Elder Tage Rex: Germany Frankfurt Mission

  Were half way there I hit my halfway/year mark on Wednesday! One year ago I entered the MTC, and started the process of living my life for something greater. The process is still going, and will for a long time but we've come a long way. I don't have much time (I say that every week) but I'll try to get something down. On Friday I saw my family! It was wonderful. I wasn't sure how I was going to come out of it and react emotionally, but to my surprise it was totally fine! It was weirdly normal, like I'd just said hi to them yesterday or something. Nonetheless amazing to see them again though :) We also had a great exchange with our ZLs, who helped me a lot with a bunch figuring out my current challenges and accomplishing my goals. I also met this member named troy from tennissee and he was such a funny dude. He made us tacos! We've been able to find some cool people recently! These two german speaking Arabic dudes came to the institute (young adults gospel cla...

 y ou're the pianoman Sorry super short one this week! The city of Frankfurt is still hustling and bustling. We are finding a good number of people to teach which is awesome, and we are trying our best to get as many people at church as we can! We had 2 exchanges this week, one with the AP's which really expanded my view of what it means to open your mouth and talk to everyone. I also went with one of the office elders and he is a great elder and we had fun together.  We went to Heidelberg for Pday this week, pics below! What an incredible city. We visited the castle there as well. For some reason there is a pharmacy museum inside of it. Don't ask me why, if I designed the castle it would just have cool swords and stuff in there.  I'll write more next week! Liebe Grüße  Elder Tage Rex

  It cannot always be night This week has just been an absolute roller coaster! It started out pretty rough, because we are both in a completely new area and know nothing about anything. There's tons of missionaries around though (cuz were at the HQ) so there's help when we need it.  Navigating the big city is so crazy, we have subway stations and street trains and crazy stuff like that, but honestly it's really nice compared to busses! I find it more comfortable to talk to strangers in the subways and street trains than in busses. We have tons of Ukrainian friends because the city is full of immigrants, and I have a Ukrainian companion. Its a very cool language, and I hope I can pick up some! Our mission president allows us to learn a 2nd language (if we want) when we become proficient in german, and I'm at the threshold so perhaps I'll pick Ukrainian.   I've been thinking a lot about joy recently, because its one of the promised blessings we have as missionari...

  No time so just a lil one! Crazy stuff is among us! We got transfer news on Saturday, which was nuts because this transfer decides who gets sent off to the new mission, and who will stay in the Frankfurt mission. Not sure if I've talked about that before or not with yall, but that's what's up. I got told I was staying, but I am being transferred to FRANKFURT. It's a HUGE city, bigger than I will know what to do with. It should be super fun though, cuz that's where the mission HQ is, along with our president and APs most of the time. I'm going to be the new district leader there, so that's cool. Also, I'll be living in a penthouse with 5 other Elders, so it'll be a party every day. Our district consists of the APs (Assistant to the president), STL's (Sister training leaders), the office sisters, myself and my companion. Speaking of my new companion, he is a Ukrainian! crazy. I met him the other day at a mission conference, and his english is so ...

  I failed to write an email last week, it was a bit of a crazy Pday! We had two elders stay the night at our place in order to drive together to an all Elders Pday activity: Paintball! I'd never been paintballing before but it was pretty fun! To me it's like next level laser tag with consequences.  Other things last week: Mothers day, we made mini golf courses for a youth activity, and we visited a friend at McDonalds which was kinda funny (he works there). My companion had a happy meal for the FIRST TIME in his life. Anyways, this week has been a good one! There were a few sad things, but also a lot of great things and it's amazing to be able to recognize the little manifestations of God's love.  We had a plan to improve our Saturday game night with our friends, because usually only one or two people show up. We planned how to make it more structured, include a spiritual thought, and get members to be there as well to support our friends. Unfortunately, nobody at a...

  A good week! We had another Elders quorum activity, this time related to mothers day! We made a ton of Italian food like lasagna, fettuccine alfredo, spaghetti, and garlic baguettes. All of the women in the branch got to have a nice dinner with each other. They enjoyed it! You never know with that kind of stuff, it's either amazing or everything goes wrong.  We worked on Brother Phillips house again, this time lifting massive bricks all the way to the top of the stairs. Great workout! It looked like I got into a fight with a cat for a while after though. We had 2 separate days this week where we had 3 lessons planned (which is really good at the moment for us), but on both days all three canceled at the last minute, so we had white days (days without any plans). We of course still have to do work though. When we have a planned white day, we can often get a lot done because we can visit people far away with the time we have, and have effectively planned finding...

  Pday again! I might get to play tennis later today too if the weather holds up.     (Update from the future- it did. Tennis was awesome) On Friday we had an amazing activity. The Elders Quorum decided they wanted to start doing stuff, so we all got together and played football ( ) and ate pizza! It was a blast. I'm still not very good at soccer, but it's fun to run around and laugh every time I fail to kick the ball. Also I ate some "mac and cheese" flavored pizza. It was kinda good? The activity was a hit and everyone loved it, and one of our American brothers is just insane at football ( ). He would play goalie but every once in a while he'd leave the goal and outmaneuver everyone. Saturday was wild, we had 3 separate service projects, so it took the entire day. We didn't even have time for studies. We helped build that guys house from 10-12, which is always fun. After that we helped out with a primary activity from 12-16,  where we ran a little escape roo...