Die Zeit vergeht 4.13 Elder Ek

Meine Liebe Familie und Lieben Freunde,
This past week has easily been the most "comfortable" week, in that I haven't felt as low as before. Basically, you can take that to mean that I'm used to the langauge difficulties now and am not entirely freaking out every day haha.
Last Monday on Preparation Day Elder Whitsitt and I just chilled at the apartment. He napped while I wrote some letters. Tuesday we had district meeting in the morning, where all the local Elders and Sisters come together for about 90 minutes to just discuss cool experiences this past week, a little about die deutschsprache, a lesson of some sort (typically about our teaching) and then time to give our testimonies at the end. I enjoy it since it's usually helpful and informative. Currently there are 8 elders and 2 sisters in our district, and I'm pretty sure that it's a larger one. Normally districts are smaller.
So we had an appoinment in the church with the Bulgarian man we taught last week, and that didn't go particularly well. He literally wants to talk the whole time. Out of the 90 minutes or so that we were there, I cannot for the life of me remember if we discussed anything of substance. He did read in the Book of Mormon and said he found it "in Ordnung," which means everything's allright. As long as he continues to do that, he'll come to a knowledge of it for himself. All that we want to do is provide people with that opportunity and help them to that end. In essence, I'd rather have no lesson at all and have someone study it themselves than have a great lesson but no follow-up on their part afterwards.
Tuesday night was my first companion exchange, which meant I worked with another missionary for 24 hours. I switched my beloved tranier Elder Whitsitt for Elder Hardy, a lanky 6'4'' redhead who weighs as much as I do (I'm not terribly pudgy either. Yet...) He comes straight out of Spanish Fork Utah, which I heard was just south of Provo. I don't know these things. Anyways, he has been on his mission only one transfer longer=6 weeks more than I have. I saw him in the MTC since all the German missionaries are clustered together but never really knew him then.
As you could imagine, the German was a little bit rough. Between the two of us, we didn't have a lot. So I got to stay in his apartment, somewhere in the 23rd district. It's quite different since only two missionaries live there. I'm quite used to living with three other missionaries. I was quite surprised to find no one else home at night. I am quite sick of quite.
Basically, we had a really cool day planned for Wednesday since we had a couple of appointments in addition to eating with Familie Hierschmann every Wednesday. However, our appointments both fell out. On the plus side, I got to meet a 30 year old Chinese guy studying Physics. He knew Berkeley and said I was smart. He had a ridiculous laugh and only wore a Sumo-like pair of shorts too. Verrückt. I guess he's an investigator in Elder Hardy's area.
Overall, working with Elder Hardy made me realize I'm not as bad as German as I thought. Being with three other Elders all the time who speak pretty well made me question whether I was behind the curve, but it was a good reminder that everything is smooth still. I really miss smooth music.
Thursday we took it to the Streets. It's always difficult to start talking to people, but once you start and climb the proverbial hill it's a lot easier. We'll see how it goes from here with the people we talked too.
Friday, we had an appointment in the morning with a 30 year old guy who is just really interesting to talk to because he asks so many questions. He understands a lot already, but I was frustrated because I felt that if I could only speak English I'd be able to much more effectively answer. My comp and I agreed we needed to have a better plan going into the lesson because the questions got out of hand and didn't particularly lead anywhere, partially due to our inabilites with German I'm sure.
Friday night, we had another appointment with the same Spanish woman. She's super nice, but she really wasn't reading or doing anything after we would talk to her. She can't come to church either since she has a disabled daughter, so if she doesn't take the initiative herself...We had a really good conversation about prophets, but after that we did as we had resolved to do before. We asked her if she'd be baptized if she determined to Book of Mormon to be true, and the answer was an unflinching yes. That much is good, so really we urged her to take up the challenge and pray about it.
Saturday, we had another lesson at the church with the Blugarian man. We had planned to try and give a second lesson, but Elder Whitsitt called an audible and suggested we show the movie The Restoration about Joseph Smith's first vision. It was a good call, and he really liked the movie (although he still kept talking during parts haha).
Church on Sunday was a cool experience overall, and ya I'm actually running out of time.
Today we're heading out by the Donau to play soccer (or so I'm told).
Alright, Love you all
Elder Ek