I remember when I was a freshman at BYU-H and all my RM guyfriends would talk about "the mish" as if it were some sort of club.  They loved their missions, and the more time I spent with them the more giddy I was about leaving to England.  Now, I have fallen into that same habit as them: talking about the mish. ALL. THE. TIME.  Whenever I'm with other RMs, we spend the entire time gushing over the people, the culturse, the teaching experiences and the missionary lifestyles of our different missions.
This past week I got to give a presentation to the youth.  I wore my dirndl, decked the table with souvenirs, projected some of my favorite mission blog posts, and got them guessing about the weirdest food I ate on my mission (answer: brain jello).  Among many things, I told all the youth that they needed to start preparing for their missions by, for example, learning how to cook.  I specified that peanut butter sandwiches and Mac'n'Cheese don't count cause many countries don't have such foods.... and every group without fail asked me in desperate hope, "WHAT ABOUT RAMEN?!"  *facepalm*
Needless to say, I am ECSTATIC to return to my mission.  

It's not like I came home with an accent or with an exceptionally hard time speaking English.  That would be a lie.  I spoke English every day of my mission, even in those more strong-willed times when I tried not to.
However, I have continually had a hard time with a few things: spelling, Gerlishing, words that have German cognates, and idioms-- even if they have nothing to do with German!

Dad: "Did you see there's a new Spiderman movie with a third actor for Peter Parker?"
Me *disgusted* : "Gosh, Marvel needs to stop juicing every franchise for the money!"
Dad: *raised brow*
Me: "Wait...."
Me: "......milking everything?"
Dad: "Milking it for all it's worth?"
Me: "....Yeah, that one."

Rachel: "I'm really upset that my laptop went kaput on me!"
Me: "When did I teach you that?!"
Rachel:
Rachel: ?
 Me to Dallin: "Hey can I take a little pause from texting so I can work on my online class and just get my test over the way?"
Dallin: "You mean out of the way?"
Adam: "I'm down to get dessert.  Where do you want to go?"
Me: "Well what's in the near?" (literal translation of German in der Nähe instead of "what's closeby")     
 Me: "You learned Spanish on your mission, so what did you usually do for Sprachstudium?"
Anthony: "For what??!" 
Me: "Er, language study."
 Me to Olivia: "Do you say, 'He held my hand FAST' or 'He held my hand FEST?'"
 Me: "I think this route of school would be for my better......er... for my best?"
Me:  "So we were talking to this guy on a train and just when it started getting good we had to get out at our haltestelle!"
Dallin: "English please?"
Me: "Crap, what is that word?"
Dallin: ?
Me: ______
Me: "Busstop... no."
Me: _____
Me: "Freaking heck."
Me: "Trainstop."

Mama Price

Meiners... served with me in Wien

Sister Lehmann {MTC friends} and Elder Nielsen {served in the crazy city of Augsburg together}

After the reunion, I watched The Ring with Rachel, cousin Paige and roommate Courtney.  Better than the horror flick itself was afterwards when Paige freaked out cause she got a nosebleed.
Dallin came over and the girls made pumpkin snickerdoodles.... I totally crashed on the couch and didn't wake up till 3 AM with the others still wide awake {I'll blame my illness for my inability to be a total party animal}.
The next morning, Dallin picked me up and we headed to the beautiful mountains outside American Fork for a gorgeous drive {more on that in the next post.}
That evening, I was surprised with a combined birthday party for me and a few of Dallin's roommates who shared my birthday week.  Rachel and Courtney honored us with spice cake, and we pretended that turning 21 was cool by drinking virgin sodas out of brown glass bottles.
Then, Asylum 49!  Unfortunately there was some communication and Rachel's car ended up driving to a totally different haunted house, but the other 11 of us entertained each other thoroughly while we waited in the chilly line for over an hour.  I was slightly terrified that I would have a nervous breakdown, but instead when I got separated from the entire group, dragged around by gore-covered psychos and chainsawed in the stomach, my natural reaction was to giggle.

Rachel making Lundgreen sourdough waffles

If the world were to all come crashing down, my testimony of Christ would still stand. 

•  We missed our bus, but it was for a reason-- we ended up meeting these two young guys who wouldn't stop staring at us.  I thought they were making fun of us when they asked for a card, but when I actually did they were SO EXCITED. They flooded us with questions such as, "Do you have anything for us to read?" And when we handed them a Book of Mormon they asked if we could meet that very day to discuss it! One of them has actually been SEARCHING for the right church! 
•  We met a family with previous contact to missionaries; we asked the sweet young daughter to explain a scripture to us. She teared up as she bore testimony of Christ. At the end, she practically begged us to return! 
•  We have been able to out dooring for hours without feeling tired 
•  We have so many appointments every day with lovely people 
•  We had a good number of friends with us at church 
•  People have been calling US to meet 
• There are other miracles, too beautiful and private to share! BLESSINGS

 - On exchange with Sister Cain, we said hello to a guy in a random Swiss neighborhood. Then he practically shoved into our arms 2 of the most ginormous zucchinis I have ever seen on any continent. "I GAVE AWAY TWO OF THEM!" he exclaimed triumphantly to his wife. They were so huge that I thought my backpack would rip holding just one. We actually had to turn around back to Germany to drop them off cause there was no way we could go finding with these massive beasts-- as we walked back, EVERYONE stared at us and laughed in utter bewilderment. 



 - I tried to ride the sisters' bike. This was adult sized. The last bike I got was in middle school, and though I was petite already for a middle schooler, I have hardly grown since then! So now I tried to ride this bike and LITERALLY COULD NOT GET UP ON THE SEAT. IT did not help that I was in a skirt. Here I was in the city, making a fool of myself as I tried time and time again to jump onto it, climb onto it, step over it, etc. FINALLY I got on and then nearly crashed as I had to use my tiptoes to pedal. Ughhhhhhhh 
 - The border between Switzerland and Germany is a little white line painted on the bridge halfway across the river  
 - About an hour away from home something went wrong and all the trains stopped running so we were stranded in Überlingen until the senior missionaries could pick us up. Who do we run into? Our good friend we've been meeting with!
 - The Ice cream servers asked us what our badge meant and then tried to seem cool by telling us in flawless German they are Californian 
 - A Nigerian guy asked us for our # cause a friend took him to church in Heidelberg 
 - Sneaky lil Russian Schwester Schäffer. I adore her.  She can't get her friend to come to church, so she schemed to invite this friend to lunch at the same time as us!
 - There is a family we have been trying to contact for MONTHS and they called saying they all want to come to church 
 - Ultimate gerlishing: "Other Mitgliers we'll be besuching this week" (my failed attempt to either ask my companion about "other members we'll be visiting this week" or "andere Mitgliedern die wir diese Woche besuchen werden")