Springkraut!!!!!

Received July 16, 2012 When I went on my mission, I definitely never thought that I would ever do anything like I did this week. Our branch had a service project on Saturday. We worked with a lady to pick weeds in the forest....yeah, weeding the forest. It really is an issue, because there is this plant called Indische Springkraut which is obviously not native to Germany and therefore needs to go before it takes over the whole forest. This plant is especially difficult to completely get rid of because the seeds from the flowers can "spring" up to 7 meters from the mother plant. We went deep into the forest to find their hiding places in really wet parts of the forest floor. At first we weren't finding too many, but then Elder Chapman called us over to see where he was working. He had found a place where they were so numerous that you could barely move two inches without finding 10 more to pull out (keep in mind that some of these can grow to be nearly 6 ft tall). While we were picking the weeds a little bit of weather started to come our way and the wind was knocking the little pine cones off the trees and hitting us and some rain was even coming down. Right then in the middle of it all, with a huge pile of weeds under my arm, the phone started ringing. I picked it up and it was President Miles. He just wanted to thank me for serving as district leader. I told him that we were in the forest and that there was bad reception, but I don't think he quite understood.....anyway, we had a great time working with the ward at the service project and we left a really good impression on the lady that was our guide who was not a member. Just in case anyone was wondering, I do not travel alone all that often. President Miles decided that it was ok for certain people to go alone on trips so that we could save some money on travel expenses. This was an action packed transfer though, I must admit. We got transfer calls on Thursday and we found out that Elder Chapman is leaving to go to Ellwangen and Elder Thompson and I will be staying together. That means however, that we will not be driving anymore for this next transfer unless the office tells Elder Thompson to get a license. That will be fun. On a side note, we went to a place called Zell im Wiesental yesterday, which is where Constanze Mozart (Mozart's wife) was born. I took a picture of the sign, like a good music nerd. Jasmin Strigl should be getting baptized on Saturday. She needs to give up smoking, but she's doing really well. It will be in a lake up north of Bad Säckingen. We're so excited. Also, our Nigerian investigator Tina came to church this week. Altogether we had 5 people in church this week. It was crazy! I'm looking forward to this week and I hope everyone has a great week and that all is well. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüß!