Vermutlich lohnt es sich, schleimend rumzuschleichen um Ziele zu erreichen.

Moin!

And here we are at the end of another transfer, and this one was seemingly faster than the last one. I believe that will be a common occurring thought as the time continues to go forward throughout the rest of the mission. As each passing day goes by the more silly it seems that the mission will actually come to an end someday. To think back before I even came on a mission and was kind of worried how it would be to get used to the mission life and having such strict rules and schedules to follow through with. Now it is just an everyday occurrence. Even being in Germany itself has no real hold on me anymore. It would honestly be unsettling to suddenly end up in an environment where everything was in English and everyone around me was speaking English. It would probably be interesting to be in an environment where the people didn't have the German mentality or behavior. In all honesty the longer I am on a mission the scarier it actually feels to even think about going home. I even had a dream the other day where I was home for some unknown reason and all I am thinking during this dream is what am I doing back home?! I need to get back there, which is where I need to be! So basically the metamorphosis is almost complete.

Sometimes the struggle is real. And I mean when it comes to writing letters. Because of the fact I feel like an 80 year old man who can't remember anything except for the most random things. Not to mention that this week was very uneventful. Let us see what I can find within my mind.

 Okay I got something to talk about I think. So something as a missionary that we have to do, whether you already know about it or not, is something called an exchange. Or as we call it in Germany, “an Austausch”. So more often than not you would hear us say to each other. "Are you going on Austausch?" Sometimes the Danglisch is unreal but okay back to the real details. So during these exchanges, we exchange with the district leader or the district leaders companion which we like to call the District Frau sometimes, not the nicest of terms but funny nonetheless and nobody takes offense. And so the district leader has an exchange with every elder in his district at least once during the transfer, so unless you are the district leader you end up going on about 2 exchanges per transfer. And for some unknown reason the last 4 exchanges that we have had, I have been the one that has stayed in Bremerhaven. Which means that I get all the responsibility for those days that we exchange because it is my area and whoever is with me is only there for the day so basically they don't make any decisions and just follow my lead. Personally I am not the biggest fan of exchanges because far more often than not they don't achieve their purpose. Depending on the missionaries an exchange is usually one of two things. You are either with the district leader and you are putting on your "tausch" pants because they are going to be reporting everything back to the mission president about the exchange. Or you are with his companion and the exchange becomes a mini-vacation. Neither of which I really agree with because it defeats the point of the exchange. The reason why I am talking about this is because I had an exchange this week.

Something else that happened this week.....Elder Pilling and I were invited to play indoor soccer with one of the younger members and his friends. That was pretty fun and it feels kind of cool to be the foreigner for once. Although I am not too sure they liked how aggressive we played. Hehe. It is kinda weird when they invite us to parties afterwards like we are normal people or something. It is gonna be an interesting transition someday let me tell you. Other than that this week was pretty standard with some extra standard on the side. We found a pretty cool young German. We had some appointments, we had church, and we had lots of rain and wind especially today, although it seems to be clearing up at the moment. It seems the activity nights are dying once again and nobody showed up so that is lame. Hopefully we can reignite the flame for that. Recently most of our attention has been focused on the fact that we have to find somewhere, where we can do baptisms in Bremerhaven because of extenuating circumstances. And because we don't have a baptismal font here we have to do it in the ocean or a pond or something but that will be really cold. So we are trying to have a pool somewhere but yeah really no idea at the moment. When it comes down to it we will do whatever we have to but it is always nice to make sure it is as comfortable as possible. 

Sorry this edition of the Elder Foster Adventures wasn't so exciting, let's just say it was writer's block and I had to make up for it is putting a filler-episode in there or something. But naturally I think and pray for you all and I hope that you all have a nice week.

Tschüss,

Elder Foster