September 7, 2023: Time for pushups, going to one thousand

 I'm afraid that's not possible, sir

This week was a doosey. Not sure what that word entails but it feels appropriate. 

We got home last week after p-day to a voice message from the Oma that lives beneath us and owns our dwelling. We got scolded for a solid 3 minutes in german. The words "junge junge junge, meine gute" are burned forever into my brain. Don't worry, we didn't really do anything wrong I think and our relationship has repaired and she hasn't kicked us out yet. I think. 

My companion almost got hit by a car, but he saved his life by turning the bike and crashing into the ground, from which he was nearly unscathed but his phone is broken now, so we've been sharing a phone for a week which has been interesting. We've still gotten everything we need do to done though so it's alright. 

The german language is wild as always, and I can tell I understand just a little bit more every day but still very difficult. Some people speak incredibly clearly, which is super helpful but most people blur words and sounds together which is super confusing. But as everyone says, es kommt mit der Zeit :)

I might've mentioned this last week but both of our ZLs speak the inferior English dialect- one that does not consist of freedom, bald eagles and pigskins, but rather of tea, beans, monarchies, and a stark lack of dentistry. (They're from England and North Ireland). Anyways we did austauch with them, so I got to go with elder white for a day (the Irish one). I had no idea that you could hear Irish accents through other languages. Its really funny to listen to him speak German, and he's a really cool guy. 

We had a brüder grillen (which is not the name of a person, but an activity), or a brothers Grill with all the dudes in the ward on Friday, and we invited like 20 people but only one of our friends made it. It was still good tho, and I ate a lotta potatoes. Luckily the salad was optional :) also for some reason pudding is pretty popular here. Just in case you wanted to know. They gave us 8 bowls of leftovers (6 of which are salad) for some reason, but we have a tiny fridge that hardly holds our normal food we buy every week. It's been a while since I played Tetris. We haven't exactly eaten much of it.

We got a referral from the city of Essen, so now we teach this guy named Hanna with some sisters there. He looks like he's descended from vikings, he's a big strong guy with red hair who looks fierce at first glance, but he is literally the complete opposite. He says "my brothers" at the start of every sentence, he uses a ton of emoji while texting, and is curious about everything in the gospel. We invited him to be baptized and he's super excited, so hopefully that happens sometime soon!

We met with the muslim lady who was flirting with us, ans she claims to have read the entire book of mormon in 5 days. Like just for fun. She doesn't believe in prophets, and she doesn't believe Jesus Christ to be the savior, but it was cool to see that she did it. She even had a couple parts highlighted.

We ate noodles with peanut butter. This was a new experience for me, we just cooked this thick peanut butter stuff in a pan and put it on noodles as a sauce. It was dense, but heavenly. Might have a picture below?

They put light pudding in cartons here and call it Vla. I think it's from the Netherlands. Just thought that was interesting.

My Bishop plays tennis! We might go play one of these days, and I can't wait. I did get to play some ping pong though, which was nice.

Yesterday we went back to sucuck and Chill, I'm not joking when I say it is the best food I've had here by a long shot.

I've been learning that when things get hard, you just have to move, and keep going. I've been riding bikes a lot, and I find it really interesting how when on a high gear, it takes a lot of energy to get going. You have to use so much power just to get on the ground moving. But as you gain speed, every subsequent pedal gets a little easier. After a while it hardly takes any energy at all and you can get going really fast really easily. I think it's kind of like life. When we get knocked down or we have to do something difficult, it's so hard to make that first step, and it takes so much courage to get back up and 'pedal'. But if we just start, and despite anything decide to move forward, it becomes easier and easier with every move you make. And the Lord recognizes your efforts to keep going and will bless you for it. 

This mission was a huge step in the dark. But as I continue to walk, I've begun to see the light more and more illuminate my life. If you feel like your in the dark, don't be afraid to take a step, because that's the only way you'll find the light :)

Elder Tage Rex

1. Finally got a picture of this place

2. The view from one of our friend's apartments

3. Pong pong

4. Sorry if you hate spiders but this one reminded me of camping back in the day

5. Noodles with peanut sauce+Elder Koch

I'm no longer apologizing for long emails