Elder Grow: Carnival Celebration

This week was really good. It also flew by extremely fast.

On Tuesday, I went on a split with Elder Tilley. He is a greenie like me. I have only been here in Germany for one Transfer (6 weeks) more than him. Our German is pretty terrible but we somehow were able to get by that day. While we were together, we had the address of a less active member, Bruder Hessmann. Elder Tilley and his companion, Elder Stout, have tried going by to him twice to see if they could make an appointment for another day and he's never there. We went by and rung his doorbell. We waited for about a minute. We rung it again, one last time. About 15 seconds, later the door buzzes, signaling that the door is unlock for a couple seconds. We walk inside and start up the stairs. We finally get to his door and we say hello. He lets us into his place and we talk for a while. It was amazing to see the Gift of Tongues kick in. I was able to understand almost everything. I was able to have a regular conversation with him. When he found out it was only my 2nd and a half month in Germany, he was just as surprised by my German as I was. We ended up sharing a spiritual thought with him and then we left. We had a lot of fun.

All of the sudden it was Thursday. I went on a split with an Elder here in Gelsenkirchen, Elder Cassell. He only has 2 months left until he goes home. We did a lot of walking. We punched in some addresses on our GPS and went to some houses of people who were previous investigators. We walked just about the entire day. This was because we had two appointments fall out. We waited for one at the church building but he never showed up, so that gave us more time to do some Go-Bys. Then, it was time to go to the second appointment and we tried to find this dude's house. Turns out, he lived in a whole other city. We were on a street with the same name, but just the wrong city. We had to cancel with him because it was already 7pm. We were standing next to a bar that was nearby while we looked at our GPS for the nearest person. While doing that, two ladies came out and heard us speaking English. One tried to speak to us in English and we responded in German. She asked if we had good German. We said yea. They spoke with us for a while. They saw our name tags and asked, "Jehovah's Witnesses?" We said, "No, we are Mormons. Have you heard of us?" The one who tried to speak English to us then said, "Oh ok. So that means no drinking and no girls and stuff right?" We simply replied, "Yeah pretty much." They seemed a little disappointed. They invited us to go and party with them at the Carnival. We said we couldn't because we were going to go and meet with someone. They were again a little let down and they headed on their way. We continued to follow our GPS.

They next day was Friday and we had Zone Training in Dortmund. It was really good! I do not remember much, but at the end, 4 Elders played a song for us all using 3 Ukuleles and a guitar. They were really good! I wish I could send you guys the video! Oh well.

On Sunday we had lunch at a Member's place. They are called the Rost Family. They are super cool! We ate some delicious food and we talked and joked around. They tease each other and are very clever about it. They were super funny and fun to be around. I was surprised that I was able to understand just about everything that was going on. I was also able to contribute and not just sit there and listen.

Today is the first day of a week long celebration called Carnival. There will be a huge parade on the street right near my place and it is supposed to be huge! Over 160,000 people just on this street. It is going to be sweet! Carnival is a Celebration that started a long time ago. It is the belief that God turns his back on the world for 1 week. That means that people can do whatever they want this week and God will not know, as long as they are at church the following Sunday. People also dress up and stuff like you would on Halloween but not anything dark or creepy usually, just costumes. In bigger cities, Carnival is more intense. There is lots of drinking that goes on and people sometimes get nasty with each other in public. Because today is the first day, it is the most intense part of the celebration. We were specifically told by the Mission President to wear normal clothes and not wear our name tags. It could cause problems.

Carnival

Today we already did some fun stuff. We went on a hike up a hill. This hill is out of the way of the city and it was really enjoyable. Our entire District went on this hike. Six Elders and two sisters. At the top of this hill there is a big statue thing or this big cement...thing...on top. You can decide what it is called when you see the photos. It was a lot of fun. We are also going to be going to this Parade that comes through the street because it is supposed to be really good!

That is all that happened really for this week. I hope you like the photos!

Elder Grow