#austria #crossingbordersallthetime #bikesbikesbikes!

Hahaha.

Dear Mom, Dad, and Catherine,

Hello, hello, hello from Salzburg! :)  I about died when I realized I was physically back in Austria. I love this country SO SO MUCH.

1.  So, we live in Freilassing. It's in Germany. Every day we ride the train, the S-bahn (a real, proper, Austrian S-bahn!), across the border. It starts in Freilassing (which is kind of considered Austria though it's really Germany), then two minutes later, you're in Salzburg Liefering. (Then Europark, then Aiglhof, then Mülln/Altstadt, then you get to Haupbahnhof.) It's literally one minute to the border with the train. HAH. #jumpingthebordereveryday

2.  WE HAVE BIKES. It takes about 20 minutes to walk from our apartment to Bahnhof, but it takes quite a bit longer to get around Freilassing itself, so we have BIKES. Oh my goodness. Sister Wilkes told me that and honestly I about died of joy. I haven't ridden a bike since Wiener Neustadt.

3. I am learning to understand an Austrian accent again. AH! It's beautiful.

4. Salzburg has proper mountains. I AM SO AT HOME. Real mountains. Like echt. They're beautiful. And the city is gorgeous. We were visiting a less active, and all of a sudden I looked up from the map, and BAM, there was a mountain. AH. That does make it a bit chilly, though.

On Tuesday, I talked to R on the phone, D came (!) to say goodbye, then I hugged everyone…… It actually hit me that I was leaving when the door closed on the train. Man, that was hard. Up until I had to get on the train, I didn't feel like I would actually leave. Not really. I'd been in Stuttgart so long, I could have stayed. But at the same time, I couldn't have. I felt that I needed a change. I think that city exhausted every last drop of me that I needed to give to it. :)

The train ride was cool. I talked with a man who lives close to Ulm. He was really nice and we talked about the gospel and what I was doing here, which was really good. I rode the train from Munich to Salzburg with some goldens :) and a bunch of Elders.  But,  when we were pulling into Salzburg, I was SOOOOO excited for the fact that I was in Austria. That I was in Salzburg, of all places. Ah! Sister Wilkes met me here. She's WONDERFUL.

That night, we met with R, one of our investigators. We read in 3 Nephi 11, then talked about the Book of Mormon. We were talking about it, and the way she'd understood the Book of Mormon was that it is a book that is good when you have a question, but that God also answers prayers and questions in many different ways. So we explained that He absolutely does! But that the Book of Mormon is a book of doctrine, and it is so important to read it every day. The appointment was really good, though.

Wednesday: We had an eating appointment with the N fam. L, the youngest daughter, is 19 and wonderful. :) Speaks SUPER fast in both English and German.  All the JAEs here speak incredible English.

Thursday: anmelded (living in Germany!), then we went to the church and did some things on the computer, then went and met B at Hanuschplatz. Bensid is SO COOL. He's one of our investigators. He thinks a lot. He's originally from Algeria, but moved to France when he was 15, but he has also moved all over Europe. He's super cool. He thinks a lot, but he understands…slowly. He didn't have a belief in God before he met us. Please, please, please pray for him to come to church and that he can also find a job……….  Anyways, he came to our German class, which was really cool. Then we had institute, where we watched the CES Devotional by Elder Christofferson back in September? and Ana came (another investigator). She's really cool! She's from Romania and is SO ready....... So that was really fun.

Saturday was a Feiertag---so everything was dead. We did bike :) around Freilassing and visited some less actives there. Sister F opened the door and immediately invited us in and told us her story and everything. my goodness. It was wonderful---but also so difficult at the end because she started talking about how the war had affected her dad and her, and it was so sad. It's awful seeing how WWII affected these people—traumatized them---and even now, it stayed. It's so rough. But she needed someone to talk to, and she's wonderful. :) We'll visit her again this week.

Then we came home and made a zillion calls to some missing members and less actives, but only one answered, so we went into the city and tried to visit them. All in all, it was really productive, because the focus of the ward right now is to get these people all found. We came home that night and did records. 

Yesterday was church! And Heavenly Father helped me so much and I remembered a LOT of people, actually, which was so good.  I bore my testimony at the end. Oh, it was good. I felt like I belong here, like I fit here. That was really good—and really helpful. And all the members were so kind and loving and open and that helped a lot, too.

Afterwards, we had GMK (Bruder S is reeeeally cool. I love GMLs. I've only had awesome ones here.), then the Feldbachers spontaneously invited us over for lunch! We visited some more less actives, then went to FHA at the Smiths.......but Ana didn't come, like she said she would. :( So then afterwards, we played a couple games with the JAEs that were there, then came home and studied. :)

So, yes. Life is really good. I really love it here. It's GORGEOUS beyond belief. Sister Wilkes is awesome. She really knows the ward here. She is always looking to be effective and really knows how to help the people here. We're quite similar, actually. She'd better stay---well, I'd better, too!---for the next two transfers.

That's all. There are a lot of pictures coming!

I love you! Have a wonderful week!!

Love,

Sister Beth Winters