A Normal Week in the Life of a Missionary

Which means it's crazy. :)

August 5, 2013

Liebe Mutter und Vater,

This week has been CRAZY. I love it. But it's crazy.

Some answers for you:

1. Yes, both the elders (Huff and Helbig) and the couple (the Thurns) were here before we got here. It is just we sisters who are white-washing. The Thurns do family history work, and they go home in about a month. We'll get a number of things from their apartment when they leave. Elder Huff is from PG; we both graduated last year, but we never knew each other.
2. We eat lots of things. :) We had Döners for lunch on Saturday. Usually cereal, fruit, and/or yogurt for breakfast; lunch varies. Sometimes cheese sandwiches (which may or may not have meat on them, depending what we decide), sometimes soup, sometimes pasta, and then dinner is often pasta or something similar to lunch, just not the same. We have had a number of eating appointments, though, so that is nice. The members are very kind. We rarely buy food.
3. Right now, I'm on the iPad (Thurns') to email you. I don't know if I can print from here, but I think I can from the computer that Sister Scoggin is using. Right now, we do email and laundry at the Thurns' apartment. But we'll get both their washer and dryer when they leave, and probably just do email at the church after that.

This week has been awesome and crazy. First off. Tuesday. We got anmelded---registered---in Austria, which is good! Now we can live here legally. We're just waiting to get a couple things to finish up our visa stuff. Anyways. Right afterwards, we were walking up towards the church, and started talking with two shifty-looking guys who were from Algeria. We tried to communicate in English, but we're not sure they understood. Their friend came up and said hello, but we kept talking with them, and then they didn't want to listen anymore, so they left. We were walking through this park (which is really very small), heading towards a couple of other guys sitting on a bench on the other side of the park. Then, I noticed there was a policeman walking around on the path opposite from us. One of the guys got up from the bench and walked to the middle of the park, and immediately the policeman came up to him and was asking for ID and stuff. And then all of a sudden, two more policeman walked out of the bushes, striding with purpose. One briefly acknowledged us, but they started talking with those two guys. Total drug bust in the park....right when we were walking through. So we quickly decided to turn around and leave as fast as we could. OH, man. It was hilarious and scary. I don't think I've ever been in a situation like that. And we just became legal here, too! We couldn't get in the middle of that...... It was sketchy and funny and scary, and I'm glad that the Lord takes care of His missionaries. :) 

Same day, we were coming back for dinner, and there was this Spanish speaking Muslim who tried to convince us to take a Spanish Qu'ran and also convince us that Christ is the son of Mary, but not the son of God.  Hmmmm. Well, in our broken Spanish (I'm losing it....), we told him we didn't have time for that, because he sort of just wanted to argue, and so we left. That was interesting.

Thursday night was hard for me. We had Gemeinderat (ward council). While usually I can understand German pretty well, I was having a hard time. Both because I don't know a lot of vocab, and also because some of the members had strong accents. I wanted so much to contribute, but was unable to because of my limited ability and the fact that I wasn't quite sure exactly what they were saying. 

But. This week I've had a couple of experiences just with personal study that have helped me a lot. During planning on Friday night, Sister Scoggin and I both felt like we should share Elder Cook's talk "Personal Peace: The Reward of Righteousness" with one of the less active members (Sister Schütz) who we were going vorbei on on Saturday.  So during my personal study Saturday, that's what I studied. It was such a blessing to me. I think we had that impression just so that I could study it, because I don't think I necessarily learned much that was new, but my testimony grew in the fact that when we are doing what is right, we can have peace through the Savior, no matter what's going on around us. It helped me SO much for Saturday.

Saturday was quite hard, and Sister Scoggin and I didn't know quite why. But my enthusiasm was perky throughout the day, so that helped me. Friday night, we planned to go to Grünback am Schneeberg, which we thought would take a couple hours travel-wise. We had a backup plan to go to Baden (20 minutes with the right train), and contact a less active member, and then go dooring (we don't often door here), just so I could have the experience. We try not to door as much as possible. During comp study, we were hesitant about going to visit Brendan (a potential, who lives in Grünback am Schneeberg), so we prayed, and the Spirit said to go to Baden. So we got Döners, then ice cream (WN has really good ice cream), then went to the train station to find out about the next train to Baden. We had 25 minutes or so, so we went back to a bench a ways away from the station in order to pray---we were beginning our fast after lunch. We had a special mission-wide fast that every companionship this transfer would have at least one baptism. The Spirit was SO strong. We both know we will see miracles this transfer. 

We had about ten minutes before our train left, so we walked around and contacted....and missed our train. So we re-planned, and went to the church to scan Elder Cook's talk for Sister Schütz. We dropped off a Bengali Book of Mormon at a potential's house (he wasn't there), and then went to try and find Sister Schütz's house. Now, Saturday was REALLY hot. And we were fasting---so no water---and riding bikes from the north end of the city to the south end. We had to take a bunch of different streets to try and find Sister Schütz's house, so it was kind of confusing. We got going on Neunkirchnerstrasse.....and went too far. And then my chain fell off. :) So we put that back on (it worked!). A man passed by us and asked if we needed help, and we figured out that we'd gone too far. So we turned around and endlich---finally---found Sister Schütz's house..........only to find out that she wasn't there. We left the copy of the talk in her mailbox, then prayed to figure out what to do. Both of us were seriously worried about getting heat exhaustion and/or passing out, so we knocked on doors until a woman opened up and we asked her for a bottle of water. (We drank water during the 24 hours as we felt was needed---the heat honestly was a problem.) We doored for a few minutes, and no one opened up to us, so we went back to our apartment, took cold showers, and then did language study.

Then we finally went to Baden. Baden is so pretty. :) We're actually going back today with our district to explore a castle there. We found the less active member's building.....but it looked kinda sketchy, so we didn't go in. (The door was propped open.) We went dooring, but everyone thinks we're trying to sell something, so no one let us in. We accidentally took the schnell-Bahn (which actually is pretty slow, because it stops at every city), and no one was on there, so we read parts of the Book of Mormon out loud. We read parts in Alma, and then 3 Nephi 1, when Nephi prays and Christ tells him that on this night, the sign shall be given of His birth, and then 3 Nephi 11, when Christ comes down and visits the Nephites, then 3 Nephi 17 right as we pulled into Wiener Neustadt. The Spirit was SO strong. We have the truth---this is His Church, the Book of Mormon is so true, and Heavenly Father loves His children. And we are SO blessed to be missionaries---to take this word, this truth to the children of God! It was powerful. 

Sunday was amazing. We went to church, and Sister Scoggin got to translate for a couple of Americans from LA and for the Thurns, so that was fun to listen to. That's one way to learn German---to have to translate! I want to, but I don't know if I can yet.... Anyways, these two Americans were visiting the husband's mission (in Rome) along with the wife had a tour of some sort. She's an opera singer. Apparently, if the elders are correct, the man is the writer/author for Star Trek 3! But it was fun and they were quite nice.

We had lunch at Schwester Hesina's. She talks a TON :) (as all of the old women in our ward do whenever we come over).  It's really funny---we planned to only be there for an hour and a half to two hours, but then we rarely got a word in edgewise, so we stayed for a lot longer than we planned/wanted to. But she is sweet, and the Spirit was present and really strong during the spiritual thought. We shared Alma 13:24:  angels right now are preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive this gospel. We had a good discussion about it, and invited her to pray about some names of people she could share the gospel with or invite to have the missionaries over. We got back to Hauptplatz just in time to change our skirts (to something we could ride bikes in), grab our bikes, and ride over to the elders' apartment. We then rode with the elders out to Bad-Fischau, where we had a dinner appointment with the Escudero family. The bike ride was gorgeous and hard and fun. :)  And miracle!  About mid-day, it had gotten really cloudy, so it was lightly sprinkling when we rode out there. The grandmother is not getauft (baptized), but the parents and are. We had amazing pizza then a lot of conversation. Miguel (the dad) told me not to worry about my German. Because I speak well enough already, and everyone understands me anyways, and I often speak better (more proper?) German than a lot of people. That helped me. I need to not worry. And I need to learn the vocab. :) Anyways. We shared the spiritual thought again---3 Nephi 1:4-20 or so, and talked again about how this is the truth, this is Christ's church, and how wonderful it is. Sister Scoggin asked Miguel and Rachel to tell how they gained their testimonies. Again, the Spirit was so strong. We closed with a prayer.

Riding home was an adventure. It had been raining the whole time we were with the Escuderos. And there was lots of lightning and thunder. :D  OH my goodness. It was so much fun. It smelled glorious---I love the smell of rain!---and the lightning was terrifying, because it was pretty close to us, especially coming down the mountain from their home. But it was so fun to watch and see (!) and ride through.  After planning, we just sat and watched the lightning out our tiny windows. It was incredible.

Basically, I'm feeling like a real, stereotypical missionary. :) Sweltering heat, riding bikes in skirts, no one is home, fasting (in the heat), no one wants to talk to us, riding through a lightning storm, and knocking on doors. And giving out Book of Mormons. I LOVE IT, though. I read Elder Scott (?)'s talk this morning from 2012 April General Conference about sacrifice, and while it is a sacrifice, I feel like it is more of an opportunity and blessing that Heavenly Father has given us. It's incredible.

In full honesty, I think Heavenly Father gave us Saturday so that we could have the experiences we did on Sunday. We were following the Spirit on Saturday, but trotzdem, no one wanted to talk to us. We saw no success. We still have no investigators, but we have the truth, we believe in angels, we trust in miracles, and the work will go forward! We have this treasure, and it is wonderful.

I know this Church is true! Each time I study and talk with people, the Spirit confirms to me again and again the incredible nature of this work. How could it not be true? I am amazed at the Lord's goodness and the incredible blessing we have to be part of this Church---part of Christ's true church on the earth.

Have fun with the cousins, have fun in New Orleans. NEVER forget that the Lord is ALWAYS with you! We have help on both sides of the veil. I know that. :) I love you so much!

Love, love, love,

Sister Elizabeth Jill Winters

 The view out my window