Week 1 in Germany

Week 1!

Oh man this week has been crazy fun. Germany is so sweet. My companion is so sick, his name is Elder McGinn! 

So just to quickly take you through my week I'll go day by day!!

Day 1:  We arrive in Frankfurt and get our bags, we walk out and boom, a little German guy with a super thick accent runs up and hugs me, and says, "Ahhhh Elder Anderson, I am soo excited to finally meet you!" President Schwartz is such a cool guy. You can tell that he just loves you to death! So we catch a train back to the church HQ in Frankfurt, on the way there Elder Jensen and I placed 5 pamphlets and cards on the train! My German was struggling, but its getting better and better. We get to church HQ and they are like, "Ok you guys pair up and we are taking you to teach your first lesson". Heck ya. So Hawker and I pair up and go with Elder Lindsey. We go to Frau Spittlers house, she is like 100 years old. Long story short , she starts having spasms and freaking out and talking in Spanish and she is convulsing and screaming and me and Hawker almost had a lady die on us. 1st lesson ever in Germany and we are just sitting there like what the heck is going on. Pretty crazy!! So we go back eat food and go to bed early, I say my prayers and get up and tell Elder Allen, "I am going down to Nürnberg, don't know why, I just feel like it".

Day 2 : The day we find out where we are going. We go down to the meeting room, and they call you and your comp to stand up and then tell you the area, I was first, "Elder Anderson, you are with Elder McGinn you are going down to Erlangen the Nürnberg zone!" Aghhh crazy... revelation.. the church is true. So we find out we are opening an area, its just me and my comp and he just finished getting trained the day before he met me! So crazy. Ahhh so yeah good time. The rest of the day was just us trying to figure out trains to get back to Erlangen. We get there, we go to our apartment. We literally have the nicest place in the entire mission, I'll send pics next week, the computers in this cafe stink. But yeah our apartment is brand new and everything is brand new and we are the first ones in this apartment cause we are opening up! So sick, and then this guy from our ward Bruder Männchen calls us up and he is like you are new, let us fill up your pantry and fridge with food. Score! So that was way nice!! Then we had a lesson set up for us with our DL so he could introduce us to some people. We meet with this lady and the DL. He challenges her to be baptized in a month. Good first lesson in my first area.

Day 3: Wow. So we wake up study etc. Then we decide lets go to the park and just throw around an American football and see if anyone is interested. we get there and run into 30 kids who are part of this service organization and they are all 13- 21 years old and they just love us. They let me practice my German and everything. We throw down the 1st lesson and they think it sounds interesting they invite us to play volleyball with them the next day  haha. Done deals. We get some of their numbers and say goodbye. We go back to get ready and we eat with a member family named the Müddrows. Yum. Go to sleep.

Day 4: Meet up with the kids,  and they bring us bikes and they are like, "come on we will take you on a tour", they  take us on an hour bike ride through Erlangen. We love it, it's so pretty. We get to this building and they are like, "make us American food", its their church building haha. We go in and the shelves are stacked. We make them hamburgers and I went around and got all of their phone numbers. They are all coming to our class to learn "English" on Wednesday! And we got a bunch of the ym and yw to say they will come with us! And then on Saturday we are having a sport day and all off them are coming and they asked if they could bring their friends. Boom. Of course you can bring your friends. And then starting on the 30th we have started setting up some appointments to meet them at their houses. So great. Haha so we have 30 potential investigators and its our 2nd day in Erlangen. The church is true. How else would President be inspired to send me and Mcginn down here. Its our 2nd day in Erlangen and the people are just pouring in. I love my comp, he is just like me. We love making new friends! I still can't get over the fact that we are having so many blessings right from the beginning. 

Day 4: First day in church. It was good, they asked me to give a talk in sacrament, that was interesting in my broken German. But its all good! haha I loved it we stayed after and talked to the YM and YW. Gotta get real tight with them, they are crucial to these 30 kids that we met. After that we went home and planned for what seemed like years. Haha all is good, we listened to some music, talked and then went to bed.

Day 5: I woke up showered and then got dressed and studied now we are in this dingy Internet cafe emailing you all. 

I love you alll !!

Gott bei mit euch bis aus wiedersehn ! 

Elder Nikora Philip Anderson