Beer Shoes

And the highlight for this week is....... SISTER THADEN AND I ARE STAYING TOGETHER!!!!!!!!

We got the call this morning, and we're staying here, together, in Friedrichsdorf. I had a panic attack this morning thinking, 'crap, what if I get transferred?' Luckily, though, we're staying. So all's clear with sending letters to my same address (Hugenottenstrasse 4-A). I'm really stoked. Sis. Thaden and I have so much fun together. Also, I get the feeling like there's something we still have to do together. Maybe there is someone we're supposed to find and teach.

Things are still going well with investigators. In fact, we had three investigators at church yesterday! (A new record for us). It was wonderful. Yesterday was Fast and Testimony meeting, which we were a little nervous about, because you know how there are always a few people who get up and share a really weird testimony? Or they share false doctrine from the pulpit? Well, we have a few of those in our ward, haha. But everything went well, and the testimonies were beautiful, and the spirit was really strong!

Oh, so a couple interesting stories from this week:
1) I went to my first ever German funeral.
It was pretty much like a normal funeral in the church building. It was really small, though. Only about 12 people came. A man in our ward recently lost his daughter. He gave the eulogy. It was pretty intense, actually. Apparently his daughter had fallen away from the church, gotten into drugs and alcohol, and totally alienated everyone from her, which was why the funeral was so small. He ended his eulogy with, 'And THAT is why you ALWAYS listen to your parents. Amen.' There was quite the awkward silence afterward. The graveside part was interesting, though, because his daughter was cremated, but they still buried the urn. We were glad we were there to support the family, though, and we helped with the food/dishes afterward.

2) Beer shoes
So we have been visiting this inactive lady once every couple of weeks, but every now and then she starts acting very strange. This past week, she apparently made a huge meal for us, because she thought we were coming (though we hadn't made an appointment or anything) and then flipped out when we didn't come. We went to her house yesterday to see if she was okay and apologize, and her husband told us that she was mentally ill and had secretly stopped taking her medication. He was pretty frazzled. Midway through our appointment he was like, 'Oh, I'm sorry, would you like something to drink?' and he went in the entry way to get us some soda and knocked a bunch of glass bottles of beer off a shelf, which shattered on the floor near where we'd taken our shoes off, and soaked our shoes in BEER hahaha. Sis. Thaden got the worst of it. She picked up her shoe, poured beer out of it, and gave me this horrified look haha. Her shoes still smell like beer. We went to church right after, smelling like beer, I'm sure. Pretty funny. Well, more funny in retrospect than it was at the time, haha.

3) Transfer calls
So in addition to finding out I'm staying, we also found out that we're getting a new district leader! Our old one, Elder Collins, goes home on Wednesday. Our new district leader is Elder Hoffbauer, a native Austrian. I'm stoked because now we'll probably get to do district finding in MARBURG!!!!!!! (I've been looking for an excuse to go there ever since I found out how close it was). Our old district leader was opposed to going there, but Elder Hoffbauer loves Marburg, so my chances has improved. I'll take some pictures for you, Matt!

4) My new daring haircut
Actually, it's not that daring. But the daring part is that I cut my hair myself! I bought some haircutting scissors last week and gave myself a trim. Sis. Thaden helped. I was actually terrified to cut my own hair but it turned out to be quite cathartic.

Well, that's pretty much it. I hope all is well back home! Sounds like some crazy stuff is going down in Egypt? I got your email, mom, I'm printing it out to read later.

Love you all!

Sis. Jensen