Sister Elizabeth Winters: Speaking Gerspanglish

That's German-Spanish-English, for your information.

Liebe Mutter und Vater,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your letters this week. :) They mean a LOT to me.

Question/Answers

1. Well. My morning routine. We wake up at 6:30, pray, brush our teeth, then do Früh Sport until 7. Then between 7 and 8 we get ready, eat breakfast, continue writing in our journals, etc. 8:00 is personal study time. We have an hour, which on some days is good, and other days is so hard because it feels too short. 9:00, we have comp study. We talk about the lessons we'll teach, what we studied, read the handbook, do role plays. President lets us move Sprach Studium (language study) throughout the day according to our schedule, so that we're not in our apartment for the whole morning. WE still have to do the Training program for an hour, and sometimes we move that around a little bit, too. So technically, we have four solid hours of study that we have to do each day. For studying German. PMG recommends that you make a language study plan, get materials, etc. My goal is to learn about 15 new words a day---5 from speaking with people, 10 from reading a magazine (i.e. the Liahona). I haven't been very good about sticking to my plan yet, though. I do make flashcards, and we do have a couple dictionaries.

2. Evening is usually dinner and sprach. President also lets us move dinner around a little bit; usually between 7 and 9, we do dinner (1 hour) and Sprach (1 hour). It is easier for us to do sprach at night; it's harder to talk with people at night. It's hard for me to come home in the middle of the day to do sprach. We have to be in at 9 p.m., unless we have an appointment that lasts until 9, in which case, we need to be in by 9:30. It has started getting dark at about 8:30; another reason to do sprach at night, so we are at home earlier and don't have to worry about walking home in the dark. After planning (30 minutes), we do write in our journals, eat ice cream, read the Liahona, and yes, read and re-read letters. I am sleeping much better than at the beginning of my mission. I still wake up every morning. It used to be between 4:30 and 5:45-ish, but now, I wake up at 6. which is annoying, but it doesn't affect me too much.

I feel like this week has flown by and we haven't done anything. Which isn't the case, because we're working hard, but it's just going fast. Transfer calls are at the end of this week---this is the last week of my first transfer! It does NOT feel like it's been 6 weeks. I don't think I'll be going anywhere; it is very unlikely that President moves trainers/trainees around in the middle of their training (which lasts 12 weeks). But we'll see. I highly doubt I will be going anywhere, so don't get too excited. :) But I'm not complaining---I love Wiener Neustadt, and if I can stay here for a while, I wouldn't complain, either. I want to stay here for a few transfers.

We met a less active woman who was SO COOL. Down-to-earth, real, loves to learn and read and travels a bit, in her 60s, and has as much zest and fire as anyone. We had a lovely time talking with her.

Saturday was pretty cool---we went to Baden. Which, all in all, was good, because we wanted to go by on some members and a potential, but none of them were home, but we contacted on the street on our way. And the only person that wanted to talk with us was this one woman from India, who believes so many of the same things we do, and the most important thing to her is following Jesus Christ. We talked with her for about an hour, and gave her a Book of Mormon. She was definitely prepared---she has such strong belief and faith in Christ and it just amazed me.

The weather is lovely here---it's been raining a bit this week. Usually, it rains at night, so it's no problem during the day, just a little chillier than it used to be. Saturday, it rained for much of the day. Yesterday, too. Which was hard on Saturday for talking with people. :/ But we're working on it. It's lovely, we sing songs as we walk, and it's fun to smile and laugh when the rest of the world (or, well, Wiener Neustadt) doesn't want to be out and about.

We had Zone Conference this last Friday! It was so fun and so wonderful and I learned a lot. I absolutely LOVE President and Sister Miles. They are SO full of love for every single person, and you can feel it and you can tell they love us. It means a lot to me. The topic for this quarter has been personal preparation, which helped me a TON. I wrote down a list of things that I can do better as a missionary, and what I took the most from it were these two things: 1. I need to throw myself into the work. 2. I need to have more faith. I think I need to understand better what faith is, so I'm working on it.

Sunday was fun---I translated Sunday School for woman who is Spanish. She is an investigator, as are her sons, and her husband is a member and he's awesome. We get to have FHE with them tonight, and I am SO EXCITED. The Spirit was pretty strong last night/today as we were planning for tonight. But yes, I'm speaking Spanish again. Oh man....it was hard, but fun, and good, but after Sacrament Meeting, I had heard three languages (which I understand all three) in the course of two hours. My head was spinning. Because the Thurns spoke in Sacrament Meeting---they're at the very end of their mission; they go home next week. So they spoke in English, and Schwester Köpf translated, and in Sunday School (before Sacrament), I'd had to think in Spanish. I'm reading parts of the Book of Mormon in Spanish, which I love doing! It is so much fun. So I get to teach in Spanish tonight! I knew beforehand that I would speak German, and probably English, but I never thought that I'd have to use my Spanish in Austria, of all places......

This week is pretty exciting. We have some super high goals set. It is going to take a LOT of faith and a lot of prayers and a lot of work to reach them, but we have faith, and we have prayers, and we can work. :D I'm really excited and trying to be ready to take it on.

I love you so much! Have a WONDERFUL week!

Love, love, love,

Sister Elizabeth Winters.

Zone conference. Sister Miles, Beth's mission president's wife and Elder Nelson's daughter, is in the striped shirt in the middle.