Week 28 - Life in Cottbus Episode 11: Return of the Transfer Calls or Something

So my friends and family and associates and people I gave my email to for whatever reason, here comes the moment that you probably all haven't been waiting for, but I have, so here it goes...

Elder White is spending his last transfer in Cottbus! Going out with a massive bang and shooting sparks out that will never leave this city the same! He will touch the lives of thousands! He will change hundreds of lives for the better! He will do a great job here!

Oh yeah, I'll be here too.

 Honestly, this week hasn't been too eventful, we just keep trucking along and doing our thing. You know, missionary work. But what does that even mean?

Well, I'll tell you.

We wake up every morning at 6:30, and go to bed every night at 22:30.

In these 16 hours of being awake we have to fit in half an hour of exercise, an hour and a half to prepare for the day, two and a half hours of study, thirty minutes of planning, an hour and a half of eating⁄meal prep time, and an hour and a half before bed to write in our journals, prepare for bed, and wind down. That leaves us about 8 hours per day to actually missionary.

The question then is how we do with that...

Pretty good I would say! Except for some weeks where the forces of the world come together to waste all of our time, and I would say that this week was one of those.

Elder White had bronchitis our first transfer together, and so we went to the doctor. This week we got a phone call from the doctor telling us that the bill still hasn't been paid. (The mission provides us with some paperwork with instructions for the doctors on how to get paid, along with a guarantee that they will get paid.) They have followed the instructions, but haven't heard back. They then sent a bunch of stuff to us (we moved last transfer so we never got that......). We called Sister Fingerle, and she told us that we should just go and pay it with our grocery money, and that the mission will refund us.

So, we went and did that the next day. The clinic is pretty far away, and bus times are weird, so it's about a three hour round trip to go to the doctors. While we were there, the people were really attacking and rude, telling us that it was probably our fault and that we were trying to defraud them. We stayed calm, though, and paid the bill and went on our way.

About an hour later, we were sitting and waiting for our return bus, and we got a phone call from the clinic. They sounded super embarrassed and apologetic, and said that the bill had just been paid and that we would need to come back and pick up our cash.

Well, the bus was just coming, and we had an appointment to make and couldn't wait another hour for the bus, so we had to go back the next day. The best part of this all is that it was all for 30€. That's right, we wasted six hours of missionary time over 30€.

That's just one example of our weird week, but I won't pain you with other stories. I suffice it to say, that it was still a good week.

Liebe Grüße,

Elder Austin Spaulding