T Minus 15 Days!

Holy Dyna! It is almost Christmas! Can you believe that? Are things there are all crazy? Things here are pretty busy although people generally aren't as excited about Santa Claus (they don't really have him here too much), and things are a little more relaxed than I remember them being at home.  So this past week was really good.  For P-Day, we went to the Christmas Markets with a member in the ward, J.  He's pretty much our best friend.  It was good. 

 On Tuesday, we had District Meeting which is always a lot of fun.  I just love being with other missionaries.  It's like having friends again! Woohoo!!  Haha! Afterwards we had an appointment with the G'.  He is an American, and she is German.  We are teaching them the lessons.  They have four children in total, but the youngest two are pretty crazy, but funny.  It has snowed here lately.  Not lots of snow, it's mostly just wet, which is not fun.  Also not fun is how German people remove snow.  I have seen 1 shovel.  Instead they just throw rock salt EVERYWHERE, which then ruins your shoes and bottom of your pants too.  It's tough eh? Haha!  I feel so stupid complaining about that.  And I am not really complaining.  It just means that I will need to buy pants sooner.  But I will wait until after Christmas to do that.  Germans (and especially Members) really like to feed you well.  I have already eaten so many 'Plätzchen' which are just home made little Christmas cookies.  They are so delicious!  Every one.  So we get to eat a lot of them.  Any weight I have lost will be found again...  But it's totally worth it.
We also had Ward Council on Wednesday, which was the best Ward Council I had ever been to on my mission.  

 On Thursday, the 6th it was Nicholaus which was way cool.  I don't know how much you know about that, but it is German tradition for Nicholaus to come on the 6th.  He brings the kids a present or two, and then when we have Christmas, either the Christkind (Baby Jesus) or the Weihnachtsmann (Christmas Man) brings presents.  We were with a couple from the ward, and they had Nickolaus bring us some stuff which was way cool.  It felt weird because they were a young couple who were closer to our age. (I think they were 23 and 27).  But it was fun.  It was also freezing cold most of this past week.  (In reality I think that it was only like -2 or something).  We were dying though.  I don't know how missionaries at home do it.  I guess they have cars and what not, but it's even colder.  We were probably out dooring or contacting for about 35 hours this week, so that could be why it seemed so cold.  But it was really nippy.  I look forward to having a car next winter. 
Not really anything special happened on Friday or Saturday.  Just tried to talk to people in the cold.  And people generally weren't too thrilled to talk to us.  And the few that did said they were too busy until after New Year's, so that is tough.  But it will be better soon.  It will all be done so fast, it's crazy!
On Sunday it was a really great day.  We had a baptism in the ward (a boy who turned 8) so the ward was really excited about that.  And there was a potluck afterwards (woohoo!), it was really fun and good.  I still don't know as many people here as I would like to, (It's a big adjustment coming from a little dinky branch), but I am getting a little better.  I also had two members comment on my German being superb.  Which was nice to hear.

 We also went to Stuttgart to the Stake House to watch the broadcast of the Christmas Devotional, which was a lot of fun.  It was really great.
Things here are good.  We are getting more invitations from the ward and everything, so that is really good to see.  I love you guys a lot! Stay warm! Don't forget to write!

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Sincerely,

Elder Thompson