Hey Family,

First of all... Happy Birthday Mom!  I hope everything was really fun!? Was there a huge giant party? Did you at least stay up late to celebrate? I hope so. Sorry about your present, but it seems like it will be arriving home sometime around July, so I guess you will have to wait for it. 

Our week was also really good.  We had a lot that happened and a lot of funny expierences as well. Where to begin....  We started the week off with a zone conference that we had in Kiel.  Which that is never normal, because we usually hold them in Hamburg, and the whole north of the mission meets in Hamburg.  But this time it was different. I was super stoked to go to Hamburg, but it didnt turn out so. But at least to get to Kiel it was only 1½ hours and not 2½ to Hamburg.  It seems like every missionary that I meet now, their first question is almost, when are you going home? and then I usually reply with July and they are all suprised because they think I am older on my mission.  But after this transfer, most of the missionaries that I know will be going home.  Its a strange new frontier.  But I promise that I did learn something out of Zone Conference.  We talked alot about the big things of the mission. Which of late has been the topic of repentance because of the worldwide broadcast for missionaries.  

This week we have been finding some crazy and funny people.  We found a little family from Syria who lived before in Dubai.  They were very interesting and very nice to us.  We found them because they were one of the names on our phone (there is like 200 names on our phone, but we decided to go through them finally and most of them were either wrong numbers or do not exsist. One person who we called cant even speak german or english, and so he called a translator to call us to just tell us that he was not interested.  I laughed about that.  And some people live now in southern germany.) but ANYWAYS, we called them and they invited us over right away.  We are going back this wednesday because they were very interested about a living prophet today, but they seem open.  

Haha, ok we found a really funny guy.  We met him at a little ATM shop because there was a ATM shop and we found a place where you can get A&W rootbeer (which is impossible to find by the way) and so I had to buy one.  And we walked in and there was this guy from Guatemala, speaking very decent German with us.  Anyways we get talking and just having a fun time, and then he continues to show us that he is like a karate master and is showing us all these karate moves and throwing fake punches and what not.  He was really funny.  When he finally understood that we were missionaries, he invited us right away to come with us to his friends and to "help" them.  So we walk into his friends house and he looks over at us and just says "ok... tell them...." I had no idea what to say, but we just started talking about our purpose here and we made out another appointment.  It was hilarious.  We had no idea what happened, but we were ok with another appointment.

And that was mostly our week, just talking to alot of people whenever we can.  Sunday we had an eating appointment with a really cool member family in our branch.  They live on the west side of our area and so it takes them about 1 hour every week to get to church.  So we decided to eat at the church building and it was really fun.  They actually come from Berlin and were from Marzahn so that was fun to talk about.  I forgot about Berlinish, a little dialect they have in Berlin.  Basically everyone speaks super super fast and like chop off all the endings of the words.  But they are trying to get rid of their accents, so they told us.  He is also our Sunday School teacher, and so he sounds like an auction man, thats how fast he talks.  But really funny. I forgot how crazy German Sarcasm can be like. 

But to answer your question:  I cannot tell you which one exactly I am learning because I am learning both Brasilien portuguese and Portugal portuguese. From what I have gathered, its basically just an accent thing.  And the brasilians use a formal language and the portuguese use a very personal language. like in German. There is a Sie language and a Du language.  But the missionary who is helping me is either from Brasil or lived there for a while.  Anyways, he is fluent in the language. But all my books are teaching me portuguese from Portugal.  And then we have a member in our branch from Angola, and that has also its own little dialect of portuguese.  So its just really everywhere.  But I can say a basic prayer and a little small talk.  I have started to memorize 10 new words a day, so i keep the words in my shirt pocket and everytime i get into a bus, I go over the words again.  This week, I asked my mission president if it would be possible that Elder from Brasil and I could be companions, so I will let you know how that goes.  

So how is the missionary work at home? I saw that there is a dritt in our ward? (three elders) and sisters? how long do they think they will be there? I have already started to make some plans to make sure I go out with them and help them with the work. that is something that I really saw from this branch is their willingness to be there and to help. And I would like to do something when I get home. 

Keep me posted on all the baby information.  I hope that everything goes will for Nadine and last month of pregnancy.  Is there a name? A gender? Hey! where is the gender from Kevin and Hanas? He told me he would send  me an email........

Well, love you!

Elder Bretzing

And as for this week....

Ok well this will be a super long email because I will just add to that for what we did but it will actually be pretty short.  But this week went good. Probably one of the hardest that Elder Ausobsky and I had during our time in Flensburg.  Almost every single appointment that we had with our friends fell out. Everyone was sick or just were not home when we planned it for.  That was really tough, but on a brighter side, we have been able to work more closely this week with some newly converted members.  It was really fun because one of the new converts is from Angola and he speaks Portuguese, and so we set it up that the Elder who speaks Portuguese was able to have a skype meeting with him and that went pretty well.  It was cool because I was able to understand like 20 percent.  But i thought that was fun.

Because all of our appointments fell out, we decided that we were going to go to a city that we have not gone to before and just hit the streets with finding.  So we went to this small city called Schleswig.  And it was also tough.  We ran into about 5 people who were either pastors or their parents where pastors of another faith. And that was not the hard part, it was that they really didnt show some christlike love.  One was really nice, though, and he was even in Utah and was at BYU for a little bit.  Its crazy to hear all the stories of people we meet on the street and usually everyday we find someone who has been to Utah. But that was our time in Schleswig. I think I was mostly enjoying to see the sun for the whole day, so that made it a bright day.

Then we were in Kiel for two days.  So we have a new thing in our mission where we want to focus on the missionary exchange.  So that meant that we both had to spend two days in Kiel and that was a little tough because we could not schedule any other appointments for these two days.  But i was with Elder Lauder again and it sure did feel like the old days.  It is interesting to think that I have already been gone from Kiel for about 3 months and when I came back for the exchange, I still knew my way around.  I just forgot all the bus numbers and their times, but it was really fun to be back. We ran into alot of people that we use to teach together, who unfortunately have not been taught lately.  So I dont think that was a coincidence and I hope that they might be able to meet with them again.

This weekend will be transfer calls, so I will let you know what happens. I have no idea what will happen, but it will definately be something new. Its been weird because usually most of my mission I kind of new what was going to happen in terms of being transferred, but this one I am not to entirely sure about.  But I gues there are only two options anyway.  Well, I love you all and I will talk to you next week! 

Love again,

Elder Bretzing

Smiles to my heart when I see him.. he looks so happy

Zone Conference February 2016