Ich bin versetzt worden! Abenteuer Oder? And I'm 20 now :)

I'VE BEEN TRANSFERRED!!! I found out on Saturday that I will be going to Freiburg on Thursday. I'm in the bottom corner of Germany. My new area boarders France and Switzerland. It will be at least seven hours of train rides on Thursday, but everyone says that it's beautiful. It's right in the Black Forest. Also, my ward is in the Zurich Switzerland Stake, so that means that I get to go into Zurich if there is Stake Conference while I am there and for Zone Conferences I get to go to Switzerland. It's pretty exciting. 

It feels weird actually leaving Augsburg. I've been here for four transfers which is about six months and it went by so fast! Augsburg has become home, so I don't think it has really sunk in that I am actually leaving. I don't think I'll really realize it until I walk out of my apartment with my suitcases. Saying goodbye to the ward members on Sunday was super depressing. That's the thing about being a missionary. You go into an area and you literally throw everything you have emotionally and physically into helping and loving the people. Then, you get transferred, and you have to pick up and do it somewhere else. It is a really bitter sweet transition. My new companion's name is Sister Earnshaw. I've never met her before, but she is going into her third transfer, so she just finished being trained. It's a new adventure and I'm excited to see what the next few months bring.

Oh! And I'm 20 now. My birthday was on Thursday and I really didn't expect to do anything for it. I was going to just do the normal stuff, but it all started on Monday when the Elders in my district decided to make me birthday tacos. Six Elders in a kitchen is just so fascinating to watch. They did a great job and they even sang to me (or did their best to sing). They forgot candles, so I blew out someones lighter and that was really something, but it was great of them to think of me, so it was fun. Then, on my actual birthday on Thursday, two ward members who I have become really good friends with made me set up a breakfast eating appointment. I walked through the door just expecting breakfast, but there was actually a giant cake, and this was not just any cake, IT WAS RED VELVET! I love red velvet cake, but that is really not a thing you find in Germany at all. It was so sweet of them to make that for me. That night, we had our sport abend at the church where we played volley ball together and one of the ward members ordered pizza for my birthday. OH, and I finally figured out the trick to volleyball. If you don't grunt when you hit the ball, there is no way it is going to go over the net :) Too bad I got transferred because I was actually starting to get the hang of volleyball. Maybe there will be a sport abend in Freiburg too...we'll just have to see. Anyways it was a good day.

For those of you that are regular blog readers, you might remember that last week we ended up doing our emails at an Internet cafe and not at the church because the computers were being stupid at the church. WELL the guy who works at the Internet cafe became an investigator last week! His name is Frans and we got to have a really good conversation with him as we were paying for our time on the computers. He told us to come back and tell him more, so we did, and he said he wanted to keep learning more, so Sister Baker is going to keep the ball rolling with him, because he is awesome. 

We also found another new investigator this week who is a professional women's soccer player. She plays on the FC Augsburg team for women. If she is living in Germany and getting paid to play soccer, you know she kicks butt. She also has the kind of hair that every girl would kill for, but she is super cool because she said she had a Mormon boyfriend once and went to church with him a couple of times, but she never really knew what we are actually about, so she wants to know more! All of these people are coming out of the woodwork now that I'm leaving :( I guess that's just how it is sometimes, but I'm glad that I've at least gotten to meet them.
 
Yesterday we thought we had a normal eating appointment with a member after church, and they drove us out to their super far away village and didn't actually end up taking us to their house. They took us to a reception hall, and we looked at each other like "What is going on?" and we knew that this member had a birthday that day, but we didn't realize that our eating appointment was actually going to the birthday dinner party for it. Good thing I was wearing a nice skirt. Anyways, we got there and figured out what was going on and then people started showing up. There were people from our ward there and friends of theirs from work, so Mormons and non-Mormons. Something that tends to happen at parties like that is the separation. Mormons at one table, and work friends at another table. The four of us missionaries were there and we decided to make the most of this moment, so I sat down next to two guys who were drinking beer and had tattoos, and spiky hair, and piercings and stuff. I have NO idea why I chose to sit next to them. I got scared the second I sat down, but we actually had a really good time talking to each other. They are both nurses in the emergency room and and one of them told me about his experience with cancer. They had a lot of questions about what the heck we do here as missionaries and it was just super great. You never know who will be curious. I was a good time.

Well, that is my week in a nutshell. It was good one! And I became an Aunt this week! JULIE is in the world now! I hope you all have a great week and make good choices!

Love,
Sister Smiley
 
Pictures: Me at a place in Augsburg called Fuggerei (Google it), me drinking my hot chocolate at cafe dichtl, and I busted the elders acting cool