December 15, 2013

Hello there!

I have been doing really well. Christmas time here in Germany is amazing. There are so many different traditions that come together at the Weihnachtszeit. For example, every Sunday in Germany is an Advent. The first sunday being the First Advent, the second being the Second Advent, and so on up to the Fourth Advent. In every family's sitting room, they have an ornamented wreath with 4 candles on it, and they light up one candle for every advent. (One candle on the first advent and 4 on the fourth.) It creates a really cool visual of the time at Christmas. It's like a countdown.

  Another German Christmas tradition is the Advent Calendar. A calendar with a small trap door for every day in December with a little treat inside. Some people make them at home, and other people buy them in stores. The classic Christmas song 'O Tannenbaum' is a German song, 'Stille Nacht' (silent night) is also German. Ahh I love spending Christmas in the Father Land.
  There are so many different traditions that make December a special month of the year. It's a time to be together with family and friends. Sadly, I haven't been able to find the time to send off Christmas cards.... yeah I'll probably end up turning them into New Years cards :) not a problem.

  The Chistmas Zone Conference was pretty good. It wasn't amazing or anything. It was just like a normal zone conference except with more talk about 'the true meaning of Christmas'. By the end I feel like the topic was beat to death... but it really is something good to think about. It's cool to think about Christmas being the 'Christ Mass' where everyone comes together. It has been great learning more about the savior and his life.

  The trip there going in first class was pretty sweet. There are only 3 real differences between first and second class.
1) More leg room

2) Less people

3) Gummy bears :)

I was the most excited about the gummy bears part :) haha. I actually prefer to have a good amount of people around. 'people watching' is a lot of fun :)

 We are planning on Skyping on Christmas morning (for you, evening for us). We're not exactly sure at which time we will be working it out, but I think we will be with the Meckes family. I would think that we would do it here at around 18.00 so that it would be around 10 for you. My account is 'bubthorkelson'. Just be logged in and everything will work out fine :) And there's another Monday inbetween now and then so I will give you a solid time next week.

  We had a pretty crazy time going door to door on Saturday... we met some cool people and some legitimately scary people. One door that we went up to said 'Gräper'... hahaha. there's a tv show that had a skit that made a lot of questionable referances to the mascot of a grape soda known as 'the grapist' who would say things like 'I'm gonna grape you in the mouth!' and things like that... anyway... next we rung the doorbell of a house and this old lady opened the door just a crack so that we could only see one eye and part of her face and asked 'wer ist da?' (who is there?) and we replied by saying that we were the missionaries from the Church, and she replied 'es gibt hier keine' (there's no one here). We came to the conclusion that we had talked to a ghost. We continued going door to door and were very suprised when a man very quickly opened the door and jumped into the opening with a set of widely opened creepy eyes. We introduced ourselves as missionaries and he quickly spit out the words 'Ich hab mit'r Kirche nichts zu tun' (I have nothing to do with the church) we replied by asking him if that was always the case, and he continued to spew out this giant sentance about how he has a big black knife that he uses to sacrifice goats in his basement (?). I was not totally sure if I had understood correctly, but I know I heard the words Messer - knife, Ziege - goat, and Keller - basement/cellar... Elder Christensen and I brought the conversation to a close and busted up laughing on the way to the next house. Ahhh good times.

  Today we are planning on going to Herford with Matthias from our ward. He's the high councilman, sundayschool teacher, and institut teacher from our ward :) haha. It's crazy to think that some people here have 2 or 3 callings... but yeah. we're going to Herford and to Bielefeld with him to check out a chocolate factory (where he says there's super cheap awesome chocolate... and it's time for me to start stocking up for the flight home), and then over to the christmas markets (where there will be classic German christmas things).

 

  It's weird that on Wednesday I will officially have 2 months left.

I love you!

Elder Braden Thorkelson