My First Day of Skool!

Hallo! Sorry it's been a few days since I last posted- the weekend was crazy. It was Mom and my first Sunday here and so when we went to our branch, although Kara had told me already, I was still surprised to find only about 20 people there on the third floor of a downtown office building - which is our meeting house. We had Sunday School first, which was taught by a lady who was from Colombia and therefore had a really interesting accent with her German. But it was a good lesson. She showed a portion of a church video of Christ healing the sick and speaking with the Nephite children, surrounded by angels. There was no dialogue, just music and I felt the Spirit very strongly in the room. I was again hit with a strong re-realization of how universal the gospel is for God's children all around the world. I am grateful for the commandments and the scriptures and for the prophets and revelation that keep the church consistent all over the world. There was no Relief Society/Priesthood because they have that on the first and third Sunday, and Sunday School on the second and fourth Sunday. I think they do this because there are just so few people to be able to facilitate all the organizations and auxiliaries and activities that I so take for granted in Utah. Anyway, then we had Sacrament Meeting and they read off our names (Dad had asked them to wait until Mom and I got here). I also got to meet Heidi, who is Kara's seminary teacher who just got married.

After Church, Pika, Mom, Kara, and I went with 4 other ladies from the branch to a yearly stake women's conference, which was in Hannover. We took the train there, which took about an hour and a half. We had a lot of fun getting to know the ladies better, and one, Rose Marie, took a special liking to Mom and talked to her and insisted on translating for her for the whole time. The theme of the actual conference was "Men are that they might have joy" and the talks focused on how we are responsible for our own happiness and attitude. On the first part of the train ride home, Pika talked to the sister missionaries, and then the last hour, talked to this German dude who had just graduated from the Goettingen University in archaeology and was pretty much like Indiana Jones. Anyway, he seemed pretty cool.

Wow this is going to be really long. Ok so today I had my first day of classes- I am doing a 2-week program through a community German-learning program as a refresher course before I have to jump into the rigorous Goethe Institut program. It was really cool- I am in a class with 10 other girls who are all from Italy (from a small town near Venice) and they are here for two weeks and staying with host families to work on their German. They are mostly 16 and 17 years old and have been taking German for 3 or 4 years in high school, so it is a good challenge for me to keep up with them, but I am pretty close to their level. They are really nice and wanted to know everything about me (including if I watched The OC, which when I told them I wasn't very familiar with it they were disappointed), as well as vice versa.We conversed outside of class in a German and English mixture- their English is about as good as my German. We have class from 9 AM until 12:30 PM with a half hour break in the middle. And after I was done, my brain felt fried from trying to remember all the German I have ever learned and thinking purely in German for 3 hours. I think after having these 3 hour classes everyday for 2 weeks, I will hopefully start to not feel so inadequate when it comes to the language and trying to communicate, as it has been for me the past week.

I have been here a week. I can't believe it has only been that long. I miss you and hope you are all surviving everything you have going on in your lives.