I'm comin' home, I'm comin' home, tell the world, I'm comin' home....

Sorry for anyone who has been checking the blog and I haven’t been posting recently.  It’s been a super busy, super AWESOME weekend! 

            
This weekend I decided to take a trip to Germany.  One of my missionary companions was getting married, and not only was I the only American from our mission in Europe at when he would be getting married, but I was also the only one who would have understood it because it was in German!  That ended up not taking very long at all in the grand scheme of the weekend.  I spent the rest of it with several other people who live in Germany that I know and wanted to get to see. 

Train headed to Frankfurt!!!

            
On Friday, I took the train from Brussels down to Frankfurt, Germany after work on Friday  .Okay, just the ride alone brought back a host of memories.  Taking the train to school every day for four years pretty much dominated it all, but I also took a lot of trains when I was on my mission in Poland.  I LOVE the trains in Europe, especially when you get to ride in style on the legendary ICE trains that cruise between countries.  Seriously, it only took us three hours to get from Brussels to Frankfurt, and it didn’t ever feel like we were on a train.   Too, I am really enjoying living in Brussels, but there was an immediate sense of home when we crossed the border from Belgium to Germany.  Everything started to be in German, and when I got off the train in Frankfurt, I was able to understand everything that was around me.  SUCH a good feeling.  I love Germany so much, specifically because it feels like I am going home.  That pretty much boosted everything about the weekend up a notch.  

Toom, one of the cornerstone stores that we went to in Germany.

I hate selfies, I never really smile.  But here's me
about to get on my ICE train.  Going in style!!

Friday night I stayed with a senior missionary couple, the Kagels, in Frankfurt.  They are the public affairs missionaries for all of Europe, and I helped the sister work on her German before they went into the MTC.  It was a lot of fun staying with them, because they are in charge of public affairs for Poland as well, and I got to talk to them about that.  I also know TONS of the other senior couples with whom they are working, because I had the chance to teach those missionaries too.  In fact, Saturday morning one of them came by the apartment just to see me and talk.  I sort of felt like a superstar there, because I knew so many people J   It was lots of fun to hear about everything that they are doing on their mission, and Sister Kagel and I probably stayed up until midnight just talking about missionary stuff.  Saturday morning we had breakfast, and they drove me to the temple.  While there, I could tell that the Kagels are working extremely hard on their missions, and that they are doing everything they could to further the growth of the church in Europe.  I am so grateful for the chance I have to know them and all of the other hard-working senior couples.

  
The temple was also a sort of coming home for me.  The Frankfurt temple was the first temple I ever went to to do baptisms as a youth.  I was never old enough to go inside when we lived there, so to do a session was such an amazing experience.  I also got to participate in German in the session, which was a different experience for me as well.  However, it was most definitely an excellent one.  Shortly thereafter, Elder Sorn and his wife arrived at the temple and were sealed.  Elder Siebert, another Poland missionary, was there and we got to do some catching up.  Elder Sorn looked so happy, and I couldn’t help but think that that will be me in a couple of months J  Only 111 days from today, but who is counting, right?   I think their marriage was very simple, but there was definitely an elegance to it that I enjoyed.  I am extremely happy for him. 

After the temple the fun began!  The Morans, some of our best friends from Germany, had driven up from the base where they are now stationed in Germany and picked me up for the rest of the weekend.  

(For this weekend, I had two culinary goals:  I wanted a real Kebab, not the wrap that I had barely counted last week, and I wanted Spaghetti Eis.  You know in Elf where Buddy takes spaghetti and puts syrup all over it?  That’s what Spaghetti Eis is, only with ice cream.  Just kidding!  That would be really gross.  In actuality it's three scoops of vanilla ice cream put through a compressor that makes the ice cream come out looking like spaghetti noodles.  Then they drizzle strawberry syrup over the top to look like tomato sauce, and add shavings of something ( I thought they were white chocolate, but they might be coconut) to imitate the parmesan.  To top it all off, they spray whipped cream on top.  It is SO GOOD!)  

Returning to the story, we were able to fulfill both those goals on the way home from the temple.  While going home, we made a quick pit stop at the base (lucky I had my passport!) so that Brother Moran could pick up Halo 4.  His excuse was that maybe his girls would play that one with him, rather than Call of Duty, but in reality he has wanted Halo for forever, right Brother Moran? J  We played for about an hour and a half.  I was skunking him at the beginning, but then he found the Scorpion tank and it all went downhill from there J   I did end up killing him three or four times even while he was in the tank, so I would call it a draw J  Afterwards we went down and played some Siedler.  Brother Moran beat me at that too!  It was not a good weekend for playing games.  Unless you’re Michigan though, who won their game 41-30 against Notre Dame WOOT!!!  Yeah, I was happy when I woke up to that news this morning!  We played Quirkle this morning, which Madison won, and then headed to church.  I loved going with the Morans, who are such good friends and who made my weekend awesome.  I can’t wait to see them again in a month when I go back down for conference weekend! 

            
All in all, this weekend just made me reflect on how much Germany is my home, and how much I care about the people who I saw there.  I am incredibly grateful for friends who you can go years without seeing and then just pick up right where you left off, and I can’t wait to do it again!     

This is hard to see, but my train back to Brussels is the second one down.
 When I saw this, I just felt this twinge in my heart.  I did NOT want to leave Germany.