Elmshorn, Germany
Panjestrasse 12
October 31/32
Dear Mother and Dad,
So I wrote a stingy letter, did I? Well there isn't much to say without saying everything all over again. It's the same thing everyday in this two horse city, including rain which we have had everyday for a month. This missionary life is quite regular and consistent in its weekly duties and events. You get up every A.M. at seven, eat, tract the rest of the morning, visit the friends in the afternoons, study at night, preach on Sundays and Wednesdays, go to Hamburg on Fridays and cuss the postman on Saturdays. However, I blessed him this morning. I received the fifty dollars you sent me. Thanks for the extra reimbursement. It will come in handy. Our conference ran me in the hole a bit this month. About a week ago I sent you a picture of the missionaries who attended the conference. Don't take that picture fro what it reveals though. We guys on the end got a bum deal from the camera. However, I did weigh at a 175 lbs. last week. Have Earle write and tell me what he thinks of that. I guess I'll have to cut down on the sauerkraut, spuds, and weenies.
While in Hamburg last Friday I took a look at some table linen and I find that I can get you some exceptionally good stuff, called "Damask" linen, between 35 and 50 marks or in other words about ten dollars. But??? Such stuff is hard to get through the customs without paying double for it. So you can judge your pocket book accordingly and let me know the outcome. If you want some, I'll have Frau Groth buy it for me. As for toys, there is nothing here that you can't get at home.
While in Hamburg, I also ran on to the wind up of a street brawl between the communists and some Hitlerites. There have been six people killed there in such fights this week.
No, I haven't anyone but myself to learn me my songs. My fiddle and I are the sole teachers and executors. I did have a pianist for a while; Frau Groth's daughter-in-law, but now she has gone home. She is from Austria. She visited here for about two months. But I surely have a job on my hands now. This branch that I am in wants me to start a choir. If I wasn't afraid of losing a good ear for music I wouldn't mind it. If you only knew what I have to work with, excluding the fact that we haven't a piano, you could understand how depreciating it would be to one's intellectual faculties. John Davidson would make an opera singer amongst this bunch. You never heard such weird and nerve racking sounds in your life. They don't know a thing about music except what the missionaries have taught them and I can't say much for that. I hardly recognized some of our hymns when I first came.
I received the shirts that Druce sent a couple of weeks ago. And I can't buy garments over here. But here is something I wish you would do. Write to "Zion's Printing and Pub. Co.", Independence, Missouri, and subscribe for the "Liahona" for me. It's and Elder's Journal which I can very handily use. It will cost a dollar for a years subscription. Give them my address here in Elmshorn and they will send it to me.
Well, I'm at the bottom of all I have to say so I guess I can quit. This work is getting more interesting all the time. It seems as though there is no end to it. A fellow can spend every minute he owns at it and still have lots to learn. In our last missionary meeting, Pres. Salzner said that he was getting rather short on missionaries and that he might have to take us out of Elmshorn and put us in some of the larger branches. But I don't think there is much danger of us moving before January or February, if even then.
Tell Jean and Joy to send me their picture and have the rest of the family write.
Lots of Love,
Clarence.
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