Halli hallo once again dear friends and family!
Still alive and kicken in P-town Deutschland, had quite a week this week, not sure how i´d describe it, but naja it was definitely a rewarding one... in the end anyway.
So basically our week went a little something like this, Monday... EVERY appointment fell out, Tuesday EVERY appointment fell out, we did have Zone Conference though (surprised that didnt fall out) Wednesday EVERY appointment fell out, Thursday FIRST APPOINTMENT we ate lunch with a the parents of the branch president in Templin, way cool, the father is not a member, so that´s an awesome opportunity at completing a family, but ya, afterwards everything else fell out.:) So basically Friday rolls around and we hadnt taught a single investigator all week! Not the most encouraging situation, because when appointments fall out that means that you basically have to go do another extra hour of "finding time" added on to the hours you already have planned. Sew basically we knocked on doors all week long.:) Friday though, we finally got in with a new investigator, 2 actually, then with 3 saturday, and two more sunday so that saved the week.
Tuesday´s Zone conference was super super cool, lots of little changes in the program. Sister Pimentel also gave an awesome thema based on the story of my ancestor Joseph A. Ott and it was a really cool experience. The big talk though was the taking away of the Ballard system. The ballard system is this, you get one ballard for talking to 10 extra people a day, 10 when your comp talks to ten extra a day, and then the third ballard comes when you make an appointment out. So you have the possibility of getting 21 a week. Ballards are basically how missionaries judge other missionaries and it´s aweful. For example, it was SUPER easy to make out appointments in Kiel, but here, you can talk to EVERYONE you see the ENTIRE day long and not even get into a conversation. So, you have all these missionaries who havent been in rough programs, whispering behind your back "he only gets like 16 ballards a week" and it´s super frustrating. It´s kinda like you're talking with people just to get a time and a place to meet so you can get your ballard instead of because you want find interested people. So anyway, that system got tweeked a bit so it´s a little better, and now i dont have this crushing burden of i have to make out an appointment today or else, haha it´s still there a bit, but hopefully we can focus on finding for the right reasons now. Prenzlau has really changed my whole perspective on numbers, even though to my absolute amazement, and concern, we actually stay above average in most categories.
Anywho, that was good, Saturday we had our mid transfer transfer-call. President said "and in the prenzlau district....(super long pause) no changes!" Haha so it was kinda a little adrenaline rush for nothing.
Our main focus right now is taking new investigators, which we´ve been finding a couple every week, and turning them into progressing investigators. It seems like most everyone who meets with us are just really nice people who love to talk about america, it´s super hard to get them to actually investigate the church though!
Past couple days have been kind of interesting. So basically there´s a political party very active here in our region, call the NPD. The NPD is literally the reformed Nazi party... yes it still exsits. It´s pretty shocking seeing some of their campaign stuff. "no more foreigners!" and all this stuff. One guy we are teaching in a city just north of us is from Chile, and some guys broke into his apartment and wrecked up all his stuff. They just had a big celebration because it´s like the 50 year mark since the Wall went up, and the NPD and Communist parties had these t-shirts and signs and stuff and they said "thank you for the 28 years of protection" with picture of soldiers with guns in front of the Brandenburger gate. Latest poll said that in the city right above us, the NPD have 20% of the votes, pretty crazy. They´re very anti american. I say that because we got thrown in to an interesting situation this last week up there. It was actually with a communist, so it´s different, haha but basically this guy tried to bash it out with us about how vile american was, pretty crazy stuff he was saying. It´s been weird kinda being in the middle of the big political frenzy lately.
Anywho, as said it was a long, hard week. Still dont have any progressing investigators, but we´re looking for them! Got to take a ride in the branch pres´s brand new Audi... WOW. That was a lot of fun. The german cars are something else, that´s for sure. But anyways, Sunday was very uplifting and was a great day leading into p-day today. It will be interesting to see what next week brings!
Have a wonderful week back home... love and miss you all so much!
-Elder Ott
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