April 2, 2013

Happy Happy Birthday!! :D Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Gebortstag! I don't know if you celebrated or anything... but I am, just for you! and Teej too. :) I have made the decision to FINALLY send the package that I started preparing for you all around Christmas time... haha. holy moly. I'll try to send it off today if that works out.

Well first of all, I think it might help to explain why my email is coming a day later than usual... German holidays! :D Germans celebrate easter a lot more than Americans do. They had an entire Ostermarkt up in innenstadt! All of the stores were closed on Saturday for Karfeitag (Good Friday) and of course on Ostersonntag, and also for Oster Montag (that one's Monday :) ). It really brought into perspektiv the entire Osterwoche (Easter week). We were actually asked to give the lesson in Priesthood and FHV (Frauens Hilfvereinigung).... I don't remember the translation for that one... sorry! haha. We gave the lesson on exactly that, Easter week. We followed the Saviors journey for the week of his Kreuzigung und Auferstehung. It was really good to see all of the amazing things that he did during this week. There was a lot that I learned through studying it. And now I'm super ready for General Konferenz! :D woohoo!

  Okay so, every time that I talk about the gospel... it's in German... soooo... yeah. sorry for the crazyness. And I figured, that there are a lot of words that are very similar in German and English... so I will spell them the German way.

  Yes we had an awesome Zone Konferenz in Hamburg! and I actually ran into a familiar face! Rachel Dunlop was there! she was in my FHE group at BYU-Idaho :D super cool. And I think I also saw this Niece of Jodi's.... haha. I may have actually seen her before. haha. She looked familiar :) haha. We learned a lot at the ZoKo, I always find them super motivating and I can't wait to start implementing the things that we learned into real practice.

 For General Konferenz we will be able to watch it live! :D The most difficult think is the time change... 8 hours is quite a while. We will be able to watch most of it live, but after 22:00... we'll take a break and get some sleep before the Sunday Sessions start. I'm interested to see if I will be forced to watch it in Deutsch oder Englisch... Haha. They might give us the option to choose, but I'm not totally sure how it will all work out. I just know that it will be awesome :) I've been working on gathering some questions, I don't have too many, but I'm sure that they will be answered.

 The work here is moving along! We're trying to get everything prepared for the Sisters that will be in the city at the end of the month! so cool! I'm excited to see more missionaries working in this awesome area.

 Woohoo! Kelsey is married! :D I just sent a letter to Stacie asking about that... well I guess now I know :) Congrats to her!

 Congratulations on the new job! woohoo! That sounds awesome. Perfect timing, too!

Well I must be moving on, I hope you had a wonderful Easter!

Bis nächste Woche!

Elder Braden Thorkelson