Elder Tage Rex: Germany Frankfurt Mission

  IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII "Revenge is a dish best served cold" The Ping Pong Bandit Today I bring you rad tidings of great joy. It rained like 4 times this week! With lightning and everything, it was wonderful. Reminds me of my days long past in the state of Oklahoma, with howling wind, skies ablaze, and lightning in the air. Tis all yet but an old memory. In all seriousness, during one of our 10 minute breaks we got to run all the way downstairs and outside to play in the rain for just a few minutes. That seems like such a little thing, but you really learn to appreciate the little things when you are here. Every normal thing you get to do is just filled with wonder and amusement. Also, The sky was almost literally on fire yesterday. Sundays are incredible here! I used to not look forward to Sundays that much, but they're such a good breath of fresh air in the MTC. You get to hear your fellow missionaries bear testimony, knowing that they are going through ex...

 "I've had a fairly standard childhood. Eight days old and still living with my parents. How sad is that!" I type this email with minecraft socks on, and wearing crocs of the same nature. This week was sooo much easier than last week. With our one week of experience we now consider ourselves the ancient and wise elders on campus. Just don't ask us what the best time to do laundry is because we will never know.  We started our German immersion classes! Now we spend about 6 hours a day learning and speaking German, or at least trying to. We also try to do one day a week where we speak as little English as possible called our SYL (speak your language) day. It's hard, but we're slowly making progress. We're not expected expected be fluent at the end of our training, but it is kinda wild (in a cool way) how they send us, a bunch of 18-20 year olds fresh out of high-school into a completely foreign country and are expected to get to work with only 4 weeks of exp...

  There, just not back again The Missionary Training Center has been incredible so far. I thought it was going to be hard walking in, but that has been the easiest part of the mission so far. One week ago I said bye to Jacob and my beloved father. And just as soon as I finished hugging them, we were off. Hundreds of missionaries were everywhere, greeting me and everyone else walking in with me, and it's hard not to feel their enthusiasm. They rush you around to get some prep stuff done to make sure you have everything you need, and then are escorted to your dorm where they say "here's your schedule, goodbye" and you and your roommates are left to fend for yourself. It sounds scary maybe, but after so much emotion it's actually the best way they could do things.  Here's what my average day looks like: 6:20-6:30am: Try your hardest to remember why you decided to serve a mission 6:40-7:30am: run around campus looking for open equipment and then at 7 decide to jus...