Dear liebe Mutter und Vater,
Well. I can't believe how fast the time is going already. This isn't a good sign. I came out on my mission three and a half months ago, and now it's almost November? That's weird. So! This week has been wonderful. Monday was absolutely gorgeous weather. Today is, too. I'm wearing short sleeves and no jacket. I love it.
On Monday afternoon, we went to Bishop's! So, the Church (I think) took a couple parts from the Work of Salvation broadcast and put a DVD together. (But it's in German, or has German subtitles, so I don't know if the Church did that or the mission.) Anyways. So, our mission has wanted to take this DVD to the members, and show it to them, and help them create family mission plans. So, we took it to Bishop first to get his approval. And everything ran smoothly, and it was wonderful. The Spirit was so strong, and he loved it, and so we will be taking that DVD---with more of an emphasis on the ward mission plan--- to the members! I'm excited. First run is tonight. Bishop is so awesome. He and Sister Hladky are both converts to the Church, but they are so good together and just strong, strong members. I LOVE them so much.
Monday night during planning, Sister Scoggin and I both had the weird desire to go dooring. (We almost never go dooring.) One of our goals the first transfer we were together was to not go dooring unless the Spirit told us to. Well, so the Spirit was telling us to, and so on Tuesday, we went dooring. I was really worried when we first started walking down to the place that we'd picked, but the whole time, I felt so supported by the Spirit. I knew we were doing the right thing. We didn't see much come of it (or at least, we were planting more seeds at this point), but we gave a number of people pass-along cards and did find one family who said to come back another time.
Both A and P got sick this week and couldn't meet with us. :( But we're hoping to meet with them again this week. :)
Wednesday, we had a Tausch! I went up to Wien to work with Sister Harman, and Sister Clark came down to Neustadt. It's really fun being in Wien. It's a very big city, and the work there is a LOT different than the work here. Also, guess who I saw??? Sister Motto!!! They all are in the same apartment. So, with Sister Harman, we went to a woman to take her a Book of Mormon in Romanian, but she wasn't home, so we went to go find some less actives/what I call "missing members"---people who are on the records still in a certain ward, but definitely not active and no one knows if they're still there anymore. After that, we got dinner at Karlsplatz, then went back up to the JAE (YSA) Center to have a lesson.
This lesson. Oh, man. SO COOL. So, there's this girl from California who is studying here in Vienna. She met Sister Woods and Sister Drury (way back before I was in the mission, May maybe?) then they stopped meeting. (I don't know why.) But then the Wien 4 sisters got back in contact with her, and so we had a lesson! Her name is C, and we went and talked at the center. It was so good. We talked about the Book of Mormon and gave her one. But the fun thing was, I asked her where she's from. She said California and then she narrowed it down to Agoura Hills. I said, "No way! That's where my cousins live!" So we figured out that she could potentially know Corey. Oh, man. I was really excited.....
Thursday we tausched back. We went by on some potentials, talked with H, a woman from Nigeria who sells Kartoffelpuffer and chestnuts in a little stand right next to Hauptplatz. :) Then we went up to the church for a number of hours. We had GMK, then Spanish class, then German class, then PFK (PEC).
Friday was interesting. We had interviews and district meeting in Wien, and it was so fun seeing President and Sister Miles this weekend! It was my first interview, and it was good. Then, we went to Sport, when I walked in, I said, "iEstamos aqui!" And the first thing José said to me was how impressed he was on Thursday at how much my Spanish has improved since I've been here. And he was really just amazed with me. (It's not me. It's Heavenly Father. I could not have improved my Spanish so much on my own, in Austria, of all places!) But I really needed that.
Saturday was interesting. We had weekly planning, then lunch, then went by on a former investigator, who quickly made out another appointment, because she had to go somewhere right then. Saturday was weird. We walked outside, and Wiener Neustadt looked DEAD. Straight up ghost town. Come to find out, it was a holiday. Oh, well. So we went by on the potential we'd found dooring, but he wasn't home. So we went to try and find some former potentials the elders had given us, but we couldn't find them. It was really hard...but then we went by on a less active, who told us she's now Catholic.:P
But then we finally headed up to Bahnhof, because we were going to Wien for stake conference! But on the way there........my tire went flat AGAIN. Third time in three weeks. Poor Brother Genster........I don't want to have to go to him another time. :/ But oh, well. I have no idea why it's going flat. He just fixed it a week ago. But that made us walk our bikes the rest of the way, and we missed our train by seconds. So frustrating. But it was okay---we withdrew some money, and bought a candy bar, then got the next train up there, and got to Stake Conference 10 minutes late. But I wasn't too frustrated about that. It was okay, and all was well. Really, truly, I felt better after getting on the train.
All of stake conference on Saturday night was about the temple. It was really good.....but still pretty hard, because as missionaries, we don't get to attend the temple. There's only one in our mission (Bern, Switzerland) and only the missionaries that ARE in Switzerland get to go once a transfer. Which means no Americans, unless they have a Swiss visa. :P But it will be okay. Sister Scoggin and I talk about how much we miss the temple a lot....
Sunday was stake conference again. I noticed something---I was able to understand most of what everyone said. I don't know if my German has just grown to that point, or what changed, but it was so easy to understand.
I'm learning how important it is to be obedient---strictly, zealously obedient. It could be easy to just slack a little bit on everything---to be busy enough, to get lots of numbers, but maybe not work as hard as you could be. Sister Scoggin and I are very strict about our time. We want to be using every minute the best we can, only take an hour for lunch and dinner, start exactly at 8, go to bed right on time and get up right on time, and use every minute in between as best we can.
I really love being in Wiener Neustadt, where it is not a big city, where we really have to be obedient so that the Lord knows He can trust us with people, where I'm with Sister Scoggin and she taught me to be strictly obedient. Our numbers aren't very high, but we know we are being obedient. We're working on finding more people, and we can't measure our progress against others'. And really, we receive so many blessings and so much strength from being obedient.
C and C are back in Romania.
We're still working. I felt a lot more like I was working harder this week. It was good. It's getting better. And I'm learning. :) I really love it here.
I LOVE you so much!!!
Love,
Sister Elizabeth Jill Winters
Well I had to comment here too =)
ReplyDeleteI hope one day I have the privilege of meeting your incredible, humble, magnificent daughter. She truly is a blessing to the people she serves, as well as those of us who read her letters. It is so fun to hear them say they are working even harder, as they grow and kick things up a notch because they've been progressing and accomplishing their goals. Thank you!