Everything Here is Great

So I am finally back in Germany. The trip was kind of it's own fun adventure. I first got into Atlanta at about 1230 and was looking for the plane from salt lake with the new missionaries on it to meet up with them. Ended up going around to about 3 different booths with asian ladies asking them when the next plane landed from salt lake and none of them could understand me. I was kind of surprised I hadn't even left the country and was already having trouble communicating.
After a couple hours they finally landed and I met up with them. They were all excited and kind of scared to be back into the real world and expected to do missionary work. I remember what that felt like, lol. The MTC is pretty cool except that you are pretty much never exposed to people that don't like you there then you get to the airport.... But after that we walked to our terminal and the missionaries were happy to be able to call home and then some of them wanted to do some missionary work so we went around the waiting area telling people who we were and explaining why our german was so bad. I wasn't used to having to be the translator for new missionaries since I was always on the side that needed translation.
After we got to Switzerland one of the elders suitcase wasn't there so we got to go talk to some people for about half an hour and finally figured out some old lady walked off with his suitcase and they couldn't get a hold of her so I'm not sure if he has it yet or not. When we got to the mission home I got to speak with president Matern and he told me I would be in Offenburg with Elder King. I had no idea where Offenburg was but I knew that a lot of people liked Elder King so I was excited to meet him.
I rode the train for Offenburg with the only other two people in our district Elder Owen and Elder Griffes. Elder Owen is about as mission old as Elder King and about 3 months from going home while Elder Griffes was in the group that just came out here. So we have two people about to go home and two people that are pretty brand new in our district and that is it. We met up with Elder King in Freiburg which is Owen's and Griffes' area and we all had lunch together.
I finally got to eat another kebap. Which is still as tasty and terrible for your health as I remember. After me and Elder King broke off to go back to Offenburg we got to finally talk and get to know each other. On the train some older dude was sitting across from us with his dog he was talking to everyone and eventually talked to us. He tried speaking English to me I tried speaking German to him. I asked for his address to come meet with him and he gave it to us and told us to stop by some time to get to know each other and stuff. So that was pretty cool.
When we finally got to Offenburg around 6 or 7 ish Elder King showed me around and pointed out the main places and land marks. He gave me the keys to the church and then explained they were the only keys to the church besides the branch presidents so I told him that he should probably hang onto them. After all that we finally went back home and went to bed. I set my alarm for 630 and actually woke up at 630 woo hoo. Mom, since I have been back here I havn't missed a day yet of waking up on time and Im trying not to.
On Saturday we had to take a train to Freiberg again to watch the stake conference for all of germany via tv. It was cool the speakers were Jose Teixea (I think) Elder Kapischka from the seventy and President Uchtdorf. I listened to Jose speak in English with a german translator and then elder kapischka and uchtdorf kind of drifted into my ears cause jet lag finally set in and i kind of dozed off.
We had to spend the night in Freiburg since we had to go to stake conference again in the morning so we got to hang out with Elder Owen and Griffes. After the second part of conference on Sunday we went out and tried to do some doors and see if the guy from the train was home by chance. No luck on either side but we were really only out for about 2 hours so I was just happy that we were able to say hi to some people and talk to a couple of people on the street. After it was all said and done we went back to our apartment and ate some german food I have already forgotten the name to.
Dad, you shouldn't tell lies about FFXI we all know assasins creed 2 is much better. Now that that is out there I'll answer some of your questions to me: My German isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I can still understand everyone and can get my point across. I am only speaking German when we arn't in our apartment and it is helping a bit especially since elder king speaks very plain and simple german. So i am actually learning it easier than from Middleton who was trying to perfect his german. I called Middleton a couple days ago and said hi to him. His companion was in our district when we were in Ellwangen they both are pretty cool. I'm glad to be back out here where the rules are very different and it is a much funner and, in my opinion, more productive mission.
Elder King has been in Offenburg for about 3 months and hasn't been able to meet a single investigator or visit anyone that wasn't a member yet so we have planned a lot of stuff. But with no real investigators or members or less actives expecting us it will be hard at first to start but should get easier after that. I know we can't go into France but we do have an amusement park here we are going to try and visit the last p-day of the transfer that will be interesting. There is only us and another companionship in our district so yet again I'm in a very small district.
Elder King had to plan district meeting and call around for numbers so I went to bed at about 9 and passed out till this morning. Today we do have 1 appointment we set up with a less active we ran into on Saturday and that is in about 20 minutes so I hope that goes well. Other than that we plan on going to Freiberg for pday and playing some pool and stuff not quite sure yet but we'll see what happens. Well everything here is going great and I hope it is the same with everyone else as well.
Auf Wiedersehen -- Elder Hargett