Hey Guys,
This week has been pretty crazy. On Tuesday morning at 6:am, we got on a bus that took us on a 15 minute drive to the Provo Train Station. From there, we went up to North Temple Street in SLC. We got off and walked over to another nearby train. We took that straight to the Airport.
Once we got through all the junk that you have to deal with at an airport, we split off into our Berlin and Frankfurt groups. There were 5 Elders and 1 Sister going to Frankfurt, and about a total of 20 Elders and Sisters going to Berlin. I never saw the Berlin missionaries after that. We then waited until about 10:40 for our flight. All of our plane tickets had seats assigned, and I was sitting next to Elder Fultz for the ride to Chicago. As we were going in, Elder Fultz all of the sudden asks the pilot if he can sit in the empty seat next to him and get a picture. I couldn't believe what he was doing. The pilot actually said yes though. I couldn't let this opportunity pass, so I asked the same question and I got a photo taken. It was really cool! I don't remember a whole ton from the last flight that I went on, so I was really excited for takeoff. It was a lot of fun as we rushed off. I also ended up getting some really neat photos of the mountains from the sky. This flight was about 2 1/2 hours.
Once we finally landed, we carried our carry-on and our personal item to the next terminal. Elder Wilde, Fultz and I all stayed back while the two Elders and the Sister went to the pay phones to call home. Once they were finished, us three went to do the same thing. It was really nice to hear my family's voice! I wish I had more than the 30 minutes I had to talk with them, but my plane was boarding. Poor Elder Wilde lost connection to his call and had to redial a couple times. We all used $5 prepaid cards. Each time you call, it uses about 35 cents to start. It is then about 1 cent every minute. Because he had to redial so much, his card ran out of money and he was really sad. He only had about 7 minutes of talk time.
Once we boarded the giant airplane, took off to Germany! I sat next to Elder Wilde and a really cool guy from Croatia. We all talked for about an hour and a half. After a while, we were served dinner on the plane. That was the last thing I expected. Elder Wilde and I played Phase 10 for a while after that. The plane ride was super slow and I could not fall asleep for very long. I would fall asleep every 10 minutes and I would last for about 2. I was overjoyed once I saw dawn break. I looked outside and it looked like we were still over the ocean. We were actually over land, but it was super cloudy and it was an ocean of clouds as far as the eye could see. We eventually landed at the Frankfurt Airport at 9:15am German time, so 1:15am for Utah. They abbreviated the airport name to Fraport.
We met up with our Mission President, his wife, and 4 Elders. They all gave us a warm welcome. I did not even feel tired. I was too excited to be in Germany. We went to the mission home and got some papers and our debit card.
Apparently 90% of the stores in Germany do not take cards, so I need to withdraw all of my money so I can use cash. While at the mission home, I got an interview and then I was invited to go to an appointment with two Elders. I was excited but nervous. It was a lot of fun. Once I got back there were a lot of missionaries who took us to the Seit. I don't know what that name means but it was a really cool place in town where they had the Christmas markets and lights. We all went there and sung some Christmas carols. There was one man who walked up to me while I was talking with people in the street who pretty much said, "We need to get rid of all the Muslims here. They are bad and need to go away." What do I say in response to that? Honestly? I tried not to take sides so I just said 'Ja' and nodded my head a couple times. He took a hand out card and went on his way. Germany has a large Muslim population. While we finished up a song about 20 minutes later, there was a big protest walking through about anti-racism. There were like 200 people in the crowd. We all walked away for a bit and let them pass by. It was cool!
I understand just about nothing here. I learned gospel German and not regular German in the MTC. I rarely know what it going on. Other than that, the City was way cool! Lots of cool buildings. The streets are really narrow and are shared by busses and trains. The busses are twice as long and look like two juice boxes duct-taped together. Cars will park on the sidewalk in some places. Speaking of cars, the majority of cars are German made (of course) and they are small and get good mileage. I actually saw a huge Dodge Ram 4x4 driving along yesterday. It was a rare site. The weather is also different from Utah in a lot of ways. It is always cloudy here during this time. In Utah, it gets cloudy for a couple days at a time. Here it is always cloudy. (You would hate it here mom :P) It is also very chilly and humid. It really bites the bone. The sun also sets at like 4:30 here. I believe that it earlier that Utah.
Anyway, we went back to the house and I saw all the missionaries who were going to be our trainers. I saw KC Miller there! He is a kid from my ward who is serving in the same place as me. He has 3 months left. It was cool so see him. Later that night, we were driven to a hotel where we would spend the night. We had our own room each and our temporary trainer would show up later that night. I fell asleep inside at about 7:00pm, only to be woken up at 8 by Elder Miller. He was my companion for a couple hours. I thought it was already morning when I woke up. Thankfully, it wasn't.
The next morning, I found out who my companion was going to be. It was a kid named Elder Heil. He is way cool! We get along so well. We went to the Train Station with a bunch of missionaries who were being transferred. With time, all of my travel buddies slowly disappeared as they went off with their companions to their different cities. I was the last man standing as far as my old MTC district is concerned. I miss them a ton. They are like a family to me. At 1:44, we got on a train that took us closer to our city,
Gelsenkirchen. I was told this it was one of the ugliest places in Germany with not many historical sites. They also had the best ward though. We took a series of trains back home and made it back at around 7-8. I was kind of tired.
On the next day, Thursday, we were out street contacting in the
Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market). We were stopped by a very friendly and charismatic man. He was a Muslim and he tried to talk with us about religion. Long story short, he tried to convert us to Islam and tried to convince us that we were wrong. He wasted a lot of our time. Pretty interesting first day.
Friday, we had a lunch appointment with two investigators. They are going to the university here and are from America, so it was in English. We ate spaghetti and some bread that we would dip in vinegar and oil. It was all really good. I would watch the way they these two guys would act, and I started to get the vibes that they were gay. I pretended not to notice. Elder Heil was just sitting there and wasn't saying too much. We end up going to their living room so we could share a message with them. Before we ever started, they pointed out their Book of Mormon collection. It was a big shelf and they were all in various languages. I was thinking to myself, "Ooo...kkkk.." Next thing I know, he pulls out his quad (Bible, Book of Mormon, D&C, and Pearl of Great Price). I was really confused now. Then, I get a name tag thrown at me and Elder Heil says that they are missionaries. I was stunned. I did not expect that. They all start laughing about it and I was busting up too. They planned this about two day's prior. It was such a good prank. These two Elders were Miller(not from home) and Summerhaze. They are two really cool guys.
Saturday, we had dinner at a part member home. It was a lot of fun! I did not understand anything that was going on, but I was able to smile a lot and start basic conversations. We ate rice with some sort of meat and veggie topping. We also had a really big salad with it. It was all so good! Oh my goodness! I am defiantly going to get fat here if I am not careful. We showed them a video from LDS.org about Jesus called He is the Gift. It was perfect for the Christmas season. I was able to bear testimony about it pretty well and talk about the video somewhat clearly. Apparently I was very bold when I asked certain questions. A 17 year old girl who was there really doesn't like to talk about religion. She is not interested in it very much, but she likes listening to the messages. I asked her what she thought about the video and what Christmas means to her. After the meeting with the family, I invited the head of the house if he wanted to come to church tomorrow. He said no, and then I asked why not. He gave his reasons and I said ok. Elder Heil was impressed. They are usually unable to be that straight forward with them. I don't know exactly why, but he said keep it up while a have a free pass. My free pass is my lack of German. As I get more experienced, people will be able to tell, and I won't be able to say stuff so boldly without having them take offence. Even when I get to the level, I will continue to be bold. I will share the gospel how it is and I won't sugar-coat it. If people take offence to the truth, they obviously are not ready for it yet. I know that might sound harsh, but if the Germans are anything like me (which they kind of are), then I know that beating around the bush just isn't going to cut it.
Sunday, we started off the morning by sprinting to the train. We couldn't afford to miss it. We barely made it. The
Gelsenkirchen Ward is so cool! It is only about 60-70 people. I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting and I was all over the place because I was so excited. The ward is really friendly too. I was bearing my testimony and I said a word in past tense wrong and a sweet old lady in the front row whispered the correction and I was able to correct myself. Everybody smiled real big when they saw me catch myself. Afterwards, people would say that my German is really good, but I beg to differ. It is so bad. We then ate lunch at the Church and I visited with a lot of people. I was able to help prepare for lunch by cutting bread. We ate soup and bread for lunch, along with some desserts. There was a little 8 year old girl who was standing near me while I was eating, so I turned to her and said, "Deine Deutsch ist besser dann mein. Weißst du dass?" That means, "Your German is better than mine. Did you know that?" All she said back was, "Genau." That simply means, "Exactly" or in her context, "Yep". It was so funny! It sounded like a response my sister Lillian would've said. The other 3 Elders at my table were all laughing so hard and so were the two German ladies who were talking with us. The little girl proceeded to say something else to me that I did not understand. Oh man, it was the best. We then walked back to the train through the rain. I was also able to find enough time today to read a lot in the scriptures. I was surprises to find that I read from Alma 18 through 37. That is a lot of reading. We also made homemade Eggnog. It was really good, but there was one problem. We accidentally overcooked it and the eggs inside the mix slowly got cooked. We noticed that and we tried to strain it all out. It took a long time, but we did it. Now we have about 1.5L of eggnog and some Eggnog pudding. It was a lot of fun.
As for today, it is our PDay and we went shopping for food. We then wrote home to family and friends. After this, we are going to the
Weihnachtsmarkt so buy stuff to send home to family. The one in
Gelsenkirchen is very small and only sells food, so we are going to another nearby city. It is going to be neat!
Every night (9:00pm or 9:30pm) after the long day, we will drink some hot tea and listen to Christmas music in German and English by various artists. We also write in our journals and hang out. Elder Heil will also play the guitar. He taught himself how to play in the last 6 months. Our apartment is on the 7th floor. This is as high as it goes. It has a beautiful view of a not so beautiful place, but I still love the city! If you want to send letters or photos to me, my address is:
Darler Heide 49
Gelsenkirchen 45891
Deutschland
I don't know how much postage will be, but it will take about 6 days to reach me. Please to not send packages to this address. Send that to:
Kirche Jesu Christi
Cornelius Straße 18
Frankfurt am Main 60325
Deutschland
I will write again next week!
Elder Grow
P.S. Elder Banks and I, as well as a very select few of missionaries had a luncheon with Elder Bednar before we left for Germany.
