Letter # 37

family and friends,

well this week ahs sure been interesting. we started the week with snow and cold, it warmed up and then last night we got another foot or so of snow :( real sad. but all is good. the week was good and bad. we had lots of fun this week with service, but number wise and progress with our investigators it didnt go so well. daily reports now, monday, was zone sport. loads of fun. but not much else. we missed our train going home so we got back late. LOL. tuesday we found a bunch. did a lot of doors. we met with a gator named sam but he doesnt have interest anymore so we might drop him. tuesday we went on exchanges. i was with elder von nieda. so cool. we also had a member with us for a poretion of the day and he is so cool. he is 24 and loads of fun. he is a great teacher to so that was a big help is teaching some people. we had fun on exhcnages to. he wants to go into archeology. so he is all over that. interesting kid. we had laods of fun. wednesday we had distrcit meeting and then we met with a member. he is so cool.  they own a farm and live in a little dorf. way cool couple. so we go there for lunch and it was good. we had fricadellen. good stuff. then he proceeded to show us his sheep. his 4 horned sheep. they are the same sheep from jacob in the bible. creepy looking things but then there were lambs there that were born from tuesday. so cute.  then he showed us his wagons. wierd right? well br liebieck restores and builds old wagons. like wagons across the plains and such. it is his hobby but to the extreme, he has a ginormous building just full of wagons and wheels and parts and stuff. he built and sold 17 WAGONS!!!!! and sent them to america and now there are in a museum in utah. crazy. then he showed us the rest of his stuff. it was like being on an episode of american pickers. just mountains of stuff in a ginourmous warehouse of a place. insane. he ahd old mootrcycles and an old DDR car that still runs. then we showed us his coin collection. OMG. he has way to many coins. insane. he has coins from way old and from all over the world!!!! he showed us all of them to. haha. we spent an hour searching through them all. crazy stuff. so funny. then he went on to explain the trip he went on in 1997 that was the "great treck" to symbolise the trek of the pioniers. aparently its every 50 years. cool stuff. he then told us about food storage and that we need to tell our parents to take it seriously and get ready because " a storm is comign" he said. interesting no? anyway such a cool guy. his wife is the nicest german lady ever. such a cool day being there. thrusday we went to hamburg where elder gochnour ahd training while i walked around hamburg with elder briner. so funny. he passed out english fliers for enlgish class. elder briner passed out his entire stack...i passed out zero! rediculous. then we talk to people on the street about the gospel...nobody listens to briner but everyone talks to me. lol. so i cant be a salesman but i can talk to people about the gospel. so funny. oh and i got a german compliment!!!!!!!!!! so stokes. my german doesnt suck after all. some lady we were talking to asked us where we were from and asked me if iw as from germany. we told her we were from america and she was shocked. bonus points and total moral booster on the german!!! so cool. that whole day was so cool because elder briner is probably the most humerous and awesome elder in the mission. so funny. good day. friday was normal. we ahd fallen out appointments and not much esle other than finding. then at the end of the day we did service at a farm for a member family. they are familie gluck. so cool. they have 7 daughters and 2 sons. right now 4 daughters live at home and the rest are gone. so only the dad is there to do work. yes the women do work but not as mucha s his sons could have done. so we were there to help. we split wood for about an hour and a half. br gluck lead us to a pile of wood taller than me and about 20 feet wide and then he handed me a sledge hammer and asked if i was familiar with a hammer. i answered "naturlich!!!" and he handed me a metal spike or two and said go at it. so for the next hour and a half we have ear protection on and i split basically tree trunks. the wood was to big for his saw and so i was splitting trees in half and then the branches and such br gluck grabbs and splits with his saw. but the bigf stuff im all alone there splitting with spikes and a hammer. then br bluck grabs it and slices it up on his HUGE saw that he was then elder gochnour throws it into a pile. i got the short end of the stick on this job because at the end i could hold onto anything. my grip was gone after swinging a sledge  hammer for 90 minutes. we then helped him move hay for his sheep and then went in for dinner. when we were at dinner i was shaking when i tried to eat my dinner because of how exhausted i was. ridiculous. so funny though. good workout, i must say. nobody said anythign either about me shaking. thats good. i cant look weak in front of his daughters. im sure they could have done the same thing i did for 3 hours and ahd no problem. well mayxbe not but still. would ahve been embarassing to ahve them see that. today my hands still hurt from friday. sad stuff. but all is good. next time im prepared for it. and i will switch off with elder gochnour so we are both wiped out.

saturday was normal. we did more service at another emmbers house cutting down trees and splitting them and such. this time another member showed up who was a gardener so he cut them down witht he saw and cut the big parts up. elder gochnour and i went in with trimmers and cut the branches and collected them all. and piled everything up. loads of fun. sunday was good. we met with a cool family for lunch.ask candice about her email f0or details on their two year old son that we ahd fun with.

thats really it for the week. its freezing cold again and lots of snow. we need to leave son to go to hamburg for zone sport to play dodgeballa nd hockey. hopefully all goes well there and nobody gets hurt :) i hope all is well at home and your all having fun wherever you are. i love you all and alles gute.

bis später

elder ustach

sorry no pics this week. the computere just shut off on me and we need to go. next week about 200 pics or so. loads of them :)