Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Ryan and I both speak a foreign language. He speaks Mandarin; I speak German. Don't worry I'm not planning on filling up this post with my excessive love of foreign languages. Nor do I plan on rambling about how skewed the samples and the stereotypes are that claim German is harsh sounding. (It can be very pretty, and very scary: I consider this linguistic range satisfying. After watching this video, could anyone sound intimidating in French?)  But since leaving school it has truly been a challenge to figure out how on earth to keep up those abilities!  Ryan and I both have a couple books and things in these languages. These help, but soon all I would be able to do with German, is to laugh long and hard at comics like these, remembering the days when I first learned how to say "Staatsangehoerigkeit". (It actually took me two years to figure that word out. It wasn't until I was on study abroad and those official things like passports had the word repeated all over the place.)

A few months ago I finally checked out a website to help learn/practice German. It's called Duolingo and both family and friends recommended it to me. It's awesome! It's set up like trivia or games and you can pace yourself as you practice listening, reading, typing, and even speaking! It has tons of languages set up too, so I can brush up on my rusty French and begin teaching myself Spanish. Sadly it doesn't have Mandarin available yet. However, just a bit ago Ryan and I finally discovered a similar site to help learn/practice Mandarin! It's called Mango. It's a little different than Duolingo; I would say less kiddish in way, with more flashcards. But it's pretty amazing all the same and has tons of language options too.

The point is not to advertise these two free websites, but to explain that we have a new-ish linguistic hobby/goal. Some weeks are definitely more diligent than others, but this has been a blessing for me because keeping up my German lets me volunteer to tutor people in German online.

This isn't a job, but I wish it was. The students that I help are all Senior Missionary couples for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. That means that they are all senior citizens, married, retired, and now called to serve a volunteer mission for the church in either Germany or Austria. Their goal is to teach anyone about the gospel, about the Book of Mormon, about the prophet Joseph Smith, and about God's love for everyone auf Deutsch. Their other goal is to serve anyone, especially young adults. Often that entails getting them a ride to work, feeding them dinner, or just being a friend. But all this is done in German (or whatever language is native to the country they go to). And these dear people are 60+!

All the studies and research into language learning I read in college show how important it is that you start learning while you're young. This means preferably before you are even a teenager! And these stellar souls are at least 5 times that age! They are my heroes for this, and for their undaunted courage and unwavering faith. Every single one I practice with tells me how they may forever sound like a 'Merican, but they know that Heavenly Father is with them. And that He will be with them always and everywhere! When they travel and when the struggle to communicate, and they get lost in Berlin and have to ask for directions, it will be okay because they are doing the Lord's work. Their testimonies strengthen my own resolve. They so clearly believe that anything is possible with God. They trust that when they are in a crucial moment and need to say comforting words of love, faith, and hope auf Deutsch to some new friend, God will help them do it. They know this, and so do I! I know that God lives and he loves everyone. He knows us all too. He knows our names, he knows our struggles. And I believe that all He wants is to help us.

Volunteering like this is always the highlight of my week. I'm so grateful that I had a professor at BYU suggest the opportunity to me. The people are amazing and they boost my testimony. Often the husband served a German-speaking mission in his twenties, and now he and his wife are going to serve there together. I generally get to tutor these awesome ladies, many of whom have never learned a foreign language before!

Love!

Anyone can help the missionaries learn their mission language. You don't have to be a member, and you don't have to be particularly fluent at the language. Beginners need the most volunteers. There are over 60 languages available for volunteers to help with, including English! You don't have to live in Provo; you can volunteer over the phone or on Skype, like I do. The sessions are always an hour or less. I try to volunteer as often as possible, and that varies from once a month to four times a week. Anything helps. If you are ever interested in volunteering, here's the link to start the process:

http://www.mtc.byu.edu/volunteers.htm

I hope you guys don't mind a little bit more seriousness from us every now and then. I've just been thinking about this a lot lately and couldn't stand not putting my gratitude into words any longer. Alles liebe von Familie Bingham

New Ride

We bought a car! A second car, so I can drive to different schools for work rather than only working within a walking/biking radius. We actually bought it the night before our red eye flight to St.George back in January. That may seem like a hasty decision, but when the price is right and is in spectacular condition for an old Camry, there was no time to waste. We had been looking for a second car for a few weeks by that point, and naturally I had test-driven 1 car for every 6 or 7 that Ryan had. (He's a trooper.) I think my favorite that he test-drove was the one with a broken trunk latch and a broken passenger side door. Ah, good times. I think the only ridiculous aspect of our new car is the 45 minutes we took getting one of the back seat belt buckles re-threaded up through the bottom of the back seat itself. I'm actually starting to enjoy driving now. Honestly, there are few things more satisfying than being able to purchase large quantities of toilet paper at one time now because I'm no longer taking home groceries on a bike!!! Oh, right, besides the whole driving to work thing. :) Also, it should be noted that I made significant progress driving the stick shift right before we bought this lovely automatic.

Isn't she pretty?

On that note, I must say that I really do enjoy subbing, when I get the chance of it. However, we've had snow and ice storms once a week for a month now, which means school has been cancelled at least twice a week every time. This in turn means that I'm barely get to work once a week. I'm in the process of starting to sub at a second local school district so I can hopefully work more than twice a week. I know that most of the country has also had frequent snow storms lately, and in fact most of those storms hugely dwarf what we've gotten in Oklahoma. That's what makes jokes like this so funny:

 

Ryan and I have been laughing so much at how everything shuts down here so often with less than 3 inches of snow. And yes, we are generously considering Oklahoma as part of the South. After growing up at the foot of the Rockies, Ryan has found this especially ridiculous. But we've both realized what really is at the heart of Oklahoma's issue with snow: a complete lack of snow plows. I'm convinced that there must be about four snow plows in the state of Oklahoma. The other issue is that we have yet to have snow without an ice storm immediately before or after it. The ice was so bad this weekend that church was cancelled on Sunday. Ryan has never heard of such a crazy phenomenon, and I tried to explain that that would occasionally happen growing up in Virginia too. Our walk in the snow that afternoon was another new experience for him; the ice layer on top was so loud and crunchy that we had raise our voices a bit to hear each other. 

Snow and ice covered the river

A few days ago, Ryan subbed at a dodge-ball league that a few of his co-workers play in. Sadly, he ended up twisting his ankle in one of the games. It is just a sprain though, which is lucky. And with all the winter weather, he's got lots of time to let it rest at home. The swelling is starting to go down, so all should be good again soon. All our love from the snow-fearing South.