Yes, yes the rumors are true. Elder Mika and I are in fact on the German border with Poland for my first area. We are in a city called Frankfurt Oder and it is legit on the river between Poland and Germany. So, the signs are in German and Polish and the language is half and half. I love it though!! Elder Mika is so awesome. We are fast friends and he is like my older brother and I love him. He is Eric Mika's little brother and he is like 6'5''... and he is so fun. The language and everything is coming along okay and every day it is getting stronger, but yes it is still hard. Our apartment is nice, and we have a bunk bed and it is soooooo squeaky, so neither of us sleep a lot. It is not fun. The food here is so good... and yet I have lost weight. When we do eat it isn’t a lot, then we proceed to walk 10 miles (yes that happened last night). I love it here though, and the people are not what everyone told me. Oh yeah and also people that think we don’t baptize in Germany or have lessons? Well, Germany is one of the top three baptizing missions in Europe now and last night we got a new investigator who is from MONGOLIA??? So heck yeah. He seemed way interested too.
Frankfurt Oder has about 60,000 people and most are students. It is a University town, and everyone is young and we signed up for a basketball league so we are playing in that and teaching an English class at the University most likely. So far the ward is great and the people are super nice. It is just hard to gauge what it is really like in the first 5 days but so far we are way excited. A lot of potential here for sure. I think Germany is such a melting pot that it is easy to find people to talk to because everyone is super open here. So that has been nice and I look forward to the next 12 weeks or so here.
Our ward is in a little town called Eisenhüttenstadt which is about a twenty minute train ride away. The ward has fifteen members and over fifty less-active members. The missionaries have had an Arabic program here and haven’t focused on the less-active members, so that is our focus for a while!! There is this one member named Manfred who is about 70, was born in communist territory and converted about seven years ago. He is the cutest old man with a lisp oh my goodness. The best part about Manfred? He has a weekly Bible study he calls "Manfred and Friends." We went and he gave us food and drinks and told us what to expect in the area and is so great. He laughs at everything; oh my goodness we want to adopt him.
We visited a Mongolian family who had a friend visiting from Mongolia for a few months. As we left he asked, "Can you come back and teach me about your church?" We were like wait what yeah ahahaha see you Friday. We currently have a lot of investigators, and should have three or four on the baptism schedule soon due to their progress and past missionary notes. So we are super excited to work with the college students and also the members.
Germany is awesome and I am excited to be here. Time is already going by fast though. It is already 2 months in! Mika said in a year it will feel like I have been here a week, so he said live it up while you can. I love you all and thank you for the emails throughout the week and letters. They make me so happy to get and read them. Sending my love from Germany/Poland!!!
Elder Rhondeau
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