Highs and lows

This week was strange.

Yesterday after church elder Nielson and I got an urgent call to come
to a member's house and give a blessing. It is this old couple that
aren't too healthy but they had both been at church that day. We
walked in and they presented us the subject of our blessing, old
Arthur, their 17 year old dog. We weren't sure of what to do, but
remembering the story of Sister Smith blessing her oxen we decided to
proceed. It was actually really touching to see how much this old lady
cares for her dog (even though she swears like a sailor at it, and
everything/everyone else).

Elder Rasband came and visited our mission which was really cool. He
talked about how much he wanted to be called to Germany as a young
missionary, I don't blame him. He also talked about how we should
never give up, praying for blessings that we want to happen. The
meeting was great, I was happy to be able to hear from him. It's
funny, the difference between hearing from and apostle in the MTC and
in the mission field. Everything just seems a lot more real here haha.

Right after that meeting we had to catch a bus to the train station,
we only had a couple minutes to make the connection. I think God must
really love me this week because we had the craziest luck and we're
able to catch our train. A bus came early, ran two red lights and was
driving like a mad man and then pulled up to the train station right
as our train did 😂 I think we were the only missionaries that made it
out of Berlin on time.

I realized how much Germany has changed me when one of our friends,
Nowsheen told me that she would skip school on Friday to meet with us.
I was shocked! Hahaha for some reason skipping school seems like such
a huge deal to me now... not that it didn't before (cough cough). But
really, Germans do their school system right.

In America, patience is a virtue. In Germany, punctuality is a virtue.

By the way, I've loved reading through the conference talks again over
the past couple weeks. You guys should do the same! You don't have to
settle with assuming that the church is true, you can know!

Love you,
Elder Openshaw



AHHHH I almost forgot! I ate some incredible borscht this week!! I'll
send a picture!