My highlight of the past week was going to visit my good friend Irina down near Stuttgart for the weekend. I went down on the train, which deserves the mention in the blog title. My seat had a pillow on it!! It was SO comfy! And the train was really spacious. Plus it was quite fun jumping over the chasm to the train door (and I thought some London tube gaps were big!). Anyway, Irina and I were roommates when I was in Germany in 2008. It was SO good to see her! I last saw her about a year and half ago at our other room mate's wedding. We chatted a huge amount. As well as laughing together she was a real encouragement to me. It was just really relaxing and good to have a change of scenery too. In the photo above you can see us together and below, me in front of an impressive building in rainy Stuttgart!
It obviously takes time for people to get to know me but I appreciated chatting with someone who already knows me really well. It has been generally so quiet here with it being holidays, and I've struggled a bit with this! I wasn't feeling too well the last couple of days too so that sort of added to the emotional mood. I felt lonely. It's already getting better though, since people are filtering back from holidays and today for example I had a really lovely morning with the other women in my housegroup, followed by kids club which went really well. We had a lot of fun together and I told the story of Jesus stilling the storm, complete with paper boats that we made! And tonight I think David and I are going to chill and watch a film. I prefer it like this, having a more social day! Thanks for your prayers, and keep praying that I make good friends. Actually I had an invite from a girl I met at church about a month ago so really looking forward to that. I showed I was grateful but didn't want to seem too desperate when she first mentioned it! In my head I was thinking 'yay, a friend!'!The language side of things is weird, sometimes I'm pleased and know that I've improved by other times things just do not go well and can be really discouraging! Like at points in band practice last night when I didn't understand what we were doing a few times. People are totally nice but without blaming them I know it can be annoying!
Almost forgot to mention, I had my first ever visit to the German hairdressers. I did not lose my hair. Achievement!
It is good to hear from you from time to time, keep it coming!
Love and God bless,
Ruth.
Ruth, I loved that picture of you and Irina. Such pretty ladies! I wish I could have been there. I also totally get you with the friend thing, I'm going through some of the same things in our new community as well. I'll continue to pray for you!
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