Received November 21, 2011
How's it goin' everybody? Once again, another week has passed in the great city of Linz an der Donau. Here it has been unbelieveably cold for November (for this Californian anyway). It sure is a lot nicer to have investigators now. Since we have been moved down to a "Dritt" (German for trio), Elder Chandler and I inherited the investigators that Elder Schulzke and Elder Gruse were teaching last transfer. Elder Blodgett, who I knew when I was in the Stuttgart Zone, came to Linz to do a little lecture on the scattering of the lost tribes of Israel. Before he and his wife came on their mission together, he was a professor of ancient studies at Southern Utah University in Cedar City. He discovered, essentially, when and where the lost tribes left and ended up. By looking at certain words in Hebrew, he came up with a seemingly easy equation which deals with the changing of letters/sounds which results in common words in many languages both modern and antiquated. Did you know that Sanskrit had anything to do with Hebrew? Neither did I, until Thursday. It was a lot to take in a two hour lecture, but it was pretty cool.
We went to a Christmas market here in Linz a few days ago. We happened to be passing through the area later at night on the way to contact a potential investigator and when we didn't find him there we decided to take a little gander through the market. There was all kinds of stuff to buy, most of it a little on the expensive side, but it was all cool. There was a whole little house set up where you could buy hand crafted nativity sets. Now this isn't just your normal box set or something thats all made of one piece. This is your hard core, made of wood, individual exchangebable pieces, painted by an old lady, Nativity set. They had everything you could possibly want to make a little manger scene. They had the traditional Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, Shepherds contingent, then they had (more or less Bethlehem-time-frame-consitent) farm tools, buckets, angels of all shapes and sizes, animals out the yin yang, and a host of other visitors to greet the baby Jesus. And all of this for sale and set up in the quiet of your own home. Now don't think that this stuff doesn't cost a pretty penny (or should I say Euro), I didn't even want to look at some things that they were selling in the fear that I might look to long and break it with my stare. It was all way cool though. I'm sure it would all be way more enjoyable when you're not on a mission, but na ja.
On Friday we had a Thanksgiving feast with the Young Adults. The Hopkins (the senior missionary couple) got probably the biggest bird I've ever seen for this meal. No joke this turkey was probably 23 or 24 pounds. When they uncovered it all I could think was "Woah! That's a big bird!" It was a lovely meal and there was even pie. Sis. Hopkin made two apple pies and Bethany (who's from Utah) baked two pumpkin pies. It was marvelous.
Speaking of Bethany, we sang together in Sacrament meeting on Sunday. It's weird setting up practice times and getting an accompanist to play when you are a missionary. Luckily, we got Louise Erlacher, who is British (Darrell...) to play for us. It is soooooo much easier to work on stuff when people can speak your language since all of the terminology is different auf Deutsch. Of course there is still some different terminology in British english (Darrell...) but it is better than German. We sang "Jesus the very thought of thee" and "Come, come ye Saints". It went pretty well and we had a fun time doing it. The weird part is at the end when you have to just shake hands with your singing partner. Of course I don't have my official singing partner with me, but what can you do.
I'll be going "shopping" this week to see what kind of price I'll be looking at for a suit and then we'll see what happens afterward. I don't need any other clothing for Christmas since everything is pretty much doing ok. Little snacks that I can't get here (Chesters Hot Fries) would be nice.
So I hope you have a great week and that all is well in Tustin, California where it's probably still at least 50 Deesgrees. Until next time, Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüß!
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