Roller Coaster!

Hey mom!

So, this week was a roller coaster! That's the best way to describe
it. So, let's break it down.

Monday: Berlin! We had a little bit of time to see part of the city,
and man, it was so cool! There is a ton of history in that city. We
were just in a place called Alexander platz, but in this little area
they have giant malls, PRIMARK, and some other pretty cool stuff. It's
a really pretty city, and I hope I have the opportunity to serve
there.

After our little time in Berlin, we were picked up by the elders that
we were staying the night with. We stayed in a part of Berlin called
Marzahn. Guess who serves there? Elder Glissmeyer!! And then Elder
Winkel also stayed the night with us there. Oh we had a fun night.

Tuesday: Zone conference. What a Great experience. Elder Adler of the
3rd Quorum of the seventy came, and we had a great, very spiritual
time with him. But it wasn't all fun and games. We also had to say
goodbye to president and sister Kosak. It was really sad, I'm not
going to lie. President Kosak has taught me so much in my short time
with him. He has been a great example to me. I will truly miss him.
But really, it's ok. President fingerle is going to be awesome too!

So... The conference was in Berlin. Do you remember what happened the
last time we were in Berlin? Well, this time we decided we were going
to plan better, and we did. We found a train route that would have
gotten us home a little after 9. No problem, right? WRONG! We left the
conference, and walked over to the bus stop, but, of course, the bus
didn't come! So... We ended up walking to the train station (only
about 2 kilometers) and we missed our train. We were a little upset,
but we found another train that left an hour later, so we took that
one to Leipzig, and funny enough, we were on it with the exact same
people as last time. Small world, right? So with this train we would
have just enough time to catch our train to Freiberg, and be home at
10. Still not too bad. Well... Our train to Leipzig was late. So we
missed our train to Freiberg. We thought we were going to have to stay
the night again, but the zone leaders just told us to go home, and we
got there at 11:30. Let's just say I hate Leipzig.

Wednesday morning. Woke up, and it was my birthday! And it was one
I'll remember! I LOVE the package you sent, thank you, it was really
nice :) with the next one you send, can you send me some more inserts
for my shoes? I have destroyed all of the extra ones I brought, and I
haven't really found any good ones here. Thanks 

One of the families in my ward brought us a giant pot of soup, and a
bunch of chocolate, and then one of our Chinese members gave me a set
of really nice chopsticks. We were super tired because of how late we
got back, but it was a good day still.

Wednesday afternoon - Saturday morning. We had no appointments so we
set off and went finding, and man, it was awful! No one would talk to
us. Everyone either said "Nein, danke" or "Keine zeit" (no time). It
was really hard. I didn't understand why no one wanted to talk to us.
And on top of that, the weather all of a sudden decided to be summer
and it was 90 degrees in the shade! With no air conditioning. Not the
best.

Saturday afternoon. We came back to the apartment to take a little
break and rehydrate, and it was hard not to just stay in the apartment
for the rest of the evening, but I knew that there was something that
I needed to learn, and that the lord would send blessing when we just
worked hard. Well, I was right! We went out and after 15 minutes met
"John and Matt" they're two super cool guys from Ghana! We asked them
if they believed in Christ and they got super excited! Then when we
told them about the Book of Mormon, they were even more excited! It
was so cool to meet them, and we're going to keep teaching them! Then,
that night, a man that we met on the street a couple weeks ago called
us and wanted to set up an appointment. We're meeting with him on
Tuesday :)

And finally, SUNDAY. So, in our ward we have a "monat des einladungs"
(month of invitation) where the bishopric printed out a bunch of
really cool invitations and gave them all to members to pass out.
Well, the first week in June was a big success! We had 6 people at
church who were invited by members, 3 of which now want to start
meeting with us! It was so cool to see all that, but that's not all!
Right after church ended two families walked into the church and
wanted to learn more about the temple. What??? We asked them why they
came, and it turns out there's an exchange program for students in
Provo to come to Meissen! Two kids on this exchange told their host
families about the temple, and they wanted to come see it, and learn
more.

Wow... This week was jam packed full of fun. It had its up and downs,
just like life. Yea. Loved it!

Hope you have a great week!



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