Germany Week 28

Dearest Mumzy,

The rest of my Christmas was pretty good. We had a delicious turkey dinner with Rot Kohl and Knödel (or is it Klösse? I never remember). Also on Second Christmas we were invited over to S's house where we played some games with him and had a delicious traditional Bamberger Lunch. It also started snowing on Christmas, so Bamberg is properly white now, and freezing cold. It makes all that contacting we do even more fun.

Sunday was also exciting. We had so few people at church. Bishop ended up turning half of Sacrament Meeting into a testimony meeting because the second person who was supposed to speak didn't show up. He even ended up cancelling Sunday School because there were so few people and the person that was supposed to teach wasn't there. So that was interesting. Church was all really good though. A lot of the stuff we talked about led me to reading in Romans 8, and let me tell you that chapter's great. My favorite verses are 18 and then the last two verses. I feel like they're awesome all of the time, but especially if you're going through rough times.

Well, nothing else much happened this week that you don't already know about...

Zippidy Doo-da
Love you more!
Elder Isaac

Germany Week 27

Dear Mum,

This week was pretty exciting, at least compared to the last few weeks. Everyone's super nice for Christmas. Well, nothing too exciting actually happened, but the people around here are super nice for the holidays. We also had Zone Conference on Wednesday. Elder Lymer of the Area seventy was there. It was really cool, and spiritual, and Christmasy! This really is a great time to be talking about our Lord and everything he has done for us. #SharetheGift

You're great!
Love you more!
Elder Isaac

Germany Week 26

My week wasn't too exciting. Mostly spent it walking around the streets trying to talk to people about Christmas and He is The Gift. I did spend some time making some Plätzchen though. That was exciting. It reminded me of grandma, partially because we were making Plätzchen and partly because Bru. G spent the whole time talking about how he used to make some with his grandmother. (Also, you shouldn't google that or anything, you should just ask your other sons what Plätzchen is, because the guy in our ward that's from East Germany was weirded out calling them that, but all the Frankoniens were very insistant that it was Plätzchen, and not anything else.)

Aside from that nothing too exciting's been going on here. Christmas is in the air. It's a party. Uh... yep, you're great!

Love you more!!!
Elder Son

Germany Week 25

Dearest Mumzy,

Elder Nilson and I drinking my first Kinderpusch together at the Coburg Weihnachtmarkt.

My week wasn't too exciting. I certainly didn't have any rolls, thawed or otherwise, but I did have some Kinderpunsch, so I guess that makes up for it. I did indeed go to the Christkindmarkt down in Nürnberg on Monday. That puppy is huge. Massive. Especially compared to the one here in Bamberg, which we walk past pretty much everyday. Of course the one in Bamberg is still bigger than the one in Coburg, which we ate lunch at on Tuesday after we had Distrikts Versammlung there. But Coburg has the coolest mugs, so that makes up for it being tiny.

Tiny-istsy-bisty part of the Nürnberg Weihnachtmarkt

We also got our "He is the Gift" pass-along cards this week, which are way awesome. I was told that all of the Ensigns were supposed to come with a few too, does that mean that you have some that your supposed to hand out too? Awesome. Also it's pretty cool that the church bought Time Square for a month. Anyway. I'm super excited to go around and talk to people about Christmas! Christmas is great.

Sonst (otherwise), nothing much happened. At least nothing too special. I did listen to Elder Bednar's talk again this week, and let me tell you, that talk is awesome. I found his wording about full-time missionaries to be very interesting, especially seeing as I am a full-time missionary, but I think everyone else could get a lot out of that talk too.

I'm sure something else cool happened this week, but I really can't think of it, so I think I'll just attatch a bunch of pictures and call it good.

Love you more!
Elder Son

Elder Peifer and I with our Companion Teddy Bear's dressed as cows! (No, we're not, and have never been companions, we've just been on so many mini-splits we might as well be) (Also me in my new coat and hat)

Weisstein Schloss, just for fun.

Germany Week 24

Dear Momma,

Probably the most exciting thing about my week was transfer calls. Turns out I'm staying in Nürnberg for Christmas, in fact I'm staying in Bamberg for Christmas. The whole district is actually staying the same, except for Elder Burger who is going home. It's kind of crazy. The other super exciting thing was that the Weihnachtmarkts are out!!! I haven't really seen most of Bamberg's, but I've seen bits from walking around. I'm also going to Nürnberg's Weihnachtmarkt today, and that one is supposed to be awesome, so I'm super excited.

It sounds like your Thanksgiving was quite the party. I actually ended up having a lot more of a thanksgiving than I thought we were going to because one of the members invited us over for thanksgiving. It was a German and his British wife, so they don't actually celebrate Thanksgiving, but they felt bad for us and invited us over anyway. What's more they actually found a turkey. It was all delicious, though it was missing a little of that Mother's Pumpkin Pie. And Stuffing. But otherwise it was perfect, and was really delicious.

I actually sort of got two Thanksgiving dinners, because earlier in the day we had a surprise Zone Training and someone brought Chicken and cookies for everyone. That wasn't the actual point of the meeting though, which was actually even better. We met to discuss the church's new website: christmas.mormon.org and the video that goes along with it. If you haven't visited the site, or watched the video yet, you definitely should. It is so good! I hope we can all watch it and truly remember that Jesus is the Christ, and that through Him we can be save.

Love you more!
Son