Week..still in Plauen. Not that I am complaining.

Dear Everybody,

We got to meet our new mission president this week. It is very different from having President Kosak. For one, the entire meeting was in German, except for one small part where President Fingerle switched to English at the suggestion of his wife to give me a break. That’s right. A break from translating the meeting for all of the missionaries who don’t speak German very well. My former companion, Elder Müller, told me that I could immediately hand out all of the sisters a receiver. I didn’t, but I am sure there are some elders and sisters who needed a translation, but didn’t want to take one.

That was the first new thing. Before all of the zone meetings were in English. I am curious how it will be when some authority comes. They will probably hold it in English then. I suspect it was in German so that all the members of the family could participate. Which was the second new thing. President Fingerle still has kids who live at home. His son who just got home from his mission was there, and two of his daughters. He has another daughter who is serving a mission on Temple Square.

So that was that. I also had the wonderful opportunity this week of trying black pudding. That is what Google Translate tells me is the translation. The dictionary tells me that black pudding is “a black sausage containing pork, dried pig’s blood, and suet”. For those of you who do not know what suet is, I had to look that up too. Suet is “the hard white fat on the kidneys and loins of cattle, sheep, and other  animals, used to make foods such as puddings, pastry, and mincemeat”. I had heard of Blutwurst before, but I couldn’t remember what it was made of except for the obvious word Blut there. Blut is the German word for blood. Kosher is it not sir. Also, on the table was a Swedish bread spread made of fish eggs. Unable to read Swedish I can’t tell you what fish the eggs were from, but I can tell you that it had the taste of tuna fish from a can after you have prepared it with mayonnaise before spreading it on a sandwich. Just stronger, and complete with after taste. Was not bad. Niether was the black pudding, it is just not something that I would buy for the purpose of eating myself. My companion waithied until after the appointment to tell me that the expiration date on the tube of fish eggs was over a year ago. I hope that everyone has a good week, and remember – Once you get past the gag reflex, all kinds of food possibilities open up! (Feel free to name that movie.)

Love,

Elder Evan Perez