One Month!

Family, friends, country men, lend me your ears!

This week has been an amazing week. Definitely full of excitement and adventure and spiritual moments.

I think I'm going to start off talking about food since I know I'm going to end up doing it later anyway. Wow. I've had some pretty amazing food this week. Some of the more fantastic things included some fantastic Albanian meat balls (from a couple who met in Albania while the husband was on his mission there) a supreme pizza WITH cheese sticks, baked potatoes and chili. Lots of glorious chili. Oh and elder Hendricks and I may or may not have experimented with some Hawaiian sweet rolls. We cut them in half then fried them a bit, spread some Nutella on top, then added a bit of syrup. Definitely one of the sweetest things that I have ever had, and I'm pretty sure that I gained 10 pounds just looking at it...but it was Glorious. Also the sweet rolls lead us perfectly into what was the most..."interesting" thing that I have now had to date. We wouldn't have even thought of this unless we hadn't run out of hot dog buns for the brats. Because we ran out, and we really wanted some brats, we decided to use the Hawaiian sweet rolls. The only thing was, we also sort of had the idea to put Tapatio sauce on it. Wow. It was terrible. But in an amazing way. It was like a car wreck that you just can't take your eyes off of. Or stop eating.

This week we also rediscovered the joys of biking. Especially with my brand new bike that just got here! It was so amazing! Everything worked perfectly. Even the brakes which were out through extensive crash dummy testing. A pair of elders may or may not have been the crash test dummies but that is beside the point.

So this week my companion and I were really humbled and taught the importance of daily and weekly planning. While we have been planning and trying to make sure that we have things scheduled for every day, we sort of have been forgetting to set back up plans. Which is really unfortunate for those late times of the day like 8:00, when you have lessons that fall through and it's too dark to try daily contact or Tracting. While we were productive this week and got a few new miracle investigators, there were a few times this week where we were humbled and realized that not everything works out the way that we might hope that it will.

So while there were a few rough spots this week it was still an absolutely amazing week! In fact this Wednesday we had an assistant, elder McGrath, come down and join us for 24 hours. At first we were really nervous but it was absolutely fantastic! We only had one appointment fall through but during that time we were able to get two miracle contacts! The coolest part however is that one of them is a whole family and we met them by going door to door, singing! It's really amazing all of the miracles that happen through song. 

The other one we saw across the street right outside his apartment. While we thought that he was going to be a little crazy because he was holding his cat like a babe and just looking at the stars. Turns out that he is actually a really cool guy, unfortunately he is having issues in believing that there is a god but after talking to him for a bit and showing him a really cool Mormon message he really opened up to us and said that he did want to believe but just didn't think that he could.

He is totally willing to take lessons and is really excited to meet with us! I think the coolest part though is that his first name is Nick. :)

Also this week we had our district musical number in zone training. Wow. That was intense. We sang something called come unto Christ and it was fantastic. The spirit was so strong and it was fun to see the audience "revived" after sitting down and just listening to people talk for an hour or two.

Also my knee is doing better! Well at least I'm able to now walk up the stairs from our basement house without using the railing! Biking is still a little tough at times especially with all the hills but i think that I may be getting better. I did also get to talk to the mission home about my brace and they said that they were going to find a way to get it back to me along with my cool magnetic name tag that I also left. Also the miracle horse guys muscle regrowth paste (M.H.G.M.R.P. For short) is fantastic! I was only able to use it once because someone else in the district right over needed it for their shoulder but I think we will be sharing it week on week off with our car that we are also sharing with them.

Sorry for the long email but one last thing real quick. Fall is real.

The stories are true. LEAVES CHANGE COLOR! It's insane! Also the leaves get everywhere! It's really amazing to see though that as it gets colder it just seems to get more beautiful.

So get this, there are bunnies everywhere! Hundreds of them all over the place. It's the weirdest thing. What's really funny is that they aren't even like crazy wild bunnies, but just your normal fluffy pet
bunny.  Weirdest thing.

Also another cool thing about living here is all of the convoys that go by. Because apparently it's also one of the biggest missile bases the U.S. has they have tons of convoys that just go about transporting things. They are so insane to watch, helicopters, sirens, large transport vehicles. Really cool.

But yea. That's been our week so far. Thankfully I've been adjusting really well and it hasn't been too hard. The only thing that I need to work on (funny enough) is communicating with others. In THE FIRST 12 weeks booklet they have evaluations that I have to do every week and that is the area that I am struggling with the most apparently. My only problem in there isn't that I don't talk with others or with my companion, but that apparently I have troubles communicating when I need help or when my knee is bothering me as my trainer put it :/ other than that however it's been fantastic.

I sincerely love you all and love hearing about all of your lives. You all really are the best and I thank you all so much with all of your support. Sorry this email wasn't the greatest but I forgot to bring my journal with me. I love you all!

Never Give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett