Hi family! I was excited that Grosvati (my dad, who came to visit from California for his 93rd birthday!) was visiting when you found out I was being transferred! I need the numbers of my family members. I'm going on exchange to Winterthur tomorrow but that's not enough time to organize something. I think I'll be in Shaffhausen for a long time so I'll just keep trying to end up in Winterthur on austausch and hopefully I can visit them. (Both of my parents spent most of their growing up years in Winterthur. They met there and immigrated to the US in 1953 with my older brother, just before I was born. I have two aunts, an uncle and cousins and their families who live there and others spread around Switzerland).
I am one of two Americans in Switzerland. They call Switzerland the black hole of our mission. Once you get in, you rarely come out. Although we do have a lot of Europeans in our mission now so there is still totally a chance that I will leave Switzerland at some point. But, like I said, I think I'll be in Schaffhausen for a long time. Then again, I thought I was staying in Wien until after Christmas.
Also I had a few instances in Wien where people literally thought I was from Switzerland. My first Sunday in Wien a member totally thought that. But anyway, here I am!
We have 30 active members in our branch. We actually only have two hours of church so that everyone doesn't have to teach every Sunday. We have this cute little ward building that is actually a house that we meet in. Supposedly for the last 17 years sister missionaries have lived in the apartment that I now live in, but before that they lived in the church house.
It was so good to talk to Greg! (Her Alpenwild boss was in church in ZURICH and got her phone number! He emailed me and said "she sounds great and happy!") The elder that he talked to is Elder Kelly. He's from Ireland and he came to this zone one transfer before I did to be a zone leader. I think he's the only missionary in the Zurich Zone who would have known me from the Wien Zone.
My address:
Fulachstrasse 245
CH 8200 Schaffhausen, Schweiz
Write me! I apologize for being the world's worst writer. I just have very little P-Day time. But I love hearing from you!
Sister McEwen is just all grown up into a great sister missionary.(Sister McEwen is from Scotland and was one of Katie's roommates in the MTC). She's so funny. She says stuff about how her emails are more spiritual every week and she's dressing uglier and uglier. But even I can see some changes from the MTC Sister McEwen who I already loved.
Yesterday we had one of the best dinner appointments of my mission so far. We were at this family called the family Gardieu (it's french . . . not suret how to spell it) and they had over some other members, one of whom is a new convert. We had soup, salad, pasta, and dessert, and with every course you had to change your seat and sit by new people. Also! The elders were there! Schaffhausen was opened to elders this transfer. So this branch has three new missionaries.
So I love you! Let me know if there's anything you really want sent for Christmas! Because I don't know what to send.
I felt really really loved leaving Wien. My last night was a dinner at the Huys. Jenni and Benjamin were there too. Quote of the week: Another time we were witch Jenni and Benjamin and I'm trying to say something to Benjamin auf Deutsch and obviously what I was saying was not at all clear. Finally Jenni figured it out and said to Benjamin "Deutsch ubersetsung:"(That means "German Translation") and then said what I was trying to say in German. Also Sister McEwen told me that when she first got to Switzerland and heard "Gruerzi mitenand" (Kind of like "hello folks"...direct translation would be "hello together"....the most common greeting in Swiss German...which is a VERY STRONG dialect of German) she thought it meant hi missionaries and was all excited because everyone recognized them as missionaries. Ha ha how cute is she!!? Okay well I just never get around to the spiritual stuff. I'm the worst. But really guys, the church is true. Love you!
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