Chillin out in Germany

(Sorry for the lame pun. :P)

Hallo!

I have now been in Germany for almost two weeks! (although I'm technically now on 'week 3' of this cycle). Germany is so cool! I can't get over it! And my ward is so wonderful. They keep us really well-fed. On Saturday we had three eating appointments. We didn't plan to have that many, but everyone we visited insisted on feeding us. By the end of the night I felt like I was going to explode haha. So, just to prepare you, if I start looking fatter in pictures, that is why.

New Years was fun here. I guess in Germany New Year's is like... just an excuse for delinquincy haha. Did I already tell you about this? Kids go out and set off lots of fireworks and then graffiti stuff. Seriously there is so much graffiti here. Some of it is really cool graffiti, though. As missionaries, we're supposed to go back to our apartments by 6:00 pm on New Years Eve (so we stay out of trouble haha) but we had a teaching appointment so we were out a little later. I can't remember if I already wrote about that, so sorry if that's repeat.

Oh, and postage just went down so now it's only 0.75€ to send a letter to the U.S. (when you convert that to dollars, it's still cheaper than sending from the U.S. to here!)

I had Zone Conference last Tuesday which was cool. I got to see Sis. Dietrich from the MTC again. Sis. Cannon is in a different zone so I didn't see her. I got your Dear Elder, mom. It was waiting for me at Zone Conference. With Dear Elders, it turns out they just get printed out in Salt lake then put in a normal envelope and mailed to the mission home, so I guess it's not any faster that way. It was good to hear from you though!

It is freeeeeeezing here! I can't feel my feet half the time haha. Sis. Thaden and I were out going door to door a couple of days ago and there was a thermometer on one of the houses and it was -11° C. Not sure what that is in Fahrenheit exactly, but I do know that it was way too cold to be outside in a skirt! I layer two pairs of gloves and several pairs of tights to stay warm. (thank you for the extra tights, mom!)

It's a little hard to contact people here, partly because of the weather -- no one is out and about outside, and no one wants to open their door to us -- but we do have a couple of investigators. We also work with a lot of inactives. It makes me feel good to teach them, because that way when we can't find people to teach, at least we're strengthening the ward and bringing people closer to Christ. Sometime I'll have to tell you more about the people we teach. They're cool!

Oh, so my ward is about 1/5 english speakers. They have cool headsets for people to listen to translations of sunday school. There aren't a lot of Americans, but there are lots of British families, or like... one parent is from England and the other from Germany. We have an eating appointment tonight with a British family, and they have the most charming accents. One of our inactives should be coming to dinner, too, so we have a cool lesson planned.

It's so awesome to be here and tracting and teaching and being a real missionary! Seriously, cold and all, it is so awesome. I love it. I'm studying like I've never studied before, and doing lots of hard work, and I love it. The church is true!

I love you all! I haven't gotten around to writing a lot of handwritten letters yet, but I hope to soon. In the meantime, I love you all so much, I hope everything is going well at home, and have an amazing week!

Tschüß!

Sis. Jensen