Dear Mom and Dad,
This week has been good and weird and hard, but still very good. :) I'm learning and growing so much. So, this week was exciting. My testimony is definitely strengthened in that the Lord takes care of His missionaries. Everything fell out. Well, almost. First, we were supposed to have an Austausch (exchange) on Tuesday to Wednesday, but then Sister Harman got sick, so we moved it to Friday. Which actually was quite a blessing. We saw so many crazy things happen during the week and a couple of key miracles during the time that we would have been tausched.
Tuesday. We visited a member, Angela, and her mother. They are SO sweet. Angela was on a mission in Greece, but then came home after a year, and then got married. She's still pretty young, and so cute and pregnant. :) I love her. She offered to come along with us to visit a referral and a former investigator, but the referral didn't have interest, and the former investigator kind of dropped off the face of the planet. But. We drove all over the gorgeous, green, green, green hills of Austria in the rain. Oh my goodness. The driving took a while (even though Angela drives quite fast), but we just talked with her. Actually, she talked most of the time. And she talked super fast. But I understood 92% of it. :) I think, the miracle of that whole situation was that we strengthened our relationship with her so much, which really needed to happen.
Still Tuesday. She finally dropped us off at the Bahnhof in Baden, and we walked onto the platform---Bahnsteig---to wait for the next train. Two minutes after we got there, a woman walked onto the Bahnsteig right behind us. She was looking pretty intently at us, and I kept having the feeling to talk to her. So we did, and gave her a Book of Mormon. It was a pretty incredible conversation.
Then. Tuesday night. We were going to take a Book of Mormon (in English) to a potential, who lives out in Grünbach am Schneeberg, a 45-minute train ride outside of WN. We got off at the main Grünbach am Schneeberg stop, and then called the potential, and he said, "Oh, you've got to go two more stops!" Well, we didn't have time, because the trains only come once an hour, and it was already 7:30, and we have to be back in our apartment by 9. So we contacted in Grünbach a little, but no one was out. Kind of unproductive. But. It was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. I'm attaching pictures. Oh my goodness. This is when I really have to pinch myself and try to re-convince myself that I really am in AUSTRIA.
Wednesday, two of our three appointments fell out. So we made banana bread (which was delicious, by the way! Thank you, thank you for the recipe.), and then went to the only appointment we had, which was with E. Angela came as a joint teach, and it was an incredible lesson. We both think that this is why the Austausch had to be moved---I needed to be there for that lesson. Oh man. It was pretty amazing. We gave some banana bread to Angela, and some to a sweet, sweet older couple in our ward who help us all the time. Sister P is very down-to-earth, get things done, but so sweet and so helpful. But we visited them for a few minutes, then got on the train home. We talked to a woman on the train who grew up in Italy, lives in Argentina, and whose father is Austrian (so she speaks German). When we all got off in Wiener Neustadt, she asked if she could get us something to drink. We ended up going to dinner at a restaurant on Hauptplatz, and she paid for it all, and we just sat and talked with her for two hours. It was crazy. We didn't know exactly what we would do with our time, because our last appointment fell out, but then she just came and took us to dinner.
OK. The wasp story. Right..... so, the wasps really just like our apartment. But only at lunchtime. They try to sneak in and get to our food. Honestly, I think it is the same two or three wasps every time. Well, sometime the week before, I hit one with my Ensign magazine (and I wasn't afraid of it!). Then, we were making banana bread, and I saw one sneaking in, down by the floor, trying to get in without notice. I grabbed some book, magazine, something, and swatted at it. I missed, but it attacked my foot! So I got a wasp sting. I was not happy with that wasp. Thankfully, Sister Scoggin killed it. But the wasps here are aggressive! I don't like them! :P But we've been closing our windows during lunch. No more sneaking in. :)
Thursday was an Austrian (well, Catholic) holiday. Which means everything is closed, and Wiener Neustadt turns into a ghost town. We had two appointments for the day, and they both fell out. So we went over to Miguel's house (member, whose mother isn't a member) and helped him in his yard. Pretty fun. Then we went by on a less active who we've been having a hard time getting ahold of, but she was at home, so we talked for a while. Her husband doesn't allow her to go to church, but she longs for the blessings and to come to church. She was so sweet.
Contacting story. :D It was great. During role play, Sister Scoggin "contacted" me, and just started by saying, "You are a child of God, and He loves you so much!" So I wanted to use that during the day. So I did---and we got a potential out of it! It was pretty cool. Just starting with, "You are a child of God, and He loves you so much!"
Friday, we did our austausch. I was with Sister Woods in Wien, and Sister Harman came down to Wiener Neustadt. It was good, but weird---Sisters Woods and Harman are in the international ward in Wien, so they speak and teach in English. Saturday, for sport, we went and visited Beethoven's old grave! Schubert used to be buried there, too! I was kind of excited about it. Now I just have to go to the real grave. Saturday was district meeting, then we tausched back. The work is so different in Vienna than in Wiener Neustadt. And we are so blessed---our apartment is incredibly nice, and I love the members and the work here.
In my study, I've been learning a lot about charity and about the Atonement. Charity is so unselfish, so much turned outwards. I think there are a couple aspects of charity: Christ's love for us, and our love for others. First, with Christ's love for us. The Atonement was the greatest expression of charity ever. Because He loves us so much, He performed the Atonement so we could return to Him. In True To the Faith, it says something like, "As we come to know Christ's love for us, we can have faith in Him and turn to Him and repent." Something along those lines. I can't remember exactly, but that was so interesting to me, that that would be under charity, not repentance or faith or something. I'm learning a lot about the Atonement in my life. The Atonement fills the gaps for us when we come short of the law. But these are the requirements I'm seeing over and over again---a broken heart, a contrite spirit, and faith in Christ. But as we develop faith, and are humble, the Atonement can answer the ends of the law for us. When we don't, the law answers the ends of the Atonement to us---where the Atonement cannot take hold, the law does. Mercy cannot rob justice, and justice cannot rob mercy. They work together. And it's up to us. (2 Nephi 2 is a great place to learn about the Atonement.) :)
We have zone conference this week! I'm so excited, a lot because President and Sister Miles are coming out here. :)
Also, I'm now challenging you ALL to go and be member missionaries. It is SO MUCH EASIER if the members are inviting their friends. So so so so so much more effective than us missionaries just trying to contact on the street. I cannot stress this enough. PLEASE go find some missionary work to do. Invite the missionaries over, even. It's GOOD.
I love you so much!!! You are wonderful, and I am so grateful for your love and support.
Love, love, love,
Sister Elizabeth Winters
The woman who bought us dinner. We're best friends now.
The Bahnhof
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