I feel I have a pretty good reason for not having written the past two days. I start by just telling what happened, and then I can glean and excuse from that.

Friday, May 10, 1996

Friday was a cool P-Day for a while. We did our laundry and then our service project as normal. Then for the excitement of the week I got to go to the mall. I’m really glad I did. My pants were just way too tight. The lady that helped me out was amazed that I was sold such tight pants. She’s having the blue ones taken out as far as they can and my one gray pair that I’m not wearing is being taken out an inch and a half. Now they’ll be real loose and wearable. We had an hour to be at the mall, and it only took 20 minutes to get my pants all worked out, so my companion, an elderly ward missionary who’s sole purpose is to take missionaries to the mall and health center, just walked around and talked until the van was supposed to come back. Of course the van was late getting back, but that was OK, because an Elder had broken his ankle playing basketball so our driver had to take him to the health clinic. Anyhow, I got back before the district was complete with their session at the temple, so I waited in the front lobby of the MTC. I was there for about an hour before they came back, then we went straight to lunch. Now the weird thing was that I felt perfectly fine up until I got up to go to lunch. Then all of a sudden I felt really sick. Kind of like the flu. I ate about half a sandwich, then came back to our room. I had received a letter from A and C, but I didn’t feel good enough to even read them. I got home about 1:30 and slept until dinnertime about 4:00. I went to dinner because I thought I might start feeling better, but I didn’t. Elder J was feeling a little sick also, so he and I came back together and slept until 6:00. Then Elder R and Elder G checked up on us and wanted to know if Elder J still wanted to go to the rest of class. He didn’t so we both slept until 7:00. A funny little aside here, Elder R had asked Elder J to come into my room so we would be together. Well he was half asleep and half undressed, so he didn’t think to bring a key and his door was locked. So at 7:00 we thought he would have to walk to our Kulturstunde in his bare-feet and ohne eine Krawatte (without a tie). We had just decided to go, and stepped out of my room, when Elders R, K and V came out of their room. So Elder J was able to get dressed before we left. Well, even though we still felt terrible, we went anyhow. I’m glad I did because it was awesome.

We got home from that after 9:30 and I promptly went to bed again, and didn’t wake up until morning.

Saturday, May 11, 1996

Saturday went by pretty normally. I still felt a little weak, but was able to make it to all my classes. Elder J also felt pretty bad and Sister H was getting pretty sick also. Our personal study was real effective for all of us. I was able to get all the verbs we’ve learned so far that I didn’t know all together in a new spiral note pad. Now I just need to get all the nouns and whatnot into a separate book.

Also something I forgot to mention. On Wednesday, Brad L came in. He’s the cousin of Todd and Allen K who came over in the summer a couple of times. He’s going to Hamburg also. It was neat to see him. I had thought he was coming in after I left, so I was surprised to see him.

I was going to stop on the other page, but I remembered some other things. One cool thing is that Dan F, Elder F, and his district moved into the room across the hall from mine. They were in that building to begin with, but got moved out and now they’re back in. Now I see him more than I used to. He’s cool still. He and another Elder in his district are always together and talking with me. They’re cool.

Sunday, May 12, 1996

Now for today. Our district, the Elders, sang a cool hymn in sacrament today. “Secret Prayer,” I think in English, “Wie Süß die Stund,” in Deutsch. We sang the verses in harmony and the chorus in three parts. I sang the tenor line. It sounded really awesome when we were practicing it. When we sang in sacrament we did all right except for me. Not that I messed up or anything, it was that I couldn’t remember the tenor line. I just couldn’t pick it out anymore, so I ended up singing bass. It made me mad, because it sounded so awesome with me singing tenor, but then I couldn’t in sacrament meeting.

I need to work on SYL more. No more English for me. Ich spreche nur Deutsch. Ich brauche Deutsch sprechen, damit ich besser Deutsch sprechen kann. Wenn ich nicht Deutsch sprechen, vergesse ich meine Worte. Daß ich nicht tun kann. Ich muß immer Deutsch sprechen. Und, es tut mir leid, ich muß immer Deutsch schreiben. Und auch immer Deutsch lesen, wenn ich kann. Na ja, Gute Nacht und bis Spater, oder bis Morgen. Ich muß meine Schriffte lesen.