I am here.

Dear Mom and Dad and Catherine,

Ah, this week was good. Kinda exhausting, but good. Inspirational quote of the week: It's not about what you do, but about who you become.

Tuesday morning, we visited a less active, Sister M. She's way cool. The only difficult thing is the language barrier. (Though she speaks really good English, and there's English translation.) 

We had two Tausches this week! One with Linz and one with Wels. So Tuesday-Wednesday, Sister Fenton (Linz) came to me and on Thursday, I went to Wels with Sister Berry.

Sister Fenton and I talked and talked and talked. Way too late. :) But the next day, we visited S and had an AWESOME lesson. We decided to re-teach the first part of the Restoration (this would be the third time she's heard it), but just to solidify it for her. And it was WAY cool, because once I started explaining priesthood authority, she said that John the Baptist had that authority and had baptized Jesus by immersion, but no one does that anymore. :D Perfect. So we finished explaining that and did a two-sentence summary of the Great Apostasy and Restoration, and we explained that because this is Christ's restored church, He showed that we should be baptized by immersion.  So I invited her to be baptized on the 10th of January, and she said "Yes, that's something I want." It was SO COOL because we weren't planning on it at all.

We went by on some missing members/less actives and found that one of them had passed away..........all right!

Tausch on Thursday was fun, too. I was with Sister Berry in Wels. (She's been out for four weeks.) We had a lot of fun. We visited a potential and then went to find an investigator's house. (By the way, we were biking. Biking, biking, biking. It was fun.) The grandpa invited us in---until we realized that his kids and grandchildren weren't home yet. But when they all came back, we taught the Plan of Salvation then went home.

It was cool riding to Tausch, though, because I felt very in place. Things were right. It fit. I'm a missionary, I'm in Austria ;), and I was just caught up in the moment. I am here. No matter how long I have left, how far I've come. I am in place. I am here. It was very cool.

Friday, we tausched back, then went and taught E. Her friend D was there again. We talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Will you pray that E and R1 come to church? And that R2 will have his heart open? Elena said she would talk to him because she believes this church is true and she knows over and over again that she needs to be baptized.

Saturday: we went and talked with people on the street along the Salzach. Way cool. We just introduced ourselves and that we were talking with people about prayer. We talked with a man from Boston, then with D, this man from Italy. Broken English, broken Italian---he was WAY COOL. (Also, I need to learn Italian.) We met with a woman named B, who is also way cool. She'd met with the Sisters once last year, and we finally got in touch with her again. We'll meet again between Christmas and New Years....... so, yes. Then we went to A and had our "late" night: hot chocolate, Lebkuchen, Mormon Messages, and then we got to teach her the Plan of Salvation, which was so good. She essentially already lives the gospel, she loves it, comes to Institute and stuff, and we finally got to teach her. And asked if we could teach her some more. She said YES. :D

Yesterday was also way cool---everything is way cool. Church was run by the missionaries. Almost. I played piano in RS, then we gave the YW lesson, then translated for Primary, then I played piano for the congregation in Sacrament Meeting and in RS for the musical number. Elder Lyman gave a talk, then I gave a talk. Hahaha. It was really good, though. I ended up talking about the Plan of Salvation, virtue, virtue, virtue, then the temple a little, and more virtue. Bruder Z (after me) gave a very law of chastity talk. But all in all, it was good. Half of our ward was gone---probs in Neumarkt for the baby blessing. (Also, everyone is related here.) 

Also, I love the Bible. A whole lot. I'm in Apostelgeschichte right now and it's wonderful. This morning I read about when Peter gets delivered from prison, and everyone is confused, and I just laughed. It's so GOOD.

Also, we improvised with our wonderful cooking skills some banana chocolate chip cookies. But they were really runny, so we put more and more flour in. (I think total probably 800g flour.) They actually turned out really good. :)

Anyways. Transfer calls---my last ones---are this week. Weird. Also, the Smiths told us that President said that 6 sisters areas will be closed between by the end of next transfer. 6!! That's awful. There are a total of 18 sisters going home between these two transfers. Anyways. We need more missionaries---we need more sisters especially. Man. That's all.

I love you a whole lot!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Love,

Sister Beth Winters