10 Investigators, and Running out of Books of Mormon

This week has seemed to have taken an eternity, but so many amazing things have happened! (Parental Note: This seemed like a very long week for us as well.  Not sure why this week was so long, but it feels like forever since we heard from Ryan. Funny that we both felt that way.)  We have found 3 new investigators this week, which brings our total number of Investigators to 10! ( 3 are former that we were able to meet with again). 1 of which we found by going to door to door, he let us right in and we taught the first lesson. He is very determined to find the truth, he has been meeting with the Jehovas Witnesses once a week, is learning Arabisch, to try and study the Koran, and seems fairly enthusiastic about reading the Book of Mormon. I have high hopes for him. 


The 2nd is Thomas Bäck, who we found in Feldkirch ( I mentioned that last week). We taught him the first discussion and it went very well! We will meet with him again this upcoming Wednesday. The third is someone who we met on our finding day on Thursday he was going into a business meeting of some sort, but he had a little bit of time to talk to us, and invited us to stop by and visit him. Which we did on Saturday. Unfortunately our timing wasn't very good and we only got to talk with him for 20 minutes, but he took the Book of Mormon, and was very excited to read it. He wants to try and read it in a Month. He invited us back this Friday to discuss a little bit more about the Book, but then wants to read the whole thing, then invite us over to talk with him about it, and invite his pastor over as well... We will see how that goes... He is Catholic, but is a bit (discouraged?, confused?), I don't know how to quite describe it, about the history of the Catholic Church (i.e. the Crusades and Inquisition).  He doesn't agree that the Catholic Church has the Authority of God, because of those things, which is why he is open to the Book of Mormon/ our Church. I am interested to see what will happen with him.

Tomorrow is Zone Conference in Winterthur, it will be interesting because Elder Esplin and I will each need to take a suitcase there, to try and transport all of our supplies back. We were very ill-equipped for this transfer, we had only 20 Copies of the Book of Mormon in German, 4 in Turkisch, hardly any pass along cards, Very few other Book of Mormons in other languages... Its amazing we been able to do what we have done. Although, haha, we ran out of Book of Mormons about 2 weeks ago, so Zone Leaders brought us 8, but those where gone in a few days, so We borrowed 5 from Ravensburg. But then we gave those out... Well lucky for us, when giving a Church tour to Thomas, we found a Box of copies of the Book of Mormon, which the Bishop said that we could use. so we took 7, and now those are gone... Lucky we get our restock tomorrow. We ordered 40, but Elder Esplin thinks he may have previously ordered an additional 40, which we are both praying for, because we just gave out 20 Book of Mormons in a little less then 2 weeks... there are 6 weeks in a transfer... But its paying off! We are finding more people, and making new appointments, we have 4 appointments made out so far with potentials this upcoming week. Possibly 4 new investigators! 

 

We have learned by sad experience that our freezer sometimes has problems shutting completely. And when left that way unnoticed for 24 hours, it can coat the inside with about 1 inch or so of Ice... that was a lovely surprise, let me tell you. so now comes the problem, how on earth to we get rid of all the ice. If I was at home, I would just spray it out, just like we do our full size freezer, but I am not at home, and that's not an option. So what do we do? Well we improvise, Unplug the freezer, Put Hot water in a water bottle, have one Elder spray out the freezer with it , while the other holds a large bowl to catch all the water, praying that there won't be an overflow of water ;-) Well, it took us about 25 minutes or so, and there were times where Elder Esplin was "trigger happy" spraying more water into the freezer than could come out through the little drainage system, resulting in water going everywhere, but by the end, we were able to dry the freezer out, put our food back in, and mop up the floor. :-)  That was quite the adventure. It made for a pretty good laugh, because its a bit of a Red-neck/missionary type of Solution, but it worked! :-)

I got my Visa! I must admit, I am rather impressed with the Austrian Government, It was going to take 6+ weeks for my German Visa to arrive, but My Austrian Visa only took a single week! I am legal in Austria now! Which is a huge relief to be done worrying about Visas for awhile ( now watch me get sent back to Germany and have to start the process all over again...) Now I just need to get a License, and I am good! We were planning on taking care of that today, but today is a holiday, which is rather horrible for us, because everything is closed, including almost all stores ( luckily the Sutterluty on Bahnhof is open, or else we would have some serious problems). So I will have to take care of my license either during the week sometime, or next p-day, depending on how quickly the office wants me to get the process going. 

I have attached three pictures to this e-mail, 2 are of Liechtenstein ( yes one of them is with me in it). (Parental note:  Mom is very happy now to have pictures that include her misisonary!! What a beautiful place!)  The 3rd picture is what I usually do after a long day of being outside :-). Allergies have been absolutely ridiculous! And I have tried 3 different types of Allergy Medicine, none of which seem to be able to help me at all. There is so much more pollen then I am used to, and I don't know what to do. I am still continuing to take some medicine, because anything is better than nothing, but I am afraid that I may have to just wait it out. I don't know, I am going to talk to the Mission nurse today to see if she can help me, I know of a few other Missionaries that are also having a hard time. Maybe someone has found a solution. 

Other than that things are going very well here! We are finding more and more people, and teaching more lessons. A lot of investigators are busy, so it's been hard to meet with some on a regular basis, but hopefully we will still be able to help them progress. 

Friday is Transfer Calls! This transfer is almost over again! Wow. Start of my Fourth Transfer, after this I will have been out here for roughly 6 months. Can it really already have been that long?

I hope all is going well with everyone at home. Congrats to all those Graduating this week!! I can't believe its now been a year since I graduated, its unbelievable how fast the time has gone! 

Thanks for all the support!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen

Another week has gone by already?! Exploding from Excitement!

Its been quite the week here in Dornbirn. And I am about to Explode from excitement! We have been so blessed! We have been finding people in the most unplanned of ways! (If you recall the letter from last week, they were focused on fasting and finding people.  The following stories are the successes that came from those efforts and faith.)   We were waiting at a bus stop to take us to Bahnhof to catch a train somewhere ( I don't really remember where or why) but there was another lady sitting at the bus stop with us. The bus didn't come, which almost NEVER happens, buses can be late, but rarely to they just flat out not come. So we started talking to her, and she wants us to bring her and her friend 2 Copies of the Book of Mormon in Spanish. By that time, the next bus arrived, we went to Bahnhof, and caught a later train ( we missed the first one, but we are the Lords servants, so I guess he is entitled to change our plans as He pleases ;-)).

Another time we were coming from an appointment in Schlins-Beschlingen, The plan was to catch a train, grab a quick Döner, then go try to find a turkish lady who we had met the day before, to give her a Book of Mormon. We were in a bit of a hurry to catch the train ( the train station was a 20 minute walk from where we were, and we had about 17 minutes or so). Anyway on the way there, I see a man walking down the street, and right then I knew that we weren't meant to catch our intended train. Sure enough he called out to us ,,Seid ihr Zeugen Jehova?" " are you Jehovas Witnesses?". No, we are from the church of Jesus Christ... Long story short he was interested in Reading the Book of Mormon, we gave him a copy and he gave us his address to come back and explain where the book came from/why its important. We missed our train, and the next one didn't for 30 minutes. So we ate down in Schlins, and caught the next train. Which Yilmaz was on :-) Yilmaz is a security guard for ÖBB ( The train system in Austria) and he has always been full of questions for us. I don't know if I would call him an investigator, but a good friend. We don't get to meet with him very often, but he always comes up and talks to us if we see him on the trains. We talked to him, and he kind of opened up to us right then, it was really cool, a step up in the trust he has in us.

We got back, and immediately caught a bus that was to take us to the turkish lady. We find the address she gave us, but its a bar. Maybe she works there? We don't know, we didn't go in, because there was an apartment building right next to it (the number she gave us was 2, the apartment was 2a so we decided to try there). No Luck. We started to ring the doorbells, and were buzzed in right on the first one, top floor. They had no interest, but this allowed us to go and knock on all the doors from the inside (which is better because then it is face to face communication, not just through an intercom). We did so and came across a family, to whom we gave a book, and they told us that we could come back and teach them. And then we came across someone else, named Niklaus, who was busy at the moment, but said we could come back another time. We did Last night, and were able to teach him, and he is now a new investigator. :-) False address, but it results in more potential investigators, and a new investigator. 

Another time, this one happened on Saturday, we had made a plan to visit an older sister in the ward who lived clear in Feldkirch  RIGHT on the border of Liechtenstien ( The border was about 30 yards from her front door, we got there a bit early, so yes, I have now officially been in Liechenstein, and have pictures (WITH ME IN THEM, for the sake of my poor mom ;-)) but sadly, my camera is dead, so I can't post them just yet). Anyway, we had planned for a priest who lived in Feldkirch to be a Joint teach for us. The problem was, he lived clear on the other side of Feldkirch. So the plan was to meet him at his house an hour before the appointment, then catch a ride from one of his parents to the appointment. In order to make it to him by 5, we arrived at 4:30 to catch a bus that left at 4:40 to get us to him by 5. Well upon arriving, he tells us that he will just meet us at her house ( which wasn't a problem for us, because we knew where she lived). But with the change in plan, we now had an unplanned hour and a half. So we went and started talking to people on the streets. We met Thomas. Who actually lives in Dornbirn, but was visiting someone in Feldkirch. He already had received a Book of Mormon, but had never met with the missionaries. We were able to make an appointment with him on the spot for this Thursday! Had we not arrived in Feldkirch when we did having that extra time, we would probably never have met him.

Walking on the street one day, a man who owns a small shop, calls out to us on the street asking us if we want a few sodas, we say that we were fine, but he insisted. So we come in, and start talking to the lady behind the counter (she is Thai by the way :-) ) We told her about the book of Mormon and she is interested in learning more. I could go on and on with these stories. They happen every day. I am sure you remember ( or now can go read) my letters from the start of this area. 0 Investigators, 0 Potentials. At the start it was INCREDIBLY difficult  to give out a single Book of Mormon every day, much less find someone who wanted to meet with us. Elder Esplin a few days ago was telling me that before I came, they had a district meeting in which they talked about the goal of giving out at least one Book of Mormon per day. He said that there was a lot of doubt about it being possible.

Possible? I have been here about 25 days now, in which time we have been able to give out over 30 copies of the Book of Mormon. A few weeks ago, the Zone Leaders announced a goal of trying to find at least 2 new potentials every day. Possible? On Friday we found 5 people who were interested in meeting with us. The Lord works in ways which we can't really understand. He gives goals and commandments which we may or may not think possible. The first two weeks here, nearly everyone said no. But now its changed. The Lord has tested our faith, and is now helping us be led to find those who are ready to receive the gospel. I can't tell you how grateful I am to be here right now. To be one of the instruments in the hand of the Lord to get this area going again. The changes that have taken place are nothing short of Miracles. Transfers calls are next Friday, whether I stay here or not, it doesn't matter. I am grateful to have seen what I have seen already :-). 

Everything else pretty much pails in Comparison to that. I had a rather interesting time getting to Winterthur on Tuesday... Normally what would happen is that we call the office Elders, and ask them to order us tickets for our trip, then the day before they call with the codes to print the tickets. Then we go to a machine, put in the code, and the ticket prints. No worrying about money, or anything really, except catching the train. As I have said previously, to save money and time, we have been authorized to travel alone on exchanges. Which means that I don't have a cell phone, or really anyway to call and figure things our with anyone. That being said, I will continue with the story: the plan was, I would catch the 9:20 bus from the apartment, get to Bahnhof, and catch the 9:39 train to Bregenz. I would have about 9 minutes to print off the ticket, and grab something to eat. No problem right? Well I get to Bahnhof, and go to the machine, put in the code and the ticket prints. BUT it was a one way ticket from RAVENSBURG to Winterthur, not a two way from Dornbirn to Winterthur. My train leaves in 8 minutes, and I don't have the right ticket. Brilliant.

If I was in Germany, the solution would be very simple, I would just type in my destination, and pay for the ticket at the machine. But I am not in Germany, Austrian Ticket machines don't have that function. So I go running into the Ticket office, praying that there isn't a line. There wasn't and I order my ticket, making sure to specify it being a 2 way ticket. It prints I pay for it, it was roughly 1/2 as expensive as I thought it was going to be. Then I realize, that is only a one way ticket ( at which point the 1/2 price thing made sense ;-) ) But I don't have to time right then, I would have to try and take care of it in Bregenz on my 10 minute layover. ( I wanted to buy it in Austria because I have a discount card, which gets me 15% off tickets.) Everything went well I payed for the ticket, visited the bakery, and caught my train without a problem. Upon arriving in Winterthur I realized that I had no idea where Elder Jacklin was going to meet me... Dream come true, wandering around completely lost in Winterthur without anyway to communicate. I wait at what I thought was the main entrance to the Bahnhof for about 10 minutes then decided to head toward the buses. That is where Elder Jacklin met me. RELIEF! ;-) Everything else went well, it was just an adventure trying to figure out what to do in the mean time. :-)

Anyway, that is all for now. I hope all is well at home! 

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen

Finding Week

To Mom, Dad, Josh, Cassie, and Mark, who all got to talk to me a bit yesterday, this e-mail may be a bit repetitive.

Parental editorial comment:  Ryan called for Mother's Day and talked to us on the phone for about 45 minutes.  It was so amazing to hear his voice, and hear him laugh.  Almost as good as having him home with us.  As he talked about his areas, and companions, and how hard the work is, there was no sense of frustration from him.  He was very matter of fact (Ryan...matter of fact??) in telling us that he was happy and just wants to help people know and understand what he already knows about the gospel. As we read his letters, we always try to put a it in his voice as much as possible, but it was so good just to hear his voice. We very much enjoyed the call up until we had to say goodbye, which brought tears to everyone.  Tears of joy because of the chance to talk with him, and a small bit of sadness knowing we won't get that chance again until December.  Man we love this kid.

Sorry... And sorry I haven't yet posted pictures of the apartment yet, we had hoped to have gotten a new couch, and 2 new tables, because the existing ones were terrible ( My desk actually collapsed on me the day we took it to the dump). Anyway Elder Sampson rented a "truck" (Which is more like a Minivan on Steroids) and the plan was, to pick up the two new desks, from Kika, then take the old ones and the couch to the dump. Kika had told us that they had two desks in stock for us, and that we could come and pick them up. Well it turns out that they only had one desk in stock, and that the other one should come sometime this week. Alright, well at least we got the one desk. Halfway through assembly, Elder Esplin realized that they had only given us half of the required instructions to make the desk. So now we are both lacking desks, well technically I am only lacking a half of a desk, but the half that I am missing happens to be the most important part of it... Anyway long story short, Elder Esplin is using the kitchen table, and I am using the couch. Without any shelves or places to organize our study materials, the apartment is a bit of a mess... So I will send pictures, when we get the new desks, and everything gets restored to its original order :-) 

Its been a fairly decent week. On Tuesday I went to Ravensburg, Germany, on an exchange. Which was fairly cool, because they speak Schwäbisch there, and before I left Esslingen, I could actually speak a little bit of it :-). So it was fun to go back and to hear it again. The exchange felt fairly short, Elder Sampson gave us a ride back in the "truck", and it took us roughly 2 hours to get to Ravensburg. That took up a large amount of time, then we ate Lunch, or dinner, not exactly sure it was like 4.00 in the afternoon, but after that we went out and proselyted. The exchanging was comparatively uneventful, We street contacted for a few hours, and went vorbei (went by) on a few potentials. We had an appointment with a family that evening at 7, and having arrived a bit early we went and did some door-ing. Something really cool happened, we door-ed into a family who was eating dinner right then, and they had invited their friends over to have dinner with them. Their friends were members of the Church :-) It was pretty cool to door into someone who had members over, we didn't stay long, but I can only imagine what the topic of conversation was after we left. :-) The appointment was pretty short, just a get-to-know-you kind of thing. 

Thursday was interesting, this day, as well as one other day this month, have been dedicated to nothing but finding. So that is what we did. Our original plan was to go to Bregenz, because there are a lot of people there. But it turns out that they are all tourists... Bregenz is right on the edge of Lake Constance, which is where everyone comes on vacation. So after 4 hours of talking to people, having only found 1 person, we decided that Bregenz wasn't where we were supposed to be. So we caught the train back to Dornbirn. Innenstadt, Dornbirn is usually full of people, especially with the "Dornbirn in Bloom" festival going on right now. But the thing is, right in the middle of Innenstadt, where everyone is, is a huge Catholic Cathedral. Which means that we can't proselyte there 1) because its a missionary rule and 2) I think its just plain disrespectful to proselyte in front of another religion's church. So we had to scratch that off the list of places we could go. We ended up deciding to go door to door for the remaining 4 hours of the day. Going door to door isn't something that I really like, because it's slow. You walk to a door, ring the bell, wait for someone to answer, if they will answer, then if they tell you they aren't interested, you walk to the next door ( or in apartment complexes, just ring the next klingel (bell)). Its a very slow process, where as with Street contacting, if some tells you no, you can quickly talk someone else; you meet more people and are more likely to find someone with interest. But Dornbirn just isn't made for street contacting, its too quite of an area, so we went door to door. I was actually fairly surprised though, we found 8 additional people who were interested in learning about the Book of Mormon. That was such a long day... 8 hours of nothing but talking to people, finding only 9 people during that time, 5 of which were found in the last 30 minutes! 

We gave out 7 book of Mormons that day! 6 German and a Turkish, as well as found people who wanted copies in Arabic, Persian, and Serbian. Exactly what that will mean for the coming weeks, I am not sure. But I can only pray that those who took a Book of Mormon, give us a call so that we can meet with them! ( There were a number of people who took a Book of Mormon, but didn't want us to meet with them, and they aren't counted in the 9). My heart goes out to Ravensburg though,  they talked to people for that same time as well, but they didn't find a single person who had any interest whatsoever. So, as hard as it was here, at least we were able to find a few people. 

Things are starting to be on a bit of an upswing here, we have been working really hard, and are starting to see some fruits of our labors. For example, last night, after our Phone call, Elder Esplin and I, went right back to work going door to door. At about 8:30 we found Nicole and Andi. They are a married couple with 2 young children, that don't live to far from us. She (Nicole) is against organized religion but believes that she has a personal relationship with God. I don't really know much about Andi, he is heading for a 3 week business trip in Vienna today, so for part of the time he was busy making sure he was ready. But we talked about the Book of Mormon, where it comes from, our personal testimonies, and that we aren't here to convince, or persuade them. That are purpose as missionaries is to invite others to find out for themselves. I think that was the reason they let us in, after we said twice that we just invite; we don't persuade, is really when things seemed to open up. They invited us back in after Andi gets back from his trip to talk more about the Book of Mormon! Just like that we found 2 new investigators. In a matter of a couple of weeks we went from 0 to 3, granted the 2 can't meet till June, but still! :-) And we have a long list of promising potentials, so we will see how that goes. 

Haha, so I have kind of a funny story that happened this week... After our District Leader meeting in Winterthur, we came back and visited a member of the ward. He is probably in his mid to late 50's and is the only member in his family. A common thing here in Europe when someone invites you in is to ask you if you want tea, usually a fruit tea of some sort, which is fine. With non members we always ask to make sure we know what kind of tea it is before we drink it. Well he offers us tea and we accept, and Elder Esplin asks him what flavor, and he says "Irish Cream". He shows us the box and sets in on the counter. He pours us each a cup and we start talking. Well, I am not much of a tea person, I only drink it because its rude not to. So I didn't take a sip right away, I was going to wait. In the meantime Elder Esplin takes two big scoops of sugar in his and stirs it around. I glance over at the box, and I notice something. The box was just far enough away that I couldn't quite read it, but I thought I saw the word "schwarztee", "Black tea". I turn to Elder Esplin, to warn him that I think this could be black tea, but I turned just in time to see him take a large sip from the tea. So at this point I have a bit of a compromise. I think this is black tea, I am not sure. But we are at a MEMBER'S home. He wouldn't give us black tea would he? He should know that we don't drink it. So do I ask? What if I am wrong? Will he be offended?  But what if I am right? I decided that I one thing was for sure, I couldn't drink the tea. He asks how it tastes, Elder Esplin says "Amazing!"  I say that I haven't tried it yet. Then he kind of looks at me and says, well try it! I slowly slide the cup toward me, praying for help on what I should do, I can't drink it, but how do I get out of this situation?. At which point I ask the question, "so what kind of tea is this?"  he says, I think its a few types of Fruit tea, and there may be a bit of black tea in it. The expression on Elder Esplin's was PRICELESS. Relieved, I push the cup away and say, we don't drink black tea. He was a bit flustered and apologized, and the situation resolved itself after that. After we left, Elder Esplin walks out and turns to me and says "Elder, I just drank black tea, with whiskey in it!" (a bit in shock, not in excitement ;-) ) ( it turns out that the tea had whiskey flavoring in it as well :-) ). We both laughed and thought it was kind of funny, especially how I when I went to warn him, it was too late. Kind of a mix between spiritual, and funny, it makes for good memory :-) 

Anyway I am out of time, I hope all is well with you at home. Things are going well here! 

Love, 

Elder Ryan K. Christensen

To Uncle Tracy, who was sitting in the train station in Munich ready to catch a flight home and sent us the following picture asking if Ryan knew where it was, his repsonse is:

 Ryan's Response:

Munich Bahnhof (station)!! I haven't seen that in awhile...

Well, Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) to be exact.

Needless to say, he was excited that Tracy was in Munich at a familar place.  Thanks Tracy, for the picture!

Long Week...Miraculous Events

This week has been quite the week. It has been an incredibly long week of seeking to find people to teach. Meanwhile both Elder Esplin and I, have been battling various physical infirmities. But the Lord has blessed us, and we have a new investigator, as well as a number of potentials with whom we will meet over the next few weeks. I will share with you a few miraculous events throughout this past week. Monday "Eismann contacting". In short, there is an icecream parlour in Dornbirn that the missionaries like to go to, and we have been talking with the owner about the church ( he asked who we were and what we are doing in Austria). He is Italian, so we promised to bring him a Book of Mormon in Italian. Well we did, but Lucky for us, Trevor ( The american who I translated for last week) served his mission in Italy, and despite it being over 10 years ago, still speaks fluent Italian. So he came with us and spoke to this man. He ended up talking with him for 2 hours ( we ran out of time, and had to leave). Trevor called us later and told us that he as well as his whole family sat around and listed to him, and they are fairly interested! They said that they would read a portion of the book ( they said they couldn't promise to read the whole book, but would begin reading it). Trevor told them that we will come by during the week to ask them how the reading has gone ( Trevor is in Salzburg with Christian Vuissa for the next month :-( ) but they can speak German, so we will see how things went. It was awesome of Trevor to spend 2 hours with them. Addressing their concerns, answering questions etc. We owe him a lot for that. 

Tuesday was really neat for me. We were completely booked, with District meeting ( a 80 minute train ride away). Traveling there, having the meeting, and traveling back took about 4 hours of our day. We got back to Dornbirn, where we were supposed to have an appointment with a former investigator, Jörg. But he didn't show up, and we weren't able to get a hold of him for a few days. We stayed at the church, making some other phone calls and things that needed to get done, until Peter Netzer arrived. He gave us a ride home to install a whiteboard in our apartment, then drove us to Feldkirch, where we were to catch a bus to a dinner appointment. After that we caught a train back to Dornbirn, and arrived back at 8:15. But here's the thing, Elder Esplin and I, have made a goal to give out at least one Book of Mormon per day. We needed to be in at 9, and we still hadn't given one out. So we said a prayer asking for help in finding somebody, and started to walk around an talk to people. We talked to quite a few people and they all said no, it was now 8:50, we needed to start heading back. I started to pray, asking Heavenly Father to help us, we were trying to do our best to find people, to please allow us to find someone before we got back to the apartment. Time was running out, but I knew that anything was possible with God. At which point in time I felt a reassurance that we were going to find somebody. We came across two more people, who both said no. With every step toward home the reassurance got stronger and stronger, at 8:57 only a block away from our apartment, I saw somebody down the street in a green jacket walking toward us. And I could feel that he was the one who would accept a Book of Mormon. So we approached him, and talked to him for a minute or two, bore testimony about the Book of Mormon, after which he not only accepted the book, but gave us his number and address, as well as made an appointment to meet with us! Wow! Right before we reached the apartment, when it looked like all hope was lost, was when my prayer was answered. That has been a huge testimony builder to me. God does answer our prayers, he will help us, but sometimes not until it looks like all hope is lost. That is how this entire week has been, working incredibly hard, being told no, hundreds of times, and right before we need to return home, something happens. It has been marvelous. Another day this week, was incredibly incredibly long. We had done service for a sister in the ward, in which I had, completely alone, cleared out about 40 square feet of weeds and grass from a garden platz ( Elder Esplin mowed the lawn and did "Mädchen Arbeit" (girls work) as Sister Vuissa ( different Vuissa, not Christian Vuissa's wife) called it. That night it was late I was absolutely exhausted, but yet again we found ourselves at 8:45 still needing to give a Book of Mormon out. That was hard, walking past the apartment, feeling like I wouldn't have the strength to make it back, to go find a child of God, who had been prepared to accept the Gospel. We were really short on time so we couldn't walk very far, but we didn't have to. Someone called out us, having seen us frequently, asking us who we were. We talked with him, and his mom, who he was visiting, and they accepted a Book of Mormon, and he was already reading in it before we left for home. the Lord has blessed us this passed week, but not until we had given all that we could. Amazing things have happened this week, and many more amazing things are to come. This is definitely going to be a hard transfer, but it will also probably be one of the most rewarding.  

Its been a fairly good week though, we had an appointment with Frau Feuerstein, who we met back when I first got here. She is a very lively 84 year-old lady. We taught her the first discussion, she understood it all and she said that she would pray about Joseph Smith being a prophet. She would read the Book of Mormon, but her eyes aren't the best. So we are going to try to find a Book of Mormon in Large Print. She is our new investigator :-) We will see how far we can go... 

Its been weird adjusting to here, everything is different, the culture, the food, the stores, everything. The things that were Cheap in Germany, are expensive here, which means I have to completely switch up my meal plan. The apartment is amazing though! It is larger than Esslingen's and we have a Dishwasher and a Dryer! ( Most apartments in don't have dryers, they have drying racks instead, so the fact that we have a dryer, automatically makes it one of the nicest apartments in the mission :-) ) Someone moved out of our building, and they gave us their ridiculously large sofa. It comes in pieces, but when but together in a line it's about 13 or 14 feet long! We were in need of a new couch, and were authorized to buy one, but we got the one for free instead. The desks we used to study at are horrible, and when our apartment was inspected by the Ehepaar (Couple Missionaries), they said that we needed to buy new desks. So the Sampsons ( the Ehepaar (the couple)) will come and pick up our two desks tomorrow and deliver them to our apartment. After we set them up I will send pictures. Austria is REALLY weird when it comes to doors. You need a key to get in and OUT of the apartment. So if you lose your keys... you are locked IN your apartment. That is something that really amazes me, is that every door has a lock, and both sides need a key... It makes no sense to me, and I think its actually a bit dangerous, it would be very easy to lock someone inside of a room and for them to be helplessly stuck there. But that's just Austria I guess. 

Speaking of Austria, President Miles has asked me to get an Austrian Drivers License!!!!! VERY few missionaries in this mission are asked to get drivers licenses, and he asked me to get one! I only barely been here for 3 months, and he has already asked for me to get one! That has been a bit of a confidence boost, The fact that he trusts me enough, that he wants me to have a license so that I can drive if I get to an area with a car ( which I think there are only 3 areas, as of now, that do.) He is trying to get a few more cars, but here in this mission it is very rough,there are only 120 cars made available between the 3 German missions.  And Cars are more expensive here, and gas prices are over twice as expensive as in america ( its1.50 per liter, meaning roughly 6 Euro per gallon, which is about probably around 8 or so dollars per gallon). But yeah, I am very excited to get a License!

As you can tell, things are going well here. Its rough, at times discouraging, but the Lord is helping us. I am excited to see what the future holds for Dornbirn. 

I hope all is well at home!

Good luck to all who are Taking AP tests!

Love,

Elder Ryan K. Christensen

P.S. My Exchange in Switzerland has been moved to next Tuesday, and the district leader meeting, is going to be this Saturday, as opposed to last Saturday. So I haven't had the chance to get lost in Switzerland yet ;-)