Yeah, for those who don't know what Fön is, it is a warm
wind that come from the Swiss Alps that effects Southern Germany, Munich
apparently gets really bad, and we got it pretty bad on the 24th and 25th. It
was nearly 15 degrees Centigrade (nearly 60 degrees Fahrenheit!). I didn't even
wear a coat! I didn't need even need to it so warm! And as it come in, it gets
pushed down by the cold air in the atmosphere creating high pressure and sunny
weather, which makes feel that much warmer. :-). But just as quickly as it
came, it left and on the 26th we had temperatures below freezing and got nearly
an inch of snow in certain areas. Yup. Warm sunny Christmas day. Freezing cold
snowy day after. Welcome to life in Southern Germany! :-)
On Monday this week we had a farewell appointment with
Prospery. He flies back home to Sambia in two days. We have had some really
cool discussions with him. He had seen missionaries before and was a private
teacher (he teaches physics!) I still to this day marvel at a common
missionary occurrence, I have found so many people who are chemists, physicists,
something very much related to my personality. Elder Sumsion speaks
fluent Spanish (his mom spoke only Spanish too him as he grew up) and he finds
many people who speak Spanish, Elder Mongia is from Italy, and he finds many
people who speak Italian (and in this case I mean an unusually large number).
Anyway, he told us that he would have never listened to the missionaries
there, or had any desire to learn about our church, had he not met us here in
Ravensburg. I asked him if he knew where a church of ours was in Sambia, he said
yes, than I asked how close is it to where you live. He thought for a moment,
and said probably around 250 Kilometers away. I was stunned and thought
"surely there needs to be one closer" So he gets his computer and I
go to LDS.org and look under the "find a branch near you" or something
like that, I ask to type in his home town, he does, and it comes up with a
building. He looks at the address and says, thats only two buildings down from
where I will work... and then we all laughed. NO EXCUSE! :-) We exchanged
e-mails and I have his skype address so we will be able to keep in touch. He
plans on continuing to meet with missionaries in Sambia.
Then we had Christmas which was fun. We spent most of it
with Derick and the Buchanans, which was fun. Derrick made us some Nigerian
food. Egousi with Fofo (I have clue if I spelled that right). Its a famous
dish that most missionaries talk about. Egousi is melons seeds, which are
ground up, and put into a soup which typically has Goat meat, chicken and other
seasonings in it. It is typically VERY SPICEY but Derrick toned it down for our
first time. It is typically eaten with Fofo, which, to best describe it, is
like mashed potatoes, but has a consistency more like that of a bread dough,
you take a small part of it form it into a ball and flatten it, then take it in
your hand and eat the soup using it as a spoon. Very different from anything I
have ever had. Egousi is from the Yoruba tribe, and Ukodo (which I had in
Munich with Clark) is more from the Ibo tribe. I like both a lot actually. :-)
I got the recipe for Ukodo from Clark, and I will probably get a recipe from
Derick as well.
It was a fun time with them, we played various games and
enjoyed our time together. On the 26th (the day of the snow) we went to Sister
Hofman, which was HUGE. Sister Hofman takes care of her father, who really
hates the church, and so never before have missionaries been invited to her
house. Ever. We were! The house is her fathers, but she has an apartment in the
basement, kind of, and she invited us over. It was great. That ended the day on
the 26th.
The next day we had an exchange with Dornbirn, in the which I went
there. We had Fön again, which was actually a bit of a blessing, it made for
Beautiful weather while I was there. We had the exchange at 4, and exchanged
back the next day at 5, both going in and coming out there were two absolutely
spectacular sunsets. (I actually didn't get a good picture of the one out, as
we were in Lindau after it had set) but that was neat. That was my last time
seeing Vorarlberg and Austria for that matter. We had beautiful weather the
whole time I was there and had a exchange.
We exchanged back at 5 on Saturday, but we didn't get back
into Ravensburg until 7 or so. The trains had to be shut down in
Friedrichshafen due to a tragic incident, and we needed to take a bus back to
Ravenburg. The only problem is, when you take a bus to replace a train, is that
there are so many people that you are just squished.
I have figured out that
being the big guy that I am, I am sligthly claustrophobic. And I am also prone
to get minor motion sickness occasionally... Needless to say that was the
longest 64 minutes and 30.526 seconds of my life. :-P I have never ever felt so
much relief by getting off a bus as I did then!
What made it worse (on the way
there) was out of the small portion of the window that I could see from the
bus, I noticed we were in Ravensburg. So I was happy and relieved that I
wouldn't need to endure any longer, but I forgot how many one way roads
Ravensburg has, and to get to the train station requires nearly taking a grand
tour of the city, driving a good half Kilometer past the station and then turn
around and come back.
On top of that EVERY SINGLE STOP LIGHT WE ENCOUNTERED WAS
RED. God truly must have a sense of humor. That is all I can say. I am
surprised I didn't go insane! Of course, that's assuming that I was sane in the
first place. ;-)
Anyway, Yesterday I gave my farewell talk here in Church. I
was assigned to speak for 25 minutes, but after cutting back a portion of the
talk, I still managed to speak for 28 minutes. Granted I knew that there were
only two speakers and I started at 18 after the hour and the meeting was going
to end at around 10 after, and I thought I was going to be short, so I didn't
really worry to much. Woops. :-)
All in all it was a good week. :-) I can't believe that I
only have one more (full week). Its crazy. I am so grateful for the time that
I have had to serve here in Ravensburg. I am grateful for all the things that I
have been able to see and experience. What a neat experience it has been to be
here. I still one full week left, and I will use to its fullest. We have an
exchange going on, on Thursday to Friday again, which will make the week fly by
at an incredible speed again. But we will make the most of it.
I wish you all a wonderful week!
Gute Rutsch ins Neujahr! (
Love,
Elder Ryan K. Christensen
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