Dani - Alpine German-Speaking Mission

Getting Adjusted in My New Area

This week has been busy.  Thank you so much for the birthday package.  It was really nice and yes I love the skirt.  I didn't get my advent calendar before I left Tübingen, but it is OK.  This week was really busy. We had our Christmas Conference on Wednesday in Munich with President. It was awesome.  He surprised us and we got to watch Meet the Mormons.  I was super happy.  I almost cried, but managed to hold it in.  The movie is amazing.  Apparently it was super hard for him to get it here.  He thinks it is the only copy here in Europe.  He had to pull some strings. But we were all super excited.  One of the best Christmas presents ever.  I loved the coach and the mom of the missionary.  You never know whose life you can change. It was awesome.  I am excited to see it again when I get home.   Then we had a lot of finding this week.  But it was great cuz now we have 3 appointments set up for this week with potentials.  Please pray that their hearts will be softened and they will listen and be interested.  But if not, it is OK. We need to work more with the members as well and strengthening them.  We also went by one of the families in the ward.  They invite us every week to their house to feed us. They also have 2 missionaries out right now and one more preparing to go.  They are loud and crazy and I love it.  I can't understand 3/4 of what they say, but it doesn't matter.  I couldn't get a word in even if I understood the conversation.  :)  They are great.  Especially now with it being cold.  It is a struggle.  But on the bright side the food is amazing.  I haven't had a problem with a single meal yet.  I count that blessing every day.  I am getting fat here I think due to all that I eat.   Every Sunday we meet in a small chapel.  It is a small flat that we rent out and we made it into a chapel and a few other things.  It has a small kitchen and also some classrooms to meet in.  I think it is supposed to be for an office, but we make it work.  It is actually really nice that we have it.  Even though we are small, we still have some place to be.  No one in the ward plays the piano.  But we have 2 sisters and 2 elders who serve in the ward, and one of the elders plays really well.  So he plays every week.  But they know that I play, so if he leaves, I am up.  And I don't play near as well as he does. Which I pointed out already.  I realize that I lost a lot of piano skills.  I am super sad about it.  I can't play too much and I aim to fix that first thing when I get home. But I can still play well enough to play hymns and things which is all that is needed right now.  We actually had our ward Christmas party this week which was fun.  We sang songs and read poems and ate food.  It is kind of tradition here to read poems about Christmas.  Didn't know that.  And also found out that you can only sing silent night on the 24th.  Well you can sing it any time, but the people don't like it.  Almost made that mistake.  The 24th is the "heilige abend", here ( holy evening) And so they only sing that song then and it is really special.  I think almost more than Christmas.  Almost.   My companion is really good.  We get along really well. We laugh a lot. At one another and everything else.    We have some great people lined up for this week to meet and we are super excited for next week with Christmas and everything as well.  I am sad that you have no snow.  We also have no snow.  It is really sad.  But I keep hoping that for Christmas we get something.  I hope you do as well.  What is Christmas with no snow?  That party sounds like it was a success.  Sorry I couldn't be there.  But I have been a little busy and flights this time of year are ridiculous.  I may have to wait until next January (2016) before something opens up. Things are great here.  Don't worry about me.  Think of you always. Sister Poll