Week Twenty-Seven

So this week was not super exciting, just a couple of interesting experiences.  All of our investigators are still on vacation, we are hoping they get back this week, but as for last week, there was not much going on.

 

But last week after writing emails, we didn`t have much planned.  It was the 31st, or Silvester in Germany,  which is apparently a huge holiday here.  And because it gets so big and out of control there was a rule that we had to home by 6pm.  This meant that we could basically do nothing all day.  The only thing that HAD to get done was haircuts.  Elder Olson and I were looking almost homeless for the past couple weeks, because we have been so busy every other P-day.  So we figured that with nothing to do, we could finally cut our hair.... However, it turns out that on the 31st of December, it is Hagen cut your hair day.  The entire town and thier cousins wanted to get thier hair cut that day, and there was no way we were going to wait 2 hours to get our hair cut... So we did what ever other logically 19 year old boy would do... Buy a razor and do it yourself...  I have to say, for first time doing it all alone it doesn`t look too bad.  The left side of my head is a vew centimeters shorter than the other side, and I may have almost been bald in the backside, but it is a learning process.

 

The best part was that we thought we were so smart, because we stood in the tub to cut our hair, and then we could just take a shower and it would require no clean up.... Apparently hair doesn`t go down a bathtub drain the way we thought.  Needless to say, we both have shorter hair (much shorter), we spent 30 euro more than ususal, and we still look homeless :)

 

The rest of the night we stayed in and played games together and had a little party and then went to bed on time, only to be waken up at 12 by what sounded like 100000000 cannons going off.  I have never in my life heard so many fireworks.  The whole sky was lit up it was crazy.  The next day, everyone left there trash on the street and there were thousands, maybe even millions of firework shells on every street.  Apperently, in Germany, Silvester is a big deal.

 

So after getting yelled at, we decided to try our luck in another stadt.  It was getting a little late, and I had completely forgotten that the buses were running on holiday schedual (which means never).  So we took the last bus out to the middle of nowhere, with no option of ruturn...  That was fun.  8:30 at night, not knowing where you are (I might have forgot the map too) and having no buses.  Well we walked alot that night.  After about 45 min of just following the road signs that said Hagen, we made it to some small city and asked someone how to get home.  They said that there was a train station but they were not sure if trains would be running this late on a "holiday" (WHO CELIBRATES THE FIRST AT 9PM!?!?! (except my dad)).  After two trains not showing up, and almost deciding to walk the last 7 km home, the last train finally came. Kinda a scarey night.

 

And so is new years, which we found out the next day while doing doors.  We start doing doors on the 1st, and almost no one was home.  And when we finally found someone who was home, they just yelled at us and asked us if we hated families.  I never knew that it was such a big holiday.

 

Other than that, not much happened.  A few appointments, but none with any of our investigators.  Everyone was either already out of town or going out of town. What this week definitly taught me was that, even though I am finally "one year older and wiser too"  there is still a bit of common scense missing, thats just always going to be empty :)  But what fun is life without a few experiences :)

 

Viele Liebe,

 

Elder Blackley