September 28: Code: Fine

 Code: Fine back

A wise woman by the name of Brenda once told me, "If you're going to make a mistake, make it a doosey!"

So, that's exactly what I did.

Just after visiting the beautiful city and cathedral of Köln, we headed back with the trains and busses to Wesel. The busses were a little late, but everything was going fine. We got to the Bahnhof, and went to get our bikes, and it was pouring rain. I felt around in my pockets to get the keys to unlock the bikes, and was in a slight panic as none were to be found. My companion didnt have them either. We dumped everything outside of our backpacks, rummaged through every corner, and alas, no keys. No bike keys, no house keys, no church keys, nothing. All hope was lost. And I was the one in charge of them. We spent about 30 minutes in the rain wondering what to do, and eventually took a bus that dropped us about 2/3 of a mile away from our house, and we walked, keyless, and drenched towards our residency. We rang the doorbell of the Oma that lives beneath us, and she said there are no spare keys, and we are locked out of our apartment/house thing. we tried a variety of methods to open our door, but none of them worked, which i suppose is comforting in the case of a burglar. The Oma called her son in law to come help us. I dug through my bag again, and then he showed up, and took a chipper and a hammer, and started chipping away at the glass center of the door. after about an hour, he broke the glass loose from the door (he didnt break the glass, just made it free from the door). We were able to get in through the hole, we thanked the man and his kindness, and started to unpack our stuff, because it had been 3 days since we had been home. I felt awful for this whole mess. I dumped out my bag one more time, simply to unpack, and to my absolute and utter dismay, out came the keys. I'd said many prayers to find these keys, and I did not expect my prayer to be answered in this way. Normally, I would be thrilled to find them. But we had just dismantled an entire door, walked home in the pouring rain, bothered the Oma below us, my companion had called about 10 people asking what to do, canceled a lesson, our shopping, and cleaning time, simply to find the keys not even 15 minutes after getting inside. So now we were left with a gaping hole in the door. That was nice. I'm still in dismay about the course of events that occurred. 

What really is a miracle, is that all of the issues solved themselves pretty reasonably. It was a little awkward to tell the Oma that we deconstructed her door for nothing, and to tell her son in law to come back and install the glass again, but it worked out. I think we lost about 15 relationship points with her though. We asked the man when he had time to help us, and we offered to pay him, and he didnt respond which was a bit weird, but one day we came home and he had just done it and left. That was also a miracle. And also the door with the hole in it was really funny. Forgot to take a picture and I regret it so much.

Another miracle is that I really wanted to find a cat since I'd been in Germany (I like cats if you didn't know), and amidst my sadness with the keys and the door and everything, I finally saw one! it just randomly showed up in front of our house and it was really nice to see a little sign that God was there for me.

Ok, finally! we can get back to missionary work! 

We got to eat with Schwester Klucken again, which was such a nice break from stress. I did have to eat mushrooms though, which was interesting. She gave me 2 keychains, and I'm starting a collection.

We invited a couple of friends to think about baptism this week! one of them took it pretty well, and we're excited for him. Unfortunately, he randomly decided that he doesn't want to meet with us or come to church for the next month, and instead wants to focus on studying the book of mormon. On one hand, thats amazing, and he seems really committed to studying it and pondering it, and if he truly does that then he will come to know of it's truth. On the other hand, he is forsaking our meetings with him in order to do that, and he seemed pretty set on the idea. We are praying for his desire to continue with the gospel.

We met a random member of the church from Texas on Saturday, so that was kinda cool.

On Sunday though, Elder Koch woke up with a 103 fever. Not great. We had 4 friends coming to church, and there was a big potluck planned afterwards that we were super excited about, but didn't get to go to. Fortunately, all of our friends still made it, and had a great time. Elder Koch was in and out of sleep the whole day.

On Monday, Elder Koch was still sick, but we were able to get a couple things done over video call. We were running out of food, and I ate a wonderful meal consisting of a total of 5 two-week old tortellini with tomato sauce that was already very mediocre the first time, and a glass of grapefruit juice, alone, in the kitchen while elder Koch was sleeping. 

On Tuesday Elder Koch was feeling somewhat better, so we were able to do a lot of Facebook work, but he wasn't up to going outside just yet. I texted a man named Muhammad Ali (leider nicht der boxer) who I thought was a scammer, but eventually got him to change the subject to religion. He sent me a massive paragraph about how he wanted to be my international friend, and how it would mean a lot to him if I followed him on another account. I politely declined. We were discussing religiosity topics, as a missionary does, and he randomly asked if he could call me "buddy". Again, I politely declined. I asked him to call me Elder. It was really interesting though, I he is from Bangladesh, and speaks 4 languages, and is actually like a real person. I have no idea why he sent a massive copy paste spam text at the beginning asking to be friends with me. Eventually, I accepted his friendship, and followed his other account, which wasn't a scam account at all. Definitely a weird interaction, but it was really funny to talk to him. 

Finally on Wednesday Elder Koch was feeling well! We had Districtsrat which is always super fun. Got some nice pizza, and the got some Deutsches Eis danach. They had Ferro-Rocher ice cream, that was crazy. Like those little chocolate nut balls in golden wrapping.

It was nice to end the week off with that positive note though. This has been one of the harder weeks of my mission so far. A lot went wrong, and sometimes it wasn't fun. I heard someone say once though, that on your mission you have hard weeks, but never bad ones. This week was really hard, but I know that Jesus Christ and this gospel has been here to strengthen me when I needed it the most. There were multiple times I prayed this week for comfort, and I truly found it, and felt it. This mission can be as hard on me as it wants to be, but if I know if i build my foundation on Christ, I will stand forever, and I testify that He truly is there for us, and if you reach out to him, He will give you the strength you need. He will rescue you.

Bis nächste Woche:)

Elder Tage Rex

PS: General Conference is this weekend! I can't wait and here's a reminder to watch it :)

Sorry I don't have too many pics, we didn't get out too much