I have successfully moved into my new hostfamily, and I feel like I'm cheating. Because it doesn't feel like I'm in Germany anymore, it just feels like I'm at another member's house. It's crazy-cool. So today I wish to expound on the similarities and differences of Mormonity between here and Iowa.
*For those of you not in the loop: click on the title for more information*Church
The church building itself is a bit different, since German architecture was involved. During the intermediate song whoever is closest to the windows opens them and then closes them at the end of the song. Also, we always stand up for the intermediate hymn, no matter what.
If you don't get moving onto your next class fast enough people in the hallway snap at you, which makes me wonder when
their class starts.
We have the classes first and sacrament meeting after, but we used to do that in Boone too so that's not really that different.
Germans have this thing about going outside all the time! Why can't we just keep all our rooms in one building? They recently acquired some rooms in a nearby building, and they are now housing the Young Men/ Young Women classes, and also some Sunday school classes. It's nice to have the room but BRR!
Bonn Gemeinde (Ward)
Bonn has a lot of international or diplomacy related stuff going on, a by-product of the years when it was the capital right after World War II. So church is never a monolingual occasion, but today was more fun than usual.
We have a Canadian couple who are here for work, and she is taking German lessons but he isn't really because he works so much. She gave a talk today that she had originally written in English and then had had help to translate into German. So I was listening to her read German from the podium when I thought I heard some French - I turned around to see her husband reading the English copy and translating it into French for a new couple. It made me rather giddy inside.
I have a lot of trouble keeping track of which children to speak to in English and which to speak to in German. Also, the water was blessed in Spanish once. That was cool.
Also, I am never sure which language my class is going to be taught in. It's generally a mystery until my teacher opens his /her mouth, unless i know my teacher can't speak good German. I rarely have the same teacher twice - I think they take turns? Not sure.
Home
The same pictures on the walls. That was my first hint.
Our breakfast routine goes like this: we sit around the table, blinking bleary-eyed at one another, and then Regina (my hostmom) passes me a songbook. Then we all sing a verse of a Primary song. Then someone prays, and while we all get breakfast Ingo (hostdad) reads a few verses from the Buch Mormon. Then we eat. Sometimes she doesn't pass me a song book, so I just sing it in English. The boys get a kick out of that, and it often leads to Anna-Lena complaining about how the English version is much better and why didn't they translate it right?
She's kinda cranky in the mornings.
Regina walks around whistling hymns all the time and she gets a kick out of me singing along in English. (I can STILL not whistle.) Don't know the hymns auf Deutsch either, but I've almost memorized some of the Christmas songs since I've sung them so many times!
And I dunno how this could possibly relate to religious beliefs, but some things are creepily the same. Like, my hostmom and my mom react the exact same way when loud noises wake them up from a nap (incoherent sleepy yelling, in case you were wondering). And we have a piano. Is that in the scriptures somewhere? And last Sunday Johannes fell asleep during breakfast and Regina started singing 'Saturday is a Special Day' and I started cracking up because, well, that's the response I was expecting.
So what it all boils down to is what my teacher was saying in Sonntagschule today, during our lesson on fellowshipping: We aren't strangers in the Church. We share commons beliefs and experiences and we need to share them with each other to stay strong.
I'm wondering what AFS would do if they found out. teehee.
