Grüße aus Berlin! Greetings from Berlin!
We arrived in Berlin last Wednesday and were happy to have made a safe (if tiring) journey. We were given a warm and enthusiastic welcome by our Mission President - President Kosak and his wife. We traveled with a group of missionaries going to our mission and the Alpine Mission.
We are doing well! It is VERY hot and humid here (record highs). Nothing is air conditioned including our apartment and the church. Our bishop determined that we would have only Sacrament Meeting and very short Relief Society and Priesthood Meetings due to the heat. We met many members and young single adults. Everyone has been very welcoming and friendly. Our ward members and the Young Single Adults are truly an international mix of people. They provide English and Spanish translations for the church meetings. We met people from China, Thailand, Angola, Columbia, Norway, the Philippines, Switzerland, Latvia, England and Bulgaria along with many from the USA and Canada. The investigator from Latvia spoke no German or English so I did my best to welcome her and speak with her in Russian.
The Zone Leaders came to our apartment after church to help us get connected to the Internet (Bless them!). We have spent the last couple of days getting moved in and cleaning and fixing up our apartment. Tomorrow we will meet with the CES advisor and learn more about what our assignment will be. We are in charge of the YSA Home Evening tomorrow night and we need to introduce ourselves and provide some food. Our group is small now during summer but the numbers will rise to 60-80 when school starts - our YSA Institute program is the largest in Germany. We will have district meeting with the elders and sisters in our district on Wednesday and a ward potluck social on Friday evening. I believe that Institute (with the meal afterwards) will be on Thursday evening. Saturday evening we will be in charge of English classes. The elders and sisters will also be teaching. We have been asked to speak in sacrament meeting in 2 weeks so our schedule is filling up. We look forward to getting to know our ward members the missionaries and of course all of the young single adults
We are trying our best to learn some German but it is too easy to revert back to Russian when we try to have a conversation with someone and we can't remember or don't know the German word. While tutoring at the MTC, my tutor told me I spoke German with a Russian accent. We will keep working and do our best to learn this new language!
We took some pictures of our apartment here. We have spent the past few days cleaning and getting moved in. I knew it was going to be a good place when I saw the hydrangeas in the courtyard! I love hydrangeas- they are my favorite flower!
Here is Elder Mickelsen in our living room/study
Our small but efficient kitchen
Our bathroom/laundry room
Our bedroom
Our pantry/storage room
Our apartment is small but it has everything we need and best of all, it is only a 5 minute walk to the church which has the Institute center in it!
Life is good (maybe a little hot) but cooler days are ahead!
Auf Wiedersehen!
