Why?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Received October 15, 2012 So I've realized this week that my whole mission has had a lot to do with testing the patience and willingness of Elder Neumayer to just do the things he's told to and hopefully not complain too much. See the thing is, the Lord has successfully kept me out of leadership positions for enough of my mission that I haven't really been able to make too much of a fuss with the "powers that be". Being that I really don't have too much say in "matters at hand", I just have to sit here and occasionally give my humble opinion and just do what they tell me. Needless to say, a lot happened this week. First of all I would like to begin with a little "shout out". This week I got a letter from a person that I will refer to as "Butterfly Girl" from California. You know who you are. Thank you for your letter. It is true that the mailbox is often quite empty (hint hint to others reading) and I was very grateful to get a letter from someone, even if it is from someone I don't know. I hope that you are doing well and I agree with what you wrote in your letter. I will say one thing though, the glitter won't go away and now my jacket is a bit reminiscent of a certain vampire novel character. Once again thanks for the letter. This week also brought me to Dornbirn in ÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖsterreich where I did end up buying my very own Trachtenanzug. I must say, I really like it. I will have to wait until I get home to actually wear it though since it doesn't really lend the possibility of wearing a name tag. Photo posted. Sadly, I realized on Tuesday that Elder Root cannot get a visa in Ravensburg, he needs to get it somewhere else in Germany. I told the "powers that be" the situation and that night I got a phone call. It was President Miles telling me that Elder Root would not be coming to me. Instead Elder Pope would be coming from (where else) INGOLSTADT! We also had a little meeting with the Zone on that day where we got to hear a lot of what is going on in the mission and how we can work together to achieve our goal. There was a lot said, but one interesting new thing is that we will now be having District Blitzes. That means that now every week after District Meeting, much like Germany blitzing through Poland, we will catch the people of Ravensburg (or Dornbirn) unaware as we blitz the streets or doors or whatever we feel like four missionaries strong. The idea is to quickly find as many people as we can that will hear the message. Cool, huh? We're not quite sure how that will work with the people that are far away from each other, like us and Dornbirn. We'll see. The great adventure began on Thursday at 7 in the morning as we took off with all of Elder Hustead's things and walked on down to the train station. We noticed immediately upon printing the ticket that we would not be able to take the trains that our ticket man in the mission office told us to take because part of the trip was taking a ship across the Bodensee. The ticket didn't read "Schiff", so we had to find another way there. We went through Singen and Schaffhausen and ended up in Zürich just in time to "plauder" a little bit with the other missionaries before Elder Hustead had to take off to Stuttgart. Why did we have to go to Zürich first? You guess is as good as mine since Elder Hustead probably just ended up going back through Ravensburg to get up to Stuttgart ANYWAY! This is where the patience part comes in. I then had to stay in Zürich from 12 noon until 8:44.....yeah. Let's just say that Elder Neumayer was not too happy. I did get to talk to a bunch of other missionaries that I hadn't seen in a while who were also at the train station and that made some of the time past by. Eventually everyone had to leave and I still had a good 4 hours or so left. I went with the Zürich Zone Leaders who had a couple of lessons. I don't really understand a lot of Züritüütsch anyway, so I just listened most of the time trying to understand what in the world they were saying. After the appointments ran out there was still a couple of hours and we hit the streets to go by on a few people. Along the way we talked to quite a few people. The Zone Leaders decided to take advantage of the particular Elder that they had with them. You see, everyone knows that if Elder Neumayer is good at one thing it's singing. They (without asking me first) would begin a conversation and if it started failing they would then ask, "Do you like music?" That was when I began to think, "Oh no." Next thing I know I'm singing in the dark streets of Zürich to some person that I've never seen before. All the people that we did that with were then touched somehow and at least took a card and said that they would check out the internet site, or even as in the case of one man, they set up an appointment. So Elder Neumayer's patient, Heavenly Father really likes to do things like that to me just to show me that He knows exactly what is going on and I should just deal with it and be grateful. So Elder Pope did come eventually and we went off to Frauenfeld to spend the night with the Elders there. In the morning we got up and travelled back to Zürich and then on to Ravensburg. We got back at about 2 in the afternoon. I just love these (as mom calls them) whirlwind trips. Well, I think that's enough for this week. Have a good week everyone. Tschüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüßßßßßß!!!!!!!