haha. This transfer is only five weeks! It's going to go by sooooo fast, especially with all the crazy stuff happening, like Easter and splits and stuff.

We had a way fun PDay last week! We did end up having a picnic on the river. A dog came and stole some of our stuff. But luckily his owner was nice enough to bring it back, haha. I think we're going to a castle today. I'm not exactly positive, but it's okay, PDays usually always turn out way fun when you hang out with your district. Also the Zone Leaders have apparently announced that they refuse to plan anymore Zone PDays, because the last one was a big flop, I guess, and hardly anyone came, haha. Oops and I showed Sister Lehman the pics before I read the email...that's okay, she's cool and doesn't judge. We just laughed and she said that that's her family as well. But luckily we have the Internet and Ensign to review the talks that we slept through!!

Mannheim is really great. We serve one ward here. The Mannheim ward, obviously. The members are really cool. We usually get to meet with them a couple times a week. Good food lately...we've been trying to figure out how to make curry, haha. We went to a little creepy Asian food store and bought some coconut milk and curry paste. It tasted pretty good for it being our first attempt! I love curry now. It's soooo good. Also all the ice cream stores have opened up again. That's really dangerous for us. Ice cream is really delicious here. And very convenient to get, haha.

The church is true. General Conference has answers for us. 

We Are Wanted Fugitives! 3/31/14

March 31st!!

Maaaannnn how? I was actually way nervous for March because there wasn't too much going on except Zone Conference, so I thought it was going to drag on, but it's seriously gone by faster than like...all the other months. Except maybe December. But still, it's over already! It was soooo nice last week. Again, cardigan weather! Today we wanted to have a picnic on the river with the other Sisters in our district, but we woke up to overcast skies...We'll see what we end up doing, haha. The Zone went down to Heidelberg again to see the castle (AGAIN snoorreee been there done that). Okay that's probably mean...but seriously, every PDay the Zone plans is like HEIDELBERG SCHLOSS! Also since Sister Lehman and I don't have tickets to go down there we were like...yeah no. And one of the other Sisters already served in Heidelberg so they were more than happy ditching that PDay with us and making up our own, haha. Conveniently, the Zone Leaders serve in Heidelberg so they don't have to travel/pay personal money to get there...how convenient...haha.

Staying together for another transfer!

Sister Lehman is staying here at least one more transfer. We were positive she was leaving. Wooooo no changes! Two three-transfer comps right in a row! No, it's way good. I love Sister Lehman so much. We're actually waaaay happy with how it turned out. Also I have this suspicion that I'm going to die here in Mannheim. I mean, when Sister Lehman leaves I'll only have two transfers left, and I still have to introduce someone to the area, so that's only one transfer. So unless they randomly ship me off to somewhere for a random six weeks...which is unlikely and weird and doesn't make sense...I think I'm dying here. Another five transfers in one area! That's okay. I can totally do that. It goes by waaaaaay fast.

Interesting things that happened this week...hmm. Oh yeah. So guess what was this week?? Zeitumstellung. Daylight Savings. And guess who were misinformed? Oh yeah we were. We knew it was the weekend, but we weren't sure if it was Saturday night or Sunday night that we were supposed to change the clocks, so I called our District Leader and like triple-checked with him and he assured me that it was Sunday night. PS it wasn't. So we were heading to church the next morning and were like, 'Hmmm, how strange...the Elders aren't getting on the train with us.' And then it was stranger and stranger. Then we saw the time on the bus. Yaaaay an hour late to church! Even better because it was ward conference so we had a ton of Stake visitors. Totally being an example. lol. Mostly the ward members just laughed at us. Oh well. You would think that the Elders would have called us when we weren't at church by 9:30...again, 19 year-old boys, haha. One of them is dying this week. He's finished with his mission. It's weird to see him go. 

I had a split this last week, too. That was fun! Got to have a nice train ride up to Darmstadt and back. Oh yeah the train had a delay of around 45 minutes when we were trying to get home. That was way great, standing in the cold in Darmstadt and waiting for our train. Deutsche Bahn!! Bane of our existence. Speaking of more Deutsche Bahn bane of our existence, remember when I told you that the mission took away our really, really nice train tickets and gave us little stupid ones? Last PDay as we were heading to go hang out with our district, the people come to check our tickets, and we were just a little nervous because we were not totally positive that our tickets covered all the way out there. I mean we were like 99% sure, but still...Anyway, we had some shifty eyes apparently, because the mean one came over and asked to see our tickets, and then he started ranting about a blue card and how our tickets weren't valid. And I was like, 'I have no idea what you're talking about. No one has said anything to us about it.' He said that our tickets needed like some special number from a blue card, and I told him that we've had these tickets for almost an entire month and literally not one single person (including other ticket checkers) has said anything. And he was like, 'Pech gehabt. 40 Euro.' So. Rude. Most of the time the ticket checkers are pretty nice and understanding, but that guy was having a bad day. Anyway, he gave us these little crumpled-up papers for us to fill out our information, and I was really mad and wasn't listening to what he was saying, so I was writing down my info, and then later Sister Lehman and I were mad and talking about it, but then we realized that we had both put down like way bad info, lol. I assumed it was asking for my USA info, so I put down 'Alison Shipton, birthplace: Roosevelt, Utah, USA.' Then it asked for the street and I was like...I have no idea what street the hospital is on. So I wrote down 'Hospital.' Then we gave the slips back and got off the train cuz it was finally our stop. Hahahahahaaaa. I don't know if you think it was funny, but we were talking to our district about it and just laughed all day. Basically I don't think they'll be able to find us, because I gave them Hospital, Roosevelt as my address, and Sister Lehman isn't registered in Mannheim, plus her last name is super common here...so...woops! So we went to the Deutsche Bahn travel office and told them the story so we wouldn't get ticketed again, and they just like pulled out this little blue card and gave it to us, simple as that. Grrrr!!! NO ONE told us, not the office elders, not the other Deutsche Bahn people...no one. But I guess we know now, plus I doubt that that 40 Euro ticket will find its way over to Hospital, Roosevelt.

We had a really, really, busy week again. On Saturday we played soccer again, and a bunch of German YSAs from the university came and played with us. It got waaaay intense...Mostly I just watched, haha. Luckily Sister Lehman is really good at soccer, and a companionship is a 50-50 relationship, so basically 50% of her playing was from me, too. We are way stoked to stay together another transfer. I can't believe it!!  The Gospel is really what makes us happy, for reals!!