LB 3.30

Hallo meine Familie und Freunde!
Wie geht's?
This past week was fairly similar to the first. Thankfully, all the jet lag has worn off and the accompanying feelings of nausea have dissapated. Let's get right down to it.
Yesterday was certainly a roller coaster, and I imagine many days on the mission will be similar to that. I attended church in the local ward for the first time. I could certainly follow what was going on, but I'm nowhere close to being able to fully understand it. No matter, it will come in due time.
I did have the opportunity to introduce myself and give my testimony for a little while. That was fun and slightly nerve-wracking but overall it was fine. Some members complimented me on it afterwards, saying my German was good for a greenie. That's compliment enough for me. I'll take anything positive I can get out here haha.
Just after we ate lunch and wanted to go back out, it started to rain. It didn't stop until late in the night, so the whole time we were outside, no one was on the streets. The few people that were had no desire to talk about the gospel (understandably so, I probably wouldn't want to either) while soaking wet, so we tried to just make a couple vorbeis out of the afternoon (just drop-ins auf English, I don't think that translates very well). People were home, but the one time a lady let us in she was too engrossed in the German-dubbed Runaway Bride to really talk to us. She made us tea, would sit down for maybe a minute and then say how she loved that part and would watch it with her daughter for a while. We just left after it happened a few times. Never try to pull a woman away from a chick flick is the moral of that story I guess.
The whole afternoon was somewhat gloomy. We came home to have our study time that we had missed earlier in the day and I felt somewhat lost. What had we done with our day???
I just sat and thought about it for a while. I tried using my own logic and rationale to explain it, but that was to no avail. Finally, simply, I turned to the Lord in prayer. I received a definitive feeling of comfort as a result. It wasn't particularly overwhelming or anything, but it just made me realize how we can learn something everyday and see the worth of every experience we have. Our whole time in this life is very short. Our existence here is simply temporary. The point of all this is to learn and to grow, to improve all our weaknesses and refine our ability to love, whether it be our family, our neighbor or our enemy. I'm grateful for the constant reminder that I have of this every day, because it's a challenge. Every day we as missionaries have to climb that hill of being able to talk to people. I look at it as we have to climb to hill of why we decided to come out here. It's been difficult these first 12 days or so to realize that. Throughout I've questioned my decision to come, especially when I struggle to contribute to a lesson with my limited language ability. Nevertheless, every day is a wonderful opportunity to learn. I've come to love the limited time we have to study in the mornings. There is never enough time, and it's crazy how quickly my perspective has changed about that. It's just so much fun to learn and to change how you see things in the world.
We have a few teaching appointments every day it seems which is always a positive. A few people are keeping their commitments to read further in the Book of Mormon. It's always exciting when they have read and we can have a discussion about it. That's what really interests me.
Other random things of note: I just finished my second journal ever! It's addictive. I have eaten more chocolate in the past two weeks than I've probably eaten in the last few years. I haven't bought very much either which is the funny part. It's as amazing as it's hyped up to be.
Also, my companion/trainer Elder Whitsitt was trained by my teacher at the MTC in Utah, Brother Turville. So I knew my "grandpa" before I knew my "father" out here. Fairly strange, rather funny.
Ummm I don't know what else. Internet cafes here all smell of smoke. Actually, a lot of places smell of smoke here. That kind of stinks (pun!)
Okay, that's all I have for this week. I hope you enjoyed my musings.
Aufwiedersehn!
Love
Elder Ek