Received November 14, 2011
Per the subject line of this email, I would like to share a little bit of what it's like being where I am in my mission. I realized on Friday when we got transfer calls in the early morning that the end of this next transfer constitutes my year mark. Erstens, wollte ich sagen, Deutsch geht eigentlich ganz gut bei mir. Es ist weder schwierig andere Leute zu verstehen noch meine Gedanken zum Ausdruck zu bringen. If I know what it means "sich über die Häuser zu hauen", I think I'm doing ok. I'll always continue working at the language though, since as they say, "Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache." So lets go on a little tour of the mission life as it doesn't apply to "teaching".
Food: No mother, as I said, I am not starving. Although yesterday was a little on the tight side since we had some unexpected house guests during the week (otherwise known as the Zone Leaders) and we had only very little left to really eat. So the good the bad and the ugly. I'll start with the ugly. We receive a lot of food from the members in the ward. Courtesy of Klaus Haindl, we get a lot of stuff that is way close to or beyond the expiration date and if we get stuff from him we know that it has to be eaten within a day or it needs to go. The bad (but sometimes ok) constitutes our older single ladies in the ward, namely the Schws. Hager and Wegrath who will randomly call us and say that they bought stuff for us. We go and pick it up and find out that once again they have bought nothing that we REALLY need (except for milk) including the four bags of potato chips that we got yesterday. The missionaries have tried to tell them before to get things like bread or cereal or something, but they just buy the same stuff as always. And finally the good (which can sometimes end up bad later that day). We get eating appointments at some of the nicest peoples' houses. Most of the time they make so much food it's a wonder that we can even finish, and don't even talk about the little forks or spoons placed above the plate to announce the presence of a looming dessert in our future. Who can even do anything at the end of an eating appointment at an Austrian's house besides just going home and dying? It's crazy.
Temporal things: Since leaving home, going to BYU, and going on a mission I have lost over 30 pounds. I don't know how anything will still fit when I get home, but it still works here. My suit situation is interesting, but it works. A long time ago (actually in the MTC), one of the pants for my black suit started to separate at a seam. I put those aside and never actually fixed them. Instead I wore the other pants until they got a hole and I finally threw them away. I then switched to just using my grey suit for everything and bought a pair of pants to supplement and have been wearing them on the off days. One of the hems on the pants came out recently and it is being held together with some strategically placed safety pins until I can get them to Sis. Hopkin who is a senior missionary with her husband in our District. She does repairs for the missionaries if they need them and I will probably be able to just have her repair the things that need repairing. Otherwise, no socks have holes (surprisingly) and the pair of shoes that I bought in Heilbronn are still functional. I despise transfers because of packing and the fact that the stuff pretty much barely fits and the suitcases are sooooooooooooo heavy. If I send anyone letters and they don't get there, I'm sorry but it's not too uncommon for the Austrian post to fail epically. I will be sending out some stuff in the near future and no I haven't sent the package yet that I have been saying I would send since back in oh....August. This coming transfer I will be staying in Linz and we are going to be serving in a trio. Elders Chandler and Gruse will be staying here with me and Elder Schulzke will be going off to Switzerland.
So that's a little about the life of a missionary in Austria nearing his year mark. It's pretty much insane to think about. Well, I hope that everyone has a wonderful week and that it's not as cold as it is here. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüß!
No comments:
Post a Comment