Gaining experience in Krefeld

Krefeld has been a new challenge for Elder Brande. He has been super busy the last few Pdays so this is a combination of his last few letters:

We are going down to sollingen today and need to catch a train pretty soon. I love you so much. Things are going better (as much as they can), the best way to improve a situation is to improve yourself, I've been studying chapt. 6 of Preach My Gospel and taking it to heart.

Our apartment is on the top ( fifth story) so it's a struggle to go home at the end of a long day. This apartment is not much warmer than the last. I think I just need to get used to the cold

 I'm pretty sure the internet is slower in the eastern hemisphere. It takes way more time than I have to download pictures. The work is slow but it's six day until transfer calls so things might get better. I'm almost a year out. At the year mark people burn a shirt, but open flames are illegal in Germany so I'll probably just do nothing. It's  carnival or Kaneval time right now. Kaneval is so crazy! It's so different. Everyone dresses up and not always modestly :P we can still go out but we have to be careful (it'S like Mardi gras but X10) 

Well it's the last week before transfer calls so we'll see what happens. This has easily been the longest/hardest transfer of my mission so far :P but hopefully that means it will be the transfer that changes me the most. I've already learned what kind of leader I don't want to become and what can be inspiring.  So if I ever get to a position of leadership I now know something not to do :) Something I started to do (and something I wish I had done sooner) this week is keeping a study journal. It's something people in the MTC suggested and PMG talks about keeping one, but I blew it off because who wants to write more? So as the past few days I've had this little journal next to me as I study the scriptures and I'll write down impressions that come to me, and It has become already a spiritual treasure to me. I never realized that I would recieve all this inspiration, and then forget it, but know I receive Inspiration and I can look back on it and remember the impressions I've had. I strongly suggest it :)

Last week we went to a Haribo factory in Solingen and of course my district leader and me bought the largest thing we could find. These are a large gummy lasso. Here's me and Elder Melanson

Here's some crazy candy. I just wonder what this is and why?

Here's our group in Solingen

Me dressed up as Capt. America 

Picture of the district 

Left to right: Sister Wood (she was in my district in when I was in Bitburg), Sis Jackson, Elder Nelson (He ripped his pants this day and stapled it shut, thus me pointing to his leg, He's also my ZL), Elder Pfleumer (Pfloy-mare, He's swiss and a real cool guy, he also serves in Krefeld), Me (also super cool), Elder Bennet (the other ZL), and Elder Melanson (my District leader)