I used to wonder when missionaries came home, why they did so with a lot less hair than when they first went out. Now, it all makes sense...
Alrighty.... Monday night we started off with a good old sleepover with the ZL's at our place. I left the next morning with Elder Peterson to Oldenburg for exchange. It's crazy how similar our missions have been. He's had it pretty rough too so it was good to talk with him and relate. It takes while to get there so we didn't have much time but we went to a school and played indoor soccer with a bunch of pretty solid older guys. It was way fun but I am SO out of shape. I was suckin wind hard after the first 5 minute round. I'm still sore 5 days later...
Wednesday we had zone conference in Hannover. It was good but allll stress! I swear Präsident and Sister Fingerle made me take part in everything! I had to share my thoughts at the beginning about something, then I had to share my conversion story in the middle and at the end, they made me share my testimony! I get so nervous in front of people as it is, let alone having to speak to them in German! On the real - it's okay, I was happy to do it!
Fast forward to Friday, we had dinner at one of our investigators, Angela. She is the sweetest lady! Her whole family was there and her husband is nice. They are from Spain and made some wayyy good food. Their kids though, need to get their face out of the phone screen, meine gute!!!
Saturday we had Grunkohl essen with the ward!! If you don't know what it is, your just going to have to look it up because I have 0 idea on how to explain it.. That was stressful coordinating rides with times and places and people who could and couldn't and could later and getting them in contact with who and where and when... If you get what I'm saying here. Stress is what I'm hinting at.
Later that night we had an appointment with Alex and his grandma. Alex is the one kind of going through a hard time right now. It was a really really intense couple hours with some more tears and loud noises. At one point Alex just wanted to leave and Elder Bodtcher and I said absolutely not. STRESSFUL. We made him go give his grandma a hug and tell her that he loved her. After that things got so much better. Alex likes to wear all black gothic stuff and I think that really is a reason he is in a dark place right now. Dark clothes, music, friends - everything. He calls me a "hipster" and he hates my style of clothes. But this week I begged him to just try, just for one week, to wear normal clothes and listen to normal uplifting music and to meet with us EVERYDAY and to study the scriptures, and just see how he feels. He agreed! We saw him today for my birthday and I could already see a HUGE difference not only in him but his grandma and everyone around him as well!
Quasch!! Wie kann mein zeit schon fertig!?!
Thank you guys all so much for the birthday wishes! I didn't have time to respond to all of them but I promise I will write back next week! Bring on year 20!!
PS Enjoy some high quality pics from Elder Bodtcher and I's Valentines Day photo shoot!
Elder Noah
