Elder Glenn Johnson: Livin' the Dream in Berlin, Germany: Service and Delays

Hallo!

The moment you have all been waiting for, I have made it alive to Brandenburg! It took about 5 hours and 2 missed trains, but it worked. When I got on my first train to Bremen, it randomly stopped on the tracks for about 15 minutes, which delayed us and ended up delaying my connecting train.

Once I went and talked to the information desk for the next train to Hannover, I found out that that train was 25 minutes late too. I finally got on (with my 3 bags of everything I own for 2 years) and headed towards Hannover.

Of course I was stressed because I knew this train being delayed would result in missing my train to Berlin. Once I got to Hannover, though, the train I needed was also delayed by 30 minutes. I was relieved and waited for that train. When I finally made it to Berlin, nobody was there to pick me up. I ended up waiting for about 15 minutes for them to find me, because the other missionaries had no idea where I'd be.

our legacy left in Oldenburg: hot cheetos (me), cholula sauce (my father, Elder Mehr), and coke (my grandfather, Elder Powell)

The first thing we did when I got there was service. We went to Neukölln to a place that helps a lot of refugees get integrated into society and feel at home. Elder Noland, my new comp, and I did mostly painting. There was a DJ there, but unfortunately no starbursts going around.

Before I left Oldenburg, my week started off pretty legendary on Tuesday. We went to Amjad’s and he made us pizza which was amazing, I had my last soccer time with my boys there, that was always freaking fun. But, Nils met us at Mom's Diner that night and we both partook of the Shrek. Man, it was tough I'll tell ya. I had just eaten pizza and then played soccer, but nonetheless I prevailed and finished the Shrek. Definitely worth the 25€, 700 grams of meat, and hours of stomach pain.

I don't know which is more beautiful: the Shrek, or Nils

Thursday, the first thing in the morning, we went with a couple brothers in our ward to an elderly man’s house, and helped him move. We had to take everything out of his house and take and put it into his new house. It took from 8am-3pm. Wasn't too bad, except for the bathroom--because his cat had “diarrhea” all over the place (and the keyboard), and apparently they think his cat has cancer. It was pretty interesting though for sure. Later we ate with two elderly ladies in our ward who were pretty cool.

On Friday we had a lesson with Andreas! He had a baptismal date for this coming Saturday, but now it's pushed back a week because the ward can't do this Saturday. But, he's still cool with it. We taught him the law of chastity, which was the first time I've ever taught it in German, but it went pretty well. He said he'd follow it haha. He's a pretty cool dude. We taught him again on Sunday. We had a “joint teach” to help us teach tithing which is tougher, especially in German, but it went super well. This week we have to teach him a few more things, and then he's ready for his baptismal interview.

On Friday we also did a service thing we do every Friday called, “Tafel.” It's another benefit for refugees, where we give them a ton of food for just 2€. All the stores around the area donate their basically expired food and stuff and we help give it out to them. I would call people's numbers out to come get their food, I felt pretty powerful haha. But it was pretty fun and we got to take some food home too lol. So yes, we have been doing a ton of service lately hahaha, but it’s not too bad.

Saturday, we had a German class with this Persian investigator that we have. He speaks Persian, zero English, and zero German. Haha it was pretty fun though, because I got to practice my Persian with him. I just said a bunch of random words, and didn't understand a word he was saying to me but it was fun. We taught him a little bit and I wrote down a couple sentences in Persian for him to translate in German for homework so we'll see how that goes. We also had district meeting in Potsdam. The district is pretty cool, kind of weird having 2 sisters in the district, though, lol.

Sunday was church, naturally. Our branch is freaking tiny, there's only about 15 people who come regularly haha. They had about 45 minutes of priesthood/relief society first, and then a 45 minute sacrament meeting, if even that haha. It was so short, I was really confused why everyone was leaving. But the people in the branch I've met so far seem pretty cool. Then we ate with a pretty cool family, had our lesson with Andreas, and I finally had the time to unpack all my stuff.

So far I’m loving it here in Brandenburg!! Oldenburg will be missed auf jeden Fall, but life goes on.

Have a wonderful week. We see us.

NEW ADDRESS:

Elder Glenn Johnson

Kirche Jesu Christi

Plauer Straße 11d

Brandenburg an der Havel 14770

Deutschland