I have new friends that speak German. Yeah! On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons after German I was able to visit with some of the ladies in the ward. It is so nice to have people speak nice slow High German with me that can switch over to English when my brain starts to melt away. Last night Elisa said in her sleep, “It’s so hard to learn when people aren’t speaking it around you all the time. It’s like the words just don’t come very easily, you know?” She was very animated except her eyes were closed.

These next few weeks of German are going to be a real challenge. I catch onto the grammar pretty quickly but since I still think too fast in English nothing seems to come out quite right. A new course also means new people and it will be an adjustment working with some of the new people in our class.

Yesterday we enjoyed a nice relaxing Saturday. The weather was so beautiful. We went to a fair in a neighboring town. In the little narrow streets they had rides and food stands and a really fun game for kids put on by the fire department. The kids had to stack plastic apple crates one on top of another, to see who could get the highest. They were roped up and had a fireman belaying them. Some of the kids were perched up on top of a 30-foot tower before the crates fell out from under them. We went with the Mascaros. It is so much fun watching kids experience new things and be so excited about life.

Elisa got to be a hero this week. (That gets a song stuck in our heads every time one of us says it.) I was just waiting for the train and then I turned around and a bunch of people were gathered around a man who had fallen flat on his face and was having a seizure. I could not believe that no one was doing anything! They just stared at him blankly–and I certainly didn’t want to turn him over and take the lead when I can barely speak the language. Plus I don’t know the customs here. In the US it’s practically discouraged to do any sort of first aid if you do not want to get yourself into a lot of trouble. Well anyway, I finally asked if anyone spoke English. By then the poor guy’s seizure had stopped and he said, “I do.” So I told him I was going to treat him for shock. I asked him questions about his condition and basically let him tell me what to do to help him. It was certainly out of the ordinary, but everything turned out okay.