Werbellinsee YSA Conference 2009

Although the first day of the YSA conference this year, I didn't want to be there at all, it turned out fabulously. The Lord really does know me and what I need and when to give it.

After my success at spreading the love for Perudo at EFY, the game only went farther to touch even more hearts of YSAs (thanks Heidi!).





I had a tour of the Reichstag but found the political infos not as interesting as the architecture itself. (The higher-backed chair on the left-hand side of the podium is where Chancellor Angela Merkel sits.)











Pirate night was really fun, especially for the new fans of Perudo, who said "Arrrr" and "Dudo" to me when they saw me. I was inducted into the band of official pirates when I tied a complicated knot in less than thirty seconds, hammered in five nails, drank a half liter of nasty brown water and ate two pieces of zwieback in record time. (I even thought of a new joke. What holy ship do pirates want to steal? The ARRRRK!) I also got to meet a fellow pirate who reads my blog (you know who you are--I was so glad to meet you. And hey, leave a comment!)





I enjoyed a nice barefoot walk on a moor, or solid-looking ground that is actually soggy but firm. Very cool. When we jumped, the trees shook.





Luckily, I didn't get any ticks. But Andy did.





The talent show went great though I was scared out my wits. I performed the minute waltz with an enormous timer ticking down the seconds above me on the screen. I didn't miss any parts, or have to start over, and though there were a lot of precision mistakes, I ended with ten seconds to spare, even slowing down at the end to play with the audience a bit. There were a lot of other great performances, too, including some break dancers, composers, comedians, and improvs.

The area where the conference was held was obviously a rich vacation area. Houses looked like this, with the best-kept lawns I've ever seen in Germany.





And the lake was fabulous.





But the best part of the week:

Leipzig YSA Easter Convention 2009

I'm not sure I've ever had so much catching up to do on this blog, ever. And, like Amy Lawson, I guess my blog posts will have to blossom when I should really be writing a master's thesis.

On the first night of the Leipzig YSA Easter Convention 2009, we had lip syncs. I even starred in one, complete with crimped hair. (Thanks for the idea, Ronda!)













Enjoy the four recorded on my camera (the fourth is the best!):


"Bootylicious" lip sync:




Kind of repulsive Spice Girls lip sync:




Something German lip sync:




And, last but not least, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" lip sync (starring me):




On the second day, we had group activities in the park. Luckily the weather was good. I was asked at the last minute to be in charge of an activity, namely bubble-blowing. Since it was too windy, it didn't work out too well, but I believe it was still fun. And I continually and sarcastically repeated the following the whole time I sat in my bubble field: "I've got a good idea. Let's leave Michelle in the middle of a field for five hours, where she can be surrounded by every imaginable thing she's allergic to." In short, I suffered the whole time. At least Kenneth brought me some more tissues. And at least I had sunscreen with me. Here are some pictures (I smiled despite the misery).


























That night, we gave a tour of the city. I was excited to show off Leipzig and tell a bit about the history.













The following day, we went bowling. I won twice, though we weren't allowed to finish the second game. My score for the finished game was 109, I believe. Not Sica-worthy, and not my best game ever, but better than the others. :)

Then we had our ball, where I played two musical numbers. The guy announcing for us said I was going to recite a poem, so I had to laugh and tell the audience that the song was called "Poem" by Fibich. The other song was John Field's "Nocturne." Aaron played the most heart-wrenching "Serenade" from Schubert on his violin, and another boy from Stuttgart played a little something on the piano.

Why does the ball part of these YSA conventions always make me feel lonely? I ended up sitting at a table with couples, so that really added to the feeling. Once the dancing started, I had more fun, though there were a few I was disappointed about never dancing with. My allergies got a bit out of hand, though, and I was told I look like I'd been broken up with.













I was proud of my hair. I tried a new way to curl it I learned from Sister Ryser, where you never close the curling iron but hold the hair against the barrel and start at the top of the hair.















We even took a group photo. Can you find me?











Antje showed up on Easter Sunday. Yay! Everyone went for a walk, meaning I got dragged along as I repeatedly blew my nose, wiped my eyes, sprayed nasal spray, and put in eye drops. Everyone gathered chocolate bunnies while I eagerly waited to be inside a building again.













I accompanied the choir as they sang "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," a lovely song. I kind of wanted more personal time after church to think about the Atonement, so I went home and ended up taking a nap. I was glad my mom called as I was walking back to the church for the 11 PM fireside.

Monday, we danced at breakfast, had a testimony meeting (wherein I accidentally said that I had no friends when I meant "boyfriend," don't ask me how that made it into my testimony), and cleaned up the wardhouse.

Then I went home to get as much done as possible before my trip to Turkey.

Warning: Dating

I had to laugh when I saw this ad online. I think it speaks for itself. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.


Happy birthday to my nephew and niece this week.

More Random Links and Videos

How about Google's new favicon? It still throws me off when digging through my tabs.

Four fingers to play the piano? Wow.



Scrabble keyboard.


The 80s are back never went away.




This website makes me laugh, though it might be a little harsh. If I were to make one, I would add something about a snaggle tooth in there.

I can't stop watching this and laughing:





I like this bag.

I like this short photo review of Obama's people. Did you see that there's a 24-year-old? What about the two guys with scary-looking eyes? I loved the inauguration speech though it seemed contradictory to talk about ending the war immediately and then conquering anyone who tries to fight us. (Isn't that what started the war? And is quitting conquering?) I'm still looking forward to seeing what big changes the next four to eight years will bring.

Two little kids wanted to elope to Africa. What's amazing about this story (to me) is that they're German. That means they're talking about marriage at least 30 years too early. ;)

Speaking of Africa, I don't know why I think this is so amazing, but a pet lion?




Avant-garde East German music?

I've almost survived January, though there are challenges yet to come: a friend is moving back to Ohio this week, I've got to start writing my papers, and I need to make some expensive decisions. Wish me luck!

New Years YSA Conference 2008-2009 in Elm, Switzerland

I met up with these guys in Zollikofen to drive to Elm.













We requested Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" (Daniel was the DJ) and all sung along:





I was so excited to see Alexa there, and it was so nice of her to bring her skis for me (she wears the same size shoe). Here we are getting ready to hit the slopes on Saturday!













Here's Alexa a few minutes later praying to the ski gods to let Michelle get better at skiing or at least to keep moving. I don't know what happened, but I suddenly became intimidated by this mountain and was almost paralyzed most of the time. Shameful. It also didn't help that I was stuck with gloves that soaked through with water and then froze into blocks of ice. Very pleasing, especially when my thumb was so cold that it hurt when I tried to warm it up.













At least I had lots of opportunities to take beautiful pictures as I sat down along the way. Seeing mountains again seriously warmed my heart.
















That evening, before the dance, we had fun writing and drawing all over the message board. I even added the music to "Mary Had a Little Lamb."













On Sunday, we had sacrament meeting on a snowy hill.
























This was the view:













An area seventy, Elder Weidmann, gave a great fireside which was more like a discussion on the conference's theme scripture, which also happens to be my favorite scripture: Jacob 6:12. I love Jacob. As I'm fond of saying, he's totally underrated.

I decided to do some snowshoeing on Monday. Totally worth it.
















We were so warm at the top and the view was so amazing that no one minded eating sandwiches in the freezing cold.













Wow. So this is what happens when you don't have snowshoes on--you start sinking, surrounded by beauty.













This guy just suddenly decided to stand beside me. If I were a little more warmly dressed like he is, I might be able to claim that I was at the Everest base camp or something.
















Just one more picture with the beautiful mountains in the background, followed by two videos.



















Family night was followed by a dance that was pajama-party-themed. I loved having people ask me who "Reed" was (I had on my family reunion t-shirt).













We played Werewolves and Dippity, Dippity, Dip with a big group of people. We decided to invite the French-speaking YSAs to join us. It was hilarious to hear them trying to say "Dippity." Sometimes it was "Deepity" and sometimes it was "Beebeedee." The girl and three boys on the further side of the circle are the French-speaking ones:





Tuesday, I hit the slopes again and was glad I'd done it. I was able to ski a lot faster. Vera and I made a good skiing pair because we skied at about the same speed and cautiousness. Plus, I had "borrowed" warm, waterproof gloves from the shelf outside of our room. The best adventure was when we went to the very top of the mountain and discovered it was a very steep hill. Vera didn't want to do it though I thought we could schaff it, so we didn't get out of the lift. The whole lift stopped for us to get out, so we had to explain that we didn't want to get out. Then at the bottom, there was no where to get out, so we just had to somehow jump out. I skied straight into a cupboard and she into some cement steps, which made loud noises and sent the men shoveling snow running to stop the lift. Ha ha.













So much dancing and skiing gave my feet some lovely and thankfully painless blisters. Unfortunately, not everyone had dirndls for the Älpler dance, but we still looked pretty good.













I found a lot of the Austrian boys quite good-looking, polite, and interesting. I tried on my friend Michael's Älpler hat. The winner of the Älpler contest was a friend from Leipzig!













The next day, Alexa and I had hardcore colds that left us constantly needing tissues and gave me back my intense sore throat. We were also some of the last ones to get off the slopes to get ready for the New Year's Eve ball and found this crazy sign along the way.













Instead of having showering parties like some girls, Alexa and I both avoided crowds in the showers like the plague. I'm getting better at the public showering thing. I just don't think about it and don't make eye contact with people. Unlike some girls, Alexa and I were able to get spiced up pretty quickly. I convinced her to try some of my bronzer and I think it looked really great on her.













I loved the pig decorations (they're good luck, like the peppermint pig I used to smash with my family) and even found a boyfriend to replace the smoker guy. Say hi to Schwänli.













This makes me think of that book Pigs in Hiding.
















The food was pretty good. Tin foil decorations were entertaining.













I just had to have a picture with my friend David who looks like Clark Kent.













Each night when we got ready for bed, we laughed at mascara and eyeliner smears and crazy hair. We stopped laughing once we couldn't sleep because people were snoring and sleeping through their cell phone alarms that went off every couple of minutes. (Seriously, how do they do that? I woke up one girl four or five times to tell her to turn off her cell phone. She always asked, "Whose cell phone?")













Each day, Alexa's bruises from snowboarding down the icy sledding path got bluer. As she put it, "I have dead people knees."
















Although the weather wasn't as warm as the other days, the amazing amount of snow that fell from midnight til morning gave Thursday fabulous powder that allowed me to ski from the highest slope, which was thoughtfully decked with hammocks to give your knees a rest before the long fall. Also, a tip from a Swiss friend the previous day helped me to ski a lot faster and more confidently.













In the evening, though my knees were completely done and I could have slept twelve hours right then, we took a lift to the top of the nearest mountain and sledded down to the bottom. There were amazing stars and we laughed and screamed the entire time. While waiting in line, I told Alexa about Amy's sledding fiasco, which would be ironic in the hours to come . . .













During the second round, we had to stop in the middle (of course this was only possible at one spot where it wasn't so steep or icy). I was such a horrible driver because I had ice frozen on my eyes and couldn't see anything. It was sooooo cold and sooooo amazingly hard to brake.













And the rest of the story tomorrow or Tuesday. If you can believe it, it gets even more exciting . . .

Five Years Ago

Maybe it's weird to commemorate this, but not for me, and I don't think it is for the other person involved, either. (We both talk about it quite openly.)

Five years ago yesterday, I became engaged to a wonderful young man. When I think of the five years since then, the experience becomes surreal and I think that I must be old though I still feel eighteen. But when I think of the details of that time, it seems like it wasn't very long ago. I am glad to have the pain of breaking off an engagement and letting go of my love over with, though dramatic feelings sure do make life exciting (more so than being stressed because you can't find the sources you need to write a paper). How grateful I am that we made it through the experience. He and his lovely wife will be parents in January and I'll be getting ready to burn my Master's thesis that won't have taken shape yet, with five years of independent working and traveling and learning behind me.

Some day, I will fall in love and be loved again. (With the same person simultaneously as object and subject might be good.) I will know that this time, this time, it's right. And it will be a beautiful thing.

Paderborn JAE Tagung 2008 (Cough, Cough) Summary

It's easier to put the pictures in a separate post, and not all of them have been sent to me yet anyway. So this post is the written, not-so-short summary of the 2008 YSA Convention in Paderborn/Geseke/Eringerfeld.

What a fabulous week! There was one really big downer and a couple of disappointments, but overall, the convention was awesome.

On Monday, I was late getting to the train station, but luckily Inka and I found each other. The train ride there was fun, she even did some acrobatics from the amazingly high hand grips. When we got to our last stop, it took over an hour for the shuttle to come, and there was no more food, so we had a hungry night. I was glad to find out I was assigned my own room. There was a Western dance, with bull riding and sheriff pins. One hilarious guy had a little gun he shot off as he tried the bull riding. I bragged to a lot of people about my sister being the bull-riding queen at her husband's work party. I was re-acquainted with Aaron, a guy who knew Elder Turville really well during his mission. I had thought he was married already, so that was weird. He is a fabulous person who looks kind of like my dad. We talked for several hours and finally said goodnight earlier than most people, around 2.

Each morning, there was a spiritual thought, and each evening there was a fireside. At one fireside, the Grasslis told us about how Sister Grassli is always late and how she backed into the garage door once on the way to a meeting. When she went in and told Elder Grassli, he hit his fist on the desk, which surprised her because of his usual patience. Then he said, "I didn't say anything the first two times, did I?" Ha ha. There were a few Americans there, but I didn't really get to know them as I was having too much fun doing other things. The food was just awful. We had desert once, they ran out one time, the vegetables were always old and mushy, the fruit tea was gross, and they didn't always have all food groups. We were always hungry a few hours after dinner, and going to bed so late just made us more starving. The only thing I enjoyed was breakfast each day, where I could have a crumbly roll with cherry jam. Although I signed up to be in a room with Jessi, I got to be alone. Sweet! Without an alarm, I still somehow woke up on time each morning. The rooms were kind of gross, but livable. The showers were way cold. One morning, I couldn't breathe under the water, and then in the next stall, I heard, "Ahhh! Ah-ha! Haaaa! Ahh!" Susi heard me laughing at her and she started laughing too.

Tuesday, I attended a class by Alan Keele, a German History professor at BYU. He speaks wonderful German and he talked about the three young Mormon men who set up the resistance movement against Hitler in Hamburg. I (like the Gestapo) couldn't believe that such a young man (Helmuth Hübener) was alone in his protests. He was the youngest opponent of Hitler to be put to death. His story is quite interesting and the film (Truth and Conviction) we watched was great. The dance that night was the white and black dance. I knew it was ridiculous, but I spent forty minutes debating what I should wear. I hadn't planned on this dance and wanted my black and white things for other stuff. I finally just changed plans and went. Again, I went to bed extremely late after playing kicker with Aaron and two other girls.

Wednesday, I went to a leadership for women class given by Sister Grassli. She has an impressive resume within the Church and had some good points, but I felt like she was a little too positive about things. She talked about how she told a woman about the hierarchy of the Church and how she couldn't call her stake president for her, but she never told how the woman felt about it or what happened afterwards. Maybe it looked like she was being a good leader, but did the woman think that? I guess that doesn't always matter. Good leaders are not always loved leaders. Her one example of being criticized was of one of her leaders calling to tell her she needed to sit on the stand from then on. But what about criticism from someone she was leading? Anyway, then Alan Keele gave another class about the Gospel in German film, which was quite interesting. The film we watched parts of had that crazy guy in jail in the movie Nosferatu. Then I went waterskiing, an experience I couldn't believe. First of all, it was in a mini-lake and we had neoprene wetsuits because the water was so cold. Secondly and most amazingly, there were no boats! Nope, just cables wired above the lake, with connected handles that go around and around!!! I managed to get up on the third try after it stopped raining. Each try is crazy hard because you have to swim to the side and walk back to the starting point. I'm so glad I didn't crash on the other side of the lake. Yes, this was a BAD idea for the carpal tunnel I've been suffering from lately, but I figure that can heal later . . . when will I get another chance to water ski in Germany? And included with something I already paid for? I gave our bus driver a contact card. After that, we had game night. I would have just gone to bed a lot earlier if I had known what we would be doing, but with only 7 people left in our group after other people left, I would have felt too guilty. There were some fun activities, like shoving 300 straws into someone's mouth, making two human pyramids, inserting a piece of uncooked spaghetti into a piece of long, uncooked macaroni, and racing tricycles. Then I got Clemens and Aaron to watch for some meteors with me. Aaron kept getting distracted, talking about other things and looking at other stuff, so he only saw one the whole convention. There weren't that many, but the very first one I saw was very bright. I was surprised that there weren't more stars; we were in a relatively small town that didn't even have its own train stop.

Thursday, I played in the football tournament. I got kicked out of my team because the guys were too cool for me. So, I was in the mostly-girls team, meaning they were getting scared and hitting the ball with their hands. Okay, so that's a little mean. We did okay and it was beautiful to play in the sunshine. In between games, I studied for the Literature GRE (thanks for the book, Kelli). Then I went to a class about having a fulfilled life. This couple just talked about marriage and I wasn't convinced. Other people loved it, but I just felt troubled. I want a very equal marriage. I just don't see how that is possible. There's a way. First I have to find someone I'm willing to marry who's also willing to marry me. Then we'll see what we can do. On my way to the volleyball tournament, I stopped in at the empty cafeteria to see if I could play the piano. They let me play the Minute Waltz. Awesome, even though I've been wearing my wrist brace most of time, it went okay. Volleyball, however, was not so hot. I ended up on a team with two very serious Austrian or Swiss volleyball players who were not impressed with me. It really bugged me to be the person they were covering. Having coached the Young Women, I know how that goes. Then I ran into Lydia after walking past masses of couples cuddling (okay, maybe four). She said, "Michelle, there's love everywhere, but we don't have any! When will we find someone? Do you want to go swimming with me?" So I went. Then I helped my friend Janett get ready. We had to do her hair with only a few clips and a few bobby pins because my waver didn't like the adaptor I borrowed (it wasn't a converter and the 220 power made it start smoking). Then I was left with ten minutes to get ready and five bobby pins. What to do? I definitely did not look my best and I was late for dinner, meaning I couldn't find a seat by my best friends, but luckily Marcel is pretty funny. Dinner was horrible and there wasn't enough lemon pudding. I ended up eating mostly ice cream and crepes. There was a great program that Jessi was in, then we got to dancing. A lot of people complimented my dress (thanks, Tanya!). Dancing was awesome. I finally danced with Kenneth, and it was the most fun I've had yet!!! He dances so fast and he does some awesome steps. We were sweating so hard when we were done crashing into couples in the way. Time flew by.

Friday, I went to a rock climbing place that puts Black Diamond to shame. We did this thing up in the air where we made our way around on things just attached with loose rope. Cool. Then afterwards I was able to hang by pegs and move one side up at a time. I was the only girl who was able to do it, and only David could also do it (he also weighs nothing). Again, this activity was bad for the wrist. I talked to an employee there who also studies literature. I gave her a contact card before we left. When we got back, I thought I had time for lunch before the canoeing, but it turned out that the same bus was going to canoeing and I missed it. Then the cafeteria had no more food for us even though there were still 45 minutes before it was over, so I had a piece of old bread. I went to another of Sister Grassli's classes, "Preparation to Raise Children." I guess it would be helpful if she had first gone over how to gain the desire to have children. Again, something I'll deal with when I get closer. I played in the second half of the volleyball tournament and got a "you are really athletic" from one of the volleyball players. Sweet! We almost won the whole thing. That night, the dance was sports-clothes themed, which came a little late in the week, I thought, since my sports clothes were all sweaty. Since I had already waited twice to see if I could play the piano on the stage, Kenneth and I went up there before the dance started, but there were microphones inside, so we started to move them when this man came. He was so mean that I wanted to cry. He yelled at us and told us how he never wanted to do the convention and how he hates JAEs and that we do whatever we want and we ruined everything. I apologized and asked what I could do, but he was just ready to kill us. Afterwards, I had to go jogging because that and several other things had me stressed. I was wearing my cherry shoes and I ran straight through a dirt field bordered by two forests. Then I just laid in the dirt, looking up at the sky, listening to my iPod. (First some The Long Winters, then Third Eye Blind, and finally MoTab.) My shoes filled with dirt, I finally went back to the dance and tried my hand at the heavy hammer thing. I could see what others were doing wrong with their swing, but I didn't have what it needed. After the dance, Aaron and I were starving but no one who had a car wanted to go get food. We found a piano and I accompanied him on his violin. That was awesome. Around 2:30, finding no food and being kicked out of the music room, I went to bed.

Saturday, the Vokalis Chor sang for us and then we had a testimony meeting. I bore mine and really enjoyed the meeting. While I was sitting on the stage waiting for my turn, I realized I wasn't sure what the past tense of "to lead" was, "gelitten" or "geleitet." Jessi told me "geleitet," but then I heard others saying "gelitten," so I got scared. Luckily, I stuck to "geleitet." "Gelitten" turns out to be "to suffer from something." Jessi made me go to lunch with her and her date. I talked to his friend, who told me about his work. Then I asked if he would be there next year, and he said he might be married by then. I asked him if he had a girlfriend, to which he answered no. I then asked how old he was, and he didn't answer. I laughed and said, "You're really old!" No answer. Good luck, Buddy. The train back was fun. We got six of us on a weekend ticket, so it was only 11 Euros per person. We slept and joked and ate Schnitzel that was supposed to go on the bread we'd already eaten.

There are some mini conventions coming up that I'll be headed to, such as one at the Frankfurt Temple. Next year's super-convention will be close to Berlin. I'm already excited and I hope this time I can be a counselor at EFY the week before!

This is Why I Don't Date Online

hey, nice profile. i love it. i would love to be get in contct with you. first i want to be build a good friendship and than we will see where the way goes. distance doesen't matter for me at the frist time. my messanger is not working right now, but i hope to get fixed it..:-) i know what i am andi don't care about the model-stuff and everything else. a friend doesn't have to look like a model. the attitude is more important. bye for now wolff

Not to mention that he describes himself as "very borring, sad, stupied, mad" and he is 36. (Name changed to protect the . . . man.)

Möhnesee Tagung

Apparently people have been worried about me because I haven't posted since Friday, even though I announced that I would be in Möhnesee for the weekend. Short memories, I love you anyway.

Gordon, Monique, and Isabel picked me up from the church around 8. We played BS and listened to Gordon's amazing array of music and even got some sleep. We got to the hall at about 12:30. Gordon had no navigational system (what are those called in English? Satellite map thingies?), so it took us asking five random people walking/biking in the middle of the night (all of them gave bad answers) and finally calling someone with a navi to come get us. Then we were free to dance for a couple of hours. It's cool to recognize people now. And dancing is just becoming more and more enjoyable.

Saturday, I wanted to sleep longer until I suddenly saw a spider on my sleeping bag. Because of my complaining the night before, they added another session of paddleboats for those who would be participating in the football tournament. Wow, it was fun to play, but our team (Team "Nutella") was awful. First of all we didn't have enough people so each game we had to take two random players. I won't mention the "second" part. Team "Chuck Norris" won. Ha ha. It was so sunny and warm, I put on sunscreen three times. Almost everyone else got burned.













The lake where we tried out the paddle boats was beautiful (Möhnesee).




I tried out a row boat. Wow, it takes more thinking to figure out which direction to row than I thought. The water was too cold to get into, so the only thing that got wet was my bum.















The drive there and back was gorgeous. This is the love of God:



I showered (which was complicated because the men's shower was broken so I had to wait for the guys to leave), played some kicker, and took a nap (or tried). Then the dance started. I met the couple in charge of the institute in Dortmund. He is a linguist, so we were talking when we discovered that he knows Herr Tschirner, the man I work for at the Herder Institut. Then to my greater surprise, I found out he was the BYU professor who had co-written the famous book (with Herr Tschirner) that sits in the office and which I find to be quite fascinating.

Sunday, everyone slept late (I couldn't sleep later than 8, it's no fun with 100 other girls' alarms going off every few minutes). We had church. The testimony meeting was great. I bore testimony of the fact that for every excuse we have in spending time building our testimony of something, there is a solution: prayer. If you don't have time, pray that you will be able to accomplish things faster. If you don't have faith that you will get an answer, pray that you will. If you don't have desire to pray, pray that you will. Etc. Then we sat on the grass outside, which I think is a good time to mention that my nose and eyes hated me for being in the middle of farm land. We watched the fireside from Elder Russell M. Nelson about using music to uplift. He said that the purpose of music in our meetings is to preach, not to perform. I've been wondering a lot about that lately, because since I've been in Leipzig, I've noticed that musical numbers in sacrament meeting aren't like in Salt Lake. They are like recitals. So, since I was asked to do the musical number for next week, I've been debating ever since if I should also play some Chopin or something similar or if I should find something more hymn-based or something. I guess Chopin can uplift, but preach? Anyway, then we drove to Dortmund and attended the Vocalis Choir's (it's a choir of German YSAs including Jessi) musical fireside, which was amazing. I was so glad to see Jessi and the music was a powerful follow-up to Elder Nelson's words. I was breathing the Spirit; I felt like my lungs would burst. After dinner back in Möhnesee, we played 6 Nimmt and I went to bed around 12:30. People were still making a racket several hours later when I opened my eyes to see that it was light outside.

Monday, we ate breakfast (my absolutely favorite meal here) and danced, danced, danced. How ironic that in a hall used to being absolutely soaked with alcohol, there wasn't an alcohol drink to be found in the place and the people were dancing even in the morning. We danced in groups, copying each other. We danced in couples, we danced in lines. We danced until we couldn't stand anymore and then we kept dancing. I did a somersault and the three stooges running-in-a-circle thing in the middle of a group of people. Favorite people to dance with were Stefan, Gordon, and Matthias. Rebekka, the sister of one of the old elders in Leipzig, was so fun to be around. (I'm going to visit Basel at the end of May.)












People eventually drifted off to head home. We were one of the last cars to leave.

I fell asleep almost immediately, but when I awoke, we were driving through beauty. I can't get enough of the yellow fields, the green hills, the red rooftops. We stopped in Seeborg to look at a castle on a lake.













I saw this special there:












The sign says, "Daily from 10 AM to 6 PM." The time limit is supposed to be for the parking sign not shown, but I thought it was hilarious to include it in the picture.

I'm still fighting the effects of hay fever. Those little yellow pills don't do much, do they? I'm almost out anyway. Fortunately, one of my roommates is a fellow extreme allergy sufferer and had some good advice of what I should get at the pharmacy tomorrow.