Week #21 in Hannover (14 July 2014).  Reese's letter was titled:  "GERMANY WORLD CHAMPS" and appropriately so because Germany beat Argentina 1-0 to win the world cup final.  The missionaries were allowed to watch two games:  USA v. Germany in group play and then the final, which turned out to involve Germany, which has a powerhouse team.  Emailing the morning after the world cup final, Reese wrote:  "That was a pretty good game last night - or at least from the highlights I saw. Pretty crazy that Götze was able to get his foot to the ball. There was a bunch of screaming and fireworks and I couldn't really sleep until midnight, but that's okay."  Hard to believe that Reese only saw the highlights.  When he put in his mission papers, he was most eager to go to a "soccer mission," and most prominently Brazil because that is where the world cup was to be held.  It turns out that he worked his way through the World Cup without even watching much, including much of the final, which he was permitted to watch.  Still, it was thrilling to be in Germany when the national team--Die Mannschaft--won the World Cup.  It is a soccer nation and their team deserved to win it.  They were the class of the tournament.  Reese also said that the prior p-day they went to "Schützen Fest, which happens apparently once a year since 500 years ago. We rode some cool rides and then came home to write a couple letters. It was really fun - I haven't ridden a thrill ride for a while."  Here are a couple of photos:

 

The missionary work moved ahead.  One of their investigators has put off baptism but Reese felt good about the decision so that she could take more time to develop a testimony.  He said that their Leadership Training Meeting in Hamburg had been good, although mostly a review of the last mission leadership council.  Here is a photo from the leadership training meeting:

Friday was Elder Atkinson's birthday and they had steaks and gave him a DFB scarf.  Here's a couple of photos:

Reese closed saying "great stuff is going on here...we are super excited."