"What's the difference between thick and bad?" - August 19, 2013 from Vienna

Welllll…Family!  I just deleted the draft I had been working on. I probably shouldn't have told you that because you'll be even more mad than I am. But I'm heartbroken. Waaaaaaaaaaaaa. I promise I love you so much family!

Okay so last week a family in our ward brought a friend to church (best thing ever). She attended the lesson we taught in the Sunday School class especially for investigators. Afterwards she had some questions about the Pre-Earth life that we were more than happy to set up a time to answer. Major bonus: she felt the Spirit at church. So we met with her and she's just way cool. I full on told her that she reminds me of my mom. Just a little bit though. And she sent us home with . . . Kangen water! 12 wine bottles full of it. And she's also way into essential oils. She told us she was already planning on coming to church the next week. And she did and then we invited her to come to the Huy's house for dinner after church and she did and Richard had a really good talk with her about commandments. We will see her again this week!

So I hadn't really done much service but we did a lot this week! We helped this family in our ward take care of their garden. And we went out to a less active's house and were planning on gardening for them but basically their yard is a jungle and we wouldn't have even known where to start and they said they would rather just talk. So that's what we did to serve them. Remember our best friend Miga? Her mission call came! To our house! And she got called to our mission! It was amazing.

So I'm not sure what pictures made it on to the Drop Box (did that work?) but I took one of the shelf in our apartment that's all different languages of the Book of Mormon. We have so many! And when I was in Munich they took us on a tour of the mission office and there was a room that was basically full of Books of Mormon in every language imaginable. So far I have given out books in Persian, Arabic, and this week I will give out one in Igbo (I didn't have an Igbo Book of Mormon on me when I met my friend from Nigeria on the bus, but we will bring it to her this week). We also gave out a BOM in Serbian.

This brings me to my latest fascination. How do they translate the Book of Mormon? I don't mean the original translation, but into other languages. Who translates it? Who decides who translates it? How does it work? Do they always translate from English? That would be such an important job! Obviously languages don't transfer directly and the connotations matter a lot! So will you please research this for me?

Here is the quote of the week. Last week's was boring. So Elder Richman, who serves in our ward, had a conversation with our GML (ward mission leader) that went something like this:
"Perry, do I have a really thick American accent when I speak German?"

Perry: "Yes."

"But is it bad?"

Perry: "What's the difference between thick and bad?"

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

So over two weeks ago my best friend Courtney Bingham became a Duffy and I haven't heard anything about it! Somebody fill me in! Chels? Phil? Ashley Holt? Matt? Court? I want to hear about it! I'm just so happy for them. Thanks Mommy for sending me some of their engagements. I seriously loved them.

Also, I'm in an internet cafe close to where I live and across from me at another computer is someone is smoking like crazy and I'm pretty sure that he's whispering Harry Potter spells. Also, smoking is clearly forbidden as shown by the "Rachen veroten" sign. I just have to learn how to use every minute of the day more effectively. Which is extra hard when I'm so tired.

I love you family....Sister Kate