In Germany, dogs are more respectable than children.

Which is odd, because the government pays you when you have children, but not when you have dogs.

This week we let Conference teach for us. Yay for the talks being on the internet so quickly! It was wonderful. We'd just be like, "We don't know how to answer your question, so listen to this apostle of the Lord for 11 minutes and then we'll see what you think." Works like a charm. Especially Elder Holland. I love that man.

This week I had ZoKo for the first time. Zone Conference, rather. Two whole zones of missionaries went to Dusseldorf and listened to our mission president ramble for a while. I love him. He says so many wonderful things. The problem is he doesn't always say them in a sensible order, so you have to take a lot of notes and then piece them all together later. Also, he switches between German and English pretty much every 4th word. Or if he's speaking German, he'll repeat himself in English. Luckily I didn't have to translate the meeting for the senior couples. That would have been a headache!
It was really uplifting to spend so much time with the other missionaries. I haven't met a lame missionary yet.

You may be aware that some missions have a culture in which there are mission family trees. My trainer is Sis. Haas, who is also my mother. Depending on who you ask, either my first district leader or my trainer's last companion is my father. Sis. Haas' trainer, who's dying (going home) in a transfer, is my grandma. I was born in Dortmund. Et cetera.  At first I thought it was kinda silly lingo, but the longer I'm here the more real it seems. What I mean by that is this: even though I'm older than almost all the Elders, the only ones that seem younger than me are the ones that arrived after I did. The rest seem much older than me. The ones who go home soon seem kind of tired, like old people. Age outside of mission life is completely irrelevant. And once someone dies, you never hear from them again.

It's all very odd.

Oh! There was a baptism in Dortmund this weekend! Hurrah for Israel! But not a confirmation. But we'll get him next week . . . (and by that I mean the Elders will.)

I love you all! Probably! (I'm not really sure who's reading these things.) But at the very least God loves you. Because He's known you since before you were born and knows your real potential.

Bye!