1933-06-12: German Diet: cheese, sour milk, horse meat, rotegrütze, potatoes and beer.

Flensburg

June 12/33

Dear Mother and Dad,

No, I haven't moved yet.  I've just been up to my neck in work.  When a fellow has to give a speech or teach some lessons every other day it sort o' keeps him with his head in a book.  Aside from doing that we are busy most of the time in tracting and visiting investigators.  As a matter of fact we took a trip up to Glücksburg on Saturday to visit some friends who have been visiting the meetings and yet are rather on the fence as to the truth of the Gospel.  The town of Glücksburg lies right on the coast so we took a boat up that way instead of a train.  We were on the water about an hour each way and got to see some very pretty country.  These boats make regular trips up the coast as do the trains.  it seems as though the beaches all the way up the coast are filled with people now.  It is hardly warm and yet they think everything is going to melt.  When it goes two weeks without raining for a couple of days the farmers think that a drought has certainly hit the country. It is a fact though, that the ground over here gets as dry as a bone if it doesn't rain about every week.  It is quite interesting to a fellow who is from a place where farming is farming when he gets to look over what they call a farming district over here.  You can put the whole acreage of a farm over here in one of our big hay barns at home.

Well, it has been a year today since I left home.  What do you think of that??  It won't be long until I'll be going down hill.  I don't know how the time flies to you but it certainly has been making progress to me.  Even though the days are equipped with twenty hours of sunshine, now they roll around just as fast.  On our way home from Glücksburg by boat it was ten o'clock at night and there was still a big red sun-set in the sky.  I wouldn't have to go very far north to see the midnight sun from where I am at.

Burdett tells me that I'll feel right at home upon my future arrival there in that you have the horse tied to the door and that you also have beer all over the table.  Burdett kinda tells on you, doesn't he!!!!??  Well, I'm glad Dad has started to become a regular church member, anyway.  David O. McKay is a fine speaker, is he not??  He talked to us several times in the Mission home in Salt Lake City.  His personality is so influencing that it is a privilege to stand and talk to him.

Burdett also tells me that he weighs 165 lbs. and is 5ft 11in tall.  Sounds to me like you have been feeding them a German diet alright--cheese, sour milk, horse meat, rotegrütze, potatoes and beer.  Is that it???  I forgot to mention the fish.  My "Mit" and I have arrived at the point where we can't look a fish in the face.  We had some served to us the other day at one of the Saints that weren't even cooked.  You can imagine what a time I had stuffing that stuff down and still keep a straight face at the table. 

No, I can't think of anything I need so I guess I'm setting pretty.  My socks are getting a bit "Holy".  Outside of that my clothes are holding up OK.  The Saints have darned my socks so often that they have ceased to contain the original material in them. 

Tell the kids I'll write to them as soon as I have time.

Lots of Love,

Clarence